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1st Country to visit after pandemic: Singapore!

By Lifesecretspice: Travel and Food - February 26, 2021

Good day, how are you? We have all been locked down for a year in our own country. Let's be positive and keep life going happily. As for me, an avid traveler, I look forward to travelling and would like to jump onto bandwagon of travel as soon as countries' borders are open. So which country do you want to visit after pandemic? For me, its Singapore! Of course Singapore!

Why? There are many reasons and here let me elaborate my main four reasons here.

But, before I go further, I found this old photo of my happy times during my Staycation Singapore of about eight years ago. Hmmm.. smitten by nostalgic moments!

First: Ease of Transportation:

I love to travel locally in a foreign country to discover places at leisure. So for a traveler, getting around places is the most important part of my travel itinerary. Here, Singapore has a well connected train system MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) which is the fastest way to zip around the country. Get a Singapore Tourist Pass (STP), immediately after you landed at airport. This is a special tourist transportation pass with EZ-Link stored-value card which will allow you unlimited travel for one day (S$10), two days (S$16) or three days (S$20). I will have to also download MRT app from Google Play for easier checking of routes and timetable of trains . Oh ya, did I say airport? I heard Changi Airport is one of the best airport in the world! So oh my, I can't wait for the borders to open and travel to Singapore by air. The other means of public transportation are taxis which are also considerably cheap and reliable in Singapore. I heard Grab car is also very convenient in this small island of Singapore, so I must also download Grab app in my hand phone too.

Clean, comfortable, convenient and reliable MRT train

Photo credit to Euan Cameron on Unsplash

Second: Myriads of accommodation to choose from:

Singapore is an international city and headquarters for lots of companies from Europe and America. Therefore, there are many travelers staying over in Singapore be it for business meetings and also bringing their families for holidays. Staycation Singapore is spoilt for choice, with many types of hotels from five stars to economy ones and also Airbnb. If you wish to stay near cultural spots such as Chinatown and little India, there's Hotel 81 As for my future Staycation Singapore , I think may choose Hotel 81 in Chinatown as it is situated near MRT station and near the food stalls.

Third: Cultural Hot Pot of Food

Clean hygienic food courts are the norm in Singapore!
(photo Credit: visitsingapore.com/editorials)

Food in Singapore is so wide and full of many varieties from different cultures. The best part is one can easily dine at a clean affordable hawker centers or have a choice of world's most exciting celebrity chef restaurants. From fine dining at Michelin star restaurants to stalls at food courts, there's so many to choose from in taste as well as budget. The dish to go for is the famous Chili Crab, a spicy plate of crabs cooked in concoction of spices and chili, and you can taste the unique gravy that seeps into the flesh of slightly cracked stir fry crabs. Another delectable dish is the all time favourite of Chicken Rice where you can find it at high-end restaurants as well as at humble hawker centers. There are also many other must try food such as Fried Carrot Cake, Fried Kway Teow, Fish Head curry, Satay, Rojak and Laksa. Oh yes, there are also many types of Laksa, and especially if you're in Malaysia, the type of Laksa is determined by the taste, its noodles and the broth. Laksa is totally different in different states of Malaysia such as the world famous Assam Laksa of Penang which has sourish broth, Laksa of Johor state which is not so sourish and the noodles made of spaghetti.

This is decade old stall famous for pancakes.

Signs A Taste of Vietnam Pho Cafe, 277 orchardgateway B2-15 , 238852 Singapore.

I will also try to dine in this Vietnam Pho Cafe recommended by a friend as it is operated by Deaf couple.

As a foodie who loves eating, staycation Singapore is what I am going to do immediately after pandemic to have my stomach happy in this so diverse vibrant food scene of Singapore!

Fourth: Beautiful Lightings and Theme park

My first visit to Singapore was more than twenty years ago and I was mesmerized by the dazzling dancing water lights at Sentosa Island then. It still etched in my memory as it was the first time I saw such array of colorful lights that night.

Photo credit: Photoholgic on Unsplash,

Well, from the photos, I felt so overwhelmed! I really would like to see for myself all this beautiful lights at the Gardens By the Bay. Yeah, again, the famous Gardens By The Bay is another reason for me to go for Staycation in Singapore ^-^ .

Universal Studio theme park in Singapore have many attractions and rides. I love theme parks and would definitely love to visit again after so long as I am sure there are many new exciting rides, attractions and adventures added when it reopens after the pandemic.

