Food for Thought

For lunch today, my friends and I visited this cafe, Food for Thought .

We have been wanting to visit it for the past few months and finally managed to find time to meet up.

There was a lunch time crowd and I could understand why after all the eating and drinking. We had the fennel shitake mushroom soup. It's light without the cream and full of mushroom goodness.

Next was 2 platters of sandwiches. We tried all the sandwiches on the menu - grilled spring vegetables, slow roasted pull pork. braised pork, grilled sausage. basil pesto chicken. The butter buns baked by the chief, David were great and the salad that went with the sandwiches was refreshing.

We also had Lychee Freeze drink. I found lychee bits in it! Cool.

There is always room for dessert and we shared a Red Velvet Cake. Not too sweet with cream cheese icing - I love it! And it was freshly baked early this morning.

When our friend asked how we like our food, I told her I like everything :) I will definitely bring my family and friends to the cafe in the future.

Angel and Dad's speaker

Dad's speaker has become Angel's obsession this morning. He hopped up the boxes near the window to get to the top of the speaker. We need to leave the boxes there to prevent Angel from going to the back of the TV and Dad's hi-fi set where there are many wires. But it means Angel can use that to jump high up.


Dad was not pleased with Angel's jumping ability and worried that he would destroy some of his stuff. Mum, Sis and I tried to put up boards and move the speaker, spray bitter stuff (that prevent pets from chewing/biting) and orange peel, so that we can see Angel clearly when he is up on the speaker. We can't be blocking away everything to prevent Angel from jumping up. Dad feels that it will be like a prison for us, so my idea is to let Angel explore as long as he doesn't injure himself and destroy any of Dad's precious stuff. Dad was only unhappy with Angel for a short while and regained his jovial self soon after.

Angel looked so comfortable sleeping on top of the speaker :)

Cats and Volunteers

I spent last Sun volunteering for Cat Welfare Society at a cat show at the Singapore Expo. The booth next to ours was raising funds for some cause through the sale of these cute dog balloons. Quite a strange and funny sight at a cat show. I was quite tickled to see a few people holding on to the balloons and they looked like they were walking a dog :) I wonder why there were no cat balloons.

I was happy to see some familar faces and friends visiting CWS' booth and also have new and regular volunteers helping me.

We managed to raise some funds that will help CWS to continue our work in helping the community cats :)

Donuts

I have seen the long queue for donuts at the basement of Raffles City and would look in amazement that people love donut so much to want to spend their time waiting for their turn. With the craze for donuts, there has been also some outlets sprouting and selling various flavours of donuts. I bought this cheese donut a week ago. At $1.40, I don't think it's that fantastic but it was quite fun to eat it with cream and shredded cheese instead of the traditional sugar coated ones. There was no long queue too at that outlet located in the heartland.

My colleague was also very nice to offer me some donuts that his daughter queued for and bought at the Donut Factory at Suntec City. After heating them up in the microwave, the donut was warm and fluffy. Quite yummy but I don't think I will go out of my way to get the donuts.

Angel and Green

Green carpet

Green wall


But what I really want to say is Angel is such a charmer. I like to stare into his amber eyes. Mum said his eyes look scary. hee.

Angel and his toys

Dad will also crush papers into balls and throw them to Angel who will chase them sometimes. In the container, you can also see some straws from Mum.

dinner at home

I haven't been taking photos of my dinner at home for quite some time. Yesterday I took one as it was one of the rare times I can sit down together with my parents to eat together as I was home before 7pm.

The food was yummy - shitake mushroom, golden mushroom with fish slices and fish cake. broccoli with prawns. I don't really like the veggie as a soup dish but it's ok - I just eat and drink it.

Visit to Chek Jawa

On Thurs, my colleagues and I visited Pulau Ubin, Chek Jawa after a sumptious buffet lunch at Straits Kitchen, Hyatt Hotel.

The fine weather and nice scenery were very therapeutic for me.


