Skye Soon
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Hey friends!

Wow, I haven't done a food post in the longest time. I apologise. 

Today I'm going to be blogging about our trip to Blu Kozina for Greek food! We went to the Siglap branch. There's also another at Dempsey Hill.

It's actually my first time trying Greek food! By coincidence I just finished reading a novel about a culinary competition (and some romance) called 'You Had Me at Halloumi", so I was really hyped to try some Greek cuisine!

The interior was really pretty with traditional Greek accents and little 'caves' for seating and decor. There was wall to ceiling sliding doors which brought in a lot of light and accentuated the iconic white and blue aesthetic that people associate the Greek islands with. 

I also enjoyed all the fish motifs! 

Here is the dinner menu. 

Yeah, things are kinda pricey but it was a special occasion for us so we hoped that the splurge would be worthwhile.

First up, 3 Dips Platter ($39.50) and Grilled Pita ($4.60). There is a variety of dips to choose from, and two types of pita (crispy or soft/grilled).


We chose the soft grilled pitas (4pcs), which were warm and delicious. The dip portion is large - we ended up having to dabao some home!

(from top to bottom)
1. Harissa (Spicy tomato, greek yogurt and walnuts) - pretty spicy with a good kick!
2. Taramasalata (white cod roe and capers) - our favourite. A little bit salty - cod roe is like mentaiko for those who are unfamiliar with it
3. Tzatiziki (greek yogurt, cucumber, garlic and EVOO) - the most neutral tasting out of the three, a good start for beginners to Greek cuisine

*EVOO = extra virgin olive oil


Next was Talagani ($21.50), or grilled Halloumi cheese with blu sauce. This is my second time trying Halloumi! We bought some in Switzerland and my sister calls it the 'squeaky cheese', because it truly squeaks when you munch on it 

😂

. 

The Halloumi has a very delectable, softer texture. The sauce was a little tangy and was served with honey/something sweet (correct me if I'm wrong). Yum!

BTW, according to the book, ancient Greeks took their cheeses very seriously and were even the first to invent cheesecake. 


Fried Calamari ($26.50)
It's refreshing to have whole pieces of squid! While tasty, we found this a little oily.


Beef Kalamaki ($27.50)
This is a beef skewer that is so much larger than I expected. I thought it would be served kebab style with a literal stick and in bite sized pieces. We ordered it Medium Rare and this was pretty delicious! Don't forget to enjoy it with the lemon, yogurt dip and onion!


Xtapodi ($41.50) - Grilled Octopus that is served with vinegar and EVOO. 
(I can't pronounce this but the word looks and sounds cool)

The octopus pieces came in huge, tender chunks. They are softer than what I expected and 'wetter' than i thought too. I think I'm very much used to a 'drier' version of Grilled Octopus (maybe Japanese style). Still, it was lightly flavoured which let the freshness of the octopus shine through. 


We saw someone order this so we followed suit because it looked fun. These are the Koulouri Sesame Bread Rings ($4.60). 

It was really fragrant and soft! It looks like a pretzel but is soft enough to tear easily. We ended up getting another serving (2pcs) of this instead of more pita bread to enjoy with our dips.

Now, to end off our night, I chose the Greek Kataifi Roll ($15.80), a dessert with homemade syrup and pistachio. I thought this would come in a piece or slice but it one serving turned out to have four pieces!


This dessert was really sweet. The little strips are crunchy and presumably fried. The chopped pistachio centres was interesting but the syrup was way too sweet and the bottom of the dessert was utterly drenched in it. Found it hard to stomach after the heavy meal, lol. Ancient Greeks do be living it up. 

From what I read in the novel, Greek people prefer lamb over pork too. I also saw another family digging into a $100 seafood platter. That looked scrumptious so maybe you would be interested to order it!


Also, if you have keen eyes, you will see that they also served us some watermelon and ice cream! I think every diner receives this at the end of the meal for free. There's also a bowl of mints at the door. 

They also surprised us with a birthday cupcake and a song. Aww!!


The de-candled cupcake which will be my breakfast. Hehe. 

