Friday, April 29, 2011

Skinny Pizzazza!

I got a treat at Skinny Pizza!

Went to their outlet at Wheelock Place and got a table after a ten-minute wait. Decided what to order while standing in the queue did help with the speed of the food that was served later on.

The skinny manager/host explained politely what the set meal was about and took the order. Basically you get ONE Skinny Pizza, TWO bowls of soup, ONE side dish and TWO soft drinks.

Ordered:
Salami Pizza with Feta Cheese (sorry forgot the name) x 1
Portobello Mushroom soup x 1, Sweet Corn Crab soup x 1
1/4 metre long sausage x 1
Rude Root Beer x 2

Noticed that their surrounds are very eco-friendly and many things seemed to be recycled. They used cardboards as signage, planks + metal pipes as chairs/tables which I thought it was real cool!

Food arrived in no time. The pizza's not bad, very crispy.
















The yummy sausage wasn't too bad and I almost wanted to hide the tin that came with it. According to one of the signs, they have a $25 1-metre-long sausage... wow.

















The food did not seems to be a lot in the beginning but as you stuffed yourself silly with soup, sausage and pizza then followed by the soft drink, your tummy gets filled up quite fast!

The staff were quite polite and efficient so at least it was pleasant to eat there.

Try them someday!There are so many different types of pizza on their menu!

Skinny Pizza@Wheelock
501 Orchard Road
#03-04 Wheelock Place
Tel: 6235 7823
Opening Hours: Daily 10am – 10pm


PS: Thanks for the treat :)

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Alone

No doubt there are a million wonderful reasons when you stay with your folks, I am not refuting that. But there are also a couple of equally awesome points to why staying alone can be a good thing.

1. Things that go missing will stay missing!
If you stay alone, you will probably know where you left your favourite spoon. You used it to make some coffee about one week ago, washed it and left it to dry on the rack. Now that you want to use it again, it goes missing. Possible culprits would be your folks who 'misplaced' it as they have their own ways of packing stuff. Now you'll have to ask them nicely where they hid it.

2. Things have legs and will move about!
The drawback of staying alone is that you have no one to ask for help if you really can't find a certain item. However, if there is someone else, the tendency of the item shifting about is much higher. Muscles have memories, if you have heard. When you are taking a shower, you will automatically reach for the conditioner bottle which is supposed to be in it's usual position, top shelf, on the right. You pumped it a couple of times and slapped it on your hair, to find the fragrance of the 'conditioner' smelling vaguely like your liquid body soap. Voila! There you go, you have just washed your hair twice because someone replaced the conditioner bottle!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Bits of sounds from around

When you spend enough time in your house the whole day, often enough, you will learn to recognize what's going on in the neighborhood.

Early in the morning, about 8am or so, a bell can be heard. It sounded to me like it's part of someone's religious activity. It's high pitch, sharp and it goes on for a while. The best way to describe it would be as if you are trying to dissolve the sugar in your teacup but at a slower pace. So it goes, ting ling ting ling.

Occasionally, the disturbed cries of a man can also be heard. Perhaps he is sick.

At about 11am, the huge engine sound from the rubbish truck comes through the window. As I look out of my window, the collectors are busy trying to cart away a whole day's worth of rubbish. Sometimes, you'll see cars blocking the truck and the collectors would not hesitate to honk the horn loudly!

The most irritating sound of all, in my opinion, would be the garang guni man. There are so many of them and they come almost everyday! Beep bo beep bo! I just feel like throwing the newspaper at them. Wait, they'll take advantage of it instead.

All through the day, you will definitely hear the doggy orchestra. I have learned to recognize this particular dog from a household in my block as it barks constantly. Actually there are two of them which I suspect belongs to the same family. You'll know when the owners are back when the dogs start to bark non-stop and the barks are followed by a loud shout of OEI from the owner, then the fellas will shut up.

As the night goes on, especially after midnight, people get ferried home by other people. I wished the drivers would shut the engine off when their passengers linger on in the cars. This saves them some petrol and saves me a look out of the window to see which idiot is it this time. I can hear the idling of the engine totally.

If you stay up long enough to hit 5am, the rattle of the newspaper delivery van will soon reach the room, to be followed by the sound of the trolley being opened and closed.

