Yum Cha Garden Restaurant: Dim Sum Lunch

Had lunch with the family just now at this new place that opened near my house. 'Yum Cha Garden Restaurant' located inside Serangoon Garden Country Club. Dishes came in chronological order.

Century egg and lean chicken porridge. Totally good! The porridge was so smooth and the rice was cooked to the extent that the porridge had zero grains! Costs only $2.80. Sounds cheap? Look at the next picture... 

Unfortunately though... It was served in a tiny bowl akin to the size of an individual soup/rice bowl... SIGH. So actually with respect to size it was pretty expensive.

My Dad's main dish: Spinach noodles. His way of cutting down on the carbohydrates...

Prawns wrapped in steamed flour rolls in sauce and spring onions. This was good, the flour rolls tasted a bit like the Chee Cheong Fun dough but with a smoother texture.

Of course... What is dim sum without the renowned Xiao Long Bao? (In this aspect I think we are quite boring... LOL.)

Beautifully coloured dishes!

Scallop dumplings with prawn! I love the 'crystal green' dumpling skin! So very pretty! And it wasn't with green colouring! I tasted hints of spinach so I'm guessing they used powdered spinach for both colour and taste. WHICH reminds me of an episode I saw in 'Cooking Master Boy'/'中華一番'... Just the skin that is. LOL.

Chive dumplings. Completely encapsulated in a crystal clear skin! Unfortunately... I don't eat chives. LOL. So I traded a Xiao Long Bao with my Dad. (We ordered such that we would all be able to eat one of each type.)

Prawns in fried bean curd skin.

美味しいけど、食べにくい～！Tasty but f***ing hard to eat. (Yes I was THAT frustrated eating the damn thing.)

Siew Mai! I have this FABULOUS recipe I got off 'Cooking Master Boy'/'中華一番' for Siew Mai. Made from 3 different types of eggs! Definitely going to try it this Saturday when Ron and Martha come over for dinner cooked by me and Jansen.

Stuffed completely full of leek and yummy fresh prawns! (Yes for those who have been keeping track, my family apparently REALLY loves prawn type dim sum.)

Part of it is all about presentation! And this place passes hands down!

A photo is missing because I stupidly forgot to whip my camera out at that moment, and that was for Fish Maw Dried Scallop Soup with Mushrooms and Black Fungus. So just try to imagine based on my desciption ya? Super thick almost like gravy and super tasty because of probably the long cooking time and the ingredients. Served in a hot stone pot atop a wooden plank. (Ok, so I suck at descriptions.)

Fried man tou! You can never go wrong in my world with fried man tou~!

A naughty shot of our buns. LOL. Sorry, lame/cold I know.

And last of all dessert! Stuffed with red bean paste and banana! (I was too full to eat this.) All in all a good meal! Definitely recommended for Dim Sum lovers!

Gameplay

Board games at 'De Codus' (Not sure if I got the spelling right). Surprisingly I like it better than 'Mind Games Cafe'. The game you see in the picture is damn manipulative. Don't remember what it's called... Essentially it's about 'aiding and abetting'. LOL.

I like this 'bean growing' game, I think it's all 'Bonanza' or something like that...

Me and Jansen.

Ron and Martha

My dinner! Beef lasagne with a side of nachos and peach slices.

Naomi & Sakiko's Visit to Singapore

Everyone gathering at Wai Zin's house for the final dinner. Gave Wai Zin's family of homemade pineapple tarts made by yours truly as thanks for letting me and Jansen come over.

Me, Jansen and Sakiko. Sakiko was Wai Zin's tutor in Kyushu.

Me in between the two Japanese beauties. (Yes, I feel extremely self conscious and fat.) Naomi is Sakiko's best friend. They practically came together as a package so Wai Zin ended up having '2 tutors'. BUY 1 GET 1 FREE~! LOL.

ATW 2008 people! (Yes, Jansen went over a year earlier...)

ATW 2009... Well, those who came anyways...

Me and Jansen gave them a combined of 6 jars of sambal (2 chili, 2 belacan, 2 dip), 2 packets of gula melaka and 2 tubs of my handmade pineapple tarts. LOL. (For me it was sort of a small thank you to the two of them for helping me get more KAPIBARA merchandise... LOL.)

Me, Wai Zin (the 邪魔) and Jansen.

Meeting of the Parents

Taken with the flash. I couldn't decided between this and the next photo so I uploaded both.

Without flash, Jansen says he prefers this photo. Me? I'm not sure, I think both have their charms.

Eating at Tam Kah Restaurant at Chinatown. Their speciality: Shark's fin. So this is their signature dish: Shark's fin soup with scallop.

