Relieve the school days: Assembly Coffee brunch // NJC Funtasia 2014

I shall blogged about yesterday since it’s still very fresh in my mind. The plan yesterday was to go to NJC Carnival with Alicia since her bro is studying in the school. I missed AC’s because we were all the way in Changi eating at Chock Full of Beans and was quite disappointed since I’ve never missed any. Anyways when Ali mentioned her bro’s school got carnival, totally have to check that out!! I didn’t know it was Funtasia, I actually went once before but I cannot remember when, I think it was 2007. I love school carnivals, they make me feel like a student all over again and it’s been 5 years since we all last wore school uniforms.

Before that, we went to have brunch! The initial plan was riders’ cafe but it’s really inaccessible without car so we scrapped that. Then Ali said to try Hatched, since there was a branch near NJC. But then when I googled, I realised the highly raved Assembly Coffee is just beside it and I’ve seen alot of instagram photos of its waffles.

The nearest MRT station is Botanic Gardens but it’s actually quite a long walk in and it was drizzling, we made a wrong turning and ended up cutting through MOE campus.

Address: 26 Evans Road (Evans Lodge) Opening hours: 8am – 7pm (everyday except Mondays)

There was a large commmunal table which can seat about 12 people, 3-4 tables for 3 and 5 tables for 2. The area is quite cramped actually. We were shown to the communal table and we thought that either the tables were too low or the chairs were too high, which really made sitting uncomfortable. Luckily we saw a table for 2 empty, we went to change to that! YAY. Free flow of water available.

Initially we thought there was a brunch menu, however after looking at the menu, there were only three items that’s more for brunch. There’s no eggs benny 😦 so we got 2 coffees, 1 waffles and 1 croissant.

Alicia got a cappuccino ($4.5) and I got a caffe latte ($4.5)! #foreverdrinkinglatte. The coffee were actually quite good, but then again I’m no coffee connoisseur so probably I can’t really tell whether the coffee is a notch better or not. But we definitely can tell bad coffee and this is not a bad coffee!

Cappuccino and caffe latte

Earl grey caramel waffles ($11.50) seems to be rather unique so we opted for that over the salted caramel one. I’ve tried waffles from Hatter Street and Department of Caffeine, and I think the one at Assembly Coffee is probably one of the better ones. Even though Hatter’s waffles were priced at $8.90, however it was smaller in size and not as thick. DOC’s were pricier at $14 and it’s pretty much the same as Assembly Coffee’s. The earl grey taste was very subtle though, not as strong as I thought it would be. We like that the waffles were thick and crispy. Definitely must try the waffles!!

Earl grey caramel buttermilk waffles

We ordered scrambled eggs croissant ($13.90) since there was the option of ham or smoked salmon and we grew to love smoked salmon ever since the brunch at Prive and had been giving smoked salmon every chance there is. However this was very disappointing. We expected the salmon to be smoked, but it came to us more raw than it was smoked. We couldn’t really bring ourselves to finish it but I did because I had such a big piece initially and almost choked on it. Ali didn’t finish hers though… After this experience, we are saying no to brunch for now. As much as we love smoked salmon, raw salmon just doesn’t sit with us. However if you like raw salmon, maybe this would be a good option for you! The croissant was quite crispy and scrambled eggs were in abundance.

Scrambled eggs croissant

Then off we went to NJC at around 1pm! It’s been many years since I last stepped into this school… Just makes me think back about the good old JC days. Initially we thought there wasn’t much crowd, but we were wrong. It’s quite happening!

$20 tickets!

The experience of a carnival was truly gratifying. It just brings back many wonderful memories. Since most of the games were either $4 or $6, we played 2 of each kind. There’s nothing to be won except for stickers, depending on how many points you get or the booth’s rules. Then take the sticker card and go to the a booth at the canteen there to change for some prizes like tidbits, snacks, candles, watch etc. I think 20 stickers you can get a watch. But anyway we got around 14 stickers but we went to change too late and so we only managed to change it for 6 packets of tidbits and the second time we went, nothing left!! BOOHOO. We played the basketball game, the chopsticks game (Ali’s bro’s booth), using a water spray to push a toy car, and some pokemon tin can game. Didn’t buy any food or souvenirs. There was this charms booth which I was very interested in but they weren’t taking orders anymore 😦 now I feel like making some of my own.

