Few days back was the husband's birthday. Being a "last minute wife", I insisted that he took leave from work. My husband initially told me that its perfectly fine to be working on this day but I felt bad not spending the day together. So guess what, with only one day left beforehand to plan, I had to throw ideas for him to buy into the mini celebration. So what's a good "last-minute" birthday celebration in your opinion? Read on to find out what we did....
A few ideas went through my mind before we finally settled on one...
If you have deep pockets to dig into, you can always buy a gift that he likes. For man, its mostly electronic gadgets, wallet, shoes, watches, clothes, toiletries or perhaps some fashionable lifestyle items which are useful for them. Think practical.
If you aren't a last minute person like me, you can go to Cuponation to save you some moo-lahs for your purchase. You can even obtain discount codes for your flights and hotels to plan ahead for a nice holiday.
My husband suggested that I buy him a durian in replacement of the birthday cake and present. It didn't happened because we just recently indulged in some and we didn't want ourselves to fall sick. Besides, we want to save our tummy for the up-coming durian season. Can't wait for my Mao Shan Wang durian... yums!
I did suggested going for some pizza, seafood, cafe hopping, or pork knuckle feast but he wasn't really keen. You can check out restaurant coupons even if you are last minute because most of the discounts can be utilized on the day itself, no prior reservations are required.
In the end, we decided to head across the causeway to Johor Bahru to have a simple celebration of food and shopping.
**
PappaRich can be found in City Square in Johor Bahru Central just next to the customs and immigration complex. They serve decent dishes like nasi lemak, asam laksa, curry noodles, and western food like the chicken chop. Prices are reasonable. Our meal cost less than RM50 inclusive of the taxes.
The ice white coffee was soothing and flavourful while the hot milk tea is quite ordinary in comparison. My plate of yellow briyani rice comes with a piece of deep fried chicken thigh, sotong, papadums, boiled egg, potato and a piece of lady finger with some curry gravy and a scoop of sambal onion chilli sauce to go along. I was quite tickled seeing the head of the sotong being stuffed into its body. My plate was decent enough to fill the hungry tummy but nothing fantastic to shout about.
Whereas my husband ordered a plate of western deep fried chicken chop with sunny side up, cucumber slices and curry gravy with normal chilli sauce to go along. The chicken was crispy but everything else tasted so-so only.
Dishes we ordered from PappaRich
Similar food offerings from the famous Singapore Grandma's restaurant can beat this hands down, anytime.
One thing I've realized, as Singaporeans we love food and won't go wrong with it. If you are running out of ideas for presents, go have some nice food. Make sure you do your homework beforehand unless you are adventurous enough to try something new together and be able to handle the disappointment (if any) later.
As we age, expensive presents and glamorous celebrations becomes less important, but the quality time spend together with our loved ones makes its precious.
You don't need a reason to celebrate anything at all. Don't you agree with me? Don't be a last minute person like me and do anything last minute okay? As the saying goes... if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I'm glad we had a good time after all.
Cheers,
Pearly
A few ideas went through my mind before we finally settled on one...
If you have deep pockets to dig into, you can always buy a gift that he likes. For man, its mostly electronic gadgets, wallet, shoes, watches, clothes, toiletries or perhaps some fashionable lifestyle items which are useful for them. Think practical.
If you aren't a last minute person like me, you can go to Cuponation to save you some moo-lahs for your purchase. You can even obtain discount codes for your flights and hotels to plan ahead for a nice holiday.
My husband suggested that I buy him a durian in replacement of the birthday cake and present. It didn't happened because we just recently indulged in some and we didn't want ourselves to fall sick. Besides, we want to save our tummy for the up-coming durian season. Can't wait for my Mao Shan Wang durian... yums!
I did suggested going for some pizza, seafood, cafe hopping, or pork knuckle feast but he wasn't really keen. You can check out restaurant coupons even if you are last minute because most of the discounts can be utilized on the day itself, no prior reservations are required.
In the end, we decided to head across the causeway to Johor Bahru to have a simple celebration of food and shopping.
**
PappaRich can be found in City Square in Johor Bahru Central just next to the customs and immigration complex. They serve decent dishes like nasi lemak, asam laksa, curry noodles, and western food like the chicken chop. Prices are reasonable. Our meal cost less than RM50 inclusive of the taxes.
The ice white coffee was soothing and flavourful while the hot milk tea is quite ordinary in comparison. My plate of yellow briyani rice comes with a piece of deep fried chicken thigh, sotong, papadums, boiled egg, potato and a piece of lady finger with some curry gravy and a scoop of sambal onion chilli sauce to go along. I was quite tickled seeing the head of the sotong being stuffed into its body. My plate was decent enough to fill the hungry tummy but nothing fantastic to shout about.
Whereas my husband ordered a plate of western deep fried chicken chop with sunny side up, cucumber slices and curry gravy with normal chilli sauce to go along. The chicken was crispy but everything else tasted so-so only.
Dishes we ordered from PappaRich
Similar food offerings from the famous Singapore Grandma's restaurant can beat this hands down, anytime.
One thing I've realized, as Singaporeans we love food and won't go wrong with it. If you are running out of ideas for presents, go have some nice food. Make sure you do your homework beforehand unless you are adventurous enough to try something new together and be able to handle the disappointment (if any) later.
As we age, expensive presents and glamorous celebrations becomes less important, but the quality time spend together with our loved ones makes its precious.
You don't need a reason to celebrate anything at all. Don't you agree with me? Don't be a last minute person like me and do anything last minute okay? As the saying goes... if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I'm glad we had a good time after all.
Cheers,
Pearly
