Food review: Valentine's High tea at Sheraton Towers

This is a long forgotten & overdue post which was saved and kept as draft since Valentine's.

A review of my Valentine's high tea at Sheraton Towers.

It was literally a very very sweet Valentine because my hubby and I had a sugar overdozed Afternoon Tea.

It costs $68++ per person for their Valentine's afternoon tea (with mini buffet and free flow of moscato wine). 

I thought of leaving when I saw the menu but my hubby insisted we stayed. Since it was Valentine's Day, we should just enjoy the day and don't think too much about the cost.

It's very true that we should pamper ourselves once in a while especially for Mommy who has devoted most time in caring the baby.

So we ordered 2 different sets - the Japanese Afternoon Tea and the English Afternoon Tea - to share and so that we could try both!

I had also requested to change the free flow of Moscato to apple juice as I prefer not to drink alcohol since I'm breastfeeding. Initially, the waitress mentioned that we were not allowed to change our drink. Luckily, their Manager over heard that I'm a breastfeeding mom and made an exception to let me change my free flow moscato to any of the juices.

After we ordered our drinks, we started with the mini buffet.

There were 6 different types of sweet desserts.

Soon, our drinks were served.

Cheers to Valentine's Day! 

The Japanese Afternoon Tea set

The English Afternoon Tea set. 

We felt that we were paying for their ambience and service more than the food. 

The food were "so so", not very fantastic. We can definitely find something similar or tastes even better for a lower price.

The environment was their highlight. Their couches were placed far apart from each other so we got to enjoy our "personal space". We had ample room for us to move around with my baby. I could also nurse my baby in a nursing cover comfortably at the couch.

During our visit, it happened that they had invited a lion dance troupe “舞龙舞狮” so it was really noisy. The experience would have been much better without the disturbance from the troupe.

I will recommend this place to parents with kids. If you feel rich or will like to pamper your family for a special occasion, high tea at a hotel is something you can consider. However, don't expect to have a very satisfying meal but more to enjoy the ambience.

xoxo,
Twentysixoctober

Follow Twentysixoctober Facebook page for more stories :)

Singaporean mom living in Israel: Adloyada Holon Purim Parades 2016

A few days ago, Twentysixoctober went to one of the biggest Purim celebrations in Israel at the south of Tel Aviv, in Holon city!

I believe many people from Singapore have not heard about Purim as there are not many Jews in Singapore.

Purim is a special day celebrated yearly on the 14th on the Hebrew month of Adar by Jewish. It is to commemorate the saving of the Jewish population from the Haman's evil plot to annihilate all Jews during Ancient Persia. 

In Israel, Purim is a public holiday and so we decided to take a 2 hrs drive from Haifa to Tel Aviv to soak ourselves in this joyous occasion at one of the biggest parades in Israel, Adloyada.

We were lucky that it was a sunny day and the weather was awesome. While driving there, we got to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

On this jolly holiday, children are dressed up in costumes to celebrate (there were also many adults who dressed up too).

We had dressed Aedan as Mike from Monsters Inc.!

In the parades, there were many huge cartoon characters such as Smurf and Elmo which were manually controlled by people moving on the street.

There were many children who participated by dancing, playing instruments & singing in the parades too.

There was also Chinese dragon dance!

This parade is somewhat similar to Singapore's Chingay parades except that the event happened in the day and there were no seating & entrance fees.

This parade is absolutely free of charge and there are also people giving out free sweets! However, the down side is that it's really crowded & you need to squeeze your way through to find a good viewing spot.

Purim is a celebratory day and there are many customs on this day which include reading the book of Esther, doing charity to help the poor, giving foods & drinks hampers known as Mishloach manot and having family feasts.

They also made traditional triangular pastries known Hamantaschen.

If you are interested to visit Israel during this festive season, next year, Purim will start on the evening of 11 March 17, Saturday, and ends on the evening of 12 March 17, Sunday.
Shops and malls remain open during this festival and please do not be shock to see their waiters/waitresses dress in costumes. However, do note that next year Purim falls on a Saturday which is their weekend (in Israel, weekend falls on Friday & Saturday as Jewish Shabbat lasts from sunset on Friday to the fall of full darkness on Saturday) during which shops will be closed.


Happy reading!
Twentysixoctober

Follow Twentysixoctober Facebook page for more stories.

Read our other adventures at #Singaporeanmomlivinginisrael

Singaporean mom living in Israel: Day 2 in Israel and review of GregCafe.

Israel time: 6.30am, 8 March 2016
Singapore time: 12.30pm, 8 March 2016

This day we woke up on a totally new bed, in a new room, new house, new country.
Was really relieved that Aedan did not experience jet lag and woke up at his usual time, 6am, in Israel time zone. He was observing his surroundings when he opened his eyes. Not sure whether he knew that we were at a totally new place.

Smiling so happily! 

It was our 2nd day in Haifa and the first place we visited was the Grand Canyon mall to shop for groceries and the essentials.

A photo before we headed out. 

This photo was taken around our neighbourhood. There are many sloppy paths in Haifa as it is a city built on hill.

The Grand Canyon mall is the largest mall in northern Israel. There were more than 200 stores with mostly their local brands and a few international brands which include H&M, Toys R' Us and Bodyshop. 

Their Body Shop looks very different from the one in Singapore. Their range of products are different too.


Our first dinning experience in Haifa is at a nice cafe called Greg Cafe which is a multi chain cafe that is commonly found in Israel. The one we tried is located inside the Grand Canyon mall at level 2.

In Israel, the Jewish population follows a strict Kosher diet (food that is allowed under the Jewish law) which prohibits the consumption of unclean animals such as pork, shell fish and insects. They also do not allow mixture of meat and milk in food. So for dishes such as pizza and pasta that have milk & cheese in it, you will not find meat.

Here are photos of the food & drink we had!

This is called 'limon nana' in Hebrew which is lemonade with mint leaves. It's a very refreshing drink and the mint helps to balance the sour taste. It costs 18 shekels (about S$6.30) for this big glass of thirst quenching juice.

Like I have mentioned, since the cafe is Kosher, you will not find meat in their pasta. We chose sweet potato ravioli made with sweet potato puree and rose sauce. This is a filling sweet delight full of carbo. They served their pasta with cheese and this dish costs 57 shekels (about S$19.95).

We ordered another Hambu-Greg burger. We ordered this with beef since there is no meat in the earlier dish. We changed their french fries to home fries. I'll highly recommend you to try their home fries. The fries is coated with their homemade sauce that has a sweet and sour taste. It's definitely tastier than normal french fries. Their burger tasted good with juicy beef patty and their secret sauce. This Hambu-Greg burger which comes with fries costs 52 shekels (about S$18.20 which I personally think is more worth it than the pasta).

In Israel, service fees are excluded from the bill and it's a norm to tip 10-15% of your total bills. 

I heard from an Israeli mommy that Israel is a breastfeeding friendly place so I let Aedan had his meal there too. ^^

We did not walk the whole mall as it's huge & Aedan was cranky that day. We called it a day after shopping for Aedan's stuff at their baby outlets and gotten our groceries at their local supermart.

That's it for this post. 

Do follow Twentysixoctober Facebook page for more stories! 

To read more about our adventures at #SingaporeanmomlivinginIsrael

Bye bye ~~
Twentysixoctober