We went to the dunking booth, also by Alicia’s bro’s, but his CCA booth. They were dunking the sc prez for $50 I think. Rather interesting. What if no one paid ah!? Lol it will be damn embarrassing. Anyway they managed to collect $50 but the whole process was very long because no one could aim the ball properly at the dunking machine such that the person will fall into the tank. It was all very good fun though. I feel like a student!!

Anyway it was an enjoyable Saturday! It’s Monday tomorrow but 4 day week yeah! And long weekend but working at an event with Alicia on Sunday! First time working with friends at an event! Cool man. Too bad cannot see yk in his bunny costume. HEHE.

Staycation @ RWS (Part 3)

Sorry for the lack of posts and effort in blogging. As in the previous posts, I’m busy planning for the exchange (sometimes I feel so fed up over it that I don’t want to go already). Don’t get me wrong, I love travelling, I just don’t like to be constrained when travelling/overseas. It’s hard to elaborate further on this constraint thing, well put in a 2 words: TIME AND MONEY.

Anyway today’s post is gonna be about our staycation before National Day! Read the previous posts here and here.

So after the Bailey’s and movie session that night, we went to sleep at 2plus! So much for wanting to stay up right. Fail sia. Honestly I didn’t sleep much, I prefer my own bed! But we woke up at around 8 to 8.30am (thanks to my alarm hehe) and surprisingly everyone woke up too. We went to The Forum for breakfast. Initially we wanted MCD (I think) or toast box but we saw that Ruyi (Basement 1) had breakfast sets so we went there! You can choose either Fish/Chicken Porridge or fried rice and they come with a cup of coffee/tea for $5.50!

Shared the chicken porridge with Rachel, together with peanut toast from toast box. And of course you got to mix all the ingredients in the porridge! Personally I didn’t like the porridge. It’s quite grainy and not the smoother and silkier kind of porridge that I anticipated. Furthermore the chicken taste like it’s leftover from the night before. The tea came in quite a small paper cup. It would be better if it’s refillable. I think for $5.50, it’s not worth it. They do have the non-breakfast menu available as well.

So after not-so-nice breakfast at Ruyi, we went to Starbucks to have some coffee fix! This Starbucks at RWS is different from all other Starbucks in Singapore as it sells coffee that are made from more exotic beans. I thought that it would be quite expensive to have a cup of coffee made from these exotic beans, however, the price range is about the same as a cup of normal Starbucks coffee. I love the vintage feel of the storefront, makes me want to go in and explore! It’s located on the first level at the Forum.

A close up of the menu for the reserve coffee, in case you think I’m kidding you that it’s the same price as normal coffee. I was a little disappointed that they don’t have Kopi Luwak. Kopi Luwak is otherwise known as cat shit coffee, a very direct term for it. But despite the name, the coffee is actually very nice but it’s so expensive! One cup can costs up to $20+ in some countries or even more. But I can never forget the taste of it because it’s so good on its own, even without sugar.

A description of what we ordered. We ordered the Guatemala Finca Los Caballitos, Pour Over type @ $6.50. Difference between pour over and French press? I’m not sure too, pour over as the name suggests, it’s just pouring hot water (of a certain temperature) over a piece of filter paper with the coffee powder on it. French press is like pressing coffee taste out from the powder. So one is press, one is pour.

The barista showing and telling us how she actually made the coffee. It was really nice seeing how she actually make our cup of coffee and she also advised us how we should go about drinking it. She got us to try the first sip before deciding whether we want to add milk accordingly. It was quite bitter so we asked for milk and sugar to taste. The original taste of the coffee tastes like a milder version of black coffee and with a very light tinge of sourness. The barista told us that we’re supposed to taste some lemon but we aren’t coffee connoisseurs so we didn’t really taste that. Anyway after drinking many mouthfuls of it, I think the taste wasn’t too bad! Just add some milk and sugar!

doing the pour over, fascinating that the “cup” has a little hole below for the coffee to drip into the cup

O’Coffee Club!

Finally got to visit wally at coffee club where she’s working at on Saturday! HEHE. I guess I won’t have the chance to go tampines anymore now that school’s starting!

