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Room

Nice, but could’ve been a bit more well-maintained. Eg. some of the furniture were slightly chipped, the timber floor had lots of scratches and we found one or two stains on the bedsheet. The room was pretty big though…enough to fit a four poster bed and a sofa with room to spare!

All the rooms faced the main road, making it quite noisy when lorries and cars rumbled past at night…so light sleepers, be warned!

Food

The package included breakfast, lunch and dinner…and oh boy, did we eat!

The food is good but not fantastic. Some hits and misses - hubby ordered beef cheeks the first night and it came out to be a little bit tough, and both my mains on the two nights were so-so only.

The dishes that stood out were the truffle eggs with smoked salmon (very generous with the salmon given that it’s only an appetizer), tomato soup (hot and tangy), cod fish (Asian style, very nice!), club sandwich (the bread was thin and nicely toasted).

Portions are pretty generous - for breakfast, you get a bread basket, cereals, fruit juice, and three choices from the hot menu (one selection is more than enough to fill you up, and they have choices such as pancakes, waffles, sausages + toast + eggs + bacon).

For lunch, you get to select any two dishes from the menu, so it’s up to you to decide whether you want to go for the appetizers, soup, mains or just indulge in dessert… And finally, for dinner, it’s any three dishes from the menu.

Considering that the full meal package just costs RM200 more than the room only package, it’s pretty good value for money!

Weather
Lovely! Nice and chilly and cloudy!

What we did there

We slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, read magazines till lunch time, walked down to tea room for lunch, drove out to explore the area (and those of you who have been to Cameron Highlands know that there’s not much to see!), napped, enjoyed our 3 course dinner, went to the night market, watched telly…a very very relaxing holiday indeed!

More photos here!

Despite just having gone back to work for two days after my 1.5 weeks of (medical) rest, I already feel exhausted and am so happy that the weekend’s here! I’m off on Monday and Tuesday, so with the Hari Raya hols on Wednesday and Thursday, next week is just a one-day work week for me, how absolutely perfect!

Hubby booked a 3D/2N package at Cameron Highlands Resort and we’ll be there from Saturday till Monday. We’re calling this our ‘last’ vacation for the next 1.5 years…

We plan to take a leisurely drive to Ipoh tomorrow, and probably stop by at ISC for lunch (mmm…yummy chicken sandwiches!) before continuing our drive up to Camerons. I do hope the roads will still be clear as I don’t fancy getting stuck in a jam with a bursting bladder like last time!

Since this is supposed to be a relaxing holiday as I’ve just recovered from being ill, I’m planning to bring season 3 & 4 of Grey’s Anatomy along (note to self…bring the laptop and cables in case the room doesn’t have a DVD player!) to keep me company. The package also includes meals (yes, breakfast, lunch AND dinner), so looks like we’ll be doing alot of vegetating at the hotel…

I do hope the weather is good and the skies are nice and clear as I also plan to bring along my camera to take photos. I’m really hoping that I get the chance to take some nice photos with hubby since my belly is now showing (yay!), plus the picturesque hotel grounds will make a lovely backdrop…so the tripod and remote trigger are definitely coming along with us too!

Can’t wait, can’t wait!

Have a great weekend, people!

I just realized I never wrote a post about our trip to Singapore 2 weekends ago! We were initially supposed to go in early July to attend a friend’s wedding, but had to postpone the trip due to the bleeding episode. Luckily, the hotel allowed us to change the dates of our booking and we pushed the trip back by a month.

As with our previous trip to Singapore back in May last year, we stayed at Royal Plaza on Scotts. It’s conveniently located at the Orchard-Scotts crossroads, within walking distance to the MRT, Wheelock, Taka, Shaw Centre, Paragon. A plus point is that it’s a smoke-free hotel. The rooms aren’t spanking brand new despite undergoing some renovations about 2 years ago (if I remember correctly), but it’s quite spacious plus there’s free broadband and drinks from the minibar.

Timing of the trip was pretty good as I’d just crossed over into the second trimester, and the nausea that plagued me for the past few weeks was slowly but surely disappearing. My appetite while we were in Singapore was at an all time high…I felt like I could eat anything! However, unlike earlier trips, we didn’t make plans to try any new places as I wasn’t sure if I would feel up to it. As it is, we revisited some oldies but goodies: Sun and Moon @ Wheelock, Marmalade Pantry @ Palais Renaissance, Chatterbox @ Meritus Mandarin (the super-ex chicken rice place), Tony Romas, the Muddy Mud Pie @ Coffee Club…and stumbled upon some new ones:

1. Canelé Pâtisserie @ Shaw Centre - this branch probably opened within the last year or so as we didn’t see it during our May07 trip. I’ve never eaten in the one at Paragon, but Friday’s shopping left me feeling very peckish in the evening, and I nipped down for a bowl of mushroom soup which turned out to be rather yummy!

2. Cedele @ Wheelock which is situated right next to Sun & Moon - We had breakfast there one day, and it was good! I had Caramelised Banana Pancake with Orange Butter & Maple Syrup…you know it’s going to be a good day when brekkie sounds and tastes delicious! I really want to go back there one day to try their soups and mains.

3. La Strada @ Shaw Centre - among the few places we tried, I’d expected this to be the best, but it was sadly disappointing. Hubby’s cod fish was not cooked in the middle, the menu wasn’t all too exciting…we both just had a main course each and left without even trying their desserts.

4. McDonalds - haha…yes, I know we have McDonalds in Malaysia, but what we don’t have are the super awesome fried chicken wings that the McDonalds in Singapore has! It’s crispy, succulent and slightly spicy and oh so good as a late night snack!

5. Bistro Petit Salut @ Chip Bee Gardens - we went to Chip Bee Gardens because I wanted to stock up on chocolates from Shermay’s Cooking School. We ended up having the 3-course set lunch at this restaurant, and maybe we lucked out in choosing the restaurant (there are quite a few to choose from) coz the food was delish! Hubby had (and I’m quoting directly from their website) 1/2 dozen baked escargots with cherry tomatoes and garlic butter, oven-roasted chicken leg confit with wild mushroom cream sauce and gratin potato and choux buns with vanilla ice cream, warm chocolate sauce and sliced almonds, while I had the vine ripened tomato salad with basil, parsley, balsamic and olive oil (very refreshing and tangy), Provencal-styled slow braised pork ribs in tomato and white wine, gratinated in mixed herbs (very nice, tasted like goulash!) and mixed tropical fruits crumble infused with vanilla beans (piping hot and a perfect end to a light lunch). Best of all, each set only cost around $25++! Granted, the portions were not huge, but it was just right for us as we wanted something nice and light.

Shopping wise…well, hubby made a trip to Funan sans moi and came back with a whole load of little goodies, like these X-mini speakers. It’s quite a funny coincidence coz I’ve been wanting to buy it for ages (god knows why, it’s not like I need ‘em, but it’s just so cute!) but never mentioned it once to hubby, so I had quite a good laugh when I saw that he bought one on his own! Take a look, isn’t it cute?? Packs a punch too! Hubby bought the black one, but I think the one in red is even nicer…

He also bought me a shocking pink Speck MacBook cover that I could never seem to find in Malaysia…

As for myself, I stocked up on chocolates and finally bought the Microplane grater that I’ve been lusting after for ages! Ya, I know…not very exciting… Oh oh, and I found an orange cutter in Tangs! It cuts the orange into segments and separates it from the skin…how cool is that? Well, I used it when we got back to KL and while it does work, it leaves an awful lot of the orange still stuck to the skin which is extremely wasteful. Luckily, it doubles up as a juicer…haha…so that’s what I’ve been using it for since!

The bulk of our shopping, however, consisted of baby stuff! We bought the Quinny stroller & MaxiCosi infant car seat from Baby Avenue (thanks to Sherl’s recommendation!), the Medela breast pump from The First Few Years @ Paragon as well as the Pigeon bottle sterilizer @ Taka’s baby fair. Oooo…the baby fair! Lots of items with really good discounts and bargains…seriously, you can save alot of money buying stuff there instead! I also stocked up on Pigeon’s disposable breast pads as I plan to breastfeed…again, it’s cheaper in Singapore than in M’sia, even with the high exchange rate!

Needless to say, our car was literally filled to the brim when we came back!

