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. 

Porridge for breakfast and Home cooked lunch

Had the Teochew porridge for our breakfast from a coffee shop nearby our place. It consists of 2 pieces of sambal sting ray, veggies, fried spicy cuttlefish and a piece of tofu. All this cost $13.
We had home cooked food for lunch. It was char siew, lots of veggies, rice and miso soup.
Only 2 good meals are enough for us.

Our favourite kway chup

After our kopi and papaya at home ( 2 hours later) we drove to Tampines St 11 for our favourite kway chup and pig's trotter ($16). This stall selling the kway chup is not doing as well as say 10 years ago. Business is down but the quality of the food is still as good. The lady hawker told me the rental she is paying for the stall is $6,000 per month and this is the third increase since a few years ago.
She would relinquish her business if the rental should go up again,she told me.
However, my guess is, she makes a net profit of around $15,000 a month. She does not employ any worker except the dish washer guy. Her husband is also helping out in the business.

After yesterday's junk food, today's meals are healthier

After that 6 slices of bak kuah and kueh kueh, today's meals are more meaningful and healthier. First, it was papaya for breakfast followed by a home-cooked lunch comprising of sweet sour pork, bitter gourd fried with pork and a bowl of miso soup.
We were at a wet market in AMK and wanted to buy some fishes. It turned out that just 2 small pomfret weighing about 300 gram each cost a total of $25. It was daylight robbery and so instead, we bought a chunk of pork (shoulder 650 gram) which cost only $6.

Today's unhealthy but shiok meals

Besides, the mee rebus and the satay bak kuah, I ate 2 pieces of Bengawan Solo kueh lapis and marble cake. Today, I really went all out to have these junk food. The bak kuah was the tastier of all. I bought 600 grams and ate about 4 slices in one go and kept the rest in the fridge. This was the first time I've ever heard or tasted the satay bak kuah. It's on promotion and for the 600 grams it cost only $18 which is rather inexpensive. 

Thai food@ Food Scholar

Tried the Thai food at Food Scholar. Queue was quite long and the staff was slow especially the cooks. I had to wait 25 minutes for my Tom Yam seafood fried rice ($6). My wife ordered the Pad Thai ($5) (bottom picture)and she waited 15 minutes. Overall the food was quite tasty but rather expensive. The portion were small especially the Tom Yam seafood fried rice ( 2 shrimps and 2 slices of cuttle fish).

It is not Seletar Kopi but Food Scholar now !

I mentioned that I was at Seletar Kopi yesterday. It's now known as Food Scholar. It will have  Indian food, Malay food, Western food and a dessert stall besides the other food like Korean, Ban Mian etc as mentioned in yesterday's post. Hope the new additions would be better than before.

New Seletar Kopi@ Greenwich is now opened

We visited the old Seletar Kopi (Kopitiam). It was closed for about 4 months as business wasn't good. The new owner took over but although the name has changed the place is still the same. Not much renovation was done and there are a few same food stalls there. Our favourite Ban Mian stall was there and so was the Yong Tau Foo stall, Korean food stall and the Chicken rice stall. The only new addition was the Thai Food stall (closed today which is Monday)which we understand is selling delicious Thai cuisine.
We ordered Ban Mian ($4 formerly was $4.40) and after that had the Old Chung Kee's Cheesy fried chicken ($2.50) which was tasty. Then we proceeded for our tea at Toast Box (next door).

It is a great Sunday

Since I went to AMK to pay the deposit for the rental of the room for the cabin crew wannabes "Talks", I stopped at Long Xjing  stall for my favorite fish soup and rice. The queue is usually long but within 15 minutes I was served. It's value for money plus the fish served was fresh.

Busy schedule so ate out

We were busy with work that my wife does not have the time to cook. Besides, shopping at the supermarket for veggies and groceries today (Saturday) is quite challenging. We ended up eating Yong Tau Fu for breakfast and Nasi Lemak for dinner.

Salad,soup and bread buffet in Japan

Order either the onion rings or fries as your main course and you get to eat the all-you-can salad, soup and bread for only $13.