Eat Drink Man Woman Dog

Basil Alcove Again After the Longest Time

2011-11-28T03:48:00.009+08:00

It has been QUITE awhile since we last came here. Quite a bit has changed. The location, for one. It has moved to a more prominent spot around the building. Still the same building, but just a few shops down to a corner unit. I guess it makes a difference. Also, the prices. The prices of food seem to have increased, notably, my all time favourite dish here, by almost double.

Tomato & basil soup (Jian fill in price please). Pretty much tomato soup with pesto drizzled on top. It's nice.

Jian ordered the set meal which comes with a salad. This is their caesar salad.Tasty. No complaints.

Jian's duck (the set costs $14). Prettily plated. He said it was done perfectly. The piece I had was tasty. :) Came with some french beans (I think) & grilled eggplant.

My favourite Chicken Avocado & peaches ($14). AHEM. OK, I really don't mean to be critical here, but when we paid $7.90 for this before, I had peach slices & a mound of salad. Now it is still a great tasting chicken dish, I'll HAVE to give it that, but I was a tad disappointed that I got peach cubes now (lesser amount of peach, I mean) & I wished for more avocado. Also, baby corn, although I did eat it, is not my favourite. I associate them with chinese stir fry veges. They tasted alright, I'll have to say though. Plus side, I got grilled eggplant too. The dish still rocks, but give me more avocado & peaches please!!! I am paying almost double of what I used to, after all!!!

Jian had an expresso after. He had (I think) 2 beers before & I had an iced lemon tea (the Heaven & Earth one, which is nice, but I don't like their green tea as much).

Have to wait for Jian to fill in the prices of whatever I left out.

Modesto's @ Orchard Parade Hotel

2011-11-25T03:41:00.006+08:00

We ate once before a few years back at the Modesto's at Vivocity. I'd even forgotten about it until Jian mentioned is whilst we were deciding where to eat, as we actually wanted to eat at Esmirada, but couldn't get a table. I cannot remember what we ate, but he said it was some pizza with scamorza or something or the other.

Anyway, we were seated inside. Now, inside is a far cry from outside. Outside (al fresco) is very casual & a bit haphazard & is really more for people-watching & having a beer or something, but inside is quiet, grand & makes me feel like I'm in a fine dining restaurant. It's great for dates. Hehe. Oh yar, we were on a date mah. Husband & wife dinner date is still a date, you know.

Bread with olive oil. Complimentary, I think? It was plonked on the table soon after we arrived.

Insalata Di Avocado ($16.50). Is yummy.

Penne Alfredo Con Funghi ($21). Don't know why shitake mushrooms & pasta would cost over $16, but oh well. It was nice enough so I guess I shouldn't complain. Well, I'll only complain about the price. I think the portion was quite substantial though. So maybe I won't complain. :9

Verdure Pizza ($19.50). Thin crusted pizza, yummy also. I think I've gone off pepper though, but it's not their fault there are peppers on it. I didn't know I'd gone off peppers yet. I wish there were more mushrooms & eggplant though.

We didn't order any drinks as the drinks didn't seem like such a good deal. Luckily so, as we were STUFFED by the end of the meal. We were actually already full by the time we finished the pasta.

This little stowaway came along to make sure we didn't eat any lamb.

Oh, I must emphasise on their service. All the staff maintain eye contact with you, I noticed. Everytime I said 'Thank you', they would stop, LOOK at you & say 'You're welcome'. At most other places, they just charge off, maybe with a cursory nod of the head or something. It DOES make a difference. Heh.

Jian's Home-Made Burgers

2011-11-25T03:30:00.004+08:00

Jian made burgers at home! He used readily ground beef (probably weight watchers, but I could be wrong) & the centre of the patty is pate. Can't remember what pate, either, but it's been hanging around for a while, so he decided to use it to give the patty a tenderer texture. Well it made the patty a bit crumbly, but it's all good. Heh.

Roasted potatoes & a salad accompanied the meal! The buns were baked by his mum in the afternoon!

The mandatory veges: butterhead lettuce, tomato & fried onions.

Great with a Coke (or Pepsi or fizzy orange or iced lemon tea or... Well, you get the picture) or a beer!

PS Cafe @ Ann Siang Hill

2011-11-25T03:09:00.011+08:00

We met Dracoholic for lunch one day & she suggested PS Cafe at Ann Siang Hill. Previously, I believe this premise used to be a gym or spa or something.

Poutine. Fries with foie gras & gravy & don't know what else. Yummy. Sinful, but yummy.

All Day Breakfast Sandwich. I was the only one who didn't order from the set menu (click on the title & you get to peruse all the menus & read whatever I forgot to fill in) as I wasn't that much interested in the options that were left by the time Jian & Draco chose theirs. Since I love eggs, this was a no brainer for me. YUM-O. I secretly love croissants more than I should. The buttery taste & fluffy texture is just... yummy... & I was glad it came like it did.

Chicken Parmesan w Tomato soup set. Jian's order. I wasn't so big on this one. It's just fried chicken & cheese in bread & a tomato based sauce, I think. Can't remember much of the soup either. It was probably quite nice.

Grilled ham, cheese, mushrooms w soup of the day (fish chowder I think) set. Draco's sandwich, which I thought was the next better one after mine. The bread was a bit hard tough. White ash bread or something. Interesting, but hard. Soup not bad, from what I remember.

My ice chocolate in the background & Jian's Ice coffee in the foreground. This is like the best ice chocolate drink I have ever had! You get a grainy texture from the drink! Yum!

Draco's tea. Forgot what tea.

I wouldn't have minded one of the cakes in the background. HMPF.

Lazy to post prices here. Would wait for Jian to do them if he even remembers them. The online menu doesn't include prices. Don't know why. Overall, a nice casual (albeit a bit uppity), but a bit of a pricey place for eats.

Il Siciliano @ Faber Drive

2011-11-25T02:31:00.010+08:00

This neighbourhood restaurant is owned by an Italian married to a local girl. I like these kind of joints, as, when the owners are hands-on in the restaurant, the place seems lively & happier. Unless the owners are the grumpy sort, which they are not (whew).

There are mainly 2 girls working the floor & both are the chirpy sort. The owner would oversee operations or sometimes, if you're lucky, he'd be in the kitchen.

Octopus Salad. Now we ate this meal quite a while ago. I do remember that the octopus wasn't tough & quite delicious, really. I think the dressing is balsamic vinegar & olive oil. The only thing I have to say is that I'm not a fan of bitter leaves & there were some lurking around. Jian is fine with it. It's just a matter of preference & I can't fault the dish, really.

Eggplant Parmagiana. I'll have you know that we did come back a second time after this meal & we ordered this dish again. We really like it! We both love eggplant, cheese & tomatoes, so.. it's really hard to find fault with this combi, even if it was just mediocre. But it wasn't. I think the cheese was crisp & added some texture to the dish. I could be wrong & might have mixed it up with something else.

Crabmeat Linguine. Very good. The only other place we've tried so far with good crabmeat pasta is Ricciotti. There was this period whereby they had excellent 141 promos, but I don't know if they still have it now. ANYWAY... I remember the one at Ricciotti has a cream sauce. It's just done differently, that's all. This one is excellent!

Pizza with bacon. Can't remember the name of it. I need help from Jian. Ok, we were stuffed to the gills by the end of this pizza, & I mean STUFFED. We should have ordered the pizza FIRST & THEN decided if we wanted a pasta after. OH WELL. Very yummy. Just love bacon. Don't like how it adds inches to your everywhere, but BACON. MMmMMMmmMM. & their pizzas are thin crust. YUM. LOVE thin crust pizzas.

We were treated to this home-made tiramisu! Now, for all of you who do not know this... Dessert goes into a DIFFERENT stomach. It's a nice cake, this, but I feel it is lacking in a certain something. Maybe it has not enough alcohol in it. Haahaahaahaaahaahaaa!! Lovely anyway.

Jian had 2 of these. Probably explains why he was as stuffed as me. My excuse is valid. I got not much space (& even less so now. This meal was eaten on 14/10/11.) & am condemned to eating small meals until January. I still try to push my luck, though. Mwaahaa.

A coffee & a tea we had, after. I think the total bill came up to around the region of $120? Jian, correct me if I'm wrong.

I really should continue with the 2nd meal we had with my sister & gang, but the other photos, I think are stored in Jian's phone. Nevermind. I'll get down to it later.

Tom's Diner @ Hong Leong Gardens

2011-11-21T16:11:00.006+08:00

Hong Leong Gardens is a soon-to-be torn down block of old apartments. Pity, really. I grew up walking past this place almost everyday. Kind of like it. The floor tiles are very 70s retro.

We've eaten here twice already. The portions are generous. The first time, our food was way salty & we told them so. No air-con here though, so try to sit under the fan. Outside isn't too warm either, since it seems to always rain in the afternoon nowadays.

My Club Sandwich with Fries & Coleslaw ($10.80). Not bad, really. It's nothing to shout about, but it's tasty & fills the tummy. One thing is that they are not stingy with the ingredients, which is good. Nothing like a pathetically filled sandwich, like 7-11's to spoil your day. I would SO go back for the club sandwich. I kind of like it more than I should. Heh.

Jian's mushroom pasta. I think he requested for linguine, but she said linguine would take like half an hour to prepare, unless he wanted penne. I didn't really get it? Pasta takes a short while to boil, doesn't it? Maybe they had a portion of penne left & just wanted to egg him into eating that one, without wasting. Anyhow, the taste was not bad really. Will leave Jian to fill in the price (something along the line of $12, I think).

Jian had 1 or 2 Hoegarden pints. Can't remember how many. Maybe 1. A Hoegaarden pint costs $12 here all night! Super!!!! I want to come here & drink Hoe's all night after I pop!

Blooie's @ Clementi

2011-11-20T13:02:00.004+08:00

Yes, we have been a tad bit quiet lately. No bother. Not like anyone actually reads this stuff anyway. Today, I am talking about the recently opened Blooie's at Clementi. We happened to want to try the food there & it just happened to be the official opening of the place.

Cobb Salad ($15.80). Shredded iceberg lettuce, cajun chicken, tomatoes, avocado, egg, bacon bits & blue cheese with a lemon vinegarette dressing. Not too bad.

My Blooie's Roadhouse Special Club ($17.80). Cajun chicken, bacon, avocado & cheddar cheese. Pretty good sandwich, BUT the fries did not come out piping hot. I must say, I know fries take just a short time to cool down into mediocre fare, but pride in your food means serving piping hot fried potato!!!!!!

Jian's Pasta Primevera ($14.80). I don't know why he went around ordering pasta at a burger joint. This one did not look good at all. It reminded me of the time we went to Bakerzin & I refused to try his Lamb Stew Pasta. True enough, he said that it wasn't up to standard.

I had a Pepsi as well. At $4, the glass was quite small.

GST & service charge apply here.

Would we go back? Erm. Don't know. I'd try the burgers next time, if we do, but I'd be hoping for piping hot fries. The happy hour isn't so hot either. On the website, it stated that there was a all night happy hour promotion (it's still on the website NOW, & the official opening was on the 1st of October 2011), but when we got there, the waitress told us that happy hour was only till 8pm. HHRRRMMM.

Baden @ Holland Village

2011-10-04T20:41:00.007+08:00

So... We used to frequent Baden more often something like 7 years back. Jian more often than me. A few years ago, we finally decided to try their FOOD. Now I can't remember what I had, but he had the pork knuckle & he wasn't impressed.

Well, anyway, we went back for dinner on Friday. We initially wanted to try El Patio, but it seemed too packed to be true, so... well... we ended up at Baden lor.

We ordered the Gulashesuppe (Goulash soup) which was just OK. The laugen bread that came with is was pretty tasty though. It was the highlight of the soup. Jian marvelled at how white the inside of the bread was. $7

Konigsberger klopse (Chicken Cheesy Meatballs). Looking ordinary.

A meatball sliced open. Looking promising, BUT I felt that the taste was nothing spectacular & in fact, a tad bit bland, even with the dip provided. $12

Schweinekotelette mit pommes und salat (Pork loin with fries & salad, but we changed the fries to mash). Ok this was the highlight of the entire meal. The pork loin was nicely seared, with a thin delicious sliver of fat along one side. The crust gave a nice crackle, complementing the juicy meat. It was just slightly pink in the middle. I would SO order this again if we ever came back to eat. I might even insist on ordering it as a snack whilst having drinks. Must try it with the fries though. Haahaahaa. $19

Wurrsteplatte- drei (Platter of 3 types of sausages). There was no description of the sausages & I cannot remember the taste much anymore. I remember describing one of the shorter sausages (the more speckly one, I think) as tasting more like potato. Sausages were a bit disappointing for the price. The sauerkraut had a weird spice which we found strange to eat but I ate it together with the mash & sausage & it wasn't so bad then. $22

Jian had 2 pints & 2 half pints of mixed Erdinger, happy hour price. I tried some & I would describe it as a neither here nor there kind of taste. I'd rather have either dark or light. $15 for a pint & $11 for half pint (141 during happy hour).

Happy hour till 9pm.

The bill came up to $94.60. The only charge service charge. No GST (whee).

Teatime Cake @ Bakerzin

2011-09-29T21:08:00.005+08:00

Met one ofmy buddies at Jurong Point for tea at Bakerzin. They have weekday tea time specials of $8.90++ for a cake & a drink. Coffee or tea. Any coffee & any tea. They serve TWG teas here. OF COURSE, I went for the vanilla bourbon tea.

This is the Sumatra. It's coffee flavoured. The inside is soft stuff. Don't know what, but it's a layer of white & a layer of brown. YUM-O!

Chocolate Amer. Nice & choclatey. I LIKE!

Both the cakes were oooo good & I wanted to polish off everything as my friend eats like a bird, but I didn't want to spoil my dinner. BAH!

Tango's for Dinner

2011-09-19T18:07:00.008+08:00

We've been to Tango's before, but we've only really had drinks & eaten the clams or mussels or both. So we decided to have dinner there on some weekday that Jian could get off early-ish from work, which seems to be an extremely rare occasion these few months, which is a cause for celebration, really.

Stuffed or baked mushrooms. I didn't expect them to taste so chinese-style. The stuffing was like fish paste with a generous (perhaps too generous) amount of chinese celery in it. The dipping sauce, according to Jian, seemed japanese inspired.

Spicy meatballs. They were not bad, but not fantastic. I think Jian liked it more than me.

Oxtail stew with fettucine. I thought this was the best dish we had that night. I mean, I am probably biased here, as I love to eat stew, but mind, I can tell the difference between good & bad stew too, alright, the worst being at this pub at Traas street called 'Obama's' or something or the other. Burnt taste all the way. :S Not that this one was any fantastic. I just said I'm biased as I think this is the best of the lot of mediocore tasting food that night. Jian cannot decide if it's the spicy meatballs or the stew.

Anyway, we felt that the food was not fantastic. It was just so-so and not really something to crow about. I guess this place really is mainly a drinking place after all.

OK, I know that Pure Blonde is not exactly a new beer anymore, but it's still one of my favourite beers & I have been depreived of it for too long. Despite Jian always suggesting I try new things, I managed to not be swayed this time round & ordered me my Pure Blonde (happy hour, making it 2 bottles). Haahaa!

It's happy hour until 8pm, so it's 141 for all beers (they do have a decent selection) & a lower price for other drinks. 141 Asahi all night.

Jian had 2 pints of Erdingers & a lime margarita, happy hour pricing, of course.

Our bill was $102.99.

