Category: Food

Posted on

Hawaii – Day 2 (My wildest dreams came true)

6eptember ( US timing) we woke up bright and early and made our way to the airport.  Today we are heading to Hilo ( The Big Island)

As we left Honolulu, we not only saw the beautiful clear waters BUT also the Diamond Head Monument which we climbed.

Once we reached Hilo, we went for breakfast at Ken’s – it’s a Hawaiian kind of Denny’s/ IHOP

I love the coffee which I later found out that it’s Kona coffee ( Kona is in Big Island)  Nice! Bought 2 packets of coffee powder home. We had Macadamia nut pancakes and the poisonous Loco Moco .I love LOCO MOCO > super nice!! BUT super high in calories.. I only had 2 mouthfuls and I feel so guilty until NOW 🙁

AFter breakfast, we visited Akaka Falls

then drove to the Volcanoes National Park

Us in front of Pacific Ocean

Arc behind me made by the water/lava? I was holding onto my cap, fearing that it will fly away.. haha

You really see the smoke from the volcano

AND

haha.. so just as I was fooling ard and taking photos…BH and I stopped in front of Mauna Loa, world’s largest active volcano

BH set up the tripod so that we could take a picture together… then suddenly… he knelt down.. took out a box…. and……

AG: ” ehh.. u kuku ah!”
BH: ” Would you marry me again? I wish our love would be like this active volcano, always burning..”
AG: *staring at the ring and OMG in my heart* “YES YES!”

soooooooo cheesy…probably the most cheesy yet original proposal line I heard! BUT I was super happy!!! 😀 He was so sincere .. the very thought that he don’t need to do this again but he did brings a tear to my eyes! For once ( in many blue moons), I felt that I marry the right man and reconfirmed that BH is super duper nice to me!

To think that I was saying how I don’t want to rem how BH proposed to me? haha.. now I wanna rem how he re-propose to me 🙂 awww… it felt like my wildest dream just came true !!! can’t believe that BH can be this romantic!

The precious ( ring size was wrong but he didn’t have time to resize it.. how can I not forgive him.. wahaha)

Right after the romantic proposal, we needed to leave so that we could catch our flight back to Honolulu. By right, we should b able to see lava flowing from the volcano BUT it wasn’t dark enough, so we can’t see anything. Both of us were quite disapted.. So we told ourselves that we will  go back again 🙂

On the plane back to Honolulu, we saw orange lava-like glow frm the skies.. haha.. not sure if it’s lava BUT we convinced ourselves that it’s lava. haha

What a lovely day! hehe.. active volcano!! keep burning!

Posted on

Hawaii – Day 1 ( 5 Sept)

It was purely a spontaneous decision to go to Hawaii this yr – I mean our only holiday was supposed to be the Singapore-Korea trip next mth. However, there was a great deal on Hawaii flights and it coincides with our wedding anniversary + US labour day long weekend.. so we seized the opportunity and booked the tix!

Alright… so.. just when we thought everything was perfect and well-planned.. my period was coming along with us as well.. haha.. too bad for BH and me too!

*sick description ahead*

The whole plane ride from SEA > HNL was soooooooo uncomfortable.. maybe it was due to the pressurized cabin .. the moment I touched down on HNL.. I was bleeding profusely > the MOST I had ever seen since puberty. No joke!

Honolulu

While BH waited for our lugguage, I was leaking like a tap… rusty tap! 🙁 very moody and sianz… I was so angry with myself for being such a WET blanket ( literally)

We collected our rental car and drove straight to the vacation condo ( we rented direct from the owner > we will NEVER do this again because we need to clear the trash and clean up the place before we leave???!!! It’s a holiday and no housework is supposed to be done! cost wise is only abt $100 less than Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel)

At this pt.. I was very irritated as I had already stained my pants!!! grrr… so naturally I went to wash up and changed to another pair of pants. We left for lunch. Guess what? It’s only 15 mins and I stained my new pair of pants! 🙁 No choice, we needed to modify our plan for the day

I felt so sorry for BH as he needed to ‘waste’ time because of me.. BUT BH was awfully nice.. he was like “nvm.. we can go walk along the beach..”

