8 Oct 2013
Clarke Quay Central - Chilling at Coffee Club
The mere mention of the word Clarke Quay send many fond memories flashing back to me. The days when I was still serving my National Service (a year back), my dad used to bring the family over to Clarke Quay to dine. I love going to Clarke Quay Central not only because it houses my restaurants but also the mall itself is bright, vibrant and spacious. Window shopping leisurely in there made me feel so relax and carefree, unlike many other shopping malls which are so cramp and suffocating! Although my family patronize Tung Lok Signatures most frequently, we also did try many of the other food establishments in there! A family of foodies! Anyway, I decided to post about Coffee Club since it was one of my favorite place to chill, and partly due to this being a dessert blog. I went to dig out my Coffee Club pictures that I had neglected to blog about due to my laziness. (The 'Cravecraze' logo was actually my previous blog's name). Enjoy and carry on drooling over these lovely dessert pictures I had selected to post about!
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| To me, Clarke Quay would be a perfect chill out place over the weekends. One suitable location would be the Coffee Club outlet. The bright chic setting as well as the huge variety from the menu attracted me to chill in there. |
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| The first dessert that came into my mind when I thought of Coffee Club was their popular Mud Pie. The nutty one above which came in a massive slab could easily be shared among a group of friends. The gooey sweetness from the caramel easily gave me a sugar rush while the button-size macadamia nuts provided a crunch. I really love to sit close to the window to enjoy the partial view of Singapore River as well as to 'spy' on ants size people below. |
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| Not wanting to have any desserts? You could get a glass of icy beverage to chill as well. |
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| The menu have a whole range of different desserts to choose from! How about a walk along the Singapore river after your meal, although I know the water ..erm...just a bit polluted... The night life around Singapore River is always super happening too! |
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| Boom! Guess which dessert this is? Any ideas? |
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| Don't feel like having any complicated plated desserts? The typical Blueberry Bounce (cheesecake) would definitely suit you. Cloyingly cheesy with blueberries! |
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| Glorious presentation! I love breaking down/dismantling such plated dessert ; enjoy the process as it really helped to slow down my eating pace, giving me a break from all the hustle and bustle of the current stressful lifestyle. Relax, chill, enjoy! |
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| Another example of a dessert that brought out the slowness in me! |
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| Cheers! |
29 Sept 2013
Maccha House 抹茶館 - If there is such a house, I would want to live in it
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| Being a hard core Matcha fan myself, needless to say, Maccha House naturally attracted my attention and automatically registered in my 'must try' list. The name Maccha House made me fantasize a house of entirely green/brown furnishing, scented with the aroma of matcha, decorated zen style with tons of matcha food products! Before my imagination could get any wilder, here's a picture of my friend's Matcha and Vanilla soft serve cone. (He already started licking his bi-coloured tower before I could snap a decent shot.) Although the matcha taste was intense, the price was a bit unfriendly to his wallet. |
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| As for me, I decided to try something unique and ended up picking Ice Matcha with brown sugar syrup. I was quite shocked upon receiving my tall glass with a mess of cream that has such a horrible texture and looking split. After stirring the cream for a brief moment, I took a sip and immediately fell in love with my drink! A strong intensity with bitterness not too unbearable for my taste buds. (My resistance to Matcha's bitterness could be a little high though.) The brown sugar syrup only helped to sweeten the drink a little and imparting a bit of malt candy flavor. I tried slowing down my drinking pace but to no avail and in no time, the glass was empty with me trying to suck every last drop of the drink with my straw. I would definitely be back for more in future! |
7 Sept 2013
Rakuzen - A Jap dinner with mum!
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| My mum and I were already starving and I was on a verge of having stomach cramps due to excessive hunger. It was already 7+ and we still have not eaten our dinner! I seriously disliked the feeling of starvation but I still led my mum all the way from Suntec City to Millenia Walk, believing that there would be yummy food existing around that area. I was right! There were quite a couple of restaurants in there as well as hidden around the bends. My mums choose Rakuzen, which I had in mind since I had cravings for Japanese food. The place was rather quiet and dimly lit, so I felt my eyelids getting heavier every moment. I shake myself up, trying to enjoy the peaceful ambiance and the beautifully designed furnishing around me. |
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| My mum ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen which looked like an ordinary bowl of ramen. (Instant noodles would be more liked it.) How do you actually present a bowl of ramen to look more appetizing? Tough one I supposed. Despite the non-attractive presentation, the soup base was really superb! It was soothingly light and the umami flavor was irresistible. My mum really enjoyed her ramen but the greatest disappointment was that the Tonkotsu Ramen here had no Tonkotsu in it. Therefore, it was basically a plain bowl with only some vegetables to go with! |
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| As for me, I had a craving for sashimi but wanted something more filling. So I ended up picking the Sakura Chirashi Don - Mixed sashimi over japanese vinegared rice. Pardon me as I really could not tell if the sashimi were fresh all because I did not get a satisfying feel after consuming them. All I knew was that there were no traces of any fishy smell emitting from them. The prickled ginger slices were unusually good with mild pungentness. I guessed the pink sugar I left behind was sakura sugar as I did not like additional artificial sweetness in my don. On the whole, the price tag was something I should consider before stepping into any Japanese restaurant, which my mum would be oblivious to. |
2 Sept 2013
12 Cupcakes - Just another 3 of it