A stray dog was resting at the jetty of Pulau Ubin. We took a short ride in a mini van to get to Chek Jawa.


I visited Chek Jawa before with FR and friends a few years ago on 2 cycling trips. Then the tide was lower and we could see creatures in the sand bed.

The present Chek Jawa has board walk erected over it and that day the tide was high and we could only see mudskippers.


What we could have seen if it was low tide and we can view them through this glass panel at the board walk:



But I could still admire the nice fluffy clouds, the half-submerged mangrove trees, their exposed roots, etc.


We also went up the Observatory to get a bird's eye view of the area.

There was also an Information kiosk nearby.

This dog looked headless but actually this is how he really looks like :)

Near the kiosk are the quaint-looking toilet

and visitor centre - tudor style.

There is a tank in the centre that houses injured and recuperating sea creatures. At the back of the centre, my friends said they could see some big fishes swimming along the bridge.

It was really nice to take a small break off work to enjoy nature :)

Ice cream cone

I like the Revers-O flavour from Island Creamery. On Sun, I had my dessert craving satisfied when sis bought me and mum ice cream from the branch outside Cold Storage supermarket at Centrepoint. Not too sweet chocolate ice cream with cookie bits. Yummy!

Botak Jones @ a coffeeshop in Clementi

Last Sat evening was the 3rd time I ate Botak Jones' food. My friends and I shared
cajun chicken,


fish and chip (I forgot to take a photo of that),
sliced beef sandwich (I like this best - lots of onions, thinly sliced tender beef and foccacia bread)

and giant Italian sausage.


I guess what made the meal taste great was the company of friends who enjoy eating :)

Angel the monkey

Angel has been able to jump onto the stove and kitchen sink without much effort. We have to keep him out of the kitchen when we are cooking, hanging clothes out to dry, cutting stuff with knife, etc.

Dad has used the metal fences my friend Joan used to keep her dog Harry in to make a gate. We are not sure how long that will prevent Angel from entering the kitchen as he may one day be able to jump over the gate.

These few days, our firm "no biting" doesn't seem to work on Angel. He will bite hard on my hand or arm and not let go. When he turns wild, I will put him into the cage as a "time-out" session for him. He will usually calm down after that.

National Day 2007

Today started with breakfast, newspaper reading and feeding the community cats with Mum. The rest of the day was spent baking and playing with Angel or watching him sleep.

Angel was sleeping in Sis' bedroom next to My Little Pony and her pull buoy.


I baked ginger cookies which my family and some of friends like.


I had plain yogurt mixed with cocoa powder and honey when I was feeling peckish before dinner.

For dinner, I made shepherd pie. Sis gave it a score of 6 out of 10. Instead of the usual minced beef filling, I used the remaining 8 Ikea Swedish meatballs and 2 sausages. I didn't manage to find grated cheddar cheese in the provision shop near my place and got morzarella cheese instead. The pie tastes alright but somehow it has too many flavours.

Dawn has pointed out on her blog on a nice cartoon on today's Straits Times National Day special supplement. It shows a lady feeding cats on National Day evening. That was how my mum and I spent our evening just now after dinner. We are very happy to be able to see our community cats taking their food and resting without any worries.

Sunday lunch - green noodles

The noodle was slight wiry and dry but to me, it was yummy with some chilli and ketchup, egg, mushroom and veggies because it was my cooking experiment. Hee.

Angel is a boy!

We discovered that after Sis and I bathed him yesterday morning. After he was towel-dried, we saw him licking and grooming himself. And we saw his little birdie. Haha. Sis said she had been calling him Girly sometimes. I named him Angel because in the beginning we weren't sure if it was a boy or girl and Angel is a male vampire in Buffy the Vampire Slayer drama series. No wonder Angel is so handsome :)

Angel - notty and nice

Angel seems to grow up very fast and she can be very naughty - jumping all over the place, biting my ankles or hands or so very adorable with her purring, rubbing and snuggling.