Went back to the condo and did my laundry.. luckily, there was a dryer downstairs – so BH brought my clothes to the dryer

A pic of us waiting for my pants to dry – sianz.. forcing a smile. Not a good start to the getaway

forcing a smile

————–

Right after the ‘red sea’ episode – the coast was miracously clear!! With no time to waste, we went for Diamond Head Monument as planned

We were kinda rushing for time so we hike up real fast. This is when I felt that my gym sessions helped me a whole lot 🙂

Finally, after abt 45 mins of fast walking and climbing, we reached!

The view of Honolulu was spectacular

Would love to spend more time here BUT we are running short of time 🙁 So we made our way down reluctantly…

Honolulu was indeed love at 1st sight!

————-

Got back to the condo.. refreshed ourselves, got changed and headed to the much raved Alan Wong’s for dinner

We made reservation at 6pm and we reached on time!

Love the menu with our names printed – it was a HUGE ‘WOW’! even the staff signed on the menu! how cool! we requested to have window seat.. which was so awesome coz we saw a double rainbow! 😀 a good omen !

To us, the food was alright. We waited a long while for each dish to be served!! hmm… We don’t understand what’s so good abt this place except the personalised menu ( which they gift wrapped it so that we can bring home) 

BH ordered a 7 course sampler while we shared like 3 appetizers ( pictures only show some food). Don’t look at the small portion – It was a fulling dinner! ok.. the only saving grace of that night’s dinner was the coconut ice-cream dessert

Total damage: US$160 ( the price for fine dining!! Not worth it imo, I will choose Dahlia’s Lounge anytime)

———

At the end of the day, BH was like ” it’s not a bad day afterall right? ” Indeed.. the day asn’t perfect BUT at least it ended well 🙂

Posted on

Best Dimsum in Seattle

After going to many different places for Dimsum … TOP GUN is still our favourite 🙂

Of course, we ate some other items ( not pictured) BUT my favourite is the Prawn chee chong fan ( they call it ‘har cheong’ ) and soya beancurd! I haven’t had soya beancurd since I left SG .. and soya beancurd taste so good!!! while i love the soya beancurd, BH love the char siew bao.. haha…

More soya beancurd pls!!!!

Yes – so good food comes with a price… I weigh myself and found out that I gained 1kg 🙁 sianz..

Posted on

Maneki Japanese Resturant

We had dinner at Maneki Japanese Resturant after our Zoo excursion. It is a popular Japanese resturant, which I found on yelp.com. Reservations needed to be made EARLY , eg: a few days before BUT I didn’t mk any reservations. As a result, the earliest timing we got was 8.30pm ( although we reached the resturant at 6pm sharp) The very kind lady boss suggested that we could have our dinner at the bar area.. I was very reluctant as I did not have any intention of drinking.. BUT BH was like ‘OK!’ So we went to sit at the bar…

We had these figurines staring right at us as we sat down/ate

I had no idea what is the significance of these.

Anyway, we ordered our food and BH ordered Asashi – the bottle was HUGE! I was kinda worried that BH won’t be able to drive us home so I told the server that we are sharing the beer.

Here’s the irritating part – The server DID NOT allow me to drink the beer as I did not have my passport with me – they did don’t accept IC or SG driving license. I was super irritated and it was sooooooooooo hard to hide my anger as I was sitting at the bar  ( No choice have to face her) So I show her face colour. In the end, she made me nice non-alcoholic cranberry juice mixed with Calpico Luckily, she made me a drink else I’m so gonna write a super bad review on yelp! Ok.. so I felt better after the drink.. the drink was so nice that we also bought Calpico and mixed our own at home.. haha.. perfect summer drink!!

So – to the point… the food was great! It’s not because we haven’t had good Japanese food for sometime BUT the sashimi was fresh ! yums! food was authentic. However, for the oyster rice ( it has a japanese name , can’t recall) we felt that there were just too much rice and too little oysters. overall,  we felt like we ate a whole lot and the price was reasonable!