Also I saw some interesting drinks on the menu:

Nescafe powder from Greece? 

😂

 The Freddoccino sounds real good, doesn't it?

Well, that concludes our visit to Blu Kouzina! It was pleasant indeed! They have quite a lot of seating but if you book through Chope, you can enjoy some vouchers~


Final notes: Beautiful place to have Greek cuisine. It doesn't have a friendly price tag (because most of the ingredients are air-flown from Greece) and the menu is kind of unhelpful because it has zero pictures, but the service and food are pretty good! The ambience is super fun and lovely too. 

●╭╮╭╮╭╮╭╮╭╮╭╮╭╮●
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Blu Kouzina (Siglap)
907 East Coast Rd
#01-01
Singapore 459107
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●╰╯╰╯╰╯╰╯╰╯╰╯╰╯●


Have you tried Greek food? What is your favourite that we should try? Leave a comment to share! 

Love,
Skye

Lol, here's another very late Switzerland post. I thought it would be useful!

Bring some Food Clips 



We stayed in Airbnbs and enjoyed cooking! We often bought stuff like chicken, cheese or bread and these come in some kind of plastic packaging. Food clips come in very handy if you do not use everything at one go! 

You don't need a huge water bottle.

I actually brought an empty 1.5 litre bottle for hikes, but this turned out mostly to be useless! Water is available readily in most places in the form of public fountains. You can also drink from the tap, so any bathroom would also do in a pinch. 

I found that water in different regions of Switzerland taste different. The water in Zermatt was the sweetest to us, while Zurich's tasted more salty for some reason. 

Hiking Shoes?

We got away with wearing sports shoes from New Balance and Nike. While hiking shoes offer more ankle support, they also add more weight and I would probably tire even more easily. For 'easy' hikes and beginner trails, you can probably just wear your sports shoes. You may want to invest in a good pair of hiking shoes however, if you envision yourself hiking often in the future. The terrain in Singapore doesn't really require hiking shoes, and we have no idea where else to hike after seeing these seemingly unbeatable views, so we decided to go without. It turned out fine.

Map app

A very handy offline map is the https://organicmaps.app/. Great when coverage isn't super good when you're high up in the mountains or trekking in who knows where.

SBB App
The SBB App is indispensable to us. We have the Swiss Travel pass that enables us to hop onto any train or bus (but you still have to pay for gondolas and special scenic trains etc). However, you still need to check the timings! 

Here's how it looks like:

Just key in your start and ending locations and you will be able to check out various timings and routes at a glance. It is super useful as it shows you which platform you have to be at. Sometimes you only have a matter of 3 minutes before the connecting train arrives, so we sometimes do a mad rush - but it gets easier and more familiar with time.

The only bad thing is that you need mobile data or wifi to access their timetables. 

Mobile Data

We looked up some mobile data carriers beforehand but when we reached the airport, the rates were completely different. Many of the telecoms offered an unlimited data plan for say one week or more for quite a sum. (Sorry, can't remember how much.)

We ended up using airport wifi to activate Mobile Roaming from our carrier (Giga!). It's called the gigaRoam ROTW (Rest of the World) and you get 1GB for 15 days. We mostly only needed data for getting around. I also recommend that you deactivate Mobile Data use on Instagram if you're a doom scroller like me. You wouldn't want to waste your precious data on that! XD

Making full use of your Swiss Travel Pass to visit Museums and other attractions

We visited quite a few museums on our trip! Sometimes we head there intentionally, but sometimes we just stumble upon on them on our walks. Museums are a great way to spend the day especially when you're too tired for a hike (our poor knees) or when the weather doesn't look forgiving. 

My favourite museum was the Giger Museum at Gruyeres. For some reason when I was doing my research on the place back in Singapore, the museum was slated to be closed on the day we wanted to visit. To my surprise it was open (and free) for us! What a great surprise.

Giger's art is very detailed, dark, sometimes startling but very absolutely fascinating. His art style is described as 'biomechanical'. I LOVE the works, especially the ink ones. Full works are spectacular but sketches have their own charm. 

