Check and mate!

A fire (of revenge) had been ignited within me ever since this happened a year ago. And now, I can say that I have taken my revenge. Details are here.

Badle ki jo jawalamukhi bhadak rahi thi, woh apne anjaam ko pahunch gayi. Haye! Dil ko thandak pahunch gayi.

:D :D :D

Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe

Another restaurant which is very close to my heart is Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe (XWHKC). It is no wonder that it had to figure in FoodieExpress. This place came into focus from the time Sash was raving about the Iced lychee tea and the glasses they were served in. Another dish which pushed this restaurant onto our foodie express list was '/\'. Patience my dear readers. You will find out what '/\' is soon. After all we have to save the best for the last ;)

XWHKC have a couple of branches around the country. We chose to visit the one in Siglap since its the one closest to our homes. Located at the junction of East coast road and Upper east coast road, it is quite easy to find. Siglap is full of restaurants and XWHKC is one among them.


The place is nicely done up and has a chic ambience. They even have booths. Although, it required some amount of squeezing oneself between other tables to reach them. But once reached, one can park one's ass comfortably and look forward to a nice meal.

As their name suggests they serve food local to Macau, Shanghai and Hong Kong(I can't wait to go there) and do have a few vegetarian options. But I guess one has to be able to eat non-vegetarian food (also known as food here in Singapore) to enjoy most of the dishes. Amongst the common veggie items, one item which stood out was the Papaya soup. I hadn't heard of it before and was quite eager to try it. It comes in a huge bowl with vegetables, a cob of corn and a few huge chunks of papaya in a white coloured broth with ramen noodles inside. I have a soft corner in my heart for noodle soups. So its no wonder that I enjoyed the dish. Although, I felt it was slightly bland for my taste. The other dishes ordered were a baked veggie lasagne, a curry maggi dish and a chicken dish. Good food. Very fast and efficient service.

Oh! I forgot to talk about the drinks. Two items which must not be missed are the iced lychee tea and a cold Ying Yang. Many would have had the iced lychee tea, so am not going to describe it. But, many may not have had a Ying Yang. Before telling you what it is, I think you must know that it tastes delicious and is very refreshing. It has to be had cold and in a special steel tumbler that they serve it in, which I guess may be characteristic of Hong Kong.

Ying Yang is actually a mixture of Coffee and Tea! Weird combination no? But, trust me, it doesn't taste weird at all. After you take a sip, it is the flavour of the tea which hits you first. The coffee flavour hits you later once you have almost swallowed it. Since it is served cold, it can very refreshing on a hot day and still keep you alert at the same time. Both the flavours are not very intense. Very pleasant. This is my favourite drink at the restaurant!

And now, let me present to you the highlight of of the meal - the '/\'


Yes, its a mountain of shaved ice on a bed of mango pieces with mango sauce/puree dripping from its sides and a scoop of mango ice-cream on top. Mango lovers, this is a treat for you. One word to describe it -YUMTASTIC!!

It cost us about 80 dollars and we were totally 5 people. But, let me tell you that a couple of us hardly ate anything. So on an average, it might cost you about 20-25 dollars per head. Worth it!

Bangalored!

It was just about three months since my last visit to India. But then on the night of 8th May, I found myself back at the swanky Bengaluru International Airport. After all, it was my yaar's wedding. And since both of them are close to me, it was inevitable that I had to attend the wedding. A bunch of other close friends also joined the dulha and me, and we flew down together from the hot and sweltering Singapore to the hot and happening Bangalore.

Now, when Viv is around, Dumbcharades are all the more fun. After some non-family friendly enactment in the plane, I was successfully able to decipher which hindi movie title Viv was trying to mime. It was Saajan Bin Suhaagan. Oh! How we laughed. I think Sash will put up an entire post on that. You will have to wait till then for the details. Ahem!

We had exactly 7 days in Bangalore and most plans were already made. The plans mainly comprised of food places that we must all eat at :P Sash had already mentioned that she would be quite happy if she got her daily dose of road side pani puri. Food street was one of the highlights of the trip. We ate so much there. Urv and Ved had joined us and all of us hogged as if we hadn't eaten in days. We started off with dose, followed by holige, jaljeera flavoured with kalakhatta, gobi manchurian, pani puri and ended the meal with some butter-gulkan. What a meal that was!

Then came the wedding and it was another eat session. Viv did proper justice to the food and even the cooks at the wedding seemed very pleased with him. I don't think he ever said no whenever he was asked for second helpings. Apart from eating, we also managed to enjoy and take part in the wedding festivities. It was quite sometime since I had been to a traditional tam-brahm wedding. What made it even more special was that it was two of our close friends getting married.

Post wedding, we went on a small trip along with newly married couple. Sumanth has promised us that he would show us around rural Mangalore and also take us to visit a few of his relatives. Morning coffee and tea was at relative-1's house. Breakfast was at relative-2's house and lunch was at relative-3's house. We ate and we ate and we ate. And just when we thought we couldn't eat anymore, we ate again. It was exhausting!! Sash even said that she wouldn't eat pani puri that day :O The amount we have eaten in that one week in India, we wouldn't have eaten the same in two weeks in Singapore. Now that we are back in Singapore, we have to exercise with a revenge.

It was one heck of a memorable trip and it all seems like it got over too soon. Trips to India are always special and close to heart. This was my second trip in this year and I don't know when I will be visiting next. Maybe in the end of this year. Or maybe not.

The Animal

We have all had instances where we hear the lyrics of a song or a dialogue in a movie incorrectly. Some of them sound silly, some are hilarious, some are ridiculous and then there are the ones that sound downright embarassing. Let me tell you about one such embarrassing goof-up by yours truly!

You may have watched the hindi movie Aitraaz. Its a Indianized version of the english movie Disclosure. Anyway, there is this scene in the movie where Priyanka Chopra is trying to seduce Akshay Kumar (and is almost succeeding). At this precise moment she utters a dialogue in a very husky voice.

What she says: Show me you are an animal Raj, show me you are an animal.

What I hear: Show me your animal Raj, show me your animal.

My reaction: WHAT??!!! :O Did she actually say that?? She calls 'it' an animal?? How how... corny, kiddish and ridiculous. How did PC even agree to mouth such a dialogue and who even wrote that dialogue??? Yikes!!!

Hey! In my defense, the audio wasn't very clear and her voice was all husky.