The platter of super goodies! And for any of you wondering... Yes... Those are my Mom's boobs in the background.

Dessert! Not sure what this is called... :P It was yummy though.

Egg tart with bird's nest. (See that brown centre on the surface of the egg tarts? That's the bird's nest)

So I suppose this meeting was going to happen sooner or later and I was nervous as heck yesterday but I'm glad that everything went alright in the end.

Nervous as heck yesterday since their official first meeting during Christmas wasn't exactly fantastic. (Parents invited them to our house but barely spoke to them since they were entertaining other guests.) So this time, I'm glad at least they got a chance to talk... I was worried it would be 'Silence of the Lambs' or something.

They're already pre-invited to Chinese New Year celebrations at my place this year so hopefully things will go even smoother from there...

Martha heard about it and was asking me this morning if our parents are discussing marriage plans already. Well, no... But it does look (On my side) like they are starting to get a little ahead of themselves. My Dad already bought 2 CK full suits and my Mom is already asking is a wedding is confirmed coming on the way. (This was my response to Martha)

.....
..... Seriously??

The news that I'm getting hitched soon is spreading like wildfire in my family and seriously I have no idea how that came about... (I suspect my grandmothers, who are both, by the way threatening that if I don't marry soon, they won't be able to live to see my big day. -_-\\\) But I guess we are already at THAT age... Ah well. What happens happens~!

Personal? Or...?

I guess if I were still in the habit of writing in my diaries like I used to in the old days, it would probably start off sounding something like this...

'Dear Diary, today something all too familiar happened to me again. Like seriously, what the hell is WRONG with me? I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be taking things personally and that I shouldn't be dwelling on things like this but NATURALLY... Even my own advice goes in one ear and out the other. It's utter crap.'

If you look around you, you'll notice that everyone wears a mask. Even those who are most truthful to their personalities. I see clowns, devils, poker, angels (who are usually devils), party-goers, bitches, bookworms, the usual... Sometimes their masks slip and you finally see what's beneath but sometimes you never really know. Me? I think it's just annoying. And yet... I wear one too.

I don't get it. Why are people so afraid to be themselves? Doesn't it hurt to keep living in some sot of pretext?

I guess it does. It definitely hurts... So in a way, I suppose I understand. But I guess that's the natural trade off when we choose to live they way we live. Humans really are the strangest creatures... I think we're the only species around that not only plays an active hand in our own torments but revels in the aftermath of our own self-suffering. It definitely goes beyond the natural flow of most things, namely our primitive survival instincts.

Humans sure are strange... I guess that makes me even stranger? I suppose if that's the case then that only makes sense...

Why I decided that it's better to isolate myself from people... Why I decided that in the end, the only person I can trust and depend on is myself... Why I always told myself that should anything happen... It's only my fault and no others are or should be involved. I guess it's a pretty heavy burden, but it's something that I've grown accustomed to over the years. Or so I thought...

It's always the occurences of things like this that bring about the inner vulnerability that I have over the years convinced myself have been suppressed... Evidently albeit unsuccessfully.

こんな夢見たことがある。。。

I had a dream...

One where an emotion pierced through even the most minute of its fragments. Powerful, sharp... Unexpected. I had taken a leap and I saw what was inside my heart and in my soul. Things that I knew deep down, things that I didn't want to see, things that I wanted to see...

It was a first. That the dream was unlike a dream. I couldn't predict its flow at all. It happened as if it were really in front of me.

I have come to the conclusion that my mind, my heart is but a cryptic one. It has a rotten sense of humour and an even worse sense of fun. Diving back into my memories, into my teenage insecurities, my current conflicts and even my childhood fears is not something I like to face. No doubt, these are the things in my youth that shaped me into this cynical, sarcastic object that most know of today. But... They are really are... Painful to look at. To even remember...

At the end of this dream, in the midst of my solitude, surrounded by people I knew but didn't know me, by people who had stabbed me in the back repeatedly, by people who had told me that I would amount to nothing, a shaft of light pierced through the darkness. In doing so, he brought brilliant colour and meaning into my world. I was laughing. He was smiling. My past acquaintances stood there unmoving as we walked away, never looking back and leaving everything, all my past baggage behind.

That's how I feel about him. He is my rock in my most emotionally fragile states. He has made going through all that... Worthwhile. If I had to go through all that alienation, all that ridicule and all those moments of insecurities... Just for a chance to meet him again... I would. God, I would. Being around him gives me strength, and a determination that I never knew existed. I know that I can be myself around him, I know that I can talk to him about anything and he makes me feel alright. I can always count on him to be there for me even if he doesn't necessarily agree with me.

I never knew I could feel this way about someone. I never knew...