Dessert @ Blackball

Hey lovelies! 

Here's introducing you all to my newest favourite dessert stop: Blackball! Tried Blackball @ Tampines 1 upon recommendation and it has left me craving for more (in fact, I had another serving of dessert immediately after my first). Originating from Taiwan, Blackball was founded in 2006 and has already expanded to several countries within such short a time, claiming to be the No. 1 grass jelly dessert in Taiwan. 

Blackball from Taiwan

I ordered their signature Blackball Signature Dessert which consists of a base and the following toppings: Grass Jelly, Yam Q, Golden Sweet Potato, Taro Balls, Sweet Potato Balls, Red Bean and Peals, which is quite plentiful.  The serving was quite large too! 

Blackball Signature Dessert ($5.40)

Each Blackball dessert comes with a creamer too! 

I really liked their grass jelly, which is neither the excessively squishy or slippery type. Hmm how do I put it in words... it's just firm enough to be sliced with the spoon, and it tastes quite natural, not the artifically sweetened type, and it has a tinge of herbal taste to it, something like the herbal jelly topping at GongCha. And it I mention it feels really good savouring the grass jelly? I really liked their red bean too, though I wouldn't be that sure about the taro and sweet potato balls, not exactly a fan of such sticky thick textured food. It has the texture of tangyuan in my opinion. 

Featuring their signature grass jelly

I like their interesting customization of being able to select the base and the temperature of the dessert, considering people have different preferences. I chose their 'icy; option, which consist of grass jelly shaved ice. For more abundance of grass jelly, I would recommend their 'warm' or 'cold' base, which is made up of grass jelly. 

Besides desserts, Blackball offers drinks of many types too! Check out their menu! 

After their Blackball Signature Dessert, I simply could not resist and bought another serving, this time, opting for the more personalised option: select own base and choose toppings. This would be definitely a more customized option to better suit our unique taste buds. This time, I chose their 'cold' base and topped it with red bean. The total cost $3.60, quite comparable to frozen yogurt prices.

No picture as the dessert vanished quickly with time. 

Pretty!

Refreshing, unique, quite an authentic taste from Taiwan. Really satisfying stop at Blackball. Savour goodness in a bowl!

Sushi Express @ Tampines 1

Had the opportunity to dine at Sushi Express today,  @ Tampines 1. To begin with, the 40-minute per table concept was quite intriguing, though it is a common concept in many sushi places in Japan. Such is a win-win solution in my opinion as it ensures a fast queue for customers and yet allows for the cost to be kept low. Surprisingly, we were quickly led to our seats within 5 minutes or so, and not surprisingly, it was full house, as it was the lunch period. 

Sushi Express @ Tampines 1

Yes, each diner is limited to 40 minutes! Spells of some mad hectic food race doesn't it? 

The first plate I grabbed was actually a blueberry cheesecake, since it was the first dish that I saw, and oddly I had the mentality of *Yes! 40 minutes of mad eating leggo!* and grabbed the first place that caught my eye. Didn't manage to snap a picture of the cheesecake, did I mention I was in a food frenzy?! The cake was pretty pleasant for its humble price of $1.50 and it was quite a good appetizer hehe. It tasted a tad sweet and slightly lacked the cheesy touch to it. Also, the base was a tad hard and all that they had were plastic spoons, so it wasn't exactly easy to slice the cake, especially the base. 

Notice the row of green stuff? Yes, they are teabags! Free flow of Japanese Green Tea! :D 

All these for $1.50 per plate!

At first glace there may seem to be a wide array of food choices, the choices are actually rather limited. After a while, the sushi-display on the conveyor belt seems rather repetitive and repetitive. The sushi does taste rather decent, a much tastier version of the supermarket sushi, at a much better price! Besides sushi, Sushi Express also offers japanese-stlye desserts, namely their mochi, pudding, jelly and a few others. I've personally tried their pudding and the portion was appropriate, though I did not exactly like the taste of cream milk personally, hence it was not that appetizing a dessert. 

