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Friday, January 30, 2015

DIY Sheert Tint Top Coar | OPI Sheer Tint Dupe!

Just thought I'll post up some of my latest videos in this blog since the last few posts has been nothing but food =X


Anyway, I don't have much to say about this video other than I hope you guys like it and find it helpful. As alway, if you do this DIY, don't forget to send me a pic to my instagram :) Seeing your recreations really do made my day. It's like an instant pick-me-up!

Love you guys,
xoxo

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PRODUCT USED
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[Etude House] Look at My Nail Care Long Shine Topcoat

Purple Sheer Tint
------------------------
[The Skin Food] Nail Vita in VL408 (4 drops)

Pink Sheer Tint
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[Oriflame] Pure Color in Intense Pink (2 drops)
[The Face Shop] Lovely Me'ex Nails in PK102 (1 drop)

Yellow Sheer Tint
------------------------
[The Face Shop] Lovely Me'ex Nails in OR20 (1 drop)
[Etude House] Look at my Summer Nails in BE101 (1 drop)
[The Face Shop] Lovely Me'ex Nails in YL702 (1 drop)

Blue Sheer Tint
---------------------
[Etude House] Look at my Deep Color Nails in DPP503 Double Purple (3 drops)
[Etude House] Look at my Deep Color Nails in BL601 (1 drop)

Green Sheer Tint
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[Essence] Color & Go in Roller coaster (4 drops)
[Etude House] Look at my Ice Cream in GR701 (1 drop)

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Bamboo Dim Sum - Affordable All You Can Eat Dim Sum!

I love dim sum. Period.

So when my brother's girlfriend told me about this relatively affordable all you can eat dim sum, how could I not give it a try, yes? The price is 53,000/nett for ALL the dim sum I want please.

The system is a bit different here as there is no menu. The waiter will bring out an array of certain type of dimsum (ex. steamed ones) and you choose what you want, and then the waiter will bring out another type of dim sum (ex. deep-fried ones) and you choose again which one(s) you want, and so on and so on until they've showed you all the dim sum they have, then you can ask for more for the one you'd like more of, like maybe you want the waiter to bring out all the steamed ones again.  


There are two stations near the kitchen, one for the free-flow hot tea, and another one for free-flow onde-onde, fried plain mantau, chiken-filled mantau, and porridge.


I like the onde-onde here. Usually I find the outer is too chewy for my liking, but the onde onde here has a more crispy outer and the inside part of the skin is the right chewiness for my taste. It has tausa (red bean paste) as the filling.


The porridge was not bad either, or at least it's seasoned and not bland. A bit too dry for my liking though, I like soupy porridge.

hot tea

The first array they brought out were the steamed dimsum and these are the ones that we chose, there were a bunch more types of siew may. 

Everything tastes really decent. The hakau was pretty good (we asked for a second portion of it and I ate more than half the portions we ordered myself), and I also liked that wonton at the bottom right. The siew may was quite tasty as well.


Sorry for the blurry pic >_< I didn't realize it until I edit the photos.

The next array was dim sum with sauces/soup, there were only 5 choices of it if I'm not mistaken, and these are the ones that we chose.

Sam wasn't a big fan of either of it, so I finished the wonton myself, and the meat-filled tofu wasn't bad, but I don't think I'm going to order it again.


The third array was the deep-fried dim sum, and I finally managed to took pic of all of the choices you're offered for this one *pat self on the back*

the one we chose
I didn't like any of them. That long ones were too greasy and the ones shaped like ekkado didn't taste nice. The only one that is decent is the fried wonton with mayo. Sam finished most of it, I only had one of each dim sum.


This wasn't on the trays offered, but you can also order chiken feet. It's Sam's favorite (like he legit can eat just chicken feet with rice and be content), so he gotta order it. The feet were huge btw, so it's a bit hard to eat.


This is the last array of dim sum they have, the buns. They have durian bao, pandan bao, chocolate mantau, tausa pao, and chicken pao. 

