Over at Very Good Taste, there’s a list of 100 foods every omnivore should try. Here’s my list, and you should do it too! Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Copy the list and paste it onto your own blog
Step 2: Mark all the items you’ve tried in bold
Step 3: Strike through all the items you would never try
Step 4: Leave a comment here (and at VGT) linking back to your results!

Note: There’s something wrong with my blog and it fucks up the syntax, so I’ve just marked [x] next to the ones that I have NOT tried, and noted I WOULD NOT TRY THIS next to the two (#63. Kaolin and #75 Roadkill) that I wouldn’t try. I’m quite pleased to find that there are only 19 out of the 100 that I haven’t tried! Anyway, now it’s your turn!

By the way, there’s a picture of roadkill after the jump which umm explains why I would never eat it. Just in case anyone was wondering. And also to warn squeamish stomachs.
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Everyone I know (from Singapore, at least) who loves visiting Hong Kong loves this place because of two reasons - the food and the shopping. I’m a fan of the former, obviously, given my current girth around my midsection it’s quite clear where my priorities lie. Also, I’ve never had a high tolerance for shopping - I get impatient and I hate crowds! This probably explains why most of the shopping I do is either done online, and whenever I do venture into malls, I’m either there when there are less than 10 other shoppers on the same floor as me, or I’m in and out within 10 minutes tops.

However, I must say I’ve been converted. Well, perhaps I was always a bit of a shopaholic, I just shop for different things! I mean, how else can one explain how within 18 months, the amount of stuff bunny and I own increased by 35 boxes, with 21 dedicated solely to kitchen ware (including cutlery, crockery, silverware, glassware etc)? TWENTY ONE BOXES. Of KITCHEN stuff. That’s a lot!!!

Evidently, I haven’t been cured of my shoppaholism. In fact, I’ve finally realised why Hong Kong is such a haven for shoppers - only I haven’t found my paradise in the aisles of fashionistas and designer shoes or bags. No, I’ve found my new escape somewhere quite unexpected (even for me): in city super, an upmarket supermarket. I mean, I was delighted enough when I saw their deli counters with pata negra, chorizo, truffle-flecked buffalo mozzarella, and more, but one day I found their non-food section. The first thing that stood out was the range of bottling products: stuff I could only find in speciality cookstores like Pantry Magic in Singapore. I swear I gasped audibly when I found a heat diffuser on the shelves - something I’d been searching for in Singapore for over a year!

Today, though, I really hit the jackpot. I was looking for some bottles in the Causeway Bay city super when I saw a little Le Creuset display stand. My eyes involuntarily wandered over to the price tag and back to my shelf of bottles when I did a double take. A Le Creuset cast iron skillet for under S$50? Suffice to say that I spent the next 25 minutes pacing back and forth in front of the display, and walked out with these two:

You can’t actually blame me, right? I mean, I’ve already written about how much I love my yellow Dutch oven. Oh well. I suppose I now have a happy family of primary colours.

That’s right my blog is BAAACKKKK BAYBEHHH. Sorry for the horrifically long absence - my blog kind of died (some unintelligible mess went haywire in the inner workings of the DB/MySQL/something or other) and I couldn’t fix it on my own ‘cos seriously I’m just not THAT geeky. Or I am, but I’m not that clever. HOWEVER. ASHWIN IS THAT CLEVER AND SO MUCH MORE and he helped me sort it out (THANK YOU ASH I LUBCHIU DEEP DEEP I BUY YOU AS MANY EGG TARTS AS YOU CAN EAT WHEN YOU COME TO HK) so now I am BACK AND READY TO BLOG.

*cracks knuckles*

Okay. So quick update before I get back to rabidly posting. I’ve been getting some rather nasty emails and texts from various people whom I’ve kept in the dark about my supposedly life-changing meal that I had in Spain. TOO BAD. You guys have to wait a LITTLE longer. As most of you know by now, Bunny and I are now in HAWWWWNGGG KAWWWNNGGGG living it up (well not really), but just meeting people and getting settled so that also took precedence over blog-fixing.

I AM NOW THE PROUD OWNER OF AN iPHONE 3G so sucks to all of you in Singapore who were neh-ni-neh-ni-boo-boo-ing me ‘cos I had to go and move to HK just when DCFC was coming to Singapore, ‘cos SCREW YOU that’s one night and I have all their music anyway so I can have my own concert at home and I don’t need to A) get squashed with the rabid people in Singapore concerts nor B) deal with everyone sitting down and stoning at Singapore concerts depending on how it all pans out. BLEHHHHH.

