[Outfit] Don’t let the rain stop & Dinner at Coca Restaurant

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Everest in food, friends, What I Wore Today | Leave a comment

I love rainy days.

Well I actually would much prefer snow over everything else but I can never get that here in Singapore!

So the next best substitute to a cool and comfy weather would be a rainy day. Typically the weather starts to cool in November and December would be soaking with lots of torrential rain in the afternoons.

That would mark the beginning of days of cardigan, jackets and any other outwear that you can think of!

It does however take a bit of effort to dress up and get out of the house in such a wonderful weather.

Armed with a huge umbrella and platform rubber shoes, I am ready to head out in a wet day.

On one wet and cold Saturday, I met up with Min for a last minute dinner as I was craving for a warming steamboat dinner at Coca Restaurant.

What better way to spend the wet day indoors in the comfort of a hot pot filled with delicious food!

Our pot looks extremely healthy with all the vege and mushroom choices but it is just the deceiving first batch of food we put into the pot. Thereafter, we were just busy chatting and munching to take pic of our food.

We finished our dinner feeling nice and full and decided to walk around to aid digestion.

But not too long later, we found ourselves in another food joint!

Dessert time at Xin Wang Cafe which was open till late…

I am surprised by how much we ate that day as it has been a long time since we had such a huge appetite.

It might have been the great weather but most probably it is the great company!

And my outfit for the night

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Brunch @ White Rabbit

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Everest in Fashion, food, Singapore, What I Wore Today | Leave a comment

A serene and windy drive amongst lush greenery in the Dempsey area leads us to The White Rabbit.

Stepping out of the car, you will be welcomed with the scent of dewy green grass and immediately I feel relaxed and just plain happy.

The White Rabbit restaurant operates in tastefully restored old chapel with high ceilings and huge stained glass windows.

We were led to our table where we spent the next 10 mins soaking up the atmosphere and appreciating the details of the place. The place was done up with a lot of the chapel’s element kept in tact and incorporating some other fixtures that made the space functional as a restaurant.

The mosaic tiles which looked original.

I ordered my usual caffeine and my usual brunch choice, Eggs Benedict.

And Beebops ordered the Fettucine alla Carbonara.

The food proved to be a little disappointing after much excitement about the location.

The Hollandaise sauce on my eggs benny was a bland and the Carbonara was a little too salty. A pity.

The bill came up to more than $70 for our brunch of Carbonara, Cappuccino & Eggs Benedict.

The back door of The White Rabbit opened to a garden area with a rustic charm.

With one odd cable car carriage in the middle of the garden.

Amidst overgrown bushes of sculptured bushes.

Which looked like a brontosaurus

Taking a ride from side to side….

Before feeling a little bit of motion sickness…..

And off the swing, making our way back through the arcs of the bamboo walkway…

It was a lovely brunch location and losing track of time wandering around the small garden behind The White Rabbit.

If only we had more reason to return to this untouched garden.

Thanks for dropping by!

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Everest in Christmas, food | Leave a comment

I must apologise!!!

I must be the most anti-climax blogger ever!

Of all the days that I have posted my outfit leading up to Christmas, I don’t have any outfit to post on Christmas day itself! *shame on myself*

Well hopefully my excuse of preparation for a good brunch is good enough to make up for my lack of motivation to dress up.

We didn’t do much on Christmas day, just hanging around and enjoying whatever time we had left of the break.

In place of an outfit post, I would like to share with you the decor that I had around my house for Christmas.

And Beebop’s Christmas gift, Mr Fukuro, showing off his ability of perching at the edge of the table without falling off!

Have a pleasant Christmas!

Blended

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Everest in food, health | Leave a comment

My recent obsession. Making blended fruit juices.

Seafood Porridge @ Matang Seafood in Mount Austin, Johor

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Everest in food, Malaysia, Malaysia - Johor Bahru | Leave a comment

We chanced upon this crowded eating place in a row of shophouses when wanted to get out dinner at a coffee shop along the same stretch. And it so happens that the coffee shop that we wanted to go to was not open and we decided to give this “restaurant” a try.

When you look into the corner unit, all you can see if this spartan and simple kitchen and preparation area.

Everything could be seen by the patrons and staff a like. This stall’s specialty has to be its seafood soup and seafood porridge as every table had either or both on their tables. You place you order at the counter with the staff and you get to choose the type of seafood you want in your dish. We chose to have fish, prawns, squid and crabs with our porridge.

