LG F1 Singtel Promotion

I was so lucky today that i must write it down in my blog.

Today i went down to Inuovi to collect the stuff that i have reserved. Dunno why, I received a free cheek rouge when the brochure indicated that only the first 10 customers would get it. Today was the 3rd and the last day so i thought i won't get it. But maybe i was the first to call to reserve, even though i haven't paid for it, they gave me the free gift.

The 2nd lucky thing was when i walked to the Esplanade MRT, a girl passed me a brochure on a LG handphone promotion. I was thinking that since i was on my way back to Compasspoint to buy handphone for my dad, why not i just walk back and buy at Suntec. I might be able to get some F1 freebies if i am lucky. So i walked all the way back again to Suntec.

Guess what? I won a pair of 3-day F1 grandstand tickets at the lucky draw! The guy was just trying to explain what i could win in the lucky draw. He told me that if i got a ball with red mark, i will win some F1 tickets. Then the next moment, i took up a ball with red mark from the box. The guy was shocked and turned to ask his supervisor. The supervisor told me that i have won the top prize. It was the only top prize in the box and the rest of the prizes were all F1 umbrellas. The customers behind me kept saying that i was very lucky and everyone kept congratulating me. Wow!

For this promotion, i got $80 off and only paid $8 for a LG phone that look like Iphone 4. Then I was given a F1 umbrella, a F1 keychain, a pair of F1 walkabout tickets worth $216, a F1 drawstring bag, a F1 polo tee, a F1 silver formal pen and a F1 cap! Of course, most important of all, I won a pair of Grandstand F1 tickets that cost $1196! What a day! I think i can go buy 4D. Lol

Tomo Izakaya

Saw this restaurant in magazine and it mentioned that many japanese like this restaurant located in Esplanade.

Hon Choo ordered the egg sushi to try and it tasted normal. Sweet taste but nothing special.

Hwee Hoon ordered this egg salad with japanese sauce. The ladies love it due to the special taste of the sauce.

We also ordered the tofu, grilled chicken wings, fried vegetables and grilled pepperoni. All tasted like those that i have eaten in the other japanese restaurants.

As the magazine mentioned that the braised pork was very nice, i ordered the braised pork ribs to try. The waitress told me that the pork belly and pork ribs have the same taste thus i didn't order the pork belly. The soft bone ribs were nice and sweet. Like all other japanese pork dishes, it was tender and didn't taste very oily. But u really have to eat it with rice. It will make your meal more satisfying.

RamenPlay by BreadTalk

Tried this at Resort World. Ordered their specialty ramen - Sanpou Tonkotsu Ramen. Besides the braised egg, there were also braised pork cheek, pork belly in char siew sauce and pork belly in special sauce. Everything was nice but it just tasted like any other ramen. Nothing special to attract me to go back again for this.

Racheal suggested to try the gyoza and i really love their gyoza. It was so juicy inside the crispy skin. There was also a credit card promotion thus we were given 3 RamenPlay Dango, dressed in takoyaki style. It was grilled chicken balls and you really could taste the meat. Unlike those frozen meatballs, i totally like these meaty balls.

KPO Cafe Bar

Went to the KPO Cafe Bar near the Orchard Central. We ordered the KPO Ribs and Calamaris to share. The ribs was juicy and tender. I like it but i love the chips more. It was crispy and special compared to the other restaurants which would normally served with fries or baked potato. The calamaries were quite normal though.

When Racheal reached, she ordered the softshell crab pasta. It was totally awful. Dry and weird taste. The ladies didn't like the crab as well. They think that it was too salty.

For dessert, we ordered Da Bomb. The chocolate cake was covered with warm chocolate sauce which was not too sweet. But the ladies felt that the raspberry filling was too little. It was very nice for me though. I am not a fan of rashberry.

Singapore Youth Olympic Games 2010

Today is finally the last day of our Singapore Youth Olympic Games. I totally enjoyed this period.

Journey of the Youth Olympic Flame

As TP was the North East Celebration Site for Torch Relay, it was an eye opener for me. If we were not involved, i don't think i will even watch it. Though i was quite sad that i couldn't attend the talk by Hossan Leong and i couldn't go over to the Bedok Reservoir, I totally could feel the excitement of Hwee Hoon and Haroz as the Torch Bearer. Hwee Hoon told me that she never felt so important in her life before. So touching.

Oh yes, i was happy to watch Monster performing right in front of me. And i totally love our emcees - Joan, Benjamin and Denis. They were doing their job so well and making my job felt a lot easier.

Opening Ceremony

Due to the fact that TP provided some volunteers for the rehearsals, I got tickets to watch the 1st rehearsal with Sylvia. It was really a very messy rehearsal. The lights, video, screen, music and setting were all not ready. I was so scared that it might be like that till the actual day.

