Vincent the owner graciously treated us to brownies, so nice of him! I used PhotoTreats iPhone app to give it a festive snowy effect.

I then had dinner with my bestie zq at Holland Village that night. Tried chicken feet for the first time. Nice marinate, but not something I'll crave for, haha.

On Christmas day itself, I went for brunch with my primary school classmates and had the most awesome abalone noodles ever. Read about the food review separately!

On Christmas evening, I met up with a friend for dinner and had a lovely time. We made pasta and awesome caesar salad :P 

The shop decor is really cool and contemporary.

Here's the shot I took.

Another shot taken by Vanessa! (I blend into the surroundings)

They also took a photo of us to print out so we can stick it on the board using a photo printer. And we get to decorate it. So initially we only wrote the date...

So we edited that photo to commemorate the event. Heh.

And here's the shot taken with jm's DSLR. Yay, another successful gathering!

2017 Update: Read about my review of Gongcha's replacement, Li Ho in this blog post.
2016 Update: For a true tea taste in your bubble tea, check out Yuan Cha (available in Bukit Panjang Plaza and Far East Plaza).

I had the most fun and best KOI drink yesterday evening. At the risk of sounding too overly dramatic and exaggerating, i was totally blown away by the taste and innovative way of drinking that beverage from the hugely popular bubble tea craze cult leader, KOI Café.


The drink I tried last night was introduced to me by Leenette, a huge KOI fan. It is called the Macchiato and there are two flavours -- Green Tea and Black Tea. At first I was skeptical when she told me that its tea with a layer of cream on top, because I've tried the Alisan Milk Tea from Gong Cha which was something like that, and it tastes horrible (the milk taste is overpowering and thick). And I also thought that macchiato is a small expresso drink. Apparently you can now name your drinks however you want and a coffee can be tea.

But since Scott also raved about the macchiato, I decided to give it a try! At $2.10 a cup, it is also KOI's cheapest drink on their menu.

Apparently there are supposed to instruct you on how to drink, but I didn't get any verbal instructions. There was instructions on a board though. My interest was piqued. No straw, no bubbles, there's a knife instead?


The first sip you have of the drink will be PURE HEAVEN. It reminds me a bit of drinking the $15 royal milk tea from tokyo, because the creamy foam was so light and fragrant. It was sweet. Tilt back more and you can get the green tea to mix with the cream.. so it becomes sinful, yet refreshing at the same time. How can that be? Mmmm.

We also concluded that basically its a green tea ice cream float, without the actual "ice", so it's like melted ice cream on top of tea. The flavours enhance and brings out each other. The person who invented this is very clever!

I think this is my favourite drink from KOI from now. What about you, which is your favourite bubble tea flavour and shop?

"It's not on the Internet", I told Scott.

At least, it wasn't listed on HungryGoWhere and there seems to be only 1-2 mentions on Google if you search really specifically. But to our surprise, it was on Foursquare. *Gasp!* Well with a name like "Spicy Thai - Thai Restaurant" it is kind of difficult to stand out online since the name is so descriptive. But hey, I am doing my bit to let people know about this awesome thai food place at Dickson Road.

It is located beside the new swanky Wanderlust Hotel and it is this dingy coffeeshop with back alley sitting. I first heard about this place from Tim, who worked nearby and told us that the Tom Yam there is seriously no joke when it comes to spice levels. Apparently the chefs from Cocotte eat there too so you know it is not too bad. So I was intrigued, and seeing the dingyness of the place just makes me want to try it out more, because we all know that good food comes from dirty places. As long as you do not end up with food poisoning, that is.

Tried to find the exact address of the place, but all I can say is it is beside 2 Dickson Road (cos that's Wanderlust's address).




And of course the best dish on the table would be the tom yam soup. It was wayy too spicy (for me, fine for the rest) and it was filled with very fresh seafood. The prawns were crunchy! And because it is clear, you know that the flavourings came from the ingredients they packed the soup with and not cos of chilli powder. It had all the leaves and lemongrass and brown ginger herbs. Very very appetizing and satisfying to have it, just with some plain rice.






It was also quite economical, for all that we ordered (tom yam soup, pad thai, pineapple rice, 1 white rice, pandan chicken, minced chicken) the bill came up to only 12 bucks per person. Definitely recommend it if you are around the area and looking for adventure. Ask for the really spicy pot of tom yam if you dare..

After that you can douse the flames by going to Stagger Inn just up the road at 25A Perak Road for a refreshing glass of Brothers lemon pear cider. Sounds like a good plan right?

Spicy Thai Thai Restaurant
1-3 Dickson Road, Singapore
Beside Wanderlust Hotel

Was driving around Jalan Besar on Saturday looking for a brunch location when our friend commented that the noodle place there, *he points*, is nice. OK! Let's go then.

So we went! It is called Nam's Abalone Noodles (阿南鲍鱼面) and apparently they even have franchises in China and 2 other branches somewhere (i think). it was not so busy that day since it was Christmas morning, but there was a steady crowd of customers nonetheless.


The guys ordered some side dishes, while I asked for a bowl of their most famous dish. The side dishes were super good and a great accompaniment to the main. Let the pictures do some talking.


It was not too dry, and the skin had a nice crunchy texture. The mustard was also quite the classic. Beautiful presentation as well. $8.


Then came along a heavyweight -- The abalone soup. This tiny pot costs $8. But when we took away the garnish and scallop, you can see the ingredients inside and know why it costs so much. It had chicken meat that melts off the bones, dried scallops, a big piece of fish maw and wolfberries. Pretty sure there are other ingredients too.

