Sarang @ Orchard Central

Got a sudden craving for some Korean food after watching a lot of Running Man over the past few days so decided to try out Sarang.

Kiwi Soju ($10)

Bacon Pajeon ($10.80)

Korean Army Stew ($18.90 + $1.00 for cheese)

Kiwi Soju was awesome, kiwis were sweet and blended well with the soju. Got a nice little buzz after. The bacon pajeon was also delicious. Loved the combination of bacon, scallions, chili and pancake.

I felt the Korean Army Stew was seriously overpriced. It's basically ramen, spam, some pork and kimchi and it cost about $20?! At first I thought maybe it's because it's a really big stew, meant for sharing. But looking at the portion served, 1 person could finish it comfortably.

Only ordered these 3 items and the bill came up to about $50.

I would return to try other items but would definitely NEVER order the Army Stew again.

Tatsuya (Goodwood Park Hotel) Lunch Set

 

Sushi Bento ($30.90)

Sashimi Bento ($28.90)

 
Exams are finally over for me, what better way to celebrate than with lunch at Tatsuya. This is the second time I've been here, but the first time, I was turned away as I didn't have a reservation; This place seems to always be fully booked. But I've read many good reviews and I've been on a Japanese food kick lately so decided to come back again.

We had the lunch sets since they were the most value for money items in a otherwise pretty expensive restaurant. It's stated on their menu that they import their fish from Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market and you can tell the fish used in the sushi is really fresh. The food took a while to arrive since they make it to order, so we distracted ourselves watching the chefs making the sushi since we had the counter seats. After the sushi is set on the bento, they take it to the back kitchen to add the tempura so it was piping hot when it arrived. Every single thing in the set, down to the fruits, was absolutely delicious.

After service charge and GST, the bill comes up to about $35 dollars each. More than what I would usually spend for lunch but most definitely worth the splurge once in a while. Would definitely return!

Tonkotsu King @ Orchid Hotel

Have been on a Japanese food kick lately and was browsing around the internet when I came across Time Out's 2012 Singapore's Best Ramen Bowl article. Tonkotsu King was number one on the list. After reading their description, looking at the price and checking that the location wasn't too far from my house, I immediately decided to check the place out.

There was a small line waiting to go into the tiny restaurant at about 2.30 pm on a weekday.

They had a order form for you to fill in while waiting. You can customize the ramen to your liking. I'm glad they had the 'No Spring Onion' option there, I hate spring onion but somehow always forget to specify that I don't want it.

They had a small bowl of hard boiled eggs on the table for you to add into the ramen, or snack on if you're hungry while waiting like my mum was lol.

The ramen arrived at our table about 5 minutes after we were seated, excellent service on their part. I had the Black Spicy Tonkotsu Ramen Special (All Toppings) since the menu said it was their signature dish. I guess all toppings means seaweed, flavored egg and black fungus. The Black Spicy broth has black pepper, it wasn't too spicy. Rich broth, creamy-yolked egg, generous serving of meat and noodles with a good texture - everything you would want in a ramen bowl, this one has it. The egg they served in the ramen was different from the ones they had on the table; it was really good, well worth the money.

This is a really authentic Japanese ramen place. I highly recommend it, but I think most people know about it already. Would definitely return to try some of their other offerings.

FYI they don't do takeaways.

Boycott Resort World Sentosa's Marine Life Park

Before you decide to visit RWS's Marine Life Park, please do yourself a favor and watch the documentary 'The Cove'. It'll show you how exactly wild dolphins are caught by hunters and show you why dolphins should not be kept in captivity. In fact, I think Channel 5 should probably show this documentary to educate people. But you know they would never.

If you have no time, at least watch a short clip from the film below:

When I was younger and didn't know any better, I visited the Dolphin Lagoon in Sentosa's Underwater World and got to pet a dolphin. Before we approached the dolphin, the trainer told us to approach carefully as the dolphin was 'shy'. Now when I think back about it, they were probably just sugar coating the truth. The dolphin wasn't exactly having the time of its life having a line of dumb kids coming over one by one to touch it, despite what it's smile would lead us to believe. Like Ric O'Barry says, a dolphin's smile is nature's greatest deception. The dolphin was probably stressed out, like animals in captivity tend to be.

We may not all have spare cash lying around to donate to a worthy cause but there's something very easy we can do to help the dolphins, and it won't cost you a cent - just choose not to visit the Marine Life Park.

