It’s the week before Christmas, and we’ve been busy as hell. Aunty Jasmin sure chose a good time to go back! Been doing the housework. It feels like living in Korea all over again… How I hate doing laundry. SIGH.

But it’s been a productive week!

Met with my good friends Max and Zinnia on Monday. First for gym, then for dinner at Saddad’s new kebab place. It’s called EPIKebabs,and the kebabs are amazing! You’ve gotta try the wraps because they toast it till it’s a little crispy, unlike most places. 

EPIKebabs is located on the ground floor of Wilkie Edge! Do check it out if you’re anyway near and need a quick bite. The wraps come in 2 sizes, regular and large. The regular costs $5, not bad considering a Subway wrap costs like $6. Totally unsustainable diet for me!

After the kebabs, we wanted to go for sashimi at Standing Sushi Bar but it started raining and we couldn’t get there without an umbrella. So we headed to Sunshine Plaza instead for dessert, only to discover that the dessert place had closed down! Fortunately, a new place has sprung up. Ok, not so new. It’s been there for about 6 months now, just that I haven’t been to Sunshine in a long while. The ice cream parlor is called Merely Ice Cream and it serves quite a range of interesting ice cream flavours. I chose to have the Bailey’s Coffee, Zinnia had Rum & Raisin and Max had Dark Chocolate.

OMG the Rum was so damn strong. I have to say it’s probably the best rum & raisin ice cream I’ve ever had, but I didn’t order it for myself because I felt like I’d get intoxicated after eating that single scoop. The dark chocolate was really rich too. I think the ice cream at Merely Ice Cream is pretty awesome. They also have very interesting flavours like Gula Pandan, Horlicks Panda (Horlicks + Hello Panda), Red Velvet and their signature, which is the Butterscotch. The butterscotch was amazing! Was tempted to get it but it felt like too much of an indulgence at the time. It has crushed graham pie crust and sea salt, which adds a whole new dimension to it 🙂 I’m having a scoop the next time I go there!

On Wednesday, I finally got to climb Bukit Timah Hill with Cindy. Was probably a mistake wearing my Minimus. They got so muddy from the trek!

I cleaned them up right after reaching home! We spent about 2 hours climbing and trekking, and was starving! Couldn’t wait for Rider’s Cafe, but we were too late for brunch, so we never got to satisfy our eggs benedict craving! We had a really good roast chicken though. It was nice and crisp, tender and moist. YUMS!

The “Almighty” Roast Chicken with Roasted Fingerlings & Broccolini

We’ve gotta go back there for their brunch before school starts man. I really miss the eggs benedict. Although I just had eggs benedict on Thursday when I went out with Ervin for brunch at Pique Nique. Norwegian Benedict to be precise.

Was pretty good! Poached eggs with toasted English muffin, smoked salmon and sour cream with side salad. Ervin and I also shared a Sticky Date Pudding. Have I mentioned how I’ve been craving sticky date for over a year now?!

It’s served warm and with butterscotch and vanilla bean ice cream. It was heavenly. HEAVENLY. If 21 December was Armageddon, I would’ve died a happy woman. HAHA!

Wouldn’t mind visiting Pique Nique again. Their menu looks great and it’s affordable. Unlike The Marmalade Pantry, where Hann Khee, Claire (and her plus one) and I had dinner. I had the Crab Caesar, which was good, but costs $22! GASP.

Well, at least it’s real crab meat. Hahaha! The crab was marinated well too. Ok, it wasn’t a disappointment, but dessert sure was! We heard that The Marmalade Pantry’s cupcakes were good, so we attempted to order 3 interesting ones such as S’mores, William (chocolate + pear), Granny’s Apple (cinnamon apple + cream cheese) and Strawberries & Cream. The waiter told us that there was only Elvis (PB&J) and Cloud Nine (coconut) left. We were soooo sad! When we were ready to order something else, the other waitress who  served us told us that there were other cupcakes available! That waiter is damn blur, honestly. He didn’t even seem to understand what we were saying half the time We managed to get William and Granny’s Apple after all, together with Chocolate Deluxe (which turned out to be a muffin, not a cupcake!).

We thought the Chocolate Deluxe was alright, although it turned out to be a muffin. It kinda reminded us of Sara Lee chocolate pound cake actually. HAH.

Granny’s Apple. The most decent of the lot. The cream cheese frosting was good.

There wasn’t much pear in William. I think they should’ve been more generous with the pear and chocolate and pear make a good pair! Pun not intended.

They don’t even look nice, do they? Oh well… For $4.50 a pop, I didn’t find them any special. I honestly think my muffins and cupcakes are better!

Been shopping for Christmas presents too. I don’t think I enjoy doing that so much anymore. I really spend SO MUCH EFFORT. It’s tiring… I just hope everyone likes their gifts, because I really put in a lot of thought into it.

It’s already Sunday, and I’ve been baking baking baking and cleaning cleaning cleaning the entire day. It’s tiring. Went over to Amma’s house to learn how to make the yummy steamed fruit cake from Godpa. I think I’ve got it down already! And today, I baked some spiced, buttery pecan snowball cookies and pistachio meringues. The first 2 batches of the meringue was a disaster because Mummy insisted that we had beat the egg white and sugar mixture enough! I had to whisk the mixture again after the 2nd batch failed.

See, I got it right. The meringue test was a success. I even put it over my head and it didn’t fall out 🙂

More baking to be done in the morning. OMG, it’s already 2.30am. I feel like I’m still in India… Will blog about my eventful Mumbai trip if I have the time soon!

I can’t wait for Christmas, and my potluck with friends on the 28th! Then soon it’s off to Bangkok too!

Dj gets back tomorrow night! (:  I guess I didn’t realise exactly how much I missed talking to him until he finally managed to message me on Friday.

Goodnight everyone! God bless (: