Mini Push-Ups!


My little Graydie has hit another milestone! Mini Push-ups!
Since he sleeps on his tummy, he's learnt to bear a little weight on his shoulders and arms.

Now the little curious monkey lifts his head so often when he's suppose to be sleeping, to stare and pose for the camera....

...to say hello to Pooh bear and friends,


...and to roll over!

...to look for toys,

...and to roll over and stare at mummy! :)

HATCHED!


Haha, Nooooo, not referring to Grayden the little hatchling!
But the relatively new cosy establishment at Evan's Lodge.

Tucked away in the small corner of Evan's Lodge, it's certainly easy to drive by, ambivalent to this cute little hang-out place for weekend brunches along the way to either Cluny court for Da Paolo's or Relish or Botanic Gardens for Au Jardin.


As it's name implies, the main staple on every item in the menu, you guessed it, is eggs!
Hard boiled, poached, scrambled, fried, they were in any form imaginable on the extensive menu.

Sis L and I shared the Le Rossini - classic scrambled eggs jazzed up a notch with truffle oil and foie gras and the Burly Benedict - poached egg with corned wagyu beef decked on a traditional English muffin.

The truffle scrambled eggs was the yummiest. Simple, so easy to make and yet we never thought to put truffle oil in eggs! I am so going to try this out for my next breakfast. Never really a fan for poached eggs, the Benedict left much to be desired. The wagyu beef was a little too salty and the combination just didn't cut it for me.

The others tried the Cowboy and the Croque Madame. The cowboy - a simple fried egg on top of a juicy steak and the Croque Madame - Kurobuta ham and Emmental cheese served with a fried egg on Ciabatta bread.

By the time we had sampled all the orders, I was starting to get the feeling that this little nook was merely giving cute fancy names to traditional classic ham and cheese sandwiches and simple eggs on bread dishes. The sad thing was, we were paying over $14 to $20 for brunches that we could probably recreate in our own kitchen, and I would hardly hail myself as a chef.

The eggs were well executed, but as the Hubby always says, it's hard to go wrong with eggs for breakfast. In fact when we travel, the safest things to eat during breakfasts were eggs! Cos they almost taste the same on every continent.

So Hatched was a slight disappointment. Though I had expected the food to be like so after all most times we have brunch, it's almost always eggs with meat on toast, and seriously, how much variety can there be?
At least we had a nice outing for Graydie with his Uncle B and Queen B. :p





Hatched
Evan's Lodge #01-06
26 Evans Road
http://www.hatched.sg/
67350012

Saraceno - The Best Italian I've had in Ages


Tucked away in the most unlikely corner of the Berjaya Hotel along the buzzling night-life of Duxton Road, this Italian restaurant promised me a great Friday evening dinner and delivered.
Owned apparently by a Czech and boasts of chefs that had previously worked along side Gordon Ramsay, the food is indeed commendable. It had garnered numerous reviews on Hungrygowhere.com and passed most with flying colour. I was only amazed that it wasn't packed on a Friday night.

The bread basket arrived on the table expectantly warm and freshly baked. The spinach and Parmesan bun was super yummy. I don't mind loading up on my greens in such a fashion ever!

We started with a beef amuse buse served with a creamy sauce which I was shamelessly scraping off every inch of Hubby's and my serving with the bread.

For starters we got the Fresh loin of Tuna tossed with fennel and orange vinaigrette and the Parma Ham with Porcini, simply because it had truffle oil in it and that is must 1 true love.

The tuna was fresh and texture-ly juxtaposed with the tangy orange pieces, aromatic herbs and the crunchy fennel.

The parma ham was of course my favourite of the appetizers. Though a common sight in many Italian restaurants, to serve it well requires more effort. Saraceno is generous with the Parma ham slices and Parmesan shavings.

The flavours came together beautifully on the bed of toasted bread laced with truffle oil.
The waiting time between our appetizers and mains was decent. Not too long that we would get impatient and not too fast that the taste of the appetizers were still lingering on our palettes.

We ordered the Beef Tenderloin fillet from the 'Carne' section and I would highly recommend this to any meat lover. This is probably the best executed tenderloin fillet I have ever encountered. Medium rare, just how I like it, but it was not overly raw and the knife sears through the meat like butter. The texture is so smooth. Together with the potato puree and red wine sauce - oooooh, I still think about it ever so often.


Hubby wanted to try the pasta so we ordered the Linguine con Aragosta which came highly recommended and the Pappardelle pasta with roasted bell peppers.

