Bornga

Located at The Star Vista, Bornga is a Korean BBQ restaurant. This restaurant does not accept reservation. Or maybe it was because it was a public holiday eve? We waited a little more than 1hour, even though we were queuing as early as 6.40pm.

The Star Vista. It was raining the entire afternoon. Hence the beautiful blue evening sky

The restaurant's design looks very modern stylish, with grey tones, dark brown and glass panels. I did't manage to view the inside of the restaurant as we were seated outside. The outdoor seating is just towards the right side of the passageway into the restaurant. The queue is along the edge of the outdoor seating. People queuing can salivate by looking in while they waited. It's torturous, to smell such great food, only to have to wait.

The entrance to Bornga.
We are seated at the outdoor seating, towards the right of the entry.

We ordered a vegetable cold soup, one sausage and ham hot soup, one vegetable set, one pork set and one beef set for BBQ-ing. Chyi, AL and I don't eat beef, so only Ying and Jet ate the beef set. We also attempted to order rice to go along with our orders, but the waiter discouraged the thought. He said that they serve side dishes, which are refillable, so the side dishes are already quite filling and we may not be able to finish the rice. Most of their customers cancelled their orders for rice. And we are glad we took his advice. The side dishes are indeed filling, in addition to our orders.

Side dish: Lettuce
To wrap your bbq food. It is a unique way to consume meat dishes by the Koreans.

Quoted from the restaurant's description on eating meat wrapped in lettuce.
<Culture>
"Wrapped in lettuce" is a unique way to consume meat dishes by the Koreans. Koreans usually wrap rice & meat in lettuce, dip in sauce and eat by the mouthful. It is believed that eating the whole portion of wrapped lettuce at once will bring great fortune.

<Helps improve Digestion and Keeps Cholesterol Level in Control>
As vegetables have high fiber content, it helps to improve digestion when eaten with meat. It also prevents cholesterol from being built up in the blood vessels.
After sharing this with them, we all attempted to stuff everything into the mouth in one bite, for the sake of great fortune. Haha..

"It is believed that eating the whole portion of wrapped lettuce at once will bring great fortune"
Side dish: Salad. 
I love this salad. The dressing taste very appetizing. I can just eat this for my main meal.
Side dish
Not sure what it is. But should be some vegetable, as it's crunchy. And it's spicy.
Side dish: Mixed raw vegetable
Spicy too. I can't take too much of this. You can add this to your lettuce bbq wrap.
Side dish: Pancake
If I'm not wrong, this is also one of the dishes that we can order as ala carte.
But doesn't really taste nice. 
Side dish: Cold marinated seaweed
Crunchy with every bite.
Side dish: Kimchi
Too spicy for me.

The cold vegetable soup, even though it looks normal, but it actually taste quite nice. Sweet and taste healthy. Haha.. But maybe a little too sweet.

Cold vegetable soup
Hukdaeji Samgyupsal $18.00
Black Pork Belly
Woo Samgyup $22.00
Thinly sliced beef brisket dressed with BORNGA special sauce.

And so.. we started BBQ ing~ Yummy... And eating them wrapped in fresh lettuce tastes even better.

BBQ-ing
Mushroom Veggies $15.00

We can keep adding soup to this stew, keep keep boiling it. Taste quite nice. There are quite alot of ham and sausage in the stew. Spicy, but drinking the stew hot, it's very shiok. Spicy but nice!

Budae Chigae $40.00
Spicy stew with kimchi, sausage, ham and vegetables

The total bill comes up to $128.25. Including 7% GST and 10% service charge. Each towel costs $1.

The service is quite slow. We asked for refills of sides, drinks and any other service, they came, and go and forgot about us. So we had to ask another waiter. Not to fault them really, as I guess they are really very busy. Even though we finished our filling New Year Eve's dinner at 9plus, there are still people queuing and the place is still packed with customers. Maybe the service will be much better on a normal day?

Bornga
http://www.thestarvista.com/malls/website/store-details.aspx?id=4568
#02-24, 1 Vista Exchange Green, Singapore 138617
Tel: (65) 6694 -4696


Phewtick - Cashout

I have just cashed out for the first time on the app Phewtick. Minimum cash out requires 24,000 points.

View my previous post on Phewtick.

I have 26,492 points. Even though converting with the exchange rate, I should get SGD 41.06, but I won't get the full amount as there will be a transaction fee. Click on the cash out button to continue.