Anyway, he bought this castle building and it showcases his works and some pieces from the movie franchise, Alien.

We also visited the Matterhorn Museum and the Swiss National Museum. 

Matterhorn Museum -where you learn more about who actually 'conquered' famous peaks - native Swiss or the Brits or the Italians? Sobering history lesson that I never expected but in which I found many parallels due to our unique position of being sandwiched in between countries etc. (Except of course the Swiss have important resources like water and land!)

Key thing to note when visiting the Swiss National Museum: The museum is split into two main buildings. We spent too much time in one which housed the temporary exhibitions (about deforestation, Awards of Press photos), when in fact I was more interested in their Permanent exhibits, which focused more about the country's history, including fashion, armour, and various historical artefacts.) The museum closed at about 5pm so we could only do a quick walkthrough of the second building. The buildings are not really linked in an intuitive manner, and I would have left the museum disappointed had I not seen photos of the permanent exhibition in an online review beforehand! They also gave a very terrible map and there were not many signs leading to the other building... so please note this if you are planning to visit!

Toilets
Most train stations (and trains) have free to use toilets. However, to our dismay, Zurich HB (and some major train stations) charges for a toilet visit. Malls have clean toilets, but what if you need to go when you're out in town? Most shops will allow you to use their toilet if you buy something from them. Sometimes the toilet is maybe two or three floors down in the basement. We've seen some English people traipse into a shop's toilet despite the shop owner telling them to buy something first. They kept saying 'Ok, ok', but in the end they left as hurriedly as they came. Awful T_T 

Language
In the major city areas, you can get by with English. Swiss language is a mix of German and French (to me) and some of their own dialect and words. Depending on where you visit, the language changes (just like dialects). However most Swiss are quite nice in our experience (or at least used to the sight of tourists) so the language barrier can always be broken with respect and kindness. 

That's all from me! Hope these came in handy, and I hope you enjoyed your trip. Our trip was so fun and beautiful that we keep thinking that we have peaked. Gosh.

More Switzerland posts

Hikes
Hiking to Zermatt
Hiking in Schynige Platte
Hiking from Grindelwald First to Lake Bachalpsee

Food
Snacks Nom Nom Nom
Chocolate Trail (Zurich)
Swiss Cookie - the Vogelnestli
What we ate in Zurich
What we ate in Lucerne
In recent reels or videos, the trend is to use an espresso machine and tonic water to make Espresso Soda.

I don't own an espresso machine so I just made my own Nescafe! Also I bought Schweppes soda water instead of tonic water 

☠️

So...I suppose a better name for what I tried would be Coffee Soda, rather than Espresso Soda. 

😂


That probably suits me too because I try not to be over-caffeinated. 



You just need ice, soda/tonic water and coffee/espresso!



As expected, it tastes like a fizzy Americano, Perhaps the bitterness in tonic water would bring out a more interesting taste? Guess i'm doing it wrong, LOL.

Just for fun, I also experimented this with a little dash of milk. The result is kind of like Calpis, but coffee flavoured! Interesting. 

Just a short post today to report on my small experiment! I love making fun drinks. 

Stuff I tried:
  • matcha latte
  • hojicha latte
  • hojicha x yuzu tea (this was yum.)
  • sprite x green tea x passionfruit variants
  • hot honey fruit tea (apple, orange, lime)
  • Orange Julius (kept watching them drink them in Stranger Things)
  • mango boba from scratch
  • homemade coffee jelly and milk
  • homemade red tea jelly and iced tea
  • dalgona (of course...)
  • if I recall correctly, we also tried to make a Sweet Potato Latte a la Korean style.
Other things I tried (and failed) so far would be to make a salty milk foam like how they make foam for bubble tea or macchiatos. My foam turned out a little floppy. 

🤔


Do you have any new recipes for me to try? :) 

Love,
Skye

From my record I seem to watch maybe one film a month.

Here's what I just watched on Netflix! I was missing Taiwan and wanted to watch something made there. I just wanted to hear the TW accent, see TW roads and everything.


