Singapore 21.6.2007 – 24.6.2007 – Part III – Donut Factory


There seems to be a craze over doughnuts in Singapore lately. We saw one outlet in Raffles City Shopping Centre. People were willing to join the long queue just to purchase these doughnuts! The shop is located at a tight area as such the queue had to be broken into 2!
I was told that some people actually queued 3 hours for the doughnuts.


The queue.
The donuts are pretty unique. Other than the normal glazed doughnuts, they have flavours such as spicy cheese, wasabi cheese, cheese tartar and kaya with white chocolate!
Address:
Raffles City Shopping Centre #B1-61.
Tel: (65) 6337 6268.
Open 12.30pm – 10pm daily.
Other blogs that have blogged about this:
I.Z. Reloaded
Singapore Foodie Lover
theory.isthereason
On another note:


Spider Pig Spider Pig. LOL!
I cant wait!

Choosing Popular Friends

When I was younger, I was always jealous of other girls who were much more popular than I was. I had my own group of friends, but I would always be secretly ashamed that they were too geeky or not good enough for me. I never consciously thought about them that way, I think. I wasn’t nasty to them or what, but I would always make way for the more popular friends should they ask me out, and ignored my other friends.
Shame on me?
I recall when I was 11, I was invited to a friend’s birthday party held at KFC. It was a big thing then. What I didn’t know was that she considered me her best friend. What she didn’t know was that I wasn’t interested in the party at all, and didn’t want to go.
She called my house twice, trying to convince me to come to her party, but I was adamant that I didn’t want to. I pretended that I wasn’t feeling well, and didn’t want to spoil her birthday party.
I’m sure I must have hurt her feelings, because she was quiet on the phone. I felt bad, but I didn’t back down.
Unknown to me, she proved to be a very loyal friend. When I was abandoned by the popular friends and had no one to hang out with, she would be there for me.
If I were her, I should have laughed at me for being such a bitch at such a tender age, right?

[taken from a website – i forgot where.]
They say that our surroundings will subconsciously affect our choices of friends, be it the right or wrong choice. It’s like being a model, and surely you’d ignore the ones who are less popular than you are and befriend the more famous ones? Occasionally you’d pity them and grace them with your presence, but face it, you will never be fair to all of them equally.
Then there are some people who’d give you this advice, “Feeling ugly? Relax. Hang out with the uglier ones and you’ll feel better about yourself and be popular!”
Admit it, you’ve been practising that rule to feel good ’bout yourself! ;P

Big Apple Donuts @ The Curve

Seriously, we at www.xes.cx do not believe in being outdated with the latest craze, ok? Just that, we end up enjoying our food so much, we forget to sneak some pictures!

You must know by now that donuts (doughnuts!) from Big Apple Donuts are everyone’s favourite. Because they’re soft. They’re sweet. They melt in your mouth. They’re RM2.00 per piece, the same as Dunkin Donuts’.

Located behind TGIF and near Eden’s Restaurant, although they occupy only a small lot, there are always customers in line, choosing their donuts.

I was initially apprehensive at first, thinking that everyone was exaggerating the quality of the donuts. But today, I had a Boston Creme from Dunkin Donuts, and suddenly I found myself disliking the hard chocolate icing on it.

The Mango Tango and Banarama. VERY NICE! I shall consider these my favourites, until I’ve tried the rest. What’s yours?

If you haven’t tried their donuts yet, you’d best do so. No harm trying!
I just read someone’s blog the other day and found out that she was given half a dozen free donuts as the owner was there and noticed her snapping pictures of the place for her blog. THAT GOT ME JEALOUS! (Damn my paperbag!)

