Millions of Apples, Apples for Me

Omg! I can't believe I've spent the entire day trying to get this blog to look right... seriously.. Oh and you know what? Even though I have apples all over the place, I do not eat apples! LOL... There are quite a number of "regular" fruits that I do not eat, these include mangoes, strawberries, cherries, papaya, guava and apples.. I will occasionally eat oranges, grapefruit, and pomelo, but I really prefer eating melons, dragonfruit, chiku, pears (soft ones only), persimmon (again, only soft ones).

Oh but interestingly (or oddly) while I also do not eat carrots, I will drink carrot papaya juice, which to most people is the most disguting juice on earth, but I feel like the carrot and papaya cancel out each other's awful taste giving me a fairly okay tasting juice packed full of vitamins. I will also drink papaya soy bean milkshakes which are apparently equally gross. HAHAHA.

The curse of the golden mouth

so the bf and I worked up the courage to weigh ourselves over the weekend and after several checks of the weighing machine and our weight, we finally resigned to the fact we had been cursed by the golden mouth. yes, its time to cut back on eating escapades or at least watch the desserts. I think having a decent dessert cafe and ice cream parlor nearby is just really not good for our waistlines. AUGH.

What's really funny is that after our dinner last night, we switched on the telly and caught The Truth About Food by chance. What's more, we caught the slimming episode. I swear it's a sign! Anyway here were some of the tips we got from it.

1. The bigger the container the more of it we’ll eat. So do yourself a favour and downsize rather than supersize.


2. Examine your portion sizes carefully - keep the evidence around until you have finished eating.


3. Increase the amount of protein in your meal without increasing the calories.


4. If you can’t cut down on the calories you are consuming, try a bit of NEAT activity:

1. 15 min moderate walking will burn 52 extra kcal.*


2. 15 min hoovering / dusting will burn 38 extra kcal.*


3. 15 min weeding will burn 52 extra kcal.*


4. 15 min moderate car washing will burn 43 extra kcal.*


5. 15 min recreational cycling will burn 45 extra kcal.*

(* Based on a 40 year old female of 5’5" tall who weighs 12st 7lb and is moderately sedentary).

1. If you think eating slow might benefit you: Time yourself eating a meal and then eat the exact same meal at another time, 50% slower. See if you are more satiated afterwards.


2. Eat soup as a starter to your meal and water down soups and casseroles.


3. If you’ve tried lots of diets and still find it difficult keeping off extra weight you could try writing down everything you eat in a food diary. Remember, everything counts - sometimes we forget how many calories we’ve actually consumed throughout the day and a diary may help.

MMM... it's soup diet time.

Ichiban!

Recently brought the mom to Ichiban boshi for dinner at jurong point and was pleasantly surprised the the quality of the food and price range.  An average meal there is about $17 - $25 per pax, quite value for money considering the number of dishes we had.  I ordered the unagi set which was about $25 and it came with a generous helping of unagi, 3 bite size portions of chicken teriyaki, salmon sashimi, mixed veg and prawn tempura, rice, soup and fruits.  Mom ordered the salmon set with chawanmushi and that was about $17 I think.  When you compare it to other similar style places like sakae sushi (yuck!) or suki sushi (bigger yuck!) which may be slightly cheaper, but for the amount of crap you get there, you’re better off skipping the meal anyway.  I’m still horrified that I used to eat at sakae sushi on a regular basis.  Ah, we were all young and stupid and lacking tastebuds once.

The conveyor belt sushi is also quite good.  A friend brought me to the esplanade outlet for lunch that day and I’m not sure if it’s this particular location, but the sashimi was pretty good.  It wasn’t the “taste of the ocean” fresh, but fresh enough. For most of the sashimi anyway.

We also ordered some tuna belly maki, but it was too cold for me to taste anything.  This is even after letting it sit there for a while.  I just could not taste any of the usual oily meaty taste you get from tuna belly, instead, the image of raw mince meat kept coming to my mind as I tried to down the last maki.  My friend had asked me to finish it and I did not want to seem impolite, but really, it was quite a feat getting the ice cold maki down.  I think for higher grade stuff like tuna belly, you still have to go to a sushi place which has more frequent orders.  Not sushi chains like this, however, the overall experience was still okay.  Just avoid things like that and you’ll be okay.

CHOCOLATE OMG CHOCOLATE

As mentioned in my earlier post, I was heading out for another eating escapade. The gfs (yes all 5 of us) met up to celebrate one of the girl's birthday.   We were actually invited by the birthday girl to go clubbing, but we decided to ask her out for dessert instead, seeing as none of us were feeling our clubbing mojo.  The place in question is Laurent Bernard Cafe and Chocolate Bar.   We had the black-forest cake, an after eight souffle, a chocolate souffle and a variety of chocolate drinks.  Verdict? good. Although, strangely, their chocolate souffle was a bit hard on the outside.  This is the second time I've had it and it's like crusty / over crisp on top.  Their regular souffles were okay though.  Strange.  As usual, the staff at this place never fail to amaze me at their lack of service.  Seriously.  We asked for a table of 7 when we reached, requesting to either seat inside or under the shelter and they kept telling us they can only sit 6 at a table inside or they would have to split the group.  Now, if a customer tells you they need a table for 7, its very likely that they are not going to take a table for 6 or to want to split the group.  Also, they apparently did not hear the second half of our sentence which was "we don't mind sitting under shelter", cause there were exactly three tables under the sheltered area, but they seemed blind to those tables. Seriously. We literally had to point the tables out and ask them to set it for us. GRR. but otherwise, the desserts and drinks were pretty good.