Title: A Sun 阳光普照
Genre: Drama
Country: Taiwan
Year: 2019

I giggled at the start. Like how scenes of HDBs are iconic and used in almost every other SG film, or how a train / road crossing features in Japanese films/anime, riding a motorbike (especially at night) is the scene you had to have for Taiwan films.


A misty night with rows and rows and rows of motorbikes. I miss TW so much!


Warning: Things got gory in the first five minutes of this movie. I put my hands in front of the laptop to self-censor lol.

What's the movie about: This drama is about a family dealing with the arrest and incarceration of the younger son. Tragedy after tragedy falls upon them and the family strains to live life and be happy.


This is Dad, an instructor at a driving school. He only acknowledges his older, accomplished son and pretends that his younger son does not exist.


Chen Jian Hao, the older, illustrious son. Seen here with a romantic interest and a love story that I felt mostly distracted from the main story.


Mum who takes the brunt of burdens in the family.


Chen Jian He, our protagonist. 

Yes

The total duration is 2h 36min but does not feel as such. Without giving away the plot, the movie is not action packed nor a slow dramatic burn (think Minari). There is no major dramatic build up but the story held my attention. You root for the character but even so, the dread you feel for him is not as intense.  The movie somehow strikes a nice balance for us to really just 'view' and not experience. 

I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself well here, but I mention this because I just read the book 'The Gods Will Hear Us Eventually' by Jinny Koh, and it was a tremendous whirlpool of negative emotion that really strikes dread and depression in your heart. I'm somewhat glad that though this movie was dark, it was not as... dreadful to experience? Despite it all, we are basically looking at how an 'ordinary' family copes with what life throws at them ie. to the best of their ability and with a 'one step at a time' attitude. 

This is very realistic to me. They may not win at life, but they plod on and continue to survive despite the struggles they face. Isn't it like this for most of us? Life is not really like a movie where there's this golden moment in time where things suddenly take a turn for the better and then magically have a happy ending. It really is more like a series of events with ups and downs, and we never know what's coming next, and can only calmly face the next event. 

As for the ending, I know we're not supposed to be too happy about it (morally) but I thought that it was somewhat moving. I guess it's because the viewers will tend to be biased towards the MC. 

The ladies in the show also deserve all the love. They are the quiet pillars of the family. Never a complaint, nary a look of disdain despite everything thrown at them. Just unconditional love. Gosh. Not sure to think of them as saints or feel sorry for them. 

Nopes for me

There were some strange parts in the film that felt discordant - I am somehow supposed to believe that MC, who is smaller in size and the newbie in the cell, can somehow survive/be left alone in peace despite a rocky start with his (intimidating) cellmates? Ehhhh? 

Thought 2: You can order 铁蛋 (iron egg - a type of stewed egg sold in Taiwan) in jails???

The humour... did not make me laugh. Most of the time the situation was too gloomy and tense for me to even crack a smile for slapstick..

It's nice to get to watch a movie! Oh, forgot to mention that this film won a bunch of awards too. Hope to find another good movie to watch. 

If you watched it, what did you think of it?

Love,

Skye

~TRENDING IN CHINA NOW!~


This Green Tea Sprite recipe has been making its rounds on TikTok and the rest of the internet platforms. 

It looks easy and fun to drink, so let's have a go!

The basic ingredients are:

1. Sprite

2. Green tea sachet

The idea is to let the green tea sachet infuse the Sprite. Just let it sit in the fridge so you can enjoy a cold drink. The video uses a bottled sprite but I only have the canned one. 

Other variations include adding lemon slices and also passionfruit. 

I had problems trying to find fresh passionfruit from the supermarket. Not every fruit shop carries it too, so I had to forgo that.  

Anyway, I always considered Sprite as the soda that plays second fiddle to coke. It's nice that it has its moment in the limelight too! It being J-Hope's favourite drink doesn't hurt either 😜

Another trending drink now is the Espresso Soda. Yes, it means coffee and soda. Have you tried it?!

Love,

Skye


Update: We found passionfruit!