Wow that felt good. Haha. Okay anyway. I’m going to go and install more apps in my sexay new phone so I will be back and blogging like a fiend in a bit. MUCHOS LOVEOS TOLEDOS CIAOOOO!!!!

PS: Oh fuck I just realised all my categories disappeared. God I’ve got a long day/night ahead of me.

Edit: Okay so I’ve deleted like maybe 2.5k of the comments, and there’s still another 6k to go. I categorised the recent posts, the rest of them I really can’t be bothered. (By recent I mean post-Whine&Dine era.) kthxbai.

I know it’s kinda pink, but just bear with me for a while. I don’t really have the time to do up a new theme, so I’m just gonna hang with this for a bit.

Well, not exactly.. or.. something, but that’s what some ad in the newest terminal in Changi airport says. It’s definitely pretty, but it’s things like this that make me wonder exactly where all this money is coming from (and going to). That said, I’m really not complaining - the lounge in T3 is really excellent, down to the shiny new iMacs (the big-chinned ones), mighty mouses and super flat keyboards (that I have sort of decided are a little too flat), one of which I’m on now.

Bunny and I are enroute to Beijing for a week. I’m not sure if I really officially updated anyone via this space, but at the end of last month, I completed my stint as stagiare in a restaurant kitchen. That was an amazing experience, and while I’ve got some time to think about whether or not I want to pursue this route, it’s definitely something I don’t regret trying out at all. In case you’re wondering where I’ve been for the past couple of weeks since I quit, I’ve essentially been hiding at home, and going on various random photowalks (a couple with jldlin) and… baking copious amounts of breakfasty/tea-time snacks for a bunch of greedy lawyers scattered throughout various banks. Thanks to said goodies, I even managed to get myself an offer for a summer internship. But I really don’t think that’s my cuppa tea.

So anyway, all of you sweethearts who have been complaining that my blog is growing mold and slowly but surely dying away, fear not! I have returned. Or.. I will have returned once I’m back in Singapore from this trip. I have a trip to London and Spain booked for April this year (HELLO FAT DUCK. HELLO RAMSAY’S. MAYBE HELLO PETRUS.) and I’m hoping to steal some time away for another short trip either to KL, HK (it’s been too long!) or Melbourne where I have friends that I haven’t seen in faaaar too long.

Alrighty, enough of this rambly-schmambly. I have to go hunt down my sillybunny. See you all in a few. In the meantime, do check out my flickrstream for live pictorial updates from the land of Peking Duck and a couple of rolls of film that I shot last week.

Hello, it’s the bunny. Since w. is so busy at work and doesn’t have energy to post here, I thought I would fill in for a bit.

It’s that time of the year again when one must reflect on the past year and make resolutions for the new one. (w made a resolution about 5 years ago never to make another resolution and that’s the only one she’s ever kept.)

This year, I will not be so stupid as to resolve to go to the gym - I now know that I will never keep that. I also will not resolve to eat less, or eat more healthily as that too will quickly fly out the window. Instead, I resolve to spend less money (should be easy now that there really aren’t any gadgets that we don’t own anymore), spend more time with my best friend who is back from the States, and ignore my relatives’ incessant nagging (especially at Chinese New Year).

Hopefully, these will be easily achievable.

A lot has happened this year which I won’t go into in detail. Needless to say, I’m glad that I have w. with me, and that we celebrated our 2nd anniversary this year. Please don’t ask us when the wedding is going to be. (w says: ask your friendly neighbourhood grassroots leader.)

So here’s wishing everybody a happy new year, and may all your wishes come true in the coming year.

PS: For those in the banking industry, you know there’ll be no bonus, so none of us can help you there.

PPS: Sorry there’s no food today. Is all expanding in my tummy. Ugh. Is so full.

So I have this friend, and she and I have this longstanding love affair, only we can’t be together ‘cos we’re both with other people. To cope, she decided to settle for second best:

friend: you know something?
me: YOU LOVE ME.
friend: okay now you will never know.
friend: eejiot.
me: :(
me: tiao me.
me: priiiiis.
me: i lubchiu.
friend: lol
me: -tugs sleeve
friend: okay i lubchiu too (so easy)
friend: aww
me: *teh to the maxness*
me: wait that was it?
friend: OKAY MY NEXT GF’S AUTOMATIC RESPONSE TO EVERYTHING WILL BE LUBCHIU TIAO ME TUG AT SLEEVE
me: oh god.
friend: that’s right.
me: no. oh god. you just based the prototype of your next gf on something i said.
friend: don’t you love it? LEER LEER.