The dipping soya sauce had a mix of red and green chilli with chopped garlic, something very unique to the Johor way of eating. I love the flavours of this chilli as the red chilli is filled with spiciness but the green chilli gives the fragrance chilli fruit and lastly the garlic just spices up the flavour of the food with that additional layer of spiciness.

The porridge arrived in a huge claypot with a dollop of garnishing in a pool of soup.

Stir it up a little and you see the bits of seafood that you have ordered.

This porridge is just like the teochew fish porridge except that this has seafood instead of just fish. The rice is soft but not overly mushy, the seafood is fresh and very sweet and even better is the broth which is so full of flavor from the freshness of the seafood ingredients inside. The bowl of porridge looks so huge that I thought we wouldn’t be able to finish it but on that cooling rainy night, I just had to keep getting refills of the porridge. The best thing is that it wasn’t MSG laden at all! You have to trust me on this cos I am allergic to MSG, which means I would get a bad headache, feeling of swelling and numbness in the face, throat and hands. This was just the plain old goodness from fresh food!

Our dinner came up to about MYR38. (~SGD$16) which was very reasonable for the goodies that we chose.

Here is the address if you would like to visit it too

Address: 91, Jalan Mount Austin 3, Taman Mount Austin, Johor Bahru

Opening Hours: 11am – 10pm

View Matang Seafood in a larger map

Thanks for dropping by!

Love, Everest

Brunch @ Garden Slug

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Everest in food, Singapore, What I Wore Today | 2 Comments

Nestled in sleepy quiet corner in the east, I heard that they had an all day breakfast menu, and decided to drop by one weekend to try the food.

There were outdoor and indoor seats and as it was too much of a glare for me to have a meal al fresco in the afternoon sun, we opted for the air conditioned seats.

The interiors were kept very much in its original state. Old and weather beaten, with uneven walls and old mosaic tiles lining the place. Just as it is. Nothing too done up. Just simple and unpretentious.

There was an adorable door of fame with doodles of different renditions of the garden slug.

I was a little disappointed to know that my favourite breakfast choice, Eggs Benedict, was not on the menu. I guess it is a good thing sometimes as it leaves me with no choice but to try something random and unexpected.

Beebop’s big breakfast…

The breakfast was big as its name suggests and is bound to make you leave the place full and just feel cushy. He liked the muesli and yogurt and the whole grain wholemeal bread. Although he was not too pleased with the hashbrown being overly deep fried causing it to be hard, dry and just not too tasty.

And I ordered the Runny Salmon Scramble Up. The name is just a little odd to me… I am just wondering if it should have been Salmon Runny Scramble Up instead…

Anyway, back to my food! My brunch looks very sad and miserable against Beebops’ big breakfast, but luckily it made up for its lack of volume with loads of smoked salmon. They were extremely generous with the smoked salmon which tasted so delicious with the eggy flavours of the scrambled eggs. The salmon and eggs were enough to fill me up but I couldn’t quite resist the two slices of bread. I love eating any whole meal, whole grain, brown and grainy and very wholesome looking bread. It appeals to me cos they look so power packed with lots of nutrients! I think it is just me and my weird conclusions. ;-p

I was lucky to have tried something nice other than my usual breakfast choice! I wouldn’t mind returning for their breakfast menu and choose the Runny Salmon Runny Up again. The indoor seating is very echo-y due to bad sound insulation, so when the place started packing up with patrons, it got a little loud and made conversation just a little harder.

Address:

55 Lorong L Telok Kurau,
#01-59/61 Bright Centre,
Singapore 425500

Tel:
6346 0504

Open Daily:
Mon – Tues 6pm-10pm
Wed – Thur 10am-10pm
Fri – Sun 9am-10pm
Public Hol 9am-10pm

Here’s what I wore…

Asymmetrical Dress: Perfetti Shop, Pewter Bag: Balenciaga , Belt: ASOS

Wedges: Jeffery Campbell

Thanks for dropping by!

Love, Everest

Carousel Buffet Dinner @ Royal Plaza on Scotts

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Everest in birthday, food, Singapore | Leave a comment

I made reservations at Carousel on the day of Beebop’s birthday for dinner after work. Unfortunately due to work commitments, he couldn’t leave work on time. By the time he left work, it was already close to 8.30pm. We did a quick check with each other on whether we wanted to proceed with the buffet dinner or settled for something simpler and less sumptuous. And decided to continue with the dinner buffet at Carousel as the both of us were famished!

