Songbird Cheryl

Cousin Cheryl from KL had a performance this evening at the Sultan Jazz Club and so we popped by to support. Nick and I got there earlier and seated ourselves next to Lim Yu Beng and Glenda Chong only to realise the jazz bar wasn’t open yet and we were not in the performance venue. 

 

The Gomezs joined shortly and then the jazz club was opened. John made his way too and we ordered some bar food to nibble on. I must say the bacon-wrapped sausages were yum. 

Cheryl did her thing and she was good but I found the other musicians a bit self-indulgent as they rambled on with their guitar or drum for long spells.

Nick wasn’t too impressed though, maybe because the songs played were not all recognisable classics nor soothing but there were some good moments. She’s just starting out so she’s still finding her feet. She’ll be back at the Esplanade in July for some free concerts by the promenade, with a Disney theme but I think I will have to give the shows a miss…Junior will most definitely be out by then!

Labour Day

Surprisingly managed to wake up early today, despite catching Ironman 3 the night before at I12 Katong. Kevin even showed up in an Ironman tee! After the movie, the boy had supper at the Hong Kong restaurant next door before we joined the rest for a drink at Chevy’s. 

It was a public holiday today so we decided to head to Hort Park to feed the fish and let the kids scoot around after breakfast. The Gomezs joined us midway and the 2 older girls had fun scooting around and making use of the playground. 

The park was quite crowded especially at the back area where we parked ourselves. Nick played ball with Sasha and the 2 preggie women sweltered under the heat. 

We took ages to decide on where to lunch and ended up at Waraku @ Central. It was quite deserted and we got a booth seat where we could enjoy the view of Clarke Quay.

The kids ordered from the kids menu, their sets are pretty worth it with noodles, salad, fries, tempura, juice and ice cream plus a toy! Nat and Sasha relished their noodles and I joked that they were ready for a Japanese holiday!

I was pleased with my choice of tonkatsu ramen with tempura…the best of both worlds when I can’t decide between tempura udon or tonkatsu ramen! Came in a huge bowl!

Sasha is 3 years and 1 month today. She’s getting really good at her drawing, I’m impressed at the standard considering she just turned 3 and doesn’t go to school yet. She drew this girl with star and bird and cloud recently.

We’ve also concluded on our own that she has food colouring allergies. Every time she eats stuff like Smarties or jellybeans, gummies, especially at night, she will cough and produce phlegm when she’s perfectly well and wheeze a little too. Even her behaviour gets a little erratic and unreasonable.

So for now, we’ve decided to eliminate artificial colouring from her diet…I have to check food labels for natural colouring and we’ve told her she can’t have coloured sweets either and she seems to understand. But chocolate. ice cream, popcorn and natural coloured sweets are fine so she leans towards chocolate stuff now.

Apparently there’s no conclusive test for colouring allergies and I wanted to experiment on a day when she was well to test for reactions but Nick wouldn’t let me. For the moment we will just assume she is.

Macarons - Take 3!

The macaron experimentation continued this morning. Same recipe again as last time but very different result from my second attempt which I didn’t bother blogging about because it was not up to the mark. I had doubled the volume and used Phoon Huat’s ‘extra fine almond meal’ out of the packet but it wasn’t fine enough resulting in pock marked macarons with no feet. Might have overfolded the meringue too.

For today, I stuck with the original recipe’s quantities, put my oven at 150 degrees celcius and used double trays, baked at around 12 mins each batch. For the almond meal, I sifted the entire packet I had and only used fine bits that made it through.

The result was smooth surfaces and feet! Yay! I think I could have afforded to leave them in the oven a couple more extra minutes to achieve a harder shell. The mini ones I made had a better, chewier texture and peeled off the baking paper more easily. But very pleased, now I can start experimenting with different flavours.

Had lunch at UE Square, the mommies brought the bubs for Goldilocks and it was round 2 for me, this time with Sasha. While we watched the show, Nick and Nat ran errands. I found today’s production not as energetic as the first one, maybe the actors are tired. The sound also was a bit muted.

After dinner at home, we brought the kids to Ion, I’d been wanting to check out Crate & Barrel since they opened. The store wasn’t as big as I anticipated and the selection limited. It was pricey but the girls had a good time rolling on the sofas and beds!

After they slept, Nick and I were peckish and went to Keppel for the Outram Road bak kut teh. Can you believe it’s the first time we’ve suppered there despite living so near? Had the mee suah instead of rice…and didn’t order any meat for myself, just stole a piece from him. There is one thing missing from their menu though – tau kee! 

Journey comes to town

It’s Restaurant Week but I only managed to make it to one lunch and that was yesterday at Stellar, 1-Altitude. Went with Wai Leng, Cheryl and Phil, so Cheryl and I treated Phil as a farewell lunch.