Gym Peeves

The thing with having a golden mouth is that dieting becomes almost impossible. I have friends who will say things like “I can’t afford the calories” or go on extreme (and in my opinion, unhealthy) diets such as no carbs etc. I prefer to just sweat it out in my weekly dance class and also at my neighbourhood gym. I also used to go swimming at least once a week, then I got vain and started dyeing my hair and swimming became problematic. I also didnt like swimming on weekends (weekdays were just not possible due to my work schedule) cause the pool would be full of kids on swimming lessons etc.

I really love going to the gym; there’s nothing more encouraging than to see your body progress through the weeks, managing to lift heavier weights, to more reps, and also seeing how much better one’s clothes fitted.

The problem with most gyms is that there are all these annoying idiots who have no clue what they’re doing such as…

The Hoggers
They’ll either be hogging the machines by sitting there “resting”. If you’re resting there for more than a min between your reps, you can jolly well get up and rest somewhere else. In that 5 mins that you were sitting there, I could have gotten some exercise. Or even better, there are those that hog the machines by leaving their towels on the machine and then going off god knows where but the moment you get near the machine, they’ll come tell you they’re using it. It’s really as bad as using tissue packets to reserve seats in food areas.

The Grunters
You can hear this group before you see them. Seriously, they’ll sound like they’re giving birth or something. And here’s the thing, if its too heavy for you, get a lighter weight. I can understand if you do it sometimes, but if you’re grunting through all the reps, its obviously too heavy for you.

The Mr WRONGs
they’ll be using the machines wrongly, having too heavy a weight, grunting AND also, they’re posture is all wrong, and they’re working the wrong muscle group with that machine. These are also likely to have many many accesories on them, such as a gym belt, gloves etc. The most impt thing is to make sure you’re using the weights properly, not how many accessories you have. Use the weight wrongly, and you’re likely to injure and do yourself more harm then good.

The gym bunnies
They come in and do nothing but run on the threadmill / exercycle. I’m all for using these machines, but I think for one to get a good work out, you need to use weights as well as cardio. And also, these are the same group who will hog the cardio machines for an hour if you let them.

I’ve also noticed that most people do not warm up or warm down. An other thing I really don’t get. I think both are key to ensuring your body does not injure itself while working out.

Hmm.. anyway, I need to go get ready for another eating escapade.

St Paddy's Day!

So its St. Paddy's day on sunday and to commemorate it, the daily scoop had an extra stout flavour, which was.. um. interesting. We were actually there for waffles but then the bf told me they had an extra stout flavour and immediately I bounced over to the counter and asked for a taste. It's initially sweet, then you taste the alcohol and then the stout flavour, a bit creamy and salty all the same time. It is really not for the faint hearted.

And so it begins!

How apt! The day I start with this blog, my client takes me out to a wonderful lunch at Thai Village Restaurant . Surprisingly, it was about half filled. This is quite an accomplishment considering we were at the Kallang Leisure Park branch which is like a complete dead zone to any human traffic. She ordered the Braised Superior Sharks Fin with Crab, Fried Tioman Fish, Salt Baked Chicken Drumsticks and Fried Rice with Prawns. This place is known for its sharks-fin and after having a bowl, I can understand why. Unlike the wedding dinner variation where there are only faint slithers of sharks fin, this place gives you an entire piece of thick sharks-fin which requires you to use a pair of chopsticks to tear apart. Yes, ladies and gents, its larger than a mouthful. Its hard to feel compassionate about sharks when sharks-fin tastes this good. heh.

It's hard to eat at this place and not compare it to Jumbo Seafood Waterfront . which is just across the road from this outlet. I'm not sure if it's because they have a different style of cooking, but I prefer their fried rice to the thai restaurant one.   The fried fish was really nothing to shout about, though the chicken dish was fairly decent. The next time I go there, I'll try the fried tang hoon (vermicelli) with crab. I heard that's really good.

Well hello there!

I like to eat good food. A lot. My bf calls me golden mouth cause I seem to spend more on eating than anything else every month. I figured it would be good for me to have a space to write about my eating escapades.

I don't like to take photos of the food I've eaten though, not unless it's really interesting looking or something most people have never seen. I mean, come on, who's never seen common food like steaks and burgers? The only time I’ve done things like that was when I was a tourist and could pretend to be silly about things like that. And also, it’s really kind of hard to describe things which have no local comparison at all.

Anyway, enough rambling.. Here’s to more good eats!