Monday, November 25, 2013

The Tiramisu Hero Cafe.

Cafe hopping and brunch seem to be like the "in thing" nowadays and every weekend or so, i try to visit new cafes and try out their brunch menu. Honestly, most of them serve typically the same thing like Eggs Benedict, all day breakfast set etc and perhaps other than the quality of the food, what differentiates each cafe is probably the ambiance. Some places the food might not be marvelous but it's the environment, the ambiance that makes you feel like going back just to have a cup of coffee while you finish up your book, or bring your netbook so you can spend your afternoon there.

For this blog post, i visited the newly opened Tiramisu Hero cafe opened by Peggy (sixpegs) and her partner. I've been following her blog on how the whole tiramisu hero concept came about and how they moved on from an online order site to an actual physical cafe so when "The Tiramisu Hero" cafe opened, i knew i had to give this cafe a visit (:
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The Tiramisu Hero  121 Tyrwhitt Road Thu - Tue: 11:00 - 22:00, Closed: Wed

Located at Jalan Besar, it doesn't seem like it's exactly easy to reach and there isn't much specific instructions on the internet on how to get to the cafe but the place is actually of walkable distance from Lavender MRT station! Alight at Lavender MRT station, cross the road over to V hotel and just walk along the street in. 10 mins walk.
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Arrived at the brightly lit cafe and the first thing that caught my eye was the Sir Antonio doodles on the wall. Reached at about 4pm-ish (not exactly brunch timing, lol) but the place was already filled with customers and we had to wait about 10 mins for a table for 5. In the meantime, we can browse through sales items on display such as accessories.
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A little cozy corner at the entrance filled with quirky retro items. Good for photo taking, LOL
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Overview of the cafe from the inside, not really big. Can fit about 50 pax? Love the hand-drawn doodles on the walls (using markers i think) and cool idea of having ladders on the ceiling with lights hanging off them. Simple yet creative.  photo SAM_6477.jpg The highlight of the cafe which would be the food! Everyone ordered a different item so we get to try each dish.
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Truffle Eggs Bacon Roll ($10.50) It was a rather good combination for an appetizer.
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Forgot what drink Joyce ordered but it came with this coffee art which i think is a... lion maybe? No idea.  photo SAM_6491.jpg Mushroom Soup ($6) The soup was served in a tea cup and it was creamy and good. Love the garlic bread!  photo SAM_6487.jpg Baked Cheesy Chicken ($17) Looks good but not gonna comment because i only had 1 bite.
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Kaixin ordered the Curry Baked Rice ($12.50) She said it was not bad :)
 photo SAM_6494.jpg I ordered the Bangers and Mash ($15) The other option you get to choose was Bangers with Mac. I'm not sure if the mashed potato is supposed to be chunky but i love it just the way it is. It definitely feels hand made since it's not smooth and thoroughly mashed. 3 fat sausages came along with it. I think they are Chicken cheese, Pork and... something else. It wasn't written in the menu anyway. I was REALLY REALLY full at the end of it. Worth it.  photo SAM_6495.jpg How can we enter a tiramisu cafe and not have their tiramisu! Instead of having one jar each at $7.50, we ordered the medium size one (NonnaHero i think) at $17.50. Being a tiramisu fan, i had really high expectation of their tiramisu since i heard so much about it but honestly, i was quite disappointed because i felt there wasn't enough flavour :(  photo IMG_4938.jpg Mandatory shot with the Sir Antonio mascot head located in front of the counter. LOL  photo R0010755-2.jpg A group photo of us taken in the cafe by one of their staff. Had a good meal that evening  photo R0010758-3.jpgOverall the food was good and price wise, i would say the items were a bit pricey and do take note that the price stated on the menu are not inclusive of GST (i wished it was already included) I guess i will be back again in the future to try out the other food items, not forgetting the desserts like the Lava cake and mud pie. Oh wells, I don't foresee Tiramisu Hero to be one of those cafes where you can spend a whole afternoon in due to the current hype and crowd.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

24th at Switch by Timbre!

