XMAS DECORATING.

I just love this time of year. When we finally get together as a family to put up the Christmas tree to the calm tunes of holiday music. I love that we go all out to make the entire first floor of the house look so utterly majestic for Christmas, when we don't even really celebrate it in the traditional way. It just puts all us in a good mood to come home to the sight of the yellow lighting and colourful tree.

This year's tree was no different - we always go for a really messy kind of look, where we just load the tree with almost every single decoration in our collection. I don't think we ever tried colour-coding it, but it always turns out looking absolutely incredible. People all love it, and it's become our signature Christmas look that I'm kinda hoping we never change.

We usually put everything up in stages, with the tree and the lights before we finish up with the other colourful decorations. This year we found time to finish everything in a single day. I love how we just forget about all our troubles and shit that's going on in our lives as we get together to put the tree up. Just saying. I can't wait for December to arrive, and I can't wait till Christmas Day itself. I hope we have a genuinely joyous one.

STICKY SESAME CHICKEN.

Made a last-minute decision to make lunch for the family yesterday. Fearing that I wouldn't have many ingredients available to make something too fancy, I hopped on Pinterest to scout for something yummy yet really easy to make, and I found this. I was so excited cos it was my first time actually using a recipe from pinterest. It turned out pretty well, as you can see: (All due credit to the creator of the recipe)

One thing I wanna point out is that the sauce tasted EXTREMELY sweet before I put it in the chicken and cooked it, but it turned out fine. I did reduce the amount of sugar that I put in though, which you may want to consider if you want something a little less sweet. My family loved it so it sure looks like I'll be making it again soon!

Check out the recipe @

http://lecremedelacrumb.com/2014/01/sticky-sesame-chicken-30-minutes.html

PACAMARA BOUTIQUE COFFEE ROASTERS.

I popped on over to Pacamara this morning to get some breakfast with my mum and sis. I'd been wanting to try it for a while since it first opened a couple of weeks ago, in my very own neighbourhood. I love that Upper Thomson's now becoming like the next Holland V, and a hub for all the things that I like - coffee, ice cream and good food. 

Pacamara's different in a sense that the entire place is painted white, and they have huge glass panels instead of walls that surround the vicinity. It definitely made me feel like I had more space to myself, and the positioning of the tables and stuff makes sure that you don't ever feel cramped when in the cafe. The glass panels also provides aspiring photographers like me a lot of natural light which I really liked. I think the pictures turned out pretty great because of it.

The food is generally on the more expensive side of cafe prices, with the coffee already costing 5 to 6 dollars. The mains obviously cost more (I would say you'd pay an average of about $15). It was all pretty worth it though. I originally planned on getting my Mum to pay but because I had to order first while she tried to find parking I ended up paying. *Sighs*. I'M SO BROKE.

While my sister just got an iced chocolate, I got a mocha for myself along with some red velvet pancakes with mascarpone and berries. As you can see for yourself, the pancakes looked like perfection. The colours on the plate were really nice, and the pancakes were perfectly round and fluffy. AND LOOK AT THAT MASCARPONE. The pancakes tasted good as well, except that they didn't have that distinct flavour of red velvet that I was really looking forward to. They just tasted like the ordinary pancakes that you'd usually have. The mascarpone and berries really complemented each other though, and that's what makes the dish worth all the calories. Gotta head back to the gym next week.

Mum had a 5oz latte and a granola with yoghurt and mixed fruit, which I didn't try. It looked really neat though. I currently have a kind of obsession with clear jars like the one holding the yoghurt and granola. I can't explain it.

Well, that's one more cafe I've added to my list of favourites. Right now my top two are One Man and this. Go give it a try!

HOLLAND V ADVENTURES.

Met up with some of the 35/12 bunch yesterday at Holland V for what was originally supposed to be a quick lunch, but turned into 5 hours of us visiting practically every cafe in the vicinity. 

We started off at d'Good Cafe. I was pretty turned off at first by the pungent smell of cheese and the mixture of the savoury, sweet and coffee smells. The kitchen was right next to the coffee machines and the dessert stands, and the place was pretty cramped, so that explains it. Devin couldn't stand it HAHA.

Most of us ordered pastas, except Sok who ordered French Toast. I had the Meatball Marinara which really wasn't all that fantastic. The flavour of the sauce was mild and didn't give me the kick I was looking for in the dish, but the portion of meatballs that it had was definitely very generous. It made the dish worth the $15.50 I paid. Someone celebrating a birthday next to us had a humongous jug of what looked like iced chocolate or something, which looked extremely tempting to say the least.

In search of some good coffee after our meal we popped by T Time (I'm not sure if that's the correct name or spelling), but it didn't have a table for 5. We moved on to Craft Bakery Cafe and managed to find seats there. The thing that first striked me was the halloween deco, which was really on point. The entire place was covered in orange cotton (to make it seem like spider webs), and other halloween-y things that really put it's customers (or myself at least) in the halloween spirit. The cotton was pretty annoying though, it kept sticking to me!

Some of the cakes were also given a Halloween-twist, especially the Sea-Salt Caramel cake you see below. I thought the dessert display looked really appetising, but I was too full to try anything. I went with my usual, an iced Bailey's latte. It's one of the only flavoured coffees I've had where both the tastes of the coffee and the flavouring (in this case the alcohol) are equally strong, and where you get the essence of the drink with a single sip. The others got a couple of coffees too.

We then tried some churros from churrosity, which was pretty so-so. Sorry, don't have any pictures of that to show ya. We had two large cups, with chocolate and dulce de leche (a South American confection made with sweetened milk) toppings. Yes, I googled it.

Looking for a place to just chill we ended up at The Daily Scoop across the road. Devin first introduced me to the place, where they have excellent coconut ice cream, and a lot of varied flavours to choose from. Plus they had free flow of water, which is what most of us had. Hehe. Sok got herself a scoop of Lychee Martini while Dan Ling went with avocado.

I really didn't expect to have visited that many places in one afternoon, but well, we did. And now I am officially broke and can't wait to get my pay this month. Super satisfied though. Signing off!