Frannywanny

A little more than two years ago, Paul and I first visited Calderon --  back then, a new Spanish restaurant located just a few blocks away from our home. From the minute we set foot inside up until we finally tried the food and enjoyed it, I knew that Calderon was here to stay. Our first visit was quickly followed by a second, a third and countless more as we would bring friends and family to try our new discovery out. Even after moving to the Lion City, we would make it a point to go back to Calderon once in a while whenever we're in town. Take for example, my Mommy's birthday party where our entire family took up the second floor of the restaurant and we feasted on Calderon's signature dishes including Mommy's favourite paella, of course. Needless to say, Calderon  has immediately became our family's favorite. photo by Mommy! During my recent visit home, my family and I went back to Calderon for a nice Sunday get-together. Even Kongkong was so excited ...

Back when I was starting this blog, I honestly had no idea about good food photography much less food styling . In fact, if you scroll down to my first few blog posts, my photos were pretty grainy and tiny as I used my then trendy Nokia phone to take those *ahem* amazing photos. A few years after that, Paul got into photography and the quality has improved so much. Later on, he learned the basics of proper lighting, setting the right angle and food styling. All those, we do in order to give you the most mouth-watering photo possible with the least amount of editing as that's one skill neither of us are good at. We like to keep things natural anyway— #nofilter as the youngsters would say. Social Media and this blog have changed our lives in such a creative way. Cooking at home is not just merely frying something in a pan, transferring it to a plate and ta-da, it's time to dig in. Nowadays, it involves taking a photo of the ingredients or if you dare, creating a Snapchat vi...

As the famous saying goes: "Birds of the same feather, flock together." Simply put, it's truly human nature for us to gravitate towards people who share the same ideals, belief and interest as we do. That is why Paul and I love hanging out with our friend D for many, many reasons! One of which is because D is such an amazing foodie and there's never a dull meal time shared with him. The three of us have been travelling in and out of the Lion City for the past 3-4 months for work and leisure so before anyone flies off again (that would be D who flew off the day after we met..), we agreed to meet up for dinner. Just like me, D keeps a running list of restaurants that he wants to try in Singapore. Lately, we both have been so intrigued about the newly opened Korean restaurant called Masizzim  ( pronounced as masi-jim )which is known for serving really good Korean stew. Being a new and popular restaurant means just one thing. Expect to wait in line for some time bef...

Remember this song? It's amazing how you  Can speak right to my heart.  Without saying a word You can light up the dark... ...You say it best, when you say nothing at all. When you're too shy to speak or the way to his/her heart is through her stomach, I have a tip for you -- say it with a cake (and make sure that's it's yummy too!). I'm not talking about any ordinary cake of course. Go with any of The Line Shop's Thought Cakes that comes in three mouth-watering flavors: Double Chocolate Crunch , Mid-Summer Berry Passion  or Vanilla-Vanilla . I was able to try the Mid-Summer Berry Passion and I love the soft sponge cake that envelopes the fruity jelly center. It was really delicious that I excitedly shared it with my colleagues N and R who happily enjoyed it for breakfast one morning. Customizing your cake is easy!

You may have noticed that I've been flying in and out of Manila quite often these past few weeks. With my sister's wedding and a couple of family stuff that I have to attend to, I found myself being a frequent visitor of both Changi Airport and our very own Ninoy Aquino International Airport . Not that I want to play favorites but it's not hard to favor Terminal 3 over the other 2. First of all, it's newer (and way cleaner) and secondly, it has a lot more dining options that makes the waiting time much more bearable. As much as I love flying home, I have to admit that I really dislike waiting. While Manila is simply a quick 3 hour and 10 minute flight from Singapore, you also have to factor in the time you have to allot for check-in, immigration checks, luggage scans (oh gosh!) and getting to your boarding gate on time only to find out your flight will be delayed. For the past months though, I've been more patient in waiting thanks to having access to several...

I have to admit that I've always been an Apple girl . However, the curious spirit in me has always wonder what life is like in the Android world as I have friends who have also been raving about it and they've been extremely loyal with their own line of gadgets too. Finally, my opportunity came when I got hold of the very pretty and sleek ASUS Zenfone 2 Laser which is one of the newest model in the market retailing for only Php. 7,295 . It runs in Android Lolipop 5.0 operating system which you can link to your Google account. I have to admit that I actually had to read the operating manual to ensure that I'm doing the set-up right. For a moment there, I felt like a techie newbie who's threading carefully as I scroll through the various screens and as I check out the applications available. Getting the hang of it though was easy as navigating around is pretty user-friendly.

Question: What happens when the world's top coffee chain teams up with the world's most-sought-after notebook/diary brand? The answer is ...  THIS. Yup, this Christmas was made extra special (and more classy) by our friends over at Starbucks Coffee as they launched the 2016 Planner in partnership with Moleskine . Paper fanatics will surely go crazy over this as we all know how amazing Moleskine notebooks are. I could hardly use mine though as I don't want to waste any page with my scratchy handwriting. Moleskine notebook paper has this touch-worthy smooth texture and that distinct "dirty white" shade with grey lines on every page.

*note: I just learned that MeatLiquor is now closed. The reason, I'm not very sure but I'm so sad about it. There goes the only place where I go to for Fried Pickles and yummy Burgers. :( Just for one night, we totally threw "diet" out of the window. So longggg!! *waves* Well, we had a good reason. A was in town and the NKids got together for a night of meat, meat and more meat! I was so excited to learn that London's famous Meat Liquor opened a branch here in Singapore a few months ago, so this is another thing I happily crossed out from my list after our visit. The menu was pretty straight forward, there were a couple of burger options, salad (but who wants them right?) and sides! We started with some Deep-Fried Mac & Cheese  (S$15) which looked just as mouth-watering as it sounded. Come on, who doesn't love Mac & Cheese right? I love how the creamy macaroni was well-encased in such a nice deep-fried crust.

