Gown Selection

I am finally going for my gown selection tomorrow afternoon at Seletar Broadway. Have to choose a WG and an EG. From my past experiences during gown selection, I look best in a halter, heart-shaped neckline gown. Off shoulder gowns makes me look bigger than I am although it can mask my big arms. Halter gowns can also hide that piece of flesh near the armpit that is the bane of all women's existence.

Heart-shaped gowns flatter my shape but strapless gowns are a big nono as the bust tends to fold over onto itself resulting in creases forming on the gown just below the bustline. Toga's also look good on me so I might be getting a Toga style for my EG. Empire or A line cutting is also a must to hide by big tummy and slim line my body shape. Keeping my fingers crossed that I am able to find the gowns that I like.

Wine Selection for Banquet

What is a dinner banquet (酒席) without alcohol? As my banquet package does not include red wine, and the wine that the restaurant is offering us is on the high side, we have decided to source for our own wine.

I have checked out Carrefour and they have it on 30% consignment basis. Another one is Bottles & Bottles at Parkway Parade. Theirs is also on 30% consignment with minimum $400 spent. Being a complete novice on red wine, we bought a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to try on the recommendation of the sales girl.

We have not opened the bottle yet but I been reading up on red wines this morning and a lot of recommendation is for a German Riesling which is sweet and fruity to be paired with Cantonese cuisine. From what I learnt from the salesgirl, the Carbernet Sauvignon is more full bodied compared to the Merlot which is lighter and fruitier. The Merlot also compliments Peking dishes which features heavier meats like duck and beef. According to this article,

“There are a few wines that will work well paired with Chinese food. They are a medium-dry to lightly sweet Riesling, a Chardonnay, not too oaky, not too dry, and a mild, full-bodied Merlot with just the right amount of acidity. Riesling, Chardonnay and Merlot wines always go well with a variety of foods and are very safe to be among your choices when pairing a wine with Chinese food to enhance the experience.”

Source: http://EzineArticles.com/955731

Since we cannot serve white wine because the Chinese are superstitious as White is associated to death, and Red is associated with Weddings and happy occasions. I believe we will be taking the Merlot after all.

Now Listening to ..

I was blog hopping when I came across this song by Christine Fan which tells of her love story with Blackie.

Been putting this song on repeat and I still get goosebumps everytime I hear this song.

Her lyrics are super meaningful.. And never fails to make me think of J.

范瑋琪 - 最重要的決定 Lyrics

《最重要的決定》

詞:姚若龍 曲:陳小霞

我常在想應該再也找不到

任何人像你對我那麼好

好到我的家人也被照料

我的朋友還為你撐腰

你還是有一堆毛病改不掉

拗起來氣得仙女都跳腳

可是人生完美的事太少

我們不能什麼都想要

你是我最重要的決定

我願意 每天在你身邊甦醒

就連吵架也很過癮 不會冷冰

因為真愛沒有輸贏 只有親密

你是我最重要的決定

我願意 打破對未知的恐懼

就算流淚也能放晴 將心比心

因為幸福沒有捷徑 只有經營

Quote of the day

We did not change as we grew older,

we just became more clearly ourselves.

 ~ Lynn Hall

Our Love Nest Progress 2

I have been following closely the progress of our love nest via forums where forummers periodically upload photos. My block is one of the slower ones at level 5. The fastest one is already going on level 10. Word going ard the forum is that TOP will be 3rd or 4th quarter 2012 up from 1st quarted 2013 which was what HDB told us. I can't wait to get my keys. On the other hand, reno would be another big ticket item which we will have to fork out. Have to scrimp and save ...

Source: bern from Construction of Punggol Residences Album Forum

8 Weeks till our wedding

*Post edited

Things off my To-Do List:

• Mummy's Qipao checked
• MIL's Qipao checked
• Delivery of Bed arranged for 6th May
• Invitations for my friends and colleagues have been done
• 1st batch of invitations have been hand delivered
• Food tasting checked

Now Listening To ..

Bridal Shop

We have finally confirmed our bridal shop with just 2 months to go till our AD. 2 weeks back when I found out that Judy Wedding messed up our order and they promised to send me photos of the WGs and EGs (I have not received any calls or emails from them till date. This is what happens when you have paid full before collecting your items), I decided to have a backup plan since it was too late to MTM a gown with the cheapest contact that I could find previously.

I took a 1/2 day leave and went BS shopping with C. Our first stop was Bluebay at Delphi. Tried on a gown which I totally fell in love with. Super princessy and the Wow factor was there. I was not prepared to fork out another 2K for 2 gowns though. So the next stop we went to was GHA at Marina Square. The lady quoted a price which I was pretty comfortable with for 1 EG, 1 Kua and 1 WG but I still wanted to check out the gowns that they had over the weekend before committing. So I arranged to go down to their outlet at Yishun where they had more selections. Our last stop was at Graceful Image at Tan Quee Lan St. No doubt their gowns were pretty and the designer was very patient but 1 WG already exceeded my budget.