From our work place, we darted down to Royal Plaza on Scotts and it was close to 9pm. 1.5hrs before the restaurant closes! Pardon me for the lack of picture of the spread and the surroundings cos we really didn’t have much time on hand before we started to see an empty spread. So choosing my food took precedence over pictures and below are the first few items that I took. I got lazy and had dirty fingers from eating seafood and all so no more pictures.

Happy Lobster…

Psycho Lobster Splitter..

The quality of food is quite good, from appetisers to cooked food to their desserts and pastries. Most importantly, their service was marvellous. When I made the reservations for dinner, I mentioned to the staff that I was making the reservations for a birthday dinner for my bf. And they very kindly offered a special arrangement of cake to celebrate the occasion. So when I was seated down, the staff wasted no time to give me the “eye contact” to acknowledge me and my special arrangement. And as soon as I was left alone at the table when Beebops went to replenish his plate, two of them came over like an eagle to its prey, except in a non-threatening manner to speak to me and asked me for some information and there after gave me some instructions on how to cue the staff to bring in the cake.

I am still very impressed with their dedication and passion in their jobs.

And, yeah, I think I would want to head back there some time soon, to enjoy the food, the ambience, and all these done with lesser time constrains.

Address:

Royal Plaza on Scotts

25 Scotts Road, Singapore 228220

Tel: (65) 6737 7966

Dinner at Itacho Sushi with Min

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Everest in Fashion, food, What I Wore Today | Leave a comment

Always with a snaking queue that blocks out the restaurant’s front, I always felt too daunted to want to have meal inside.

The restaurant that I am talking about is Itacho Sushi at ION Orchard.

My dear friend however was able to leave work on time to join the queue while I was trying to wrap things up for the week.

I joined her about 20mins later and she was about 2-3 groups before getting seats! So thankful for her patience and understanding.

Here’s my dear mini Min!

We took some time to look through the menu as there were a lot of mouth-watering stuffs to choose from.

We started with our order of my favorite item, chawanmushi.

The chawanmushi’s texture was extremely soft and it just melts in the month. Other than what you see at the top of the chawanmushi, there is a slice of japanese fish cake and ginko nut at the bottom of the cup. It is nice tasting however I would have preferred the chawanmushi to have a little more springy feeling to it rather than just melting in my mouth into a water texture.

Don’t you always wished to have a little bite of the Japanese Dons when you look at the menu? Unagi Don, Tonkatsu Don, Negitoro Don etc?

Itacho Sushi has the perfect solution for you! The Mini Dons! It is in a small portion enough to let you satisfy your taste buds with two to three mouth but not enough to make you so full you cant enjoy the other items on the menu.

Ii desu ne? (in japanese: ”great isn’t it?”)

We wanted to order some soft shell crabs but they didn’t have just a dish of soft shell crab. Between two on the menu, Soft Shell Crab Handroll and the Soft Shell Crab salad, we choice the salad.

And the sushis we ordered…

The sushis below were on offer at 40cents a piece and we ordered 4. The table next to us ordered the maximum orders and they had a huge plate filled with this sushi.

Quite a sight, I must say although just merely looking at such a huge serving makes me full already. ;p

In case you were wondering, yeah, they finished it!

And the order wouldn’t be complete without their signature sushi dish. Huge eel and normal sized rice.

Comical looking… Looked like the eel consumed the ball of rice and it is stuck in its stomach.

We were already very full by this time and the staff came up with the menu and asked if we wanted dessert. I took a look at it and I wanted the sweet potatoes.

Yummy! The sweetness of the caramelized sweet potato neutralized the saltiness on our taste buds after all the sushis.

Perfect way to end the dinner.

I think having tasted Itacho Sushi’s food, I actually don’t mind queuing up to try their other choices in the future!

Address:

ION Orchard,2 Orchard Turn

#B2-18 Singapore 238801

Telephone:

6509 8911

Opening Hours:

Sun – Thurs: 11am – 10pm

Fri & Sat: 11am- 11pm

And ending my post with my outfit for the day.

Embellished Peplum Top: Perfetti Shop, Skirt: Forever21, Heels: Heatwave

Thanks for dropping by!

