{Tea diaries}

After K & P came back from their honeymoon, K called me up and claimed she had brought back some "goodies" from Singapore for me to try~ Black Pepper Crab Cookies. I was pretty sure at that point that she was mistaken, and was somehow mixing up her passion for Black Pepper Crab with her love for cookies. She was adamant that she was right, and stubbornly so was I.

Luckily this was easily resolved, as our offices are only four floors apart, so I immediately popped downstairs to collect the souvenir from her.

While I prefer The Ritz for its luxurious comfort, my colleague prefers staying at Raffles The Plaza. Located close to the Chijmes and War Memorial Park, Raffles The Plaza is affiliated with the renowned Raffles Hotel, which is where Singapore Sling was first invented. I think one of Raffles The Plaza's strongest selling point is its interconnecting shopping mall with its sister hotel, Swisshotel The Stamford. One has very easy access to a wide variety of shops within the complex, not to mention restaurants. If you get bored of the selection, you could always venture out using the MRT station located within the complex.

Make sure you get a room in the revamped wing when checking in - while the rooms in the old wing are of a similar size, the decor is tired and unattractive. The thing I like about Raffles The Plaza is that one can control all the lights and curtains in the room, plus the temperature, via the bedside panel, saving the need to get out of bed to do it late at night (total lazy bum, I agree).

Whenever someone from the office hops over to Singapore on biz, he or she is always reminded to bring us back goodies from the Begawan Solo shop before heading for the immigration counter.


I first fell in love with lapis kueh (layered cake) at university. Ever since my Malaysian university friends started bringing me back home-made layered cake every summer, I have been addicted on lapis kueh, no small feat considering I don’t normally have cravings for cakes. The making of lapis kueh involves an extremely laborious process, I was told. After each additional layer of cake is made, it is added to the base and weighed down using some deadweight for some time until it flattens to less than a few millimeters, before the next layer is added. As you can see, there's well over 15 layers, hence you can guess how long it takes to make one. While I have tried versions from some ASEAN restaurants in HK, the same rich, buttery and especially important for me, not too sweet texture was never replicated well or to my taste at least.