House visiting

Penny and I have been dreaming of getting our very own brand new home for the longest time. We have sort of given up on that hope after being unsuccessful in HDB's countless balloting exercises for new flats. In the meantime, we just satiate our appetites for our new abode by visiting other people's and convincing ourselves with the 'it's not God's time for us to have a new home' mentality.

Our latest foray was to Jarrod's and Fiona's. After several invitations, we finally made time to drop by at their newly acquired property of a semi-detached house. It was a lazy Saturday and since I had to work, it was a good opportunity for Penny and Velouria to have breakfast and chill there.

It was not hard to find despite them telling us that numerous people got lost looking for their place before. I mean, seriously, how hard is it to get lost in our tiny island nation?

From the outside, the edifice looked simple and straightforward, nothing elaborate like some of the houses we passed on the way in. Upon stepping in, we were greeted by a wide and spacious living room, with a TV area and a sofa accompanied by two armchairs. They had opted for an open concept kitchen so we could see through to the back of the house just standing at the door. The kitchen, like the living room, was uncluttered and practical with all the necessities and nothing more.

Surrounding the kitchen and dining area were floor-to-ceiling glass doors swathed with roller blinds, which allowed natural light on fair days and providing the option to keep the light on days when the sun blazes mercilessly.

Just beyond those glass doors was a tiny little garden big enough to lay a mat to have a picnic on. Fiona was also attemtping to grow some herbs which were placed in a huge pot that was used to conceal a sewerage cover.

We decided to explore the upper level next and the first thing that caught my eyes was the light bulbs dangling from the ceiling. Again, nothing fancy and very practical but yet tastefully done. It was just one of those things that make you go ‘Damn, why didn’t I think of that?’.

The upper level was equally cool. They kept elements of the retro fixtures that came with the original house which was built in the 70s like the staircase railings, the mosaic tiles of the guest room and even salvaged the old window grilles from the master bedroom into a trellis-like fixture to hang their plasma TV from.

In short, the whole place was groovy without being too ostentatious. Just practical and uncluttered, just the way we like it.

A-roi krub... again!

After the excellent (in spite of it being expired for more than six months) tom yum soup we had a couple of weeks earlier, we went back to Giant and bought ourselves more of the similar range of Thai food from Thai Kitchen. Apparently, Giant Hypermart brings this brand of products in by themselves so it explains why we could not find it anywhere else.

We decided to buy the tom yum kung again, and also purchased a tom kah khai, which is basically a tom yum stew of chicken with a creamy coconut milk base. It's been ages since I had a good one and thinking about it now brings me back 20 years to our Telok Blangah flat where this dish was normal fare whipped out by the Thai domestic helper we had back then.

It had been a crazy week and I was too lazy to cook, so I guess the tom kah khai came in really handy. The recipe called for chicken slices, but I was too lazy to debone the chicken parts we had in the freezer. Instead, I used the chicken pieces, with bones intact, and it still turned out wonderful. As with the tom yum kung before, all the ingredients were individually packed into several numbered packets, so all I had to do was boil some water and add the chicken pieces.

The final product was nothing short of wonderful. Penny was too stuffed to eat much, but I sipped up every last drop of soup.

Excellent!