Actual day of my birthday, 19 October. I don't know how others feel but for me, as i grow older, birthdays doesn't seem that really important anymore, especially after you plan your 21st. This year, i intended to have a simple dinner with a few of my good friends and that's it. When i was preparing to head out, i still whatsapp them - "Since it's only the few of us and i'm too lazy to dress up so i'm going to wear what i wore out that day, don't judge me. LOL" (my birthday was on a Saturday and we met previously on Tuesday i think) So i casually wore the same thing outfit. The thing about me is that you will never see me wear the same thing out in the same week, in fact same month even? Except that day...
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Was roaming around town and decided to drop by Tangs to check out the Krispy kreme queue. Really very kua zhang but since we had time before our reservation at Switch, we decided to queued up for it as we wanted to try if it's really that good. We learnt about the express queue before we joined the queue and unknowingly we got ushered to the express queue amongst all the crowd. Queued up for only 15 mins to get a dozen of the original glazed ones :D
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Timbre is one of my favourite place to chill because of the good food and live band. Switch is by Timbre and you get enjoy the same thing but in an air conditioned environment! Made a "reservation" for 4 few days before and while we were waiting to be ushered to our table, i glanced around and saw this familiar guy in white looking at me. It's was Meldric and i realised, a big group of familiar faces were occupying a long table. Was quite surprised at the turnout.
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It's been awhile since we had 13 people from the *cousins group had dinner together!
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Ordered 2 rounds of food as we were waiting for the live band to start at around 10.30pm. Ordered quite a no. of side dishes such as buffalo wings, potato wedges, fries, soft shell crab as well as a few of their famous pizzas (duck pizza!!!!)
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As the live band starts, there is this SMS system whereby you can dedicate songs to your friends or send your wishes to them. Apparently my name appeared quite a no. of times on the screen. super pai seh. Mel requested for the fox song and the band that night (i think was ground zero) did their rendition and got everyone in the restaurant high, LOLOLOL  photo cake.jpg Halfway through the night, i turned my head and i saw this huge tiramisu cake right in my face with the candles lit! If you know me well enough, you would know that tiramisu is my all-time favourite dessert. Very delicious!!!!
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Me giving the "how-should-i-go-about-cutting-the-cake" look and Jiaqi explaining how i should do it, LOL
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Group photos along the way. Thank you Jiaqi, Jinglong, Kaixin, Joyce, Conan, Jiazhen, Mel, Amanda, Fenny, Dawn, Ruo xuan, Limei and Kaizhi, not forgetting Weijie who came and drop by just before his movie nearby! Felt quite bad to make you guy pay for the dinner which i think should be quite expensive even though i did not see the bill. 謝謝你們!
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Imma a happy birthday boy. It's amazing how we met through the internet. Went over to Marina Barrage after the meal to chill and we suddenly talk about how we first met, the outings we had, the significant events (like on one event during one of our chilling session outside esplanade after dinner, me and weijie received a call from our parents saying our NS enlistment arrived, super epic. lol!), how some of us changed in terms of looks *cough* ah beng mel and weijie *cough* and the people that came and go regardless of reasons. All the little little wonderful memories. Thank you

Sunday, November 10, 2013

24th at Little Pancakes!

It's been a while since i update about the happenings in my life due to the Korean travelogue for the whole of October. Met up with my BFFs the night before my 24th birthday to have dinner followed by our karaoke session at Teo heng (first time there but thought KBox or Partyworld was much better even though Teo heng is cheaper) Anyway few days before the exact date i was thinking where we should have our dinner at and since Yah see is driving, i suggested Little Pancakes at Upper Thomson! Always wanted to visit Little Pancakes but it's quite inaccessible if you are not driving.
Little Pancakes
#01-04, Thomson Imperial Court, 200 Upper Thomson Road
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Ever since i saw photos of this place and their food on instagram, i've always wanted to visit! As the name of the shop suggest, it's a little cafe where they serve freshly made bite sized pancakes! The way it's presented is also very cute!
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You get to choose between the Sweet or Savoury menu. It was a dilemma for me because everything on the menu seem so interesting! But since we were having dinner, the 3 of us decided to opt for the savoury menu. Almost wanted to ordered from the sweet menu but the BFFs advised me not to. It was until later then i know the reason why...
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Went over to the counter to see how they made the pancakes. What they do is prepare the mini pancakes on the spot (about 10 pieces for each order) and prepare the rest of the food items (like sausage, cheese etc) along the way.

