Category Archives: Birthdays

CHRIS’ BIRTHDAY @ THE TASTINGS ROOM

2 April 2012 20 comments

The Tastings Room
6 Raffles Boulevard
Marina Square #01-08
Singapore 039594
PRICE: $$$
RATING: ★★★★-

I’d (incorrectly) thought The Tastings Room was fine-dining, so told Chris to “change into pants” (instead of the shorts he was wearing). But then we found out it was more casual-dining, whoops! The ambiance is much like a bistro, with attentive and friendly service and the soft din of chitter chatter from the diners.

We were here to celebrate Chris’ birthday. It was a pretty quiet one since we don’t really do blow-out birthday celebrations, we never have in our 12-13 years together! Apart from our epic 30th birthday presents to each other, we rare do presents, and it’s good that way way because most of the time, we aren’t really majorly coveting anything and prefer to have a nice meal or a little holiday away instead. Chris is always eager to spend more time together as a family with Hunter, so we spent the day with him instead, and Chris was happy :)

The Tastings Room is actually quite a small restaurant, and it was full, probably due to Restaurant Week that was on at the same time. That said, they were very accommodating to us with a baby, and even remembered that I mentioned it was Chris’ birthday when I made the celebration and stuck a candle in his dessert ;)

The Truffle wild mushroom puree soup was very well received. It wasn’t heavy on the cream, and the soup was chockfull with chunks of mushrooms. The wine was refreshing light, and a great accompaniment to the soup.

Truffle wild mushroom puree soup (Wine: Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2009)

 

Their Rose Sauce Linguini with Salmon was a stunner! I am a sucker for cream-based sauces, so I may be biased. But this one was rich without being too thick, and with a generous helping of salmon chunks. Fortunately, it didn’t give the dish a fishy taste, which can happen with salmon pastas and is a huge turn off.  Only gripe? Could’ve done with 50% more of it ;)

The wine was LUSCIOUS – not too strong a red wine, but very mild and smooth. Pinot Noirs always hit the spot :)

Rose Sauce Linguini with Salmon (Wine: Trinity Hill Hawkes Bay Pinot Noir 2010)

 

The Confit of French duck leg was beautifully flavoured (love the rich gravy reduction) but could have been even more meltingly tender. There was a sizable amount of meat, though I think not enough for adult males that have large appetites. Would’ve been better/more satisfying served with a large dollop of mashed potatoes or something.

Confit of French duck leg

 

I eyed my Tiramisu suspiciously when it arrived because it was in a slice, and I like my tiramisu in a ramekin because they’re usually more moist that way. But I was relieved that theirs was excellent – moist with delicious layers of cream through it. Wish the slice was double the size ;)

This was paired with a stunning Moscato, which was sweet but not too sugary, and a lovely way to end our meal :)

Tiramisu (Wine: Beni di Batasiolo Moscata Spumante)

 

Birthday boy with his Apple flan dessert (sadly, it wasn't very good)

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the love of my life, the best husband I could ever dream of having, and one freakin’ fantastic father :)

 

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HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY AMANDA!!

18 February 2012 6 comments

My little cousin is not so little anymore. She turned 30 years old! She’s just 4 months younger than me, so we have a lot of memories growing up together. She and her older sister are in my earliest of memories.. of us playing ‘cooking’ together, drawing hopscotch patterns at the gazebo (much to my Mum’s horror), making my Dad crawl around the house through our ‘obstacle courses’, playing board games together (I was always the sore loser that would get super-pissed if I lost!), having my bowl of noodles all the time at school.. but only wanting to eat the noodles.. so she would eat all the meat in addition to her own bowl of noodles – haha!,  etc etc etc. Could write pages and pages elaborating on all the little crazy things we did :P

When she married her long-term love and popped out a cute son, I was kind of shocked because… well… she was my little cousin. She’s not meant to be all grown up! But here she is, at 30 years old, happily married, with her own successful company (HELLO Cookyn Inc), and with a very clever little boy. I think many would envy that.

