McDonald Birthday Party

I am sure many of us loves McDonald from it's Hotcake to Big Breakfast or Double Cheese Burger to Filet-O-Fish Meals.  No matter which is your choice there is always something for everyone in the family. My kid loves their McChicken and Chicken McNugget meals which often comes with hot and yummy fries plus a regular drink.

Since McDonald is one of his favourite meals, we decided to hold a McDonald Birthday Party for him last weekend to celebrate his Birthday.

Upon discussing with the staff in-charged of the party, we were told that the McDonald's Party included things like:-
~ Choice of Happy Meal (Cheeseburger or Chicken McNuggets)
~ McDonald Design Party invitations cards (minimum 12 pieces)
~ Exclusive gift for birthday child
~ Gifts for invited guests
~ Game prizes
~ MINIMUM booking for 12 children per party package

*A deposit of S$14.40 (non-refundable) which is also known as the surcharge is required upon confirmation of booking

And as you see from the list above, McDonald required at least a MINIMUM of 12 children for the party package so even though if your invited kids are less 12 pax you still have to pay for the 12 sets of Happy Meal at S$9.00 (including surcharge) per child which is about S$108.00. I find this criteria is NOT flexible for those who do not meet the minimum requirement of 12 kids, perhaps they could allow/consider some swap or combination of kid and adult meals for some situation.

For your information, in order to bring in Birthday cake to the Party the cake has to be ordered from one of these Halal certificated bakeries shown above.  So when you are hosting a McDonald party for your kid(s) or friend, remember to double-check with the staff in-charged.

Since my boy is old enough to write his own invitation cards, I leave the task for him to in-charge of his invited guests list.

As an Angry Birds, Green Piggy fans my boy decided to use green piggy themed design tags for the guests to write their names for the lucky draw.

These are some food stuffs and stationary that we prepared as lucky draw gifts as well as goodie bags of sweets and chocolates for the guests. 

Upon arrival of the Birthday kid and invited guests, the staffs in-charged would assigned the sitting arrangement for the kids and get them to write down their name on the party hat in order to address and recognise them while serving the meals later.

All Happy Meals for the party comes with choice of either Cheeseburger or 4 pieces Chicken McNuggets together with a regular drink (coke, milo, ribena or milk) and side (cup corn or fries). While the kids are having their meal, the serving staffs at Yishun Safar McDonald are very patience and helpful by taking the imitative to make sure that all the invited kids and host are well taken care of.

15 minutes later, everyone almost settled down with their food orders and the kids also started to mingle among themselves with fun, laughter and food. 

After the meal, the serving staffs do a quick clear up and get ready to gather the kids around to participate some simple games for about 15 minutes before cutting the Birthday Cake.

Although the games might be simple due to the space constraint, but the kids definitely have a great time among themselves.

The last 10 - 15 minutes of the party are usually reserved for photos taking and cake cutting where everyone would gather around for Birthday songs and group photos with the birthday kid.

Angry Birds Space designed cake from Polar Puffs And Cakes Pte Ltd which is one of the bakery in their suggested Halal bakeries list shown above. 

Invited Guests received extra gifts like McDonald themed pencil, drinking straw and etc on top of the usual Happy Meal toy.

Birthday child received an Exclusive Birthday gift on top of the items in the Happy Meal goodie bag.

This is the actual Birthday Cake which my boy requested and I managed to order and custom made by Wai Fong from Fong's Kitchen Journal and if you are interested you could also read more about how she assemble this cake at her post HERE.

As you can see above, this is a 3-layer Chocolate Sponge with Dark Chocolate Ganache filling because my boy only loves chocolate cake but due to his favourite King Pig is green in colour we have to cover the chocolate cake with green coloured butter cream. Overall the sponge cake is fluffy and the ganche is great too but just that perhaps a little bit too sweet on the fillings.

Lastly we would like to thank everyone who came and joined us for the party last weekend. Thanks for all your lovely gifts and thoughts. Hope everyone of you have fun!

Hearty Meal With The Family @ Swensen's

Swensen's, a household name in Singapore has bought many memories to me and my family over the years. I remember during my school days, I used to visit Swensen's with my classmates to enjoy their ice-creams and food during weekends gathering where we often share the "Huge" Earthquake ice-cream together.

Recently, Swensen's has just revamped their menu with new and exciting treats such as Spiced King Prawns and Chips, Laksa Aglio Olio with King Prawns, Crabmeat Fried Rice and etc. Here we have ordered the "Laksa Aglio Olio with King Prawns" shown above as I am curious with this East And West fusion taste. The al dente pasta is infused with Laksa flavored pesto, chilli padi and served with succulent king prawns which gives us a Wow!

{S$5.00 Top Up} With additional $5.00 top-up to any Main Course, we can enjoy additional soup of day which I always look forward to, a complimentary hot/cold beverage plus a scoop of ice-cream of our choice to end the meal.

For starter we order Ocean Crunch Salad with served with fresh greens topped with fish bites, calamari, breaded shrimps and refreshing pineapple BBQ dressing.

This Black Pepper Seafood Pasta is one of my mum's favourite pasta from Swensen's. She loves the taste and fragrant of their black pepper sauce which is not too spicy, salty or neither overpowering the overall taste of the dish. I would recommend this if you are a fan of black pepper sauce.

