Johari Window

Some thing interesting I got from Fatma’s blog. Heeheehee. Tell me what you think of me!

Johari Window

And yes, I am facing some what of a mental block towards writing anything remotely intellectual. Until I find my muse again, you’ll be seeing more of food orgasms and random personality surveys.

My Father’s Birthday party

Today is my dad’s 55th birthday! Selamat Hari Jadi, Ayah! Both my mum and dad decided to throw a birthday party, to signify the end of an era and the start of a new journey in life. They decided to have two parties instead of one simply because,

a) my house wasn’t big enough to fit all the families from both my dad’s and my mum’s side
b) we lacked the basic manpower to do all the cooking and serving
c) and we won’t be able to meet and layan every single one of them properly if too many people came all at once

Therefore the Part 1 and 2 (Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow!) There is no Part 2. I was too lazy to update and there wasn’t much difference in the choice of food served. Heeheehee..

Anyway, here are some of the most delicious food that my mum cooked today!

Specially bought from Geylang Serai, even though I have not sampled a lot of egg tarts in my life, I personally felt this was simply tantalising! The crust is soft and crumbly, and the egg center is cooked to perfection, with the right amount of egg and sweetness. I simply love this egg tart! Felt extremely sad since my mum didn’t buy a lot of it back home.

Another instant delight, these were specially steamed at home over the stove. Extremely spicy and totally scrumptuous, this is a definite must-try for all meat lovers out there! It was rather difficult to keep the buns warm all the time so to add a certain qualifier, the buns are only good if they are eaten hot!

Sorry for the bad lighting! One of the more familiar types of Malay kuih, these epok-epok (or usually known as curry puffs) were highly sought after, with many asking my mum for the recipe! But guess what? These were all instant epok-epok direct from a brand bought in Seng Song Supermarket! The crust was crispy on the outside. When broken into half, you can literally see the steam rising up from the delicious potato filling, beckoning you to take a bite.

Hotdog, fishball and chicken nuggets – all my favourite things! Especially the fish balls with its crispy skin which hides its tender juicy flesh underneath! I remember the time in PPIS when I would always dream of buying the 50 cent fishballs from the Malay auntie which I thought was the best fishball ever to be cooked! These fishballs managed to mimic the same nostalgic sensations of times past, and I simply yearn to try those fishballs once more. I wonder whether the PPIS compound even exists now. Sigh…

Soaked in my mum’s special curry rempah, these heavenly crispy pieces of chicken were lovingly deep fried to perfection and served hot off the frier! A definite all time favourite no matter what the occasion!

Specially ordered from Geylang Serai, these Satay were up to standard, slightly burnt yet extremely juicy and tender, melting in your mouth upon entry. Though my sis and I thought that the kuah satay was a tad bit too sweet.

Lontong, cucmber and onions – these are the sides which accompany the Satay and the Kuah. So add the crunchiness of the cucumber, the “hotness” of the onions, the soft solid texture of the lontong with the soft and juicy satay and thick viscous kuah satay, its truly a multi-sensory orgasmic experience!

Stay tuned for more tomorrow! Phew, finally all of them had left! Heeheeheeheehee! More food for me!

Swensons @ T2 Changi Airport

I was quite happy over the fact that the waitress got my order right – Grilled Fish With Sambal without the Sambal. I didn’t think that the sambal would go well with grilled fish. Do you notice anything wrong with the picture above? Well if you didn’t realise, the fish DID NOT seem grilled to me. It was covered in a special batter which was later fried to a crisp! That is not to say it was not delicious, but I really thought something fishy was going on (Sorry for the pun!). Maybe the sambal is there to cover up (I just could not help myself!) something that is not entirely true. But OMG! Flaky, light, moist – these were the quintessential characteristics of a perfect fish dish! In the end I was quite happy with my choice of food.

Next up we have the Sirloin Steak. My sister who ordered this dish wasn’t to happy since the serving was quite small. From the small bite I had off the steak (which was supposed to be well done), it was hard and very chewy. It wasn’t thoroughly fantastic in my personal opinion. Even my brother thought that the one he ate at Simpang Bedok before Chinese New Year was much much better.

This was another interesting dish from Swensons which promised to be quite good. What was simply memorable about the Crayfish Pasta were the flaky pieces of crayfish meat which was fried in a batter, served in the tomato based sauce. Though the serving of pasta was much less than the Black Pepper Seafood Pasta, I personally thought it was quite a worthy investment. Slightly spicy with a strong taste of tomato, the sauce harmonises the lightness of the crayfish with the softness of the spaghetti strands, making it a truly a one-of-a-kind experience!

My brother had the Black Pepper Seafood Pasta! Spicy, sour and bitter – this pasta had an assortment of seafood ranging from the delicious slices of fried fish to stringy factory-processed crab sticks, all lightly sauteed with the black pepper sauce. There were also small pieces of mushrooms hidden between the spaghetti starnds which added a more unique taste to the whole dish. My brother loved the pasta but I thought the black pepper was a little too much.

The cheese simply melts in your mouth! And the fish is simply fantastic! Sigh. Wish I had more of the Fish Baked Rice.. I always thought that the baked rice in Swensons were always served in very small servings.