After i ordered, the BFFs went to the toilet and came out with this...
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A customized birthday brownie from P.osh! Only then i know the reason why the 3 of us ordered from the savoury menu instead of the sweet menu because it would be too much sweetness involved. Lucky i never order from the sweet menu.
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I wasn't expecting a present because i know how difficult it is to get me a present but they got me a rabbit craftholic in my favourite design! It's now sitting at the side of my bed and once a while i will hug it while using my phone at night
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Got to blow a candle and make a wish even though it's not officially my birthday yet. Like that will still come true?
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Chick and cheesy ($8.50) Love how fluffy the mini pancakes are!
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Ham and Cheesy ($8.50) Had this for myself. Was told they ran out of potato salad that day and asked if i would like more greens or replace it with baked beans. Was secretly happy that i got the baked beans instead. Heehee
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Big fan of all day breakfast ($10.90) Very much like the Chick and cheesy but comes with additional scrambled eggs.
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Went to Teo heng to sing Karaoke after our dinner. Thank you BFFs for celebrating my birthday! :D

7 years of friendship and counting

 

Monday, November 4, 2013

Into the Woods, Valleys & Countryside. Korea Day 6

The very last day in Korea. Scheduled for the afternoon flight back to SG so i had the morning to myself but instead of staying in the hotel for some last minute packing and getting ready to check out, Elizabeth and me decided to head out for breakfast and guess where we went? Logically you would think that we would just go to some nearby places but...
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we went on the subway early in the morning...
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and arrived in Myeongdong! The place is so different between day and night as you can compare the above photos with the photos i took at night on the previous post. Most of the shops were not opened but we were looking for a particular breakfast cafe that Elizabeth found online and when we arrived at the door step... they only open at a later timing. FOL
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Eventually had to make do with McDonald breakfast because most of the cafes were not open yet and i had to get back to the hotel in time for check out. The lamest thing is, we went all the way to Myeongdong and had MacDonald when there is an outlet right beside our hotel!!! But still, i managed to do some very last minute shopping at Myeongdong, literally just grab and go (without even thinking if there's still space in my already overflowing luggage) Opps :|
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This guy is EVERYWHERE in Korea, i see him on posters, billboards, shop fronts endorsing some product. Apparently he is Kim Soo-hyun (김수현) the guy who acts in the "Moon embracing the Sun" Korean drama. No wonder so popular! :D
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Was waiting for the airport bus when i saw these 5 girls in these cute uniform taking photos along the road, and was told that they are a quite popular girl group in Korea called "Crayon Pop" I have no idea if they are the real deal because... i compared their online photos with the one i have above, like different ley. Can anyone help me verify? LOL
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Took the airport bus (fell asleep because i was really tired) and i soon arrived at the airport earlier than expected. Went to deposit my luggage and was half praying that it won't exceed the 20kg limit. Heave a sigh of relief when i saw the "17.9kg" on the weigh. I still had 2.1kg to spare!!! But there's seriously no more space in my luggage anymore things!
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Got my boarding pass and went to roam around at the airport...
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Passed by this Korea traditional cultural experience center which allows tourists to have some hand ons at colour painting or ink painting. Since i had about an hour before boarding and had nothing much to do, i decided to try it!
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Was given a template and i had to just paint it according to the way i like, the right photo is my end product! :D
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Got a window seat again but this time without the whole row to myself. 7 hours flight back to Singapore.
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Camwhore on the plane before taking off. The people around me giving me strange stares must be like, "Why is this guy is traveling alone and taking countless photos of himself..." Whatever. I'm used to it already. HAHAHHAHA
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In flight lunch. Roasted chicken with potato wedges. Dessert was this bean curd thingy which i don't really like :(
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But shortly, the air stewardess went around giving us little cups of Cheesecake ice cream! Happy boy :D
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6 days in Korea has been a great experience. Time to get back to reality.
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Collected the receipts of everything i bought with an intend to calculate the cost of the things i bought (i did not really look at the prices, it was just grab and go because i was... lazy to convert and all i know it's cheaper than SG, lol) but when i returned to SG and took all the receipts out, i have no idea which is which because everything is in Korean. FML
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A photo collage of all the photos that i instagram-ed along the way throughout the 6 days in Korea.

This post marks the very last post of my 6D5N Korea 2013 travelogue. Took me about a month to filter about 1000+ photos that i took to about 250 photos (avg 40 photos/post), editing every single one on Photoshop, after which blogging them post after post while flipping through the itinerary trying to remember what happened and doing online research on places that i visited to provide more info of them so i can include in the travelogue . It's finally completed.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this travelogue as much as i enjoyed writing on my trip.
Thank you Korea Tourism Organization for sponsoring this trip and showing me another side of Korea.


Pre-trip | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6