Slog

Ok what’s a slog? Joyfulchicken was the one to come up with this word. Slog is a snack blog but the word gives me the impression of laziness. So you see, I’m going to do a slog today and then feel lazy about doing it and not do it again for a very, very, long time.

Now, you would most probably think that this entry will be all about food but let me tell you something. You’ll see food alright, but it’s food I can’t touch.


This is all I have to last me one month courtesy of my cousin. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Because my wallet definitely can’t buy me all these snacks. Honestly I’ve never been in such a sad condition in my life. Of course I’ve been broke before but I’ll just need to stay home till my wallet is replenished regardless how long it may be. But right now I don’t think I have enough money to last me till the end of the month here.

So right now what I do everyday is scout for the cheapest food I can find. I’ve plunged to that low a level in life. Hahahah. I look at all the other delicious food (they look delicious but remember you can’t always judge a book by its cover, same goes for food) but I can never eat them. I’ve betrayed the food club I belong to. I’ve sinned. Forgive me!

Now I have to make sure my snacks last till the end of the month. I get hungry easily and snacks are an essential part of my life. If I’m at home now, these snacks would have been finished in two weeks. Thanks to my mom too for telling my cuz that I love snacks *teary eyed*

We were so poor when we wanted to buy bathroom slippers we walked around Toa Payoh until we found the cheapest that we could possibly find.


Tweety slippers for S$ 2. Back home, I would never buy Tweety. Ok maybe.

So this is how poor students are like. I wanna go home! Tsk. Anyway, this is one experience money (definitely) cannot buy. I'm gonna tell my niece years later like how my uncle told me his flipping burgers story in UK. Yay. But it's less glamorous though. Tsk.

Just so that this is still a slog, let me share with you another snack that I found good.


Oheya by Oishi. I think I’m starting to be a fan of Oishi.


And here you have barley drink in a can. Never seen barley in a can before in my entire life. Exaggerating huh? It’s true.

There you have it, my slog.

Oishi Sponge Crunch

Nice nice super nice! I can't stop eating! Oishi Sponge Crunch. Mecha mecha oishii desu! They should reward me with more of this for advertising for them :P

How happiness might taste like

I had one of the best dinners on Friday. It was in J.L. Gourmet in Prangin Mall. I was told that they have very nice mushroom soup twice this week so it became a must try. Indeed it was the best! God, what have I been eating all this while?! For the first time in my life, I finished my mushroom soup. I never finish my soup. I have no manners. But this one…it’s the taste of happiness!

For an affordable price of RM 16.90 you get a set meal with a soup, dessert, the main dish, and good service! The soup……the soup…..shit now I’m all hungry.

Genital-ed food?

We were supposed to go for Jollibee but unfortunately it was closed so we ended up in a Chinese restaurant (I think it’s Chinese). I wasn’t too happy with that because it was the third day and I still haven’t tried Jollibee. But good thing we ended up there because...

Check out the menu:

Soup #5 anyone?

And to make things tastier, we saw this in Mall of Asia:

Wanna know how that’s read? I think it’s gonna need another soup #5 to make it even.

Oh and if you're offended, go bury your eyes and your opinions elsewhere. You're not welcomed.

Dunk in 'trash' donut

Dunkin’ Donuts suck. I don’t get why people keep buying from them. Is it coz there is nowhere else they can get donuts in this donut deficient country? I have friends who go crazy over Dunkin’ Donuts. Come on, their donut is so hard if you throw it against a wall, it would make a hole. And if you look into their website, there's this girl saying that America runs on Dunkin'. I don't even wanna imagine.

I remember my first Dunkin’ donut. My friend was all hullabaloos when she saw it so I thought it must be good. WRONG. But I gave it the benefit of the doubt. It was probably my luck to get the wrong ones. The next time when I was with the same friend, again she went hullabaloos, and again, I thought, why not another try? WRONG. My whole box of 6 went into the trash.

Ever since then, I’ve labeled all donuts a no-no. Of course that was until Arthur (the guy who comments here occasionally) made me try Go Nuts Donuts. He’s persistent. But I’m glad he did. It’s nothing like Dunkin’. So people, the problem is actually with Dunkin’.

And when I was as the airport, I tried Mister Donuts. Again, it was nothing like Dunkin’. Confirmed. Dunkin’ is junk. You Dunkin’ fans, I don’t get you.

Yes?No?

O.K?
K.O.

