Color me with the shades of wild honey

A second visit.

A 'banishment' to the bar stools. A relinquishing of higher heights and differing perspectives.

A runny nose.

A plate of gorgeousness. An angel like lover.

Wild honey colored my delicate soul. splashed it with buckets of rainbow like paint in a dazzling spectrum of patterns. I'm smitten again.



Weekday breakfasts at it's best. Pacing slow luxurious steps across the wooden floors.



The Canadian Breakfast, thick and tall pancakes, crisp bacon, blueberry jam and Pure maple syrup. Nothing out of the ordinary but still a titillating experience for the mundane diner.



My slightly more adventurous option of Mexican breakfast complete with burrito filled with cheese,hash, scrambled eggs and spicy chorizo. Complete with a saucer of guacamole on the side. This was sure to be a winners breakfast. *burp*



Wild Honey
333A Orchard Rd
238897
6235 3900

how to calm heart palpitations

sometimes it's good to pen down the thoughts in your heart. Even though it may be excessively private.

Worth two stares at least.

Let's play this game. Guess how many different combinations of pasta can you get of the 4 different pasta bases, 10 mains and 4 sauces? Now that's a math problem worth a little brain storming before a hearty meal at Kichn.

(honestly, I think the answer is 160 but I'm a little afraid of the slander that may follow regarding my lack of mathematical prowess)



We arrived at the rather shady alfresco settings of the dining place on a scorching afternoon. Since I was the only one on an empty stomach, I took a quick glance at the menu and placed my order. What could be better then homemade noodles in chilli crab sauce with chicken cutlet? (Respite my lack of knowledge that the homecooked noodles referred to the comforts of instant noodles that we eat at home...CLEVER move by Kichn). The chilli crab sauce was a thick spicy sweet mess that enveloped the noodle portion of the dish and coating each thin strand. I was particularly impressed by the portion size of the chicken cutlet, lightly coated in panko crumbs and fried till just golden brown. All this, served in a lovely brown takeout box. Lovely



'Satisfying gastronomical Tantrums'

Kichn
180 Albert Street
#01-05, Albert Court
Singapore 189971

Cowabunga

Located in a unusually sleepy part of Bukit Timah Road, just a turn up from the ubiquitous gas station into Binjai Park, Peperoni Pizzeria ( a new effort from the Les Amis Group) awakens the snoozing neighborhood with it's larger than life presence and the rowdy family crowds drawn in with a dreams of crisp Italian dough.




the magic that goes on behind the counters.

Throughout my two trips to the restaurant, I've gathered a rather fanatic kind of respect for the kitchen produce. Even though pastas were not the mainstay of this casual eatery; they were unsuspectingly good. Tried, tested with sauce stained lips and a smirk are the frutti da mare (seafood and truffle) and the pasta Funghi & pollo. Lovely and rich pasta dishes belted up with an attitude and great flavor to boost.



Moving on to the main attractions, the pizzas were a hit at the table even with the discerning grandmother being the head judge of the council. With a silent nod and a quick nibbling motion, we gathered that the pizzas were a winner and proceeded to devour the buggers. Here we had the 12 inch Pancetta as well as Four Cheese pizza; of which my scale of liking tilted slightly to the latter. Thin crusted with an interesting topping of Italian smoked bacon, cheese and sunside up egg; it was a sight that garnered many stolen breaths. And the flavors just made you want to chain devour piece after piece of this calorific beauty.







The many smiling faces



Desserts were a delightful attempt to prolong the experience of sitting in this cheerful ambient place. But of course they brought more smiles along with their sweet roots.



The all too standard tiramisu (very family friendly version with a sparse amount of liquer present).



The more non-pareil of the pair, the Sformato - Oven­baked ricotta cheese & lemon
cream in hazelnut caramel sauce. This dessert really titillated the taste buds with a playful note of added cheese to the already saturated meal but in the lightest most ethereal form possible. Think something like a bread and butter pudding with hints of lemon interspersed in between the soft custard composed of baked cheese. This dessert is seriously worth a try despite it's rather hefty price tag.