The happy family

 

LOOK AT HIS BIB!!

 

Dad with his 2 favourite boys in the world

 

Hunter, not so convinced with the way his tie was put on..

 

So she invited a couple of us over for her Black Tie in the Backyard birthday bash! Hence why all of us are sporting a black tie with our outfit (I was a NINJA).

There were tables set up, lots of drinks and wine, and we enjoyed the cool evening air whilst chowing down on some fabulous food.

Buzzing around with our drinks

 

The food. YUM!!

 

All of us!

 

A birthday serenade from our famous guitar player ;)

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our little big Mei! Here’s to many more to come :)

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT @ BOTANIC GARDENS

9 February 2012 13 comments

Food For Thought
Tanglin Gate entrance @ Botanic Gardens
1 Cluny Rd, B1-00
Singapore
PRICE: $$
RATING: ★★★★-

I’d heard a lot about Food For Thought and was gagging to go for ages, but never seemed to get round to it! So one day, we finally decided to check it out and since it was around Hunter’s 1st birthday, we invited a few relatives to come join in the fun :)

I LOVE how the cafe is located smack in the Botanic Gardens. Perfect location to sit down for a relaxed meal and cold drink after walking around the gardens. It’s a HUGE space with high ceilings and an industrial look. Ordering is done at the counter, though the food is served at your table. Really appreciated the dispenser of (complimentary) water, and help-yourself condiments. Service is also really friendly and eager to please. Absolutely no complaints about the place, really :)

Inside Food For Thought

 

5 simple thoughts

 

Birthday Boy

 

A family pic :)

 

The food is very reasonably priced and pretty good!! I was expecting either small portions and/or cafeteria-quality food.. so was very impressed that portion sizes were very decent, and the dishes were all lovely. All of us were really pleased with our dishes, especially when they came out swiftly.

I had the Slow roasted bbq baby back pork ribs and was delighted that the pork was really tender. The sauce was flavourful and rich, but not too overpowering (it makes me feel a bit grossed out when ribs are drenched in sauce!). Beautifully done, and I’d get that dish again anytime.

Grilled Barramundi fillet ($20), Garlic prawns and red capsicum linguini ($16), Slow roasted bbq baby back pork ribs ($20), Customized breakfast

 

Pulled pork burger, Grilled Portebello burger ($8)

 

Homemade iced lime tea ($4)

 

I thoroughly enjoyed their desserts. Even better than the mains IMHO! The Pancakes with gula melaka and cream was SO SO GOOD. Lovely fluffy pancakes with that gorgeously lightly-burnt flavour on the outside. The gula melaka was in place of traditional maple syrup and was the Asian-ized twist of the dish.

I also adored the Old southern red velvet cake, particularly because red velvet cake is not that easily found in Singapore. It’s my favourite type of cake, so I always order it whenever I spot it on the menu. Their version here was right up my alley – it was really moist and a bit dense, which I prefer to the dry/spongey version. It had cream cheese frosting layered through it and on top, though I reckon they could forgo the layer in the middle and I’d prefer it even more.. since I prefer cake to frosting! A lovely dessert too. I’d order BOTH these desserts next time I go :P

Pancakes with gula melaka and cream ($10), Old southern red velvet cake ($5)

 

The main attraction of Food For Thought is their children’s playground outside. Hunter’s eyes just about popped when he saw it :P It’s clean, bright-coloured, and just so attractive for kids! He had a blast outside and was delighted a lot of it was catered for his height, so he could troop around the playground all by himself :)

Swooshing down the slide!

 

I guess walking UP the slide is more fun

 

PEEKABOO

 

I SEE YOU!

 

Monkey on the monkey bars

 

Trying (and failing) to climb up the rope ladder

 

Happy boy in the "pwaaay-grnnnnd!" (how he pronounces playground)

 

 

HUNTER’S 1ST BIRTHDAY PARTY: THE NEXT DAY…

1 February 2012 8 comments

We stayed in the ONE°15 Marina Club hotel on the day of Hunter’s 1st birthday party. It made things a LOT easier, as it meant he could have his nap in a nice hotel room, we could put all our stuff there, and not have to pack everything into the car and speed home after the party.

