JPot Chilli Crab Steamboat: Food Review

I eat at JPOT a lot and 90% of the time I'll order their special JPOT broth as my soup base which is basically the plain old chicken broth. When I heard about the new Chilli Crab soup I was a bit tempted to try it but decided not to, until we came across their new set menu.

I was still a little skeptical but the meal looked pretty worth it so why not.

OK so here's the thing. My first thoughts about it before ordering was 'is it the sticky sticky kind of gravy that Jumbo uses for their chili crab or is it the legit watery kind of normal soup' and to my delight it was BOTH.

You start off with the normal kind of soup which tastes pretty damn good. And how they recommend eating it is to place the crab in the soup and cook it all the way till the end (trust me the soup will taste so much better and the crab was so so sweet at the end). When you're done steamboating, the staff will turn the soup into the thick chili crab sauce by adding corn starch and a raw egg. Actually now that I'm typing this out it sounds kinda sketchy and gross but trust me it tastes a lot better than it sounds!!

I thought that the crab tasted really sweet and honestly preferred it to the ones sold at Jumbo Seafood although the one there would obviously be fresher. Maybe it's because it was due to its sweetness from being brutally boiled for over an hour. It was also really easy to eat because the shell softened so much that it was possible to bite through it easily.

And here comes the best part of the set, the fried mantous!! It's been so long since I've had FRESH HOT STEAMING fried mantous and I've never been more satisfied after that meal! I know a lot of people like to dip their mantous into the sauce but that's the boring way of eating it. How I do it is that I dig a hole into the bun with my chopsticks and fill up with the chili crab so that all the savory goodness explodes in your mouth once I take a bite. You should try it too, all the cool kids are doing it (-;

Looks really trash but it is the BOMB

I highly recommend trying this out if you're going to eat at JPOT and remember to jio your friends because the more people try it, the higher the chances of this being part of their main menu so go go go!!


Ratings:
Food: 9/10
Ambiance: 8/10
Service: 10/10

https://www.jpot.com.sg/en/home

FatBoy, Make Your Own Burger: Food Review

Yo i'm back with another irregular blog post. Recently i went to FatBoy at Serangoon Gardens for lunch and before that I had no idea what FatBoy offered. Besides the usual burgers for sale, they have a make your own burger section for greedy fat boys (pun intended) like me.

It's pretty obvious why the restaurant is called FatBoy because there are no just vegetables on the menu. So if you're accompanying your friends thinking you can order a bowl of salad then you'll be disappointed to hear that the only vegetables given is a small piece of lettuce and a slice of tomato that comes with every plate of burger. Guess it's time to break that diet that you're gonna break eventually right.

There were so many things I wanted to try on the menu like the beef chilli fries but no one wanted to share it with me. The burgers on their menu looked really good but I felt like the DIY burger was the main attraction of the bar so I settled for a huge DIY burger.

For the DIY burger, you get the choose the type of buns, meat, sides and sauce. I chose honey oats as my bun, but tbh I think all the buns taste the same. For the meat, they offered the usual beef and chicken and I was delighted to see that they offered lamb too. I was a little skeptical at first because I've never even heard of a lamb burger, let alone taste it but I was so glad I got over it and ordered it because it was so so amazing. For the sides I ordered spam, jalapenos, caramelized onions, guacamole and chilli queso and blue cheese dressing as the sauce. This totaled up to about $21.

My friend ordered this really weird (but I shall not judge) burger which had a slice of pineapple and peanut butter and she kept on telling me how good it was and how the bread tasted like chocolate with the peanut butter. But I guess that's what's so good about the place because they have a huge variety of sides and sauces that you can mix and match to concoct a burger of your liking!

I really liked the overall ambiance of the place. It was dimly lit and it wasn't crowded at all even though it was during lunch time on a Sunday. The only downside to this place is that it's kinda inconvenient to go to but I guess if it was at a mall the cozy atmosphere that FatBoy has would be really different.