Peperoni Pizzeria is by far my favorite pizza joint at the moment. Opening my eyes to realms of thin crust pizzas at decent prices baked to perfection with a selection of fresh ingredients scattered over the tops. Now I'm ravenous for more!

Peperoni Pizzeria (Binjai Park)
7 Binjai Park, Singapore
Tel: +65 6463 7800

Soothing the rippling effects of those cravings

In order to do so, we headed down to Brotzeit for some true blue German fare.

We're talking sausages and Sauerkraut here and a huge piece of pork schnitzel thrown into the festivities.

Since we were having lunch, we saw a couple of lunch sets on advertisements throughout the facade of the dining area and decided to sample one just to test it's value. By golly, the broccoli soup,as unappetizing as it sounds, was spectacular with the savory pieces of Gruyère cheese providing that extra kick. A tad salty overall, but still a keeper in my food dictionary. Spy those pink cubes scattered through the soup, yummy poached salmon. It's a treat!





The chicken schnitzel was all but a little disappointing. Tender pork pulverized till a thin slab of meat. Little seasoning and meager character. Saved only by the menacing appearance of red hot wedges on the side. Those were truly good, I must add. The sausages as usual were excellent and the Sauerkraut stewed to perfection done-ness. Sweet yet robust with the flavor of juniper. Watch it.. I'm drooling again.



Brotzeit German Bier Bar & Restaurant

VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk,
#01-149/151
Singapore 098585

Tel: (65) 6272 8815


on a parting note, here's to unconditional friendship.

Lay your anchor down and let me wrap my arms around you...

Never let me go

Never let me go: a wonderfully heart wrenching film on the fragilities of life. Touching on several controversial issues such as cloning and the personal development of these life forms. Here, we often underestimate the human capabilities to accept changing circumstances, to adapt. Then we neglect human experiences, only in the face of a dwindling life span do we fight for every experience, to feel, to touch to understand. A wonderful projection of the power of human emotion and mind. A lesson to all of us that life's to short to hold grudges nor deny the simple beauties of life that stand before us. Grasp it.

At the end of the movie, Kathy H questions the values of the lives of the people she saves versus the donors and ends of by saying "We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time."

How true.

feeding the monstrosity within me

A sensia 200 film burnt meaninglessly by my ignorance.

To say that I'm pissed is an understatement.

It doesn't make sense, it hits me like a ton of bricks to the chest and blow a cavity so wide i could contain the largest crop circled corn fields in the states.

8 shots out of an entire roll. You've got to be kidding me.

You're a funny girl, Sihan.

Bah.

Chase me

photo taken from my melbourne collection

Impish kids.
They tackle, waddle off with your items and turn, a slight giggle turn gurgle escape their lips.
Teasing gets them attention.
They glow in anticipation for your outreached arms, the chase.
You feign a mad goose chase followed by a bear hug and a slight toss in the air.
The laugh escalates into delirious spurts of happiness.

Once again, they escape your grasp,
you feign disinterest in giving chase.
Arms crossed.
He looks over his shoulder,
the upturned lips take a quick dip.
A snort of discontent,
eyes that call out desperately to be seeked.
You crumble,
sigh and raise your lead-like arms,
pick up pace.

The Game is on.

Question is, what happens if he stops the pursuit?
My fear...neglect.

Treats: Tarafuku Japanese Buffet

I had loved the turned over japanese umbrellas gracing the ceilings. cliché, I know. But they made delightful subjects. Muted lighting, provided for.

Tarafuku Japanese buffet, a restaurant by the Tampopo group appealing to the buffet instincts, whims and fancies of hungry Singaporeans. Clever move I must say as who can resist a mainly ala-carte buffet menu featuring the likes off many Tampopo regular dishes? With such a concept, diners were reeled in like fish to a comparatively larger bait.

easy to say, I was one of them.





