Friday, 14 June 2024

Italian Buffet at Basilico Conrad Singapore

Last week I met my friend over a lunch Italian buffet at Basilico Conrad Orchard Singapore. I love Italian food be it pasta, gelato, olive and tomatoes!

I tasted sweet yellow small tomatoes for the first time and I find it amazing! I paired the sweet yellow tomatoes with creamy burrata cheese on top of thin crispy biscuit with some honey! I loved it so much that I took more burrata cheese, yellow tomatoes and biscuit. 

Besides burrata cheese and tomatoes, I also love Italian desserts and illy mocha. I'm not a fan of salty parma ham and cold meat. I want to eat less meat and more vegetables and fruits. I tried almost all the delicious cakes and gelato. 

I paid about $69.00 after 15% UOB credit card discount for weekday lunch. 

Click here to find out more.

 I love the the sweet yellow tomatoes! 
Simply divine! Sweet yellow tomatoes with creamy burrata cheese on top of thin crispy biscuit with honey! I will go back to Basilico for the good quality Italian cheese, olive, illy coffee and yellow tomatoes. 






I love illy mocha.




I like burrata cheese
Cold cuts







Olives

Pizzas

Roasted chicken and baked salmon.





Monday, 10 June 2024

Near Death Experience

I started reading about Near Death Experience (NDE) in 2017 from Dr Brian Weiss's books (Many Lives, Many Masters) and I started to read many more related NDE books by others like Dr Raymond Moody's best selling books, Life after Life and Dr Alexander Eben. I feel better knowing my kind deceased friend and relatives had moved on to better place, free from physical pain suffering.

From many NDE sharing, there is common message about love and you will experience the impact of your action on others during your life review. If you love yourself, don't hurt others. So if you want to have good life review experience, be mindful of your action and speech. Most religions like Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Muslim, Hinduism and Judaism  taught about the Golden Rule; treat others that you would like to be treated. I like Vinney Tolman who shared that people who see the same rainbow gives different descriptions from their perspectives. 

World leaders should watch these NDE sharing and stop wars. Violence will not solve problems but only perpetuates this vicious cycle of revenge. Only love, dialogue, understanding, and forgiveness can stop all these senseless wars where soldiers and innocent civilians lost their lives due to their leaders' beckoning. No one will speak up for you since you just attack innocent civilians indiscriminately (Both hamas and Netanyahu and his team). There is no winner in war, only sad families who lost their sons, friends and relatives. World leaders should stop sacrificing their soldiers in the name of peace and they need to remember they only live in this physical body vessel temporarily for at most 120 years, a feat achieved by very few people on this planet Earth. 
From Amazon website

This guy died for 45 minutes and came back to life as a paramedic ignored medical protocol as he listened to his intuition and saved his life.

Sunday, 19 May 2024

Oldie-licious at Elemen Restaurant 2024

This Friday, I finally went to Millenia Walk Elemen, a vegetarian restaurant that serve delicious vegetarian 5-course or 8-course sets. This year, you can try Peranakan dishes in Oldie-licious set from now till 30 June this year. 

I like kueh pie tee, ondeh ondeh cake with coconut ice-cream and the main course, blue pea nasi lemak with assam curry monkey head mushroom. I highly recommend this course if you like Peranakan food. 

Blue pea nasi lemak with assam curry monkey head mushroom. The rice is quite fragrant with blue pea taste.
Crispy Tofu Salad. I love this crispy tofu that was tender soft inside the crispy exterior.
Trio Peranakan Appetiser

Golden Ngoh Hiang was tasty with five-spice powder but I prefer it to be less salty.


Shroom ball soup

Ondeh ondeh cake with coconut ice-cream is a pretty good combination.


Elemen members enjoy $4.00 discount.

Sunday, 12 May 2024

周杰伦Jay Chou 听妈妈的话 Listen to Mom

 As usual, it's the day to listen to  this song on Mother's Day. 


Sunday, 21 April 2024

Inspiring Sharing by Anita Moojani

Anita Moojani miraculously recovered from end-stage cancer after making the choice to be back to her body while she was on the other side. Doctors were amazed at her speedy recovery and studied her medical case. You can read her book, Dying to be Me or watch the video below. It is important to love yourself. 

You can read her near death experience here from Near-Death Experience Research Foundation that led Wayne Dyer to discover her and launched her writing career.

