Frannywanny

“Change is good” , they always say. While my OC-self tends to squirm at the thought of dealing with any change in my routine more so a change in my comfort zone, I can’t help but agree. With change, come new discoveries and opportunities, after all. I also believe that change helps us grow in life. We deal with new challenges; we conquer bigger obstacles which leads to a more fulfilling reward at the end of it all. We come out a winner after every change. So one big change happened to one of my favourite Italian restaurant here in the Lion City. Dolce Vita Restaurant 's head chef,  Chef Marco Manocchio , who has been with the restaurant since 2015 recently launched a new menu featuring some of his personal specialties. How's that for a good change? I was one of the lucky ones (thank you my lucky stars!) to be invited to try a simple repertoire of Chef Marco’s new dishes. Let me share them with you!

One of my favorite time of the year is here and we only got 2 weeks to enjoy it! It's time for Melt Cafe 's annual Flavours of India  promotion and if there's any buffet theme that I love the most about Melt then this would probably be it. You see, Melt Cafe offers a wide range of dishes from a good selection of fresh seafood to an interesting line-up of salads, roasted meats, desserts, cheese, Western and Asian dishes but did you know that they also serve one of the yummiest Indian dishes in town? For instance, always make sure to try their freshly made prata (I love the garlic and cheese variants) as well as their curries and tandooris too. I was fortunate to try last year's Flavours of India  where we had an interesting wine pairing dinner which was actually my first time to have wine with Indian food. Normally, I'd go for some Mango Lassi to balance out the possible spiciness of some of the dishes. This time around, Chef Santosh Kumar outdid himself aga...

One of my favorite hotel buffet restaurants in Singapore has just gotten a makeover and we were all so excited about it! I love it so much that I think I've blogged about it multiple times before, yet I always look forward to any opportunity to go back and have a meal at  Melt Cafe in Mandarin Oriental Singapore. I can never have enough of its wide-variety of dishes and I feel that they have one of the best, top-quality Indian selections among most hotel buffets. So, when we found out that they did a bit of "re-formatting", I initially asked "Why?!" You see, I always believe in the saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"  and to me, there's definitely nothing "broke" about Melt Cafe . Then again, it's always good to do a bit of refreshing once in a while, right? So, a month ago, I visited the new Melt Cafe with fellow bloggers and we feasted on their newest menu line-up. Instead of writing lengthily about it, let me take...

Three years ago, there was a couple who arrived here in the Lion City with pretty much their entire lives packed in three huge suitcases. It was right in the middle of all the Chinese New Year festivities and as they thought they knew everything there is to know about this particular holiday, they were proven wrong within the span of a week. Walking around the hawker centres, they were startled by the sudden shouts and scenes of people standing around the table tossing shredded vegetables up in the air. It was madness! "What on earth are they doing? ", they'd ask one another. While this sight was very new to them, this couple was quick to adjust and have imbibed all the new customs and traditions that they have learned in their new home called Singapore . Above is a real, true to life story of Paul and yours truly. This was our first experience of the Singaporean-style Chinese New Year and having close to a dozen yu sheng salads, tossing veggies up in the air countless...

Right after our two-hour crash course in learning how to cook some Balinese specialties , Paul and I headed to MELT ~ The World Cafe for a delicious buffet dinner waiting for us. Starting last April 28 till May 8 , Chef Heinz von Holzen will be in Singapore and this means, you and I can enjoy a special line-up of Balinese specialties which will be included into the lunch and dinner buffet spread of MELT. Saying this without any bias, MELT is one of my favorite hotel buffets in Singapore. I just love that the offerings aren't too overwhelming nor is it too limited. There's always something yummy that you can find in each station and of course, there are my usual favorites. For this evening, Paul and I focused on the center counter where we found all the Balinese dishes served. In fact, you'll find a couple of Balinese dishes in almost all stations so you can actually have a full course dinner meal with all of Bali's specialties. Here are some of our favorites tha...