Select the Amount from the list of three values, and enter your valid PayPal email address. Click on the "Confirm the application" button to continue


You will be shown the number of points and the actual amount that you will be cashing out. Check whether your email address is correct. Click on the "Complete the application".


And ta-dah... The cash out process is completed. You will be shown this confirmation message. So now I have to wait for 10 days for my money to be checked into my PayPal account. *Happy*


Update: 28th December 2012
Just receive my payout on 27th December 2012. Received an email for the transaction. Checked my PayPal account, the payout is IN!! Yay~ But it's given in Japanese Yen, and base on the current currency exchange rate, I only got SGD 28.31, SGD3.30 lesser than estimated. Sad......


Update: 03rd January 2013
One day after I received my cashout, on the 28 December, Phewtick changed their exchange rate. Need more points to reach minimum cash out now....


Merry Christmas!

It's thedaintycandy.blogspot.com's first christmas~ 
Wishing everyone a merry christmas and a happy 2013!



Porn's Sexy Thai Food

Finally... We went to Porn's for a meal. The first outlet was at Liang Seah Street and my friend and I were thinking of going there since, ages ago. But I went to the one at J10. Love the cute butt of the elephant. Sexy.


It's a no pork no lard restaurant.


Thai Prawn Cake - I LOVE this prawn cake. Very tasty. A MUST order. There are three pieces in a basket. Eat them hot. Yumm.

Thai Prawn Cake $8.90

Green Mango Salad - Not as spicy as I imagined it to be. Which is good for me as I can't take food that is too spicy. I remembered the Mango Salad I had in Bangkok many years ago, we can't even finish half the plate. This Green Mango Salad is crunchy and sour and the nuts compliments the taste too.

Green Mango Salad $7.90

Seafood Pad Thai - The main course are not really fantastic. This Pad Thai taste like Char Kuey Tiao with fresh prawns and sotong.

Seafood Pad Thai $10.90

Pineapple Fried Rice - Pretty normal Pineapple Fried Rice. Kudos to the fresh big prawns.

Pineapple Fried Rice $10.90
Entrance of Porn's Sexy Thai Food in J10

I would recommend to order side dishes to eat with plain white rice. Most of the patrons does that. Next time, we'll do just that and order more dishes.



Porn's
http://www.porns.com.sg/
https://www.facebook.com/pornsexythaifood
Porn's @ Liang Seah - 28 Liang Seah Street
Porn's @ Mount Faber SAFRA - 2 Telok Blangah Way #01-10
Porn's @ Junction 10 - 1 Woodlands Road
Porn's @ THE STAR VISTA - 1 Vista Exchange Green, #02-09

Tiger Beer: Have you been good this year?

Participated in the Tiger Beer: Have you been good this year? (see previous post) and won three tickets to the Tiger Beer party on 22nd December 2012, Saturday from 7.30pm at the Pit Building. Each ticket is entitled to two beers.


We got there only at 10pm, as my friend had other appointments in the evening time. Here's the view that greeted me while walking towards the F1 Pit Building. The silhouette is stylooo..


The queue was empty, and yet we gotta go round and round to get to the registration counter. The weird thing is, they did not check for my invite, or tally my name against their guest list. They only checked our IDs for our age and we were granted access with a Tiger Beer blue wristlet and 2 drinks vouchers. So does it means that anyone can just go and there is no need for an invite to our email? Hmm...

The drinks counter set up in the building. There's two of this counter on the extreme sides of the wide party space. Guests are entitled two free drinks, by exchanging our drink vouchers and it would cost $10 per cup for the subsequent drinks.


The center piece of the Tiger Beer Party.


The DJ is trying hard to make a high and happening atmosphere. But the crowd is just too sparse. Not alot of people around.


My drinks vouchers.


Tiger beer is served in thick quality plastic cups. Cheers..


The difference in our wristlet, Blue (left, mine) signifies normal invitee with 2 cups of Tiger Beer. Silver (right, my friend's) signifies VIP with free flow of Tiger Beer..

Asahi Silver Beat Party

Participated in the Asahi Beer Facebook page's event guestlist giveaway and had gotten the invite for 2. The event is held at One On the Bund on 21st December 2012, Friday from 10pm to 2am with free flow of Asahi Super Dry all night!