Quick Sale Dinner

2011-09-15T10:33:00.010+08:00

Do not gasp at the 'use by' dates on the quick sale packaging, compared to the date of this post. We actually had this meal on the same day as the previously posted Aji No Mori meal.

After the heavy Aji No Mori meal, we walked around Holland Village for a bit (mind, there is nothing much to cover there), felt a bit sleepy & decided to buy stuff from Cold Storage & cook a simple dinner afters. That's when we found HOARDS or quick sale items!!! We just can't resist buying quick sale!!

Check it out:

There were other sausages on quick sale, but we've never tried this brand before & it seemed the healthiest one, according to the packaging, anyway.

Upon opening the packaging, we found that the sausages looked like they were really mostly meat with minimal fats. Meat from which part of the cow, I don't want to know.

The fried up sausages! We parboiled the sausages first, of course. The taste was alright. I would buy these again on quick sale. They WERE a tad bit on the tough side, though, but I guess it's to be expected, since they seemed quite lean for sausages.

A chicken pie & a spinach quiche. We saw another chicken pie going for $2.50 or $2.55 & frankly speaking, even though the price difference is negligible, we obviously chose the cheaper one.

Chicken pie was good. I should have savoured it instead of wolfing it down, really.

This quiche had a cinnamon taste to it, which we felt didn't go too well with a savoury quiche. I should have eaten the quiche first & saved the chicken pie for the last.

This parmesan was not from quick sale. In fact, we bought it from Meidi-Ya quite a while ago & only broke it out of the packaging on this quick sale meal day. It was purchased at normal price, but normal price is cheaper than other brands of parmesan cheese. Jian likes it. I grated some into an omelette the other day.

Our fibre intake for the night.

Pesto from Italy that Jian's brother brought back. It costed him 13 euros for the jar. It looks like a 500g jar? Good stuff though.

Pepper dip Jian bought from a fair. It's not very nice on it's own, so the next time we had it, we squeezed some lemon & added some salt in it. Much better that way.

Can't really give a price for this meal, but I guess we can add $5 to $10 to the price of the quick sale items.

Aji No Mori @ Holland Village for a Late Lunch

2011-09-07T13:28:00.008+08:00

Jian took leave on 25/08/2011 as we had an important appointment in the morning. He promised me a good lunch & I kind of wanted to eat ramen. So we popped over to Holland Village to see what we could find, ramen or no. We finally decided on Aji No Mori as they had lunch sets, which included some Cha Shu ramen set.

The decor inside is pretty nice. They have the section where people take of their shoes & sit on the walkable platform & stick their legs into the hole under the table. You know what I mean when you see it, really.

Them condiment containers are pretty cute too...

When you ask for green tea, they will tell you they don't serve green tea, but brown tea. It's all good.

UNFORTUNATELY, the Cha Shu ramen set was supposed to come with gyoza, but they RAN OUT & told me they'd substitute it with tori kaarage instead. Not being a fan of fried chicken & a better fan of gyoza, I decided to skip it (ggrr!) & ordered the Salmon Hot Pot set. Er, the waitress told me they were out of salmon head (thank god) & they'd substitute it with normal salmon meat instead. Very good for me.

Close up of the hot pot. Those fat rolls of cabbage have some other greener vege stuffed inside. Soup was slightly bland, but drinkable.

The cheesy scallop starter that came with my set. It tasted kind of fishy, possibly due to the fish roe. I think they used tobiko roe.

The chawanmushi had loads of stuff in it, including a gingko nut. This came with both sets.

Jian's curry rice set. Twas nice. There was also a potato salad that came with both sets. Didn't feel the need to take a picture of mashed up potatoes & bits of cucumber & carrots.

We were both so full up by the end of the meal & bear in mind, we did not even finish our rice! Too bad it was too late & they were closing for lunch, if not, I would have liked to hang around & have a spot of dessert.

I forget how much the bill was, but this meal included 2 happy hour beers. I think a guestimate of the cost this meal would be around $50.

Pina Colada in a Biscuit!

2011-08-29T11:34:00.005+08:00

This is like one of my all-time favourite snacks! Pineapple jam cookies! Jian calls them pina colada cookies. I love them because the biscuit is small & you can easily pop them into your mouth & the pineapple filling is nice, sticky & chewy. Like pineapple tarts.

We bought these at Sheng Siong for $1.75 for a packet of 200g grams. They used to sell it by weight, but I don't know what happened. HRMPF.

Close-up of the goods.

Description on the packaging, in case any of you decide to rush out to by the stuff NOW.

Da Mario Pizzeria @ Robertson Quay

2011-08-20T10:31:00.005+08:00

Aaaaah Italian food. We have been wanting to try this place for a while now as it looks quite home style. We actually started with a beef carpaccio (Carpaccio di Manzo), but I do not have a picture of it. It was the beef on top of rocket leaves & shaved parmesan cheese, dressed with fresh lemon juice & olive oil.

Beef Lasagne. We had 2 helpings of this, as some of us liked it very much.

Paesana pizza. Tomato & cheese based pizza with porcini mushroom & parma ham. Ok, I kind of expected the mushroom to be blended & spread on the pizza, instead of medium-sized chunks. Smaller chunks spreads the mushroomy flavour around more evenly, I feel.

Golfo de Venere. This pizza is a white pizza, meaning there is no tomato sauce involved. It's got green olives, artichokes, crab meat & chili flakes in it. This pizza is stronger tasting than the previous one & the crabby flavour is very prominent. I don't know why they didn't halve the olives at least. One would think they would sit better on the pizza.

Mandarin sorbetto. This is the bomb! It tasted exactly like sweet mandarins! Even though we were all sharing the dessert, I know I ate most of this one. Heh.

Jian wanted me to take this picture. I forget why.

Tiramisu. Yummy too, but by the time I got round to it, I was stuffed with the mandarin sorbetto. A nice, yummy tiramisu, if I've ever had one.

Jian's double expresso.

The total bill came up to $155, including 3 beers, not forgettng the unphotographed beef carpaccio.

Tapas @ Culina @ Dempsey

2011-08-13T13:29:00.011+08:00

Well I knew Culina had Tete De Moine so I requested that we pop by for a spot of tapas & wine.
We sat at the bar counter & we seemed to be the only people who went to the deli counter to pick a platter, instead of ordering from the menu for dinner.

Jian did mention that the Tete De Moine was about half the price at Huber's but the pitiful thing is that they close early... like at around 7pm or so.

Our platter of lamb proscuito, comte & Tete De Moine.

We were allowed to pick stuff off the shelf & they would open it for us & everything. This came is a medium tin cause of the sauce. Roasted peppers stuffed with squid, immersed in squid ink. NICE! Rich smokey flavour the sauce gave out & the peppers were tender & tasty. $8 for the tin of 2 small peppers, but so good! We mopped up ALL the sauce with ciabatta bread!

A peep at the minced squid.

Just wanted you to have a look at the pepper without the squid ink all over the shop.

Washed down with this Soto De Torres Ibericos Crianza 2008 Tempranillo rioja. MMmMMMmmm...

They charge$15 corkage per bottle of wine you open. They also have housepour wines by the glass if your date does not drink (boring).

Also, you add $5 for making a platter.

The total bill came up to mid $80s.

We trotted over to Jones the Grocer afters, just for a walk before heading back, & found the selection of antipasto to be more extensive & there were more cheeses too (but no Tete De Moine). It's a bit pricier there, though, for the cheese & wines. Jian said that he'd go back to Epicurious anyday, rather than come back to Culina again, for the prices. I would just probably pester him to get be some Tete De Moine from Huber's before they close for the day. :P

National Day Feast (With TV Off)

2011-08-10T20:10:00.008+08:00

Happy National Day to us all! Just look at the spread Dracoholic prepared for us all! She was already pottering around the kitchen before I woke (which was around 12pm).

What a spread!!!

The salad dresed with honey mustard vinegrette . I don't know what dressing this is. I think Satellite made the salad.

Totmato slices with mozzerella on top & drizzled with home-made basil pesto, typically called caprese.

Blanched french beans, tossed with lemon zest, olive oil and sea salt.

Creamed corn with bits of bacon inside!

OK, I love potatoes. These roasted potatoes, carrots & parsnips were excellent! Roasted together with onions & garlic. The parsnips were sweet & tasty, well worth the exorbitant price you pay for parsnips here. We bought parsnips on sale before. Even at half price, I still found them to be horribly expensive!

The highlight of the evening, Dracoholic's slaved-all-day roast chicken stuffed with lemon & rosemary & her home-smoked ribs with her secret kick-ass sauce. The chicken (even the breast)was tender & juicy. Oh she used sakura chicken. It was tasty, all right! ;) The ribs turned out very well indeed too! I would have never imagined smoking your own meat at home! Jian was kind of put off by the smell when the ribs were smoking & even asked me, 'What's burning????'

You drizzle this herb sauce on the chicken for extra flavour.

We finished the night off with home made sangria that Dracoholic & Satellite were furiously chopping fruits for the night before!

Once again, thank you Dracoholic & Satellite for the splendid feast!

Picnic by the Poolside @ Dracoholic's

2011-08-10T00:24:00.006+08:00

We were in the mood for outdoors, so we prepared food & drinks & toted everything downstairs to the poolside. We even used REAL wine glasses & plates, as opposed to plastic & paper. Well, except for our forks. We used plastic forks.

Satellite prepared a smoked salmon pasta salad with sun dried tomatoes & capers. Served cold.

I prepared the platter using what Dracoholic had in the fridge. Anti-clockwise from left: ham (either breakfast or picnic), cherry tomatoes, cornishorns, smoked duck (yes the same one I used for the Orange & Duck Salad), parmesan cheese, comte cheese, shiraz cheese & goat cheese.

This guacamole is quite good... although we did not make it ourselves...

... This is the packaging it came in & it was not cheap. It's $7+ for this, which includes 2 servings. as you can see, one serving is not a lot.

In future, I really MUST take pictures of our accompanying wine/drinks.

Saturday Sit-Down Dinner @ Dracoholic's

2011-08-08T12:09:00.012+08:00

Dracoholic, Satellite & Jian decided to be chefs for the night & went researching recipes for a nice sit-down dinner on Saturday. Our dinner went as such:

Dracoholic's crab cake quenelles & baked oysters. The sauce under the crab cake is horseradish. Nice. There were some extra crabs cakes left over & I stole one later on. The oyster was nicely done & not too salty. I remember Jian did oyster rockerfeller twice & it was extremely salty, due to the bacon.

Er, I don't know what this is called. Looks like Satellite might have to tweak this post a bit. This is her dish of roasted zucchini strip rolls stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes & goat cheese (& I'm not sure what else there is). The recipe called for gorgonzola cheese, but since most of them do not like the stronger tasting cheeses, she decided to substitute it with goat cheese. Drizzled with her home made pesto. Delicious! Recipe from Delicious magazine too! ;)

Jian's ambitious main course of individual beef wellington. YUM-OH! The reason behind this individual serving is because we couldn't find an appropriate shape of tenderloin to make a whole strip, so he bought rib eye steaks instead. Accompanied by blanched french beans & drizzled with a red wine reduction sauce. I don't know how he made it, but I guess it includes the juices from cooking the beef.

Nice & medium rare. He put in a lot of effort making everything from scratch. Er, except the proscuito ham; he had to buy that, not cure it himself. I just love how well the portobello mushroom duxelles went so well with the beef. Well worth suffering many nights of Youtube video voices instructing you how to cook your beef wellington & duck breasts (as he was deciding between these 2 dishes, but we couldn't find duck in the supermarket).

Horrid picture, I know, but this is my home -made ice-cream again.

With a bit too much kahlua.

All the courses were so good, we were all very satisfied after. Jian was happy that instead of having guzzled half the wine before dinner even started, we actually behaved & took our time with them, allowing for wine pairing throughout the meal.

Thanks Dracoholic, Satellite & Jian for the lovely lovely meal!! :)

Impromptu Friday Night Dinner at Home for Two!

2011-08-08T00:30:00.009+08:00

Jian & I had no plans to go out on Friday night, so I whipped up a meal for two! I wouldn't call it sumptuous; I am just glad that it didn't go awry & send us running to the nearest 24hr McDonald's.

Anyway, I am so proud of this meal because 1) as mentioned, I didn't screw it up horribly & 2) I went to the supermarket at 1830hrs (coming back at around 1945hrs) & we got to eat by around 2200hrs. It's a feat for me, you know.

First up, I prepared the cut vegetable plate. I prepared it first so that it could sit in the fridge. In the meantime, I actually defrosted the frozen smoked duck (good value at Sheng Siong, btw) in the microwave oven & heated it up in between preparing other dishes.

Okay, I didn't do this one. Jian threw it together when he came home, so I guess I can't claim to have done the whole meal ALL BY MYSELF. Olives, sundried tomatoes & Parmigiano Reggiano drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

After the vege plate, I roasted 2 peppers! One would have been sufficient, but I guess I was feeling a bit over-ambitious. The peppers I bought were quite pretty, so I decided to document the process.

Semi-charred already. I forgot to take a picture of the blackened peppers before covering them to let them steam in the own vapours. This loosens the skin & makes it easier to peel off.

Tadah! De-seeded & skinned! Seasoned with olive oil & ...

... Fleur De Sel (salt with a fancy name). Go click on the link to find out about it.

One of the few salads that I do well! Orange & duck salad over butterhead lettuce with an orange, balsamic, olive oil dressing. You can use rocket or spinach leaves as well, if you are entertaining. You can also swap the duck for prawns & avocado. DELICIOUS! A few slices of onions as well, according to taste.

Paprika Lemon Mushrooms. I learnt it from Dracoholic. The recipe in my tapas book actually called for red wine, but I wasn't allowed to open the bottle of red wine as it wasn't ours (another recipe told me to use sherry, but we got no sherry in the house), so I remembered vaguely that she used fresh lemon juice in hers and COPIED.

Fry the garlic for a bit with olive oil first, then throw in the mushrooms & salt.
Stir-fry for a bit & cover.
The mushroom juices will seep out & the mushrooms will cook in the juices.
Add the paprika & lemon juice & stir-fry some more.

I added a tad too much lemon juice, as there was half a lemon in the fridge (it's almost like it was waiting for me), so I WAS squeezing & tasting & it tasted perfectly fine at one point, but since there was a few more squeezes of juice left in my hand, I thought 'Why waste?' & just squeezed the remainder in. It came out a tad too acidic, but was still nice. In future, I will use a bit less lemon juice & trust my instincts a bit more. I added a dash of cayenne pepper too. Just a dash, as even Jian says it's very spicy.

I did not throw the lemon peel out immediately after cooking the mushrooms. I used it to clean up the microwave oven & the stove-top (the acid neutralises the fats). Very green, yes? ;)

So we were bursting by the end of the meal. I figure I could have prepared half the peppers (there was some leftover) & just the duck instead of duck salad. Oops.

Home Made Bread

2011-08-04T18:40:00.005+08:00

No I did not bake these lovely loaves. My mother-in-law (that's Jian & Satellite's mother) did. She always used to bake somthing or the other when I first started dating him, then... it ceased. Partly because the oven's thermostat was broken & it went haywire & partly because no one ate very much of it. Not that what she makes isn't good. It is! Maybe I didn't come around often enough. LOL. Anyway, they got a new oven & she's been baking up a storm!

She made these french loaves for eating with chicken curry tonight! She used whole wheat flour!

She just bought the cute bread mold, for shorter loaves so she has been enthusiatically using it since last week. Same batch, different shape.