Staycation Singapore can be fun and exciting and you can check out many other hotel too. I will check Traveloka sites for more information in preparing for my this first country to visit after pandemic.

Found this useful information on Singapore which I would like to share:

Tourist Hotline: Toll-free in Singapore - 1800 736 2000

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Beauty

Whitekish Magic Charcoal for Tooth

By Lifesecretspice: Travel and Food - December 23, 2020

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Burnt Cheese Cake: It is so Easy to Bake that you Don't have to Buy the Expensive ones from Cake shops.

By Lifesecretspice: Travel and Food - December 11, 2020

There has been a number of increasingly popular activities such as baking, cooking, indoor games, gardening and binge on watching Kdrama and Cdrama recently. During this pandemic, we have to keep ourselves occupied to stay safe, stay home and also stay sane! Most people turn to cooking, baking and gardening because we have to stay home and can't go out. Baking and home cooking has all the while been my favourite past time and hobby. Baking is also my de-stress medicine. I will feel happy and my spirits lifted upon seeing the nice beautiful cake that came out from the oven.

Basque Burnt Cheese Cake is one of the many types of cake that has become popular recently. Why? I think it is because of the easy way of making it as it involve just simple baking. As with majority cake lovers, I love cheese cake but was not willing to make one because I do not like to do water bath as I do not have the suitable utensils. Therefore, I have been putting off until recently when I discovered this easy recipe and tweeted it a bit. Another reason for putting off making normal cheese cake is the base that needs biscuit crumbs. I usually have problem making the base hard enough. My cheese cake with biscuit crumbs base will normally result in the base getting loose and crumbs falling out, shy shy.

Here, you just use a blender to mix the batter instead of a beater. Put all the ingredients inside a blender and brooom, that's all.

Here's a video of Burnt Cheese Cake and my cat pet Miu Miu

Tips of the day: For this recipe, do not break the egg straight into the blender. There are some recipes showing how this is done, but its advisable not to do here. Why? Because if one of the eggs is spoilt or rotten, and we just break it into the blender, than all the ingredients inside will become spoilt. So better to break the egg one by one into a separate bowl and then only pour it into the blender later.

Ingredients

1. 225 g Cream Cheese

2. 2 eggs (grade A)

3. 1 Cup evaporated milk ( or heavy cream or Greek yogurt

4. 5 Tablespoons sugar (100g)

5. 1 Tbs Plain Flour + 1 tsp cornflour

6. Half tsp vanilla

Method

1. Put all ingredients of cheese, flour, sugar, vanilla and milk into blender.

2. Break eggs into a separate bowl first. Then pour it into the blender

3. Close blender lid and switch it on for 1 to 2 minutes.

4. Pour into prepared baking tin. Make sure the baking paper is higher than the baking tin.

5. Bake in a preheated oven of 230C for 25-35 minutes. Check the cake constantly as different oven's temperature is different. Mine was baked here for 35 mins. Last month, I did one burnt cheese cake baked at 220 at 25 mins and the cake did not rise and also not burnt enough. Bake until top burnt black and cake is wobbly.

6. Cool down and refrigerate overnight for it to set and easier to cut the cheese cake. If you have problem of cutting cheese cake nicely (because the cheese will stick to knife thus the sliced cake will not have clean cut), warm up knife a bit in hot water will do the trick.

My pet cat Miu Miu is checking my cheese cake. Well, well, there's no fish inside here for Miu. Hmmm...maybe I should bake a tuna cake for my Miu Miu!

Cheese cake is always a delicious cake and irresistible cake.

Happy Baking to you!

Let me know of your baking and how it turns out yeaa...

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Let's Stay Safe, Be Happy & Healthy.

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Household products

How to tidy up messy kitchen cabinet

By Lifesecretspice: Travel and Food - December 10, 2020

Have you experience things dropped down from kitchen cabinets when you opened it? It has happened to me. As a full time housewife, I do cooking everyday. So I also do shopping and would just dump my things into kitchen cabinet. I will tidy it up once in a while but sometimes too tired to do so. Ok, ok admit it, I am not a very tidy and neat person, haha.

Oh yes I have been thinking of getting some containers to keep all the bits and pieces in proper order. But sometimes it is hard to find nice see through containers.

