Outdoor Fun at Admiralty Park, Singapore

Saturday mornings in my household has been designated as mother-daughters time for a while now. It is a solid 4 to 5 hours of me and the girls spending time with each other. The man of the house, who is a night owl and prefers to sleep at unearthly hours on the weekend does not figure in our plans 😂 

How it usually goes is that after dragging ourselves out of bed and getting freshened up, me and the girls run some errands. We first go to the ATM, then to the vegetable market and lastly, to the grocery store. We get home, have a simple breakfast of cheese omelette, fruits and juice and then head out somewhere close by to make the most of the weekend. It is usually to one of the outdoor parks in our neighbourhood, an indoor play area located a short distance away, to one of the three waterparks housed in nearby malls or else, one of my twins favourites, Admiralty Park. 

I do look forward to these Saturday mornings partly because I'm temporarily relieved of the unceasing working-mom guilt by spending quality time with the girls but also because it is a fun endeavour for all three of us and is an opportunity to forge precious memories. They tell me so many interesting things, share funny stories and express their views on topics ranging from fashion to future careers 😆 These little details are often lost during the weekly routine of rushed mornings, dinnertime conversations and bedtime rituals.  

Admiralty Park

Located in Woodlands, Admiralty Park is the largest park in the north of Singapore. The 27 hectare park is situated on hilly terrain with Sungei Cina river running through it, and houses the largest nature area within an urban park.  

Much of the park is mangrove swamp. Three boardwalks cut through the mangrove, providing places for observing and appreciating the flora and fauna with minimal disturbance of the habitat. The park works closely with neighbouring Republic Polytechnic, which is also the adopter of the park under the adopt-a-park scheme. 

I first heard of this park from my friend who works in Republic Polytechnic. The park is a 15-minute walk from Woodlands MRT Station. My kids love taking the MRT and since they rarely get an opportunity to travel by train, I make it a point to take them on it and that could be another reason why they love going to Admiralty Park.

On our first visit, I was impressed with the pleasing location, multi-tiered design and variety of play structures of the park. The girls were completely blown away too. Soon it became one of our go-to spots for outdoor fun.

The photos in this post is a compilation of a few visits so don't be surprised by my kids change of outfits.

The park apparently features 26 slides – the most number of slides in any park in Singapore! The widest slide and the longest slide in a public park can be found here. The playground capitalizes on the undulating terrain to site the three main play areas – Junior Play, Adventure Play and the Family Terracing Play – catering to children of all ages and featuring diverse play equipment that encourage group and multi-generation interactions.

Restaurant review: La Braceria Pizza & Grill, Singapore

So a few weeks ago, I met up with three of my batch mates from dental school. Whenever any of us from the batch meet (it doesn’t matter how big or small the gathering), the event never fails to evoke pure nostalgia and is guaranteed to bring on roars of laughter. It has been 14 years since we graduated but in a lot of ways, it feels like time has stood still. Today, most of us are married, many have children, a significant percentage has relocated to other countries and more or less everyone has carved a successful career for themselves. But despite our busy and conflicting schedules, we do try our best to meet and it always is a hoot. Everyone has precious memories to share and hilarious stories to tell. We share snippets of our lives and get updates on those we are not frequently in touch with. We fondly remember our professors, our seniors, our juniors and even the college attenders of those days.

I honestly have so many happy memories from that time in my life. I'd go to college everyday with my two besties on our motorcycles, donning dark full-face helmets (apparently we were nicknamed “Charlie’s Angels”). Our batch would aggravate the anatomy professor to tears, stage mass bunks, melodramatically mimic professors and hang out by the college café (when we were not supposed to), drinking way too much coffee and gorging on all sorts of deep-fried junk food. My friends and I would often visit the girls hostel which was always fun. My batch mates frequently dropped into my home and ate too much (especially the boys). Then there was the time we went on a disastrously college trip to Kerala which to this day, is the butt of many jokes. There are so many other memories - climbing Chamundi hills on foot (while fearfully looking out for the legendary leopard), taking an insane number of group photos and photobombing at every given opportunity, editorial team discussions for our very own publication Mid-Day Masala, going on rural postings, attempting to cook food on a self-made campfire, the never-ending department parties and the numerous food outings that we would make any excuse to go on. These are a few that come to mind off the top of my head and never fails to light up my face with a smile. Ah! Those were the good old days indeed!

So to revive some of those memories for the mini reunion, I chose La Braceria, a hidden gem in Bukit Timah serving up authentic hearty and rustic Italian food. I usually go to either Capri Trattoria  in Binjai Park or Caruso Italian along Bukit Timah road when I'm looking to chill with friends or enjoy a nice dinner with my husband but this time I wanted to pick another restaurant. I wanted a place that was cozy and quiet which had vegetarian options and much like the other two, this restaurant fit the bill.

Tucked away in a residential corner on Greendale avenue, the restaurant actually looks less restaurant and more house. There is absolutely nothing commercial about it. You wouldn’t even guess that there is a restaurant in the area. Big points from me for that 👍

With a predominantly white color scheme, the interiors are minimalistic and chic. Neutral toned comfortable seats, warming floor lamps, rusting light fixtures and simple wall mounted mirrors add to the relaxed and intimate appeal. You have both indoor seating and al fresco dining options. In sultry Singapore, I rarely feel like going for al fresco dining so we headed indoors for the comfort of air conditioning.

I was surprised to see the restaurant quite full even on a weekday and was glad I had made a reservation the previous day. We were attended to immediately and even though the focus of the evening was more on company and less on food, we ordered a few dishes to share along with Barossa Valley red wine.

Baker's Corner: Fudgy Chocolate Cake

The introduction to this post is going to be (kinda) short and sweet 😊 The National Day long weekend is on the horizon and I have a bunch of plans that I want to execute and blogging does not happen to be one of them.

It was my FILs birthday last week. We went shopping on Orchard road and then enjoyed a lovely family meal at Tandoor located within Holiday Inn. I still wanted to bake him a cake because age notwithstanding, who doesn't like having cake baked especially for them right? 😜

I asked the twins what cake I should bake for their beloved ajja (grandfather) and pat came the reply “Chocolate and Raspberry Cake”. Chocolate is the little ones favourite flavour (ties for first place with strawberry) and raspberries are one among their favourite fruit so I wasn't the least bit surprised.

I was looking for a cake recipe that was simple, had easily available ingredients and that would result in a really moist cake. This recipe checks all the boxes and how. This is an oil-based cake so how you go about it is you mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, whisk the wet ingredients together in another medium bowl, mix the wet ingredients into the dry and BAM! Cake batter done. No sieving of dry ingredients, creaming of sugar and butter or any of that fiddly stuff.

The cake turned out moist, fudgy and chocolatey. The addition of a little brewed coffee enhanced the chocolate favour. The only gripe I had with the finished product was that the cake was a tad too sweet for my liking (the others thought it was just right though) so I fine-tuned the recipe and it should be perfect now. Since this is a blended cake, the sugar is not required to build volume so it can be reduced with no significant change in outcome of the texture. Follow the recipe below and you should be fine. I suggest you take a look at the notes section at the bottom of the recipe before starting for some tips, tricks and suggestions so you will be guaranteed to get a good outcome for this cake.

 That's it folks. Make this cake the next time you have a loved one's birthday or for a special occasion and you will be glad you did.

Update: I have made this cake innumerable times since this post and it works perfectly for me every time. I have tweaked the recipe quantity to make 12 cupcakes and a smaller 6-inch cake. Please refer to notes at the bottom for more details. 

Happy birthday Daddy (to my husband), mava (to me) and ajja (to the kids). We love you loads 💗