These fellows are cooling away on the dining table, waiting to be consumed as I type. The curry is being cooked right now as well. Heh.

Bakerzin @ Jurong Point

2011-08-02T03:28:00.005+08:00

Last Sunday was our third time to Bakerzin @ Jurong Point. The first 2 times, I remember I had the Balsamico sausage pasta, which I was pretty happy with, & the mushroom pasta (linguine al funghi or something), which I had again on Sunday. Jian had the Carbonara (OK, for this one, I am not too sure, & he cannot remember himself) & Tuna respectively. He wasn't very impressed with the tuna, I remember.

Bloody mary soup. It's just tomato soup. Noting special. We KNEW it was tomato soup already, but the taste didn't wow us.

Jian's Lamb Stew Pasta. When it arrived, I commented that it looked like chinese noodles. He agreed & said it looked like noodles from a zhi char stall. I was pretty turned off by the presentation, actually, as it seemed like it was stir-fried with sliced lamb & those horrid patterned-cut carrots. I was SO turned off that I didn't want a taste, especially when Jian seemed disappointed with it. & he was, as I asked him after his first mouthful.

My mushroom pasta was the reason why we came back here. I like the creamy sauce with melted grated parmesan cheese in it. The only thing is that recently, I have been turned off by garlic & onions, so I shoved the garlic aside. I KNOW they slice the mushrooms thinly but they put a lot of slices in the dish to make it look like there is a lot, but I guess I am OK with it. I like that for the two times that I have had this pasta, the linguine has never failed to be al dente.

The only thing isthat there was no salt & pepper on the tables. Maybe you have to take it yourself from somewhere. Also, we happened to choose a table with no cutlery on it, but by the time we got the soup, our cutlery had not arrived.

We spent almost $40 on this meal. Better to come here on weekdays, when there is the $10.90++ pasta promotion. It includes a drink.

Exotic Eats!!

2011-08-01T21:08:00.003+08:00

We were invited to be spoilt at my sister's abode again. & SPOILT we were! She came back from Turkey not too long ago & her house-mate came back from France just about a week ago!

Duck pate that took a flight on a non-cargo plane. Delicious, I tell you!

We spread them on Meiji crackers! In our home, Meiji crackers are also THE crackers to be had!

This dish is something my sister proudly discovered but did not do it according to what she had. What she had was melon (or cantaloupe) pureed with youghurt & topped with salmon roe.
So anyway, she cut a slice of cantaloupe & a slice of melon for each person & you eat it together with the salmon roe. We also tried it with sweet yoghurt. I think i prefer it with the fruit, but the rest of them were saying that if the melon was sweeter, it'd be nicer. Sweet & salty.

This here is turkish salad that she learnt from her friend's turkish fiance. They were travelling together, so it DOES count that she learnt it through her travels. Haahaa. It's dressed with pomegranate dressing, so it is special.

The beef she roasted herself with rosemary. NOW, this beef is free-range, grass-fed beef. Supposedly not as tender as grain-fed beef, also stemming from the fact that they are leaner as they get to roam around, but boy oh boy, I don't know if it is that she is a great cook, or something, but TENDER the beef was. I'd have gone for seconds, but my tummy didn't allow me to.

She roasted herbed peppers. Add your own salt. I LOVE ROASTED PEPPERS.

The goat cheese that the house-mate toted back from France & in the background, the BEST TASTING raisins I have ever had!! Had to shave the skin off he cheese as it grew a bit of mold. Don't know why, as these guys are SERIOUS foodies & they know to bung the cheese in the fridge before anything else. Even Jian enjoyed this cheese, as he is normally not a fan of stronger tasting cheeses like goat cheese, blue cheese & the likes, but this was mild enough for him.

The raisins.... I don't know how to describe them. The next time any of my friends go to Turkey, I shall IMPLORE them to get me a big bunch of these, as well as...

... these dried strawberries! Nothing compares to turkish dried fruits!!!

We ended the meal with my home-made french vanilla pod ice cream. Not only did they rave, There were also demands for a bigger tub in future. Haahaaa.

Home-made French Vanilla Ice Cream & Cats Tongues!!!

2011-07-30T11:39:00.012+08:00

I made french vanilla ice cream using this recipe here!! You MUST watch this video! He is very detailed, gives his instructions clearly & he is not boring!

Here is the close-up of my finished product! Am proud! Thank you Scott Hargrove!

I made a few adventurous changes to this recipe though:

1) I used whipping cream instead of heavy cream as I couldn't find any heavy cream at the store. According to somewhere on the internet though, you must make sure it's not UHT whipping cream. The fat content is apparently lower in whipping cream anyway.

2)I used 1/3 parts of brown sugar & the rest of the 2/3 white sugar. I initially wanted to use solely brown sugar because I like the taste of it & I thought it'd go well, but I was met with appalled faces (& up till now, I still don't get why).

3) As I didn't have an ice cream maker or a kitchen aide with an ice cream making attacment, I just used the cake mixer with the whipping attachment & did the stir-every-half-an-hour-or-so-whilst-it-is-freezing method (I just stirred it about 5 times) as I wasn't sure the ice cream mixture caught & held on to the air incorporated whilst whipping.

The result was better than what I expected, as, being a pessimist, I thought my ice cream would come out a rock-hard slab. It WAS a tad bit hard, but I still managed to scrape up a ball of ice cream using a soup spoon after about 5 minutes (yes, it's a tad bit of a long time to gather up a scoop of ice cream). In future, whilst serving this batch, I think I'll transfer it to the fridge about 10 - 15 minutes before serving. Better than buying an ice cream maker, anyhow.

As the ice cream recipe requires only egg yolks. Jian found a 'Langues De Chat' recipe or 'Cats Tongues' which requires the egg whites.

Here is the only picture we took of it:

Jian made an EXTRA long one just for the fun of it. No I DID NOT eat it all by myself. We shared it. Heh.

Anjappar @ Jurong Point

2011-07-25T14:26:00.006+08:00

We went to Anjappar for dinner yesterday with Jian's folks as I didn't feel like eating at home. We have been wanting to try Anjappar for a while now, but have never gotten our arses to it. I did make Jian buy a masala thosai & mango lassi for me once though. I somehow preferred the one from Prata Wala (yes, the website is a COMPLETE LETDOWN) downstairs & the mango lassi was sweet beyond belief (yes I preferred Prata Wala's mango lassi too).

Jian's parents actually did say that the food at Anjappar wasn't that great, but it's always good to try for yourself, as different folks, different strokes.

Anyhow, we ordered:

Chettinad Chicken Masala. Not bad.

Chicken Lolly Pop. Jian HAD to have it, as he was surfing the menu & trying to find out what the items were & I noticed he kept lingering on some lollypop chicken videos. This was the best dish we had, even though it was deep fried. The skin was nice & crisp & had a nice tanginess to it because of the lime we squeezed onto it. Mine was gone in a flash.

Mixed Vegetable Curry. There was more curry than vegetables in it. Luckily, the curry was passably nice & I ended up eating most of this, anyway.

Mutton Sukka Varuval. Don't be fooled by the size of the picture. This is a close-up shot. In fact, they all are. The plate is equivelant to a teacup saucer. This was not too bad. Quite nice. We ordered 2 portions of this as it was a SUPER small serving.

Fish Curry. I did not eat the fish as I didn't feel like it, but I tried a little of the curry. Very fishy, but Jian's parents thought this was the best dish of the lot.

Biriyani Rice. I didn't try this as well as generally speaking, I don't fancy the musky taste of biryani rice. Jian & I shared a white rice. What I like about the rice that they serve in indian restaurants is the texture. The grains are fluffy & yet, they separate easily. Jian says it's because they boil the rice instead of steaming it. Don't ask me. I just eat it.

Soupy thing that comes with the rice, Jian's ma says it's made from assam.

Jian finished off his meal wth a masala tea. I've had masala tea before & I don't remember the taste of the masala to be so strong. It seemed to overpower the tea. I remember liking my masala teas from any stall in Little India, in fact. Oh well.

In conclusion, I think this was by far the least memorable indian meal we've had EVER. Perhaps we have spoilt ourselves by patronising too many stalls in Little India (Sakunthala's, Sri Kamala Vilas, Jaggi's & basically almost anywhere you go, the food is good) & Samy's Curry at Dempsey.

There were plenty of indians dining at Anjappar, so I guess the food must be up to par. Well, it is; it's just not as fabulous as I had hoped. We also noticed that dishes were delivered to the restaurant pre-prepared & they just put the finishing touches before serving. Makes sense, then all the branches have a standardised taste, the food comes to us hungry diners faster & they take up less space in the already teeny-tiny kitchen.

The bill came up to $65.42 (including GST) for 4, including a masala tea, a lime juice & a sweet lassi.

Blk 39 Teban Gardens Road Fish Bee Hoon (Hao Chu Seafood)

2011-07-24T13:12:00.012+08:00

Jian & I went to my parents' place as we had to bring my kidney-failing, hypertensioned (blind from the hypertension) 16 year old kitty to the vet & back. Since we were already there, we took to opportunity to see if the zhi char stall was open. Jian claims to have eaten THE BEST fish bee hoon he has EVER tasted. He has been raving about the place for at least 3 years, & I would have had it sooner, but the last time we attempted to get our hands on the goodies, it was closed on a weekend afternoon. Bummer.

I had a home-made ice lemon tea & he had a lime juice. The reason I took this picture is because the jolly drink stall auntie popped the sliced lemon & half a lime on top of the drinks so prettily, instead of chucking the fruits in together with the ice & pouring the drink in. $1 each.

Incidentally, they use the word 'home-made' very loosely, as Jian HAD to burst my bubble & tell me that the ice lemon tea (as in, ALL home-made ice lemon teas in coffee shops all over Singapore) is 'just cordial, prepared in the factory'. *GRUMBLES*

AH, the fish bee hoon! NOW, this fish bee hoon, for the food purists, was made milky by ADDING EVAPORATED MILK into the soup. Now, all along, I've always preferred my fish bee hoon with the added milk. I do like the milky flavour it adds to the soup. I mean, why condemn it if it tastes good, right? (You food purists just luck-out, that's all.) We had XO added to the soup & I forgot to stir it up, so I got a strong mouthful of XO down my throat.

Taste-wise, I agree with Jian. It IS the best fish bee hoon I've ever tasted too. The fish was lightly fried before being added to the soup & did not have a fishy or muddy taste. I just HATE the muddy tasting fish that a lot of fish bee hoon stalls use out there. We both totally cleaned out our big bowls of the noodles, soup & all. Well, especially for the soup, of course. Anyway, this is the first time Jian has eaten it with XO. In future, I will try the normal one, just for comparison.

$6.50 per bowl, if you add XO. Jian claims to have always paid $4 for the normal one, & just add $2 to add XO, but maybe they increased the prices very recently.

I should CONSIDER visiting the folks more often, ONLY for the fish bee hoon. Heh.

Epicurious

2011-07-23T11:48:00.007+08:00

Friday night out & Robertson Quay was BUSTLING (I mean... what's new, right?). We managed to get a table for without reservations at Wine Connection, tried to request for a table of 4, but failed, so we walked around & managed to sit our behinds at Epicurious, a much quieter spot, just a short walk away.

The menu looks good & the tapas was a reasonably good range, such that one didn't (really feel) like there was a disappointingly small selection. Okay, to be honest, I DID feel that it was a little small, but there were really no complaints, as a lot of my favourite bites were included in the tapas menu. 8 types of cheese, various cold cuts & some antipasto. There were also small bites. There is a mains menu as well, which Jian said looked quite good. They have a wine list too, but we ordered the house wine. I saw something on the menu which said '$15 corkage charge, ours, or yours). $15 even if I order wine from you?!?!??! Well we ordered the house, like I mentioned, but I saw no indication of $15 on the bill. They stopped accepting customers at around 10pm, according to sharp-eyed Jian.

This is the first platter we ordered. I cant remember exactly how they charge, but the more you order, the cheaper it gets. The prices start from $6 per pick of cheese (add $2 for one of themore special cheeses, I can't remember which), $6.50 (or is it $7.50) per pick of a cold cut, $4 (I think) per pick of antipasto. If you order from the cheese or cold cuts section, each antipasto is only $2.50. it's quite confusing, but you have to look at the menu to fully comprehend what I mean.

So our selection was: comte cheese, chorizo (from Singapore), chargrilled peppers & chargrilled eggplant.

Cheese & Tomato Quesadillas. They were not bad, really, a little too much raw onions & a little too few tomatoes for my liking, but they pass. The skins were nice & semi-crisp.

Meatballs. Tasty. The sauce reminds me of nicer tomato pasta sauce, but really, you can't stray far from that thought when a warm tomato-based sauce is around. It is pretty good with the meatballs.

Our second platter consisting of salami, artichoke hearts & hummus. They served the platter with butter, instead of vinegar & olive oil this time. Pity. The olive oil was EXCELLENT. The hummus was nice & smooth & citrusy. Jian admits that it's better than the hummus he makes, as it is lighter in texture & slides down your throat oh so easily!

MY PLATE! The thing I love about this place is the mis-matched, but strangely matching plates They have a few different floral (I want to name an era, but I cannot put my finger on it) plates & they do not purposely give the whoel table the same plates. They use different bottles for your water. (They leave the bottles of water on your table for you to help yourself. I like.) I spied an Absolut Vodka bottle at a neighbouring table.

Together with a bottle of house sparkling & house red, our total bill came up to $132 for 4 people.

Halia Afternoon Tea

2011-07-18T13:56:00.008+08:00

Ah, weeks long forgotten pictures! Jian & I went to Halia for afternoon tea on the 2nd of July 2011, which was our wedding/dating anniversary (that's 5 years of dating, through thick, thin & awful parents on my side & 2 years of marriage. THAT'S something to celebrate isn't it?) because I felt like doing something a little different.

We got off a bus stop too late & had to trek through the Botanic Gardens the long way round, which was actually nice (I have NEVER walked around the botanic gardens in a leisurely way before) albeit hot. Luckily, I was wearing a breezy dress & I am alright with the heat, anyway. Jian was scooting around for every bit of shade the trees provided.

When we arrived at Halia, we were greeted by the pleasant smell of coffee & baking breads. I don't know if they really bake bread there, but the smell was there... I think eggs were in the air as well. YUM! There was no space in the air-conditioned area, so we sat outside, which was nice too. Well the view is better outside, obviously.

Ok, so I was busy checking out the eats when the 2-tiered tray arrived. We didn't have a bite to eat before 1530 hours! The cream & orange ginger jam is meant for the scones.

Front: little slivers of bread topped with gorgonzola cheese & a honey-coated walnut

2nd row: Scone, smoked salmon little thing (salty), ditto, scone

3rd row: foie gras little thing.

Jian, in general, does not really fancy gorgonzola cheese but I DO(!!), so after he ate one, the rest were mine. They were so tiny, I finished them in a flash. I only remember that the little salmon bite was extremely salty. The scones went very well with the cream & orange ginger jam. I was surprised that the ginger taste was nice & subtle. Jian plastered his scone with the stuff. He likes to do that sort of thing as he likes strong flavours. The foie gras bite was just... the little bit of foie gras down the hatch... Pleasant, but gone in a matter of seconds.

Front: Saffron macaroons in yellow & kiwi macaroons in green.

middle: banana wrapped in crepe. Think it's coated with caramel as well.

back: raspberry, chocolate cake.

