“Tomatoes are red, they never turn blue
Chilli is hot, and so are you.”

Yours truly penned this original poem and recited it to a very pretty girl some time last year. Said pretty girl rolled her eyes and pushed yours truly away.

If you’re just as witty in crafting food-related pseudo-romantic poetry, well, good for you.

If you’re nowhere near this sort of eyeroll-inducing talent, may we gently suggest you invite your hot date/ best friend(s)/ spouse/ family member(s) to a non-discriminatory Valentine’s dining experience at our humble li’l diner?

At The Garden Slug, we believe Valentine’s Day is for celebrating all kinds of love. Out of benevolence and consideration for all of mankind, we have created two special events: Mingle-Mingle Night on 13 Feb 2012, and Lovey-Dovey Dinner on 14 Feb 2012.

Free-flow Menu for Mingle-Mingle Night, 13 Feb 2012
• Pumpkin, feta & cranberry salad tossed in a strawberry vinaigrette
• Assorted mushroom tart triangles w/ bacon & cilantro pesto
• Sweet potato, red pepper & edamame croquettes served w/ a sesame dressing
• Ginger, honey & cayenne chicken drumlets
• Fusilli in a tomato-cream sauce w/ spinach and Italian (pork) meatballs
• Country Chicken Stew w/ hearty vegetables
• Cilantro & chilli dory (fish) atop tri-coloured roasted potatoes
• Red velvet white chocolate raspberry brownie
• French crepes topped w/ refreshing fruits in a lemon-orange rum glaze
  Book online: Mingle-Mingle Night, 13 Feb 2012

Four-Course Menu for Lovey-Dovey Dinner, 14 Feb 2012
• Heartfelt Soup: Roast pumpkin & apple w/ a light marjoram cream drizzle
• Passionate Starter: Fresh prawns w/ chilled avocado, cucumber mousse & a tabasco aioli

  Palette Cleanser: Orange & sweet cilantro shooter in a ginger-salt-rimmed shot glass

• Choice of “The One” Main each:
  – Australian Ribeye Wine Stroganoff (beef) w/ balsamic onions + sweet potato mash
  – Pan-seared Salmon w/ a tangy strawberry shallot sauce + sweet potato mash
  – Slow-baked Saffron Chicken Ratatouille + warm crusty bread
  – Braised Forest Mushroom Pasta, w/ a light drizzle of basil & truffle cream

• Make Sweet Sweet Love Dessert: Red Wine Chocolate Cake w/ a light Earl Grey Cream
  Cheese custard, lovingly paired with port-reduced berries & mint cream
  Book online: Lovey-Dovey Dinner, 14 Feb 2012

And if you’re curious about the story between the pretty girl and yours truly, a year later yours truly receives this in reply:

“Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I do love the fact
That you are uncool.”

This brings us to only one conclusion: yours truly is clearly the better poet.

So we’ve got a couple of “Lunar New Year platters” out, and you could win one for yourself. We are going to make this contest easy-peasy because yo mama said so. OK not really, but anyhoo.

See this clipping from i-Weekly magazine?

thanks for the pic, julyclover.

We put it through Google Translate and this is what it spat us:

Since it was launched in 2006, located in the pet hospital and pet store several nearby TGS have been a number of loyal supporters, among them cats in animal welfare associations held meetings. Restaurant in the 25 to 29 January Lunar New Year period, the introduction of special menu, which the Greek original raw salmon ($95), three copies of the Lunar barbecue platter ($55) the most popular, but need to put dry 2 days ago bookings.

How to win a LNY platter
1) The first person to e-mail us a more accurate translation of the article wins the $55 platter.
2) Accuracy aside, the first person to e-mail us the most creative and/or laugh-till-belly-aches translation wins the $95 platter.

That’s right, valuing creativity over accuracy. Clearly we are people of good taste and solid character.

Closing date: 31 January 2012.
Winner(s) will be announced first week of February 2012.

Hear from youse soon.

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!

Update: We have a winner!

These are the correct answers HEHE

Thank you to the very devoted few who participated. And for those who didn’t (or who have bad hearing), we’ll always have more little contests coming up soon. And they won’t always involve Sophia Slug singing and/or auto-tune donch worry hurhur.

—
—
Ohai! We have a pair of tickets to Sing Out Loud Down Memory Lane to give away.