The room was spacious and really lovely. Oddly, the bathroom was as big as the main bedroom?! But no complaints, because we thoroughly enjoyed the sunken bathtub and had a nice soak in there at night. When was the last time we actually ran a bath? I think it was on our honeymoon in the Maldives – yes, THAT long ago!

The hotel room

 

Running a bath with L'occitane green tea bath soaks

 

Breakfast was buffet-style and seated overlooking the harbour and yachts. Such a pretty view and I guess a bit of a novelty since you don’t get this often in Singapore. They had all the standard Western breakfast stuff, which was good, but I thought the Asian fried noodles was the best part – they were SO tasty :D

Hunter had a blast with his own plate of freshly-cooked scrambled eggs, toast, and baked beans. A bit of a treat for him because he rarely gets to eat the food served in restaurants (I fear that I don’t know how it’s cooked, how good/fresh the ingredients are, and all the salt/additives in there). He ate up every single bit ;)

My 1st plate of the buffet breakfast

 

Afterwards, we had a quick dip in the pool again, because Hunter really enjoyed the swim during his birthday party. It was pretty quiet in the morning, so a lovely time for a splash around and chill out. He thoroughly enjoyed it, and so did we :)

In his other spaceship outfit :P

 

Blowing bubbles to amuse my boys

 

Hunter, very pleased to have so much attention

 

"HELL YEAH, I'M ONE YEAR OLD!"

 

Enjoying frolicking around on the pool's chairs

 

Family shot :)

 

Since the club gave us a complimentary birthday cake (banana!), we decided to let Hunter dig in. You know those cute pics of kids with cake smeared all over their faces? Yeah… we never quite got that! Hunter, of course, is definitely not one of those kids that quickly snatches at stuff.

Rather, he eyed the cake veeerrrryyy carefully for a good few mins, and only gingerly reached over for a gentle poke after much encouragement from us. And even then, he only very slowly put it into his mouth for a careful nibble. He did like it though, because he reached over for more! But no matter what, still no mad grab for the cake, let alone stuffing it into his mouth :P

A gentle poke

 

Nom nom nom...

 

We helped Hunter open his birthday presents the next day.. And we were pretty surprised at how awesome they all were – SUPER cute clothes for him, or toys or useful stuff that was right up his alley! I think my friends all have really good taste or something. Or, they know him well :P

He is one very lucky and blessed lil boy!

Delighted with his stack of presents

 

...though I will admit, he was pretty fascinated with the wrapping paper too ;)

 

HUNTER’S 1ST BIRTHDAY PARTY: BEHIND THE SCENES

30 January 2012 13 comments

So here’s how things panned out behind-the-scenes for Hunter’s 1st Birthday Party..

The invitations were the straightforward part.. since it was just a matter of printing out the digital copy and then sticking it onto red cardboard paper. But, boy, was it laborious! So it was done whilst Chris’ parents and brother was here.. because multiple hands really do make it easier than just one set. It was kinda like our family project :P

My main issue was the invitee list. When I added it all up.. I ended up with a little over 30 kids (!!). That was WAY to massive a number because I’d actually thought a party with 10 kids would be the most manageable and appropriate.. so in the end I had to cut down on a ton and invited only kids that Hunter has regular playdates with.. especially favouring those about his age. I still ended up with 15 kids invited, but figured that was a good compromise :)

Hard at work doing our invitations!

 

The digital version of the invite (before it was pasted on to the red backings etc)

 

The thing that required the MOST EFFORT was the birthday banner. We wanted a backdrop to take photos against, and I specifically wanted it navy blue painted with silver. So we bought the material at Spotlight and I painted the words on. It took TEN COATS of paint!!! Just so the silver glitter would stand out easily against the background. It was painted over about 4 days, because each coat had to dry before I could paint the next… zzzz…..