As luck would have it, while I was scanning through the SingaporeBrides forum, there is a section on exchange of BS. Decided to take a look and chanced upon this thread where the guy was looking to sell his comprehensive AD package (w/o PG and VG) from Seletar Braodway at a price much lower than when he bought it and the price happens to be slightly higher than my budget. Decided to head down to SB to check out their gowns and found that the gowns were pretty ok so we decided to buy over the package from the guy if he was able to decrease the price. And guess what? He agreed and we went down to the BS to do the exchange yesterday afternoon. Am a happy girl now cos the package also comes with a Bridal Car (which can be exchanged for $200 off my package if I am not using it) and accessories for me.

One more big item off my To-Do List and I am so looking forward to the day of our AD.

10 weeks till our wedding

And more stuffs off my To-Do List

• Completed re-beading of 姐妹s gift
• Finished sewing sash for 姐妹s
• Sent out first round of SMS-es to guest
• Collected invites
• Prepared 1st draft of AD schedule (to confirm again 1 week before)
• Prepared helpers role

Disappointments

Pardon my lack of posts for the past week. Have not been in the mood to blog as I've been busy looking for a bridal shop for my gowns. Was orginally planning to get the gowns which I have tried from Taiwan but the BS (for those who do not know, my BS is Judy Wedding Taipei) lost my receipt and I do not have a copy of it. Only knew that they did not have any record when I asked them for the umpteen time to take a photo of the gowns for me to refresh my memory on what I have chosen. WTH! Although they said they will take some photos of other gowns for me to choose but seeing and wearing it is different. It might look nice but when I wear it it might be ok only. Giving me problems so close to my wedding day. Super pissed off now. Anyway it has been 5 days since they said they will send the photos to me and previously when they said they will call, they nv call. We have decided to write them off and get another local one asap so I am now scrutinizing the forums for cheap deals and hopefully I will be able to get a BS by next week.. On the bright side, at least they did not screw up my albums..

My Bakes: Banana Bread Pudding

I had a bunch of bananas (which is a common sight at home) that were sitting on my dining table waiting to be eaten. And I had on hand a recipe for Cinnamon Banana Bread Pudding which I had just gotten from Liren @ Kitchen Confidante which I was dying to try out.

I followed the recipe closely but I could not find my cinnamon so I ommited it. I also did not have ramekins and my initial idea of putting them into muffin cups was trashed as the procedure required the ramekins to be half submerged in water.

Dad liked it alot but it was a bit too sweet for my taste. I will try this recipe again if I have stale bread available and replace 1/3 of the condensed milk with skimmed milk instead. I will also use whole slices of bread instead of cutting them so small. The top of the pudding was also charred in some places but that can be easily remedied by baking them foil covered for 40 mins and then without the foil for 20 mins instead of what the procedure called for 30 mins each. Alternatively, I could put it on the lower rack instead.

I only remembered to take a photo after we have dug into the pudding. It might not look appetizing but I assure you that it tastes better than it looks.

The recipe can be found here.

Mask-ed

When I was doing my trial sometime back in January, my MUA commented that the skin around my eyes were pretty dry and my t zone although oily, was flaking.

I know! Oily and Flaking do not go together but then again my skin condition has always been pretty weird. Coupled with my skin being deprived from its usual facial treatments, the condition has gotten worse.

SO .. to ensure that I will be a pretty bride on my wedding day, I have gone out and stocked up on face mask and eye masks. From whitening to firming to hydrating masks. These masks will only be able to last me for less than a month as I intend to be very disciplined in putting on my masks before bed. Gonna stock up on more masks soon..

My Bakes: Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 weeks back I was food blog hopping as usual when I realised that almost all the blogs featured something using Nutella in their recipes. Then I realised that Nutella Day was on 5th Feb. Which explains many nutella recipes. Decided to try out one of the recipes since I still had a jar of Nutella at home. 

The recipe called for Frangelico to be used but I did not have it at home and so I substituted it with vanilla essence instead. Other than that, I followed the recipe which yielded close to 100 cookies. The cookies were crispy and chewy just after baking but after letting it sit for 2 hours, it lost its crispiness and went soft. The granulated sugar gave the cookie its crunchiness and if you dun like ur cookies crunchy, substitute the granulated sugar with castor sugar instead. I felt that the recipe could do with more Nutella though as I could not really taste it. I would cut down on the amount of sugar used too as it was a bit too sweet for my taste. Note that the cookies spread quite alot so make sure that you leave adequte space between each cookies. Alternately, you could stick the batter in the freezer for 10 mins before baking it.