You can’t miss Coffee Club if you’re heading to Tampines 1! Turn right after exiting the gantry at the control station and after walking down the short flight of stairs, to your left is coffee club, located in an open area. I’ve previously tried the tea because I needed some place to sit, but this time it’s visiting wally at work! The best thing is she recommended some good cakes! Some cakes looked nice but she said it’s not that good so we skipped that and went straight for the nicer ones. HEHE.

Initially I wanted 3 cakes, but wally was like “HUH” haha. I guess I will be very full too, because each cake is so rich in flavour! So in the end Yk and I got 2 cakes and a drink! Wally recommended quite a few cakes but I couldn’t make up my mind I just told her to give us two slice of cakes that she thinks are good.

Presenting to you the first cake: Apricot Passion Fruit Heaven ($7.20). This little black fella needs more than just one mouth to be fully appreciated by the taste buds. The first taste of it for me was like, “Weird” because the apricot was a little sour and it made the whole cake just tastes funny. But for every subsequent mouthful, I grew to like it a lot! The sweet and sour taste complement each other.

apricot passion fruit heaven

The second slice of cake that we had was Blackforest Cake ($6.90). It may just be very ordinary to some but this blackforest cake is really quite rich in flavour.

The drink we ordered was Iced Hazelnut Choco Latte ($7.50). Wally actually recommended the blackforest latte but because we had a blackforest cake already, we choose something else. She said the latter was nice because of the rum in the drink. Anyway our hazelnut latte was kind of diluted, and it’s hazelnut because there’s really hazelnuts in the latte. Kind of weird right! I couldn’t taste the hazelnut though. Totally don’t recommend this.

We spent $21 in total after a 15% discount on the coffee club card my sister has. Anyway, thanks wally!

OldTown White Coffee

18 May 2013;
One day after my exam and after the previous night at Coastal Settlement for dinner, impromptu dinner with yk again! He had class on a Saturday and just nice I was out too, so dinner at JP’s OldTown White Coffee because I was craving for asam laksa.

Old Town White Coffee (Jurong Point)
#03-105/106/107/108/109/110/111/112
Jurong Point Shopping Centre

As the name suggests, there’s traditional coffee with toasts and mains like nasi lemak, chicken chop, laksa, curry chicken etc. However, the funny thing was that I couldn’t find set meal of toast, coffee and eggs like Ya Kun -.- so we ordered our coffee and toasts individually.
Note: Plain water costs $0.50, not free.

A just-okay kind of coffee that’s cold? Could use abit more sugar though, or maybe we didn’t stir properly.

Nanyang C Kopi $3.20

Previously we ate at Toast Box (haven’t do the review yet), the curry chicken was not nice. Sad amount of chicken, potato and only rice. But OTWC’s one is different! It has cucumbers, and this cucumber-pineapple-sour-spicy salad and some crackers. Generous amount of 2 chickens parts (thighs probably) and 1-2 potatoes. This was nicer too!! I love curry and laksa! 🙂

The rice part of the curry chicken

Together with the rice, curry chicken! ($8.20)

I actually wrote the serial number of our toast wrongly, and we ended up with steamed bun with butter and peanut butter. I was like OO did we order this??? And then yk said I wrote 20 instead of 02 😦 But quite unique though, I’ve never seen bun coming in those xlb baskets. Anw we ordered the original kaya toast also, but didn’t take photo.

steamed bun with kaya and butter $2.5

Haha I love it! But it’s abit spicy for me, though it’s still very ssssSSSHHHHOOOIIIKKKKKkkkk.

Asam Laksa $6.20

Showing off the bread machine that’s at my house downstairs. YAY no need to go over to the opposite block just to buy bread. I can have bread from downstairs too!!

The Shots Cafe

A few weeks back, we went to the tiong bahru, outram side again.

Guess where’s this???? Haha totally awe-strucked when we walked into this zone that seems like we’re in foreign land. Anyway this is duxton hill! There’s a lot of café-bars around but we skipped them because we were looking for coffee and a slice of cake.

Using foursquare, found out that there’s a Shots café nearby, 10-15mins walk.

