TBR again for our eighth

There are several hidden gems in Singapore, particularly in Tiong Bahru. Tiong Bahru is actually a really old estate which has recently become hip and funky with the sprouting of uniquely-decorated cafes, pubs and specialty stores which sport items you may not find anywhere else. After hearing many people raving over the food, ambience and all, Ivan and I have actually gone cafe-hopping one Sunday afternoon for a long-awaited date. Barely 2 weeks later, we are back again, mainly for the bookstore BooksActually. It exudes a rustic literary vibe, with its fiction and literature books beckoning for Ivan (more bookworm than I am) to return cos it closed too early! At 6pm on Sunday.

So of course, to kickstart our Friday night, we headed to BooksActually only to find that there's actually an event held there, where people were reading their pieces of work out loud to the audience. I find it very reassuring and inspiring to see the sheer number of people interested and passionate about the arts and literature in Singapore. And as I was browsing the books on the shelves while keeping my ears open for the sharing session, I came across several Singapore literary publications including one penned by Dick Lee, a collection of Singapore-related poems and a Singlish dictionary!

BooksActually is therefore a must-visit if you're in the neighbourhood! Good place to absorb the bookish aura and take a break from food, food, food!

BooksActually

No. 9 Yong Siak Street

Singapore 168645

+65 6222 9195

Opening hours:

Mon 11am - 6pm

Tue - Fri 11am - 9pm

Sat 10am - 9pm

Sun 10am - 6pm

After doing some research into restaurants/cafes that open late into the night for late dinner till at least 10, since we intended to stay at BooksActually till its closing time at 9pm, we decided on PoTeaTo! One reason was also that it specializes in potato, my favourite, and tea, his favourite. :) And I must say, no regrets. :D  

The entrance of PoTeaTo is pretty misleading, the 1st time I passed the place I thought it must be a really small cafe and did not pay much attention to it as it is more unheard of compared to its neighbours like 40 Hands, Open Door Policy, etc. However, after reading several good reviews online, Ivan and I eagerly stepped into the cafe. The seating space is not exactly huge, but much bigger than expected. Very rustic and cosy decoration and ambience. It got me even more excited! It is free-seating and we had to hang around the teapots/pastries area before getting a table. The good thing is you could use the waiting time to browse the menus and decide on your orders. You gotta make your orders at the counter as well, I guess that's why there isn't service charge, if I didn't remember wrongly. 

The dinner options ($15-$18) were quite limited with fixed sides like potato mash, potato wedges, roasted potatoes, sweet potato mash, fries, etc. I would suggest allowing customers to customize their sides to the main courses! I had a difficult time deciding between the pan-fried salmon with roasted potatoes and roasted chicken leg with sweet potato mash because I wanted roasted chicken leg with roasted potatoes. :( I eventually decided on chicken because salmon wasn't available and Ivan ordered Louisiana pork ribs with potato wedges for himself. Although the chicken has a waiting time of ~30 min (as informed by the waitresses), we had our drinks in jars to keep us happily chatting and immersing in the ambience. We ordered iced chai latte and hazelnut latte ($5.60). I love jars!!!

I highly recommend the pork ribs because there was abundance of meat and the accompanying sauce is freaking awesome! So tempted to ask for more from the counter. The potato wedges were really yummy too. As for the roasted chicken, it was succulent and given that it is my favourite thigh meat, I couldn't pick much on it. But I would really prefer potato mash to sweet potato mash, anytime! I would rather the consistent savoury taste throughout my main course than to have the tinge of sweetness from my mash. While there is room for improvement, I must admit that all in all, I was extremely satisfied with the dinner, ambience and of course the company. ;)

And to end off this really long post, (you should've guessed I have alot of assignments due coming week because I tend to do trivial things when I have more pressing matters on hand), happy twirdsary darling! <3

PoTeaTo

78 Yong Siak Street #01-18

Singapore 163078

+65 6221 2488

Opening Hours:

Tue - Fri 11am - 10pm

Sat 10am - 10pm

Sun 10am - 9pm

DIY Easter Egg

Happy Easter Day!

Hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend :)

In preparation for our Easter date, an impromptu idea came to my mind and I decided to make my love an Easter egg! Well, an Easter egg needs to satisfy 2 conditions. One, looks like an egg. Two, looks pretty. I think my DIY Easter egg more than fulfilled the requirements, it tasted sweet and contains a surprise too!

All thanks to our childhood favorite, Kinder Surprise! Remember? Egg-shaped milk chocolate enclosing a capsule with a toy surprise?

