An Evening with The Song of India

It's been quite a while since I've had Friday night dinner with friends. There are too much goings-on lately that most of the time I simply prefer to be at home on Fridays and have a lazy evening and midnight munchies with hubby and the kids.

One of my friend Leklek, organized for us a Friday night dinner at The Song of India together with friends from work.

The Song of India is hailed as one of Singapore's Best Fine Dining Restaurants so I you can tell I'm wide-eyed with anticipation. I've been to India twice and I have an appreciation for Indian cuisine so I was looking forward for this experience.

The restaurant which is located along Scotts Road is actually a restored heritage bungalow from the colonial period era that gives an old world ambiance. Our reservations were slated for dinner so the lighting was toned-down. If it is a dinner date for two, it would probably have been romantic. I read in reviews that others may find this a downer. I suppose the place is generally serene but we didn't quite notice this as we were too busy chatting (a bit boisterously we admit) and laughing! I was seated facing the wall so if the other patrons have been glaring at us, I couldn't tell.

Our dinner was a 4-course menu of kebabs artfully presented in degustacion proportions. I am not a heavy eater so the proportion works well for me because you can try a bit of everything. I consider its hint of spice as mild so if you are not a hot-and-spice-person, this should be perfect.

The appetizer was the spiciest for the night.
This is mild to moderate for me though.

This is part 2 of the appetizer fare. Different types of kebabs.

The entree is called the Art Platter Kebab,
served with warm roti which you can dip into the sauce.

The dessert is a mango and ginger ice cream with fruits.
Followed by milk tea.

I also read they have a great wine selection but since of the ladies still have post-dinner plans, we skipped the alcohol. And I am curbing my alcholic tendencies after weeks of hubby's homemade Mojitos which I am using as my excuse for my muffun tops.

The entree was very good. I like the spiciness of the prawn and the lamb was tender. Yes, I do appreciate a good meal of lamb. There were also different sauce-y accompaniments (forgot all their names), one with mushroom, another with lentils. I miss my all time favorite tikka paneer though.

We had different points of view on the dessert of mango and ginger ice cream. It worked for me. It's not very sweet and I am guessing that aside from ginger, some other mild spice must have been infused as well. Dinner was capped by a serving of milk tea. I actually wanted some second helping of the tea too.

And of course, in between are snippets of stories from our-lives-so-far. Life has been too serious lately so it is refreshing to let your hair down (and have an excuse for glamming up).

Indian cuisine at it's finest. As Leklek aptly puts it, it is a night of good food with good friends. 

Simple Greek Salad

I once had to grab a quick lunch and decided to go this take-away Greek salad at Salad Stop. The ingredients look so simple and it's quite easy to replicate this salad so I tried it home with some variations.

Below is the picture of the salad without the final dressing and cheese toppings, for better visualization of the ingredients.



Salad just before I added the Greek Feta Cheese dressing
and Cottage Cheese



I used vegetable fussili pasta to make it more colorful. Then added sliced cucumbers, heirloom and cherry tomatoes, a few olives (can't see them here) and broccoli florets.

I found this bottle of Greek Feta Cheese dressing from Margetti. This dressing is perfect and I didn't have to bother adding more spices to the salad. Add the dressing to the salad mixture and toss. The dressing comes with bits of feta cheese.

You can also add a dash of feta cubes after tossing the salad.  I chosed to instead add 3 tbsp of cottage cheese. You can be as liberal as you like. Chill slightly before serving.

This salad is best paired with grilled pork/steak/salmon in lieu of rice. I also eat it as is for a quick breakfast or snack.

The kids love this as well so it is a great way to also serve vegetarian fare!



My Little Girl Got Calluses

It has been a nightly ritual to put the children to bed after finishing our evening prayer at Kyla's room. They also know Mommy will be working next door. Kyla requests that I visit her in between while I work. I also visit Kevin too, to check if he is finally asleep. He has a habit of staying awake for as long as someone is still up.

I just came from Kyla's room a few minutes ago. I reached for her hand and started lightly touching her palm. I noticed that the calluses in her palms grew bigger and rougher by now. She got these calluses after hours of playing at the monkey bars. She even proudly demonstrated to me once how agile and strong she has become, crossing the entire length of monkey bars with such ease and speed.


Kyla crossing the monkey bars while Kevin is perched on his favorite corner.

 Being a non-athletic person myself, I can only marvel at how nimble she was! I can't remember being able to do this when I was her age. She is eight and she got these very rough calluses. I have none.

Clearly, she enjoys conquering the monkey bars despite her dad forbidding her to play further when he noticed the onset of blisters that eventually became a wide, rough patch of toughened skin. I don't think we can stop her. It looked only like monkey bars to us. To her, it probably meant something more than that.

I snapped this photo of her that day, crossing the monkey bars. I smiled and eventually laughed out loud. She is good at it. She smiled back at me proundly when she reached the other end, and I thought, "there must be a feeling of freedom, being able to conquer these bars, against time, against every ounce of strength."

I remember that day while I was touching her hand and feeling the roughened skin of her palms. Clearly not a young lady's hand. Perhaps it will never be. I can see it now, my little girl is not meant to be the dainty lady. It wasn't just blisters I saw or felt. I remember the fears she has conquered. The depth of her love and understanding for her brother.

And in that moment, her little hand in mine, I felt a sense of portents being passed on to her.

One of these days, I'll let her examine her palms, feel the calluses.

And I'll tell her what it meant. And she has every reason to be proud.

And it's not about just the monkey bars.

My "To Do" List

This is actually a copy of hand written scribblings from my journal. I still keep a journal on top of my blog. It's a daintly looking notebook which I bought in 2009 at National Bookstore.

One of the pages contain my 2011-2012-2013 To Do List (it's a 3 year plan). It's not long list. Just a few important milestones I would like to do in the next 3 years or so. Had to write it down in my journal so that I won't confuse them with my other minor To Do List elsewhere in my other notebooks. I thought that by publishing them, I'd be more determined enough to ensure that it gets ticked off the list.

So here it goes...(with side comments which were not included in my notebook entry)

Write a new article about children with special needs and submit them for publication. (The former is easy. Getting it published takes a little bit of opportunity and luck.)

Do 5S more often. (Than I already do. Okay, this one is quite easy. But it's good to be reminded.)

Get a Tatoo! (Hubby supports this but I was advised to be content with the henna-thing.)

Buy an Amazon Kindle (?). I must be desperate to do this. (I ended up striking this out of the entry but including it here for transparency. I decided I am not yet that desperate.)

Buy more gemstone earrings. (Started! There is something down to earth about precious stones. And there are more to precious stones that the diamond, emerald and ruby variety.)

Be more deliberate.

Learn new recipes. (Not exactly my cup of tea...so I started with baking again.)

Update the travel masterplan. With dates and bookings. (It's back on track.)

Meditate!

Read more books again. (And I meant real books, not the pretend books.)

Eat more real food. (I was inspired after reading Food Rules.)

Get more sleep! (Working on it)

Only postive thoughts!

Continue life conversations with Kyla (What we teach our kids today will at least help shape up the person they become tomorrow. I learned this from my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.)

Learn a new language. (Kyla knows the language I have chosen. Inspired by a movie I was watching when I decided to do this.)

I am excited about updating our travel plans once again. Kyla is excited too! It lagged for a while so now we have some catching up to do. Travelling has been made relatively affordable nowadays and the places we are interested to see are not very far from where we live today.

I have started my new language exploration. I downloaded this app with voice over tutorial and I started with handy, everyday phrases. I am so looking forward to actually have to put it to good use someday!

Something Has Changed

In the last two months, I kept telling my better half, a few close friends and those who cared to remember my musings that something has changed ever since the year started.

For one, I became a sleepyhead. Last year, I can stay awake until 1:00 to 2:00 in the morning for the entire week and still appear at 8:00 A.M. the next day at the office. Nowadays, I am hopelessly sleepy by 10:00 in the evening (like right now) and I have to drag myself off from the bed in the morning. Which means I am left with tons of unread emails the next day whereas I used to be able to clean them up in the evenings. It does have benefits for my health though because I am no longer lightheaded at work and the migraines are lesser now that I am able to sleep longer.

For the last twelve months I realized I got used to only having 2-3 meals a day, being lunch and dinner. I take breakfast when I am in the mood for it. I was accustomed to taking my breakfast at 8:30 in the morning at the Plant, usually after the early morning walk around the operations area. I'm not the type who can take in food so early in the morning and it's no fun to be eating breakfast in front of a laptop either once you are already at the office. But nowadays I try to grab something (healthy) at home.

I also started going back to my old routine of having an afternoon coffee or tea and some snack with friends whenever time allows us to do so. Lately, I felt the need more than ever, to break off my eyes from the computer screen, else my eyes starts to ache in the literal sense. You can probably imagine tired, strained eyes, but eyes that ache??? You better believe it.

Speaking of coffee, I still need to have my usual cup to get me started for the day. For some reason, halfway through, the coffee starts to taste either sour, metallic or just plain abominable lately. Whatever. So it ended up that my regular 2 cups a day has been technically cut down to just one.