Priced at a decent $25.80++ for a weekday dinner, we attacked the black big shabu shabu and kicked up the dust around the food circle several times. The must-tries include the Alasakan crab, sushi, fresh sashimi (which gets replaced quite often, the variety is rather surprising too might I add), hand-rolls, and yakitori sticks (please exercise a bit of judgement, not all were nice.)





Despite it's small buffet territories, Tarafuku manages to deliver quite an astounding range of cuisine, from japanese curry rice to beef terriyaki and even to Ramen (cooked upon order only, signalled by the clipping of a peg at the counter). Everything is worth a try, a bite, but remember to leave space for seconds, only for the favorites.





Mine would have to be the tasty egg. A seemingly simple hard-boiled egg on the outside with a molten magma center a lovely shoya flavor infused throughout. I took doubles... *groanz*, what a sin treat!



Tarafuku Japanese Buffet
313@Somerset
B3-31/34
Reservations : 6634 0889

It was the 20th of Jan.

It's the first kiss,
it's flawless
really something.

It's fearless

fighting my inner demons

"Working things through for me...

I now know officially what is wrong with me. I have also learned a lot of reasons why I am this way. It isn't about the things I initially thought.

It's a combination of things. Amazingly even some genetic things. I believe that I was born a sensitive child. What I mean by that is that I was very in tune with my surroundings and even others feelings. I was programmed to take life in general a little differently and a little harder than most.

Take that and put it with lots of seemingly tiny things throughout my life and it adds up to one BIG thing--borderline personality disorder.

Now, this isn't about blame, I don't want to do that. The only purpose it serves is to hurt others and I know I don't want anyone to hurt. I've been there and I hate it. What this is about is education.

Events have happened, things have been done that cannot be reversed and now it's about learning to un-learn thought and behavioral patterns for me. It's about showing others how to be with me, how to talk to me, what to say to me and what not to say. In large part it is about boundaries. This is my new "thing". Boundaries. I like that word... it's a safe word for me. It means putting up fences or even walls and not allowing people to get inside me too far. It's about giving others a chance to exist near me without being burdened by my every thought and feeling. It's about making my space a safe place for *me*.

I never knew about boundaries. I never knew that violating boundaries meant telling someone too much about myself. I never knew that it was me taking control and opening their gate or door and making them know me. I never knew that it was about wanting to know too much about others. I didn't know that it was about giving others some free time to exist as seperate entities from me. For those who are close to me, who touch my life, it's hard. Daily they are forced to open their doors yet again and let me in.

A boundary also means that others need to respect what I want and accept it--at least for me. Even if it goes against something they believe. It's about allowing me to be me, even if who I may want to be doesn't fit what you want for me. It's believing me when I say I am okay, and even if I'm not, allowing me to exist within myself and deal with it how I know how to. It's about trust. It's about trying their level best to stand by their commitments and to not violate things within me that are sacred. And in turn it's me not invading their sacred places or backing down from commitments.

I am now beginning to learn that it is unfair of me to expect others to live up to an impossible ideal that I seem to think exists within all of us. We are all human, we all make and have made mistakes and we will again someday. And I need to begin to make allowances for that. If I am far from perfect, why should I seek that in others?

For now though, while I am on this healing journey there are some core things that can help me along, help me to heal. My biggest thing is trust. I never trusted because I saw no reason to. When you are a child and you place your trust in another human being and they destroy it time and again you begin to learn that trust is something not worth believing in. I trusted and what belonged to me was taken even when I didn't want to give it away. No one asked me before breaking down my walls, perhaps because they also didn't understand boundaries. I never really understood that it was okay to put up walls, lock doors and be me. And as a result, today my boundaries are non-exisitent. Trust is a huge word for me because how can I expect to trust others if I can't even trust myself? I need desperately for people to be honest about what they do and who they are. I need them to respect my space and I need to know that in turn I can do the same for them. And I need to be honest--truely honest with myself. Even if it means making me angry.