Background: weird fellow

The macaroons were EXTREMELY sweet. I don't know how people enjoy eating these things! For the saffron one, I don't like the taste of saffron in general, I think, as I don't particularly like musky flavours. Nevertheless, I took a bite & I passed te rest of it to Jian, whom only later revealed that he wasn't keen on it as well. The kiwi one was even sweeter than the saffron one, but i ate it anyway. The banana wrapped in crepe was nice, but I wish we had eaten it before then macaroons. had I known macaroons were this sweet, I would have eaten them LAST. By the time we got to the cake, it was already in a melty state. Sweet too, but nicer (& less sweet) than the macaroons.

The afternoon tea set comes with your choice of a pot of tea. I think it was $28++ per set. You can also order one set to share. We ordered 2.

Don't forget to go for a leisurely walk around the gardens after your tea, when the sun is not as fierce. :)

Tex Mex @ Chili's

2011-07-18T11:31:00.009+08:00

Chili's has a Sunday drink promotion of 141 premium margaritas. Very good for Jian. Check out his first nice, big margarita:

His initial comment was 'nice & strong' & I had a sip. It WAS indeed very strong. There was plenty of ice in the drink, so I would guess they probably mixed in the normal amount of alcohol, & the amount of ice was to keep the drink chilled, for people who sip margaritas like pussies. His was the Patron Margarita or something or the other. It's not in the online menu. (Jian says: It should be the Grand Patron Margarita.)

The drink, compared to his size!

We ordered only from the starters, as the portions are huge here. This here is the Triple Play, consisting of Southwestern Egg Rolls, Boneless Buffalo Wings & Chicken Crispers. This starter is not so impressive. The Buffalo Wings are not really 'wings'. They are more like buffalo NUGGETS (on account they are boneless I suppose :P). The taste is ok. I had one & Jian had the rest. The Chicken Crispers are battered cuts of chicken breast. Pretty dry on the inside, but the whole thing goes well with the yellow sauce. I think they purposely put the sauce that goes with the item, closest to the item. Makes sense. The Egg Rolls weren't what I really expected. I expected the skin to literally be made of EGG, but it seems more like a dough skin, deep fried. The taste was pretty good though, so I guess we can let it slide. It seemed like it would be soft & egg-like, according to the picture on the menu, but crispy is good too.

The Beef Quesadillas. You can choose chicken of beef, & I don't think they charge any extra for beef. Guacamole passes the taste test but there is so little of it, considering we are guacamole freaks (me more than Jian). You pay an additional $2.90 for the dollop of guacamole.

The rice & refried beans that came with the quesadillas. Beans were nice, rice had an interesting flavour that I cannot put my finger on.

We were super full by the end of it & had no space for dessert. Better to come here with 4 or more eaters. That way you can order a more extensve variety of food to share. We were tempted by the 4 mini burgers, but opted for the Triple Play instead, so we could taste more things.

The staff who served us (we were at the Tanglin Mall branch) were all friendly & smiley (I did spot a few black faces amongst the servers, but they didn't serve us).

Our bill came up to $67+ (can't remember the cents) for 2 starters & 2 margaritas (but don't forget it was 141 premium margarita day).

There is no service charge, only GST, but if you find the service up to par, do leave a tip. It makes everyone happy after all.

Margarita's @ Faber Drive

2011-07-11T16:05:00.005+08:00

Forgive this post, as for some reason, we didn't take very clear shots that night. Anyhow, the jist of it:

Chips with Guacamole. NOW... I don't want to be tooting my own horn here, but I can make better guacamole. The reason why I think mine is better is because this guacamole has a bitter taste to it, which I think might be because they did not remove the seeds of the lemon before they blended the guacamole into paste. I was quite disappointed, as i just LOVE guacamole. The chips looked abit over-fried, but perhaps that is the way it is done. Gotta love the cactus margarita glasses though. Waahaahaa. We ordered on-the-rocks as Jian said ice-blended is kind of wasteful as most of it is left stuck in the blender... Suits me, as I was drinking orange juice, which happened to be the only freshly squeezed juice from the menu....

Portabello Mushroom starter with balsamic & garlic dressing. This bigass portabello mushroom was a treat! I didn't touch the garlic & funny brown paste though.

Kitchen sink burrito. It's got Everything but this kitchen sink in it! Meaning, chicken, beef, beans & I forgot what else. Topped with guacamole, salsa & sour cream.

Fajitas with mixed meat (chicken & beef). I picked on a bit of the beef on it's own. Nice.

The skins & condiments to make your own fajitas! The salsa had that bitter didn't-remove-the-lemon-seeds taste as well... Sigh.

Well, the food was good, but the didn't-remove-the-lemon-seeds taste made me feel like we should have gone to Cafe Iguana or Cha Cha Cha instead. I remember the guacamole at Cafe Iguana was heavenly heavenly heavenly! The fajita's were excellent too.... I didn't mention El Patio cos we haven't been there.... YET...

We spent almost $200 for 4 diners for that meal, which included a jug of margarita & a glass of orange juice, but we were stuffed to the gills as the portions were huge.

Capricci

2011-07-07T18:09:00.004+08:00

We went to Capricci last Friday as we felt like eating something nice! & something nice is what we got!

We ordered from the $39++ 3 course dinner. Funny thing though, it's not very publisized at the restaurant itself. When we got there, we had to ask if the promotion was on, even though we had already seen it on the website. Also, the table beside us came a little later than us, & had to ask for the promotion menu as the waiters do not automatically include it when they present you with the regular menu. I think the restaurant would be bustling, if they were more open about it. Mind, business is already brisk with the promotion menu half hushed. Hehe.

I ordered this Eggplant alla parmagiana mozzarella, basil & tomato for my starter. Yummy. jian thinks so too. It's possibly because they used nice sweet cherry tomatos too.

Jian's Prawn & avocado salad with extra virgin olive oil & citrus dressing. They gave him HALF an avocado (oh joy!) & the olive oil was very fragrant!

My main of Home made gnocchi gorgonzola, fontina & taleggio. Basically 3 types of cheese in the dish. I don't know which cheese was used to make the sauce. Upon the 1st mouthful, it was heaven, but I had a little bit of trouble shovelling the last of it down my throat, partly because I was kind of full, partly because perhaps it might have been a bit too rich.

Jian did not capture his Paccheri (sleeves) with homemade Italian sausage, Portebello mushroom & parmesean cream sauce. It was yummy, but I was asking where the sausage was, as I expected to see slices of sausage. What they did was they ground up the sausage or something, or dug the meat out of the skin... or something.

My dessert of Bounette ala Piemontese (cocoa pudding) with crushed amaretti biscuits. Very yummy, but the biscuits were a tad bit hard for my filling filled teeth. Nevertheless, I slowly crunched them down. Waahaahaahaa!

Jian's Semifredo with hazelnuts & coconut. This dessert was not to my liking, which is not their fault. It's just that I don't fancy dessicated coconut in anything else other than Ondeh Ondeh. The texture of it is pretty much like ice cream. Because of the strong coconut taste, I couldn't taste any hazelnuts in it. Pity.

The service at Capricci is excellent & friendly! We just feel they need to be more open about their promotion deal. Heh.

Ye Shanghai (791 Bkt Timah Rd)

2010-12-05T13:37:00.005+08:00

Dracoholic brought us for a yummy Shanghainese meal to celebrate someone's birthday. Oh what a yummy meal it was! Don't mind the creaking floorboards & teeny tiny toilet, though.

Oh what a sumptuous meal!

The starters all came together, which the staff placed on the edge of the lazy susan for easy reach. This is what we had:

Marinated jellyfish. This jellyfish dish consisted of bigger-than-normal chucks of jellyfish. I like this size of jellyfish, as it seems like a more substantial mouthful. Nice.

Wine chicken. The wine sauce is tasty, but I am not sure if the taste was infused into the chicken enough.

Marinated Japanese Cucumber. Abit spicy.

Vegetarian dish. Consisted of some sort of beancurd, mushroom & preseved vegetable.

Fried fish. Strangely, I liked this, as I don't normally like just any old fish dish.

Post starters (On to the main stuff!!):

Fish soup. They didn't cheat & add milk to make the soup milky. They spent hours boiling fish bones for the milky broth. Tasty.

Jews ears & clear noodle (I suspect it's made from sweet potato flour) in the soup. I was slightly annoyed to find fish bones in the soup as well, but I guess it can't be helped.

Mushroom, sea cucumber & bamboo shoot. Yum-O! I love all the ingredients in this dish & the best thing is that the bamboo shoots don't have that horrid smell to it.

Prawns. Done well. The prawns retained their crunchy texture. Dracoholic recommends a drop of black vinegar to go with it to bring out the taste of the prawns, but I may have dripped a drop too much & the vinegar over-powered the taste of the prawns. Oh well.

Cod Fish in Crab Roe Sauce. The sauce is excellent! Great dish!

Oh what is this cute little piglet?

AH! 3 Layered Pork. Served with the buns to be eaten together like a mini sandwich. I scraped off all the fats. Scarily fatty, it is.

Vegetable dish. Love the mushrooms & jews ears & wolfberries in it!

There was also a noodle to end the meal, as no Chinese restaurant sit-down meal would be complete without it. I did not take a picture, as I forgot, but the noodles were only so-so.

Shou La Shou (Hand In Hand) Beijing Restaurant

2010-12-05T12:51:00.006+08:00

Shou La Shou is a little eatery inside the foodcourt on the 2nd level of Jurong Point 2. The Jurong Point of today is a far cry of when it first opened it's doors in 1995. Incidentally, the day it opened is the 5th of December 1995!! That's exactly 15 years ago today! The mall went through 2 major revamps, or rather, extensions, to expand to cater to the popular mall's traffic flow. It is the biggest suburban shopping mall in Singapore. Now if only they had a Daiso here.

Anyway, Shou La Shou....

Marinated Seaweed dish. Tasty, but not terribly mind-blowing.

Xiao Long Bao. Yummy. Nothing broke, soup intact. Worth it here.

Deep Fried Scallion Pancake. A tad chewy, which is not necessarily a bad thing. A tad oily, which I suppose can't be helped, seeing as how it IS deep fried.

Deep fried eggplant with pork floss. Ok, this is the bomb. The texture of the eggplant, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. I don't normally like to rave about deep fried food, but I am very partial to eggplant, so..... I think it has something to do with the batter, but I don't know what.

Pan fried pork buns. These fellas were so-so. Nothing to rave about, but not horribly bad. Edible... Not terribly tasty, but it fills you up. The crispy bits on the bottoms of the bun are the best thing about this dish.

Our meal costed us $30+ (can't remember the exact amount), wich included 2 large bottles of Tsing Dao beer. There is another branch in Jalan Besar as well.

One thing I have to say though. It was dinner time & all, but the wait staff kept bringing items we did not order to our table. Like... Hello, there ARE table numbers on the order chit, right?

La Nona

2010-12-05T12:20:00.007+08:00

Don't judge a book by it's cover. As in Don't judge a book by the wonderful looking menu and the nice tasting bread.

In general, La Nona was decent, but I would have much preferred to make my way back to La Braceria Pizza and Grill. I realized that most of the time reading reviews off of hungrygowhere may not bring you to a good restaurant. All taste buds are build differently I guess.

For an antipasto platter, I feel they need to work harder. This is a very normal platter that can be made at home. At least, they didn't need to be stingy with ingredients. I think Satellite can any day make a better platter than what you see here.

The pizza was not as delicious as La Braceria due to the lack of cheese. It wasn't as juicy and succulent; the sauce in general was weak.

I'm not a big fan of risotto, and am extremely picky when it comes to this dish because I don't really enjoy it in the first place. Most places do not get the doneness for the grains right. For me, what makes a good risotto is when the rice grain, although soft, will pop in your mouth when chewed. Secondly, the taste must be there, some risottos, you can just taste the cheese that is in the dish. You should be able to taste the infused main ingredients, i.e. mushrooms risotto, you should be able to taste the flavours of the mushroom, not only a hint of mushroom covered by the heavy creaminess of the cheese.

All in all I don't think I would go back there again. Too pricey for normal italian food.

Eastern Cafe at River Valley Road

2010-11-26T23:56:00.002+08:00

The worst possible breakfast one can have on a public holiday... I should have just made my way to Beo Crescent Market or even Zion Food Market.

Carrot Cake - Lo Bak Go - more like a flour cake ... I did not taste any radish in it at all.

Half boiled egg overcooked

Teh had a bad after taste...

Overall FAIL!

FATBOYS - The Burger Bar @ The Foundry

2010-11-26T23:41:00.005+08:00

Now this is what I call a good juicy well cooked burger ... and you don't have to pay an arm and a leg. Oh and my favorite mozzarella sticks! I had the Bushtucker Burger but with beef instead of pork: prices start from $15 I think.

Beef Patty, Bacon, Fried Egg, Emmenthel Cheese, Beets and Garlic Aioli on a Whole Wheat Bun.

I regret ordering other food from other places plus the mozzarella sticks ... was so full I just wanted to go home and sleep.

By the way, don't bother with the Mexican food .... the portions are small and it's expensive; also nothing to rave about.

Home Made Mee Hoon Kueh

2010-11-26T23:01:00.005+08:00

Our first attempt at making Mee Hoon Kueh came out pretty decent, although we still have not perfected the stock... perhaps it is the type of ikan bilis (anchovies) we use, or maybe we just don't use enough of them that the stock doesn't seem rich enough; or maybe we should add in the mushroom stocks which I have been saving for the longest time for our next attempt. Not rich enough but still delicious.

I'm not sure about the entire recipe of the soup, but I will let Satellite handle that. Here's the recipe for making the dough, this dough will get chewier depending on how long you knead it.

250 g plain flour
1 egg
100 ml water
pinch of salt
1 tbsp cooking oil

Make the dough by placing all the ingredients together and knead for about 30 minutes. Create a ball with the dough and place it in a bowl, cover with a wet cloth and let it rest for 1 hour. There after you are ready to peel the little pieces off and throw it in the pot of broth whilst cooking your other ingredients.

After making this, I realized that down South, they have something similar to this but in cream soup. It's called chicken dumplings. Check out some Southern Chicken Dumpling recipes courtesy of About.com

Vietnamese Food

2010-11-26T20:35:00.004+08:00

During my time at RIT, I grew to love eating Vietnamese food, especially in the winter time. Having a hot bowl of pho was what we were always looking for when the wind chill was ridiculous. For a person that usually waits for her food to get lukewarm, I used to wallop my pho within minutes of it reaching the table. Oh how I miss those days.

I was at Takashimaya with a colleague looking for things to buy for the destitute that we would visit that week in a home for our corporate responsibility program and we ran out of time to actually catch a good meal, since we started at the Daiso in ION. Further adding to that, having a meal at the ION foodcourt isn't the cheapest thing in the world; we also couldn't find what we were looking for at that Daiso (still prefer the IMM and Plaza Singapura Daiso as they have more variety) so with a hop and a skip we went over to Art Friend in Taka. Having not taken breakfast, after we finished up at Art Friend, I pestered my colleague to grab some food with me at the new food court (maybe not so new... I think about 1/2 year old).

The place is no longer as cluttered as before, but just as difficult to grab a seat. I saw Pho Hoa and I had been craving Vietnamese food for months ... so I went ahead and got me a bowl of Phở Chín, Nạm, Gầu, Gân, Vè Dòn and Chả Giò. The pho came in a big bowl and was nice, although I've had nicer around town, but I can't complain. The accompanying garnishing was on the stingy side. The disappointment that I had was that they did not give the sweet sauce or the proper chilli sauce to go with the Pho, nor was there a selection of it at the stall itself; so I helped myself to some chilli padi. The Chả Giò wasn't as nice as I expected it to be... a bit on the soft side.

