Marks and Spencers' Fruity Oat Porridge for Breakfast

I got these boxes of oats from Marks and Spencer this week. It's a very convenient way to have a nutririous breakfast.

You just have to add water and cook on low heat for about 3 minutes. Stir it constantly to keep it from burning. As it does not contain sugar and is bland on its own, I add a tablespoon of honey. The dried cranberry and blueberry pieces are more sour than sweet.

This is how the Cranberry & Blueberry Porridge looks like uncooked. A beautiful purple color.

This is how it looks like cooked.

And this is the Apple, Sultana & Cinnamon Porridge after cooking.

Lupicia Budou Green Tea from Japan

I got a packet of Lupicia Budou Green Tea during my trip to Japan in January. A blend of Japanese green tea and green grape, it smells like Japanese grape-flavoured bubblegum. The taste however, is very subtle compared to the scent, but that's mostly what Lupicia teas are like. Their Budou Green Tea ranks up there with the Melon Tea in the scent department. It just lifts your spirit by a thousandfold.

Nonya Kueh Making Class

One of the items we learnt to make that day was Rempah Udang (spicy glutinous rice balls).

Frying the extremely spicy filling - grated coconut with a pinch of tumeric powder.


Adding the chillies, shallots, garlic, lemongrass and ginger...


Adding the pounded dried prawns.


Wrapping the glutinous rice balls in banana leaves.


Adding the filling.


Securing with toothpicks.


All done and ready to be grilled in the oven.

Peranakan Shoe Beading Course (Kasut Manek)

These are the materials provided by the trainer. A porcelain saucer for holding the beads, a small pair of foldable scissors, a pack of tiny needles for beading, two huge needles for breaking wrongly placed beads, and beading thread.

The canvas provided by the instructor is harder than regular cross stitch cloth. This is glued to a piece of backing cloth made of cotton which is attached tightly to a frame. We were also given some blue colored practice beads.

There were a few templates for us us to choose from, depending on our gender (yes, males wear beaded shoes too, but sewn by a woman of course), the size of our feet and the type of shoe we wanted (open or close-toed). The chosen template has to be cut out and traced onto the canvas before beading can commence.

I chose for my shoe to be close-toed. Note that if you choose the close-toe option, you would have a larger background area to bead.

The colors were chosen for me by the trainer, and this is how it looks like with the first two flowers completed. Somehow I feel that the colors look like they'd be more suitable for a male than a female. It also bugs me endlessly how the beads look like lego pieces.

You can take a look at my progress here, with the background partially done.

Late Lunch @ PS Cafe

We were back at Dempsey shopping for furniture and decided to go to PS Cafe for lunch. Not being terribly hungry, we shared a sheperd's pie that came with a bowl of pea soup with bits of ham in it. I had never tasted peas as a soup before and found that it tasted weird. The portion for the sheperd's pie was surprisingly small, but there was plenty of minced beef under the mashed potato & cheese gratin to make it real yummy!

We finally ordered the truffle oil-infused shoestring fries and not the regular PS fries. The portion for the shoestring fries however, was surprisingly huge and we had to takeaway the remainder yet again. Although it tasted much better than the ordinary PS fries, it had too little truffle oil and cheese in it to make it unforgettable.