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| YAY! 3 more cupcakes tried from the variety of 12! Mocha, Cookies and Cream and Strawberry Chocolate. Typical girls would definitely go crazy over these lovely cupcakes. Although I felt the pinch over the price, I felt that the ingredients used were of decent to good quality. The flavoured cupcake bases were of constant denseness and richness and a generous dose of flavour infused cream was piped neatly on each of them. I was quite thankful that the colours were not too artificially vibrant as compared to other outlets which could have turn me off easily. Simple designs are usually alright for me as long as quality is there. |
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| Another shot of the trio of cupcakes! Luckily the buttercream did not smudge too badly yet! |
21 Aug 2013
A kelong kitchen at Batam
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| Hi! Let me start this post with a panoramic view of harbourfront centre jetty!These photos were taken by my newly bought Samsung WB800F camera from the electronic fair at Expo, a week before this trip (last month). Bye Sg, Hi Batam! |
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| I would prefer to directly go into my main point as I don't think I would want a 'travel' section in my blog. More pictures can be found in my facebook album here, which I had already change the settings to allow public viewing. By the way, this was the jetty to my kelong stay! |
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| After about a 15 mins rocky boat ride, the destination that came into view! I was like OMG....so cui r? |
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| Bye boat, see you tomorrow! |
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| Went to take a peep at my lodging and I went Omg again... |
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| The place was rather beautiful and I tried hard to enjoy the nature and the fresh constant gentle breeze as much as I could. |
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| My first time enjoying and swinging in a hammock! It was so uncomfortable and my butt hurts after that. I don't quite understand why everyone else enjoyed it. |
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| Another panoramic view. It looked like 2 parallel corridors but actually it was just a straight line! |
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| The orangey hue which was caused by the setting sun. Such a beautiful scenery that I stared at blankly for a long long time. |
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| This was actually my favorite shot! When the sun goes down, it looked so romantic that I almost melted down too! How I wished I had a girlfriend to spent the night with, admiring the vast blue sea and relishing a bbq dinner with her. The fire has already started, dinner soon! |
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| Time to introduce you the kitchen! No fancy stoves or good storage place. Lucky no hygiene check or els sure fail. You would not want to see the amount of houseflies hovering in here too. |
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| The red container - Where fresh food were stored, chilled by ice for up to 2 days only. |
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| Other ingredients... |
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| The auntie who did all the cooking for us. I kept dropping by the kitchen since I got bored staring at the sea. I really felt like helping her! At least I help to stir a bit and serve the dishes out! Does that counts? |
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| I am no minions from despicable me but I never say no to snacks! Banana for... |
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| Pisang Goreng which I tried frying them myself in the kitchen! All you need would be a simple flour batter and hot oil. I ate 5 pieces as they were just so addictive - Crispy, light batter, a bit oily and sourish (65%) sweet (35%) bananas! Sliced and fanned out for crispier texture! |
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| Went for a short fishing trip in a boat and I only caught a sea bream as they rest were caught by my friends. Thankfully I caught only 1 as I could not stand the sight of the snagged fishes struggling in agony with the hook piercing through their mouths. |
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| Since this cute little fish was not confirmed to be edible and it was still alive, we quickly tossed it back into the sea to resume its life. |
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| Some of the simple yet delicious dishes I had for lunch and dinner! Flower crabs that were fresh but little meat. |
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| Gong Gong shellfish which I tried for the first time. |
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| Pulled the flesh out to savour and it was slimy! Ewwww, I really do not know how to appreciate such stuff. |
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| Curry chicken with potatoes. The curry was quite good I must say! |
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| Simple vegetable were crunchy and fresh. |
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| Fish fried to perfection! Slightly crispy exterior and super moist interior! |
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| Prawns in tomato sauce! |
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| Another fresh vegetable dish! |
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| Chicken drumlets and wings fried with sweet sauce resulting in a little charred surface. |
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| A shot with aunty! Thanks for allowing me to help although I am a visitor on holiday! |
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| Last but not least, a camwhore shot of myself in one of the many new shirts which I bought! |
15 Aug 2013
Creamier Ice Cream and Waffles - Unlink choice
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| Omg so busy recently that I have no time to blog! I just came back from a short (3 days) getaway trip to Batam during the National day holidays and am now flooded with 2 major projects from school. Anyway, let me change to a more chill topic of an ice cream dessert which I had with my friend. I brought my friend to this outlet which was just walking distance from his house and he did not even know this place existed! Since my previous visit I did not have a chance to try their home-made waffles, we decided to order it with 2 scopes of ice cream! It was rather crowded that day and we had to wait quite a while before 2 near-perfect round spheres of ice cream, balanced neatly on top 2 squares of in-between-crispy-and-fluffy waffles arrived. Was glad it came in 2 squares as it saved us the trouble of portioning. I picked the Sea Salt Gula Melaka which had a lovely palm sugar sweetness, enhanced by the saltiness of sea salt. My perfect combination of sweet-salty! My friend decided to go for the tropical fruity Mango Passion Sorbet. It was tangy, deliciously refreshing and it had an obvious fruit puree taste. I felt the mango was dominant while my friend actually thought the passion fruit was more overpowering. (Who's right?) The main agreement that we both had in unison was that these 2 scopes totally do not compliment well with each other, like the opposite polarity of North and South. |