The event features the AOS Collective, a six man DJ/MC crew founded by Celeste Chong, Co-founder and Marketing Director of The Butter Factory. The crew consists of DJ HAPA, MC N’FA, DJ T.T and three The Butter Factory’s resident DJs,  DJ Stanley, DJ Andrew T and DJ Dave Does.


The venue for this party is One on the Bund. It seems like a pretty difficult place to get to. The address given was quite vague, and while walking along the stretch, we were not able to find it. But the restaurant is located just inside the hotel lobby. Walk straight in, and you will see the restaurant. We waited till it was 10pm before heading to the hotel.

We were greeted by the tall chic looking christmas tree in the hotel lobby.


There was a queue for attendance. There are three people in charge of finding names on three different stacks of paper. The waiting time was not very long, but I was quite irritated. They have to filter through the 3 stacks of paper for my name, when actually my name is on the first list. Technology is so advanced now. Why not tabulate the list of names into a Google Spreadsheet, find 3 laptops or tablets, Ctrl-F our name, and ta-dah.... Found. Google spreadsheet editing is also real-time, striked out on one, the rest of the two laptops accessing the spreadsheet, will also show that it's striked out.

Ok. I'm just grumbling...


After a long wait hovering at the registration table to find my name, we were given a Asahi mousepad and a wristlet. Wearing the wristlet entitles us to the freeflow of Asahi Super Dry beer.


The place was still not very packed as we were pretty on time. We are able to go through the restaurant and out to the open area by the river, facing Marina Bay Sands.

Free flow of Asahi Super Dry beer are served in chilled cans. We can grab one from the counters of from the tray of servers walking around or standing by the side. Strange is, we gotta pop open the can by ourselves. Haha... I'm just thinking as a kiasu Singaporean, unopened can = easy to smuggle out. Of course, I did no such thing =P Just a kiasu thought.


After about an hour's wait, the host of the night finally came on and introduced the important lady of Asahi. They then continued with announcing the winners of the lucky draw, which I only got to know at the point of time that there is a lucky draw. My friends and I were wishing hard that we were the first prize winner, but we had no luck.

Top prize is a Free and Easy trip for 2 to Osaka, with a half day tour to Asahi Brewery worth $3600.
Second prize, 12 cases of Asahi Super Dry beer worth $540
Third prize, 5 cases of Asahi Super Dry beer worth $225


The party finally started a while after 11pm. The AOS Collective started their pumping high music. But kinda feel weird cos the lighting in the restaurant is abit too bright for a party..


My friends and I managed to spot an empty table and we rested our feet for a while.


Update 03 January 2013
Asahi Singapore posted that evening's photos. I'm in a few of them. Here are the photos:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.505631336148210.117211.146069762104371&type=3


End of the world: 'Gangnam Style'?

Read a doomsday news on inSing: http://news.insing.com/tabloid/end-world-gangnam-style/id-19683f00, pretty entertaining. It shows a spoof video on the prophecy on doomsday on 21st December 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar. 

The original video posted on the news page, reported to have 1.5 million views, was being brought down by YouTube, showing this message "This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube's Terms of Service. But I found another version here, though with only 321 views.

Here's the video:



The prophecy from 1555 reads: From the calm morning, the end will come, when of the dancing horse, the number of circles will be nine.


It's interesting how this "prophecy"was analysed. Quoted from inSing news:
South Korea is known as "land of the morning calm", the dancing horse is Psy's signature dance style and the nine circles refer to the nine zeroes he will rack up when the 'Gangnam Style' video passes one billion YouTube views. 
The number of views currently stands at nearly 972 million, and it could reach the billion mark on or around 21 December. 
The "documentary" features an ominous narration that notes Psy's "cultural domination over Western civilisation" with images of the singer dancing with Britney Spears and UN leader Ban Ki-moon. 
"The evil that is enticing and looks cool will bend people's minds with contagious behaviour," it adds over footage of flash mobs doing the horse-riding dance in Paris and Rome.

After watching the doomsday video, I went to check out the number of views of the gangnam style video. It has a total of 988,098,600 views.




At the end of the day, the video is a spoof. But is it really the end of the world, we'll find out tomorrow.

Singtel Festive Treats

We redeemed two scoops of Häagen-Dazs ice cream at only $1 each. Promotion is by Singtel.