We changed the pasta to angel hair and with the first mouthful there was simply no regret. The cherry tomatoes were yummy and the fine pasta soaked up all the juices making each bite super yummy and tasty. The lobster was extremely sweet and fresh.

The pappardelle wasn't that fantastic though. The capers and olives, cheese and tomatoes certainly gave it more than one dimension, but this was only ok for me. What can I say, I must have some meat in my carbs. :)

The portions were decent, 3 of us shared 3 mains and we were all adequately stuffed. But of course that being said we definitely had room for dessert.
Like my sister says, we judge an Italian restaurant by the Tiramisu they serve. And I will say, this is the best Tiramisu I have ever had. Not just in terms of taste, but also in terms of novelty and creativity, Saraceno's tiramisu truly takes the cake.

The coffee infusion is not too overpowering, the cheese does not feel cloying and how clever to use a think crisp sweet biscuit basket instead of the boring finger sponge. I will come back here just for seconds.
We also ordered the pineapple ravioli. I liked this though my dinning companions felt it was too sour.

The tartness on the contrary completes the evening to every Italian dinner where we tend to overload on heavy creams and hearty meats. The pineapple sorbet cleanses the palette and just puts the finishes touches to the evening and the happy smile on my face. :)
I am definitely coming back here and bringing people!
Not only was the food good, but they were also very friendly and homely. Not many fine dining places welcome bulky prams and wailing babies. But they welcomed Graydie with open arms and a pot of hot water for his dinner. :)

What more can I say! Thumbs up!

Saraceno Ristorante
83 Duxton Road
Berjaya hotel Singapore

6438 9638

Grayden Flips!


Graydie finally flips for the camera!!
Bright and early at 658am, our dear little monkey goes through his usual waking routine...
Lifts his head, kicks a leg and flips onto his back! Then, he mercifully plays by himself till his parents wake up.

The Marmalade Pantry


They have moved to Ion. Smart move I suppose since the human traffic at the Ion would certainly be much heavier then where they used to be. Sad move as that would mean getting a table at any mealtimes would be murder. It's a good thing I'm having lunch at 11am in the morning.

The seating capacity has definitely increased, and so has their cupcake selection, of which I had the greedy chance to sample a few of the good old ones as well as the new.

I wanted to try something new apart from the usual suspects like the crabmeat pasta and falafel wrap in the menu, so I ordered the spiced grilled lamb and my dining partner had the beef cheek guinness pie.



The grilled lamb was excellent. They only had white sandwich bread but the toasty warm bread went well with the Iman blyaldt, radish and mint leaves.


The 300-day grain fed beef pie was nice but pretty plain vanilla to me. It had a warm, homely feeling but I would have preferred the falafel or linguini any day. And for the priciest item on the menu, I was seriously expecting more.


Of course no trip to the Marmalade pantry will be complete without dessert and a cupcake. My new favorite is the Geisha. It was a tough fight between this and the red velvet, but my penchant for pandan won.


We also shared the blueberry ricotta fritters, quite the pleasant change. If the portions during lunch left me feeling a bit peckish, these fritters sealed the deal. They were a little too starchy for my liking but the blueberries gave a nice dimension to the cheese and the cinnamon cream and dusting of icing sugar gave the fritters just the right sugary end to my lunch.



Unit 03-22
Orchard Ion
2 Orchard Turn
Singapore 238801
Tel: 67342700
http://www.themarmaladepantry.com

Flip in Motion!! Or at least Graydie's many attempts to...

Grayden has reached another exciting milestone, he has learnt to flip from his belly to his back. Unfortunately since it's the beginning of this physical developmental milestone he won't perform on cue for me. :(
So after many many many failed attempts to capture his stunt on video, I was left with plenty of still pictures of his attempt to flip in motion and still no perfectly captured flip in sight!

Here's a mummy's take on what her little monkey's up to:

He starts always at his usual position, at the end of the cot, bottom-right hand corner...




Starts to leave his blanket behind as his bottom goes up...



Makes a right turn while navigating with his thumb in his mouth...






Bored of the view at the top, starts to lift his head to get his bearings...
And decides turning right is the next route to go, so off he goes again!




Pit-stops for a yummy snack...


It's time to kick off again...



Might as well go one full circle from where I came from...





Alas! When the journey gets too perilous, mummy has to flip the little imp over manually...


And that's when the show ends in a bawl of tears.