Total damage: US$48 with 20% tips

We’ll go again BUT i’ll rem to bring my passport and mk reservation EARLY the next time round..

Happy BH and semi-happy me … it would have been a better date!

Posted on

He grills!

BH was inspired by a random grilling/bbq show on TV.. so he decided to try to grill at home!

He researched on how to care and use a grill pan… and we bought 1 at Walmart.. haha.. he also searched for a recipe to cook for us ! 🙂

The food –

Paired with wine

There’s always a reason to celebrate with good food and wine….. so….Cheers to  100 months to us!! ( too bad we can’t celebrate 100 years.. haha… he’s not Edward and I’m not Bella )

Posted on

after 4 tries….

MY beautiful Japanese Cotton Cheesecake DID NOT sink! 🙂

Very proud of myself – did every thing very slowly and gently this time and… I got the technique right!!! 

I didn’t take much pics because I didn’t expect it to succeed! heh… and it turned out soooooooooo well!!! super ‘gek’ !

It’s soft..fluffy and tasty… looks as good as it taste! I can bake Fiesta Japanese Cheesecake too!

Posted on

new and shiny

Last night , I was really looking forward to dinner! It’s mid-week and we are going out for dinner!!! yayness! 😀 That’s because we are meeting our SG friend, Eileen and her “new husband” ( in Eileen’s words!) haha… It was really sweet that they made time to meet us for dinner even though they were only in Seattle for 2 short days? The feeling of meeting up with friends was GREAT!

We met at Crabpot and had a fantastic time chit-chatting and eating! Yums!!! I love the corn!!! sooooooooo sweet!! I think I can eat 10 of them at one go man! hahaha

Anyway, the group picture is on their camera 🙁 Not sure when we’ll get them.

You can tell if a couple is on their honeymoon just by looking at their rings. So Eileen and Kelvin were on their last leg of Honeymoon… ohhh… so sweet! It was nice to see the new and shiny wedding bands on their fingers…  their rings look so new compared to ours 🙂 aww… reminds me that BH and I were once ‘newly-weds’  and our rings seriously needs some polishing.. heh

After dinner, BH took me on a short ride and showed me the goats under the Alaskan Highway!! haha… it was soooooooo interesting to see goats in a city AND under the highway… I thought they were ‘fake’ BUT they were chewing hay ! haha

Pardon the bad pictures taken in the dark

The mystery of the goats –

haha… goat milk anyone??

ohh… and this little guy was ‘taking care’ of the place. “Hi Bingo!”

Posted on

Piggin’ out at Famous Dave’s

If you know me, you’ll know that I’m kinda Halal – I don’t like to eat meat, esp. pork. Oh well, BH needs meat ya see… so I seized the opportunity when I saw that I’m able to get a $15 coupon for Famous Dave’s

It’s our first time here and it’s definitely better than Denny’s or Applebees 😀

You see the piggy face in the pic? haha.. the friendly server drew that for us when introducing the sauces for us. How cute is that!

So BH had their famous BBQ Ribs while I settled for Chicken tenders. I was pleasanlty surprised that the fried items are not dripping with oil ( even the paper was not oily) and the ribs tastes good ( to a non-pork eating person) – not dry and hard! Even so, I can’t help but to think of how much calories is in this meal  🙁

The only saving grace is we had a great lunch and the serving was HUGE – we only ate fruits for dinner that night… haha.. i hope that evens out the calories in-take for the day 😀

Posted on

Bainbridge Island, WA

I had set pictures aside and wanted to blog about this for the longest time BUT I was too busy to do so. Finally, found abit of time to do so now and then I’ll start to get busy again later

July 10

It was a bright and sunny day. ( haha.. i realised that I’m starting my blog entry like a Primary school compo!!) Anyway, summer is here and it was EXTREMELY sunny. I’m not hoping that I won’t melt in the sun when I’m back in SG. haha…

Actually, BH and I have no plans of going to Bainbridge – Our plan was for BH to go for a haircut , take a walk at Pike Place Market, buy some flowers and go for lunch. However, the weather was sooooooooo HOT and I was like ” Ice-cream would be nice….”