Sing Out Loud Down Memory Lane is the 10th concert by the Singapore Men’s Chorus. The pair of tickets we’re giving away is for Saturday (22/10/2011) @ 8.00pm, comes with a complimentary drink (yez, we are so generous that way.)

How does one win oneself a pair of these tickets? HEHE. Now, THIS is a true test of how much of a Slugphile you are. And whether you’ve been paying any attention to our weekend specials posts or not. Myehehe *rubs hands in glee*

Okay,
1) Listen closely to this SUPERAWSUM audio clip of Sophia Slug singing about our weekend specials!
TGS specials tune by Sophia

2) In this song, Sophia Slug names a few items. However, only FIVE are really our previous weekend special dishes. The rest are made up/ don’t exist/ perhaps haven’t been created yet.

3) Name the five items (in the comments box below. Use a real e-mail address, okay?)

4) First person to guess all five items correctly wins the tickets.

5) Closing date: Sunday 16/10/2011 @ 11.59pm.

6) We’ll announce & contact the lucky winner next week

So… if you’d paid attention to the last blog post, you’d know we have tickets to some very exclusive, currently-sold-out SIFF tickets. We are giving away 4 tickets in total:
2 x tickets to Look At What The Light Did Now
2 x tickets to El Bulli: Cooking In Progress

How might you get your grubby paws on said tickets?

In true TGS style, the topic of the competition will be completely unrelated to the prize tickets.

So… we wanted to be evil and make you guess what we are going to put into these chinese noodle box-esque receptacles.

But then we thought, nah, evil is so not us. ‘Coz in true TGS style, we like to make our competitions easy-peasy.

Also in true TGS style, we like to prattle on quite a bit before we get to the point.

So! Here are two different sticker designs that we came up with for the chinese noodle box-esque receptacles, in which we are putting our pasta creation for the SIFF opening film ‘Red Light Revolution‘.

Sticker A                                                    Sticker B
 

The idea here is that we are punning on the word (xìng fú ~ meaning happiness/ contentment). The word we are using on stickers A and B is pronounced the same way; and it means contentment in sex/ good sex.

This is to tie in with the movie which is basically a risqué comedy dealing with the sexual mores and sexual liberation in modern day China.

Witty hor? O, we’re so pun-ny and so witty, we kill ourselves.

Anyhoo.

We’ve already picked one out of the two sticker designs.

So! Here’s what you do!

Simply guess which sticker design we are using for our noodle boxes! EASY PEASY.

1) Type your answer in the comments box below. (Type either “Sticker A” or “Sticker B”.)
2) One answer per person, pleaze.
3) Closing date: Tuesday 13/9/2011 @ 11.59pm (like, today, yo.)
4) Winners will be contacted via e-mail. Please use a real e-mail address so we may contact you, the potential winner of awsum movie tickets, for further personal details. We will get in touch with you before the end of the week.

The first 4 correct guesses with legit e-mail addresses, will win 1 ticket each. And no, you cannot choose which ticket you’re getting. Hurhurrr…

OK – Ready, steady, GO!

Looking for a soft spot between the belly and the sofa armrest, Cowboy die die must squeeze in for an afternoon nap.

Pop Quiz! Which hemsem Slug is Cowboy squeezing with? HEHE

The first correct answer wins two bottles of the fruity, crisp Calvinus Blanche (our latest limited edition Swiss beer) AND a sweet, sweet set of six 300ml beer glasses.

Go!

FASTER TYPE YOUR ANSWER NAO!!!!!!

We promised we’d throw a party if we hit 1,000 “likes” on our Facebook page. We’re now a little over one thousand, so there’s no more excuse. We gotta throw this party man.

Also, we’re turning four

We opened shop on 8th December 2006. We completely forgot about our 1st birthday. Only Chris Slug, who’s still with us today, remembered and brought a cake to share! The 2nd and 3rd birthdays went by without much fanfare either. We wrote a teary post on how we wouldn’t trade you for a million bucks.

Anyhoo. Party details are all here.

Food & drinks on the house. So chop-chop kalipok RSVP, we’ve only got space for 60-odd slugphiles.

We iz four!

We can has parteh!

(this photo from last year hehe)

We gots a DJ to spin all night! Introducing… the multi-faceted DJ DOM!