I chose durian bao and tausa bao. Yes, I, because Sam was already full and only want 1 durian bao. I was actually already full too, but I can never pass up something sweet to end my meal. You know, like you have a second stomach for dessert.

I love the baos! They're very soft and the fillings were delicious and not too sweet. My favorite is the tausa bao. Definitely try out their buns if you visit :)


My perverted boyfriend said the durian bao looks like boobs wtf -___-"

Anyway, all the food were really decent, but nothing ah-mah-zing. It's you get what you pay for kind of deal. I think that their nicest dim sum is the buns and the steamed dim sum, they're honestly pretty delicious, especially the buns!

I definitely will be back whenever I'm craving dim sum (which is quite often) but too broke to eat at my favorite dim sum place (which also, happens quite often lol). It's good enough to satisfy my dim sum craving :)

xoxo,
Lily

Bamboo Dim Sum
Jl. Boulevard BA 3 No. 49,
Gading Serpong, 
Tangerang
(021) 45879292

//price in IDR

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

The Royal Kitchen - All You Can Eat Indian Food

My brother's girlfriend saw an All-you-can-eat Indian food voucher on groupon, and as we (my brother and I) love food and trying out foreign food, we decided to purchase the voucher :)

If you had read my Bali trip, you'd know that I've since fallen in love with the rich-spiced Indian curry and their naan bread, so I was quite excited to redeem the voucher, which we finally did a week ago.

Upon first entering, the ambiance of the place was very quite and serene, kinda like those in formal dinner. The service was a bit slow that day, we were asked to wait for a few times and the place wasn't even packed yet.


There was a short buffet table where we can get the all-you-can-eat food, then the server brought us this appetizer above, a plate of naan, and another plate of some kind of flat bread, which I forgot to picture of - too busy stuffing my face :p 

I don't know what this appetizer is, but it tasted like potatoes and the sauce was tangy. It was okay, I quite liked it. The flatbread was really delicious (it tastes like cakwe/yu tiao but in flatbread form), especially paired with the curry, while the naan was pretty good as well.


The above picture basically shows all of the dishes on the buffet table. There were a total of 8 dishes if I'm not mistaken, including salad. I was expecting a wide arrays of Indian food, so I was kinda disappointed with the limited choices.

However, all the little choices that they did have were all decent at the very least, some were super tasty. The mutton curry was definitely my favorite, the muttons were incredibly tender and the curry was very spiced up (not spicy though) and just so so tasty. That curry beside the mutton curry and the one with chickpea were also really good. The fragrant rice was nice as well. My brother loved that red chicken, which to me tasted like spicy version of sweet and sour chicken in Chinese food lol.

For the drink, I ordered Strawberry lassi which was refreshing, tasted like strawberry yogurt drink (which it essentially is), while my brother and his gf ordered this super sour greenish drink that, let alone remember the name, I can't even pronounce it. Neither of us liked the drink and I think we left it unfinished.

My brother actually already asked the waiter what is in the drink prior to ordering, but the waiter didn't know either wtf, just said that it's a sour drink, which is true, but how come you don't know what you're selling doublewtf.

All in all, I'm neither satisfied nor particularly disappointed with this restaurant. I mean, most of the food were really good, but the choices were very limited that it's kinda a shame to call it an all-you-can-eat buffet (I know all-you-can-eat buffet doesn't mean wide variety, but out of all all-you-can-eat buffet that I've tried, none have as little choices as this one). Anyway, I've made my peace with the limited choice because the food were really good, but the service definitely need improvement. At least educate the employees in what they're selling, made sure they know what food is what and what it is, afterall a lot of Indonesian are still not familiar with Indian food's name. If you do love Indian food, I think this resto is worth a try though. Maybe try the a la carte menu instead :)

xoxo,
Lily

The Royal Kitchen
ME GOLF DRIVING BUILDING PLUIT VILLAGE
Jl. Pluit Indah Raya I Pluit Mega Mall
Jakarta 14450
Phone :+62 216684045
Phone :+62 8119915526

Friday, January 9, 2015

2014 in a Nutshell | Yearly Wrap-Up

Surprisingly, I managed to scrape up enough entries and photos from my so called blog to do a "2014 in a Nutshell"! Some might be too insignificant to  be included, but bear with me 'cos this is as thorough as I can get this post to be given my sucky memory and my laziness to commemorate on this blog =X

Let's start, shall we?