The Shots Café
90 Club Street
Opening hours: Mon-Thu: 9am – 9pm, Fri: 10am – 10pm, Sun: 10am – 8pm
http://www.theshotscafe.com/
I would say that the nearest MRT would be Chinatown? Else you can take bus too.
From the MRT, walk in the direction of the iconic Indian temple and across the street, try to spot Eu Yan Seng. Cross the street and take a turn after the traffic light (don’t need to cross road). If you didn’t see Eu Yan Seng across the street, you can continue walking down (the right direction) until you see The Loft Pancakes and Waffles and cross the road.

Interior

we saw a huge coffee maker

We had piccolo latte ($4.80) and a matcha azuki cake ($7.50)! Quite good service, the barista gave us 2 glasses of water! But the coffee and cake were just pretty normal to me. I forgot yk dislike red beans, and the cake had red beans -.- anyway we nearly couldn’t finish the cake, yeah it’s quite a big slice. There weren’t a lot of people around too.

our piccolo latte

what we had

Tampopo

13 April 2013;
Looking for some comfort food for the week like steamboat type and the thought of shabu shabu makes my mouth water. Having been to Tampopo twice, once in 2010 and another time in 2011, the thought of the black pig pork for shabu shabu is so tempting so I had to drag yk to go tampopo with me as we walked past. It’s rather pricey though but worth it. Pricey because one meal per person can easily set you back at around $20, worth it because it makes you so full, yet it’s quality food.

Tampopo
#B2-33 Takashimaya Shopping Centre (Ngee Ann City)
Mon – Sat: 11:30 – 22:30
Sun: 11:00 – 22:30

I had the black pig pork for my shabu shabu instead of the white pig one, idk why but the previous time I came I had black pig as well and it was nice? Anw black pig seems to be a pricier option ($24.90++, there’s a price increase over the years) so I supposed it’s better? Yk had japanese curry chicken cutlet set ($21.90 I think) and it comes with a free one time refill of rice and salad, but only after you’re about to finish then can you ask for the refill.

One major tip for eating shabu shabu; I didn’t realised that the soup can’t be refilled for free and I literally took my own sweet time cooking the meat (it’s quite alot) as well as the other veg. When my soup was half gone, I asked for refill but the person say I must pay additional $2 😦 BOOOOOOOO ya so faster cook your meat. Guess what I did? I poured the warm water from my glass so my pot had more water to cook the meat. I threw in carrots from the shabu shabu and tomatos from yk’s meal to make it have more flavour. DIY soup when there’s no more soup left. Oh, the sauce for the meat was super duper nice! But actually it’s just japanese soy sauce with spring onions.

As for the japanese curry, it’s the bomb!! It’s really quite nice but I think yk keep reserving it for the last until he was damn full, end up he didn’t finish one third of it!! Waste max! The plate of curry with carrots and potatos was small yet rich in flavour! The chicken cutlet came with big shrimps 🙂 which was very nice as well!! Actually the food at tampopo was super worth it because yk told me he was full. A meal that can make him full is worth the price, just like at Everything with fries. Of course it came with a price tag too.

my shabu shabu 🙂

Walked past candylicious after dinner and realised that they have the original Kinder Surprise that no longer sold in Singapore for quite awhile until the recent Easter season where they brought it back with limited quantities! 🙂 but a tad pricey at $10.** for 4.

We wanted to go have some nice art latte coffe kinda thing but Carpenter and Cook was super super crowded despite being located at such a ulu place with very few people randomly walking past. So in the end, we went to mccafe and LP happened to be on shift so I ordered a mochachino (dunno how to spell)! Her skills def improved over the years, she did such beautiful art.

Food Hunting Day (Part II): St Marc Cafe @ Vivocity

Yay finally have the time to continue writing the food hunting day on 12 Jan! Read the post here. PS: We’re going to meet up tomorrow again to eat!! Greedy us!

Anyway we didn’t plan the coffee stop at St Marc (located at Level 1 of vivocity, opposite honeymoon desserts) but we were just kinda tired from walking around vivo and wanted to stop for break of coffee and snacks. Al coffee joints, desserts shops were packed with people and we waited quite awhile before we found seats. I think it’s quite newly opened, it used to be another shop late last year.

