animal cruelty

i am not an exactly big fan of animals welfare but i do still have a heart for those animals out there.

recently i heard that Figo, an inter milan soccer played deliberately knocked over a black cat which had been wandering in front of the stadium. he believed that the black cat had brought them black luck which resulted in the lost of a 11 point lead in the Italian soccer league. ( they still won the title in the end last weekend) this caused an uproar and protests from those animal welfare groups. this lead to have some thoughts about it. 

while i do condemn Figo actions and see it as inappropriate, i begin to realize that there was another sports which has been an act of animal cruelty. heard of equestrian and horse racing ?

equestrian is a form of sports in which the rider will make the horse jump over several obstacles. it is like a form of art and performance. those lovers of these 2 sports, equestrian and horse racing, are mostly likely to believe that these horses are born to run and jump. i will say ... this is nonsense! as nonsense as what Figo is thinking...

the forms of animal cruelty often take place behind the scenes. when a horse suffers from a major injury such as a broken leg which will affect the running or jumping, it will be put to sleep. on a positive note, u can think that they are ending their pain. but i am not on that frequency of thinking.  it does not matter whether the horse is a champion horse in last week race or a young horse which has years ahead to live. to the owners, it is a matter of money. as long as they can't win a race anymore, they are dealt as useless and should be put aside. mind you.. there isn't any medical treatments to these horses and they ain't suffering from a life threatening injury... they are being slaughtered to save the costs of rearing them...

i believe most will remember the whip that's often used in the racing. can u image urself being whipped as u run a race? the pain inflicted on the horse to make them run faster is unacceptable to me. 

during training, these horses may be given drugs to enhance their performance or be immune to pain. i believe those sportsman out there who been through competitive sports and training will know how painful and hard those periods are. can u imagine that ur coaches have total control over and don't give a damn to ur feelings ?

those poor horses out there... they have to endure these pains and sufferings to put up a show/race for us. beneath their glamorous facade, these 2 sports are ruthless industry motivated by financial gain and prestige. Cruelty? u can bet on it...

P.S u dont have to love a dog to be caring for animals. there are many other ways.

chelsea - man utd

managed to catch the match last night. a pretty exciting match and i was glad that my precious 2 hrs didn't go to a waste. it was one of the rare time that i was supporting chelsea. actually, i didn't really want any of these 2 teams to win the title... but no choice.. liverpool had internal conflicts to be distracted with... arsenal had their injury woes and all these allow these 2 teams left to battle it out

avram grant wasn't a manager that deserve the title and i simply don't like the wily old fox at man utd. anyway, for the first time, i thought avram grant got his tactics. he made good use of the subs at the critical moments... i couldn't disagree with his choice of subs in any ways..

the best moment

it got to be that the moment which saw the 30 million signing shevchenko, who has yet to make any significant contribution to the team, clearing the ball off the line in the dying minutes of the game. lol.. after he cleared, he was celebrating with his team mates... bet he was saying ' u see that mate, that's is why i am worth 30 million!'

running out of luck

i believe man utd is clearing running out of luck. a missed penalty against barca and a unfortunate penalty awarded in the late minutes against chelsea are perhaps the keys signs that they are running out of luck in the late season. who knows next week could be their worst week of the season when they got knocked out of the champs league and dropped points again in the EPL. on the other hand, chelsea got lady luck smiling at them lately. a late own goal for them ( and of all, liverpool) and then another penalty... hope chelsea runs out of luck against liverpool nx wk.

prediction

anyway, i still believe man utd still can go on and win the title. i can't see any reason why they will fail... and i also predicting that rio ferdinard won't be the captain for england. look at him.. he was so irrational during the game yesterday... i think england needs a calm and steady captain.  gerrad is the man..And i m not saying this cos i m a liverpool fan.

tmr - the saturday

tmr will kick start my exams which last ard 2 wks. the first paper will be microecon... after screwing up its mid-term, tmr will be redemption day. do or die... sian

tmr is also the day to play against smu handball team. how i wish i can go down and play. if only tmr has no exams...

i cant wait for exams to end but on the other hand, i don't want it to start either.

i miss doing my favourite thing ... playing my xbox.. playing PC.. playing soccer.. playing handball.. going out.. slacking.. 

urgh... for now, i got to face the reality and hit the books again...

bad things

Nobody wants to admit to this, but bad things will keep on happening Maybe that's because it's all a chain and a long time ago, somebody did the first bad thing, and that led someone else to do another bad thing, and so on. You know, like that game where you whisper a sentence into someone's ear, and that person whispers it to someone else, and it all comes out wrong in the end.

But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.