January
  • I started the New Year with a new blog banner, new design, and all that jazz. I drew the twirly thingy on the banner and sidebar using a tablet that had been collecting dust for months. You can read all about it HERE.


February
  • I uploaded my Marbled Hearts tutorial and got a shoutout from a nail art account and got a surge of new followers on instagram, more than 100 I'd say, and I think most people unfollow already lah since I rarely post nail art, or post at all in that matter, on my instagram lol
  • The most memorable one that even my sucky memory can remember is that I won 1st place in the Binus & Windows Hackaton Developer Challenge in Utility category with a mobile app me & my boyfriend made in a day (we only planned it to at least be accepted in Windows Store so that we don't have to do KP-practical work). Not gonna push the app on you 'cos it most definitely wasn't my best work.

  • Still about our application, it ranked and piqued at number 4 on US Windows Store in lifestyle category!! I was obviously shocked and incredibly happy about it, but also a bit hurt from some mean comments left (mean comment from my other teammate -wtf!!- also didn't help). Sorry okay the app not very thought out, only made it in a day. But in the end we got 3 smartphones and a tablet for it, so whatever :p

  • First time going to gym for a trial run. I think I went to the gym a total of 4-5 times that week to try out several classes
  • Insignificant one, but I started learning 3Ds Max =)


March
  • I had a hard time to find a highlight in March, but this was the month I started my Gym membership and working toward a healthier and fitter self, so I think that's worth mentioning, right?


April
  • I won Lenza X Lolabox giveaway and it was my first winning a giveaway, so I blogged about it HERE. See, I only managed to blog useless stuff lol.

  • Later that month I won another giveaway hosted by Lolabox! This time is in collaboration with Luxola and the prize is a free subscription box, which I have reviewed HERE, and the famous lash fiber, which I haven't managed to review until now, but it's on my long list of stuff to blog.
  • I voted for the first time in my 19 years of life. When I became legal to vote, there's nothing to vote on okay, not that I had been lazy to vote the years before, which come to think of it, definitely sounds like something I would do =X

  • Urhm...first spa experience? Worth mentioning? It's at Laseca, and honestly, I didn't feel like completely rejuvinated or renewed, but may it was because I was too nervous, so I'll try again next time!


May
  • I went to Singapore for my yearly visit to accompany my grandma for a check up, didn't blog about the trip though. I might, but I think all I have is food pics -typical Lily. I'll blog this year's trip if I go again this year. Anyhow, here's the HAUL from that trip
  • I started my thesis a.k.a skripshit
  • I got my first mac computer, the 13" macbook pro 2013, with my own money. It's one of the best -and my most expensive to date wtf- investment ever. I love how compact and sleek the design is, and how fluid everything goes. My first and foremost reasons to get a macbook pro are for the Final Cut Pro X and for its portability (my previous laptop is a 15" Asus that weighed more than 3 kg-still used it for the Sims :p). Being a PC/Windows girl since my first time knowing computer, I was pretty impressed with how clean and fast the mac computer is. However, I'm still going to use Windows from time to time 'cos some programs are only available on Windows OS. Sorry for my boring rambles on techie stuff =X
Sam jokingly paste the apple sticker on to my laptop -_-"

June
  • I got my first Deborah Lippmann nail polish!! Never thought I'd ever see this day 'cos I'm very stingy lol and I got LUXOLA team to thank for the chance of trying this excellent nail polish and reviewing it. You can see my review HERE, HERE, and HERE.