Singtel has offers over thirty days in the month of December to celebrate Christmas. Redemption of these offers are open to everyone, not just Singtel users. There are offers for food discounts, travels, mobile phones and others. Food offers are usually snapped up within a day. Enjoy your treats at http://info.singtel.com/christmas?randkey=1355813225!

One scoop of Strawberry, One scoop of Cookies & Cream
Only $1 for One Scoop of Häagen-Dazs ice cream (Usual Price $5.50). Choose any flavor of your choice today! Selection includes - Macadamia Nut, Belgian Chocolate, Cookies & Cream, Vanilla and Strawberry. Flavors are subject to availability. Present e-voucher to enjoy your treat now! Offer is limited to 2 redemptions per user.

Fold A Heart

Singtel's charity campaign, Fold A Heart, is here again. For every submitted folded heart, SingTel will donate S$1 to the SingTel Touching Lives Fund.

I used to see it as an offline campaign, where a red color square is printed on newspaper for cutting out and folding it according to the line into a heart.

I just realize that they have an online version (http://info.singtel.com/personal/foldaheart) for us to submit the heart online. It's a great idea as it's much easier to track how much hearts were submitted and convenient. Though I haven't seen the offline version this year, but I think they would still print in on newspaper.

Do your part, and fold a heart to help children and youth with special needs. http://info.singtel.com/personal/foldaheart


Turi Beach Resort

We purchased a deal online for a 2D1N trip to Turi Beach Resort in Nongsa Batam. Our ferry departs from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal at 12pm and a roughly 45 minutes trip, we reached Nongsa Ferry Terminal.

Turi Beach provides Shuttle Bus service from the Ferry Terminal to the resort.

On the shuttle bus. We are reaching the resort lobby

There were another two couples checking in at the same time as us. Checking in was pretty fast. As we have an upgraded our room to a sea view resort, we managed to get our room right away upon checking in. On our way to our room, we saw the resort and the pool from the lift lobby. The view was fantastic.

View from the lift lobby.

The resort rooms near the pool and the beach. Doesn't this place look relaxing and comfortable?


A short walk from the lift, and we reached our room. It is very near the swimming pool and the beach. Our room is very spacious, but nothing fantastic indoors.

Our Room
The swimming pool in front of our room
The beach is just a short walk away.
Island bar and a jetty no long in use


We made reservations for both of us to get on the shuttle bus to the Batam Mega Mall at 1.30pm. The shuttle bus departs the resort at 1.30pm and fetches us back from the mall at 4.30pm.

We were starving by the time we reached the mall. First stop, LUNCH~ We headed to the top floor for a seafood meal at D'Cos Seafood. It was the only seafood meal during the trip as the seafood place we intended to go, after enquiring about it at the resort staff, the transport to and fro is too expensive, as there are only the two of us.


One mini crab
Really mini.
Seafood Omelette. Surprisingly nice.
Fried Prawns. Quite nice too.
Veggie. Non seafood, not nice.

After lunch we window shopped around the mall, its hypermart and also had donut coffee break at JCo. As we were only given less than three hours at the mall, there wasn't time for massage, though I don't see any there. Time went pass quite fast. Soon it was time to go. We were early, so we followed the locals and sat by the road side waiting for our bus.


The sky turned dark quite early. It was only 6plus when it feels like it's around 8 in Singapore. We headed for dinner, strolling down the beach to get to the Aqua Pool area for the Mediterranean buffet. We got lost a little, only to find out we were not lost. The pool was closed for renovation and the buffet was shifted to the main dining place of the resort. There's a live band singing while we ate, with the seabreeze blowing.




The next day, we had our breakfast at the same place. I really like the dining place. The sea breeze was very comforting. This time, there is no live band. Haha..



After breakfast, we went for a short swim. But the weather got bad in a while. Sky turned dark. Not raining, but no sun, and it felt cold. Check out was at 12 noon. We went back to the same restaurant for lunch.

Gado Gado
Nice and very spicy, though the description says mild spicy.
Ayam Penyet

It's a great place to relax and be away from work and troubles as they do not provide free WiFi. Haha.. The resort is very near the beach, hence when the sea breeze blows, it's very comforting. Like all resorts and hotels in Batam, food and services in the resort is charged in Singapore Dollars. And they do have 10% service charge and a 11% Government tax. Very expensive. The staff were all very friendly, always smiling.


Turi Beach Resort
Nongsa, Batam, Indonesia
http://www.turibeach.com/