Ratings:
Food: 9/10
Ambiance: 9/10
Service: 9/10

https://www.fatboys.sg/

African Safari 九州自然動物園 (Japan, Oita)

I'm going to start off with one of my favourite attractions: The African Safari Park in Oita. This is the best zoo/park/safari I've ever been to and you'll find out why in a second.

So like y'know how animal feeding works in other places, where the animals are in the cage or behind a fence. African Safari has the most unique animal feeding. Instead of the animals being fed in the cage (or fence), you'll be in a caged bus which will enter the respective animal areas. So technically we're the animals here!

And I feel that it's really cool because we get the opportunity to feed the big cats rather than the usual harmless-vege-eating giraffes and zebras.

If you don't wanna spend money on the caged bus ride, simply head down to the pets area where all the cute animals are! There're monkeys which you can feed- again, I've never seen this anywhere else- with seeds which costs ¥100. These cute little things won't stop until they snatch the food between your fingers!!

My favorite attraction of all has got to be the guinea pig house. As the name suggests, it's a house of guinea pigs which the workers will help place on your lap. Do note that some guinea pigs are more timid than others so you have to be really careful when handling them. Obviously, if they start squirming around and squeaking it means that they're not comfortable with either the way you're holding them or you entirely.

They even have dog and cat houses, which requires an entry fee. The dogs are trained to sit on people's laps and if you're not attracting any dogs, you can request for a blanket, which the dogs are attracted to, and place it on your lap. There's this really cute dog (i think her name is miu or something like that) who literally follows me around the place and gets angry when I try to move her away from my lap. What a cutie

If you're not a dog person then head down to the cat house which is opposite. But I don't recommend this unless you're a super cat person because it's more expensive (i think 500) and the cats won't interact with you.

Lastly what makes this attraction such the BEST zoo/park/safari whatever is that there are good food!! Y'know how theme parks rip of their customers with expensive and below-standard food? This is not the case in African Safari. They have two restaurants- one that sells curry and pasta and the other one that sells curry and pasta (but better). The better one is located further in the attraction and even though they sell the same kind of food, I prefer the second one because it's actually a curry buffet, making it more worth it. There are 4 different kinds of curry of different spicy levels to cater to different tongues- beef, chicken, eggplant and sweet potato. I absolutely loved their eggplant and sweet potato, but if you're there you should definitely try all 4! If you're going in a group and there are people who doesn't like curry, there are also pastas which taste just as nice!

 Perched atop a mountain, African Safari is definitely the most natural safari I've been to. Not only do the animals have a large area to roam freely, there's also minimum man-made structures in their living space. And while you're there, don't just pay attention to the animals because the scenery there is something else too!!

Thanks for reading!!

http://www.africansafari.co.jp/english/

Koala Park Sanctuary (Sydney)

Honestly the name of this park is super misleading because it was more like a prison than a sanctuary for the animals.

"Colman you must be exaggerating," is what you must be thinking right now. But just take a look at these photos. I mean I'm sure I'll enjoy living in such a small cage if I was a bird. Ok I guess it makes sense to cage the birds to prevent them from flying away, and to cage carnivores so that they won't hurt anyone, but even the goats are fenced up in a super small area.

Before I continue let's play a game. Can you find the animal?

Don't worry if you can't because there isn't one!!

At first my parents kinda thought that the place was under renovation or something because of how dilapidated it was. Some of the cages were also empty and most importantly there were only two other tourists when we first entered. So I went to ask the cashier where all the animals were, specifically the wombat and she promised that it was there.

The park provides animal presentation- don't be to hyped about this because almost every other zoo in Australia does the same- but during the dingo presentation, the worker came to the dingo cage late and refused to bring the dingoes out of the cage even though it was part of the presentation. And I swear to god the dingoes did not like the worker; you can assume why. Also you can see how skinny this dingo is.