  • I uploaded my first ever lookbook video! Not gonna lie, I was a bit nervous about it, because I realize I'm not really a fashion kinda girl,  but I actually quite liked how the video turned out :)
  • This is the month that I finally decided to move. I had already lived in my then boarding house for about 3 years and within those 3 years I had quite a few of malfunction in the facilities, namely, my again and again broken AC that never get fixed (it even dripped some water and I had to put basket underneath it, and on some occasion I didn't realize it dripped water and went sleeping and woke to a drenched table, floor, boxes, some even almost gotten to wiring wtf) and it never occurred to the owner to change the AC even though it was clearly broken, and then there's my mixed up laundry (there were tons of times I caught the owner's daughter wearing my clothes wtf), and let's not forget about the missing laundry too, there are more, but I'll be too mad to continue. 
This one happened while I was filming a tutorial wtf, and it's not just little drips too, it's a continuous big drips that can fill up that bucket in a matter of half hour

July
  • My first time voting for presidential election :) #2

  • I officially terminate my contract with VISO, if you guys didn't know, I was under VISO network for a year :) I loved their support system, but my contract was up and I didn't feel like extending it.

August
  • This marked my most uploads month. I uploaded a total of 5 videos this month (probably standard upload for a lot of people, but for me it's quite a lot already, so I'm not sure to be proud or to be ashamed about the fact that 5 uploads is a lot for me), and 4 of them was my back to school video, you can watch them HERE.

September
  • Attended my first blogger event hosted by Luxola, which is one of my favorite company no less. You can read all about it HERE.

  • I finally bought the lilyzhen domain!! Read it HERE.
  • Had my first road trip with Sam to Puncak to visit Taman Safari Zoo. Yes, I know it's silly, but I still love zoo.


October
  • I hosted my very first giveaway on my channel! And just wait for many more to come ;)


November
  • I finally tried 3D nail art using acrylic after being intimidated by it for the longest time. I will have a 101 video all about it soon, so stay tuned okay!
Still suck at it btw, but I'm gonna keep practicing :)

December
  • I made my first model/mock-up to help my brother's orders and actually got paid for it. It was my first time, so the result is still really sloppy, but I'm quite proud of it. 

  • I also got my first design job to design brochure, name card, and sticker for an IT Company. I'm Computer Science major btw, so design job and model/mock-up is out of my reach, but I'm actually glad I got to do both :) 
  • Did my first nail art job :) It's a winter-themed one. If you're interested in doing nail art with me, you can contact me through my email: lilyzhen168@yahoo.com. Here's the area I can cover: Alam Sutera, BSD, Serpong, Palmerah/Kebun Jeruk (daerah Binus, CP & TA), and Yogyakarta (when I'm going back to my hometown).



That's all. That's all I can dig up. I'm sure there are more momentum -because if not, what a lazy year, productivity speaking-. How's your 2014? Are you satisfied with what you did? :)

Here's hoping to an even more fabulous and amazing 2015!!!

take care,
xo

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Chin-Ma-Ya | 24 Hours Ramen Shop!

I've been eyeing this restaurant ever since I saw it whenever I visit my brother, but for some reason never actually made an effort to stop by. One of the reason is probably because it looks quite expensive from outside lol and the cheapskate in me was trying to restraint myself.

Anyhoo, my brother told me that their food is really nice and that I have to try their pork curry and salad, so a couple days ago (from the day I wrote this post, because I'm going to schedule this post for much much later) I went there to give it a try.

source: Chin-Ma-Ya's twitter

I researched them first the night before and found out that they open 24 hours!! Yay for midnight craving! But I was too sleepy so I decided to go the next day. 

To my surprise, their a la carte menu is actually not really that expensive, not cheap, but acceptable. I think the most expensive one I saw was 60k? Don't quote me on it though. What I like about their ramen is, they have small portion and reguler portion -which I heard is huge, the bowl is 20-25 cm in diameter-, so you can eat their ramen for as low as 18k. Mostly the small ramen is around 20k. Perfect for when I'm broke but my tastebud want to act rich lolol 

Unfortunately, I didn't try any of the ramen in this visit, but I definitely will next time :) Now let's get into the stuffs that I tried!

Pork Katsu Curry - @40k

The portion of this curry is generous. If you're not starving, then this can feed 2 people, especially if you're not a glutton like me.