For a nice Chả Giò recipe see Rasa Malaysia's Vietnamese Spring Roll recipe. You can also check out this Vietnamese Beef noodle soup recipe.

Chả Giò - A kind of spring roll (sometimes referred to as egg roll) – deep fried flour rolls filled with pork, yam, crab, shrimp, rice vermicelli, mushrooms ("wood ear" variety) and other ingredients. The spring roll goes by many names - as many people actually use (falsely) the word "spring roll" while referring to the fresh transparent rice paper rolls (discussed below as "Summer Rolls"), where the rice paper is dipped into water to soften and then rolled up with various ingredients. Traditionally these rolls are made with a rice paper wrapper but in recent years Vietnamese chefs outside of Vietnam have changed the recipe to use a wheat-flour-based wrapper.

Phở Chín, Nạm, Gầu, Gân, Vè Dòn - Noodle soup with brisket, flank, tendon, fatty, and crunchy flank.

Ah, I just remembered before my experience at Pho Hoa, I did have vietnamese pho in a bowl. I don't exactly remember where I found this instant noodle, but it was a pretty good quick fix. Some may find this a bit on the salty side, but it warmed my tummy up on a cold rainy day in the office!

Tiong Bahru Market Raw Fish

2010-11-26T20:31:00.003+08:00

Yum in my tum, woke up one morning starving from I guess too much beer and an empty stomach from the evening before. Decided to head to Tiong Bahru to do some marketing for my bbq so I ended up eating some nice raw fish. I didn't want to eat too much because I wanted to save my stomach for the heaps of food I would have for dinner.

The fish was nice, firm and sweet; perfect mixture of the sauce and nice amounts of garnishing. Love it! Simple and clean tastes.

Yumyums that Satellite makes

2010-11-26T20:27:00.003+08:00

Coming home from work starving, Satellite was kind enough to whip up some great grub. We had fun poaching eggs for the first time but it didn't come out as perfect as we wanted.

Shown here, grilled asparagus sprinkled with cheese for a finishing, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes with poached eggs, toasted baguette and smoked salmon.

It was a quick fix for my hunger, much appreciated!

Birthday at Moi Lum

2010-11-26T11:33:00.003+08:00

I used to pass by Moi Lum and really wanted to go in and try the place as they consider themselves affordable & casual chinese dining, and all the pictures outside the restaurant look yummy! Yes, I am a sucker for imagery. The restaurants been around since the 1920's and was actually once located at Murray Terrace next to another eatery I used to like to frequent that sold dumplings and stuff.

They have now moved a couple doors down to 38 Maxwell Road, Airview Building, #01-01.

We ordered the $298 set menu and finished 2 bottles of Prosecco and a bottle of delicious Shiraz; thanks Jian! One of the most favorite dishes that night for me was the sharksfin and the egg roll. Funny though, the famous crispy chicken didn't make the mark for me. I liked the sharksfin soup because it was not as thick and jalat as other places would make it, quite fragrant, but I don't think I saw or got to taste any fin in it.

Unfortunately, the plating wasn't nice so we didn't bother taking much photos. On another note though, the service was quite disappointing... they served us like they were rushing us out of the restaurant. If they had served us in an appropriately slow manner, we would have been able to drink all 5 bottles of wine I brought and perhaps even the 2 extra bottle of wines that Jian and Satellite's parents brought. We brought a lot cause there is no corkage!

Papa Rich

2010-11-26T11:17:00.003+08:00

Well, it's decent but I find it costly.

I had the supposed nice to eat Char Kway Teow, however wasn't fascinated by it because it did not have enough "Wok Air". Am wondering if the standard of people's taste buds have dropped or have I just become more and more picky over the years.

Penang Assam Laksa was decent, but unfortunately they forgot to bring out the Har Ko and it would have been better with more mint.

The steamed chicken was nice, however the portion was too small for us hungry pigs. And the bean sprouts wouldn't be anything to rave about.

Another time I did try the Ipoh Hor Fun Soupand I found it pleasant, or perhaps it was a Sunday and I was craving some soupy comfort food... or maybe it is because one can't complain since Papa Rich took over the spot where one of the better Ipoh Hor Fun stalls used to reside at. Oh I miss the Ipoh Hor Fun and the Duck from that old corner store that Papa Rich has replaced.... Wonder if anyone knows where they have relocated.

For my Ipoh Hor Fun fix, I usually go to Funan Weng Ipoh Hor Fun located at Maxwell Road. Their Shui Kow is also very Yee Cheong Yuen Noodle Restaurant that has just gone down the drain with their quality over the years.

All this food talk is making me hungry ... the office is providing us with food today so hooray! And I can't wait for my trip to Malacca, maybe I should go find my camera and charge it so that I can take some pics myself also.

Japanese Ramen Lunch

2010-11-02T22:23:00.004+08:00

Halloween lunch, 31st October 2010. Ramen. Instant ramen all the way from Japan.

Dracoholic took this picture of the box for me, post blog. It's a waste if we don't show off the package that took a plane here. The noodles, when dry, really didn't look like it would fill my tummy, but it was really filling! We only realised it after we took the noodles out of the soup & separated them into the bowls. Jian didn't even finish his portion!

My bowl! The prettiest of the three!

The soup turned blue-ish after I threw the purple cabbage in. Nevermind. It was Halloween after all. It did make the soup look a tad insipid (& the cabbage turned ugly afterwards, as you can see), but it was yummy nonetheless. The pickled red ginger came with the noodles. I felt it was a bit of a stingy amount, but perhaps it's just me. The yellow pickles & Kurobuta pork were two appropriate items that Dracoholic had in her fridge already.

I finished the whole bowl, but was very full after. Dracoholic wasted the most noodles. We should have just used 2 packets of noodles & split it into 3, but like I said, the noodles looked a right pathetic portion when dry. Poo.

White Truffle Delight!

2010-10-24T01:59:00.009+08:00

Dinner at my sister's!! White truffles from some Ang Moh land! I think it was France or Italy. I'm quite sure it's France though. Anyway, my sister bought 2 or 3 white truffles for SGD$300+!!! Between 5 people, we ate tucked into our $60 to $80 (per person) worth of truffles, guzzled various expensive champagne & wines & finished off the meal with lamb chops. Nawhawhawhaw! I do not have the pictures of the lamb, but Jian does.

A truffle & truffle shaver. You can toggle the thinness of the truffle shavings with the little knob on the side. Truffles are ugly looking things, aren't they? White truffles are mostly about the smell. The moment you open the packet, the lovely truffle smell hits you straightaway. The taste is subtle but super delightful!

This was scrambled egg whites with truffle shavings on top & it was the second part of the meal. The first part of the meal was my lotus root salad. That was yum-o too!

A close up of the egg whites with truffles. Mmmm -MM!

Porcini Risotto with (of course) white truffle & parmesan cheese! We all had 2 helpings each! I ate mine very very slowly to savour the truffle taste. It's not everyday one gets to eat white truffles, you know.

Close up picture of Jian's plate of risotto. His had the thinner slices of white truffles! U can almost see the risotto through the truffles! Marvelous!

Roasted lamb! You just dust the top with a bit of sea salt & freshly ground black pepper. BURP!

Hong Lim Temporary Food Centre

2010-10-05T18:03:00.002+08:00

Many famous stalls at Hong Lim Temporary Food Centre. I met up with a group of friends for a lazy Sunday lunch there.

The temporary food centre is located at North Canal Road, next to Speakers Corner. After you are done with making your stand at Speakers Corner, drop by the temporary market to have some good eats and cold beer.

To be frank, most of all the famous Hong Lim Market stalls are located at the temporary food centre right now.

Must tries: Ah Kow Bak Chor Mee, Ah Heng Chicken Curry Noodle Mee, Hookien Street Bak Ku Teh and Turtle Soup, Bittergourd Soup, Ji Ji Wanton Mee, Outram Park Fried Kway Teow, Tuk Kee Ipoh Sah Ho Fun, Ah Fat Fish Ball Noodles, and of course Teo Heng Teochew Porridge.

Lian Eng Hwa Kee Seafood @ Havelock Road

2010-10-05T17:21:00.009+08:00

Yes you're right ... I've been dining at Havelock Road quite often. :) Anyway, this was a good expereince that I had food wise. Everything tasted pretty nice. It was a pleasant treat by Satellite's parents :-)

The cold platter was decent, the best part of it though I must say was the Jelly Fish ... soft succulent and with a nice thai sauce!

And of course we had the politically incorrect shark's fin soup ... it was nice albeit thick ... thereafter we had no more room in our tummy's to fit much of the other food... An additional comment I would add is that the crab roe was too dry and tough; that did give the soup minus points.
The fish was good... definitely tasted better than the one I had at G7 Liang Kee the week before. However, if I were cooking it, I think I would've added more Kiam Chai (preserved vegetables).Next came the prawns swimming in a sea of garlic.. it was really a sea of garlic, so for those that don't like garlic much, they'd be totally turned off. Vampires beware of this dish!

Ah... unfortunately ... well maybe fortunately I did not take the picture of the pork ribs because they were not fantastical, and in comparison to Por Kee Restaurant at Tiong Bahru, they faired poorly.
Of course we must all have veggies! The veggies were a nice touch, the abalone was nice and is always welcomed in my stomach! The minus point of this dish was that the brown sauce was way too thick... already full from most of the food, you have to basically sit down and wipe off all the brown sauce if you don't want to get full until you puke.

who is the mystery squeezer?

And what would we do without carbs... This Char Kway Teow with Malaysian influences was a nice complement to the food. It went well with their chilli sauce that was nice.

Of course to end it all, someone had to order Orh Nee (Yam Paste), a dessert that I do not favor cause to me it is just goo with coconut milk. It's gooey and sweet! But the fact is, if you go to a Teochew restaurant and they don't have Orh Nee, you better run as the place is probably not authentic. The original Orh Nee used to be made with pork fat, garlic, yam and ginko nuts. Now it is usually made with yam, ginko nuts, and sugar water.I was asked not to take this photo but just had to ... it shows pretty much how I feel about Orh Nee. This dessert actually kinda gave me a fright when I saw it for the first time 11 years ago in Singapore. They should make an ultimate dessert like this: Durian Orh Nee ... I bet you it'd be a best seller!

G7 Liang Kee Restaurant

2010-10-05T10:26:00.006+08:00

The service was ok but the food sub-par compared to the Mu Liang Zai Laing Kee Restaurant on the same Havelock stretch.

The food wasn't great and my phone was almost out of batteries so I didn't bother taking many pictures of the food.

This was a birthday treat from a friend ... but I think we choose the wrong Liang Kee restaurant.
There are actually 3 versions of the original Liang Kee restaurant. G7 Liang Kee Restaurant at Havelock which we went for this birthday treat. This shop is run by Madam Liu the Taiwanese partner of the original Liang Kee when they moved to Havelock Road which she took over because of a bad working relationship with the brothers. After that, the brother's opened Liang Kee in Robertson Quay and relocated again to Whampoa West when the retnals were too exhorbatant at Robertson Quay. Around the same time, Hong Seng the younger brother decided to open another at Havelock, Mu Liang Zai Laing Kee.

Ok so back to the food

Pomfret was over cooked and was tasteless
Teochew braised duck was also tasteless and the meat wasn't as tender and succulent as it should be (Mu Liang Zai Liang Kee does a far better job)
Fried prawn rolls, beancurd and seafood rolls wasn't bad at all
Sambal crayfish tasted more like it had a chilli crab sauce
Oyster omlette passed the test

And for the Veg ... it never came ... although we repeatedly ordered it a few times.

TGI Fridays....... NOTTTTTT!

2010-10-05T09:38:00.006+08:00

Had the worst experience possible at TGIFs in Singapore ... really worst experience. Wings weren't spicy ... neither did they ask what level of spiciness you'd like ... My club sandwich came with cheap shoulder ham that you can find at any NTUC Fair Price.

This was so majorly disappointing, to see that TGIF's from the US go to shit... They should revoke the franchisees licsense

Servers were busy standing around and the most humorous part of everything was that they spent more time doing their rally calls, chatting and goofing around with each other than actually serving.

Cold Mozzerella sticks, Loaded Potato Wedges that were like rocks that can kill....

If anyone ever asks me to go to TGIF ... I'll tell the to go to Chilis instead! The quality of food and service is a universe apart for these two restaurants.

Wow this blog is dead

2010-10-04T13:57:00.002+08:00

Wow it's been ages that we posted on this blog ... and the funniest part about this is that i couldn't recognize the blog when I came in.

Home cooked steak!

2010-10-04T09:46:00.007+08:00

My sister brought a hunk of tenderloin from some Ang Moh part of the world & cooked me & my auntie steaks. Jian was supposed to come too,but he had something on, so he lucked out, big time. HAHAHAHAHA.

She simply fried it (or maybe she grilled it) on that grill-looking pan (hence the grill lines) & left us to season it with sea salt & black pepper ourselves.

Also accompanying the meal were boiled baby potatoes in butter & garlic (YUM), boiled baby carrots & brocoli & my smoked mackeral salad. Yum-O, I say!

Spanish Tapas

2010-06-26T16:49:00.004+08:00

We enjoy Tapas nights at the house. So far we've made the following:

1) Spiced Clams
2) Croquetas de Jamon - Spanish Ham Croquettes
3) Olives stuffed with oranges
4) Gambas Al Ajillo - Shrimp in Garlic Sauce
5) Tortilla Espanol - Spanish Omlette
6) Champions Al Ajillo - Ajillo Mushrooms
7) Pan Grilled Pimientos

I will post up the recipes one day for some of these and am hoping that we add more to our portfolio of tapas.

Adopt a Pet

2010-04-02T01:37:00.001+08:00

If you want awesome cool personalized stuff toys, check out http://smeowlycats.blogspot.com!

We at Eat Drink Man Woman Dog are fans of SMEOWLY CATS!

Bahrs Landing Seafood Restaurant and Marina

2009-09-12T14:29:00.004+08:00

Address: 2 Bay Avenue Highlands/Sandy Hook, New Jersey

Tel: 732-872-1245

This summer I got a chance to go back to the Jersey Shore (Joyzee Shaw). They've made major changes to the place since I was younger. We all have memories of the fun yet boring times we had at the shore. Back in the days, most of the Jersey Shore was scary looking... you still get a feel of that if you do drive by The Hood!

I used to love the shore because I would have buckets of steamers, clams on the half shell and freid clam strips! Of course there was the cold pizza we would eat as well!

Well I had the opportunity to relive my childhood feasting days at Bahrs Landing Seafood Restaurant and Marina. It's a great dinner spot and the place has been there since 1917. They have their own private lable of chowder, tobasco sauce and salt I think! For 85 years Bahr's has been the centerpiece of Sandy Hook.

Of course we had the chowder! New England Clam Chowder ... I love the stuff! But no matter what I still think Jay's Diner up in Rochester serves one of the meanest Chowders in the Tri-State Area.

