the garden slug

Hongbaos are like arrows, fruit flies like banan.. No, wait. Um.

Hongbaos are like papercuts, they’re very small but very annoyi…. Ok this isn’t quite the day for analogies. Let’s cut (O look, a pun) to the chase and get seriously factual.

There are only three universal uses for hongbaos:
1) To be origami’d into angelfish/ cranes/ dragonflies/ [_insert plural of any origami-able animal_]

2) To be added to any respectable collector’s collection, subsequently earning said collector a brief appearance on local telly’s latest reality TV series – “Hongbao Hoarders”

3) To be used as a socially-acceptable receptacle of nuptial extortion money

Clearly, any person of sound mind and good taste would want nothing more than a delectable set of 8 assorted hongbao designs that very strongly resemble eat-too-much-and-become-heaty local treats. Like bak kwa. Did we just say bak kwa? That’s right. Bak kwa.

Made by a group of young, effervescent, local designers mysteriously named &plentymore. Mysterious because they only make awsum things like, oh, once a year? Meaning these hongbaos are limited edition. Meaning they are available in limited quantities. Meaning we’re really proud to be carrying these hongbaos to make up for not making pineapple tarts this year in support of local artistic & entrepreneurial endeavours.

Delectable Hongbaos, delicately wrapped in pink old skool candy wrappers, and available for perusal & purchase at our unassuming Retail Therapy Shelf from today until Saturday 21 Jan 2012.

Bak kwa.

We’ll make this Le Short and Le Sweet. We are sibeh busy now preparing for tonight’s partayyyy and we can barely contain our excitements! *squeeeeeeeee* (sibeh busy still got time to write blog post hor? anyhoo.)

Le Food Table sans food. We will bring out Le Food when Le Party begins to ensure Le Food be Le Fresh for all Le Slugphiles.

Le Thousands of Le Googly Sluggy Eyeballz. Okay maybe not thousands, we exaggerates. Is it only in Le Hundreds. But all we handmake one hokay, dun play-play.

Le Bouquet from LE TWO QUEENS! In shape of Le Garden Slug!! *Le Swoon* Le Eye Stalks are made out of a real plant. Sibeh creative leh, we loves! <3

Two Queens ah Two Queens, why y’all so sweeeeeetttt? We will cry one leh :’) *sniffles*

Le Love Missive from Le Two Queens. HOMG they’ve even caught on to Le Lingo! *Le Double Swoon*

Le Party Packs, Le Door Gifts and Le Miscellaneous Party Items.

Le Prizes. Whatchy’all been waitin’ for, riiiiight?

SEE YOUSE IN JUST A BIT!!! ***LE MANY EXCITES***

I guess it’s going to become Le Sluggy Tradition now, to throw youse a Slugalicious party once a year to celebrate our birthday.

We turned five on 8 December 2011, however, we were too busy watching Le Turkey TV to organise something for youse, our dearest and darlingest Slugphiles. We knew we weren’t gonna be able to get away with it, so we consulted Le Stars in Le Eastern Sky and picked Le Most Auspicious date to celebrate — Wednesday, 4 January 2012. That’s like, merely a few days away! (RSVP details available after a few more paragraphs of mindless drivel. Or scroll down lah if you can’t wait >.< )

Can you believe it? That we’ve been around for five whole years? ‘Coz we can’t believe it ourselves.

We opened Le Shoppe on 8 December 2006. We completely forgot about our 1st birthday. Our 2nd birthday went by just as quietly. We wrote a teary post (probably one of our best posts ever) on how we wouldn’t trade you for a million dollars. We decided to celebrate our 3rd because good things come in threes, right? And finally last year, we decided to celebrate with a bang. It was the single most memorable night for us last year. Many of youse came by to share love and laughs, and we hope you’ll do the same again!

So here we are, Le Five Years Old.

Awsum artwork by Mishal “Noodle” Slug

Le TGS Fan Night 2012
Le Date & Le Time: Wednesday 4 January 2012, registration starts at 6.30pm

Le Theme: Come dressed in Sluggy Olive Green or Sluggy Yellow! (refer to our awsum logo for reference).

What can we has other than everyone dressed in green and yellow? Here iz what we can has.

We can has all your favourite foodses and drinkses.

We can has Le Painstakingly Handmade Door-gift for each of youse.

What are they? They are Le Googly Sluggy Eyeballz of coz!

This is how you put it on. It’ll go perfectly with your Sluggy Olive Green and/or Sluggy Yellow outfit. Trust us Le Fashionista Slugs.

Le Googly Sluggy Eyeballz sans pupils on Le Joseph Slug’s hemsem head

We can has Le Awsum Hug Ticket for each of youse! Basically you can go up to anyone at the party, present them with this ticket to redeem a hug. (Now everybody say, “Awwwwww….”). Yep, that’s us. Always doing our bit to spread Le Loves.