The curry itself has a nice thickness, and is really delicious and savoury, not spicy at all. I personally prefer something with a bit of a kick, but you always can help yourself with the chilli powder provided on each table. There are bits and pieces of carrots and potatoes in the curry too.

The pork cutlet has a little bit of a bite to it, which I had no problem with, but I guess most people would prefer something more tender. Flavour wise, it goes great with the thick curry and a spoonful of warm rice.

All in all, a very satisfying dish. I enjoy every last bite of it.

Pork Gyoza

I personally am not a big fan of gyoza -wotie, kuotie, whatever you wanna call it-, primarily because most of the time I find the skin nauseated me too much and has a weird flour-ish taste to me. Weirdly, I actually love xiao long bao which I suppose has samewhat the same type of skin? You can see HERE that I didn't even enjoy the wotie that other people find delicious.

HOWEVER, for some reason, even though I know I don't like gyoza, I usually always order gyoza when it's on the menu lol. Probably hoping that maybe my gluttony has evolved and magically I like it now. I know, a bit masochistic, huh?

It's a good thing I decided to be masochistic that day though because I loved their gyoza, or at the very least I really enjoyed it!

The gyoza is nicely crisp on the bottom with moist thin skin all around. I didn't find the skin to be nauseating or tasted weird at all. The filling was good and quite generous too. Definitely recommending this gyoza!

Buta Salad

The salad my brother recommended me to try. It's boiled pork slices with tomatoes, onion, cucumber, lettuce, carrot, capsicum, and green onions topped with sesame seeds and (of course) salad dressing.

I'm not a salad person, or a vegetable person in that matter, and if you had read my posts that includes food, you'd know that I'm all about that meat, about that meat, about that meat *Meghan Trainor's song playing* - sorry, it's there, couldn't resist.

Anyway, with that being said, I liked this salad. The pork slices were tender and tasty even though it's only boiled. The salad dressing was this sour tangy sauce with a bit of spicy kick, kinda like a thai salad dressing. I personally enjoyed the salad dressing and even ate all the vegetables, not just the pork slices (Yaay for me eating some greenery). My boyfried didn't quite like the dressing though, he preferred the pork slices just as is. 


That's all the food that I tried in this visit, going to post more since I'm definitely coming back. Currently curious to try their Okayu set that's only available from 10 PM to 10 AM.

Toodles,
Lily

Chin-Ma-Ya Ramen
Boulevard Gading Serpong Blok B-4 No. 40,
CBD Paramount Serpong, 
Tangerang 
Tel. (021) 2900 1065

//all price in IDR

Monday, January 5, 2015

November Eats - 2014

You know how my Montly Montages posts are always filled with food pictures - because who doesn't love food -? So I thought it'll make more sense if I post all the food pics I had for a monthly montages into a separate post just so that my monthly montages is not filled with just food and looked like all I do is eat (which is not necessarily untrue lol). Other than that, for those of you who are not interested in my oh-so-vanilla-boring life and only interested in the food part can finally be freed from having to endure the everyday life random pictures. See how considerate I am lol.

  • First time trying out Chai Tea -granted an instant one-. I got this one from Loka for 14k. Honestly, I didn't really like it. It tastes a bit "fishy" to me, which I know doesn't make any sense, but it does have this "iron" sort of aftertaste. It's also too sweet for my liking. I'll try a more real deal chai next time.
  • Cooked this glazed pork belly with my brother's girlfriend (fine, she did most of the cooking) for lunch and it tasted DABOMBDIGGITY. That mashed potatoes is the BEST mashed potatoes I've ever had in my life for sure. So fluffy, buttery, creamy, and smooth. I honestly can eat just that carrot sticks with this mashed potatoes. Might post up the recipe in this blog in the future.
  • Cooked this korean fried chicken wing for the dinner. I'm not a fan of Korean food, but this one is pretty good.
  • Redeemed the free KFC voucher from LINE. Threw in an apple-carrot juice to somehow make this lunch a bit healthier lol #fucklogic


  • Made chorizo egg sandwich. Never heard about it before? That's because I just anyhow-ly threw ingredients I had on bread and call it a day lol. Used mayo chilly sauce and sliced cheese as toppings. Not bad not bad.
  • My favorite lazy breakfast. Everything is from Lawson convenient store ^_^ Tuna onigiri, some kind of hot drink, and banana as dessert.
  • Virgin margarita from Fish & Co. Super duper sour and that salt along the rim of the glass adds to the sourness.
  • Buy 1 Get 1 Domino's Pizza for online order. It actually became quite cheap. You pay around 48k to 69k for 2 medium-size pizzas depending what type of pizza you choose. Not bad, huh? Only 30k per pizza.