Everything tastes like chicken

I went to a wedding dinner today. One thing good about it is that unlike other weddings, they didn’t play that Elvis song I hate. Instead they had people going up to the stage to sing. Somehow it’s like a trend in their family. When her brother got married they had the same too. Then old drunk uncles would go up to the stage and sing and make funny moves that they’d shoot themselves out of shame if they ever find out.

I wasn’t going to blog about this but something happened and it’s like “Blog!” Wanna know what?

When the appetizers came, my cousin was the first one who took one of the dishes and she said, “Nice chicken.” Then someone said it’s not chicken.

Well, anyway, I didn’t care what she took but the dark coloured gravy dish looks good so I took a piece. And I thought, Hmm nice chicken. But it’s small though. And it’s bony. Well, whatever. Why did someone say it’s not chicken? Oh maybe the brown one is not chicken. So I took the brown one. Hmm. Tastes like chicken too.

“Hey try the frog,” my mom said as she pointed to the first dish I tried.
“Frrr….og???” What the f***! Frog?? But it tastes like chicken! It can’t be. Frogs aren’t supposed to taste nice. Maybe it was the gravy that’s nice. F*** I can’t believe I ate it! I ate its leg! That’s why it’s so god damned bony!

Who the hell serves frog in a wedding!? (by the way, did the title gave it off?)

Hallelujah. Neko graduated from not eating weird stuff. But that doesn’t mean she’s gonna try the duck fetus. Don’t even think about it JC and Arthur.

So that horror made me feel like sharing it with you. I once swore I would never eat a frog, or a dog, or a duck fetus, and anything that’s not a fully grown duck, chicken, or pig. So isn’t it horrifying to be told you just ate a frog? Thank god it wasn’t a dog. I would have exploded there and then.

Enough of that. Here comes the sentimental part. A girl went up to the stage and sang and seeing her made me feel like cutting my hair real short, pack my bags, and sayonara, I’m off to travel across the seas and land. My mom said I was crazy. But really, don’t you ever wish you could leave everything behind and just live a life?

Shit happens

I went for dim sum on Friday night as I said I would, equipped with my camera. You know, for some cam-whoring and stuff and also to show you guys the Har Gau. Before going out I checked the camera to see if it was low on battery. It happens all the time whenever I take it out without charging. But hey, I hardly use it lately so by right it should have enough power to last a few shots at the least. I turned it on and everything was fine, there were no ‘low on battery’ alerts and everything was good to go.

Before the dim sum we went to a concert. After parking the car we saw a nice fountain and thought it’d be a fantastic spot for some cam-whoring. So I took out my camera – I bet you know where this is leading to – turned it on and all I saw was a black screen with the words “Change the battery pack” DAMNIT!!! I didn’t even get to take one single picture! Little did I know, I had used up the portion of what’s left of my camera battery at home while checking if it still had power. DAMNIT!!! Fine. No pictures then. FINE.

The concert was ok but we left in the middle of the last song because Har Gau was more important. It was getting late anyway and my Har Gau won’t wait. No photos to show you guys unfortunately. I hope I can get some of the ones my friend took with the 2MP phone camera ASAP. The Har Gau was below my expectation; I don’t know why it didn’t taste as good as it did the last time. Maybe I had too high of an expectation but whatever it is, the Siu Mai sure was good. That’s the only 2 dim sum names that I know of, so I can’t tell you bout the rest. It didn’t matter because they were the best two anyway, so there’s no point talking bout the others.

And it has been confirmed that Mr. Shit prefers the toilet where I work. The next day I went to work and pooped out all the dim sum there.

I dream of Dim Sum

Actually I dreamt of ice cream last night. Lots of them, with all sorts of flavours you can think of. But I'm not gonna be having ice cream soon though. The last time I had one was the day after the US National Ice Cream Day. Hmm...Why did I dream of it? Is it some kind of a revelation? Eat ice cream or die! Okay... Anyway, back to topic.

I’m going to have dim sum this Friday night! Yay! Can’t wait! And because of that I’m googling for dim sum names. I figured it’s time I learn the names, if I ever think of opening a dim sum shop. Hahah! Yea I know, at first it was a cake and pastry shop, but of course it’s still in my cloud cuckoo land. I’m just greedy. Excessively greedy.

Whenever I go for dim sum I’ll have to point to whatever it is that I want or practice some self-service. This time, I’m gonna practice some showing-off. Bling bling. Yay! I’m gonna read out the names of all my favourites and stun the lady behind the dim sum push-cart. Here I come!