About 80% of the pics are up at my Flickr account…*click*…more to come soon.

Food was GOOD all the way….we pigged out like there was no tomorrow.

Weather was so-so…rainy and overcast during the evenings, which didn’t make for good photo taking, unfortunately. It was extremely sunny and hot in the afternoons though, and despite applying sunblock, for the first time ever, I came back from a beach holiday with a tan. Horror of horrors!! And it made me *quote* look like a brown monkey *unquote*…

Lots of La Mer Whitening Essence, religiously applied twice a day finally got me back to my original colour (phew) although my left wrist still has a slightly noticeable white band when I don’t have my watch on.

Back to the food. I can’t tell you how amazing it was. Three places that have stuck firmly in my mind:

1. Naughty Nuris - best pork ribs I’ve EVER had. EVER.
2. Ibu Oka - the babi guling is to die for. OMG, so damn good…if I could tapau back I would.
3. Mozaic - fantastic gastronomical experience. Even the foam had taste. Put it this way…it’s twice (or even thrice!) as good as Lafite for half the price.

Fly me back there for a day to have Ibu Oka for brunch, Nuris for lunch, and Mozaic for dinner (incidentally, all three are located in Ubud) and I’ll love you forever.

Boo hoo…our last day!

After packing, we took a short walk over to Marmalade Pantry to purchase some of their famous cupcakes to bring back to KL, followed by a last minute stopover at Borders to buy some magazines for M. We then went back to the hotel to check out and move our (much heavier) luggage to the car.

We’d originally planned to go to Din Tai Fung for lunch. Unfortunately, the queue was so long that we had to scrap our plans and we ended up having lunch at The Soup Spoon @ Paragon instead. While I didn’t try the soup, the Breaded Buttons with Garlic Aioli and my mushroom sandwich was pretty nice. Hubby had the Boston Clam Chowder which he said was really thick and creamy.

Bostom Clam Chowder

Mushroom sandwich

Breaded Buttons with Garlic Aioli

Potato wedges

After lunch, I dropped by at Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie to buy some macaroons for M and we were all ready to leave only to find that it was raining again! There was no way we could get back to the hotel without being soaked, so we ended up waiting for the rain to stop by browsing around in Muji for almost an hour (bought a see through magazine rack too!)…

By the time we emerged, the rain had finally stopped and it was time to head back to the hotel, get the car and start our journey back to KL. On the way to the Tuas checkpoint, we drove past Marina Bay and I managed to snap this photo from the car…

The Singapore Flyer is still under construction and is slated to open by early 2008!

The drive back was plagued with intermittent bouts of rain all the way from Johor through to Malacca…luckily there were no accidents, else our journey would’ve taken even longer! As usual, part of me was glad to be home, while another part wished we could’ve spent a longer time in Singapore!

Here are the addresses/contacts of some of the places we visited in Singapore:

Crocs
Marina Square Shopping Mall
6 Raffles Boulevard,
#03-134/135 Marina Square
Singapore 039594
Tel: +65 6337 0134

ASlurping Ape
Marina Square Shopping Mall
6 Raffles Boulevard
#03-362/363 Marina Square
Singapore 039594
Tel: +65 6338 5386

Tony Roma�??s Singapore
#B1-007 Suntec City Mall
3 Temasek Boulevard
Singapore 038983
Tel: +65 6337 9055
Opening hours: 11.30am to 11.00pm

Pantry Magic
43 Jalan Merah Saga
Chip Bee Gardens
Singapore 278115
Tel: +65 6471 0566

Shermay Cooking School
43 Jalan Merah Saga
Chip Bee Gardens
Singapore 278115
Tel: +65 6479 8442
Opening hours: 01.30pm to 07.30pm (Tue - Fri & Sun), 11.30am to 07.30pm (Sat), closed on Monday

The Soup Spoon
Paragon Shopping Centre
Basement 1 Unit K4/K7
Opening hours: 10.00am to 10.00pm (Mon - Fri), 09.30am to 10.00pm (Sat & Sun)
Tel: +65 6738 3860

Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie
B1-25 Paragon
290 Orchard Road
Tel: +65 6733 8893
Opening hours: 11am to 10pm daily