They're sold at about $2 for 5 in a tray at Giant!



 They smell soooo good. Also, they're the easiest fruit to work with - just scoop!

Used whatever green tea we had at home this time. The sprite is still clear in this picture because I made a new bottle to sit in the fridge. The sprite should look green!


Like this!



Taste test: It was fun to drink indeed! Fizzy, slightly sweet and refreshing thanks to the tartness of the passionfruit. 

Alternative for sweet tooths - use passionfruit with Korean Citron tea. You can enjoy it hot or cold. Passionfruit makes the tea smell so delicious, and works so much better than just plain ol' lemon, lime, orange slices or even apples.

Yup, we're back with the comparison posts. Today's theme is Grass Jelly, also known as Chin Chow, or in Chinese, 仙草。 

First, let's address the elephant in the room.

Is grass jelly made of grass?

Well, you make it by boiling a plant called Chinese mesona along with starch and potassium carbonate (source: thewoksoflife). 

So I consider it to be a byproduct, like tea. You boil the leaves but you don't eat them. 

What does it taste like?
To me, grass jelly tastes a little herbal. I like that it is unsweetened. It is refreshing in a bowl of dessert or in an iced drink. 

So what's this post about?

Back story: We had this wonderful grass jelly milk tea in JB once upon a time and we have been raving about it ever since. It was ridiculously smooth, soft and jiggly and you can use a bubble tea straw to suck it up and enjoy with the beverage. 

Objective: I wanted to recreate this at home. We are looking for a grass jelly that is unbelievably smooth and slightly soft so that it travels well in a large straw. We're also going to limit the search to supermarkets because the goal is to stock up on the grass jelly and use them when needed. Fresh grass jelly is great but it's a bit of a hassle to leave the house just to get it all the time. 

Without further ado, let's hit the streets to get some grass jelly!

1. 陈顺美 Tan Soon Mui Chin Chow

Price: $1.15 from NTUC
Weight: 500g
Origin: Product of Singapore
Texture: Extra firm and hard

As you can see, there's only a slight give when you press on it with force.

Smoothness: Average, 3/5

Experience: I tried cutting these into big pieces and put them in a homemade iced latte but the bubble tea straw had a hard time doing its job. I gave up and used a spoon instead. 

Recommended for: Cutting into cubes or smaller pieces for a traditional iced dessert. 

2. Grass jelly from the market


Price: $1 per block
Weight: Did not weigh. Probably more than 500g per block though.
Texture: Medium firm
Smoothness: Average, 3/5

Jiggle test: More jiggle than the first grass jelly.


I had high hopes for this grass jelly but I guess the search continues. I always thought 'fresh' grass jelly would be softer.

3. 陈顺美 Tan Soon Mui Chin Chow (Sweetened)


Price: $1 from NTUC
Weight: 300g
Origin: Product of Singapore
Texture: Medium Soft
Jiggle test: We saw it wiggle, wiggle!


So far this is the softest grass jelly we've tried. It's still not what I'm looking for though. 😔

I think there's one more brand that I saw in NTUC, but it looks quite firm as well so I just ignored it. Had too many false starts... guess I'll stick to getting large, soft grass jelly from bubble tea shops until I find one with the desired texture. (Or maybe you guys have a recommendation for me? *hopeful*)

There was a silver lining from these grass jelly tests though...

I had grass jelly in many ways, such as:

Grass jelly with ice and honey

Grass jelly and milk

Grass jelly and soy milk

Grass jelly and milk coffee


But the best one is a recipe by my dad 😂
Have you ever tried 100 Plus grass jelly?


I was super skeptical but it didn't stop me from trying. With some squeezed lime, this was actually super refreshing. The 100 plus adds some nice fizz to it. 


HOW TO: Cube your grass jelly into desired size, add some 100 plus (ours was the zero sugar one but the regular one probably works too). Add lime for extra zest. ✨ 

Thanks for reading! If you do try the recipe, let me know what you think!

Love,
Skye
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Skye Soon : lifestyle blogger in Singapore, street busker and enthusiast of chocolates and books

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