Address:
Big Apple Donuts and Coffee
Lot G72A, Ground Floor
The Street
Western Courtyard
The Curve
Mutiara Damansara
Petaling Jaya
Tel No: 03 – 7726 4250

There are blogs aplenty raving about Big Apple Donuts:

As Suanie Sees It
TheLocalKing
.:+Angel’s heaven+:.
Queer Rant
* :: || Life of a Food Lover || :: *
masak-masak

and The Star Online’s article.
Everyone is blogging about it. ;D

Versatility, Fun & Colour(ful)

Last week, I was talking about how football/futsal brings friends together. This week, it’s alcohol!
When I was young, I never understand why some people like to drink. When there is something to celebrate, people drink. When someone is sad, people drink. When people are bored, they drink too.
I had my first taste of alcohol when I was in primary school. One of my tenants had a can of beer in the fridge. Hence, being young and curious, I appropriated a can from him and drank it. Man, it was awful! It went down the drain immediately.
Notwithstanding the bad experience, years later, I learn to love alcohol!
Especially beer. w00000ttttt
Imagine, a hot sunny day..with a cold beer on your hands…zo..mmg..ggg!!
As long as I could remember, my birthdays were all alcohol powered. I was going through my achieves and I found this picture.

Original post @ Birthday Celebration 2004
I laughed out loud looking at it. Looking back at it, it was extremely fun. If it’s not for the alcohol, we wouldn’t have so much fun 😛
But I always pray that I dont get bombed during my birthday. This year too!
Smirnoff recently launched a line of new flavoured vodka. If I recall correctly, when I was in Singapore last month, I was approached by a number of girls selling shots of Smirnoff (Green Apple, Orange and Raspberry). Each girl had different ways to approach customers. One girl was quite persuasive. She came to our table few times and in a giggly mode, persuaded me to buy a shot from her.
Another girl had a classy method. She came to our table, introduced herself, shook our hands and subsequently offered to sell us a shot.
Unfortunately, I didn’t buy any shots from them and I regret not going so. I used to like Smirnoff’s alcopop when I was in UK. Hence, I bet their flavoured vodka would taste as good as they smell.
But good news, Smirnoff is launching their new flavoured vodka @ Santuary on 25th Jul 2007. Cant wait to try it!
This is a sponsored post courtesy of Smirnoff®, in conjunction with the launch of its SMIRNOFF® line of new flavoured vodkas @ Sanctuary, The Curve on 25th July 2007. For more information about SMIRNOFF® products, please visit the website, http://www.smirnoff.com/

Lunch or No Lunch?

When I first started working in an office situated in the Golden Triangle (meaning, KL city), it used to pain me to go out for lunch everyday with my colleagues. We all know that it’s not easy to find cheap and good food in the city, unless you’re willing to pay more.

KLCC’s 2nd floor food court.
Check out the crowd. It’s crazy. Imagine having to fork out an average of RM10-RM15 a day for lunch. Sometimes it’s cheaper to buy 1 or 2 bread buns from a bakery, provided if there’s one around your area (or you bring it from home) or you go without lunch, or you bring food from home.
There was a time when I refused to go out for lunch with my colleagues, for the sake of saving a bit of money. But then I’d end up not being privy to any office gossip or updates for a while, unless one of them would update me later, and it got a bit boring to be sitting in the office playing Solitaire while everyone was out.
Seriously, a friend and I contemplated before of doing a catering service for office employees. Though I’m not sure how much cheaper it is!

Glass Noodle Salad for RM5.50.
My lunch the other day was disappointing and dissatisfying. Is that what you call a salad?? But then again, it was my fault, I overslept and didn’t have time to make my lunch, either a sandwich or a salad.
Anyone willing to buy me lunch one day? ;D