TOM N TOMS COFFEE

Sudden craving for the thick toast and sweet potato latte that I had when I was in Korea so went down to the only Tom N Toms Coffee left in Singapore at Icon Village. Unforch, there was no sweet potato latte to be found. They should bring in the seasonal items if they want to up their sales tbh. Anyways, the chairs in the place also looked a little worse for wear. 

Choco Butter Thick Toast

Apple Cinnamon filled pretzel

Iced Americano

Loved the toast, but you can't really screw up a toast can you, not hard to make a good one.  The pretzel, which came in a set with the iced Americano, was kinda tasteless in comparison. Not much of a cinnamon flavor to be found. But it was filling, could make a satisfactory lunch.

waiting

Waiting for my mum to come home.

Introvert Cat Meme

Extroverts: People who are energized by social interaction.

Introverts: People who drained by social interaction.

Crying because I never knew a meme could describe me so perfectly. The ultimate gpoy.

For real, I just told someone I couldn't go out because I had something already planned this weekend. In reality, I just didn't feel like having any more social interactions cause I'm already meeting a friend this week. Though technically I wasn't lying. I had plans. Plans to do a big fat nothing. By myself.

It's not that I like to be alone. Just, I find social interaction so draining that I'd much rather be alone most of the time.

I recently read something (I can't remember where); it was something along the line of being in love and wanting to see the other person every day and spending all of their time with them and I thought to myself 'that sounds terrifying'.

Maybe that's not normal, but that's just the way I are ok.

Anna Dello Russo for H&M

Went to check out the launch of Anna Dello Russo's collection for H&M on Thursday. I didn't even know who she was till my sister told me about this. But I went to the website to see what they had and my interest was piqued so I decided to go join the queue that was bound to be there. This, ladies & gentlemen, is what happens when you're jobless and have far too much time on your hands.

Was at the store at around 11.30 am, there were about 30 people waiting to go in. They had sectioned off part of the store for the collection. The entrance of H&M was split into 2, so people who wanted to buy the AdR H&M stuff would join the queue and people who just wanted to shop in the main store would just walk in. They let people in in batches of about 20 and the shoppers were then given 10 minutes to shop (they even had someone counting down 'Shoppers, you have 5 more minutes...') and only allowed to purchase 2 items. I thought it was a pretty good system even though it did make the shopping feel a little rushed.

When it was my turn, the bags were all sold out. They only had the gold clutch left, but that one was kinda fug imo.

Anyways, here's what I got:

The earrings turned out to be kinda heavy, oops.

So I was watching the new season of The Amazing Race and the teams were racing in Shanghai. For one of the Road Blocks, they had to eat two bowls of frog fallopian tubes and I was watching with a huge DNW face.

Then my mum comes over to see what I'm watching.

Mum: What's that?
Me: They're eating frog fallopian tubes.
Mum: OH! I used to make that for you all the time when you were a kid!

NO

It's hard out here for a 'fat' person.

 

I have had it with the fat jokes.

One day I woke up at like 12 pm and decided to have a bowl oatmeal. My 9-year-old cousin happened to be in my house.

Cousin: Is that your breakfast or lunch?
Me: It's both; brunch.
Cousin: You eat so little? But how come you're still so...
Me: *snaps* So what? Finish that sentence.
Cousin: Um.... so not skinny. I mean, you are not fat lah, but why you are not more like small jie jie (my sister, who is like a size 0).

And then another time when we were walking my dog at the park. There's this part of the park where they have some exercise equipment for the public and he kept asking me to do it with him. I didn't want to cause I'm a germaphobe and didn't want to touch something that other people's sweaty hands had touched, especially not if there was no place to wash my hands after nearby. But I didn't feel like explaining it to a 9 y/o.

Me: It's ok, I've already worked out today.
Cousin: Really? You look kind of big.
Me: Excuse me? This is all muscle.
Cousin: Are you sure? I saw your B shaking.

Wow I so do not know what 'B' he was referring to or why he was looking at it.

My BMI is like 21.2, is that what passes for 'fat' these days?! I mean, I am not thin by any stretch of the imagination and do have some flabby bits, but fat? idts.

ANYWAYS I read this on Reddit's fitness board:

" While exercise is certainly a large component of fitness, it is a smaller component of weight-loss itself. For instance, running a mile will burn around a hundred calories, which is less than the caloric content of two oreos. Which is easier: running a mile or not eating two oreos?"

Well, when you put it like that...

Ok, I'm off to not eat 2 Oreos.