I need to learn forgiveness too. By doing that and learning to trust, I will be able to let go of the anger that boils inside the dark part of me. But I am also *allowed* to be angry. As a child--before I understood boundaries--people broke through mine. They made me feel that my private space didn't actually belong to me. It was taken from me and even sometimes I gave it away thinking that was the way to get someone to love me or want me. So when they turned me away for one reason or another, I got angry at them and at myself because I was unable to hold onto the one thing that belonged solely to me. I now need to learn to forgive myself for allowing others inside my fence and forgive myself for being a person that knocked down others. Until I do, I will stay angry because I now understand what I own and what belongs to others.

Anger, the fire inside me. It rules my life right now and I feel I don't even own that part of me. It's been apart of me for a long time and to conquer it will mean a lot of hard work. It'll mean admitting things to myself and learning to let go. Living in my realm and dealing with my tirades isn't easy for others. I know it stings, even *really hurts* sometimes when I lash out but you need to understand my dynamics. Anger is very scary for me. Watching from the outside how I behave and watching others lose control is frightening. So I took my anger and stuffed it inside and turned it into something that belonged only to me, self-hatred and depression. My depression was my anger turned inwards. And now, the depression has been taken from me thanks to some great anti-depressants and some dedicated doctors and now I must face my anger. What makes it so hard for me is that I have to do this and be a mommy and a wife and any number of other people at the same time. I now have to face the demons inside me and make peace. I need to stop being angry about life and at myself and begin to live again.

You must understand something else about me. What people say to me, I internalize. All it takes is the simple casual one-time comment that the color of my clothes don't match and I am obsessed for life about making sure that my blues are exactly the right color of blues to wear together and if they aren't, struggling to find ones that do at the expense of my time and happiness. I know it sounds funny but to me this is reality. I discovered something this past weekend. My husband told me that what he had said to me in the past, something he only said once, I now act as if he reminds me about it daily. And then it occured to me. He doesn't need to do that!!! I do it to myself. Saying something about me, even making a casual joke penetrates a crack somewhere in me and gets into the part of me that is insecure. If it's about me in any way, shape or form, it becomes a large part of who I am. What a person says to me feels like their way of trying to tell me what a mess I am. Literally every word said to me is taken in and processed (sometimes over and over and over) and integrated into my life. For me it's about pleasing others, existing for others. An innocent comment made with the best intentions to help me is made into this huge thing inside me and I am forever worried about it. For others it is difficult to understand me. They say: "Can't you take a joke?" or "You worry too much". But what they fail to realize is that me, who I am, is someone who takes in everything and weighs it against what is already inside me. I don't know why I am like this. I don't know why it all matters so much. Maybe there is some chromosome for thinking too much and I have it. Who knows and at this point it doesn't really matter anymore.

I also need to learn how to turn down my emotional output too. I say too much, I entrap people. Inside I am still very much like a small child. Others see my reactions to events and think I am spoiled or too sensitve but for me I am still trapped in a child's mind and I am coping with the world with these child-like mechanisms. They work for me. I know them well. People run to kids when they cry and nurture them. And they run to me when I become this child. Mind you, it's not a choice I make. I don't sit there and think: "Okay, I'm going to act like a child to make them come running". It is in fact an automatic thing for me, the only way I know how to be...just as a child only knows how to be a child. By being this way people become the thing that in actuality I should become for myself and they fill up my emotional stores. Sadly, for me it works every time. And much to other's dismay they find themselves back in the position of rescuing this innocent child.

Therapy is teaching me--a 25 year old child--how to be an adult. Strange huh? But true. It will be about changing my very thought processes and self-talk. It's about needing validation only from myself and not needing to search it out in others. It'll be about integrating contrasts and showing me the spectrum of colors that exist in your world and are so very absent in mine. It'll be about accepting Melanie for Melanie and seeing that she is a beautiful person inside and out who has wonderful qualities all her own. I will no longer need to look into you, using you as my mirror to reflect the image of me. I will have an image within me that has an identity that I can draw on and shape by myself and change with each passing day to fit who I want to be that day and not who *I* think *you* want me to be.