One thing interesting about the Opening was that Jean and TPDE dancers were performing for the Opening Ceremony! Coz Ryan choreographed the dance and asked for volunteers to perform, a lot of TPDE dancers were involved. Jean offered her complimentary tickets for the last rehearsal to me. I wasn't keen at the first place but she told me that it was nicer and with fireworks so i decided to attend another time. Oh ya, I met my CO alumni, Shiyun on both rehearsals. She was the usher with her twin sister. Anyway, this rehearsal was really so much better though there were still some minor mistakes.

And i must said that i was totally surprise when i watched it on TV. It looked so much better on TV and i was thinking whether it was due to the filming angles. Fadly told me that he was the one doing the live video directing. Wow! But i think it just happened. Usually the actual performance always surpassed the rehearsal greatly.

Oh yes, i was impressed by the last part too. I never seen the dragonboat and the lighting of cauldron during rehearsal before. It was really amazing. No wonder the organiser wanted to keep it a secret.

Due to this Opening Ceremony, Meiqi was even featured in the newspaper. Heehee. More exposure than Foong coz Foong only appeared 3 times on TV.

Volleyball @ Toa Payoh Stadium

I was so enthusiastic in watching the games that i've gotten Hwee Hoon, Wee How and Darren to watch the prelims. Coz all the tickets were sold out, we queued outside from 9.30am until 10.45am before we got in to watch the 10am game. The rule was such that if people with ticket did not turn up, we would be able to buy tickets and get in. There were some issues among our group on that day but nothing affect the exciting games that we have watched. The Russian and Cuba teams were impressive. Very powerful strikes. We even waited outside to take photos with the Russian team. They were all so friendly!

Btw, from these matches, i realised that it might not be worth it to buy ticket to watch the girls playing. I almost fall asleep when they were playing. Heehee. But anyway, the ticket was really cheap. Only $10 and you could watch all the 4 matches on that day from morning till night. What's more was that a prepaid card was given to you so that you could take buses and MRT for free. Such a great offer!

Closing Ceremony

Just watched the ceremony on TV and i saw the O Crew dancing. Gin's hairstyle was really cool. I think short hair looked great on her. Jean told me that Ryan was the Merly mascot. No wonder Hwee Hoon felt that the mascots looked so bubbly this round. Heehee.

But I wonder why the TV always didn't have subtitle to indicate who the people were and what were the song titles. We really wanted to know that song title. It was such a nice song and i couldn't find it anywhere online too.

Conclusion

Singapore impressed me by winning some bronze and silver medals. I am so proud that we did so well even though we are such a small country with not many talents as compared to huge countries like China. I was like following most of the matches that we took part in. Nice!

Anyway, to commemorate this event, i even bought key chains and pins as souvenirs. Wanted to help Sheena to buy the Merly stuffed toy but it was sold out everywhere. I think many people were as enthu as me. Lol

Skinny Pizza @ Wheelock Place

This was a upmarket pizza restaurant which was featured by some magazines. The price range was considered at the higher end compared to our normal pizza restaurants.

I ordered the mushroom soup as the starter. It had such a strong mushroom taste that i couldn't finish the soup after a few spoons of it. But if you like the raw mushroom taste, i think you will be a big fan of this soup. My friends totally love it. We also ordered the french fries and fried sweet potato fries as side dishes. The sweet potato was special but i think it could taste better. It was too sweet and soggy.

They offered a very special variety of pizzas which you don't normally see in pizza restaurants.

Their pizza skin was very thin and crispy. It tasted like cracker more than pizza skin. I tried the meatball with spaghetti kind of tomato base. They gave a very generous portion of vegetable on top of all the pizzas. But my friends didn't like the bitter taste of the vegetables. I quite like this though. At least, you know you are having a balance meal with the huge portion of vegetables. For my pizza, there was a lot of meatballs and slices of raw cheese. It was my cup of tea.

I tried Hwee Hoon's mushroom pizza and it was weird for me too. The mushroom was sticky and has very strong mushroom taste. I think 1 slice was still ok for me but i won't eat the whole pizza with this filling on top.

Next, I tried the blueberry with turkey ham which was ordered by Cat. The blueberry sauce was sweet and tasted strange with turkey ham. I had to take out the sauce when i ate it. But if you like blueberry, this should be the kind of pizza that you like. I like the turkey ham though. The serving of ham was generous too.

Sheena ordered the ratatouille pizza which had a lot of vegetables. I am not keen with prickles kind of vegetables so i totally cannot remembered the taste of it.