At first I thought that it wasn't too bad considering we could take a picture with the koalas but then we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park a week later and when you compare the difference between the photos...

left: Koala Park Sanctuary
right: Featherdale Wildlife Park

There was also the sheep sheering show which might be considered interesting to some people, but to me, I found it really cruel. It was really obvious that the sheep felt super ashamed after it's wool coat was sheered off.

Putting aside the poor living conditions of the animals, the park is really far away ($50 on Uber), the attractions in the park do not justify the price of the tickets ($27). It's in the middle of nowhere with only 1 (or 2) busses back to the city.

While writing this post, I searched for the park online and it's 99% negative comments. Honestly I have no idea where my dad found the other 1% which made him bring us there but that's not the point. Apparently the place is being sued for animal negligence, and unsurprisingly there's a campaign to close down this place and if you feel that the zoo should be closed down after looking at the photographs, please sign the petition to help.

Alternatives:
Featherdale Wildlife Park
Wildlife Sydney Zoo
Taronga Zoo

Sign the petition here!

Phillip Island Tours AAT Kings (Day Tour)

On the second day of the Australia trip, we joined a day tour from AAT Kings to Phillip Island. It's actually a really fun tour but I wouldn't recommend it.

Stop 1: Maru Koala & Animal Park

This is actually a pretty good attraction because you can feed the kangaroos for $2 which is really affordable. But if you're looking for photos with koalas you can get them for free at Featherdale Wildlife Park. You can also feed wallabies and kangaroos for $2 there as well.

Stop 2: Phillip Island

We were taken to a couple of attractions in Phillip Island. The first one is this park place where you can take lots of really nice photos.  If you live in melbourne like I did and want to go to a nice picturesque like this, head down to Botanic Gardens.

Our next attraction is a beach which is actually really nice because of how empty it is. But no one could really enjoy the beautiful scenery because of how strong the wind was. It felt like standing in a sandblasting machine walking near the beach (i didn't even walk into the sandy area).

So one of the main reason of saying that this day tour isn't recommended is because of the crazy strong winds. Our next attraction is also right beside the sea.

Stop 3: Nobbies Rock Formation

So windy that I can't even smile properly.

Stop 4: Penguin Parade
The main course of the day tour was super disappointing. So based on the description in the website, we'll be seated at the coast to watch penguins swim from the sea and then find their houses on land. Yes, the penguins have houses which are built by the workers. And because of the word 'parade', I was expecting hundreds of penguins swimming in at once and covering the beach but what happened was only a few small groups of 5 to 6 swim in every now and then. Also you might have realized that I didn't include any photos of the attraction because photography is prohibited.

What you're supposed to do is to sit at the seating area for about 20 minutes from the start, then walk along the boardwalk back to the gift shop to watch the penguins waddle back to their little wooden homes. Now it will be quite dark along the board walk and the color of the penguins makes it even harder to spot them in the bushes. So the key to finding the penguins is to look out for a crowd because that's likely where the penguins are.

This is actually a really nice attraction if you're super into nature. Like it is quite a nice experience to see penguins in the wild. But if you're planning to just have a look at the penguins, I'd recommend Featherdale Wildlife Park or Wildlife Sydney Zoo because you'll get the opportunity to have a close up view of penguins AND take a picture with them.

Conclusion:
Out of all the stops, the only irreplaceable attraction is probably the Nobbies Rock Formation so I do not recommend joining this day tour.

Replacement attractions
Stop 1: Maru Koala & Animal Parl
Featherdale Wildlife Park

Stop 2: Phillip Island
Botanic Gardens (Melbourne)

Stop 4: Penguin Parade
Featherdale Wildlife Park
Wildlife Sydney Zoo

https://www.aatkings.com/tours/melbourne/phillip-island-penguins-kangaroos-and-koalas/

Aladdin The Musical

So as some of you might know, I went to Australia for 10 days so I have a lot of stuff to write about but I think I'll start with my personal favourite: Aladdin The Musical.

It is honestly the best musical I've seen and I'm not just saying it because it's Disney.

