When you hang out with a group of friends and wanted seafood for dinner, Fish & Co, Manhattan Fish Market, Greenwood Fish Market and even newly-opened Seafood Harvest by Jack’s Place will spring into mind. There is another option actually, introducing Hooked! A quaint little fish restaurant specialising in fusion cuisine, Hooked! creations try to push the boundaries of marine gastronomic expectations to a different level.

While MFM and Fish & Co both specialises in American-style seafood, with its fish & chips, Seafood platter among its signature dishes, Hooked! took the ”healthy” approach by offering more steamed variety of fishes in addition to the fried ones. Actually if you think that MFM and Fish & Co have different variety of seafood, then you are wrong.

Hooked! is the place to be if you want many variety of seafood, from the normal fish & chips, to snappers, groupers, salmons and even to Seabass, and Cod fish. With so many fishes to choose from, the next problem is how do you want the fish to be done? Deep-fried, Barbecued, Pan-grilled, Roasted, Steamed, Pan-seared, Baked, Grilled, you name it they have it. You’ll know when you see the comprehensive and colourful menu, lots of choices to go around, it all depends on how far you want to try.

Read more »

Tucked in a remote place in Clementi Arcade, beside the getting-popular Sunset way is The Daily Scoop. Local ice-cream cafe has been on the rise, think Island Creamery, ice cream chef, haato ice cream gallary, scoopz and a few others.

Read more »

A simple family affair at Sunset way, not the many newly opened restaurants there, but beside there, a coffee shop “zi-char” store. Normal folks like us can’t be eating in restaurants and cafe everyday can we?

Read more »

Most guys know from the get-go whether or not they see potential in a woman. There’s that inner voice that tells you this is someone worth pursuing.

When the first date ends, you’re not even thinking about playing games. You know you want a second date. You wait your standard two days, call to set up that date and get the dreaded voicemail.

You leave a heartfelt message, but after three days it becomes clear this great gal is not calling you back. Where did you go wrong?

Top 10 Turnoff for women
Maybe the answer is to learn the top 10 turnoffs that make great gals wave goodbye. If any of these fictional guys sound like you, it’s time to change your approach.

Greatgal Turnoff #1: Showboat Sammy
Maybe he owns a yacht off the coast of France. Maybe he has a timeshare in the Hamptons. Maybe his annual bonus is bigger than most guys’ salaries. That’s all well and good, but does it really need to be divulged on the first date?

Greatgal Turnoff #2: Messy Melvin
A-list celebrities can pull off the unkempt look. First-daters need to pay attention to shaving, clothing and bad breath. If the guy can’t even put in the effort for a first impression, it doesn’t bode well down the road.

Greatgal Turnoff #3: Rude Ricky
“Where’s our drinks, lady?” If a guy treats the service staff with a lack of respect, a great gal will likely assume he’ll do the same to her someday.

Greatgal Turnoff #4: Cheapie Charlie
There will always be debate about who should pay on a first date. Some guys are traditionalists and want to foot the bill; others expect a 50-50 monetary split. In most cases, offering to pay is the way to go. Let her pick up the tab on a future date.

Greatgal Turnoff #5: Still-Married Michael
Marriage, separation and divorce are pretty cut-and-dry terms. If a guy says he’s separated when he really means he’s cheating on his wife, it’s going to cause trouble. Be honest from the get-go and let the dating chips fall where they may.

Greatgal Turnoff #6: Hands-on Howie
Guys need to read the signals before assuming hand holding, massaging and other touchy-feely activities have the green light.

Greatgal Turnoff #7: Sterotyping Stephen
“Oh, you’re one of those types of women.” Jumping to conclusions about a date from the way she answers one or two questions is a definite mistake. Let the date unfold before making assumptions about someone you just met.

Greatgal Turnoff #8: Distracted David
His cell phone is ringing constantly, he’s popping away from the table every 10 minutes, and he keeps interrupting the conversation flow. First dates require focused attention — that means putting the phone on vibrate, making eye contact and being present.

Greatgal Turnoff #9: All-Business Barry
Some guys are great salesmen or outstanding negotiators. But there’s a time and place for business and a time and place for leisure. Guys who treat first dates like business transactions will never close the deal.

Greatgal Turnoff #10: Nervous Ned
He can’t sit still, he’s banging his fork on the table, and he won’t make eye contact for more than three seconds. Nervous antics are a real turnoff and make a great gal think a guy has something to hide. Work out the nervous kinks before the date starts.

Article by: Jeff Cohen, author of Dating.Inc

” I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine “

Arriving at Binja park, my family walk from the bus stop to Ivin’s, which took around 5min or thereabouts. Ivins is a Peranakan/Nonya restaurant, and although it is located in Binja park off the main Bukit timah road, it was packed to the house when i arrived on a Sat evening.

The dishes Ivins offers are small in servings, but similarly they are cheaper in price. You can normal dishes for vegies, meats, and some other sides at around $4.50 to $6. For fishs, they come in $6.90 to $8, and there are also curry fish heads at $12. Because the servings are all very small, we committed the sin of ordering too many dishes, between the three of us, we ordered 7 dishes, some are good, while some are not. Mayb we are not too familiar with Peranakan food, so we ended up having some dishes which really aren’t to our liking.

Read more »

I know this is kind of over-due, but here goes. Went to Secret Recipe (IMM) with mister Ang like close to one half months ago? Hahaha! But i had cravings for cakes, and at Secret Recipe, they do it good, afforable and it comes in lots of variety.