Anyway, this place I’m going to is the only place I know of that sells dim sum at night. The last time I went there, I had Har Gau, which is this (the bottom one):

Picture from Wikipedia. Look at it. The texture, the colour. Don't you just wanna sink your teeth in it?

And I can’t wait to eat it again! It’s got juice flowing out when you bite into it. Of course, any health conscious person would say it’s oil but to me, it’s dim sum juice! Oh my god…the juice…I can’t wait.

Perhaps a Crispy chain reaction now?

I very innocently started a chain reaction of Kit Kat cravings. It went from Rhey to Paolo to…uh…I don’t know who else but when I saw Kit Kat in the supermarket the other day, it reminded me of Rhey. So I bought it! There:

Rhey, I’ll eat it on your behalf. Itadakimasu!

It says International Recipe but I don’t taste the difference. But it wouldn’t be fair for me to say it because the last time I ate Kit Kat was so long ago, I don’t remember how I used to eat it. You break it in two!

I went to the supermarket again today – for some reason my mom didn’t want to stock up food on the day I bought Kit Kat – to get food, of course. Food at home was running really low; I had to survive through this morning just by a packet containing 3 pieces of biscuits. But it was okay, I wasn’t really hungry.

Does that ever happen to you - Not hungry in the morning? It’s so sad. I used to be hungry all the time when I wake up. It’s like a motivation to wake up to a brand new day of food. But after moving here, we’re always low on food, and we have lousy breakfast, and I stop getting hungry in the mornings. It’s so sad. Tsk.

Well anyway, we got a packet of Cadbury 3 in 1 Hot Chocolate Drink. I’ve always wanted it but was too stingy to pay for it, and today I finally convinced my mom to buy :P Dad pays for it anyway. I can’t wait to get hungry tonight so I can have cold chocolate drink! Yay! You’re probably asking why I can’t have it now. The answer is simple. Right now my stomach is having a corrosive acid beach party, digesting away the tomyam mee I just had minutes ago. Ahh…it was bliss.

Of course, besides the cookies and what not, I also got milk. What’s so special about that? Well, this is actually milk with multigrain. That’s what the carton says. I’ve never tried multigrain milk. Have you? It’s short expired so I got two for the price of one. Now I have to finish 2 cartons before 4th August. Good luck. It better not suck.

And finally, I got Crispy for 1 buck! It’s not my favourite but, 1 buck! I can’t remember what else I got. My brains have to concentrate on digesting tomyam mee. It doesn’t matter because they’re all mine! Bwahahahah!

Nuts!

I'm promoting food again :P This time it's groundnuts.

This is one of the best groundnuts I've ever had. It's big, sweet, and good in general. See the thumbs up? But only go for this Ngan Yin Shandong groundnuts though. There's another one with a red packet which I don't remember how it tasted like because the last time I had it was like decades ago. Ask me why! Ask me why! It's not nice. Duh.

And this gold Ngan Yin is also consistent in terms of quality. I'm into the third packet already, actually I finished it already, and all three tasted good. It has ISO xxx standard. :) Not like some of the others where you'll have to depend on your luck to get the good ones.

But there was one abnormal groundnut in my third packet. Look at this:

It's a baby peanut! Groundnut! Ok what's the difference? I'm too lazy to do a search. It doesn't matter so long as they taste good. Can you see it? Here's a clearer one:
I'm yellow! I can also assure you that I'm red inside, not white.

Of course there's also this:

I don't think I've showed you before. I actually had this weeks ago and it looked too nice to not take a picture of it. The taste? So-so lah... Not recommended even on a monthly basis.

Skeletons in the closet

I purposely went to Secret Recipe for their Hi-Fiber Cream Cheese cake. <--Oh looky, free publicity. Here's what wiki said. I’ve been thinking about it since the day my friends and I went there (another branch) where she got hers. I got in and told the girl at the counter I wanted the cake that costs 6.50 per slice (the rest is 5.50 per slice) because I did not know the name. Pointing to the cake, she asked if it was the one I wanted and I said yes. The cake looked like it just arrived because it was a full round cake. She turned around, meddled with something, with me thinking that she was going to turn back around to take the cake, but no, she wrapped everything up with her nice sexy back facing me. Finally she turned back to ask if there was anything else that I wanted. Oh by the way, the last time I went there, there was this other girl who didn’t even ask if I wanted anything else. She went straight to the cash register and punched in the amount, when I actually wanted another slice of cake. Seeing her do that I decided to not give her the business.