I haven't had Kinder Surprise for years and it has kinda transformed, at least for the ones in Singapore (cos I saw on the Instagram feed of a friend on exchange in UK with the traditionally wrapped in foil one). It is now in a disposable plastic container that splits open into half where the snack is in the first half and the toy int the second. I prefer the old one!

But oh well, back to the point. It's perfect for an Easter egg cos it's the only egg-shaped sweet/snack that I can find. With double-sided tape and some cross-stitch threads which I've preciously kept over the years, it took me 2 hours to complete my thread-wrapped Easter egg! Happy with the result. :) And my appreciative darling never fails to make me feel that the effort was worthwhile (even though I underestimated the time required and made him wait).

He gobbled down the sweet treat before we tried figuring the toy out. The toy surprise was disappointing to be honest. I remember the toys used to be really cool and fun! It was something like a mini spinning top eventually. Hee, and Ivan kept the beautifully decorated eggshells.

I was thinking... if only Kinder Surprise manufactures Easter-themed egg-shaped treats with customized toy surprise and packaging. That will be pretty interesting. But I'm sure nothing beats a personalized Easter Kinder Surprise, handmade with love <3.

You can try this simple craft too! You can still do it though Easter Sunday is over because Ivan told me Easter supposedly lasts for weeks! Try it this weekend to surprise your loved ones! :)

Comfort Food, Indeed

Such familiar pain.
That perhaps an easily-whipped up trifle for a Saturday morning's breakfast can soothe.

Ingredients: Sliced-banana (bottom-most layer), Alive Low Fat yoghurt, Post Crunchy Pecans whole grain cereal, fresh seedless green grapes

Twenty Thirteen!

Happy 2013 my dear readers! I'm so tardy in updating that it's already February (edit: March lol) now!

I've no idea what happened to the pretty icons that link you guys to my fb, ig and twitter accounts in the column to the right. They've disappeared for some time and the price I have to pay for the lack of blog maintenance is that I can no longer remember how to fix such stuff :(

Oh well, amidst all the stress from school and job search which I haven't really been acting on, there have been several happy occasions in the year already, and I'd like to share some of my happiness here! :D

I've had my 1st ever New Year dinner with Ivan's family. So cool! My family doesn't have this tradition of having dinner together on the first day of the year and I'm not aware of other families doing so either. And it was at Ritz Carlton! I can count with one hand the number of times I have actually been to hotels for casual dinners (keyword casual, cos I'm excluding wedding/reunion dinners of course). It was a great experience and Ivan's family was awesome company to dine with. :) And I really enjoyed the 1st date of ours in the year 2013. <3

Then came Chinese New Year! Wasn't too enthusiastic about this mega affair for the Chinese but I loved the reunion lunch this year with my favourite people :D And for the first time (if my memory hasn't failed me), we managed to self-time a shot of everyone present! I'm sure my grandpa and gramdma will be smiling from ear to ear from above, seeing how close-knitted and happy the family currently is. I really miss my grandma :') And of course, this is also the 1st time Ivan is part of all my CNY reunion meals, visiting and all. It was interesting updating him about the customs and traditions, for instance, bringing a pair of mandarin oranges around during CNY visiting! Not to forget, some sweet gatherings with dear friends over this festive season.

Last but not least, my first Valentine's with Ivan! It was also the first time I ever get to formally celebrate Valentine's in my life :) And I'm glad that it's with him <3 We gave each other several surprises throughout the day. There were tears of bliss (from me!), lots of love and happiness, as well as gratitude for having found each other, all the way in the US! You'll know our love story if you're one of our closer friends/family! I'm really appreciative of all his effort for planning and executing the card, bouquet and music surprise in my car, as well as the fine-dining experience at TBC (the surprise which I ruined for myself out of curiosity, as usual). Dinner was so so so awesome that whenever I reminisce about the food and ambience, it makes me smile and feel super loved. This day will be safely kept in my memory forever <3 Thanks darling!

Finally, here are the photos of my happy moments! Ciaooo!

"It was the warmest, most reassuring hand I've ever felt"

From The Huffington Post, Advice to the Young on Their Wedding Day

This is really random but I just wanna save this read. Relevant advice like "don't argue over the little things" and "challenge each other" are cool but I love the last part best.


"Yesterday was a long day. Woke up early, went to work, got home, cooked dinner, unpacked boxes in the new house, put beds together, collapsed into bed. This could have been any long day, with the exception that I was collapsing next to her. We didn't say anything to each other; we were too tired. She simply put her hand on my back as we fell asleep together. It was the warmest, most reassuring hand I've ever felt."

And with that I realized that there was nothing more I could say.


These little comforting acts are surely what that allow us to sleep snugly without a tinge of loneliness, and also what that keep us going, especially during tough times. Well, at least for me :')

That aside, exams will be over in a week!