We be groovin’ all night long. (All night being, er, until 9-ish pm hor. We dun want the residentials to “comprain” about music filling up their lives…) DJ DOM spins an eclectic mix of indiepop, 60′s girl groups, northern soul, French ye’ ye’ and lost pop hits from yesteryear.

DJ DOM is a big Facebook aficionado. We haz proof!

We can has tarot reader! 3-min readings for a donation. All proceeds will go to the Cat Welfare Society, because Cowboy, Pumpkin & Ryoko-chan say so.

We can has caricaturist! Have a 3-min quick sketch or a 6-min slightly more detailed caricature of your awesome self, for a donation. All proceeds will go to PawPledge, also bcoz Cowboy, Pumpkin & Ryoko say so. We iz at the mercy of our kollective kittehs.

Also, we can has DIY Candy Floss machine, helium balloons and turkeyyyyy carved for you on the spot

And, we can has live Christmas Tree! It’ll be bare ~~ helpch us decorate it leh. Bring your own little gift of blessing to be hung on our tree. It’s yours, all yours, to decorate this year!

There will also be lucky dips & limited edition TGS merchandise to be won.

We hopes to see you on Wednesday. RSVP like NOW, closing date is TODAY. Fewer than 10 spaces left! Kthxbye! See ya!

SOE 088

Couple of months ago, a very sweet young lady named Anna Shin from SMU contacted us wanting to do an interview. We agreed, as always, but we were surprised to learn it was for the Spirit of Enterprise nomination thingy.

SOE 088

Firstly, we want to thank Anna & her colleagues for nominating us.

Secondly, Anna – we didn’t get to tell you this: it was one of the best interviews we’ve had the opportunity to be part of. For a young student, you are extremely well-organised & did your job very professionally. We were so impressed! We have no doubt you will go far in whatever career you choose to embark on.

SOE 088

>> Back to regular Bimbo Slug mode >>

Now, on to the SOE (Spirit of Enterprise) thingy. There are TWO things about this SOE thingy that made us VERY, VERY happy Slugs:

1. We are number

SOE 088

FWAH!! HUAT HUAT AH!! Can’t get any luckier than that!!

2. The background colour on the SOE website is exactly the same as ours! Instant shallow brownie points oredi.

Hokay. So if you like the number “088″ and you like this particular shade of red (at the Nippon paint shop it’s called “Hibiscus”, and in hex code it’s #99000)… vote for us lah!

There are two ways to vote:
1) Online <– Need to register & can vote once (I think.)
2) By SMS: Just type our lucky number – SOE 088 and send to 79000 <– no need to register, can vote many many times HEHE

We’ve littered the entire blog post with giant SOE 088′s, y’know, just in case.
Masters of Subliminal Messaging we are.

SOE 088

kthxbye.

p/s: Voting closes 31 August.

—
The Small Print:
Each SMS vote will cost $0.50. Normal network operator charges apply. SOE Award SMS voting is open to all postpaid Singtel, Starhub and M1 users. -Spirit of Enterprise, Singapore

Learn How to Shoot Like the Pros. And by Pros we mean Professionals. But you knew that.

Hansel Tan (yep, the dude pictured above with a cow on his t-shirt) is a veteran tutor, self-taught photography enthusiast & fellow slugphile. If you bump into him here at TGS (or anywhere for that matter), just say “Hi” and ask about photography stuff hokay? — [[don't say "Hey aren't you that dude in the cow t-shirt?"]]

Anyway. He will most happily discuss bodies & lenses with you over a meatball pasta. <– We’ve named the pasta after him. True story.

But there’s only so much photography knowledge one can impart over a meatball pasta, right? Right.

So. If you have a dSLR & have always wondered what those fiddly buttons & settings are for — Hansel is conducting two runs of “Shooting like the Pros – basics of dSLR photography” right here at The Garden Slug.

Hansel takes a systematic, perhaps almost scientific, approach in learning the fundamentals of photography.

Classes will be over 4 hours (2 hours weekday + 2 hours weekend) and there will be 2 runs of the class.

click on image to enlarge

Shooting Like the Pros! – Basics of dSLR Photography
Venue: The Garden Slug
Dates:
• 15 November (Mon) 7-9pm || 20 November (Sat) 3-5pm

Cost: $90
Light refreshments provided by TGS.

Registration: E-mail hanshoots@yahoo.com to sign up.

For further enquiries, contact Hansel directly via e-mail, mobile 9616-6629, Twitter and/or Flickr.