My pleasant and scrumptious 22nd birthday

I turned 22 yesterday. Geez, time really rockets past fast! I still remember last year when I organised my 21st birthday celebration. And one thing that stuck in the deep recesses of my grey matter is the food. The glorious spread of food made possible by my aunts. But that was last year. This year I didn't bother organising one because I was too busy.

However, that didn't mean that I had a boring birthday. It was quite the contrary. You'll understand why at the end of this post! haha...

There's only one word to describe my 22nd birthday and that's "scrumptious". Seriously!

From sundawn to sunset, I'd been fed with food so delicious that I could rewind yesterday over and over again. Before you start thinking I've gone bonkers, allow me to guide you through yesterday's 'adventure' of sorts:



Mum wanted to treat me to a meal and since I was only free in the morning, she brought me and my sister to Din Tai Fung - that's why there's a picture of chilli crab xiao long bao up above! :)

I would love to post photos of what we ate but alas, I was told by the restaurant staff that no photography of the food and utensils was allowed.

Yes, I hear you asking how I got the two photos then? Ha. I took them before they told me to stop. Oh well. I guess you all just have to imagine what the food looked like.

It was my first time to this well known dim sum restaurant (apparently ranked by The New York Times as one of the World's Top Ten Best Restaurants) and I know that they are famous for their xiao long bao. And you know what? Whoever said that was darn right.

We had the chilli crab xiao long bao and loved the juicy part after you bite into the skin. What else did we have? Brace yourself and read carefully because you might want to go there and try it for yourself:

- steamed vegetable & pork dumplings
- steamed yam paste dumplings
- special braised beef noodle soup with beef tendon
- stir fried dou miao with garlic
- glutinous rice shiu mai
- dan dan mian (noodles in peanut sauce)

*These dishes are supposedly the most recommended ones...

All of us were stuffed after that. But hey, I left there a happy person. This was the best birthday lunch ever! Oh, and the tea served is really good too. Din Tai Fung's dumplings are top quality and the cutest thing is that you can watch the chefs at work because all that separates you from the kitchen are glass panels. Cool stuff!

Could you ever have guessed where I went for dinner later on?

Well it wasn't really 'dinner', but it was so filling that it just had to be dinner because I couldn't stuff anything else down my throat.

JF brought me to Haagen Daz (at my suggestion.. hehe) at the Esplanade and we had a chocolate fondue! I did blog about their chocolate fondue way back but it has improved quite a bit. Their portion is bigger (at a higher price naturally), and they serve the fondue with different dips! Check out the photos:






Cake, cookies and chocolate biscuit sticks to dip in pure molten chocolate! What more can a girl ask for?




Bananas, strawberries and green apples go oh-so-well with chocolate...




The heavenly and absolutely divine icecream balls. Ooooo, these are fab with melted chocolate. Ahhhhh....

I was so so stuffed after the fondue that I felt as if I couldn't eat chocolate for an entire week. Ha. But it was good. I love Haagen Daz's chocolate fondue. I'm still dreaming of it now...

JF certainly enjoyed it too, but I think his threshold for all things sweet and chocolatey is not as high as mine. At the end, it was only me finishing the rest of the melted chocolate left in the bowl.

And if you thought that was the end of my yummy birthday, you thought wrong.

After fondue, we went to shop in Orchard for a while and then JF suddenly asked me if we could drop by Pitstop Cafe at Circular Road to attend a friend's birthday party. Apparently his friend's birthday was also today. haha, I did believe him at first, until he said he needed to get a cake.

I smelled something fishy and knew then, that something wasn't right and how right I was! HAHA. Come on, Pitstop Cafe was where I held his surprise birthday party last month. It didn't take much for me to put two and two together. But you know what, it didn't matter whether it was a surprise in the end because I enjoyed myself thoroughly! All of us played games like mad and it was great just being around all my dearest friends.

Since Leonard & Cassilda's birthdays were also in July (just a days before and after mine!), this celebration was for the 3 of us and here's us blowing out the candles on the cake:




Actually, that was a posed shot. Haha, you were wondering how the photog captured the moment so well right? :P

The cake (from Panderia at Jason's Marketplace) was yum and so was the company and the stupid moments we had:



We played Uno, Imaginriff, Taboo, etc. I think the owners of the cafe are gonna go deaf soon. The entire place was filled with excited bursts of laughter and hoots and screams! So allow me to apologise to the kind people of Pitstop - thanks guys for putting up with our noise pollution... and sorry once agaiN!

Before I end, here's the final photo which more or less tells you the magnitude of the noise level:



Yep, that's the whole lot of us. I love you all! Amplify Ministry rocks! Thank God for each and everyone of you.

So there you have it, a detailed account of my totally scrumptious 22nd birthday. I really enjoyed myself and of course, the company of all my beloved friends, and not forgetting my family and dearest JF.

THANK YOU!