Around The World

Dazzling Cafe from Taiwan Opens its first store in Singapore! It's one of the popular chains in Taiwan with highly raved about Toasts and Alice-in-Wonderland decor. 

Address

15 Stamford Road, Capitol Building

#01-85

Opening Hours 

12pm - 12am

One of the cafes which open till late in the city hall area besides Macs and Starbucks in Raffles City. Other cafes usually close by 10pm and will be left stranded with no where else interesting to go after dinner with friends. 

Stepped in and couldn't feel more excited about the beautiful interior! It has a fusion of Disneyland cum parisian cum Alice in Wonderland theme! Most of the customers are females and couples - only fellow girlfriends would appreciate these kinda setting. Boyfriends would probably complain how expensive it is for toast. We were seated at one of the tables with normal chairs and realised the 2 tables beside has got cute bunny chairs! Just then, the 2 girls at the table beside left and we requested to shift to that table. Its super cute and selfie-perfect!

Didn't take a picture of the menu, so I've taken pictures of the menu from some other bloggers. The main courses are quite limited to pastas and risotto. Ordered a Mentaiko Spagetti in Cream Sauce and a Sauteed Mushroom and Prawns to share so that we still have room for dessert!

The dessert menu is much more extensive with all these beautiful and yummy looking toasts that had me spoilt for choice! The waffles and  toasts are quite expensive - $12.90 onwards and $17.90onwards respectively. The signature toast is the stack of Hazelnut, and Macha Toasts.

The Mentaiko Cream Pasta is nice! 

Macha Toast which comes in 4 stacks of toasts! Gasps! It was HUGE and was glad we shared the main course! Filled with Macha Ice cream, Fresh whip cream with Macha Sauce and Azuki with Green Tea Macaroon and Biscuit. There's 3 levels off hardness for the toast - Soft, Normal, Crispy. The waitress recommended Normal which most people would choose, and said Crispy was too hard for some. Normal was a little hard, so I probably will have soft the next time! 

Cebu is a popular destination for diving and Marine Reserve, so this time in Cebu, we booked for a Snorkelling trip. We planned to head to Cebu City on the check in day to source for a tour but didn't manage to head down to the city due to the limited timings of the Shuttle bus. Instead, we went online to book for a tour at http://www.cebuislandhopping.com

Picked up from the hotel at 8.30am to their office where we set sail

Excited at the pier! We were wondering where these people were heading with this small boat?! It's actually a transfer boat to their bigger boats for a trip out to the sea as the bigger boats weren't able to dock at the shallow waters nearer to the pier.

Got ushered to out boat and guess who were our crew - the children of philippines! This young man is sooooo strong, he was using all his muscles to steer the boat from the dock towards the deeper sea. This other boy also very cute. They are both the sons of the Captain who powers the boat. It's actually a very simple wooden boat powered by the pump and steered by a long rod into the sea.

  

Getting ready to snorkel! The 2 boys will help us to get ready by helping us put on life vest and the leg peddle. It's much easier to swim with the leg fin.

All sorts of beautiful fishes in the sea. These 2 are the most common ones. Interesting thing noted about the fishes - they swim in a organised pattern with equi-distance from each other in a formation! Spotted other colourful fishes, long beak fish, nemo and beautiful corals! 

  

  

Then, this man suddenly popped out and started to PR with us and saying how he thought JD was a celebrity. Then, he told us how someone is already picking coconut for us from the tree on the island, and how the coconut is good for the stomach. Also started introducing the kind of fresh seafood we could have for our BBQ lunch and it's much cheaper than the hotel charge. For a moment, I thought he was someone from our boat who came to talk to us.... until  I realised he's probably from the other boat trying to sell us seafood, drinks and add-ons. We paid for a lobster, abalone and 2 coconuts for 1200pesos, kenna chopped already =( So, I realised he's just trying to sell us things with all those sweettalks and pretend to be nice and friendly. Well, but just thought we could try out some fresh seafood fresh out from the sea.

Preparing for the BBQ on the boat with this mini grill! 

When it was all ready, it was laid out on the table and looking very sumptuous! Pork skewers, grilled chicken, fish, squid, abalone, lobster, mango, banana and rice! Too much food for us to handle, so I gave 2 skewers to the 2 kids who have been working hard to power the boat and serve us. I saw the family of 3 sharing a pack of rice hidden in a corner and thought while I'm enjoying these huge amount of food, they are sharing a pack of rice with a piece of fish. So I went over to pass them more food to eat! Sharing is caring. 

Continued to snorkel for awhile more before calling it a day and heading back to the shore! Will always remember how fortunate I am after seeing the simple and minimal lifestyle of the locals.