Occasionally there is a need to wait for new choices of sushi, and fortunately, being seated at the end of the conveyor belt nearer to the chef means we get to have the newer picks, and of these includes sashimi amongst the other Japanese delicacies! Though we had to sort of wait for the sashimi to be out, it was rather worth it! The sashimi was rather fresh and quite worth it for its light pricetag of $1.50! Another dish that is really worthy of its price is their scallops! 

Really large and fresh scallops topped with their in-house sauce! 

Generally a satisfactory meal, and many a times, the price offsets the taste, though many a time, the taste supersedes its price. The total bill added up to about 30 bucks for 2 adults and 1 kid, inclu service charge and GST. In all, I was pleasantly surprised yet delighted! 

And they do have a little corner featuring little japanese snacks and tea too! 

lunch @ Eighteen Chefs

Had a girls' date today (<3) (plus impromptu movie which I'll write another post on ) and had the chance to try out Eighteen Chef @ Serangoon NEX. For starters, Eighteen Chef is a chain restaurant founded by ex-convict Benny Se Teo in 2007 targeted mainly at youths and has rapidly extended to five branches island-wide. 

Prior to my visit, I've heard plenty about Eighteen Chefs, mainly through friends and what left a strong impression on me was  the concept  this restaurant was based. As it wasn't the lunch hour when we arrived, we were quickly led to our table. Eighteen Chef offers student meals at a reasonable price of $6 for a main: either pasta or cheese-baked rice, an iced lemon tea and an ice-cream as desert. For such a meal, the price is considered reasonable and worthy. 

Eighteen Chefs also employs a refreshing approach of ordering their mains, having the 'Be Your Own Chef' menu, somewhat like Subway, one can simply customize their pasta/ baked rice according to the choice of base, sauces, main ingredients and add-ons, which may incur additional cost. They have a wide selection of sauces, ingredients etc. which allows for many combinations of pasta/baked rice. 

So customizable!  

I ordered their Chicken Sausage Pasta in Spicy Tomato and was quite impressed at how short a time the dish was served! In fact my order took about ten minutes or so, as compared to the baked rice, which took about fifteen minutes, though it's still relatively fast as compared to other restaurants. And go check out their baked rice too, quite an interesting concept there! 

Chicken Sausage Pasta in Spicy Tomato Sauce

I was impressed at how short a time it took for the pasta to be served, considering it is a customized order. And the portion was quite large, though the 'main ingredient' was a tad scarce, not? 

The sauce was rather refreshing, a tomato-base sauce with a tinge of spicy-ness and a garlic after-taste (quite reminiscent of McDonald's garlic chili sauce). Rich, creamy and full of flavour, quite a delightful sauce. I personally felt it is simply a spicy version of their Tangy Tomato sauce, and the addition of chili indeed adds a twist to the taste. The chicken sausage was however pretty average, though it tasted better than it looked. The pasta was however not of my taste, being slightly too thick and chunky for my liking, quite flour-ish and doughy.  Perhaps having a personalised pasta-choice option would greatly spice up and complete their 'personalised pasta' look and add brownie points to their attractiveness. Nevertheless, the sauce was a winner and as evident from the picture, there was abundant sauce and the pasta was practically bathing in sauce! Not the perfect analogy, but you get my point :) In other words, the sauce made this pasta enjoyable and scrumptious. 

With good ambiance and service, great food and  great company, the whole dining process at Eighteen Chef was a great enjoyment, and all these came at a reasonable price tag! And did I mention, there's no service charge??! Yes!! I would give it a 4/5 considering their service, their privileges offered to the youth (Special Student Meal Price and also $2 off for non-student meals), and also the overall ambiance and decor. Taste-wise, perhaps a 3/5. 

A great option for youths and families! 

a trip to town

Hey there! 

Went to town today to buy a new wallet. Stopped by Ya-Kun kaya toast at Ang Mo Kio MRT (yup they recently opened a new outlet at AMK mrt! Convenience added!) and tried out their laksa. Quite worthy of its price as the portion was relatively large and the soup was really thick and flavorsome,with a rich fragrance of the coconut milk perfectly balanced with the presence of the added spices (there were some branch-looking spice in the soup). 