After the haircut, we decided to jump on a ferry and head to Bainbridge for lunch and ice-cream! 😀

The ferry ride was only 1/2 hr from seattle. We were very fortunate to reach the ferry terminal at 12noon and the next ferry was 12.20pm! haha.. don’t need to wait for a long time. The view on the ferry is beautiful as always.

It’s my 3rd time to Bainbridge – 1st with Caryn. 2nd with my family, 3rd with BH and I still like the place. Bought back really fond memories coz it was last yr around this time!!! So you can imagine me exclaiming these phrases  ” hey… Caryn and I sat here! ” , ” My family and I ate here!” when I bought BH ard.

haha… okok… there’s nothing much to see at Bainbridge BUT in my opinion the ice-cream mks it worth it! 😀

Our 1st stop. My fave ice-cream creamy –

Love the ice-cream – fave favours: Maraschino cherry and cream + swiss chocolate

Don’t tell me about the calories pls!!

Then we had lunch here:

we were greeted by flies when we entered the cafe. geez… So, we choose to sit at the outdoor area – watching the world cars go by

*Can’t rem the food’s name so I will rename it!* BH’s food – ‘ang mo’ curry puff with funky pink sauce. Haha… the first time we see pink sauce!

My food – Rice pudding. erm… nuff’ said..eeks! forced it down BH’s throat anyway

after lunch, we walked ard and smelt the flowers then took the 3.50pm ferry back. We were so tired ( the sun tire us out!) and we fell asleep on the ferry ride.  A pic of us to rem the spontaneous date! Tired but happy! It’s so easy to be happy here 🙂

Posted on

Strawberry picking!

Saturday was a bright and sunny day 🙂 I had been telling BH for the longest time that I wanna go berries picking, so I found out about Spooner Farms. The berries from this farm is known to be super sweet.. so… we decided to make a drive down to Olympia ( it’s 1 hrs drive there!). Anyway, Olympia is the capital of Washington State ( not Seattle)

We reached the farm ( easy to find) – it wasn’t those kinda isolated place you expect the farm to be. In fact, it was along the road. And yes, it was super crowded. Many pple were buying ready picked berries ( $2.25/lb) BUT we choose U-pick ( $1.25/lb). I was kinda suprised that U-pick was cheaper.. haha… anyway, it’s fun to eat the berries you pick.

Seriously, I was very excited. We walked into the rows of berry plants and I could see many red berries hiding underneath the leaves along the rows. hahaha ” 你不能摆脱我的魔掌!” (used google translate for the chinese words.. heh… not so power la!)  So, we were allocated a row to pick berries from. The berries were in abundance!! You need not fear that you can’t fill up the box!

It’s not our first time doing strawberry picking together. We did it once in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. The berries at Malaysia were not that sweet and were sparse. It’s totally different here!

The berries smelt soooooooooooo good…I can’t help it but to pop some into my mouth while picking! Not advisable!!! haha..

The unglam picking job! The weather was scrotching hot BUT still cool enough – we didn’t perspire! Picking to the view of Mt Rainier was simply a joy! I was really happy, suddenly I was worries-free! Strawberry picking is so theraputic!

I was reminding ourselves not to pick too many berries – fearing that we can’t finish it. However, BH brilliantly suggested that we could mk strawberry jam!!! 😀 So, we’ll making strawberry jam at the end of the week when the blender reach me! heh.. he even brought me to Ikea to buy jam jars and Fred Meyer to buy a special powder for the jam! Let’s see how it will turn out! I’ll mk more  and bring to SG if it’s good!

We ended the day with grocery shopping at Walmart, Lacey – This Walmart is HUGE = alot of deals!! On top of it, it’s coupons friendly! hahaha… so… managed to grab cheaper groceries! As though we don’t want the day to end yet, we went to redeem our free dvd and watched ‘The Lovely Bones’ ( which I thought the movie was crap and the book was way much better!)

Happy day! More pls!!!