New England Style Clam Chowder (White) Cup $4.50

Steamers - Purified Maine Softshell Clams served with broth and drawn butter. Market Rate

Fried Calamari - classic lightly breaded tender rings and tentacles served with a zesty marinara sauce. $11.50

Raw Bar Table Trio - Clams, Oysters, and Shrimp Cocktail $25.95

Bahrs Seafood Sampler
A combination of broiled or fried sea scallops, shrimp, fish fillet, & tender fried clam strips
$23.99

Zento Contemporary Japanese Restaurant

2009-09-08T13:20:00.004+08:00

I was exctied about Zento opened up at Dempsey Hill but was kinda disappointed when I went to try it. The food was good and interesting but we felt that they could have done better with more interesting concoctions for the vegetarian - it couuld also have been because Dyana was not around when we were ordering.

There were a few interesting dishes like their handroll which was made of a soyabean paper instead of the typical nori seaweed that they use.

Shown here is the Crunchy Spicy Tuna Roll

The Asparagus Salad was refreshing

Riceless Maki = Mango sashimi! A combination of three fish- Salmon, Tuna, Yellowtail, together with a slice of avocado and mango wrapped in rice paper.

Wagyu and Shrimp rolls delicious! The waygu beef sushi rolls were topped with melted gruyre and garlic sauce!

Would I go back? Probably ... but not that often. I do like the handroll very much!

Address: 18B Dempsey Road

Tel: +65 6474 0378

Dim Joy

2009-01-07T00:33:00.003+08:00

This is a nice little place, the decor is nice and sparse, but I found that the food wasn't great and the service staff was a tad bit confused... it took us 30 minutes to get our order because no one keyed it into the machine.

Actually when reading other people's reviews I keep wondering to myself if there's something wrong with their taste buds.... Anyway my comments below!

The High Calcium Pork Rib Porridge was not great at all, really the porridge base just wasn't there... plus the pork ribs was way too salty. Rather go to Ho Kee Porridge at Maxwell to eat.

Har Gow - also very salty and I felt they were pretty small compared to Victor's Kitchen.

Steamed rice rolls - not much sauce, kind of boring ... nothing to rave about.

Savory Claypot Rice - nothing impressive... they supposedly make their own soya sauce and they already have it poured into the rice ... but that kind of ruins the authenticity of clay pot rice.

Radish cake - I had both the pan fried one and the steamed one. For the steamed one, I think the one at Victor's Kitchen and Wah Lok at Carlton Hotel... it was kind of weird here cause they had peanuts. The fried one was decently fried the correct way, not the pale looking fried radish cake and the amount of stuffing was good.

Pork & Chive Wor Tip - it's not fantastic because they are a bit skinny... as in not enough stuffing ... although the crispiness was just right. If you want nice ones, I would recommend going to Pu Dong at Balmoral to eat the Wor Tip there.

Honey-Syrup Char Siew Bao - Lacking in stuffing and the skin is not soft enough ... goto Victor's Kitchen, it's nicer. If not goto Crystal Jade at Taka on the 4th floor.2008-11-16 20:05:08

You can check out what these items look like if you head over to the Dim Joy website www.dimjoy.com

I guess you can take some people who are not acquainted to Chinese Dim Sum there and they will think that it is good?!?

Infuzi

2009-01-06T23:37:00.004+08:00

Finally I remembered to take pictures at Infuzi, however, they came out ugly looking.. will try to ask my cousin to pass me the pictures another night.

You can actually ask for a special menu created for you at a higher price if you are particular in what you want to eat ... This picture of the fresh lobster is from another night where I requested to have a boston lobster steamed in a butter sauce ... yum delicious ... perfectly tender and the butter was nicely rich!

For the dinner I had with my cousin, I had a very nice steak ... I didn't order the Pan-Seared AustralianWagyu Rib-eye (Marbling 8+) with Red Wine sauce because when I had it previously, it wasn't what I expected ... when I ate it ... I was thinking ... I can go buy a piece of waygu at mediya and cook it myself ... perhaps the piece of meat was a bit thin for me .. hahahahah

I had the Grilled U.S Angus Rib-eye with Pearl Onion Sauce & Parsley Butter and my cousin had Duo of Kurobuta Pork;Pan-Roasted Rack with Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes with Chorizo, Braised Belly with Mirin & Rice Vinegar Reduction . My cousin greatly enjoyed the dish... I will try to get you a picture of that ... my pictures came out awfully dark and it just looks like a few blocks on a plate.

On a separate occasion, I went and had the set meal ... the newest addition to one of their set meals is a nice prawn pasta in curry sauce; I honestly think that they should include this on their menu as a standard entree.

Carpaccio of Yellow-fin Tunawith Arugula Salad,Anchovy Mayonnaise & Lime
Dressing
Caviar Pan-Fried Duck Liverwith Duck Sausage Confit,Onion Compote & Mesclun Salad
Prawn Pasta tossed inLight Curried Cream & Aged Parmesan
Sorbet
Grilled U.S Angus Tenderloin of Beef with Mushroom & Bacon Sauce
Slow-Baked Chocolate withPeanut Mousse & Berries' Puree
Coffee or Tea

Infuzi has a few good dishes ... the Maine Lobster Pasta with Lobster Oil & Japanese Seaweed, the Seared Hokkaido Scallops, Pan-Roasted Mud Crab Cake, Pan-Fried Duck Liver with Port Reduction

I think Satellite has some photos from Infuzi also ... but I don't think she will ever upload them ...

Capitol Restaurant 首都酒家

2009-01-06T22:54:00.005+08:00

Oh me oh my, I love it when it's Hairy Crabs (aka Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis, big binding crab (大閘蟹) and Shanghai hairy crab (上海毛蟹)), season although I hardly get to go enough these days ... partially cause of health reasons and partially cause I don't have time ... Wow, I can't believe that I am actually saying that I do not have time to eat HAIRY CRABS!

I usually make my way down to Capitol Restaurant 首都酒家 cause they have value for money Hairy Crabs and you don't have to go Yue Hwa or anywhere else to buy and steam yourself, plust to have to make sure you have the correct vinegar and make ginger tea afterwards ... what a headache! It's just as much of a headache with cold crabs.

Although I only make my way to Capitol once a year, the owners there recognize me ... which I like cause I've been going there for practically 9 years already ... since they were based at Cantoment ... they've moved around but have always stayed around the same proximity. They are now located at 323 New Bridge Road, but please remember to make reservations 6222 3938.

They bring in their crabs from Tai Lake in Shanghai, China.

The deliciously hot steamed crab with it's silky melting roe ... yummm I am getting hunger pangs just from writing that and thinking about it! Many people don't like to eat hairy crabs because it's just too much work ... but through hard work we are rewarded; once you dip that roe and some crab meat into the nice thick sweet tasting ginger vinegar mixture and you are shifted into another dimension... of course after eating too much you can expect to feel like you are going to have a heart attack soon because of the richness of the roe ... and by too much I mean 3 - 4 normal sized hairy crabs ... not the mini's!

To go with this wonderful delicacy is usually a hot chinese rice wine (usually fa tiu, like what we had); place a sour plum into the chinese rice wine to enhance the taste!

Good Old Home Cooking

2009-01-06T21:56:00.006+08:00

Simple meals to warm the heart! Note that these were cooked on separate occasions ... I am not that crazy to eat all these things in one night!

Szechuan Frog Leg Porridge ... I will place the recipe up when and if I remember how I cook this dish! But it's a great mid-night snack! Satellite and I enjoy eating this dish lots! Woops, I forgot to take a picture of the porridge.

Sumdumful, Jian and myself had a simple meal one night when we were all lazing around in the house and didn't want to step out. Steamed Herbal Drunken Prawns, Steamed Cod Fish Cantonese Tyle, and Bak Choy with Garlic.

Sumdumful, Jian and myself eating a simply cooked western styled dinner ... no salad cause Miss Satellite hasn't been around to make our wonderful salads!

This is cod fish with a lemon white wine sauce and red wine tomato pasta with sausages. By the way, they were my guinea pigs, as I'd never done up a lemon white wine sauce before ... there was salmon also that night but I didn't get a good picture of it!

Oh and I definitely cannot forget the weekly soup ... If I don't have soup I feel like I am missing something ... Home made soup is great for the health and good for your complexion ... best of all when you make it at home, you can be assured that there is no msg! Radish and carrot soup with red dates ... great for our kidneys and livers!

Hong Kong Cafes in Singapore

2009-01-06T21:25:00.007+08:00

Another player amongst the Hong Kong cafe scene of late is Crystal Jade, and they are doing a very bad job and most probably ruining their name ... they should just stick with their Crystal Jade Kitchen and have the cooks there do the work!

The newest edition to the family is located at Liang Seah Street, another one will be opening in Orchard soon ... I think the new building is called Orchard Central.

Authentic my ASS! Each and every HK Cafe in Singapore that claims themselves to be authentic fail in one place already ... they don't have chilli oil and when they didn't have chilli oil we asked for chilli padi (did you check out how stingy they are with their padi? look at the photo man!) ... and I think I have already complained about this several times. Further adding to the whole HK Cafe concept, I am not sure what a HK Cafe is supposed to be ... are they comparing themselves to a HK Coffee Shop. I think there is a major identity crises in Singapore.

Probably the only thing I found nice about the place was it's dimsum ... dimsum ... at a HK Cafe ... I really do not understand the concept at all! Do HK Cafe's have dimsum? I know early in the morning in HK coffee shops they have steamed rice rolls and stuff, but I do not recollect pan fried radish cake, chicken feet or even steamed pork ribs.... I must be in a nightmare.

Oh and by the way, the radish cake ... was more flour than radish ... and there was practically nothing else in the radish cake itself.

By the way, the soup noodles we had, had the same taste as the macroni soup they recommended ... it's ridiculous ... on top of that, I want to complain, the coffee shops in HK have delicious soup bases .. most of the famous ones boil their soups for a very long time... the soup base for most of the soup noodles are weak at Crystal Jade Hong Kong Cafe.

What type of fried rice with pork chop is this? I think this is something you can make at home! The rice seemed like steamed rice ... with chopped eggs and some type of chopped green vegie ... ok I have concluded that I was somewhere in the Twilight Zone of HK Cafe's that day!

The porridge you can stick to the one at Crystal Jade Kitchen, this is not impressive at all!

Hard Rock Cafe - KL

2009-01-06T21:08:00.004+08:00

My friend wanted to meet me at Hard Rock Cafe in KL, located at the first floor of the Concorde Hotel, although I don't mind eating western food, I've always been very skeptical about Hard Rock's food because their Quality Control for each branch is horrid! I've been to several and some are good, some are just plain horrible.

Frankly, I went in being skeptical but came out a pretty happy person! However, I did forget that American establishments serve American Sizes.

I should have just ordered the Caesar Salad which impressively I found delicious ... could it have been a lack of veggies in my diet for that trip? But I remember eating malay food and heaping the veggies on in the afternoon ... hmmm

I also had some open faced burger that wasn't impressive, the sauce was way too thick for me... sorry guys my pictures really suck ... was tired and hungry and the place was dark and noisy ... so very bad images!

KLIA Airport

2009-01-06T20:28:00.005+08:00

Of recent, I have been travelling to Kuala Lumpur quite a bit, and usually, I go to the airport early to have their food ... And my preference is to stick with Sbarro's Pizza or Mac D's ... a little reminder of home I guess.

Expect the unexpected! I had been dying to try the Noodle House at KLIA, and one day I finally did...and to my disappointment, the food was not great and wasn't authentic at all! At least not the prawn noodles. I have in all my life, even in the US, never tried a fusion'd version of Penang Prawn Noodles (aka. Prawn Mee, Har Meen, Mee Yoke, Penang Hokkien Mee, 福建虾面). There was cauliflower and baby corn and cabbage in it! And seriously, I saw 2 little pieces of pathetic halved prawns in it. Further adding to my complaint is that they use the same laddle for their chicken herb noodle soup which completely killed the prawn mee taste! Mind you, it's not cause the noodles were halal and the soup base wasn't made with pork, but really ... it tasted like herbal chicken soup with essence of prawns.......................................... The only thing that didn't allow me to starve was the fried wantons... it's kind of difficult to mess up on wantons!

PRAWN MEE RECIPE (learned from staring at my mum and my aunties, and also revisting the recipe from Lynx's mum)

This is my recipe which I refuse to use cause I bought little packets of instant prawn mee paste cause I am lazy now ... You'll see why after you read the recipe!

To create stock do the following:

Pan fry with about 1 tablespoon of vegie oil a Ziploc bag of shrimp shells, inclusive of heads, after the shells become red in colour, add 15 - 20 cups of water, 3 kg of pork ribs (cut into pieces), and 1 bulb of garlic ... boil for 3 hours on low heat

To make the chilli paste, use 20 - 30 dried red chillis deseeded (do not forget to soak to soften and allow the aroma to come out), 10 - 15 peeled shallots, 5 peeled cloves of garlic, 2 - 4 tablespoons of garlic, and about a handful of rinsed preserved dried baby prawns blend until smooth and then stir fry in about 6 - 8 tablespoons of vegie oil until fragrant.

Other ingredients needed to complete your dish: yellow noodles, rice vermicelli, kang kong, bean sprouts, lean pork meat that is boiled and thinly sliced, about 1kg of boiled prawns shelled and deveined (cut in half if you are being stingy), 4 boiled eggs halved, and some fried shallots (you can buy this from the store or make your own, but most people will usually end up burning the fried shallots)

When your stock is done, strain the stock, you can throw everything out ... but if you really want, you can keep the pork ribs (put aside) to add to your prawn noodles later. After you have strained the stock, bring the stock to a boil again and add about 1/3 of your chilli paste. (If people want their prawn noodles spicer, they can add it in later when the prawn noodles are complete).

Serve by placing a portion of yellow noodles, rice vermicelli, water convolvulus and bean sprouts (optional) in a bowl, pour hot stock over, then add your pork ribs, lean pork slices, shrimp, and egg. Final toping will be fried shallots and/or extra chilli paste in the bowl if desired.

I really should have stuck with Sbarro's pizza or McD's!

Economy Rice @ Home

2009-01-06T20:05:00.007+08:00

Recently I've been having fun cooking dishes and making it into an economy rice plate.

Just last night I cooked steamed chicken and steamed eggs (of which blur and hungry me forgot to put in some corn flour to make the egg a bit stiff). This meal takes only 45 minutes to make inclusive of cooking the rice. Check out how pathetic the plate looks, I should have placed the other 2 pieces of chicken on the plate!

Dinner in 45 Minutes!

First you: make rice and then start boiling water for whatever you are using to steam your food.

Take a 2 - 4 pieces of chicken, marinate for 10 minutes in 1/2 tbsp brandy, 1 tbsp each of light and dark soya sauce, a drop of seasme oil (optional). During this 10 minutes cut your ginger and spring onions into strips, after you finish cutting the ginger and spring onions (oh, and it's up to you how much you want to put into it). Steaming time is about 15 - 20 minutes.

When you see the water is boiled in your steaming mechanism, place your plate of chicken in the steamer.

For the egg, it's pretty simple, beat 2 eggs into chicken stock add some white pepper and then a tea spoon of corn flour. Put into a container and steam ... Some people like to add spring onions after the egg is steamed ... steaming time is about 8 minutes. You can also add century egg and salted egg to this dish as well.

There was another time I also made steamed herbal prawns, pork with ekoni mushrooms, lap cheong, stewed oyster sauce chicken with chinese mushroom, lap cheong and dao miu. Check out the pics! Oh, I had 2 other people eating with me that's why there was so much more food ... and I had eventually thought that I would dabao to Satellite's work place so she can be fed some real "healthy" home cooked food.