Three lucky (randomly chosen) people will get a special “golden ticket” each, which allows them to redeem a special hug such as:
• Le Bear Hug
• Le Hug With Kiss
• Le Snuggle

*many excites!*

Now remember to keep Le Hug Ticket with you, because we shall be using Le Ticket Serial Number for Le Lucky Draw Prizes! Le Exciting neh! Ooh how Le Clever we are.

We can has special guests like Le Ice Cream Man and Le Tarot Card Reader.
 

We can has good, clean, dorky-adorable games like Le Treasure Hunt, Le “Banned Words” and Le Broken Telephone Line.

Don’t look at me, I’ve no idea what a Broken Telephone Line game is. It is all planned by Le Young Slugs as they will be taking charge of Le Fan Night. Le Old Slugs will simply meander around all night doing what we do best – pretending to act like bossly bosses.

Le Food, Le Drinks, Le Music and Le Good-Looking Slugs are all on da house, yo. So chop-chop-kalipok fasterly RSVP as we’ve only got space for 60-odd Slugphiles.

HOW TO LE RSVP
• Limited to the first 60 peoples
• RSVP by Monday 2 Jan 2012 5.00pm to justask@thegardenslug.com with the subject “TGS Fan Night 2012″.
• Include your name & contact number – limited to 1pax per reservation. (So if you’re coming in a group, each of you has to RSVP individually hokay? Dun be lazy.)

• You may also RSVP via SMS to 9225-7913

CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YA!! Le K and Le Thanx and Le Bye!

Hurhur. So witty hor our title? We kill ourselves.

Anyhoo.

Stuff that came in the post today:

1) Some very lovely Christmas cards from our vendors, business associates and most importantly, SLUGPHILES. Out of which, this was unanimously voted as our favourite ^_^

Thank you belly, belly much Athan, Ashton and Autumn. You make us Old Slugs feel… um… old. ‘Coz we’ve been watching you GROW. Le sigh. And thank you Aaron and Alyson for supporting us through the years. It seems like you’ve been watching us grow too. *le sniff*

p/s: Autumn – D’you think you could get us a date with Elmo too…..? HEHE

2) A certificate for our used cooking oil recycling efforts.

We’ve reduced 1267.20 kg of our carbon footprint. 1267.20 kg hor. Dun play-play. We strive to reduce more next year.

Actually it’s a lot more than 1267.20 kg as quite a few of us Slugs cycle to work each day.

Sharon Slug cycles all the way from Siglap. (edit: actually not anymore because the pedal broke and she has yet to fix it since February 2011. This photo is from July 2010. Tsk, liar!)

Bonnie Slug cycles all the way from Chai Chee.

Havard Slug cycles ALLLLLLL the way from Whampoa! 45 minutes each way. Now THAT’s a boatload of reduced carbon footprint, yo.

If you’ve been following us long enough, you’ll notice most of our blog posts are completely pointless and we have an almost pathological tendency to digress. This one is no different.

3) A “life-sized” 3-dimensional s l u g !!!!!!11

The details are amazing.

Okay, technically this one didn’t come in the mail. It’s a lovely, generous gift from Victor of Zia Concept. Victor’s shop is just diagonally across the road from us and he’s been our neighbour for five years and counting now. Thanks Victor, we are beyond touched.

We tried to make it look, er, festive.

We don’t really know what to call “it”. Maybe we should have a naming contest?

Anyhoo.

The point we’re trying to make here is that we feel loved by y’all and we’re saving the planet. What more could a mere Slug ask for, right? Right.

We would like to wish y’all a Belly Happy Christmas and we’re looking forward to meeting the new year with youse too. We’re throwing youse a party on 4 January 2012, so watch this space for details coming soon.

* Good-looking “eat drink don’t think!” t-shirts available for sale at our Retail Therapy Shelf. Sizes XS-XL.
** Good-looking Slugs (ages 17-37) not available for sale, sorry.

Halloween: the night of October 31, the eve of All Saints’ Day, commonly celebrated by children who dress in costume and solicit candy or other treats door-to-door.

Being fairly typical, boring, Southeast Asian Slugs, we do none of the above at our li’l shoppe. I mean, Western celebrations like these are meaningless to our deeply-entrenched Southeast Asian souls. That last sentence doesn’t even make sense. We just wanted an opportunity to use words like “deeply-entrenched”.

Anyhoo.

Our Slugphiles, however, know how to have funn.< — (okay, this is an in-joke meant for Ian and May only. And no, we are not explaining it to the rest of youse.)

Hemsem Slugphile Ian, in a pseudo-emo pose, with his pre-op pumpkin.

Slugphile Ian’s pumpkin, post-op.

Slugphile May’s starry-eyed pumpkin.

Sophia Slug’s kitty, “Pumpkin”. No really, the kitty’s name is Pumpkin.

And introducing Sophia Slug’s two new kittens: Peppy, channeling Wonder Woman, and Potter, channeling Sherlock Holmes.
 