Aladdin The Musical is very very different from all the other ones I've seen because of the interaction between the audience and the cast, specifically Genie (Michael James Scott). He is so sassy and funny and really steals the spotlight!

Out of all the musicals I've watched, Aladdin also has the best female lead (in terms of voice) and the best set.

Jasmine played by Arielle Jacobs.

Sadly photography isn't allowed in the theatre but luckily I managed to find a couple of photos on google. But I promise you will be so impressed with the props, backdrop and everything! There are even fireworks, in addition to confetti. Yes that's right, fireworks.

But really if you're going to Sydney you should definitely include this in your itinerary!

AND also if you're a Disney fan you must bring some money because they have really nice things in their shop. The lamp-snowglobe thing is also a music box which plays "A Whole New World" and costs $85. If you're looking for a more affordable memento, they also sell really nice keychains and magnets for $15.

Purchase your tickets here!

Broadway playlist (not by the Sydney cast)

My 10 Travel Essentials

I've decided to do this post as I am currently packing for my Australia trip which starts tomorrow. I remember how my packing list was so long when I was younger, like I included rubber bands, blue tack, 5 books and other junk. So I've decided to share with you guys my 10 travel essentials for now. I'll be starting the list with the more general items that most people will bring.

1) Portable charger + Cable

So first on the list, which is probably everyone's travel essential, is a portable charger. Personally I'm not the kind of people who uses a portable charger daily so most of the time when I actually do need it, the battery will run flat. But this portable charger here doesn't "leak", meaning the amount of battery remains the same even if you don't use it.

There's also this unbreakable cable that I have. I'm a really messy person so I always throw the cable in my bag, causing it to bend and break and expose the wire.

2) Camera

I'm using a Canon M3, which has a wifi function to transfer the photos to my phone so that I can upload it on Instagram or whatever instantly. I also got a leather pouch from qoo10 for $30 which looks a lot nicer than the original camera pouches in Canon. It's also detachable so it's quite cool.

3) Sketchbook + Drawing Material

To pass time on the plane, I'll usually bring a sketchbook to draw whatever and I'll bring an artist's pencil case to hold my pencils, a couple of drawing pens, an eraser and a ruler. When I went to London I also brought a mini sketchbook which I carry with me everyday because I visited many museums in that trip.

4) iPad

I'll bring my iPad for blogging, reading and watching anime in case the movies in flight are boring




5) Spectacles



I got this free sample of a blue light filtered specs from my mom so it doesn't really fit that well on my face. It's supposed to reduce the amount of blue light from entering your eyes from staring at your phone for too long. Not sure if it it actually works but I still bring it with me whenever I travel.

6) Dry Shampoo

This is seriously a game changer especially when it comes to long haul flights like I cannot stand it when my hair is greasy and flat and sticks all over my forehead. Dry shampoo is basically shampoo in a can and it works so well. I'm using Batiste because it's cheap (about $5 from Watsons), it works well, it smells great and most importantly it is travel sized so I can carry this on my flight.

7) Bio Essence Miracle Bio Spray

This is basically dry shampoo but for your face. It's actually my sister's but I use it occasionally when my face gets oily or sticky and it basically just refreshes your face.

8) Hand Sanitizer

Sometimes when I travel, I'll encounter super dirty public toilets which is so dirty that even the water tap is crawling w bacteria. or maybe it doesn't even have a sink. Like when I went to Grand Canyon last year, their water system doesn't work so this really comes in handy. You can get this from Watsons for about $2 which is very worth it.

9) Environmentally Friendly Bags
I always bring one of these to reduce on the amount of plastic bags used. Also, some countries charge for plastic bags so it's always good to keep one of these in my bag.

10) Medicine Pouch
And lastly my medicine pouch which I carry everywhere I go, which includes a bottle of eye-drop, 2 gastric medicine, 2 panadol, cough and allergy medicine. You never know when you'll fall sick so this comes in really handy.

That's all! I'll be going to Australia tonight and be back by 1st December so hit the follow button on the right (if you're using your computer) to get notifications when I write about my trip.