So this girl asked if I wanted anything else, and I asked for a Raspberry Cheese cake. I’ve never tried it before and it looked kinda nice so…gluttony got the better of me. She proceeded to take the cake out, slowly cutting it, slowly folding the cake box, slowly putting the cake in, slowly closing the lid, slowly moved around in slothish pace as she listened to her colleagues talk and gave a smile to their lame joke. She then continued to slowly move to the cash register, slowly click whatever she had to click in the computer and finally telling me the amount. I gave her the money and she slowly counted my change. Arghhhhhh!!!!!! By now you should know that she got on my nerves!!!

When I got home, to my horror, I found this.

Ah, bad font color. The hell with it. To save you the effort of straining your eyes to read, I said "All the toppings fell off" by the way.

Mind you, don’t go thinking the cake flew from one side of the car to the other when I made a turn because I had someone to reluctantly hold it.

And they call themselves masters in the cake industry. Well, they’re quite well known for their cakes here.

The nerves of her! How dare she give me a rotten piece of cake! No wonder she looked so secretive, like she did something sinful and was trying to hide it. Hmph. That’s the last time that particular Secret Recipe branch will see me. If you ever go there next time, be sure to ask to have a look at your cake before taking it home.

Rude, slow, secretive workers. I’m gonna have my own cake & pastry shop in the future so cursing their service right now is kinda like bad karma, who knows, I might get a lousy worker for my shop and have others curse at me. But I’m gonna post this anyway. I’m very particular about things I like. They have to be perfect or at least close to perfect. This is just wayyyy NOT. I can get better looking cakes in the stalls by the roadside.

I have yet to find a name for my cake shop but I definitely have found a tagline for it.

The best cakes in town! Be rest assured that we hide no secrets from you!

Guess how much

I have a feeling this place is turning into a food blog. Hahahah! I went out to get snacks today. There was this section in the supermarket which was doing a Japanese and Korean food fair. Yay! Foods imported from those places are usually really expensive and now they’re having 20-50% discount. My mom took a look at the snack that was on a 50% discount and saw that the expiry date was this month. She’s good at that, always looking at expiry dates. And they must be months and months away before they expire or she won’t buy it, even though we’ll eat it straight away, or at least I’ll do it for her. She asked the promoter whether they’re giving discounts because it’s expired. Guess what she said. “No, they printed the dates wrong.” What kind of an answer is that?? A kind where you try to con people into buying lousy goods, or more like ‘bads’.

Damn! I so wanted to buy them. It’s still expensive after discount but without discount it’ll be super expensive. But it’s expired or going to, so in this case I’m standing on my mom’s side. I did get 4 boxes of snacks from that section, ones without discount. And I got Pocky, but it has Thai words printed on one side. I initially took 5 different types but mom intervened. It’s gonna expire soon, yada, yada, yada. Here are the snacks, together with the others that I got.

Guess how much. If you guess right, I’ll treat you to a movie. You are permitted to a +/- 50 cents error. See, I’m being so nice. If it's not geographically convenient, I’ll give you something else. Haven’t thought about that yet. Oh and, all answers must be in by Saturday 10pm.

Terms and conditions apply.

And here’s the answer to Pic: Sex me. About time.

Danger! Inflation!

I ate a lot today (well, yesterday to be exact, hate this in-the-middle-of-the-night thing). I ate and ate when I was working. I ate when I got home from work. I finished a pack of Rocky sticks, the cheaper version of Pocky sticks, and some other stuff I can’t quite recall right now. The food goes down, not up. I don’t remember what I ate.

Then I took a nap and was later woken up by the hoo-has of my cousin’s wife and my auntie who had just visited. I took a bath, realized my mom didn’t cook, and turned hungry again but I couldn’t go out for a snack because my cousin’s wife is a snacker. A big one. I hate it when she comes. If you don’t keep her busy she’ll start rummaging through your fridge and kitchen looking for food. MY food.

So I had to withstand my hunger, oh, you don’t know how torturous it was. It’s like you can hear the snacks calling out to you but you can’t go to them because if you do, you risk sharing it with Miss Big Snacker. I remember once many many years ago when my auntie bought me lots of Ferrero Rocher chocolates only to have her finish like half of it right after we got home! It was like a contest to see who can eat the most Ferrero Rocher in the shortest amount of time. Damn, if my auntie didn’t coerce her home, she never would and my chocolates would never be able to live to see my heavenly fridge. I remember that day. The day I thought I had lots of Ferrero Rocher to myself, but that thought was crushed the instant we got home from the supermarket. I will never let such a scenario happen again. I don’t share food! I bite! Chomp! Chomp! Now, shoo!