The soup was just amazing as well. It was just so infused with goodness and flavour. It's the type of luxury you would want after a clubbing session and you'll immediately feel rejuvenated. Or the type of soup Cantonese mothers make for their exam-studying sons. Whichever, it was really a superstar.


The wonderful double/triple boiled soup was also stored in this giant vat, simmering and just waiting to come out of the belly of the vat. Charcoal fired, can you see?







It was so so so good. I can't believe I missed out on this for all these years! There was only 1 type of noodles, the skinny yellow type (mee kia) and it was coated with this gravy sauce that was so thick and well-balanced with the lard and chilli. The scallop was more for show (no taste, just boiled), but the abalone on a stick (looks like fondue) was really tasty and juicy. It is not tough like most abalones! And I cannot believe I just had some abalone for $6. Basically just the perfect bowl of ba chor/abalone noodles when the sun, moon and earth conspire to overwhelm your tastebuds with goodness. Everything in the bowl was just in harmony.

The soup was also a milky broth which we suspect was made from meat bones. and probably the first base for the abalone soup masterpiece.

Definitely going back when I have a noodle craving!


Lam's Abalone Noodles and Soup
Address: 460 Race Course Road, Singapore 218700
Tel: +65 6398 1154
Opening Hours: Daily: 2.15pm – 10.30pm (Closed on Mon)
Hungrygowhere listing & Timeout Review

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's been such a great time just catching up with friends over meals. It had been a great coupla days to meet up.

I'll try to get those pics up so I can remember what i did this Christmas season, much like my posts last year (I had dimsum buffet and set up a flea market, and also went for xiao long bao buffet).

But for now, to catch up on backlog here's a post on my bangkok trip.

went for a short 3D2N trip to Bangkok last week! just a quick getaway to a nearby country...

woke up at 5am to reach at airport at 5.45am. that was a rather brutal start to a holiday, but you wanna get to the country bright and early!



we stayed at a backpackers' hostel called Suk11 on Soi 11 Sukhumvit Road. It's such a cool hostel, I wanna go back and stay there again! Plus the room rates was so reasonable at 22 sgd per person per night!




After cleaning up and resting for a bit, its already 1.30pm and time to go out and find food. We were so hungry by then!


we then proceeded to walk to platinum mall for some shopping, but the weather that day was super super unforgiving. it was so hot and humid, even worse than singapore! it felt like 36C with 99% humidity (there was even a slight shower after that made things worse).

platinum shopping was good though. then we met up and went outside to browse at all the stalls along the centralworld mall.


OK so we were outside CentralWorld along the street stall stretch, when something "freaky" happened.

So we were waiting for some of them to finish browsing and we were standing along this empty area just after all the hustle and bustle. Further down is the overhead bridges and the Erawan Shrine, but its so strange cos it was so quiet and empty at where we were.

There was also the smell of sewage.

But while we were waiting, I decided to get everyone in for a shot with my iPhone. It was quite dark.




So i decided to do a new shot, with properly held iphone this time. and i also made sure there are no dust particles on the lens/flash.

But the same thing happened again! this time I thought, it must have been my flash that's spoilt, since I fell down with the iphone bearing some impact just 2 days before.

I was super sad that my camera flash was not working.






So what can it be? It's so strange, but I didn't think much about it. It was only back at the hostel when we were cleaning up for dinner when I thought to try out the flash again while waiting.

So I took a photo of my knee wound from my recent fall. it's a bit disgusting.

BUT! the important point is that my flash is working perfectly fine! I was so surprised. I did another test shot with flash, and it was also good. In fact, it never had that same problem again subsequently...


So what can it possibly be? When i was describing that and showing the photos to the rest of the girls, PL mentioned that she actually did think of the paranormal when I showed them the failed shots there, but she kept quiet then. The room gave a collective goosebumps as we tried to think of what it can possibly be...

But I am not really bothered by it. Nothing happened to my camera flash, that's the most important.

We went for a really really delicious dinner at Suk11's restaurant after. It was really super duper good and not that expensive, while the service was excellent. The omelette (top row middle) was especially yummy.


Oh but I was SO sleepy by dinner time i was floating along. We had dinner at 10pm thai time, which was 11pm Singapore time. Imagine that I was awake from 5am, and only had 3 hours of sleep before that. After dinner, i followed the rest for a foot massage, before going back to the hostel for some much needed zzz.

The next day, woke up feeling way more refreshed and ready to sightsee & explore! It was also a pleasant surprise when we came out that the air was about 26C, just like in air condition! In fact I thought it was someone's door left open, but no that was the real open air.

Had a small breakfast before starting out. Really like this hostel a lot.



We then went to see the Grand Palace, the Emerald Buddha and the Reclining Buddha. They are all along the same area so we went in with our taxi driver/guide.



After that morning excursion, it's time to head to backpackers' haven and the area made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio's The Beach -- Khao San Road.

It has in fact changed a whole lot since the last time I visit in 2004! But the stalls selling stuff are still there, just its a lot more clean and upmarket now.


We were once again starving. Refuel time!

We just picked a pub/bar and sat down for some Thai food. The street food will be for later.






After that, we went to Bed Supperclub which was just 3 min walk from our hostel! wow. and its so amazing that it costs 1000 baht to go in (incl 2 drinks). That is like 45 SGD, I've not paid that amount to go to any Singapore club before even!

Had a good time partying but was soo tired, when we got back to the hostel I didn't even bother packing before showering and just concussing at 3.30am.

7am next morning and we are out of the door. That means waking up at 6.15am!