Meanwhile, the most soothing sound would be my wind chime who is always busy working when there's a breeze.


Well, what have you heard today?

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Brunchday

Every first Saturday of each month, a farmers' market will be held at Dempsey. Ele suggested that we should take a peek and see how good it is. Throwing me her iPhone, she asked me to be the navigator.

"Can you Google the place?"

After fumbling for 5 minutes, the phone was snatched back.
"Use the app! Not the actual map!"

Thank goodness I'm pretty good at map-reading, else I don't know if I would have been kicked out of the car.

Locating Dempsey after a not so long drive, we found the farmers' market which was tucked away on the grounds of The Pantry at Loewen Gardens. I can't remember how many stalls there are but it was a small one. Perhaps about 20 of them or so?

There's this guy selling organic vegetables next to another stall with jars of olives. Strolling past the paella fella (the paella was not ready), we saw some wine sellers. I stopped at a stall to point out a cool wine bag to Ele when the Frenchman started to introduce the organic rose that he was selling. Didn't like it too much because it was very dry but according to him, sweet wines will not go well with foods. Tried the garlic mayo dip and found it not as delicious as No. 5's (need to sneak into their kitchen soon).

Since the stomach was complaining a little from the lack of brekky, we decided to try the Cornish Pasty at the stall operated by The Pantry. I bought a date scone for mama too. The expensive Pasty was not warm and it did not impress Ele even though she was excited at the beginning as it's a traditional English pastry.
$7 Cornish Pasty

the scone

Since there weren't any other exciting food to try/buy, we went off in search of proper sit-down brekky. Popped over to Cafe Hacienda but they were full! At 11am! Can't believe it. The polite server told us that they try not to take in reservations on weekends but I spotted half the place empty with reservation tags. Then he said we should visit them next time, during weekdays, that's when they are quite empty!

Next stop, Jones the Grocer.

The weather was not too hot and because the aircon was a little too strong, we asked for outdoor seats. The lady host who looked really busy all the time, showed us to a table indoors. We didn't want the table because we would have been sandwiched between a couple and a big family and the tables are really big (too far to talk properly) so we chose the bar seats. The host warned us that it would be very noisy as the operations at the bar were on-going. Since we love to kaypo about operations all the time, we decided to sit there.

The host left after putting down two menus and two glasses of water. After about ten seconds, we changed our mind again as the aircon was too strong! So I asked a server if we could change our seats to the long bar seats outside. Apparently the host had to be informed so she went in search of the host while we shook our legs a bit. By the time the host appeared, the outdoor seats were taken and she replied:
"There are no more long bar seats but I have a table for four."

"Can we have the table then?" I asked politely since I didn't really get what she was trying to say.

"I'll check." Oh. So duh, then why tell me. Anyway we were given a table on the other side of the outdoor area after she checked. Ordered the traditional english breakfast with some sparkling water because from our observation of the bar, the coffee did not seem fantastic enough.

The brekky arrived and I found it sad. Not tasty.













I observed that the servers kept bringing food orders to wrong tables. Poor folks, had to go back and forth. And the reason was simply. Someone mixed up the table numbers! I was on table 10, with table 9 on my right and table 12 on my left. Table 11 was next to table 9. They were either understaffed or undertrained. Everyone seemed to be in a big fat rush, making service very mediocre.

To get our coffee fix, we went in search of a hidden coffee place. It's located along Bukit Timah Road and you have to enter via their back door. The place is called Papa Palheta and it's not a cafe. The guys there roast and retail coffee beans but you can have a cuppa there.

















I asked for a dark roast but they don't have it all. So I settled for a regular latte. The latte's pretty all right but I would prefer it to have a stronger coffee taste. No doubt the barista has the skills to steam a good pot of milk, something was just not right.

They use a tipping system so it means you pay whatever amount you want for the coffee. The lady, however, said:
"The guideline for latte is about $3.50 to $4.00, just so you'll know."

I think all lattes should be served in a small cup, just like what they did, because coffee is meant to be savoured, not poured down into your throat. Anyway, I put $4 in the cute pumpkin pot.

















If you want to try it yourself, check out their website:
http://www.papapalheta.com/


 Till another brunchday experience!