Diet, not a Fad. It’s a lifestyle change

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Everest in diet, Fitness, food, thoughts | Leave a comment

I have shared previously in this post that I have been exercising more regularly and have also started on a low carb diet.

It has been close to three months (since mid June) of 3 times a week gym sessions and about 5 weeks (since end of July) of low carb diet and I am really glad that there are some results showing.

Actually the real lost in weight and fats only happened when there was a change in my diet.

I wrote about being on a Dukan Diet but I didn’t quite manage to proceed into the Cruise Phase of the Dukan Diet. The first phase was the Pure Proteins phase which was also known as the Attack Phase. The Cruise Phase is an alternating of Pure Proteins and Proteins & Vegetables Day. As I really love my vegetables a lot, I couldn’t quite go back to eating Pure Proteins the following day.

Instead I got off the Dukan Diet and chose to just go on a simple and straightforward low carb diet. And so far it has served me quite well.

When I started out working out 3-4 times a week, I experienced slight drop in weight of about 0.3-0.5kg, which some might argue that it is waterloss. But I did benefit from the exercising in terms of toning and definitions in my arms, abs, butt and thighs from the exercise.

When I started off on the Dukan Diet, my weight was 54.2kg. That was about 5 weeks ago.

As of last week (Thurs), I managed to shave off 2.3kg and weigh 51.9kg!

It was really an amazing surprise to me as it has been eons since I saw such a weight on the scale and it is a great encouragement for the hard work and discipline that I have put in in the past couple of months.

I have started another blog, www.everesteats.com, to share my weight loss journey, exercises, food and anything that relates to a healthier lifestyle.

Do drop by and maybe share some ideas, tips and encouragement for health and fitness.

Ikoi Japanese Restaurant – Buffet Dinner

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Everest in food | 1 Comment

I shared in my earlier post here that I had dinner at Ikoi on the National Day Holiday.

We drove past Miramar Hotel one evening and I suddenly thought ” Hey, it has been ages since we last had dinner at Ikoi”. I told Beebops and he agreed that it has been a long time and suggested that we would head there for dinner soon.

Ikoi is located on the ground floor of Miramar Hotel. The last time we were there was probably about 5 years ago! We were rather concerned that it could have closed down or maybe drastically increase their prices in this past 5 years. Thankfully when we called to make our reservations for dinner, the phone was answered and the price is still the same! $35++ per pax for a buffet dinner.

Already prepared at our table was a pack of dried beancurd skin in wasasbi flavour and a plate of seasoned salmon sashimi.

For the price, you get to enjoy the usual Japanese spread and the highlight for this buffet has got to the the sashimi. Offering more than the usual Salmon and Tuna sashimi, you get to choose from yellowtail, snapper, swordfish, snapper , octotpus & cuttlefish.

This was one of the many plates of sashimi that we ordered throughout the duration of our buffet. In my opinion, just consuming the sashimi along is already a good enough for the price you have paid.

The menu consists of food prepared in the various Japanese cooking method. From the temaki (hand rolls), to deep fried to broiled dishes. For carbohydrates lovers, you can choose from noodles and rice dishes to satisfy your cravings.

Over at Ikoi, you don’t have to worry about ordering some dish and getting a huge plate which is impossible to finish, as the serving size there is very small and most of the time they will ask you specifically how many items you would like to have. This allows you to try almost everything on the menu and then re-order those that you would want more of.

I didn’t take pictures of the items I ordered as I was busy eating!

Occasionally, the staff would carry over something that is not on the menu and offer it to you. We had a couple of stuffs like the baked salmon belly, Nabemono & Obinmushi.

As the place is rather small and cozy, as you can see from the picture below, it is almost impossible to walk in and expect to have a seat in Ikoi if no reservations are made. For weekends and public holiday, it would be advisable to make your reservations at least a week in advance.

Address : 401 Havelock Road, Hotel Miramar, Singapore 169631

Tel: 6887 3788

Adult: $35++, Child(10 & below) : $22++

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Category Archives: food

[Outfit] Don’t let the rain stop & Dinner at Coca Restaurant

Brunch @ White Rabbit

Merry Christmas!

Blended

Seafood Porridge @ Matang Seafood in Mount Austin, Johor

Brunch @ Garden Slug

Carousel Buffet Dinner @ Royal Plaza on Scotts

Dinner at Itacho Sushi with Min

Diet, not a Fad. It’s a lifestyle change

Ikoi Japanese Restaurant – Buffet Dinner