Taken from Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

sakae teppanyaki

that day, hy had a strong craving for teppanyaki and we were at bugis junction. i didn't really know of any teppanyaki place nearby. the last time i had teppanyaki was at the bugis junction's food court. it was pretty nice but it closed down and the food court was relocated.

anyway we came across sakae teppanyaki restaurant which is located at the basement near soup spoon. the menu looks good and we decided to give it a try. hy took the chicken menu which has chicken, salmon, oyster, tofu steak, stir fried mushrooms, miso soup, rice and salad. i had the beef set which has beef fillet, cuttlefish, foie gras, chawanmushi, tir fried mushrooms, miso soup, rice and salad. it sounded quite sumptuous isn't it ? anyway i realized that the menu at bugis junction seems to be different from other branches as reflected on their website.. http://www.sakaesushi.com.sg/menuteppan.html

      

the salad

salad was served promptly after we had ordered. nothing spectacular about the salad. it was just greenies. it was not japanese in any other ways. initially i thought the orange sauce on the salad was tobiko, in the end, it turned up to be just some sour sauce.

then next come our main course. the chef performed his culinary skills in front of us. i think this is the main point of teppanyaki, having a chef doing the cooking in front of u and then served u immediately. the food was good. the tofu steak was good.. haha.. cos we previously had a bad one at essential brews. 

food to highlight :

the oysters that hy tasted were quite unique. the oyster was split into two and had some creamy sauce over it. it tasted different from the raw ones that we usually have.. ( duh! .. but it is really the case mah). i tried their foie gras for the first time. it came with a nice  brown sauce. i tried chewing it the first time. the taste just spread in ur mouth instantly. next i tried breaking it down using my tongue and it just dissolved. nice! their  chawanmushi was special. beside having a delicate presentation (it was served in an onion bowl), it was yummy. the last dish served for the stir fried mushrooms. it wasn't very good. it had a few kinds of mushrooms and one of them was golden mushroom. it just didn't taste good and we didn't finish it.

from left clockwise: tofu steak, oyster, salmon

foie gras with the cuttlefish. nice!

the delicate chawanmushi

stir fried mushrooms

we had a good meal in the end. the portion was just nice, food was good and the service wasn't bad . price was around 20-25 per pax. i thought it wasn't that bad given the variety of food in one sert menu if u go for the lobster set, it will cost more.

food : 7.5/10

ambience : 7/10

service : 7.5/10

price : 7/10

essential brew

we had dinner at essential brew today. the tea concept restaurant, which uses tea as one of their ingredients in most of their dishes, is located at holland village. the place is dimly lit to create a relaxing and soothing ambience. diners can choose to sit on the ground like the japanese way or at the tables- the normal way. for the second level, the diners have to take off their shoes before they can step onto the platform. 

it was surprising packed for a weekday dinner. almost all of the seats on the second level were taken. thus, there were actually quite limited space for each table and at times, i accidentally knocked into the lady beside me. 

after browsing through the menu for quite a while, we finally decided to have corn soup and tofu steak for our starters and grilled salmon and lemongrass chicken for our main course. lingering angel was our choice of drink. 

the corn soup was served promptly after we ordered. each scoop of soup was filled with the corn. it had quite a strong taste of corn, much better than the campbell's or some other western places. it was good. however, our starter took a little longer than we had expected. the steak tofu was served only mid way through our meal and so it became our side dish instead. the steak tofu was topped with mushrooms. it looked pretty and delicious. however, it was kinda true not to judge a dish too much by its presentation. it was not exactly that kind of soft tofu that we had expected. it was dau gua. the sauce and the mushroom that go with the tofu were awfully salty! so beside looking pretty, there wasn't anything good about this starter.

i ordered lemongrass chicken. it was fried and served with jasmine flavoured rice ball and salad. basically, i would just say that if it was a cutlet, it would be good. but as a lemongrass chicken, then it would be just average. i could barely taste the lemongrass in it. one consolation was that the plum sauce that went with it was quite good. the cutlet itself was quite big but 30% of it was fats. i won't recommend this dish to those going for a healthier meal. the jasmine rice wasn't that bad. i could taste and smell the jasmine. i believe the sauce that was on the salad was jasmine as well. thumb up for the sides.

huiying had grilled salmon. the presentation was good. the pepper ( i think) was sprinkled lightly across the salmon. the salmon tasted good. the skin was crispy. what was missing was the jasmine flavour which was supposed to be present in this dish. i agreed with hy that the strong salmon taste probably overwhelmed it. the sauce that was served with the dish was actually butter topped with pickles. it was my first time seeing butter going with salmon. in my opinion, it was not really a good choice.

the lemongrass chicken aka chicken cutlet

the grilled salmon

Lingering angel was the name of our drink. it was jasmine tea with citrus flavour. it was a nice combination. it was good in fact. better than what i had expected. =)

essential brew is quite a good place for friends to come and chill. beside the main courses, they offer finger food. they allow customers to play poker while waiting. the service is not bad. the price is a little above the average given the standard of the food. the bill came at 40 plus for us.  i guess i will pay them another visit but not in the near future. 

food : 6.5/10

ambience : 7.5/10

service : 7/10

price : 6/10

PSP for sale

i am currently helping a friend to sell his pink PSP slim. brand new.

he is just selling the console at $250. anyone interested just leave me a msg k ?

it is PINK PSP slim.