Light and soft, these buttered fries from Swensons is simply the best you can ever eat! We actually ordered a second round since all of us could not get enough of the fries. In my opinion, its always great to have unsalted fries rather than the salted ones you get in fast food chains.

A harmonious mix of coffee, strawberry, mocha almond fudge, sticky chewy chocolate, butter pecan, peppermint chocolate, rum and raisin and cookies and cream with various toppings on top! I simply love the sticky chewy chocolate at Swensons! Especially with hot fudge on top! Simply fabulous! The only flavour I did not like was the rum and raisin which tasted extremely weird for an ice cream. The whole family shared the ice cream dessert!

Now on to the bad side of Swensons @ T2 Changi Airport. When we arrived at 9 plus at night, there was already a long queue to enter the restaurant. Even when we left at about eleven, there was still a queue of four to five people still waiting to enter the restaurant. After we ordered our food, we had to wait for 20 to 30 minutes before the food actually arrived! Mine came first followed by my sister, my mother and my brother. My father’s dish which was the fish baked rice which I thought needed the least amount of work (how much time do you need to heat the ready made baked rice in the microwave?) came about 40 minutes later! Plain water refill was virtually non-existent, some of the waitresses had heavily Chinese-accented English which made me often wonder whether they understood what we were trying to order. We asked for the bill twice but got no response so we decided to go to the counter to pay the bill.

I asked one of the head waitress whether it was a practice for the customers to pay at the counter. She said no but since there was a 10 to 20 minute waiting time for paying the bill, it was best that we queue up to pay if we really wanted to get out of there. My brother was tempted to just leave since the service was quite bad. My sis brought up a very relevant point about what was lacking in the Singaporean service culture. With the hardcore emphasis on efficiency and speed, what we have forsaken is service itself – simple things like being informed about the status of our meals being cooked or whether or not our bill was arriving soon. The human touch is simply not there! I was unhappy because of the fact that we were virtually ignored even though we persistently reminded them about what we wanted to know.

Not that we are being difficult customers. But if the waitress had taken time to inform us that “Oh there were some problems in the kitchen but your Fish Baked Rice is on the way” or “Hold on for a moment while I try to get the bill for you”, at least there is some form of service involved. What I saw was mostly distracted waitresses just trying to get everything done ASAP so that the neverending queues will get shorter. Ironically in their attempt to be efficient and quick, the queue is always there! There’s even a waiting time for bills! Something needs to be done to enhance the overall eating experience in Swensons.

Something I discovered on the wall right beside my table! It was supposed to be Frosted Chocolate Malt but it became Mat instead. How ironic! Heeheeheehee…

Postmodernist Worldview?

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis. Postmodernist 81% Cultural Creative 69% Existentialist 56% Modernist 50% Romanticist 38% Materialist 25% Idealist 25% Fundamentalist 13%

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

Thoughts from a fellow like-minded Melayu blogger

I was checking Technorati for links to my blog and found out that a particular blog by He-Bitch has been quoting from my blog in his past few entries regarding Mats and Melayus in Singapore. (Yes I do check on who links to my blog. Its always very interesting to find out how and why people link you through their entries)

Anyway, back to the topic, I found one of the fictitious characters while I was surfing the net.
The smart Malay one. From what I gathered snooping in his blog, he was from RI, have loads of scholarships, Chinese-Malay mix (oh… that explains it!) and served as a 3rd Sergeant in the Army (let’s call him Libertas). If you do want to read more intelligent arguments about the Malay dilemma and situations we are facing, I strongly recommend his blog entries (though bombastic they are)! Mine are just shallow and tongue-in-cheek. haha…

Firstly, I must thank He-Bitch for regarding me as one of those fictitious cartoon characters you find in Marvel or in your daily newspapers. Its always good to have an existentialist moment of revelation, that I do exist for a particular purpose, if not to serve our glorious G3 army, but to ruminate over the puzzling paradoxical dilemma facing the Malay community in Singapore today. I also realised that as much as I want to shroud myself in clouds of anonymity, something will definitely slip out. I guess I will have to leave you all guessing as to who I really am through my writings and hope that you don’t discover too much about who I really am. (And contrary to popular belief, I do not have loads of scholarships. I’m still trying to get one to go overseas. I already have a place in LSE to do International relations in 2007, but I’m still lacking the finances for the tuition fees.)

He-Bitch’s own accounts serves to substantiate my own argumentations concerning the high divorce rates among Malays. And its always good to hear people agreeing with your own postulations about certain cultural observations, especially the one I did on the problem of thrift among Malays.

If you were an employer and you had to choose between a university graduate (only 1.9% Malays are graduates compared to 11.7%f the total population) or one without a diploma, ‘A’ Level or ITE certificate (27% of Malays don’t), who would you choose?
Gee…

This is again very true. However, we must keep in mind that our community has progressed. As my mum constantly reminds me, there are more Malay doctors, researchers, scientists, businessmen, CEOs etc today than in the past. But what is apparent now within the community itself is the socio-economic gap between the haves and the have-nots. A direct effect of PAP’s brand of meritocracy, we see those at the top echelons of society progressing at such a rapid rate, whereas the rest try to fumble around with their spendthrift ways, dyfunctional families and unwanted pregnancies.

Wish I can talk more but my brain refuses to work after two weeks of being in camp (one week was spent in Pulau Tekong…).