My criteria of the types of containers are:

1) Airtight: this is my first important factor because I like biscuits and hate to eat soft biscuits when its been exposed to air. Another good thing about airtight is ants, yes ants the little tiny creatures that I feared most. I would normally buy imported biscuits and cookies as I love the buttery crispy texture. Imagine having to throw away a whole box of expensive biscuits after only eaten two pieces because the ant get to them and is having a feast!

2) BPA free, so no smell and leakage of toxicity into my foodstuffs

3) See through containers so that I can see what is inside, instead of opening and rummaging through each and every container in my cabinets

4) Stackable: Yes so that it will save space be it on dinning table or inside cabinets.

5) Dishwasher safe: meaning at least it can withstand certain hot water temperature, good.

6) Tall enough to keep more things.

7) Looks nice, clean and neat.

Ok, so I started looking around for some containers that would fit my criteria and also my budget. Of course, we can get many good and better ones but budget is important nowadays, especially during this lockdown of Covid where we have to be prudent in spending. So while browsing through the net I found this interesting video.

OK, so this Neoflam Smart Seal fits my conditions. Height of 22cm or about 8 inches I can keep most of my small packets of stuff inside. Even the is big enough to put a measuring cup inside! Cool, I can be a chef, because all this while I just pour out flour from the packet. It is very messy and some may spill out and imagine what happens if its sugar. I would curse when I spilt some sugar on the floor, because even after sweeping up, if I miss some sugar, my tiny enemy friends will be seen happily crawling about on the floor.

I got this Neoflam Smart Seal at 11.11 promotional sale. 11.11 sale is over but you can still find lots of interesting see through containers at this website. Do remember to key-in Promo Code : MCSAuntyMei for extra discount.

Cabinet nice and tidy and can see the stuffs I keep inside. I am very happy now ^-^

There are many professional kitchenware at this website such as for food preparation, baking, cooking, glassware, food storage and handling. Products here are of quality and best price especaily when you buy during sale. During sale, prices can drop at 80% discoount.

Please click this website just to browse through and also gain more knowledge on professional kitchenware.

Website: Mycookingstory

Promo Code: MCSAuntyMei on checking out for more discount, ya.

Free Delivery for Peninsula Malaysia.

Scan this QR Code

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Household products

Professional Kitchenware from Mycookingstory (MCS)'s Giler Giler Sale and Unboxing video

By Lifesecretspice: Travel and Food - November 25, 2020

How are you feeling? I am not so well because there have been so many changes lately in our lifestyle. It is a very challenging time for all of us with schools closed, new norms of wearing masks, the social distancing and being "Stay home, Stay safe". As a person who loves going out to shopping malls for window shopping, well, I have to change now. It is time now to just do my window shopping at home by browsing at online sales.

Sales, yes Giler Giler Sale by Mycookingstory (MCS) is here! It starts on 23 November and ends on 31 December 2020. There are discounts of over 80%. Kitchenware, such as glass containers, casserole, flasks are on special offer now! Check out the website for more details, ya.

MYCOOKINGSTORY

Mycookingstory (MCS) is a site having all types of professional kitchenware from Food Preparation, Cooking, Baking & serving, food storing. The founders, Khalid Gibran and Gary Chin are on a mission to bring proper kitchen wares from manufacturers direct to customers so that every household are able to afford professional kitchenware at affordable prices. Great, isn't it!

RECIPES

Not only this, MCS is also a site for those who loves recipes. Yes, recipes of all genres from simple easy ones to those from different countries. There are cooking stars at Mycookingstory churning out all sorts of recipes weekly. So what is there to wait, just check out the mycookingstory site , yeah.

Year end is a time for festive mood of giving and sharing. This Giler Giler Sale from mycookingstory has a number of nice kitchenware that can be packed as gifts. For gifts, You can never go wrong in Kitchenware because it can be used at home in the kitchen. So it is also not a waste of money especially in this adverse times.

Here are the items on Giler Giler Sale :

Neo Vent Combo

French Bull Thermo Flask comes in a set of two

A set of two Ovenware

Champage Glass - 6 pcs

Red Wine Glass

White wine glass

A few items that I myself are going to buy are the Neo Vent glass containers, French Bull double walled vacuum flasks which is of branded design, red wine glass and ovenware. French Bull Thermo flask are designed by a designer that is New York based and she is a former designer for Tommy Hilfiger!

The wine glasses are very nice, especially the red wine glass that is so big that it is not only for drinking wine but with some creativity, we can use it to serve pudding, mousse, parfait or jelly. It can also be a decorative glass