Truth to be told, I'm not really much of a TV person. In fact, I can really count in my hands the number of times I've actually sat down and watched an entire TV show this year alone. Paul, on the other hand, cannot live without television. He has a list of weekly TV shows that he religiously follows and the remote is the first thing he looks for the moment he gets home from work. You can say that the secret to a happy marriage is not having to fight over the remote . Haha!  The only time I get to watch TV is during meal time. For instance, we would put Masterchef Asia on in the background while enjoying our meal. That's one of the few shows that I really enjoy as you all know, to me, chefs are like celebrity! Happy to share our first meal in Manila with our favorite food bloggers! #goodvibes So, when my favorite hotel buffet outlet, HEAT , invited Paul and I over to try their new signature dishes which were specially created by 8 chefs, we were beyond ecstatic! H...

There's really something special about traditional recipes which have been passed down from generation to generation. It's the kind that has been perfected overtime that no matter what, each dish will surely be a treat to your senses. I was recently invited to visit the newly opened Joyden Treasures at Leisure Park Kallang. It's a bit out of the way even from my office but there's no way that I'm missing this. After all, I've been wanting to try Joyden since my first year here in Singapore as I heard that it's one of the best Chinese restaurants in town. Finally, I can happily put a big check mark beside it on my list! Joyden Treasures is the 3rd Joyden outlet in Singapore. It's being managed by second generation owners who aims to stay true to their family's heritage by ensuring that the dishes presented are as authentically traditional as it can get. For one thing, Joyden is known for its seafood dishes so we surely had a lot of that during ou...

When Paul turned a year older a month ago, I decided to do away with the usual fancy dinner date and to just chill and enjoy some good food. After all, 'Mr Hardworking' decided to still go in and work on his birthday so knowing how he just likes to keep things simple and casual, I took him to Hombre Cantina  for an all-authentic Mexican fare to unwind. I've been wanting to check out Hombre Cantina after getting raves from friends saying they have really good Mexican food. Good thing though, it's part of The Entertainer App's line up making it even more enticing for us to try. So there we were an hour and a half before dinner time enjoying the view of the beautiful Singapore River.  Luckily, we also got there in time for Happy Hour which entitled us to get a bottle of beer for only S$8 and one round (basket) of Chicharrones. Don't expect much from the chicharrones though as the serving was really really really small...barely enough for two and when ...

I still remembered the day when I first met Chef Myke Tatung . It was to have a joint birthday celebration for my former boss D and a couple of our other colleagues. Working for a food magazine meant being in the company of food-loving people who have that special talent of searching for these hidden gems regardless of where it may be in the world. We had a delicious 4-course dinner in his cozy home in Quezon City. A few weeks after that, I went back with Paul and we enjoyed yet another delicious meal. Since then, I've been in touch with Chef Tatung as he would contribute to the magazine every now and then and we eventually became friends. A few years following that, Chef Tatung told us that he opened a new restaurant in Taguig which specialized in Filipino cuisine . Of course, our team went full force to support him. We have returned a lot more after that and his restaurant has been one of my favorite go-to place up until Paul and I moved to the Lion City. A few months ago,...

17 October 2015.  This date, I believe, will definitely go down in my personal history as the day when my foodie dreams came true. You see, it was when I joined a group of food bloggers for lunch at Shang Palace where we sampled the newest dimsum offering by Chef Li Shou Tan. In addition to that, our said lunch coincided with the start of the great Hairy Crab festival so we were also able to try some of the dishes being offered for that. What amazing luck!  You see, Paul and I have been wanting to try that much-talked-about hairy crab after seeing multiple posts from our friend Jin on a yearly basis. Year on year, we would promise ourselves that we will go try it out but as always, our schedules would always get so hectic that before we know it, the hairy crab has bade us goodbye. "Let's try again next year," we would say as we console each other for yet another failed attempt. Finally, 2015 was the year when I had my first taste of the hairy crab. Will I lik...

I just love the feeling of satisfaction that I would get whenever we get to discovery a delicious hole-in-the-wall restaurant. The criteria is that is has to be reasonably priced and the food quality is superb. More often than not, cheap food does not really go hand in hand with good taste so this can be quite challenging. So when we get to find one, we know that it's a keeper. Take for example Nakhon Kitchen  located along Pasir Panjang. Our friend B has been telling us about it and we even attempted to try it out for dinner a few months back only to find out that they're close every Wednesdays and we went exactly on ... yes, a Wednesday. So, on my second attempt, I made sure of the following: 1) it wasn't a Wednesday and 2) I gave the restaurant a call to double check. This time, we were successful!  Thai food is one cuisine that both Paul and I love! Except for Pandan Chicken, which Paul somehow dislikes, we would try to be adventurous and would experiment in t...

For those who have been following me on Instagram , you may have noticed the continuous photos that I've been sharing during my recent visit to Manila. We spent 6 amazing days eating, spending a lot of time with family and catching up with our closest friends too. One of the biggest highlight of our trip (and reason for our flight home, in fact) happened a week ago when my one and only sister Pan tied the knot with my new brother-in-law E.  It was such a joyous occasion for both families and everything went perfectly as planned. Of course, we got my sister's dream team to thank for too. The most crucial time was the night before and the day of the wedding. This was where a lot of last minute preparations took place and the endless pouring in of suppliers come the wedding day. So, when my sister was scouting around for that perfect bridal suite for her on-the-day preparations, we unanimously agreed that Discovery Suites  in Ortigas was definitely the best choice. Of cou...