the garden slug

That would make a good opening line for a book we hope to write someday. In truth, when someone says “Flea Spree” that’s the imagery that gets conjured up. Or maybe it’s just me, I’m a weird old Slug.

Rest assured, neither canines nor their fleas will be present at The Garden Slug’s Flea Spree. We’ve professionally reserved the former and the latter for the vet and pet shops next door and next-next door…

ANYHOO.

Last couple of days to bundle up a sweet array of gifts for the first lady in your life.
< — gooey puppy-dog eyes are compulsory when presenting gifts to any mother

We’ve got a plethora of unique, made-from-the-heart gifts for fleeing & spreeing:

• reusable, recyclable KeepCups
• aromatherapy oil burners by Frangipani Creations
• organic soaps made by rose farmers in Bandung via sustainable living advocate Daughters of Tomorrow
• purses, hairpins and five-stone sets made by up & coming entrepreneurial young women in India, also by DoT
• canvas totebags – made of environmentally-friendly, unbleached canvas by Scook & Blessing Home
• wines from Sommerton
• ultra-soft comfort-fit t-shirts designed & manufactured by yours truly

Some proceeds of the Flea Spree will go towards building a sustainable living for underprivileged women, animal welfare, and support of the local arts. Because we want to be a business that gives back. Or at least we try to be lah, and we’d like to try even harder in the weeks, months and years to come.

Us Slugs huddled together and got our Mums greeting cards, some soap, some wine, and “wrapped” them up nicely in a practical li’l totebag. Think some of your Mums will like these heartfelt, heart-made gifts too? Tell us when you see us k! xx

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Mothers Week specials are available from today through the week. Foodporn channels: Tw / FB / IG

A young designer named Scook tells a gentle, gentle story on why we never get snow here in Southeast Asia.

The Story of Deulop Bi, written and illustrated by Scook.

One of the last scenes in the story is artfully commemorated on a carefully thought-out, custom-made, environmentally-friendly unbleached canvas bag. (We can think of more adjectives but we’ll stop at four.)

We hope there will be a book published soon, but we’ll have to let Scook decide on that.

Meanwhile, more on how rain on canvas is made here. Slutty feline model included.

Thank you Daniel, for your love and support all these years. Much love & respect to you too, Sir. (Yes, if Singapore had a knighthood system, we believe you ought to be Sir’d!)

Thanks for the snapshot, CY.

And this is why we love our Slugphiles.

Only through Twitter would we learn that there’s a barbershop quartet version of Inner Circle’s “Sweat”. Enjoy.

slugphile | |
noun
a person who is fond of Slugs, not your garden variety slug; but particularly those in the employ of The Garden Slug

A bunch of happy slugphiles, if we ever saw one.

© hermejoy

This photo is captioned “POLICE circa 2012″. WHY??!?!

© hermejoy

Thanks for coming by and having such a good ol’ time (and bringing along a camera), it warms the cockles of our hearts to see Happy Slugphiles.

this week’s specials, available from today, all day, and possibly all week or while fresh ingredients last

This week, since we posted the specials pictures everywhere else before posting them on this here blog, we shall include some choice comments from our lovably cheeky, social-media-savvy Slugphiles. (Saves us from having to come up with non-food-related drivel for this week’s post! Aha! *chants victory chant* *self-amuses*)

soup of the day: old-fashioned onion bisque, served with cheese bread fingers

Upon spying with his eye (dunno which eye lah hor) our sweet, innocuous soup of the day, only Ali can come up with something like this:

Of course we have to “like” it. Can’t help liking this cheeky fella and all his cheekopek cheeky comments. Ali, you brighten up our days, nights, weekdays, weekends, public holidays, etc etc etc.

special main: bacon-wrapped chicken roulade, served with egg-stuffed potato jacket
Patiently, very patiently tenderised, rolled, wrapped, scooped out and stuffed in by our new hot young Malaysian cook, Vun Kien (photos to come some time soon. He is Le Shy.) Sometimes referred to as “The Malaysian”. Like as if he is THE only Malaysian in the shop. But nevermind that. Moving along.

To which Nic replied:

The clothing references weren’t intentional!! >_< But srsly we all LOL’d when we read this, Nic. Thanks for giving us a good masala teatime laugh ^_^

You’ll find out about the pyjamas in a bit.

dessert special: scoop of blackcurrant-loaded cheesecake on biscuit crumble crunch
with piping hot peanut butter & banana popiah pyjamas by side, plus a generous scoop of vanilla gelato

Scooped cheesecake. Who does that?
The Garden Slug lor.

A little while ago, we announced on Facebook that Sophia, who had been a big part of The Garden Slug, was taking a break to explore her interests in other businesses and activities. There was an amicable parting of ways and we wished her all the best.

(pic taken from daphnemaia.com)

And guess what, the best has come! We’d like to introduce Sophia’s latest business venture called “The Factory”.

Not to be confused with Andy Warhol’s studio, this dessert shop on the ground floor of a 40-year-old shophouse serves hand-crafted ice cream with alcohol-flavoured toppings, edible fruit sodas, chocolate tarts and french fries with eyebrow-raising artisanal dips like laksa pesto with roasted cashew, curry mustard aioli, spicy melted tomato with chinchalok, and Marmite honey aoioli. Ice cream flavours can be customised; call three days ahead. -TimeOut Singapore

(photo © Nicholas Lee)

Located at 22 Lim Tua Tow Road, the shop lets in plenty of sunlight in the day, there are reading corners, free wifi, and even an area to clip your doggie leashes to.. so you can keep an eye on Lucky while you enjoy your ice-cream on Belgian waffles. They’ve thought of everything! So bring a book, bring your furry friends, and bring your loved ones for ice-cream, artisan fries, and a few other delightful surprises. You know it’s gonna be good with Sophia at the helm. They can has a Facebook page – “Like” http://facebook.com/ilovethefactory for new flavours, free concert tickets, updates on half-price waffles and general friendly banter.

You’ll also find Dark Chocolate Nutella Tarts which we know y’all love so much and are constantly, CONSTANTLY asking for. Well, here they are – Go getcho weekly or even daily fix of them tarts at The Factory, yo.

(photo © daphnemaia.com)

Once again, congratulations Sophia. For more information, visit ilovethefactory.com or better yet, visit The Factory, have some ice-cream and have a chat with the friendly peoples there

A lovely lady named Susan has customised her very own special dish, and we’ve named it The Susan Special.

It’s basically Mindy’s Chicken Pasta (spicy), with added mushrooms and sliced bratwurst. Simple yet hearty, just like Susan <3

On Mingle-Mingle Night this past 13th Feb, we planned to have a couple of games and events. However, it seemed like everyone was having such a good time getting to know each other and listening to the live performance, we decided to skip the games and let everyone kick back and have a mingling -good time.

Part of the ticket sales went to charity, as advertised. With your help, we donated $450 to the Cat Welfare Society.

We didn’t manage any photographic evidence of the mingling and jingling in action, but here’s a quick photo recap for the curious

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.