And one last note for those who see me as healed now. I know what is wrong with me, boy oh boy do I know. I've been told enough by my "self" and by others. Being healed isn't always just about having the exact insight into the problem. For me, it's about needing someone to show me how to solve the problem because I am unable to find the way myself. This does not make me a weaker person though just because you feel inside that *you* think it's easy for me to change. The answer isn't crystal clear for me. For me it's a very tall mountain to climb. Change has never been easy...for anyone. Until I am a whole person again with a constant sense of self, remember I am trying, I really am. I'm tired of being me--the me I am at this point in time.

I am beginning to fight my demons and I am tenatively standing on my own twonfeet. I will walk this very scary, very new road (and perhaps sometimes ask for help). I will do it though...for me. Hmmm...perhaps this is my metaphorical "road less travelled".

Wish me luck"

To the dear Melanie out there...
you are not alone.

black holes and revelations

I'm already out
of fool proof ideas so don't ask me how
to get it started
It's all uncharted

So put on your blindfolds and follow me.

p.s. place my heart in the center of yours.

If you have to derieve a reason before embarking on any action, nothing would happen.

precisely why we ended up at the doors of Centre PS after hearing the thud of hearts dropping ( a natural response originating from the trepidating heart put to rest when we found out that Forty Hands was closed. Note: Do not visit the latter on a Monday.).

In all due, 'positive outcomes only' mentality, we ordered 2 gâteaux slices to share. The first, grand cru royal; smooth bittersweet chocolate mousse supported on a bed of crisp hazelnut praline base. An over-done and overkilled combination, centre ps does actually carry quite a decent rendition of the dessert.



The Mont Blanc though was quite a let down with the slightly hardened and packed chestnut toppings serving as a tell tale sign of staleness. Apart from that, it was an average run of the mill dessert, with the chestnut sweetened to a tolerable level and the crisp sable base a lovely contrast to the cream center. I guess I would admit to my biasness towards flor patisserie's slightly creamier version.

I noticed gargantuan macarons in pretty boxes and lollipop sticks suspeded throughout the shop. Perhaps those warrant a try on my next visit...



Centre Ps Pte Ltd
78 Guan Chuan Street
#01-43 Singapore 160078
Tel: (65) 6220 1285
Fax: (65) 6220 1284

centre-ps.com
concierge@centre-ps.com

Opening Hours:
Mon to Sat -10.00 am to 8.00 pm
Sun - Closed

standing still

The whole world zipping past. Too fast, almost unappreciative.

News of happy occasions, joyous achievements shroud the air.

But none of them are mine.

Rooted to my spot, I savor the sweet feel of the cool breeze caressing my face.

I see you.

Move slow motion for me.

restore me

All was a scene of calm in this shophouse cafe clad with vintage made-over furniture. Most personally picked up by owner Hwee Min in the most unlikely places, scouring the void decks of HDB flats and the backalleys of industrial estates for pre-loved furniture that are calling out for attention to it's prevalent remaining lifespan, in desperate knowledge of it's potential to pamper a few more bottoms.

Lining the walls are chairs with the most gorgeous prints rescued from the brink of abandonment, restored to it's former beauty with a bit more personal touch to boot.



Here we had a chai tea latte, and iced mocha between the both of us together with a fresh waffles with berries to share. Lovely as the beverages were, the stars of the show were definitely the earl grey sable cookies that were served on the side in a gorgeous onion shaped glass bowl. I wish I could have more.



The claim to fame waffles were slightly disappointing despite the tantalizing smell wafting from the tiny kitchen stationed at the back of the cafe throughout it's preparation process. Crisp with the least flavor to boot, I dug at the generous serving of cream on the side and reckoned to myself that perhaps a drizzle of blueberry reserves could actually save the slightly barren dish. *ouch*



Despite the slightly disappointing fare we had, the place radiated warmth, a kind of hospitality emerging from the passion of it's owners for furniture. Lovely, quaint music and a glow of earnestness from all around may just be a hit on the nail for many of it's patrons.



Restore Living Pte Ltd

124 Tanjong Pagar Road
Singapore 088533

6222 3510