Pu Tien Heng Hwa Food

2009-01-06T19:34:00.003+08:00

Oh delicious so many interesting things to eat. Actually I thought I already posted this up some time ago... I am not really sure and a bit confused ... so I am going to post it again. Cause I do like Heng Hwa food and I want to go back and eat more.

For starters we had the Drunken Cockles, Iced Bitter Gourd, Steamed Cold Pork Belly with Garlic, and Braised Pork Intestines... All were delicious ... especially the drunken cockles! I think I subconciously typed out my order of preference!

For mains we had the Salty Spicy Bamboo Clam and the Fat 3 - Layer Glazed Pork!

And of course, I cannnot miss out on their specialty dishes ... these two are my favorite Heng Hwa dishes - fried Hing Hwa bee hoon and the Heng Hwa styled lor mee!!! Although these are specialty dishes, their bee hoon and lor mee cannot beat a small little coffee shop around race course road ... I am not really sure what it's called but it was located near the old ntuc at race course ... The Bee Hoon and Lor Mee at the coffee shop taste better than the ones at Pu Tien.

Pho 99 at Amoy Street

2009-01-06T19:19:00.003+08:00

Pho 99 at Amoy Street ... another venture of Sumdumful and my soupy things for lunch search...
Actually I can see the pho isn't bad ... except that it's not pho ... ok what I mean is the soup base and the ingredients aren't too bad, but they do confuse pho with kway teow in Singapore.

As you can see the cha gio is pretty pathetic. But seriously, any day anytime, this type of small eatery can beat the tastes of The Orange Lantern, which I find completely unauthentic. There used to be this place called Mai's I think at Marina Square ... there Vietnamese food was pretty authentic!

That being said, I am still looking for somewhere that has the authentic stuff!!! Can't wait till I get a change to get back to HCMC to get some of that yummy tasting Vietnamese food ... perhaps this time I will be able to eat!!!!

Soupy Noodles at Maxwell Food Center

2009-01-06T19:03:00.006+08:00

Always in search of soupy things!!! Sumdumful and I decided to head to Maxwell Food Center one fine day to try out this new stall that only serves herbal based soup noodles.

The noodles were very big, but I was told for the price, they should give that much! I don't exactly remember the stall name, but the soup noodles were definitely tasty!

Sumdumful had the chicken herbal soup and I had the porky soupy noodles but it wasn't the bak ku teh tasting type of herbal soup base.

Prince Coffee Shop 太子咖啡座

2009-01-06T18:50:00.006+08:00

Travel back in time when you go to the Prince Coffee Shop located at Coronation Plaza ... it's a nice quaint quiet little place.

Sometimes it's just these old places where you can reminisce about the past and taste a bit of history.

Beef Hor Fun is delicious and a must try! Ironcially the Hainanese Pork Chop which I think I forgot to take a picture of ... wasn't soo great ... The stew was nice as well ... but it would be nice as a stroganoff type of dish as the gravy style was more of a stroganoff gravy.

Prices are reasonable, especially the sets ... I am not surprised if many students from around the area head there to eat!

Address: 587 Bukit Timah Road #02-15 Coronation Plaza

Cook of the Day

2009-01-06T18:40:00.005+08:00

After a nice day of mah jong and chilling with my cousin and family friends, they were invited down to try out my cooking ... The only reason why I cooked is because our family friend will never let us pay for a meal when we go out ... so this was probably the only way we can treat back!

Anyway I cooked the typical, roasted chicken, pasta, onion soup with chicken, and pork chops (first time). The meal actually took me about 1 hour to prepare and it took us about 30 minutes to buy all the items we needed.

Recipes ... hahahaha I think you can find them online ... no big deal; Fact is I don't usually remember how I cook my things ... I'm pretty lucky ... usually it just works out pretty decent!

Look Look, The Chicken is Pooping Grass!!!

Oh yah, and I forgot the portobello mushrooms.

And then the whole table full of food ... so much, so much we couldn't finish! I think I remembered daboing it for Jian to eat... HeeHee ... think he had the prawn pasta ... not sure if Satellite ate any though...

5th Floor Far East Plaza Chicken Rice

2009-01-06T18:18:00.005+08:00

I really didn't find it all to fascinating the day I went to eat there... perhaps they have lost their standards.

If I can compare it to Boon Tong Key ... that's sad, as Boon Tong Key over the years has lost it's standards after their so called expansion and upgrade of their Balestier branch... Apparently one has to ask for Black Sauce there when ordering chicken rice from BTK Balestier...

Anyway back to Far East Plaza ... really really nothing special yet they still finish selling their chicken pretty quickly... maybe I should purposely try the other chicken rice stores around FEP to see whether the other ones around are even worse, perhaps that is why they are considered delicious.

Like seriously the rice was pretty tasteless and chilli had no kick, as for the chicken ... well I'm not a fan of healthy non-oily chicken ... When I go out and feast, I expect that I'll get a pulmonary attack from the food one day! If not, I'll just sit home and steam kampong chicken and vegies every day! Then again, no wonder the rice isn't fragrant enough!

The funny part is that the soup was more on the oily side, and I did enjoy the taste of the soup minus the oil, but when it comes to soup, it's very rare to hear me complain unless it's too salty, too much msg, bland or just plain old watered down. I think we were all fighting for all the preserved veg also!

Gangnaroo Korean Restaurant

2008-09-30T20:27:00.004+08:00

35 Circular Road

Tel: 6538 2837 / 9820 6889

A small but mouth watering lil hole in the wall home style korean fare run by a Korean couple.

The restaurant I think is more well known for their soupy dishes (hotpot / steamboat - call it what you like), although they do have your usual bibim bap and pajeon.

I was happy to see that they were pretty generous with their side dishes (ban chan). Just ask them and they keep refilling ... FOC.

They serve Jeongol as well as Jjigae. Jeongol was originally a dish for upper-class Koreans and members of the royal court, while jjigae was a simpler dish for commoners.

What's interesting is that they have the Budae-jjiggae (Army Base Stew) - During the Korean war people had little to eat. Most people had to fill their stomachs with the food distributed on the street called Kkulkkulijuk (meaning "pig's gruel"). People made this dish by combining left-over Spam and hot dogs from U.S. Army restaurants and whatever else was available. All the left-overs were put into pot with water and boiled. (Pretty disgusting eh!)

Restaurants usually use ramyeon noodles, ddeok (Korean rice cakes), sausages, meat, and goch'ujang paste for a hot and spicy taste, which Koreans like the most. To get the right taste of this dish, Spam sausage should be added.

We ordered the Spicy Pork Jeongol

Da Mario's not so Fantastic

2008-09-30T19:53:00.005+08:00

60 Robertson Quay #01-10 The Quayside
Tel: 6235 7623

Recently went down to Da Mario's to see what all the rave is about since so many of my friends asked me to go down ...

My review ... it really is average.

We went there and it was full of people, service was a bit slow and I had to do the help my self stint to get my chilli flakes. I wouldn't say that they are overly attentive ... perhaps it was a busy night ... but when isn't it busy?

Antipasti:

Breaded Mozzarella Sticks - $10 - Deep fried breaded mozzarella sticks with arrabiata sauce. I don't think anyone can go wrong with this ... unless of course the restaurant served it with maybe ketchup or something ... but then of course I think some people who love ketchup would probably love the combination!

We also had the Carpaccio di Manzo - $19 - Thin slices of raw beef tenderloin on a bed of rocket salad seasoned with fresh lemon, extra virgin olive oil and Grana Pando cheese, shaved. I think it would have tasted a bit nicer if they had added some sea salt on it and perhaps some balsamic. Of course that is the way I prefer it!

On we go to our main course - of course I had to have the carbonara - $16 ... I didn't quite like it cause I prefer my cabonara's super rich and tasty, I think it makes a difference if you use cream cheese versus Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano.

We also ordered a Sole Mio Pizza - $22 - Tomato, Cheese, Rocket Salad, Parma Ham and Shaved Parmesan Cheese. We felt that the base of the pizza was way too soft ... The texture kind of tasted like it wasn't fully cooked yet, but when we looked around ... everyone's pizza was just as white! Could be the type of Flour they use or the technique they use to make the dough. But to be fair, they were extremely generous on their toppings! It felt more like a salad with bread, than a pizza.

Dun mind the pictures .. was way too hungry so had to eat first!

Ba Yu Ren Jia

2008-09-20T19:03:00.011+08:00

We like to eat China restaurant food. Not the normal chinese Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew restaurants, but the Sichuan, Beijing restaurants that have been sprouting up in Singapore in recent years.

Having tried most of them in Chinatown (South Bridge Road, New Bridge Road and Smith St), and having read good reviews of this place, we decided to venture here. Lavender. Near Textile Centre. 791, North Bridge Road! I'm not too sure what Ba Yu Ren Jia means, but Babelfish says Ba Yu Ren is Palestinian Chongqing. So Ba Yu Ren Jia means Home of a Palestinian Chongqing person? Dunno man.

We came on a Saturday night. We could see it was quite popular with the China Chinese community. I think we could have been the only table of Singaporeans. Ba Yu Ren Jia offers 2 dining options - $13.80 Mala Steamboat (which we didn't try), and ala carte (which we did).

Cucumber

I had intended to order the cold cucumber appetizer, but it turned out to be stirfried, with sichuan peppers (aka prickly ash) and dried chillies. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but it was ok.

Marinated Chicken Feet

Tangy Chicken Feet with pickled celery, peppers and chillies. Quite hot and tasty, but it was rather tough. Maybe it's supposed to be like that.

Kou Shui Ji (Saliva Chicken, Salivating Chicken, Mouth-watering Chicken)

The first time I had Kou Shui Ji was at Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Pao. It was delicious, and I've been a fan ever since. The Kou Shui Ji at Ba Yu Ren Jia is the best I've ever had. The chicken (and cucumber at the bottom) was covered in a most fragrant, spicy, numbing hot sauce!

Ma Po Tofu

Ma Po Tofu is quite a common dish in Singapore, and it can be found in many restaurants, coffeeshop zi char stalls and is also cooked at home. However, it was only in recent years that I've discovered that the Ma Po Tofu I've grown up to know is not really Ma Po Tofu! Ma Po Tofu is not just tofu in a spicy minced meat sauce. It needs the all essential magic ingredient - Ground Sichuan Pepper. Yum. This Ma Po Tofu is also the best I've ever had.

Tan Tan Mian

After mixing it up, the noodles were covered in a thick peanut sauce. Delicious. Better than the one at Crystal Jade. Also the best I've ever had. I've ordered Tan Tan Mian in different places and very often, it turns out quite differently. It made me google to find out what Tan Tan Mian really is. Wikipedia says peanut sauce in Tan Tan Mian is a modern adaptation, but modern or traditional, it was still damn nice!

Sichuan Beef Noodles

This was good too, but the amount of beef was too stingy. Ok, good but nothing to harp on about.

Total bill: $44.70 for 3 persons, including 2 cups of chinese tea. We were also charged $1 per person for 1 small saucer of sichuan pickle and 1 small saucer of peanuts, and another $1 per person for wet paper towels. Quite a rip off, but ok, at least there's no service charge and GST.

So, it's recommended I'd say. Better than any other Sichuan restaurant we've gone to. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the chef used to be from the fine Si Chuan Dou Hua restaurant. Go eat!

Hakka Yong Tau Fu @ Jalan Peel

2008-09-10T14:21:00.004+08:00

Wow, you gotta eat here ... although the place isn't like a classy restaurant or anything but it's really worth it ... besides Yong Tau Fu, they had Vinegar Ginger Pig's Trotters and Assam Fish. We paid around 3o plus ringit .. Rice and drinks included as well.

If you want to go ... I guess you'll just have to ask them to bring you to Jalan Peel near Sekolah Yaakon Latif 1 &2.

Or just head down and hope you find it! There's another YTF stall in the back called Wah Kiow Yong Tau Fu... it's passed Carrefour and you come into a left hand fork in the road ... I think you go left if I remember correctly.

Bee's @ Menara TM Asia Life Building

2008-09-10T14:19:00.002+08:00

Some colleagues and I went out to lunch today and had the set meal at Bee's.

Pretty decent stuff!

For $8.50 Ringgit!!!! You get curry chicken rice and a ice lemon tea...... Check it out! It's a pretty big plate of food!

Porto Romano

2008-09-10T14:05:00.005+08:00

Well, we were supposed to go down to Restoran Yu Ai, but unfortunately we didn't know it closed so early, so we headed back to Mont Kiara for some mediterranean food.

Well of course I couldn't resist ordering the french onion soup, and it seriously wasn't french onion soup ... they should've just called it onion soup. There was a whole bunch of oregano and italian herbs in the soup that Onion Soup would have been more appropriate of a name for it.

I had the Lamb Shank, no complains here; it was pretty decent and tender, the portions was huge. I should have ordered salad rather than the side to be a pasta. Oh I asked for some tobascco for the pasta but they didn't have any; what they do have though is their own blend of hot sauce...which basically taste like a mix of chilli padi, vinegar and other spices.

My cousin went ahead and ordered the Paella Risotto. Actually, it was pretty decent... it's not like the usual Risotto where it's all mushy like gruel or porridge.

Well, head on over to check it out. Supposedly they have another outlet in town.

Eng Seng Coffee Shop

2008-08-31T21:27:00.004+08:00

Is it really all that, so much so that they have a long long queue and the aunty scolds you... yes yes yes it's another food nazi ... rude owner/waitress/ah-hoon!

Well ... it is all that ... don't miss out ... by far the best I've tried in Singapore ... they don't put the pepper until it kills the sweetness of the crab meat.... dun some of these folks get it ... too much black pepper makes the sauce bitter .... these people at Eng Seng, brilliant, as they use a bit of honey to accompany the black pepper, giving the sauce a tint of sweetness ... not overpowering anything though ... the perfect balance I must say.

My advice to you is to either call first or go early and wait for a table ... like I mean the kiasu type of early ... by the way they only open at 5. Dun bother going at 7pm cause they might not have any crabs left.

Try the mee goreng as well ... dun bother with the malaysian hookien mee ... not nice anymore.

247 Joo Chiat Place, 64405560

The Effort of Three

2008-08-31T21:08:00.004+08:00

Sunday night dinner ... we decided to cook up a feast!

Spicy Tomato Soup
Tangy Scallop Salad
Spicy Spaghetti White Wine Clam Sauce
Baked Bread Crumbed Cod with Cheese and Stir fried Zuchinni

Don't remember the recipes ... so please figure it out yourself ... hahahahahah

Spicy Tomato Soup, Tangy Scallop Salad, Spicy Spaghetti White Wine Clam Sauce
Doesn't it look like a set meal from somewhere?

One month ago to date

2008-08-31T21:03:00.004+08:00

Late night ah boozing and ah snacking .... heeheehee ... Thanks Satellite for working so hard in the middle of the night to feed us all the time!!!

Tuck Shop - Tanjong Pagar Road

2008-08-31T20:50:00.004+08:00

21 Tanjong Pagar Road #01-05
Tel: 6534-9287

A great place for a couple of beers and some bar food ... I must say, it's been awhile since I had a nice steak sandwich in Singapore ... and really if you are craving a nice delicious steak sandwich (only $12.90), Tuck Shop is the place to go!

Actually Lynx was the one who told me about it... she said Draco you gotta go ... you'll like the steak sandwich ... but remember it's not exactly your philly cheese steak ok ... so I went and tried ...

By the way, they have a reasonable happy hour deal, although it ends early!