All in all, it was pretty well received when I brought it into the office this morning to share the calories. My colleagues kept coming back for second, third, fourth pieces. 

If you love Nutella, Chocolate chips and Cookies, this recipe is for you.

Recipe from Erin's Food Files.  Please pardon my amateur food photography skills.

Gifts for my 姐妹s

I was thinking of what to get as gifts for my 姐妹s when I chanced upon these on Gmarket. They were pretty cheap but I did not like the original beads that came with it. When I showed my mum, she also commented that the beads looked small. So I decided to do a bit of DIY and bought some beads of the sizes that I wanted, a reel of fishing line and Voila! My own semi-DIY-ed gifts for my 姐妹s. I also bought one for myself and rebead-ed it with grey pearls instead. Rather then run of the mill corsages, they will be wearing these pretty babies instead!

Super love these bracelets. I hope my girls like it too!

12 weeks till our wedding

Things off my To-Do List

• Chosen the design of our invites.
• Rekke-ed the bakery for the cakes to be sent for 过大礼.
• Arranged the date for food tasting - 19 March

Good progress so far. Every week do a little and very soon it will be our big day ..

元宵节

And today marks the end of the celebrations of the lunar new year. Don't know why, but I am feeling pretty down that the celebrations are coming to an end. Maybe because there is no more public holidays until April 22 which is more than 2 months away and there is no motivation at work. Maybe it because the end of the CNY celebrations means that I have to start intensively preparing for my wedding in May. Maybe because this year is the last year I will be having reunion dinner at my parents place on the eve of CNY.. Maybe its a combination of all this factors and more? I'll stop my nonsensical whining here before you guys, whoever you are, starts boycotting my blog because of my incessant whining and complaints.

I was googling Yuan Xiao Jie online and found out that 元宵节 is also known as Lantern Festival. In all my 20+ years, I have always thought that Lantern festival is the Mid Autumn Festival where we eat mooncakes, drink chinese tea, light lanterns and play with candles. Apparently, during 元宵节 children also carry paper lanterns and try to solve riddles on the lanterns. Instead of eating mooncakes, on this day, glutinous rice balls (元宵 or more commonly known as 汤圆)are eaten. Families also gather together on this day and enjoy a family reunion. One thing I got right all these years is that 元宵节 is also known as the chinese valentines day.

For more information on 元宵节, read here.

Of Love & Chocolates

 A very overdued post. On New Years Eve, after celebrating my sis and Wendy's birthday, J brought me down to Mohd Sultan in search of some place where we could just sit and chill out. We were pleasantly surprised when we chanced upon a bar that was vastly different from those that dot the clubbing belt. This bar was family friendly and not overly noisy. I was nursing a mild headache which was fast threatening to turn our date into a disaster so I suggested that we try out the Laurent Cafe & Chocolate Bar.

Pardon me for the poor quality iPhone pics.

I ordered their signature Gran Cova hot chocolate while J ordered his usual Earl Grey Tea. The hot cocolate was wonderful. Not overly sweet but the portion was quite little for the price I paid. We wanted to try their souffle which seemed like a hot favourite amoung the patrons. Almost every table ordered one. But we were too full from the dinner so we gave it a miss. We did go back on the second day of CNY to try it though. The sourness of the raspberry sorbet was perfectly married with the bitterness of the chocolate. It would be too Jelat for 1 person though. You could tell how that it was good when a non-dessert person like J polished off 1/2 of the souffle.

Laurent Cafe & Chocolate Bar can be found at

#01-11, 80 Mohamad Sultan Road S(239013),

The Pier @ Robertson, Robertson Quay

Tel: 6235 9007

Freshness Burger

Was at Nex with hubby on Sat and we decided to settle for Freshness Burger after hearing much raves about this new eatery. I find the concept similar to that of Mos burger. Between the 2 of us, we ordered a Fish burger, Chicken nuggets and a Teriyaki Chicken burger set which came with a small coke and cut potatoes.

This was my first visit there and it would be my last one too. The meal left much to be desired and I would personally stick to Mos Burger. To summarise, the coke was flat and not cold. The bun was dry and slightly hard. The meat was small. Their only saving grace was that they had a variety of condiments and fresh flowers on all the tables.

Our Valentine's Dinner

J picked me up from work and we had a simple dinner of Tom Yum Soup, Sambal Kangkong, Spring Rolls, Deep Fried pork with Garlic and my all time favourite Thai Iced Tea for dinner. Though simple, it was wonderful just spending quality time with the one I love.