I'd say, Paul and I had a really productive Labor Day. Luckily, we laborers got a day off from work which allowed us to catch up on sleep, finish all domestic duties and to learn something new! Yes, you read that right. I love taking classes as it allows me to know a new skill or to sharpen something that I already know to be better. After all, learning should be a lifelong process. So, we spent two hours on Labor Day at Mandarin Oriental Singapore to learn how to cook Balinese food! Living away from home, I'd say our kitchen know-how has improved greatly from cooking sunny-side-up eggs to pasta and recently, we've become more bolder in experimenting on more complicated dishes. Nonetheless, we've stuck closely to Filipino and Chinese cuisines. These two that we both grew up eating at our respective homes. So, I was really intrigued as to what Balinese cuisine is all about. As soon as our class started, Chef Heinz von Holzen of Bumbu Bali Restaurant & Cookin...

How I wish I can enjoy my lunch while enjoying this view every day...  Well, there's no harm in dreaming right? At least this "dream" became a reality one fine day when I joined a couple of food bloggers for a nice Italian lunch at Dolce Vita in Mandarin Oriental Singapore . This was to give a warm welcome to Chef Omar Bernardi , the restaurant's new Chef de Cuisine. Chef Omar Bernardi began his culinary career in some of the top Italian restaurants back in his hometown in Milan, Italy. Restaurants such as two-Michelin-starred San Domenico Ristorante and one-Michelin -starred La Terezza dell'Eden among others became Chef Omar's training ground as he continued to hone his kitchen skills and created a number of gastronomical delights in the process. He later moved here to Singapore in 2011 and has recently joined  Mandarin Oriental Singapore . What's a chef welcome without good food right? For lunch that day, we had a feast! Chef Omar has special...

Here's an interesting quote that I truly agree and believe in: After all, we work 5 days a week so we really owe it to ourselves to relax and recharge for two full days before heading back to the battle work force once again. Paul and I also take these two days to go out on dates, meet up with friends and to just have fun. Sometimes, we would just stay home, go swimming, do some cooking and nap for as long as we want. That, my friends, is what I'd call work-life balance and I strongly believe that it's something really important to attain a happier life.  So, what did we do last weekend? Well, it was a busy, action-packed one for us, if I must say. Saturday was when Paul and I went to watch Rock of Ages with his cousin J and my friend C. It was so much fun! The musical was awesome and we're so happy to be in the company of such happy and amazing people. The show was so good that I'm currently experiencing major Rock of Ages LSS this week. We went home q...

Lunch Break! Normally, lunch for me would consist of two slices of wholewheat bread and my choice of veggies or meat that I would tabao  from my favorite soup restaurant beside my office. On other days, I would bring some home-cooked packed lunch or if I want to go healthy, it would be a huge container of salad. Given that I tend to work as I eat, lunch has always been something light and quick for me. It has indeed been sometime when I was able to sit down, enjoy a real good meal and to chitchat a little longer. Well, after a series of stressful workdays, the kind genie (a.k.a. my friend WT) must have heard my plea and he granted me one wish -- to join him for lunch at Melt - The World Cafe in Mandarin Oriental . What makes it event better? The fact that Melt recently launched a 10-day long Filipino Buffet promotion highlighting a wide-array of classic dishes that I miss so much. This got me really excited that I've been looking forward to this lunch since Monday. ...

Over dinner at Prata Planet one evening, my friends and I began talking about steak. Yes, I was in the presence of steak-loving guys who take their cuts of meat seriously. I asked around where's the best steak in Singapore and I got a number of recommendations. My list of places to eat in Singapore is starting to get really long... hooray! One of those recommendations given was Morton's Steakhouse at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Well, that's one restaurant that I can happily put a check on my list as I was able to visit this a few months back. Let me tell you about my Morton's experience.  Stepping inside the restaurant, Morton's Steakhouse has a similar feel to most fine-dining steak restaurants -- heavy wooden interiors, dimly lit with candlelights on every table (or in this case a really cute lamp), servers in black and white. The menu was pretty simply and straight-forward. We were served with bread for starters. I have to admit that I wasn't ab...