My Top 10 Quotes from Breaking Bad

Recently got into watching Breaking Bad and I caught up on all 5 seasons in like a week, the whole show is super intense, I couldn't stop watching. It was awesome watching the transformation of Walter White.

In S1, he was a seemingly mild-mannered, overqualified high school chemistry teacher who had to work 2 jobs just to support his family. Then he's diagnosed with an inoperable lung cancer and told he probably doesn't have long to live, so he makes the decision to turn to crime to make as much money as possible to secure his family's financial future before he dies. He spots an ex-student of his, Jesse Pinkman, while tagging along for a meth lab drug bust and pretty much blackmails him into working with him since while he has the technical know-how to make the purest meth, he doesn't know how to sell it.

Well, he has come a long way since then. While S1 Walt agonized for a long ass time (even making a list of reasons for and against) whether or not to kill Krazy 8, S5 Walt would kill someone in a heartbeat and dissolve their bodies in a tub of acid if he even thought that person was a threat to him, his family or his meth empire. Yes, empire. In S1, he was cooking crystal in an RV and selling it to a distributor. Between his medical bills and the trouble they had to buy their way out of, he wasn't exactly making bank. Now, he has his own empire, he's the cook and the distributor and he has a storage space filled waist-high with money. Also, he's a real badass.

Part of why the show is so awesome is the excellent writing. It has great dialogue from the writers and the actors kill it every time with the line delivery. Bryan Cranston didn't win 3 consecutive Emmy awards for nothing.

Here's my top 10 favorite.

10. "Fuck you and your eyebrows!"

Walt quitting his second job.

9. 'Stay out of my territory.'




Loved the music in this scene.

8. "You're goddamn right."



S1 Walt would probably have been shaking in his boots.

7. "Yeah Mr White! Yeah science!" - Jesse after Walt comes up with a way to cook crystal without using cold medicine.



6. "..., bitch!" Jesse makes any line 10X more awesome by adding 'bitch' to the end of the sentence.



5.

"Of course I do. Skyler, you've read the statistics. These doctors...talking about surviving. One year, two years, like it's the only thing that matters. But what good is it, to just survive if I am too sick to work, to enjoy a meal, to make love? For what time I have left, I want to live in my own house. I want to sleep in my own bed. I don't wanna choke down 30 or 40 pills every single day, lose my hair, and lie around too tired to get up...and so nauseated that I can't even move my head. And you cleaning up after me? Me, with...some dead man, some artificially alive...just marking time? No. No. And that's how you would remember me. That's the worst part. So...that is my thought process, Skyler. I'm sorry. I just...I choose not to do it."

-Walt on why he didn't want to go for chemotherapy.

4.

"I am not turning down the money! I'm turning down you! You get it?! I want nothing to do with you! Ever since I met you, everything I ever cared about is gone! Ruined, turned to shit, dead, ever since I hooked up with the great Heisenberg! I have never been more alone! I have NOTHING! NO ONE! ALRIGHT, IT'S ALL GONE, GET IT? No, no, no, why...why would you get it? What do you even care, as long as you get what you want, right? You don't give a shit about me! You said I was no good. I'm nothing! Why would you want me, huh? You said my meth is inferior, right? Right? Hey! You said my cook was GARBAGE! Hey, screw you, man! Screw you!"

-Jesse to Walt.

To which Walt only says "Your meth is good, Jesse. As good as mine." And it was enough to convince Jesse to get back to cooking with him.

Someone on YT has made a beautiful video for this, Jesse really needs to get away from Walt's manipulative ass.



3. "The money, Skyler, where is the rest? Skyler? WHERE IS THE MONEY?!"

- Walt knows Gus is going to kill him and goes to get the money hidden under the house so he can disappear with his family, only to find that his wife Skyler has given the money to her lover, Ted Beneke.


This entire scene has got to be one of the best in television history. I guess that is also why Bryan Cranston submitted this episode for the Emmys. Can't believe he didn't win, kinda sad considering S4 was probably the best season yet. But I haven't seen Homeland so I can't exactly judge.

2.

"Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see? Do you know how much I make a year? I mean, even if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop going into work? A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up. Disappears! It ceases to exist without me. No, you clearly don't know who you're talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I AM the danger! A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks!"


I love this whole line and Bryan Cranston brings it with the delivery, as usual. I never get tired of watching this scene.

1. "I fucked Ted."

- Skyler breaks the news of her affair to Walt. Angered by Walt's betrayal, Skyler fucks her boss, Ted, in retaliation.

This line was so great the whole episode was named after it - "IFT".

Also, this comment on 4chan made me laugh.