We ordered Iced Matcha Latte and Choco Berry Celebration (ice cream – $8.80). The matcha latte was quite disappointing. Not sure if that’s how it’s supposed to taste, but it taste rather diluted to me. So we drank water mostly, which was free and self service near the counter! I like this kind, because don’t have to wait for the person to come and refill for you! 🙂 Ice cream was rather normal though pricey.

Haha, we tried to take a group shot using our front cameras but it didn’t come out so nice though. So the lady next to our table helped us!

How I spent my last day of November

It’s december now!! Yesterday I had quite a nice day…or should I say, lesson learning day?? Shall just start with everything from the beginning!

So.. I had school in the morning and it was the last day of the module and thus the TA only spent 1.5h instead of the 2 that he would said he need and -.- he said it was not relevant for exams but he just wanted us to see it once. And also because some of them had to take a supp so yup we ended pretty early but wt and I just stayed back to study awhile while waiting for the boys to have their lunch!! Then went to find sister to shop!!

Went to raffles place to visit taiwan association (level 10) at chevron house (take exit B from raffles place) to take maps and redeem the free goodies. I didn’t know that since we signed up for tour package we are not entitled to redeem there anymore since the tour agency has already given it to us! Anyway they have different freebies every quarterly, and if they run out of them they will give the mrt card instead. You can visit http://www.easycard.com.tw on where to buy etc but I think the welcome to taiwan webpage has alot of info already. If you’re going free and easy, it would be very advisable to head there to find out more! Bring your confirmation for airtickets and lodging to get the freebie!

I redeemed a Costa Coffee one for one on facebook a few days back and since we’re at chevron house, we went to have a cuppa!!! But the one for one is quite limited, because you can only choose from the christmas drinks and the free drink must be the same! It’s located quite near to the escalator (#01-37), infact it’s just opposite starbucks (oh the irony). So we got two black forest latte for the price of 1!! I remember drinking costa coffee’s christmas drink in guangzhou as well although I guess the standard wasn’t as great as GZ, but the ambience and friendly staff made up for everything. I tend to find costa’s staff more friendly and approachable even though I’ve been only twice, once in sg and once in gz.

After that we headed to buy my lens at funan digitalmall. I searched online for a few shops that were highly spoke of in the photog community. And I narrowed down my choices to 3, Cathay Photo (at Peninsula Plaza), TK Foto Technic and SLR Revolution (both at Funan) but we only headed to Funan, so didn’t get to cathay photo at all. Headed straight to SLR first but was really disappointed because they had the most rave but yet when I entered, no one attended to us and only when my sis approach this guy, he ask what lens I’m looking for and then he told me the price that’s all, I guess that was pretty rude. 😦 Headed to TK Foto after that and we got much better service. We were attended to almost immed and the guy showed us the lens I was looking for and even when we said to consider, he wasn’t pushy at all and when we enquire about dry boxes and cabinets, he gladly explained the pros and cons of each and answered every qns that we asked for. We really learnt alot! Anyway as we proceeded to check for our lens, he asked me to take out my camera so he could check. Sigh, he told me my lens got fungus. I sort of expected it because I don’t put it in dry box or anything but it was still sad to hear it. I don’t think the body has any but the outside was infected as well. I’m a super bad owner. So after this incident, I really really learnt alot and paid a price for it. Anyway they helped me clean abit and said I should go to some cleaning expert and ask for a quote etc if not my lens needs to be dumped because fungus attack is like…end of the world kind of thing if you don’t get it treated immed.

So we got referred to this shop at Aldelphi Centre at B1. The uncle was really friendly and he gave me some tips as to how I need to care for my camera after I get it back. Yep I decided to send it for some chemical washing 😦 this was the heavy price I was talking about. A low 3 figure sum that was not over 200. Because my lens is the basic kit lens. Anyway I got a EF 50mm 1.8 ii. Speaking of which, I didn’t check properly and only realised that there was a dust strand in the lens. Boo hoo 😦 sis is helping me to go down and check if I can change it if not head down to canon service centre because I’ve already registered the warranty. Sigh. My negligence. Thank goodness for sister 🙂

Headed to raffles city shopping centre on a dejected note with no rebel t2i but I know he will be in good hands. Sis wasn’t hungry for dinner so we went to walk around, and went to paper market (B1) which we spent probably an hour in there. They have christmas sale clearance and the papers were going for 10 at 40% off which came up to $11 for 10 pieces for us, not a bad deal. Then was deciding where to have dinner when we walked past soup broth asia and they had a couple set at $20.90 with 2 soups, 1 meat, 1 veg, 2 bowls of rice and one complimentary lemongrass dessert.