Con woman in Malaysia

While on my way back from Putrajaya, I stopped by at one McDonalds outlet along Jalan Sungai Besi. While enjoying my meal, I had one middle aged Chinese woman (from Mainland China) coming up to me asking for a favour. She wants me to call her friend using my cellphone. She gave me a name card and asked me to call one person by the name Mr Ng, a general manager of some company. I was obviously pissed, especially when she intrudes the intimate time I was having with my burger. Nevertheless, I called her friend.
(conversation in Mandarin, translated into English)
Me: Mr Ng, your friend XX is here in McDonalds, Petronas gas station, along Jalan Sungai Besi
Ng: Who? My friend?
Me: XX
Ng: Huh? Who is she?
Me: I don’t know, some Chinese lady. She said she’s your friend.
Ng: Who are you?
Me: I said she’s your friend, she’s waiting for you. That’s all I am going to say.
Ng: OK. Where is she?
Me: McDonalds, Petronas gas station, along Jalan Sungai Besi
Ng: What? Ok, can you pass the phone to her?
Me: (sensing something is wrong) NO. BYE
I then looked at the lady and said, “Yeah..your friend is coming”
Lady: oh thanks.
She then went to sit on another table with her back facing me. I somehow have feeling that when I pass my phone to her, she would probably walk away and disappear with my phone. She would have probably went,
“Hallo? Hallo? I cannot hear you. I go out talk to you.”
And never reappear.
Anyone encountered something similar?

Having a Long Distance Relationship

…. is not an easy feat.
Most of my friends would avoid like a plague, saying that it’s too difficult to work on it, whereas a few friends would consider it if it is only temporary. Say, a few months.
The hardest thing about being in one is the trust you’d have in your partner, and allowing him or her to have the freedom of being themselves, especially if they enjoy socialising.
And both of you know that you want the relationship to work, therefore the both of you are putting in your efforts in making it work.
One of the most common feature or advice given to maintain this sort of relationship is communication. But we all know it’s easier said than done. If your partner is not into emailing, blogging or writing letters, then it’s down to the pricey options to communicate: text messages and phone calls. Skype and MSN makes it cheaper, but it really depends whether your partner can sit still in front of the computer just for a while!
I know friends who have their partners overseas and because calling Malaysia is reasonably cheap from Australia or the United Kingdom, they make the calls frequently, even up to 3 times a day! I used to think it would be suffocating, but if it works for the couple, who am I to judge.
The saddest thing about this relationship is that sometimes you are not physically there to go through the trials and tribulations of your partner, the ups and downs. But if you tell yourself that it’s for a little while more, and in the future, you will be by his or her side, then patience will pay off.
Of course, there are some who cannot take the lack of physical contact. The need to be constantly hugged and kissed is important for some, that eventually, they’d give up on the long distance relationship and find someone closer to home. It sucks, no doubt about it.
I once had boyfriends who spent a good portion of their salary or monthly allowance to call me overseas and I’d be touched. Except that I eventually had no more feelings for one of them, and the other found a girlfriend closer to home. ;D
It’s hard work, indeed, maintaining a long distance relationship. It’s definitely not for everyone!

Harry Potter Stamps

Harry Potter is out tonight in Malaysia!

In conjunction with the release of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows™, the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Royal Mail has issued a stamps which featured covers of the seven books.


Get it @ Royal Mail Website

United Kingdom is not the only country that has issued stamps depicting Harry Potter and the relevant characters. A search on Ebay reveals that the following countries have issued such stamps:


Taiwan


The Netherlands


France


Australia

Whose Wedding Is It Now?

Every time I attend a Chinese wedding, I see that the couple’s guests are restricted to their closest friends. Instead, the majority of the guests are relatives and long lost relatives of their parents. And what do they do? They just sit and nibble on their food and frown when the couple’s friends become rowdy with their “YAM SENG!” cheers.
Some say that it is out of respect to invite ALL your relatives to the wedding. Parents want to invite them to announce the close of a chapter in their life, that their son or daughter is getting married and it is an occasion to celebrate.
Some say that it depends who is footing the bill. If parents are paying for the bulk of it, they are entitled to command the guest list. The couple will only be limited to 5-8 tables.
My mum said a wedding is a good reason for long lost relatives to meet up and to rekindle the family ties.
But it IS the couple’s wedding day, right, so why can’t they have all their friends celebrate with them, too?
Looks like you have to be filthy rich so you can invite all your friends!