Skyler the 4chan user:

The Handburger (313@Somerset)

I've always wanted to check this place out and there was an offer on Groupon ($15 for a $30 voucher) so I immediately bought it.

Really, I should have bought the $60 voucher, considering the prices here. $30 was barely enough for 2, let alone 3 people! Each burger cost like $15, not including drinks. Of course, there was a lunch offer for $10.80 (burger + side + drink) but they didn't allow people to use the voucher for it *headdesk*.

mfw

Since I had already bought the voucher and didn't want it to go to waste, I decided to try the burgers that were not on the set lunch menu.

The Works ($17.80). 150g of prime beef with battered onion rings, bacon, sunny side up egg, cheddar cheese with sweet onion jam and handmade barbeque and aioli sauce.

Although I still feel this seems like a lot to pay for a burger, this one was actually really good and I would definitely order it again some time. It was even better than I expected. The sauce was frigging delicious and I enjoyed the onion rings. Everything just went so well together.

Happy Lamburger ($17.80). Lamb patty spiced with cumin, feta cheese, sunny side up egg, mint mayo.

Wasn't too happy (haha geddit?!) after trying this one. Idk, maybe it was cause I had tried The Works beforehand, but this one seemed kinda meh in comparison, it wasn't as flavorful. Not too different from the one from EWF imo. Although I did like the mint mayo sauce. The lamb patty also had a very strong... um lamb taste, you know the one. If you don't like that taste, this burger is not for you.

Current Running Playlist

Sharing my current playlist. I'm always looking for new songs to add to my playlist to inject more ~excitement~ into my run, so please leave me a comment if you have any suggestions for me :)


1. Woodkid - Run Boy Run



Gets me pumped!

2. Kat Deluna - Drop It Low

 

Booty popping song.

3. Havana Brown - We Run The Night (ft. Pitbull)



Mr Worldwide!!!!!!111

4. 2NE1 - I Am The Best



Ratatata tatatatata~

5. Foo Fighters - Walk



Great song to run to, despite the name.

6. M.I.A. - Bad Girls



Live fast, die young.

7. Katy Perry - Part Of Me



I feel like one of dem Marines in the video when this song comes on lol

8. Jay-Z & Kanye West - Ni**as In Paris



cray

9. Glee Cast - It's Not Right But It's Okay



10. Juno Reactor vs Don Davis - Navras (Matrix OST)



getting chased by Agent Smith tbh

Sunday Brunch @ Oriole Cafe

Available from 10 am - 3 pm on Sundays!

Thinking that there might be a lot of people there today, we tried to go down earlier for some brunch. Tried being the operative word here. Ended up reaching at 12 pm but there wasn't a crowd anyway which was great. Got shown to a seat once we got there.

And then I realized that I left my camera's battery at home. I took it out of the camera to charge it last night in preparation for today and then I forgot to put it back in when I was tossing the camera into my bag #FML

So yeah, here's some iPhone pictures.

BIG Breakfast ($24): minute steak, egg, ham, sausage, mushrooms, potato wedges and tomato relish.

You can tell from the capitalized 'BIG' that they mean srs bsnss. This mega breakfast item was served in an iron pan. This is the first time I've had a steak served with my breakfast. It was kinda dry by itself but tasted pretty good together with the tomato relish which was awesome!

Buttermilk hotcakes ($9.50): served with bananas, caramel and fresh cream.

As someone whose preferred way to eat pancakes is to have them soaked, to the point of oversaturation, in syrup, I was not a big fan of this. Or maybe I should have just asked if I could have extra syrup.

Chilli Chocolate Mocha ($6): Double ristretto, fresh chilli juice, chocolate & steamed milk.

I don't usually drink coffee, it has the opposite effect on me that it has on most people. But it doesn't seem right to come here and not try their award winning coffee so I decided to order this. They served it with a cinnamon stick to use as a stirrer. It was pretty damn good :]

Shokudo - Japanese Coffee House @ Bugis Junction

1) Teriyaki Chicken Don Hot Stone Set - $16 iirc

Pretty generous serving of chicken and it tasted pretty good, too! Also, the pan seared scallops were awesome.

2) Pasta in a cream sauce served with Tsukune skewers - $13

Loved the sauce, it was just right, not too heavy. And I like that it was served with tsukune, nicely drizzled over with a teriyaki sauce. It's official, I'm in love with Japanese style western cuisine.