Laksa at Ya Kun Kaya Toast ($5.50). Quite good! 

For now til Nov 30, Ya Kun Kaya Toast @ AMK mrt offers a complimentary  coffee/tea  for every meal ordered from the Asian Delights menu! I added on two pieces of kaya butter toast later on. 

Later we went on to ION Orchard  and I took the chance to take some photos, honing my photography skills yo! 

A couple of shots that I took during the shopping trip: 

wow! 

Really realistic miniatures! 

Really loving the assorted colourful TWG pots ^^

my attempt at macro-photography

Loving the little christmas-themed styrofoam balls, really adds the gold-ish christmas warmth to it^^

my feeble attempt at an artistic shot :p

in perspective. 

whoops, incomplete shot! 

another attempt at being artsy fartsy~

yet another one too~

Visited TWG Tea Salon & Boutique @ ION Orchard and ordered their mini tea set. Tried out their signature 1837 White Tea (T6031) and White House Tea (T6042) upon recommendation since we preferred light tea and I really like the fragrance of the tea. The White House Tea in particular had this fruity flowing fragrance, somewhat that of strawberries, which was pleasant to the taste. Really like how the aromatic tea complemented well with the mini pastries and the chocolate truffle was exceptional! Neither too sweet or thick. And the cake was not too dry too. Lol at the way I'm describing food here, especially high tea, it's not my specialty you see but I'm working on it. 
Here's some pictures of what I tried at the TWG Tea Salon:

The chocolate truffle was as good as it look! 

My first time trying high tea at TWG and I can just perhaps understand why TaiTais must have liked it so much. Imagine chitchatting at such a posh place, where the ambiance is so good, gorgeous decor and finishing, and everything's so comfy and warm, and let's not forget the quality service of their friendly staff. Rather costly though, the mini tea set costs $35 and with an add-on of another pot of tea ($11) and with service charge and GST and whatnot, the bill easily added up to about $60. However with such a great price comes great quality so it was quite worthy of the price. In fact I felt the whole high-tea experience rather therapeutic, sipping tea after tasting the chocolate truffle, the comfy cushioned chair, the warm lighting, I was nearly dozing off! 

Really artistic piece imo. Love the expression of the guy here! 

And back to the wallet that I mentioned in the beginning, in the end, my mom got a gorgeous blue oblong wallet. Didnt't take a picture of it but I'll try take a photo of it soon! I think the candy bags are really cute! 

Had a long day today! Life's really spicing up since it's the hols now :) Hope you guys are having a great time too! 

Tata for now;)

Love, 

Vivienne

Finally!

Finally!

Finally, after many days of waiting, my camera finally arrived safely from Japan. Ordered my camera, a Olympus epl 5 from Amazon Japan, and ordered it via handler JShopper. Well the customer service provided was rather prompt, though they took some while to reply to emails due to their working hours (10-5pm), and they had some delay in shipping due to them encountering processing delays but that's not the point! It was shipped from Osaka to Hong Kong via DHL, and went back to Osaka AGAIN after one or two days, with the reason owing to the lithium battery unattached to the camera (safety issues I can understand). And after much hassle, having to call up DHL and then JShopper subsequently, the whole package was finally shipped directly from Japan to Singapore! The whole process, from ordering to it arriving, took about 17 days, and  it came safely intact and all! JShopper wrapped the parcel nicely in bubble wrap, which is much appreciated. Though one thing to note is  since it's shipped from Japan, everything's in Japanese! From the instruction manual to the camera language settings and the lens-introduction booklet. However fret not as the language settings can be easily changed. 

Overall quite a satisfying purchase, and the shipping and processing would have been faster if not for the processing delays and time wasted in shipping to and fro Japan. Really loving my new camera though it can be quite heavy. 

Cheers, 

Vivienne