Well anyway I ended up having instant noodles for dinner. *pfttt* Supper came and I was hungry again. It was then that I realized. My food stock is finishing. I only have seaweeds, some rice crackers, and…nothing else! Biscuits don’t count. Okay they do but there’s only one type left anyway. It’s almost reaching the danger zone. Oh no! When was the last time I went to bed starved? Three days ago? Four? I can’t go through that again. Go stock up again tomorrow? But this is not a solution! I can’t be doing this every other day. I’ll burn a big hole in my pocket. I need free unlimited supply of good food! Anybody wanna advertise food for free? I don’t accept cash so it can be considered free. All you need to do is send me the food products you wanna advertise. Deal?

Mr. Bean

So I finally went out. After hours of fluctuating moods on whether to go out or not, I finally dashed out when the going-out-mood was at its peak. Thank god I darted out because if I were to take my time, my mood would have taken a plunge. Anyway, to the topic…

Have you ever had the Mr. Bean moment? The times when you feel you just have to look like a suspect? Like when in the bank, you make suspicious moves? Or just simply look suspicious? Heh. I have. Weird eh? I don’t exactly do really suspicious things like reach into my coat as if to pull out a gun or anything. I don’t know what I do. Just look suspicious, I guess. Before you say I’m trying to get the attention of the security guard, mind you, he’s an old man. I’m not interested in old men unless they look like Richard Gere or Junichiro Koizumi.

This Mr. Bean moment applies in shopping malls as well. You know, you act like you’re gonna steal something and… Ho! Ho! You’re not! I think Mr. Bean moments can take place whenever there is a security guard. I wonder why. Maybe it’s because of his nature to suspect people and then he suspects you, so you thought you might just amuse him a little. Maybe.

Like I said, I went out today, to the mall. I got into the department store and something caught my eye. It was sheets of suggestion forms, suggestions made by customers to the department store pinned up on a board. Man, I should have brought my camera. They would make nice blog reads. Anyway, I was happily reading their comments on stinky toilets and very “helpful” chit chatting staffs when the security guard came and stood three feet from me. Ahah! Time for Mr. Bean moments? Nah. As much as I am a Mr. Bean-suspicious-looking type, I’d much avoid a chat with the guard. What’s his problem anyway? Aren’t they there for people to read? Do you have to come look at me as I read? Sheesh!

If I had a camera and if I took it out, I’ll definitely get a chat with him. Hmm. Why can’t we take pictures in shops? Have you ever taken pictures in shops, be it a big or small one, they would come up and tell you not to? Why?

Later I saw some really cool designed water bottles or tumblers as how I would call it when I was small. Tumblers. Tumblers. Now it’s beginning to sound weird. I thought of getting it but there were too many designs I switched to fickle mode. Should I take the one with the brown cover (I’m attracted to brown) or the one with the brown design or the one with some quotes on happiness (I’m obsessed with the word ‘happiness’, its meaning or any other word related to it) or the zen looking black and white one? Oh! I can’t make up my mind! So what happens when you can’t make up your mind? You don’t make one. I left with no water bottle.

But I got myself cheap sushi! Yay! And I got pistachios and Mister Potato too! And of course Kickapoo. I was starting to get dizzy and the only thing that can help me is sweet drinks. And preferably yellow in colour too. Mountain Dew used to do the trick but they don’t sell it anymore. Nobody sells it anymore. I think it’s easier to buy a gun than buy Mountain Dew. Why? Why? Why? Do you know some people might die if they don’t have Mountain Dew? Why? Is it banned? It’s been so long since I’ve had Mountain Dew. I can’t remember how it tastes like. I want some!

Fibre

IKO Oat Calcium Crackers! All the fibre you need!

I was taking the midnight bus and naturally I got hungry. I have to have supper. Thankfully I brought with me some boring biscuits. As I chew into my third packet, I found something really interesting. Real fibres! One long, thick, white fibre! I found it odd at first when I couldn’t bite off the biscuit. Then I realized it was stuck to that white threadlike thing which was stuck in the rest of the biscuit. What’s that fibrous thing I’m trying to bite off?! Yuck! Pui!

Here’s that thing after my first bite. I had to bite around it because that thing sticks to the biscuit.

It was dark in the bus. Really dark. That driver doesn’t know what a sleeping light is. Hope you can make out that fibre. I was really stupid to use my phone’s camera when I had my digital camera right next to me. It would have been much clearer. Oh well.

All two inches of it. The thing you see sticking around it is the remnants of the biscuit.

*cough* *choke* Ugh.