Overall, it was kind of interesting to try this place if you are a pizza fan.

Tampopo @ Takashimaya

This was one of the pioneer ramen restaurants in Singapore. I tried it for the first time at the branch at Takashimaya basement. Never went to the main one at Liang Court before. Compared to Ippudo and Nantsuttei, the queue at Tampopo was short. I like Tampopo due to the fact that when you cut open the egg, the egg yolk melted out. Tasted really nice with the yummy soup base. Btw, the menu mentioned that they are using black pig. But isn't all japanese ramen restaurants use black pig?

Racheal tried the butter flavoured ramen. I don't really like it coz of the strong butter taste. Everything was so buttery after the butter melted into the soup. Tasted so weird.

We ordered the Unagi Rice Roll and Pork Cutlet (black pig) as side dishes. The Unagi Rice Roll was a disappointment. Totally not nice. It was very bland with not much filling inside. If you just like to eat rice, then maybe you will like this rice roll. As for the pork cutlet, it was nothing special. But if you want to add variety to your noodles, i think it will be a good choice to order that.

Nantsuttei @ Parco MBS

I read about this restaurant in magazine. The chef was a very famous celebrity and appeared in most of the food related shows in Japan. When the restaurant opened in Singapore, the media from Japan came all the way to Singapore to cover this news. He was the chef who invented this black based sesame soup.

The whole Parco was very quiet but the queue in front of this restaurant was long.

Their serving for noodles and meat was very generous. I didn't have to order extra ingredients and meat. I like the one that i ordered. The noodle was springy type of japanese ramen and the soup base was nice. Not very strong sesame taste. I think it was also one of the few ramen stores that gave you seaweed. If you like seaweed, you must definitely try this restaurant.

But Racheal didn't really like hers coz she felt that the meat taste was too strong for her and she didn't really like pork. Plus, she didn't like the fact that the egg yolk won't melt when you cut open.

Btw, their extra serving of bean sprouts was very big portion. It will come in a bowl and not added to your bowl of noodles.

We also ordered the gyoza as side dish but it didn't taste very nice. I think the noodles are still their best food in the menu.

Pasta Stylo @ City Square

Due to Angie's suggestion, we tried this new pasta restaurant at the City Square Mall. I like the decoration of the restaurant. You can view the kitchen through a photo frame deco which was a see thru glass. Very nice concept with very elegant cushion seats at the front area. Very classy feel with latin dance kind of deco. I like the uniform too coz the waiters all wearing fedora.

They have very special flavours for their pasta variety that you probably can't find it elsewhere. That day, i tried the pad thai pasta and a more common meatball pasta. They have crab pasta too which i saw quite a number of the costumers having it but it was too troublesome for me to eat crab there so i didn't wish to order at all.

Btw, they offered me their membership card after we paid our meal. Maybe it was a new opening promotion. If you intend to go the City Square Mall, then I think it is worth trying.

Ippudo Ramen @ Mandarin Gallery

The review of this restaurant was very good. That's why no matter what time i go, the queue is always very long. You will have to wait almost an hour and sometimes even more than that.

Another interesting observation was that there were a lot of japanese men eating alone there. I think it must be really good and taste really local for them to queue so long for it even though they were eating alone.

Most of the waiters there were japanese and they usually communicate with the costumers in japanese. This was quite difficult for me coz i have returned everything that i have learnt back to the lecturer so usually i would just smile and pretend that i understand. lol

I tried 3 of their specialties - Shiromaru Classic with Chasu, Akamaru Modern with Egg and Kyushu Miso with Tokotsu.

The classic one was a bit bland if you eat with other flavours. But quite a number of them actually ordered this.

For me, I preferred the Akamaru one. It is pork stock boiled with

red miso and a dash of black garlic oil. I am not a fan of miso but this is really yummy. I like the taste of this soup base. More flavourful. Noodles are ultra thin and flat, a Hakata specialty.

Their noodles are usually quite small portion but they allow you to order another bowl of noodles ($2 I think) if you have sufficient soup left. You can top up your ingredients (such as pork for $3 and egg for $2) too. For me, their ingredients were really too little so i usually will add the chasu aka pork.

If you use a certain credit card to pay, you will be able to get free green tea ice cream. Cannot remember which credit card, most probably is OCBC. But the friendly waiters will be happy to advise you on this.

Actually I have eaten Ippudo ramen in Hokkaido but i dunno whether it was due to 心里作用，i just didn't think that it was as delicious as the one that i have eaten in Hokkaido. I remembered the pork melted in my mouth and the soup was the most delicious one that i have tasted. Was it due to the ingredients in Singapore or was it just me? But it is still definitely one of the best ramen in Singapore!