SPIZZA @ Club Street

There is a pasta place called SPIZZA, with a few outlets scattered around the island. I was there at the Club Street outlet last night for dinner. What captured my interest was that the pizza menu is arranged from A to Z. There is a name for every pizza using every alphabet.

We settled for Zara pizza, which is chocolate flavoured, topped with bananas and almond flakes. It was a bit too early for dinner, considering we were the first customers (and the last to leave), so I did not wish to have anything too filling or heavy.

The ambience is good, with soothing and nice music, a nice place to hang out and chat. There were a few customers, but by the time it was nine, everyone else had gone, and I suspected the waiters were just hanging around waiting for us to leave, perhaps intending to throw us out but at the same time could not. Wonder if the place is that empty everyday?

The food is not that great though. Maybe the pizza we ordered was not that appetizing, perhaps the rest of the food in the menu would be nice? Still, it was good to explore a new place, then at least I will know whether to patronise it again!

Food : 2.5 out of 5
Ambience : 3.5 out of 5
Service : 3 out of 5
Price : 3.5 out of 5

The Cheesecake Cafe @ Siglap

There is this cafe somewhere in Siglap area that specialises in cheesecake. It is called "The Cheesecake Cafe". I passed by it a lot of times without actually going in to take a look. Last night a friend and I went there for dessert after dinner.

The interior decoration is really quaint! There are portraits of paintings of female figures, including the Mona Lisa, and mini statues of famous sculptures. There are sofas where one can sit in comfort, chatting in a cosy environment. The place is decorated in an old-fashioned, classy way. Even the telephone looks like those found during pre-war times!

I ordered an American Cheesecake with a Hot Chocolate, and my friend ordered a peach cheesecake with Hot Chocolate, although the cake tastes more cheese than peach. The cheesecake is absolutely delicious! Just the right texture and taste, not too sweet, not too soft. Perfect!

Since that place is quite convenient to me, I can go there as often as I like! Yahoo!

Food : 4 out of 5
Ambience : 4.5 out of 5
Price : 3.5 out of 5

The Story Of Milk

Is it true that Asians are more lactose-intolerant per se? I know some never drink milk, or take any milk products like cheese. Even when they drink tea or coffee, it has to be without any milk. Some will also start having stomach problems once they drink milk, so the only alternative is soy milk.

When I was growing up, we hardly get to drink milk at home. We had full cream milk, but that was only to make Milo. We never drink full cream milk off the glass or powdered milk. Even though we are not lactose-intolerant, we are not in the habit of drinking milk since young.

When I watched television shows when I was younger, we saw milk coming in those glass or plastic bottles, delivered by a milkman and left outside the house. I thought how cool it would be to drink from those, instead of the packaged cartons we have.

So during the first trip to Sydney, I saw the milk which my aunt brought back, it was in a glass bottle. I drank up the whole bottle by pouring into a glass and drinking it all up. That was the first time I ever had a milk moustache!

Since then, I prefer to drink milk in a classy-looking transparent 250-ml glass, those glasses which are so common in commercials. But the glass I bought was broken by my grandmother, and since then, I have not been able to find the exact same one. :-(

When I was in primary school, there was a milk order service, where we had to pay S$2.50 (I think, cannot really remember the exact amount now) a month, and little triangular cartons of different flavoured milk would be supplied to our classrooms everyday for those who ordered.

I remember when I was in Primary One, I submitted the money late, so I got a refund. Nevertheless, being the ignorant and stubborn person, when the first batch of milk cartons came, I queued up for my milk. Because of that, a classmate who actually paid did not get to drink her milk, and I got scolded by the teacher due to this.

A few days later, the school assistant came up to my classroom and told my teacher to put me in for the milk order, so since then, I got to drink the milk together with the rest of my classmates who ordered.

The milk order service went all the way to Primary Six, and I ordered every month, every year without fail. There were plain full cream milk, banana milk, chocolate milk and strawberry milk, and each flavour would be rotated.

We could recognise the flavour by the colour of the design of the carton - pink for strawberry, brown for chocolate, light green for banana (perhaps yellow would be too light), and blue for the normal flavour.

So each time when the milk arrived, I would know the flavour just by looking at the colour. If I did not like the flavour (somehow I cannot bear the taste of strawberry milk, even now, although I like the rest), I would keep the milk in my bag and bring it home.

In lower primary, when I was still a young kid, I would keep the milk in my bag for ages. Until one day, there was a smell emitting from my bag, and to my horror, my teacher asked me to open my bag and she discovered the stale smell of strawberry milk. She made me throw away the milk and cleaned my bag thoroughly, before giving me a lecture on not keeping milk in my bag for long periods ever again!

Through the years, I no longer drink milk, except once in a blue moon when I would get soya bean milk or banana milk. But never full cream milk. The only times I come in contact with milk is when I am drinking tea or Milo, as I can never drink anything without sugar and milk (be it full cream, condensed, evaporated, creamer or powdered.) Or eating ice-cream.

I first came into contact with evaporated milk when I knew someone who absolutely insisted that making Milo without condensed milk was a big no-no, so I had to do it his way. But later I realised that condensed milk is a nice drink, especially if I mix it with water and drink it just like that.

As can be seen, I am definitely not a heavy consumption of milk or dairy products. (Chocolates are another story.) But milk itself is healthy and filling, otherwise babies will not be drinking so much milk. Perhaps if I had drank more milk when I was younger, I could then be healthier and smarter? Does that make a difference?