3) Azuki Cheesecake served witch Matcha ice cream - $8

This was actually one of the recommended items on the menu so we decided to give it a try despite being tempted by the chocolate banana waffles. The first few bites, I was deeply disappointed, it seemed that the red bean totally overwhelmed the flavor of the cheese. But after a while, the flavor of the cheese did come through and the cake went pretty well with the ice cream. It was all right, but I will try something else next time.

5 Reasons to Watch TEEN WOLF

Sharing my new obsession...

1. The Story

Like month ago this show wasn't even a blip on my radar and now I live for the new eps every week, and I don't know how I'm going to survive the wait for season 3 once this season is over.

I honestly thought this was going to be another one of those insufferable shows featuring dumb teens with some werewolves thrown in just to jump in on the Twilight bandwagon.

I wonder what gave me that idea...

But people were raving about it so I decided to give it a shot, since Supernatural has pretty much turned to shit after season 5. Even if it wasn't good, I could just enjoy the hot guys + shirtless-ness. I mean, I'm already only watching Pretty Little Liars cos I like the way they style the main characters (it was pretty good in S1 but now I couldn't care less if the characters all died in an avalanche tbh).

And shit, the story is actually really good.

• There's a few good twists to keep things interesting. (Not giving away any spoilers here.)
• Actual continuity. Probably not that surprising, but after watching the disaster that is Glee, this is a welcome change. The writer actually has the story planned out from day 1 and the story doesn't feel like it was written in between the commercial breaks (Ugh, Glee...).
• Humor. So. Many. LOL. Moments. It kinda reminds me of the first two seasons of Supernatural, a mix of humor, horror & suspense and the relationships between the characters. Although strangely the main ship of the show is not the one the writers probably meant for us to be shipping.
• The characters are well-written and not one-dimensional. My fave character is Jackson. Despite being the typical douche-y jock guy - popular, captain of the lacrosse team, parents are rich, drives a Porsche - he still insecure and feels he's not good enough (cos he found out that he was adopted) and therefore wants to receive the bite from the Alpha. I think it's interesting that he has practically everything but can't have the one thing he wants more than anything. On the other hand, Scott, who was kind of a loser in high school before and had nothing, never asked for the bite but got bit.
  
• Characters don't do things that make you want to bash your head against the wall (I'm looking at you, PLL and The Walking Dead...). Well, with the possible exception of Scott, but he's more of a dumb puppy, and he does get called out on his dumbassery.

... and then you end up actually caring about the characters...

2. The Music

They use some really good songs that are not really mainstream on here and they use it well. I discovered some new bands after watching this, so yay.

A very helpful soundtrack list here. They even have the scene description so that's really helpful.

This is my current jam right here: Boom Boom

3. The Menz

Totally shallow but legit reason to watch the show.

 

They don't have enough budget for shirts on this show. Not that anyone is complaining.

Even the dad is a total DILF. Also yay for badass!Allison (finally).

4. The Cast

This show has the most adorable cast.

Season 1 Bloopers:


A contest winner who won a walk-on role on the show:



The cast were so sweet to her!

At first I couldn't stand the character Scott, but after watching the interviews of the actor that plays him and seeing how he's literally a Scott irl, I find the character endearing tbh.

^ Tyler singing along to Call Me Maybe at the TCA, lol he's so into it.

Also, the Ustream before each ep (I think) hosted by Holland Roden, Lydia After Dark, is super adorable.

5. Homoerotic Moments (aka Sterek)

Ok when I first started watching, I didn't really see why people would ship Sterek, I mean, yah the two would be really hot together, but in the context of the show, it just didn't really make sense to me, I mean, they hated each other and didn't even have that many scenes together.

But it all makes sense now...

DAT UST.

Derek getting all protective (｡♥‿♥｡)

On the show...

...between takes.

Their characters just work so well together. Stiles the goofy, hyperactive and deadly loyal friend with no brain-to-mouth filter and Derek, the stoic, emotionally constipated sourwolf with trust issues.

They're polar opposites personality wise and I guess that's what makes their scenes so fun to watch. The way Derek interacts with Stiles is just different from how he interacts with the other characters on the show. Jeff Davis, please to be writing more scenes with the two of them together.

What's not to love about the virginal, twinky geek and older, handsome, broody guy pairing? Shipping it like Fedex tbh.

Even the actors ship it...

In conclusion, if you're not already watching, give this show a shot, the first 2 seasons are only 12 episodes each and they just got confirmed for Season 3 which will be 24 episode OH YEAH!

*This took much longer than I expected, wat is my life.
 Images credit to the people on Tumblr who made them :3