The menu sounded promising, but portions were a little disappointing, depending on what you order. To start with, I went for the pan seared scallop with corn puree, quail egg, frisee and uni butter. Scallops were puny and the salad skimpy. Wai Leng who had the sushi and sashimi assortment had more on her plate.

For my main, I went with the grilled tiger prawns with capellini, sakura ebi and lobster jus. The prawns were quite charred but still moist on the inside, though Cheryl complained hers were uncooked. It was nice and I could have eaten double the portion but it was gone in no time!

My dessert was a banana pecan pudding with roasted rice ice-cream. The pudding was more like a dry cake but the ice-cream was interesting. By the end of the meal, I was still a tad hungry and had to buy a snack!

National Parks Board had set up some swings in Raffles Place to celebrate their anniversary and it was one big giant playground. Must bring the girls one day!

This evening Nick and I attended the Journey concert at the Indoor Stadium. This was part of my Xmas present to him and I suppose he enjoyed himself, even if Steve Perry was not lead singer.

The band have a Filipino replacement in the form of pint-sized Arnel Pineda whose rags to riches story is an inspiration. He went from singing in clubs to being spotted on You Tube and the rest is history! 

We had a pretty good view and there were about 6-7 songs I recognised like Open Arms, Faithfully, Only the Young, Any Way You Want It, Don’t Stop Believin’, Who’s Crying Now, the ones I didn’t were a bit of a bore. There was some drama at the end though, when a fan made it onstage and tried to thank the band for acknowledging a boy in the audience with cancer who had written to them but she was led away by security.

I just wish Bon Jovi would come…they are on tour this year but no Asian dates, bummer.

Back to the Music

It was a jam-packed day yesterday, I ambitiously booked 2 plays in one day. In the morning I brought Sasha to the National Library to catch ‘The Little Red Hen”.

It was her first official time watching a play and thankfully she behaved and didn’t give me any problems. We were in the circle section right in front of the railing though so she needed two booster seats but her view would have still been a little obscured.

The props were nice but I was personally disappointed a little by the production, especially because the accents were a bit local and the characters differentiated a little from the book i.e. a goose instead of a pig. But Sasha enjoyed it and that’s all that matters.

We were car-less this weekend because Paris was in the workshop with an air con issue so after the play we cabbed it to UE Square to meet Nick, Nat and Sasha for lunch. After lunch I had another play to catch with Nat, this time SRT’s ‘Goldilocks’.

This production was much more professional, the props were impressive for a children’s play, the songs catchy and the costumes were eye-catching. Nat thoroughly enjoyed the show and so did I!

In the evening I popped out to visit a wake…Phyllis’ dad succumbed to his cancer and I went to pay my respects, together with Serene and Basil. Took a long bus ride to Bukit Batok and going home I took the train.

Though I never expect people to give up their seats for me on public transport when pregnant, it’s still nice to be offered but the surprising thing about today was that both to/from Bukit Batok, no one offered me any.

In the bus on the way over, I did have a seat but gave it up to an old man and went to stand in the middle of the bus. Stood for a few bus stops before a priority seat became available and managed to sit all the way till my destination.

For the train ride home, all the priority seats were taken by able-bodied people and I stood near the middle pole throughout the journey. We have a long way to go before becoming more civic-minded!

At night, we made it to Noelle’s Back to the Music party at Gem Bar, Ann Siang Hill. This is the 3rd one she’s organised and the music was the kind that I can boogie to, but I didn’t boogie because I couldn’t drink and let go of my inhibitions!

She helped to reserve a table for our gang and there was Kaelash, Jeanette, Vinoth, Sophie, John, Flea and Kenny. Everyone loved the music and John was even high enough to do a MJ Billie Jean impersonation, lol! 

Bumped into Adrienne and Adrian, practically their whole family was there to support Noelle, along with a lot of Mischa’s friends I recognised.

It was a fun night, would love to go again the next time she organises it and hopefully I can drink by then!

Jersey Boys

Caught the Broadway musical Jersey Boys at MBS earlier this evening or rather yesterday evening and it was good! 

We went in a large group with Jeanette, Kaelash, Swana, Sham, John, Nick and me. Swana’s colleague Kavitah was super late and missed half the show due to a jam at Orchard. MBS was also crowded today because of the whole Gangnam Style phenomenon…Korean popstar Psy was performing a free showcase.

The show started out a little slow but towards the end of the first half it picked up and all the familiar songs came on and it was almost like watching a concert.

There were some sad moments which made me tear but overall I thoroughly enjoyed the performance and was singing along to ‘Sherry’, “Big Girls Don’t Cry’, ‘Walk Like A Man’ and ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’.

Anyone who loves oldies should go catch it, there were a number of empty seats despite being a Saturday night so I think the ticket prices may be a deterrent or the younger generation aren’t familiar with their music. Am gonna send the mums there, they would so love it.