The soup portion was huge!!!! Giant glass bowl. Probably 1.5 times of the hawker kind. But the soups were a tad too thick and sweet. I had snow pear with pork ribs and sister had 10 treasures. 10 treasures is probably healthier choice because it has no meat inside and it has mushrooms, lotus roots and alot more!! I saw some people having the cabbage one which didn’t look too bad. And yes you can choose any soup from the menu!! So it was really worth it. We had ginger sliced fish for our meat dish instead of chicken. Overall, it was quite affordable, I wouldn’t say the food is fantastic but also because there weren’t too many people at about 6pm. Anyway I doubt the flavour of the soup is thick because of MSG because we saw that it’s a MSG free kitchen. The soup tasted sweet probably cz of the ingredients, like corn, carrots, pears, orange skin. So it’s like fruits in your soup!

This dessert was really refreshing after the thick soup. The lemongrass smell was really nice!!

My new lens.

Black Friday

Hello! It’s friday. Supposed to be TGIF but things do happen and it’s black friday somemore. Definitely not referring to the american meaning of black friday which kinda means shopping day in the USA one day after thanksgiving. Today we got news that we are supposed to retake stochastic which is ermmm how should I put it, shocking and expected?? As I mentioned earlier in a post, this paper was too easy to be true, felt kinda uneasy doing the paper too and expected them to moderate the grades higher. Did think of the void part we all just thought it wouldn’t be possible since it has never happened? But it did. The exam board decide to void the marks of this exam and alot felt angry. That’s to say, because afterall we did studied extremely hard for it after knowing that signal rep was a goner and then so happy because it’s such an easy paper for stochastic. But as things turned out, it was nothing but air. Angry because we did not ask for such an easy paper like 90% of the paper from past year exam questions, so translated badly, it’s the prof’s fault for setting such a paper and then we have to take the burden of such a consequence.

From my pov, I’m in two minds. I did not did as well as I expected for my signal rep which means for the retake of stochastic I gotta buck up and pull up my socks 😦 gosh. Really gotta do extremely well. I’m okay with the retake because I think it would be a paper where all of us are competing on fair grounds. On the other hand, it’s such a dread to resit the paper when even if he did set a whole new paper I know I will pass. Nevermind, shall just take it as a second chance. Must see things more positively right? If not days will be hard to get by lamenting about this fact. Anyway even if they didn’t void the marks and if I actually did well I wouldn’t feel too happy about such an achievement either. At least I’m seeing it positively if not I’ll be very upset.

I wanted to run today but the weather turned on me and rained badly for the whole afternoon so I was kinda dejected while waiting for yk to end school and told him I’m going off. Just when I boarded the bus bound for clementi, he text me to say he ended sch -.- so we made an extremely impromptu decision to meet at clementi mall for dessert. gosh, instead of exercising, we went to eat -.-!!

And again, we decided on starbucks as I was craving something hot on a cold rainy evening instead of our koi at clementi. hehe. And since I had yet to use my starbucks card, took the chance to redeem my free first drink. heh. Got toffee nut latte! My favourite christmas drink:) I think I drank it in china as well and thought it wasn’t that bad. Usually coffee drinks on christmas menu tend to nicer! We ordred a molten chocolate cake as well. I was telling yk that he’s going to get an extremely bad headache by eating chocolate stuff and he said yes as well -.- tsk!! But he still ate it happily. And we had a hearty chat over coffee and cake 🙂 couldn’t ask for a better evening just talking and eating. hehe. Drank my record number of starbucks this year. I don’t usually drink more than 3 cups but I drank like 5 cups this year? All with yk. HAHA. And thanks to tum asia for giving me the starbucks card also. Starting to love clementi’s starbucks, many seats, not so crowded and wide selection of yummy cakes.