Slugphile Van a.k.a. The Bearded S.P.G. and Slugphile JJ a.k.a. The Brinjal-Coloured Teletubby
 

This evening us Slugs on duty will all be dressed up as.. Singaporeans. Now that’s seriously scary stuff, if you think about it.

We hear some of youse might be coming by tonight in costume? Can’t wait to meat and grate you! HEHE OKBYEZ.

And, well, happy halloween. Whatever that means. Yah.

Thanks for the lovely photos, Lesley!

“Effin’ big breakfast”

“Defeated…”

More of our All Day Breakfasts here.

This blog post is dedicated to Charley. Wish you didn’t use a fake e-mail so we could at least make contact.

Anyhoo.

We wanna thank some Slugphiles for inviting all of us to join you on what must’ve been an awesome last ride out of and back into Singapore on the KTM. Unfortunately/fortunately (depends how you look at it), we need about ten to eleven Slugs to run a single weekend shift these days, so we sent Sophia Slug as a Slug Representative HEHE. ‘Coz it was her off day

Gaggle of aunties @ KTM. L-R: Omma, Sookie Cookie, Sophia Slug, April, Nice Lady.

Sophia Slug sez:

“Pretty sad to see it go. I really do hope they are not planning to tear it down. It has some amazing wall murals / paintings from the 1910s.”

KTM food aunty

Don’t you love how some recognisable words are spelled in Malay.. like “ekspres” and “sentral”.

OK after this we go relaks one korner. Eh, actually no, kennot anyhow-anyhow relaks la. Got more blog posts to hammer out. Otherwise later people komplen again.

Meanwhile, if a blog post doesn’t get churned out for another month, we has many other online platforms that are regularly updated. Some weekly, and some almost daily. At the right column on this very page, under “find us on the internets” – we can be reached on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Posterous. You may also subscribe to our RSS feed so you may never miss another one of our riveting driveling blog posts again.

Just below the header, also on this very page, are some tabs that lead to different sections (a.k.a. ‘pages’) like the “About Us” section (second tab from the left) and our “Menu” section (first tab from the right, or sixth tab from the left).

Last but not least, there’s always good ol’ old skool e-mail. Ask us anything (we have a strong preference for random love missives) at justask@thegardenslug.com.

‘Till the next blog post. Relak ah, brudder.

Glambert + Mindy = Glamindy. Geddit?

(photo via @furryphotos)
Slugphiles: Nicholas, Rui Qing, Birthday Girl Glamindy, Hanshen, Sook and Fishe.

We lub youse.

We got goosebumps and a good chuckle when we read this. See you tonight when you come claim your prize dinner, lovebirds!

All lives comprise of stories. Chapter by chapter; page after page. Most stories go by unnoticed, and most stories remain untold.

But this is a story that is destined to be forever inscribed in the annals of history. This is a story that deserves to be told. A story of friendship, determination and most importantly; love.

When I got to know her, we were both attached; albeit to the wrong people. I was studying in Australia, and she in Singapore. We knew close to nothing about each other.

Just like Ugly Salmon Cakes stacked upon one another, the odds were stacked against us. Akin to how Juicy Shrimp and Roast Pumpkin made for an unorthodox pairing, we seemed like a deceptively unlikely couple. However, we are great when put together; it was a miraculous case of serendipity.

Like a Semi-thin crust™ and the delicious pizza toppings adorning it, we were inseparable once put together. Similar the role that Asian spices play in a bowl Chunky Asian Seafood Broth, our relationship is characterized by vivacity, verve and vigor.

If there’s one word that would succinctly sum up my feelings for her, it would be “wasuga”.

This begs the question, what’s next? What will be on the next page on our menu of life?

Well, I definitely plan to go on one knee, pop the question, slip on the Calamari Ring, and it won’t be long till we become proud parents of group of little Mushroom Munchkins.



Gary & Agnes

Here is fact: You is lub us long time, and we is lub you long time. So we is wants to celebrate this – our many many lub for youse.

What has we for youse? We has lub. Lub in a Tub.

Hand-kneaded, hand-rolled, hand-stirred Pineapple Tarts, The Garden Slug way.

And you know what – we’re not selling them this year. Nuh uh. We’re giving them to you.

If you’ve read this far, you must be a hardcore Slugphile. Most people don’t even know this blog exists. Myehehehe

So yah. Come by the shop and ask for a tub of Pineapple Tarts – no shy, really. Just ask! (1 tub per person niah hor… dunch be greedy can.)

We’re making only 20 tubs of lub. So the first lucky (and un-shy) twenty to come by will get ‘em. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Come pick it up before 27th January 2011, hokie doke?

Cool.

See ya.

Oh wait, that’s 19 tubs of lub, sorreh. We gave one tub away liao, to the one chiobu that never fails to set all our sluggy hearts a-flutter — Mrs Tan a.k.a. “Omma” <3 <3 <3
Kena caught finishing half the tub in one sitting. HEHE

So, yah.

Cool.

See ya.