Café Fest @ The Waterfront Promenade, 6 - 7 September 2014. (Win a pair of Cafe Fest pass too!)

If you are a café hopper and always wished the cafés were all located nearer so that you can save on traveling time.  On 6 and 7 September 2014, you will be able to cafe hop 12 homegrown cafes at the same venue! For these 2 days, you don't need to travel from East to West of Singapore to drink all the caffeine you need!

Before I go on and on.. here's the pictorial summary of the whole event, courtesy of the organisers.



If you are wondering and want to know what cafes will be there, here's some of it: OZ Specialty Cafe, Jimmy Monkey, I am, Maison Ikkoku, Cake Love, and Toby’s Estate to name a few. For more updates, check out www.cafefest.sg

It's free entry to the venue, but if you want to purchase coffee and food, plus sit at the seats provided,  you need a Café Fest Pass. With the pass, you also get to purchase food and drinks up to 25% off the usual price in their own cafe.

You can purchase the Café Fest Passes online at www.cafefest.sg If you hurry, you can purchase it at an early bird price of just $20.



Giveaway!

Thanks to the organisers, Keropokman.com readers stand to win a pair of Café Fest VIP Passes. (VIP ones, not just the ordinary passes)

How do I win it?

1) Like the Cafe Fest Singapore Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cafefestsg

2) Drop a comment at Keropokman.com Facebook page, so that your name will be in the lucky draw. Tag a friend and you get an extra chance in the lucky draw.

Who can join the lucky draw and when is the contest ending?

The lucky draw is open to anyone who will be physically be in Singapore on 6 and 7 September 2014.

The contest closes at 11pm on 10 July 2014 Singapore time and 1 winner will be picked.

How do I collect the prize?

You will collect the prize from the Cafe Fest organisers directly at the venue.

New Zealand Natural Premium Ice Cream

Hands up those who love ice cream!
Hands up those who love New Zealand Natural!
Hands up those who want to get some free New Zealand Natural ice cream!

I remember when I was much younger and was studying for my undergraduate studies in Melbourne, I will be having New Zealand Natural's ice cream cone every other week after church at the Melbourne Central kiosk! It was like a little treat after a whole week of boring repetitive hostel food!

Saving pocket money just for ice cream! Be it winter or summer, having the New Zealand Natural ice cream with friends was one of the happy moments! After ice cream on a Sunday afternoon it will be back to hitting the books! (Ah.. those were the days...)

Now back in Singapore, I live in the western side of Singapore and New Zealand Natural outlets in Singapore seems to be all located in Central or East side of Singapore. It has not been really convenient for me to get my fix, unless I happen to be at Paragon, HarbourFront Centre or Sentosa.

Good news! Did you know that from July 2011, New Zealand Natural factory packed 473ml tubs are now available island wide at over 50 distribution points? You can now get them at Cold Storage supermarkets all over Singapore! They retail for $12 plus depending on the branch and discounts offered.



I like walking around supermarkets as a form of exercise to burn calories. I happen to snap this photo earlier this month when I saw the premium ice cream on sale. This was taken at Cold Storage Albert Park, now the nearest New Zealand Natural 'outlet' from my home ;-)




Some of you know, I like to roam around this tiny island, and I happened to walk into a Cold Storage at Kallang Leisure Park last week and I see they were there too!




The good PR folks of New Zealand Natural delivered 6 tubs of their Premium Ice Cream to my house for a taste test. After dinner on a week night tlast week, I had 6 tasters tell me what they like about the ice cream they just tasted.

The tasters consists of 3 thirty plus year olds, 1 forty plus year old and 2 fifty plus year old. My younger crowd could not make it!




There were 6 flavours to taste and I was told these are the 6 most popular New Zealand Natural flavours. They are available at all Cold Storage supermarkets in Singapore.

After tasting all 6 flavours, everyone seemed to have picked their own favourite! These folks can really compare and compare it with the different brands from different countries. But I am not looking for a comparison. They are many nice ice cream brands out there.

I just want to tell me what they liked about the flavours. It would be easier to them too (and also for me!)



Let's start with Chocolate Ecstasy and Hokey Pokey.

If you are wondering what is Hokey Pokey, that's a very New Zealand flavour. If you are in New Zealand, you can get this flavour almost everywhere ice cream is sold! My sis was New Zealand around 2 years ago for 3 months of work-exchange and she said she tried so many kinds of hokey pokey there. It's basically vanilla ice cream with small bits or lumps of solid or soft toffee. 




Opening the Chocolate Ecstasy. Covers off and we all can't wait to dig in!



Chocolate Ecstasy:
- Really smooth taste in the mouth.
- Full body chocolate flavoured.
- Slight bitter aftertaste of chocolate.
- Not too sweet.

It seems this tub of ice cream finished the fastest!



Hokey Pokey:
- Smooth and creamy
- Slight oily after taste
- Milky
- Butterscotch bits was visible and nice
- Reminds of New Zealand (according to sis)




The next two flavours, Forestberry and Mango,
Forestberry is frozen yoghurt and Mango is the sorbet range.



Forestberry:
- a taste of it and you like it's frozen yoghurt.
- fruity sourish flavour
- refreshing (esp in hot Singapore weather)
- no chemical taste
- taste healthy

It has probiotic cultures in it by the way.



Mango:
- it has a bubbly taste. (you can see bubble above?)
- it melts too fast


(note: A week before, these tasters I have had been eating lots of fresh Taiwanese mango and another brand of Mango Sorbet from Europe, so everyone was comparing it to fresh mango and also the other brand. So it's a bit lop sided, they said they like fresh mangoes! They are not giving me answers for this flavour. )




The next two flavours, Classic Vanilla and Cookies & Cream.
I think these are flavours that most people like. My taste panels loved them!