Although Chicken Baked Rice is always on my ordering list, but that day I have a craving of trying their Beef Stroganoff Baked Rice which served in chunky beef slices that saute in onion and brown sauce. Although the sauce is a bit too rich and salty towards my liking but overall it still quiet a good try. 

My boy's Fish Nuggets with Star Munchy And Sweetcorn kid's meal set which he often order serve with either cold Milo or Apple juice. A plus point for kid's meal is although it is deep-fried but for the few occasions that we ordered it is always nicely done without drip/trace of oil on the nuggets or munchy.

*Note:
All photos in this post is taken with my iphone as this is a leisure family meal.

Great Kids Cook Out @ United Square Mall plus Junior Chef Cooking Competition

With September school holiday and a few public holidays like Hari Raya Puasa around the corner, why not bring your kids to embark a Creative Culinary Adventure as United Square celebrates its 9th Anniversary. At the event kids are able to pick up cooking techniques and explore recipes from celebrity chefs like Forest Leong and Catherina Hosoi plus Ellena(myself, a food blogger).

For this event, United Square Shopping Mall hopes that with some creativity added to those dishes it might be able to ‘help’ picky eaters by transforming eating into a fun and enjoyable learning experiences from the 4 interesting set up kitchens. And as part of United Square 9th Anniversary Celebrations, Great Kids Cook Out event are held from 26 August to 11 September 2011 where children aged 4 to 14 years old can personally prepare nutritious and creative dishes and learn basic table etiquette from experts of the field.

GREAT KIDS COOK OUT
26th August - 09th September

In order to let your kids participate and have fun in any of the kitchen shown below, you would have to spend at least $80* at United Square retail outlets to entitle a "Cooking Pass" to qualify for The Great Kids Cook Out.

For Age Group 4 – 8 years old

Pizza Making conduct by myself and my group of chef to enable kids to design their own pizza using healthy wholemeal bread with fresh vegetables topping such as Broccoli, Cucumber and Carrot together with tomato base pasta sauce and shredded cheese. (Pizza design created and endorsed by me)

Kaya Fondue Making conduct by Chef Forest Leong and her group of chef to teach kids how to cook up some health and delicious kaya using fresh ingredients and serve it on some designed cutout wholemeal bread.

For Age Group 9 – 14 years old

Next Bento Making is also another kitchen handle by myself and another group of bento chef where participant gets to learn moulding the rice ball and assemble the bento box with cooked vegetables, grilled teriyaki chicken, and quail egg.

The participant for Bento Kitchen will get to learn and bring back either one of these set of bento which I am sure they will be overwhelm of their master piece. (Bento design is created by me)

For the same age group if you are not keen in Bento, perhaps making Rainbow Snowskin Mooncake from Chef Catherina Hosoi will be great for the coming Mid-Autumn Festival too.


More related photos on the Great Kids Cook Out HERE at Cuisine Paradise Facebook Page.

For your information, this is a Daily event starting from 26 August till 09 September from :-
~ Mondays to Fridays: 11.30pm to 7.00pm
~ Saturdays and Sundays: 11.30am to 8.00pm

United Square mentioned in their facebook (HERE) that as the kitchens are always having full classes they advice parents to go early with the kids or try to avoid weekends crowds!

Junior Chef 2011

And for the coming September School Holiday, Parents World together with Untied Square Mall and Health Promotion Board there will be a "Junior Chef Cooking Competition" on 10th and 11th September where participants get to either decorate a cake or cook out a dish to impress the judges(Celebrity Chefs Forest Leong and Catherina Hosoi, plus myself) and walk away with attractive prizes and trophy.

For more details of this Junior Chef Cooking competition and registration, please refer to Parents Word official website HERE. Closing Date for registration is on 05 September 2011. For enquirers you can call 6295 0810 or e-mail to daniel@parentsworld.com.sg

Singapore 1st 3G Family Centric Foodcourt by Foodfare

Last weekend after our Bukit Timah Railway tracking, we decided to settle our dinner somewhere in Clementi Mall. To our surprised the Foodfare located at level 4 has a new 3G(three generation) dining concept whereby everyone in the family from grandparents to young toddlers can enjoy a wonderful mealtime and bonding together.

Upon entering the foodcourt you will see a lot of cute Bento boxes special cater for kids' portion of meal appears on each individual stalls. And at one back corner of the foodcourt there is a stage design area with toddlers friendly furniture such as low table and broad seats.

But that evening when we are there those seats are all taken by a few groups of "in-considerate Young Adults/Teens" due to the crowded dinner timing. And even though they have finished their meal, they are still stuck on their seats chit chatting leaving parents with young kids standing nearby waiting for seats which suppose to be cater for young kids. Perhaps the foodcourt management should do something about the toddlers seats area.

For your information, there will be a kids' menu on each table showing all kinds of kids' bento meal packed with local dishes such as fish soup noodles, western food, chicken rice and etc. Each set of bento comes in smaller portion of food in order to prevent food wastage for kids compared to the adult serving but the price was not really budget too. The Nugget and Fries set that we ordered cost S$3.00 with some soggy fries and cold nuggets which I was not really happy about it.

And happen that if you kids like any of the 4 design bento box you have to purchase with another extra S$3.00 on top of the kids' meal price.The Bento box purchased will be given separately for the kids to bring home while their meal will be served from the bento box provided from the stalls.