Sembawang hot spring at Gambas Avenue

We visited the Sembawang hot spring at Gambas Ave this afternoon and brought back 2 containers
(20 litres each) of the hot spring water for our use. The spring water is good for the skin and has other health benefits.
Th place is not so crowded, perhaps 6 to 8 people soaking their legs in buckets of water. One even soak his laundry in 3 pails and washed them. The water from the tap is about 70 Celsius and has to let
it cool down before dipping the legs in it.
You may read more of it here

One meal a day

We had Pepper Lunch again and it was delicious. There was no queue since it was passed lunchtime. The last meal we had was yesterday, 24 hours ago. In the process, I lost 600 gram in weight. Today, I also plan to eat only one meal.
We bought the durian ice cream at Fairprice. It was quite expensive ($12.80 for 6 small sticks). However, if you like durian you will also love this ice cream.

Had 5 participants at my "Talks" this morning. They are cabin crew hopefuls, learning the rope and getting tips on how to pass the SIA cabin crew interview this May.
I was a cabin crew executive and interviewer with SIA before my retirement. I've helped more than 400 young men and women to be SIA, CX, JL, EK flight attendants over the past couple of years.

Macaroni au gratin dish

This lunch was prepared by my wife. It's macaroni au gratin or a pasta dish. Accompanying the dish was a plate of salad. It tasted better than the pasta I had recently at Buddy. Compliments to my talented wife.

My new mobile phone, a Samsung J7

The above phone is a Samsung J7. After 50% discount, I paid $49. This comes with a 2 year contract. The phone is as good as the Samsung Note 4 I had for the last 2 years (below). The Note 4 was expensive. I remember paying about $350 for the phone and it also came with a 2 year contract. If you asked me, there isn't much of difference between the 2 phones.
Out of curiosity, I asked for a Samsung Note 4 but was told it was no longer available with StarHub. They offered me the Samsung Note 5 which cost about $350 after a $50 discount. It's was too expensive, I told the sales lady and decided to settle for the $49 J7.

Today's meals and Mr Koh the hawker

Began the day with some sweet oranges and before that a cup of kopi O. Lunch was typical Japanese home prepared food. Dinner was a $6 plate of delectable fried Hokkien mee at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10.

A note about the Hokkien mee hawker:

Let's call him Koh. He is about 60 years old, slim and tall with a head of thin grey hair. He fries the mee in a large wok and his helper is his wife. Koh's mee is really good and my guess is that he is in this business for a long time, maybe 30 years or more. His stall is at the wet market and I think he is the original tenant and pays a nominal rent of about $400 a month to the HDB. His overhead is very low and judging by the number of customers he has everyday, his profit may be in the region of $12,000. He charges $3.50 for the smallest plate and $6 to the biggest (the one I had). He is not friendly at all and hardly say a work as he fries his mee...he does not have to be friendly as long as he could satisfy his customers' taste buds. He opens his stall at 3pm and closes at 10pm daily.
In Singapore, if a hawker or cook excels in his cooking, he will make tons of money.

Instant mee goreng, cakes from Japan and pasta dinner

Since today is a public holiday (Good Friday), many eateries will be packed. To avoid the crowd, we decided to cook the instant mee goreng or fried noodles for lunch. We added some shredded cabbages and a sunny side up fried egg and voila the above. Yummy is the word to describe the mee goreng. Instant noodles usually taste good but doubt they are a healthy choice. It's fine if one eats it once in a while. Eating too often may cause health problem.

Cakes from Japan

This photo was sent to us yesterday by a friend in Japan. It's about the cakes sold in a confectionery.
We were told that these cakes were super yummy. The confectionery uses honey instead of sugar in their cakes and because of this they not only taste better but healthier. Each piece cost about $4.

Pasta for dinner

My wife cooked spaghetti with mussels in minced beef sauce. We topped it up with grated cheese and garnished with broccoli. Each of us had 120 grams of the spaghetti. It was a simple but delicious home prepared meal.
We try and eat mussels at least once a week. It helps in lubricating the joints especially around the knee area.

Pepper lunch for dinner

The Pepper Lunch is quite good in term of taste and pricing. The food is cooked on the spot and you are able to watch the cooking through a glass partition. The one above is rice (base) with thinly sliced beef, corn, shredded cheese and a sunny side-up egg. It comes with a bowl of miso soup.The bottom picture is that of the rib-eyed beef, mashed potato,corn,bean sprout, miso soup and a bowl of rice. They cost $7.90 and $11.90 respectively.

Buddy Hoagies in Ang Mo Kio

We were craving for western food and Buddy Hoagies in AMK was the ideal place for us (so we thought). We used to frequent the one at Waterway Point but today we decided to try out their new outlet at Djitsun Mall, AMK.
The food here is not as good as at Waterway and so was the service. On top of that, we were slapped with a 10% service charge. Before this, it wasn't the practice to impose the service charge.
The thing is when you start imposing extra charges which you did not do from the beginning, it will be hard for the customers to swallow (unless your food is so good people don't mind paying more).

Japanese restaurant in Ang Mo Kio

This is the charasi don (2 sets) we had at Jubilee Square, AMK Ave8 (near AMK Hub) for lunch. Each set cost $14.80 ++. For 2 sets we ordered, we were given another lunch set free of charge. The free set is the saba set (below pic) but without the rice. In other words, if you order 2 sets, you will get one for free. However, for the free set, it must not be more in value than the original set you ordered...example the charasi don set we ordered was $14.80 and the free saba set was $12.80.

The restaurant is called Haru Haru. The ambience was nice and pleasant. There was no queue even during lunch time although it was 90% full. Service was good and food was as good as Sushiro at Thomson Plaza (Sushiro's queue is perpetually very long and the place is small).
Strongly recommended if you love Japanese food.

Noodles and fried rice for the day

At first, we thought of driving to AMK Jubilee SQ for Japanese food but at the last minute, I became too lazy to go that far for lunch. So we ended up at the coffee shop near our place and had ba chor mee instead. It was really nice. The chilli sauce was just right with more of the pork lard (requested).
In the evening, we cooked the bar kuah fried rice. Again, credit goes to my wife for that wonderful dish.