At 8:00 in the evening or so, Kyla and I would stretch on the bed and we'll talk about our-day-so-far. I'll ask her about what she did in school. In turn, she also asks me about how my day was at work. Sometimes Kevin would join us and we'll ask him how his day went.

I have more random thoughts going on in my head and I wish I can keep up with all of them because they would make interesting anecdotes for a blog.

My friends told me that it is probably a sign.... of years taking it's toll and telling your physical being to slow down.

But I also know, during one honest-to-goodness moment of introspection, that something has changed. Beyond just physical.

I felt it when the year started. Or rather, after our vacation at our home country last December. Something happened. Something has changed. I can call it different shades and names. Turning point. Serendipity. A-ha moment. Realization. Surrender. Acceptance.

Something has changed. Irrevocably so.

Finds

Well, it's that time of the year again.

I'm not really big on birthdays, at least not my birthday -- it is usually a family affair. We choose to either have a dinner somewhere or if time permits, my hubby volunteers to cook something special for dinner at home.

I decided to celebrate it a little bit earlier this year by writing down my so-called "Splurge List." Nothing extravagant really, but a few of my favorite things that I'd like to get for myself.

I am quite pragmatic when it comes to perfumes because I get migraines with the wrong scents. But I like perfumes so I have to choose the fragrance carefully when buying. I like mild, lavender-vanilla scents. Benefit's Crescent Row line of fragrances caught my fancy immediately because of the fancy, pop-art packaging that Benefit is known for. The ultimate first moment of truth. I sampled the scents and was drawn to Carmella. Each scent was named after a lady and each has their unique style and personality. Carmella is the epitome of lady-like elegance and mystery. The scent hints of vanilla essence.





One of the challenges of walking everyday from home to office and viceversa is that one has to find the perfect shoes. Classy enough for the office, comfortable enough to not ruin your feet with blisters, sturdy enough to withstand all that walking. After my 4-year old Naturalizer wedgies retired last 2010, I have tried several shoes but none seem to pass the criteria. I stopped buying shoes for a while out of frustration because I ended up giving them away out of discomfort. I believe I found my soul shoes at last.

Got this from Studio Tangs.
The leather is soft so I am optimistic I wont get murdered feet in the process.

I found the book The Food Rules by Michael Pollan while browsing Daphne O's blog. I googled this book, read an excerpt and decided to hunt it down in my next strip to the bookstore. After picking it up, another book next to it caught my eye -- Classy by Derek Blasberg.  I'll tell you more about it when I'm done reading.

 I would like to add more gemstone pieces this year. I did not have to think twice when I saw this rose quartz drop earring with swarovski. It's easy to pair them off with my other necklaces and would be great for every day wear and special occasions.

So there! Ticked off the items in my "out-of-the-blue" checklist!

You and I - A Collection of Candid Moments

I'll be another year older a few hours from now. I'd like to dedicate this blog to the three people in this world who are dearest to me. My family. Nothing else in this world defines me except my family. I have been a better person because of their unconditional love. As I celebrate another year, I am thankful to the Lord that we are together and for the memories in between here to eternity.

I'm always on the watch for those split second, candid moments caught on cam that tell stories that are larger than life... Accentuated by one of my favorite old song "You and I."


This was the 5-yr old Kevin and Kyla was 2.5 years old. It was company family day celebration in Subic Bay. This is the first picture I had of the two of them looking out to the sea. Apparently, the first among many others.

"You and I will travel far together...we'll pursue our little star together."



Subic Bay, Zambales



The first thing that they check out when we are on an outing is the sea (or the ocean).

"We'll be happy as we are together."

Caylabne Bay Resort, Cavite

Like me, they can stand here for hours and just stare at the sea, the sky and appreciate nature.

"You and I are going on forever."



Punta Fuego, Batangas

Our vacations, by default, has to be somewhere with a beach. Kevin and Kyla looks forward to going to the beach.

"Until the time we have is gone forever."

Panglao Island, Bohol

And has become their unique bonding ritual to stare at the overlooking sea.

"Watch the evening drawing on together...Growing older, growing closer."

Sentosa Island, Singapore



Or anything with water, for that matter.

"Making memories that light the sky..."

Resorts World Sentosa, Singapore

They also love these little strolls. Hand in hand with Daddy or Mommy.

"That only time can make..."

Punta Fuego, walking towards our cottage

And wishing time would slow down.

" That only love can make..."



Coral Beach of Punta Fuego


Don't grow up too soon, my dear little ones.

"That only we can make..."

Weathered Rocks at Punta Fuego.
We probably had hundreds of pictures from this vacation.

And even if you do, in my eyes... you will always be Mommy's dear babies.

"...You and I."

Home Sweet Home at Sta. Rosa, Laguna