Click here https://www.anitamoorjani.com/


 

Sunday, 14 April 2024

Yong’s Teochew Kueh

I woke up early to buy popular Yong’s Teochew kueh at Upper Serangoon road since my friend wanted to go there to buy many kuehs. There were people queuing at about 7.45 am already. I thought it would be great to buy too since my mother likes Gu Chye kueh (garlic chives kueh) and Png kueh (rice kueh). I also love their Soon kueh with generous serving of shredded turnip wrapped inside the thin smooth skin. 

We enjoyed the delectable kuehs. I also enjoyed their unique yam kueh, soon kueh and also yam paste. My friend told me she brought many kueh as she can freeze and enjoy it for the next few weeks. They only have two shops, the other is at East Coast road. Definitely one of the best Teochew kueh in Singapore as they are generous with the tasty kueh filling.

Gu Chye kueh (garlic chives) and png kueh (rice kueh)





Yam paste Orh nee, my favourite dessert.

Soon kueh 

Soon kueh and yam kueh
                                                           Yam kueh

Monday, 8 April 2024

The Eight Winds cannot move .八风吹不动,一屁过江来

Saw this interesting explanation on the above verse on the Eight Winds article here. This is a story of how one of my favourite Chinese poets, Su Dongpo was upset by his friend's reaction to his poem. This story reminds me that we should be calm and not react impulsively. 

苏东坡在黄州时,有一天,诗兴来了,做了一首赞佛的诗:

稽首天中天,毫光照大千;

八风吹不动,端坐紫金莲。

这是一首意境很高的诗,不是对佛法有相当的造诣,绝对写不出这样的好诗。苏东坡写好了这首诗,自己反覆吟哦,觉得非常满意!诗中在赞佛的同时又暗含着作者自己有“八风吹不动”的超然境界。

他便把诗用信封封好,叫人送去对岸给佛印禅师看。他自以为佛印一定会大大的赞赏一番。然而,佛印禅师读到苏东坡的诗时,并不如苏东坡所预料的那样,而是在那首诗的下端,批上“放屁”两个大字,交给来人带回黄州。

苏东坡在看到“放屁”两个大字时,第一反应就是火冒三丈,连喊:“岂有此理?”

气呼呼地要找佛印禅师算帐,那知禅师早已吩咐下来:“今天不见客。”

苏东坡听了,更加火大,不管三七二十一,直奔佛印处,正要推门进去时,忽然发现门扉上贴着一张字条,端正地写着:

八风吹不动,一屁过江来。

聪明的苏东坡看到这两句,幡然醒悟,心里暗道:“我错了!竟为了那区区‘放屁’两个字而大动肝火,更何来‘八风吹不动’?”这就是佛印禅师给他的启示,让他不得不自叹修行不如佛印远矣!

Felt very tired after work. No time to translate. But found a good website from here and here with good introduction and translation.

Su Dongpo was a Song Dynasty poet and government official in Guazhou. Though the Yangzi River separated Guazhou from Jinshan Temple, Su Dongpo crossed it regularly to converse with the temple’s abbot, Chan Master Foyin, about Chan and the Way. One day, when Su Dongpo felt that his cultivation had reached full maturity, he composed the following poem and dispatched his young attendant to deliver it to Master Foyin for his approval: Bowing, Heaven within Heaven, I am the light that illuminates the boundless universe. The eight winds cannot move me, who am seated mindfully upon the purple golden lotus.

Upon reading it, the master dashed off a one-word comment for the young attendant to carry back. As soon as Su Dongpo read “fart” an uncontrollable anger began to rise. So he embarked for the other shore to debate the master. As his boat approached Jinshan Temple, Master Foyin was already waiting. Su Dongpo said, “We are the closest of Dharma friends. My poem, my cultivation — if you don’t praise it, that’s fine. But how could you insult me?” Acting as if nothing had happened, the Chan master asked, “How did I insult you?” When Su Dongpo showed him his comment, the master roared with laughter, saying, “Didn’t you say ‘the eight winds cannot move me?’ So how come a fart has blown you across the river?”

Cultivation is achieved, not by talk, but by action.

The “Eight Winds” in the poem referred to praise, ridicule, honor, disgrace, gain, loss, pleasure and misery - interpersonal forces of the material world that drove and influenced the hearts of men.