Pan Grilled Catch of the day with Lobster sauce ($11.50)

Served with french fries, Pan Grilled Catch of the day is prepared with home-made lobster sauce. Frankly speaking, the main reason i choose this dish was because the lobster sauce entices me, and also partly because i want some fishy-stuff. But this dish really disappointed me, mayb it is not bad, but it didn’t really suit my taste. The lobster sauce was nothing special, the fish was not really good. It was kind of bland.

Read more »

After ending our tour, we went back to Paradise hotel, the hotel in Xi Men Ting where we stayed the previous night. My Ah Gu is coming to meet us, his girlfriend is Taiwanese living in Dan Shui, and he fly to Taiwan the previous night. They came to the hotel to find us, and then bring us around Xi Men Ting to walk walk see see : )

This is a big-thing in Taiwan. ???. And this stall is the most famous of them all. One bowl of noodles is around SGD$2, not very expensive you say, but they do it in quantity. Have to go through the long Q just to buy the noodles, what’s more you ask? People literally hold the bowl and eat by the road side. No kidding.

We walk around eating ??, and shop around, didn’t buy much though. The shopping comes much later at night. We also eat Duck Tongue. My first try! Hahah. Feels funny, but then it doesn’t really taste very weird la. After which, night falls and we have to find some place for dinner. The place we are at was Ximen Station, so we decided to go to the next station for our dinner. At first wanted to take cab since its easier, but then we never went on the Taiwan MRT yet, so here we go.

The train station was super crowded, but then it wasn’t really that hard to navigate around. Ximen station is some sort like Singapore City Hall station, the interchange station. So naturally its much more crowded and difficult to move around. But being true-blue Singaporeans, what’s this to us? Hahaha. No problem at all. From our Ximen station, we had to go down one level to take the next line to go to our destination. In Singapore we say ”Keep to your left” correct? But no one does it. One thing i really like about Taiwan MRT is that, everyone really follow the MRT rules, their one is slightly different, they “Keep to their Right”, and they really do. See? Once got people don’t keep to the right, the whole line will jam, and people behind will stare at you. LOL!

We reach the next station and took a 5min walk to this restaurant. Ah gu’s girlfriend suggested this place because she say this is one of the place which serves really local Taiwan porridge.

Hmm.. we had about 7 dishes for this meal, all very cheap dishes like vegies, egg, normal fish. You guess how much the meal cost? SGD$110!! For porridge? What the hell right? But yea, thats how much it cost. It must be the most expensive porridge i ever eaten. *Faint*

We went back to Ximen, but this time we took cab, much faster, and its even cheaper than taking train. Seriously. Shopping time, not much time left man. My rewards were a bag, nike shoe, tie, t-shirts and some others which i forgot. Hahaha! Then we went back to the hotel and chat. But after a while Ah gu is hungry. So together with me and donald, three of us went out and see what we can find. The time was around 11pm already, and this is when the streets become alive. Earlier when we were in the streets of Ximending, the shops are all open, and the street is full of people. Now we go back, the shops are mostly closed, and the street has lots of hawker stalls selling ??.

Something interesting happen while we were buying the salty-chicken. When we made our order, somebody suddenly shouted “police police!!” The stalls all went for cover, but after a while nothing happen, so they all came out again. Then while the hawker is cooking the chicken, the police really came, and all of them scramble for cover. But the funny thing is, the police car drove past them, they hide by the road side, the police can see them, but no action done. Ha! After the police is gone, they came out, and finally we got our chicken.

We went back, finish up the food, they left and we went to sleep. We slept at around 1230am, the flight next day is at 7am, the journey from Taipei to airport is 1 hours, we have to get up at 4am because 2 hours earlier before check-in time. So on the way to the airport we were like falling asleep on the bus.

Thats the end of the Taiwan trip, it was really fun, we got to see many things, and also tasted many of the delicious food in Taiwan. Mayb the next time, same like Shanghai, just book a plane ticket fly there, book hotel free-and-easy. Hahaha! But i do know the next time i go will be with the army next year june-july period, for training of course. It took me very long, almost more than one month to make all the post, but then i was really very busy. Too many photos to upload. A lot of things that happen this few weeks are not updated yet, they will come very fast, all this includes Secret Recipe, Ivins, Daily Scoop, Hooked! Ema Dine, Terra Cafe and Haato 

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” The world is a book, and those who never travel only read a page “

Lunch is @ Dian Shui Lou ???, i believe the restaurant is rather popular, and similar in concept to Singapore Din Tai Feng. Various celebrities have visited the shop before, most notably Liu Yifei and Huang Xiaoming from ”The return of Condor heros.” The highlight for the place is its famous Xiaolongbao. So lets look at the various variety of xiaolongbao the shop offers.

Apparently, i am not very sure of the different type of xiaolongbao. Hahaha! Too many, and they didn’t tell us which is which. So we just keep on pop-ing xiaolongbao into our greedy mouth. I found the fried rice not bad, but the others don’t really like it because they think that the rice is too soft (Taiwan rice is much softer than Thai rice). I believe the main reason is because Singaporeans are much used to the hard thai rice, so eating the soft Taiwan fried rice they find it weird. This is the “official” end of our Taiwan guided tour. The tour guide collect his tips, and from now on its on our own. Free-and-easy. Stay tune

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” The world is my home, i live wherever i go “