Anyway, we were talking online today, as usual, and I was whining - also as usual - about how I want more teeshirts. And I showed her this one.

friend: i like that tee too! and i will marry the girl who goes and makes me one. LOL
me: hahahaha yes and tugs at your sleeve to get your attention right? once she’s made you the sammich.
me: omg i’m blogging this. won’t name you.
friend: lolllll do it. hahahahha.

So if there exist any (preferably Japanese or Vietnamese) girls out there who are at most 167cm in height, and you spot a cute chick (LEER LEER) wearing this teeshirt, you know what to do.

Yes, my birthday’s coming (again, I know - it seems like I was just shamelessly begging for presents yesterday!) soon, in 9 days to be exact. Oh shit that reminds me, it’s my ex’s birthday today. Okay getting sidetracked. Anyhoo, I’m not allowed to ask for anymore cookbooks (because I already just got one from smiao - though that was fairly self-serving, but hey I’M NOT COMPLAINING thankyouverymuchsmiao, lovement!) so I really don’t know what to ask for! I also have too many teeshirts (booooo) and my kitchen has no more space for gadgets. Actually, even if it did have space left, I don’t know what else I would get since I’m pretty much kitted out to open a boutique restaurant already. Maybe an ice cream cone maker. Hrm. Okay no one’s allowed to tell bunny I said that.

Anyway. The one thing that’s available is my flickr pro account. I generally like reserving this for my friends who are overseas since….. it makes sense, but since I (for once) don’t have a ridiculously long list of things I’m coveting roundabout mid/end September, that’s up for grabs. I was actually contemplating not renewing it since I don’t think I’ll be shooting as much, but I want to keep all my photos archived properly.

OH I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING! My favourite boy who was so freaking sweet as to think of getting me Guitar Hero 3 has since discovered the joys of Rock Band and its kickass soundtrack. However, that’s going to be priced at about US$200 which is a ridiculous amount of money for A) a video game (although it does come with all the controllers!!!) and B) for one person to spend on me, so I’m going to share it with him. Yes, as a (belated) birthday present for myself. If anyone wants to pitch in and share it with us, let me know, or give him a ring, or ask me for his email address. Oh I should mention I’m talking about Jon. Not that I have any other favourite boys. :)

Ummmmm. Okay that’s it. Stick around, maybe I’ll think of something else.

I’m back in Singapore, thanks to some changes in my travel itinerary. The photos from Hong Kong are all up on flickr, and I’ll get cracking on the Vietnam ones shortly.

Anyway, this post is really just to direct your attention to a new subsidiary of w&d - obsessive compulsive linking. You can read the explanation there. Hooray for tumblelogs, and I hope I keep at that one long enough this time.

So no, I’m not going anywhere. My asides, however, have been booted over to the new space. I’m in the process of tailoring this space to a more food-related site (as I’m sure most of you can see), and it’s high time I got those buggers their own crib. Alrighty-ho, I need to finish the two books I was reading! And make random noises at the wikipikicat.

Not that this post is meant to be a plug for vick’s blog (ah but what the hell - most of you probably know it already anyway), but I just had the most harrowing week ever. In terms of cupcake-madness that is.

A friend of a friend asked me to do a motherload of cupcakes for her wedding, half pink with her name, and another half sorta like the cupcake pictured, but with the groom’s name. I never want to see another cupcake again.

Much thanks, though, to Jaime and Wei, who very gamely came over to help out with the umm we call them atomic bombs/bloops, and really to keep me company and keep me from going mad with all the icing sugar flying around the house. Then again, their presence meant there were 3 of us fighting for the guitar to play Guitar Hero II on my newly acquired, dirt-cheap, 2nd hand xbox 360. w0000t!

(Sidenote: Shirlyn.. playing guitar hero kept making me think of you ‘cos so many of the songs in the tracklist are songs you guys play on Thursdays!)

Anyhoo, apart from being completely cupcake-ed out, both my hands are in a rather bad way - with the right suffering from piping-induced CPS, and the left from guitar hero-induced RSI. Whoops.

Ah well. At least I had some extras left over that I could decorate for friends, especially since on Friday night I was sure that I could have piped ANYTHING on that little round of fondant, i.e. not just names. To prove my point, I present to you the cupcake piped with vickiho.com/blog. That’s right - an entire URL. That consists of a name too. SCORE.

PS: I wonder if posts about Guitar Hero get to be categorised under Music.