A Birthday Candle on Gulab Jamun

Of course the man's 50th required a candle atop gulab jamun. LOLOLOL That's absolutely indulgent. The man loves his desserts, but he doesn't dare to eat so much. Sharing the sugar is ideal. The friends took him out to Akasa for dinner, and arranged a serving of gulab jamun to shared. What a lovely quiet celebration with good friends.

It was dinner and we'd rather not over-eat. We ordered prudently. There were paneer kebab, and tandoori of chicken and prawns, butter chicken, and dal. The man also ordered a vegetable broth with chickpeas, which really tasted like a light rasam. Mutton dum biryani had to be done, along with garlic naan. 

I couldn't resist a masala chai. It was well-made. Ahhh... love. It wasn't even difficult for me to resist having any alcohol tonight. A good cup of chai, and loads of water with the carbs ingested went down fine. The restaurant's afternoon tea menu looked really good with a number of savory items I like. I would come back for that!

Thanks for the Food, Volare!

We went for many meals at Volare to bide the restaurant farewell. We're sad to see it close. It's our favorite casual pasta and pizza restaurant in the East. Given how it welcomed Choya and offered up great food and reasonably-priced wine, it's going to be hard to find another like this in the East. I obviously am not keen on frequenting what's available in the East right now.  

Chef Peppo is tired after a six-year run, and he's done owning and running a restaurant. It's really tough to break even and keep it up. He prefers to be employed in a restaurant in which he's just the chef and sorts out the menu and the cooking. He leaves the running and administrative headaches to someone else. He'll tell us soon where he's headed next. 

I ate many portions of pici cacio e pepe. To be very honest, among all the restaurants and the home cooks' iteration of this simple salt, cheese and pepper pasta, I love Chef Peppo's version best. The man loves his pizza and went to get many takeaways of pizza to eat during the week. For Volare's final night, he also grabbed a pizza to-go. One for the road, literally.

Thanks for all the delicious pasta and welcoming us when Choya was a wee thing. We love the memories made at Volare!

A Birthday Stack of Friands!

Had a fun morning with the friends at The Social Space (TSS) Potong Pasir. There were many birthdays this month and for April. And brand turns seven this month too! So we celebrated them all together. Heh. 

Of course the floofs were there. This is really the 'Sunday Doggo Social Club'. It's for them! BossPup Mogi has totally come out of his shell on Sunday mornings. He has always been timid, and while curious, is skittish. He's still wary, but he has come to know this pack and the hoomans; he looks forward to just hanging out with everyone. Choya likes Mogi enough to actually get up from her usual corner to go greet him if he comes in later than she does. However, save for Choya, the rest also knows that they get a buffet of treats at this meeting. They literally expect it. LOL

We didn't bother with an actual cake. It's a tad hard to slice and be neat at the cafe. Also, this early in the morning, nobody wants cake. So we needed something small and cute like muffins. Then we remembered that the cafe does delicious mixed berry friands. 

We toyed with the idea of doing a giant friand, but that means we still have to cut it, and I dunno if the logistics can be done to adjust the ratio of ingredients at this last minute. Never mind. So we got a stack of those and made that the 'birthday cake' instead. That went down well.

I've come to like this quiet neighborhood of Potong Pasir. While the park connector and greenery has made it really beautiful and conducive for walking the dogs, it's the humans that make a community. While I never bother to integrate into any communities, but should that organically happen, I don't mind it. I do need that coffee, and the humans are cool too. 

It's quite a privilege to get to know these new friends, and over the year, realize that we share many fundamental values and a similar outlook in life, and at work. It's not just about the whisky or the gin okay. We have common ground that goes beyond just coming to a shared space every week for coffee.