  • I guess if you've read some of my previous monthly montages it's no secret that breakfast is always my favorite part of staying in a hotel, so this one here is breakfast in Atria Hotel Serpong when my mom came to visit. They had a pretty good breakfast spread. They had omelette station, hot drink machine (like the one you find at convenient store where you can choose various types of drinks), all kind of breakfast dishes, they even had their own pancake/crepes booth, which I've never seen in a hotel breakfast before. They also had all kind of milk (soy, skim, full-fat, strawberry, chocolate) and juices. I also tried my first rice pudding. I've actually always thought that rice as a dessert is really weird since rice is the main carb for our dishes here in Indonesia so when I think of rice, I think of savoury dishes, never sweet ones. Anyway, turned out it's pretty good. Might try to make one myself in the future. 
That wrapped up all the things I ate in November (the one that I bother took picture of anyway). Interested to try any of it?

xoxo,
Lily

Friday, January 2, 2015

A Break from Youtube + Food Poisoning | What a Post to Start 2015 ♡

Going to start this post by saying HAPPY FREAKING NEW YEAR!!! to all of you who are kind enough to be willing to read this rarely-updated space I call my personal blog (or is it maybe you just have some time to waste on your hand?lol).

Moving on.

I see most bloggers do this kinda "2014 Summary" sort-of thing and I think that's a great way to recollect all the things you have done/not done or accomplished, see if you're satisfied with you did in 2014, what you wish you had did/didn't do, and all that sappy stuffs to better yourself in 2015.

Myself personally? I don't think I'm gonna do any of those post, not because I don't want to, but mainly because I don't think I blogged often enough in 2014 to summarize them into a consolidated blogpost of my 2014 lol. Anyway, I'll try to dig deep into my entries, photos, etc lah to see maybe I can scrape up some stuffs enough to make one of those post.

Totally unrelated, but on 30th (3 days ago) I got food poisoning wtf. My first time got food poisoning too (YAY, I guess? For "firsts" milestone). Until today I still don't know what gave me that food poisoning -___-

Anyway, my mom got me this antibiotic right to calm my stomach and to churn out the poison, so for the next 2 days I've been spewing like a fire hydrant. I can poop 4 to 5 times a day O.o TMI? Too graphic? Sorry, sorry, for putting that image in your head haha. Oh, you didn't imagine it, but now you do that I mention it? Sorry again lah =X Here, here go google unicorn poop instead. It's glittery and rainbow-colored one :D

Now into a more serious topic -even though I consider my previous topic also already serious, my first time got food poisoning lol-, I've decided to take a break from youtube until the end of January. If you're curious why, you can see here, I filmed my first update video:


I'm still gonna blog IF I have the willingness to, because let's face it, I've been half-assing this blog long before I have a legit reason to =X But really though, for me blogging does not require a tremendous amount of time like filming and editing video does, so I might be more active on this blog for January (lots of food post coming, I've already drafted up some).

And, and you can go follow my Instagram, I've started to post more pictures now, not every 2 months lolol. It's @lilyzhen168

Alright, that's all for now. I hope you'll have a FREAKINGTASTIC 2015!!! Lots of love from to you xo

-----------------------------------------------------------

In the light of recent AirAsia accident route Surabaya-Singapore, I really hope friends and families of passengers and crews aboard the plane are given and blessed with an enormous amount of strength and fortitude to help them go through this unfortunate situation. I really am not good with words, but my deepest condolences and I do hope for the best for all the people involved. 

take care,
xo