Classic Vanilla:
- everyone said they could see the vanilla pods
- definitely not the artificial vanilla taste but a nice real vanilla fragrance to it.
- the smoothest texture of all the ice cream
- doesn't taste of too much milk.




Cookies and Cream:
- Not too sweet
- Chunks of cookies
- "Kiam Kiam Tee Tee" (slight sweet and salty taste)
It seems my two 50+ year old tasters loved this the best! They don't like like too sweet stuff and they said the slight salty is what they like.


It was an interesting tasting session. The tasters had different opinions. They would prefer the yoghurt to be more sour. Some hope that dark chocolates were used. So I just asked them what they liked about the ice cream.

Just in case you don't know why people love New Zealand Natural Ice Cream: 

New Zealand Natural ice cream contains only the freshest, best quality ingredients available and is made with fresh dairy cream from cows that feed on the green unpolluted pastures of New Zealand. 


Contest:
How about winning yourself a tub of ice cream? The folks of New Zealand Natural will be giving away 6 tubs of each flavour.

It's very easy to win it. Here is how:

1. "Like" the New Zealand Natural Facebook page.
2. Post on the comment section, Which flavour of ice cream / sorbet / frozen yoghurt from New Zealand Natural do you like best from the 6 flavours above? Why do you like the flavour and do you prefer your ice cream in a cone or a cup?
3. Post your answer on the comments here with your 'unique nickname' e.g. IScreamForNZN
4. To ensure your privacy, email me your nickname, real name and contact number to keropokman@gmail.com with the subject "New Zealand Natural Contest". 

Contest end this Friday, 22 July 2011.

The best answers for each flavour will win the a tub of New Zealand Natural Premium Ice Cream. There are 6 tubs to be given away. If you are the winner, I will email you back and ask for your NRIC number. You will have to head down to New Zealand Ice Cream at Paragon to collect your ice cream with your ID.

Singapore Takeout - Win 10 food vouchers for a Asian Heritage dish by Chef Janice Wong

Shipping containers. I am sure everyone in Singapore knows about it! Singapore has one of the world's largest and biggest ports and millions of shopping containers passes through the ports.

In Singapore, the Port of Singapore operations are handled by two operators: PSA International and Jurong Port. Do you know in 2010, PSA International's Singapore operations handled 27.68 million TEUs of containers. That's a lot of containers ain't it?

Singapore Tourism Board, IE Singapore and SPRING Singapore is taking just one of the containers, transform it into a mobile pop-up kitchen! It will be called the Singapore Takeout. It will also gather the help of 10 of Singapore's world-class chefs to travel with (not in) the container to 9 cities in the world over the next 12 months.

What are they doing it for? To share Singapore food with people around the world! Singapore's cuisine, culinary talent and products will be make know to the world.



The Singapore Takeout would probably be the most colourful container you will see!
Such a brilliant idea, don't you think?

From the pictures on the containers, you can decipher  where it will travel to!  Starting from London in June 2011, it will then visit Paris, Moscow, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Delhi, Dubai and Sydney.

Chef Janice Wong (of 2am Dessertbar fame) will kick-start the gastronomic journey tour in London.



The Singapore Takeout will be officially launched in Singapore on Thursday, 28 April 2011.

On Friday, 29th April 2011, from 7pm – 10pm, it will be open to the public.
The venue will be at Clifford Square, 80 Collyer Quay, Singapore 049326.

Admission is free, but food and drink items can be purchased at nominal prices.


Contest!

Would you be interested to win one of the 10 complimentary SPICE food vouchers for a specially crafted Asian Heritage dish by Chef Janice Wong, redeemable at the public launch on 29th April?

Just answer this simple question to win:
Name the 3 mixes in the Singapore Flyer Signature Cocktail.

The first 10 readers that email me (keropokman@gmail.com) with the correct answer wins. You should also include your full name, NRIC and contact details with the email.

Contests shall close on the midnight of 27 April 2011 (Wednesday).
Note: The contest is now closed. There has been more than 10 people who have emailed the correct answers.

_______________________________

Details of the traveling container:
_______________________________

Dates the Singapore Takeout will visit the following cities:

• London: 9 - 11 Jun 2011
• Paris: 30 Jun - 2 Jul 2011
• Moscow: 15 - 17 Jul 2011
• New York: 16 - 18 Sep 2011
• Hong Kong: 10 - 12 Nov 2011
• Shanghai: 1 - 3 Dec 2011
• Delhi: 13 - 15 Jan 2012
• Dubai: 18 - 20 Feb 2012
• Sydney: 30 Mar - 1 Apr 2012

Note: To follow / keep up to date / register for the Takeout when the Singapore Takeout will visit your city, go to http://www.facebook.com/SingaporeEats

Win a DSLR and 1K a month

Have you visited inSing.com recently?
If you do, you would have seen this banner flashing on their website.





inSing.com has a contest to choose their resident Hawker Food Lover columist.
What are they giving their columnist?
A Canon 550D DSLR, $1000 a month for 6 months and your own column on inSing.com





How to you participate and get selected?

In Round 1:
1. Sign up for an free insing.com account.
2. Register at www.ilovehawkerfood.com.sg 
3. Post up 3 reviews of any 3 types of hawker food.

In Round 2:
inSing.com will select the top 20 contestants to attend a Food Blogging and Food Photography workshop conducted by Leslie Tay. They will then shortlist the Top 3 for the final crowning moment.
(For more details about the workshop, visit Leslie's blog)


Hurry, contest ends tomorrow! (Friday, 9 July 2010)


This might be worst kept secret:
If you ever wanted to know my real name, my real job, etc, you can read more about it at this (almost 1 year old) inSing.com interview.