Then afterwards came the process of gluing on the wall decals and little stickers that I bought – all spaceship themed of course. At least that part was easy and quick :P

Waiting for yet another coat of paint to dry, with a nekkid-bum baby getting in on the action

 

The food trays at the party were all labelled with food cards, using spaceship-themed cardboard cutouts. Simple and easy to do, but I thought it brought out the spaceships theme a lil more :)

Spaceship-themed food cards

 

And….. the favour bags. Boy these were fiddly!!!! I guess it’s because I wanted cute ones instead of just standard chuck-stuff-in-and-you’re-done ones. Which, in retrospect, was a bit of a waste of effort as almost all the kids were really young.. so they didn’t appreciate the packaging and the parents opened the bags for them instead :P

I found silver bags with stars on them (perfectly on-theme!) and blue ribbon. I simply folded the top of the bag over, punched holes at the top, and threaded the ribbon through. Attached to the ribbon was a small little silver spaceship charm - which I’d found on eBay and couldn’t resist :P

Then, the folded over flap of the bag was sealed down with a spaceship-themed sticker.. with a little “thank you” message from Hunter.

But OMG.. the wrapping of the bags, threading the ribbon, writing and sticking the stickers etc etc too ages!! I would do it all over again when he’s a few years older and all the kids can appreciate it.. but until then, I will probably do simpler ones ;) Because frankly, only the adults were exclaiming over them and the kids were rather oblivious!

Favour bags

 

You can see the contents above – which was a little noisy-whacker thing (that had “Hunter’s 1st Birthday!” written on it), some snacks, 2 rocket balloons (blow em up and release and they whizz around making a sound), and a little bottle of bubbles.

The bottle of bubbles also took quite a while.. because they came totally plain white. Uhh.. BORING much?! So I got shiny-prism spaceship/stars stickers and stuck them on. I was pretty hell-bent on finding a small bottle of bubbles to pop into the favour bags, cos I know kids LOVE bubbles and it’s perfect for a pool party, no? And happily, the kids enjoyed them. Made the effort worth while!

Spaceship-themed bottles of bubbles

 

Close-up of the ribbon, silver spaceship charm, and sticker

 

The other stuff that was ‘customised’ for the party was the spaceship-themed plates and napkins, and the cupcake stand. All also purchased on eBay :) My original idea was to bake a whole ton of star-shaped cookies, but I couldn’t find star-shaped cookie moulds in time so my cookies were round instead.

Then, the birthday cake. You can see in my previous post that we went with a Pine Garden cake, in triple-chocolate, that I heavily regretted afterwards. But, at least it looked pretty cute! I had it covered in plain chocolate icing.. so that I could put my own birthday candles on it.

The big “1st birthday” candle was purchased from Spotlight, and was placed on the top tier.

The little spaceship-themed candles were placed along the rim of the bottom tier, and are oh soooo cute! They were from eBay too and I nearly died of cuteness when I saw ‘em. Wee lil spaceships, space men, planets, monsters, etc!!! Aieeeee!!!

Originally, I was going to have an edible sign on the top, but I’d ordered it online 2 weeks in advance and it didn’t reach in time :( :( So I ended up with “Happy 1st Birthday Hunter” piped on with white cream instead.

I thought the candles were adorable and I think I like this ‘look’ better than a full spaceship-shaped cake.. because those tend to have pretty dry/boring cake on the inside. Would probably do it again for subsequent birthday parties.. but with a different theme, obviously.

The edible image that was meant to go on top of the cake

 

Birthday cake

 

Singing “Happy Birthday”

Cake cutting!

So there you have it! I guess it doesn’t really seem like that much effort.. but for me it was because I’m not v creative nor am I good with crafting with my own two hands. I’d normally just prefer to pay for it instead :P So I’m proud I decided to make the effort to, since you only get to celebrate your first-born child’s 1st birthday once!

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