If you are looking for fine dining ... go some place else cause you are not going to find it here... oh yeah one more thing... the CAESAR SALAD is decent, they don't use that bottled stuff ... I think they actually make it from scratch!!!!!!!!! Lynx also thought so ...

And guess what Lynx had ... she had the fried chicken ... what else ... FRIED FRIED FRIED ... everything FRIED!

The Olive @ Genting Hotel

2008-08-31T20:03:00.015+08:00

Ok ok ... maybe I am too picky ... but although the restaurant is good ... I wouldn't say it was fantastic, seeing that it is a signature award-winning restaurant!

The better looking image is from Jules eating guide! See the difference in photography!

Mind the pictures ... back then I was really trying to figure out how to use this phone ... but now I am just pure lazy to switch the settings around. My cousin says I should go for photography class! Hurhur ... what I really want is a professional digital camera ... anyone wanna buy for me ... the one I want ah ... is like a couple thousand dollars .... muahahahahahhahaha ... I'm waiting!!!!!

The only things I found good were, 1 the antipasto plate, 2 the mushroom soup, 3 the steaks (unfortunately, they forgot to give me good grade olive oil and balsamic to dip my t-bone steak in, although it didn't need it)

The rest liked the portobello mushrooms ... but I found the serving a bit pathetic!

I think Vikki ordered the pasta with clams ... she found it a bit on the tangy side cause they used a lemon tomato sauce type base ... but of course sometimes I feel it doesn't make a difference because Vik loves to use Tobasco sauce!

Miss Fang Tai had the Squid ink pasta, she found the pasta a bit over cooked ... but the sauce was yummy on the jalat side of things.

Daniel's Ribeye steak was nice also!

To be fair, I got to admit, by the time the pizza came, I was a bit too full and couldn't really taste the pizza ... if I had not pigged out so quickly, I think I would still be able to give a fair review of the pizza.... hahahaha

Thai Village Sharksfin Restaurant @ Goodwood

2008-08-31T19:18:00.008+08:00

I heard lots about Thai Village Sharksfin Restaurant and had high expectations for the place... especially since Satellite said it was good ... hmmm but that was in 2007...

Only good thing is probably the Sharksfin - for those who like super duper thick sharksfin ... go for it ... but I don't think I've had any sharksfin in Singapore that can beat the quality one can find in Hong Kong ... or even the one my Mom cooks! Yummy!!!!

Anyway ... I don't think anyone was really impressed with the food ... they have this Abalone rice thing ... which costs a ridiculous $28 per serving ... 1) you ruin the taste of the abalone .. but of course they were using the cheaper abalone ... 2) I can get mui fan anywhere else with abalone mushroom and I'd be happier ... Mui Fan, the asian equivalent to Risotto.
The cod fish in black sauce ... horrible ... the sauce is so thick that you can't taste the cod at all ... I think this is supposedly their Baked Thai Style Cod Fish ... totally fail lor!
Hmm I didn't try the crabs that night ... I only had the opportunity to peel them for everyone since I just finished my operation ... didn't want to promote infection ya know! The most tortureous part of the night ... see crab, peel crab ... dun get to eat crab! hahahahah....

Oh, we did order vegetables, but really there was no point in taking pictures of it ... as you'd be disappointed also ... the veg was old ... not nice tasting ... asked them to take it back and give us some other more "young" veggies but to no avail ... it was just as old tasting!

Hock Lam Street Popular Beef Kway Teow

2008-08-31T19:07:00.005+08:00

12 North Canal Road
Mon- Fri 10.15am - 9pm
Sat- Sun 10.15am- 5pm

Hmm I was a bit disappointed, perhaps that Purvis one is much better than the one at North Canal ... and perhaps it's cause I opted for the soupy version that day.

As usual, I cannot say much about the service from these stalls these days ... haizzz ... the lady would only speak to me in Chinese so ... oh well ... what to do! Actually eating beef noodles was a complete accident that day, I wanted to try Baikohken... unfortunately they just closed for the afternoon.

Please goto 27 Purvis Street, #01-01 An Chuan Building, Singapore instead!

The Secret Garden

2008-08-26T22:43:00.005+08:00

161 Middle Road next to Waterloo Street
Sun - Thur: 11am - 11pm
Fri and Sat: 11pm - 1am
Public Holiday: 6pm - 11pm
CNY: Closed on 1st and 2nd Day; 3rd Day 6pm - 11pm

Tel: 6337 5338 / 63348334

Yummy and reasonable ... errr wat am I talking about ... I dun remember how much and I didn't pay ... but it is reasonable!!!!

Yes yes, what more can you expect from me, of course I ordered my favorite Caesar Salad! I did enjoy the salad, very rare that I say that these days cause not many people make a decent caesar salad. The price of the Caesar, $12.00.

And yes, as usual I take bad pictures ... I just can't seem to get this camera to work correctly. Probably cause I don't really bother to change the settings and all... anyway it's a camera phone ... what do you expect???

The burger was decent ... I was craving burgers so I had to! Yah I liked it, would I go back again to eat ... definitely! Burger was like $18.00 and it was a decent size.

Again I was too busy gobbling away to take other photos of the other dishes people ordered. Couldn't be bothered! .... That's what happens when you are stuck on hospital food for many days!

Woo Pin Fish Head Noodle

2008-08-26T22:27:00.005+08:00

Woo Pin Fish Head Noodles @ Ho A One Seafood Steamboat Restaurant
(opposite S.K.Danau Perdana)
Jalan 1/109F, Taman Danau Desa
Kuala Lumpur
7.30am – 2.30pm (closed alternate Mondays)

Today for lunch we went to Woo Pin Fish Head Noodle ... yummmy ... I haven't had fish head noodle for awhile but this one was good, except that the fish had too much bones in it!

You definitely have to go to check it out .. the soup is nice and rich!

Ka-soh Malaysia - What a disappointment

2008-08-26T18:19:00.004+08:00

1. 136, Jalan Kasah, Medan Damansara, 59490 Kuala Lumpur (see map). Tel: 03-2093 0905

2. 205, Jalan Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur (opposite Ritz Carlton)Tel: 03-2148 2207, 03-2148 3207, 03-2148 2723

3. No 59-G, The Boulevard, Mid Valley City, Lingkaran Syed Putra, 59200 Kuala LumpurTel: 03-2287 6327/8/9

Went to Ka-soh with my colleagues the other night for dinner ... was totally like disappointed.

Firstly, the place was like totally quiet except for maybe another table of 4 people or something ...

Secondly, their Curry Fish head had way too much curry powder, they didn't know how to cook kangkong belachan correctly ... like how messed up is that, then we also had some pork and yam dish that is supposed to be a shanghainese style dish that went all wrong ... the yams were too soft, way too soft!!! The only decent thing was probably the fried frogs legs which I found to be a bit too sweet for my taste.

All in all a disappointment.

Amici Italian Restaurant

2008-08-13T20:00:00.007+08:00

275 Holland AvenueHOLLAND VILLAGE Singapore 278993Tel/Hp : 64699989

Went to have dinner there and am not sure whether it was because we were eating on a credit card 1-for-1 promotion, but frankly speaking, we found that Al Dente definitely tasted much better.

I had the spaghetti vongole in white wine sauce, which was unimpressive because the vongole, happened to be too small and missing lots of meat! What a disappointment... I really miss the New York City linguini with white clam sauce ... where they have really nice big Little Neck Clams! Yum delicious!

Of course Reginald, happily ordered the cabonara, which he found unimpressive as it wasn't as rich and thick has he expected ... oh well ... and all he can say is, when will you be making your cabonara Draco!

And last but not least, Vik n Daniel decided to as usual go for the Seafood Marinara, their favorite dish I think! Indeed they were disappointed, they were given 1 prawn, a scallop, a squid ring and a cray fish... the portion was pathetic. Honestly it was good that we had all ordered soups and salads to share before our main course came. Notice the green parsley they have on every dish of pasta?

The only redeeming factor to the meal was the decent smoked salmon caesar salad, yes I am addicted to caesar salad ... just love it when it's done correctly. The mushroom soup and the seafood soup was decent, although the seafood soup again was lacking a bit of seafood.

Basically, we were so unsatisfied that we went over to Tango's to eat their clams in white wine sauce which has never failed our taste bud. Also because they have a pretty good happy hour!

Saso Rosso Italian Restaurant

2008-06-25T18:55:00.007+08:00

When I was up in Kuala Lumpur for my roadshow, I took my client to Saso Rosso Italian Restaurant which was recommended by the concierge at the Hotel Imperial - the old Sheraton.

As usual I was super hungry and over ordered again!

9 Lorong Yap Kwan Seng50450 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 603 21 666 428Fax: 603 21 666 429

Tuna Carpaccio

Clams soup in white wine and garlic bread

Sri Lanka live crab penne with olive oil, garlic, fresh basil leaves and prawns bisque

600gr of imported T-bone steak, fiorentina style- with 15 years Modena balsamic vinegar

Mash Potatoes and sautéed spinach

The Tuna Carpaccio was surprising ... as both my client and I thought that the Tuna had become salmon... on top of that, I wasn't impressed with it cause it wasn't the traditional carpaccio I am used to as it was a smoked tuna. It also came with these big tomatoes. Oh yah, and the smoked tuna was way too salty.

The Clam Soup was delicious ... especially when we dipped the nice thin bread that they provide in their bread basket!

Yes, and yet again, I forgot to take pics because of my hunger!

Crab penne wasn't impressive at all ... the prawn bisque completely killed the taste of the crab and it seemed as though many spices were missing from the pasta itself... a bit bland for our taste. We obviously didn't finish the pasta. At least the penne was al dente!

Florentine was delicious and big. We finished it!

For the side dish of spinach, we found it strange that they would use local spinach, furthermore it was way too salty.

Apparently the owner heard me complaining about the spinach came over and spoke to me for a bit then offered us his own personal stash of lemoncello! That was delicious! Ha ha ha I'm such an alcoholic. But I actually told him his crab penne was a failure to my taste buds.

The ambience of the place is nice and romantic though! Would I go back? Probably just to see if there are any improvements.

Pietrasanta - The Italian Restaurant

2008-06-25T18:39:00.005+08:00

5B Portsdown Road, #01-03 Wessex Estate, Singapore

Came upon this place by chance as Satellite and I were getting hungry before going to work. The food was decent but there seemed to be a lack of flavoring for most of the stuff we ate. Don't recall everything we ate, but I think we had a pasta which I forgot to take a picture of and definitely had the Beef Florentine which was a gigantic T-bone steak ... yummy and succulent... I really enjoyed that.

Perhaps Satellite remembers the entire list of dishes we tried there.

Biopolis - Bistro Faoulous or Not

2008-06-25T18:30:00.005+08:00

Address
20 Biopolis Way#01-01 CentrosSingapore 138668

Hmmm wasn't too impressed with the food ... perhaps it's not Bistro Faboulous... not very sure but it's been awhile since I've been there and the place where I had lunch wasn't fantastic at all... Perhaps the wrong restaurant ... that being said, the portions for everything was pretty good. The finger foods were a bit weird.

We ordered a Cobb Salad but the Cobb was missing! But we were pretty happy with the French Onion Soup ... but seirously how wrong can you go with French Onion Soup!

Didn't really enjoy this weird spring roll finger food that was stuffed with some cream cheese and spinach if I recall correctly ... it was a weird combination.

The burger was a decent size ... but was a bit over cooked ... I did ask for medium rare...

World Gourmet Summit 2008 - Global Kitchen

2008-06-25T18:06:00.009+08:00

Met up with a friend to try out the menu at Global Kitchen during the World Gourmet Summit.
Hotel:
Restaurant Type: International
Partner Chef(s):
Masterchef:
Enquiries: (65) 6826 8240

It was fairly delicious and I had a pleasant surprise with the pea soup! Yes pea soup! I don't like peas but perhaps I was hungry that day cause I finished the whole bowl!

Next came the foie gras and seared scallops as a starter! They are french chefs, of course they know how to cook a succulent piece of foie gras... The foie gras sauce base was a strawberry red wine sauce. The scallops were not too fascinating.

Next came the mains. I had the lamb while my friend had the fish. The lamb was superbly tender and yet again I forgot to take a photo of it. My friend enjoyed the fish!

Dessert - as mush as I don't eat dessert ... well here's the photos since it was a set meal anyway!

Great with presentation and service was superb!

Yangzhou Restaurant

2008-03-10T00:45:00.006+08:00

Well well ... what type of cuisine did you think it was? Yes Yangzhou restaurant serves yangzhou food ... this small cafeteria like looking place actually serves decent yummy food, just don't order the hot and sour soup ... it's not nice at all.

Address: 31/33 Smith Street Tel: 6227 1998

The rest of the food was good, especially the Yangzhou fried rice, I'm not kidding.

I had fried dumplings, hot and sour soup, fried rice, smoked cold duck, and some free side dishes of peanuts and pickled vegitables which was actually pretty nice. The smoked cold duck was nice as well, but the dumplings were just as normal as anywhere else.

Chatter Box - Orchard Mandarin

2008-03-10T00:23:00.007+08:00

Chatterbox known as Home of the Mandarin Chicken Rice located at the ground floor of the Meritus Mandarin, 333 Orchard Road, 238867.

Out of all honesty, I think the standard keeps on dropping over the years, and it's really nothing to make noise about and to pay $19.00 for chicken rice while you can get it for $3-4 at a hawker centre???? Furthermore, it's not like the service is excellent. I've been there a few times and really, if I'm not entertaining or it's not the middle of the night and I am lazy to think where to eat ... I really wouldn't go back.

Here's what I had with Satellite and Eve the last time we were there! Bak ku teh, nasi goreng, chicken rice and a ceasar salad with chicken rice chicken ... weird combo by the way ...

eM By The River (cafe & bar)

2008-03-10T00:16:00.003+08:00

Hmm a nice Sunday breakfast I had at a drinking joint! And yes, I didn't touch a drop of alcohol that morning! Service is great, you get to surf for free ... why not!!!

And if you do drink there, it's worth it to get the mixed drinks that come in the bottle .... awesome!

Cappadocia Café

2008-03-09T23:19:00.008+08:00

Cappadocia Café Restaurant is a Mediterranean cum Turkish restaurant situated at Robertson Quay: 11, Unity Street, #01-12, Robertson Walk, Singapore 237995Tel / Fax : 6732 2411

We ordered the Karisik Meze Tabagi, which consisted of Yaprak Sarma, Cacik, Hummus, Sigara Boregi and Bread. Yaprak Sarma is vine leaves stuffed with pilaf rice, pine nuts, currants and caramalized onions drizzled in olive oil. Hummus is mashed chick peas, tahani, olive oil and spices. Cacik is made of diced cucumbers in yogurt with fresh dill, mint and garlic. Sira Boregi is a rolled savoury pastry with feta cheese and spinach stuffing. On top of that for starters we also ordered the Moutabel which is a blend of mashed smoked eggplant with tahini, olive oil and spices.

I enjoyed the sira boregi and of course the hummus and cacik. The Moutabel wasn't anything to rave about.

For our main courses, I opted for Pideler, Turkish Pizza. I ordered the Pastrima Kasarli that is made of sliced roasted lamb, mozerella and egg. I think Jian ordered the Beef Shish Kebab and Sumdumful ordered the Patlican Sis Kofte, which is grilled skewered minced beef and eggplant.

The meal was pretty ok, I felt that the lamb needed more seasoning, but all in all we had a delightful evening.

More information on pricing can be found at http://www.singaporemirror.com.sg/co_cappadocia.htm

Santouka" or "山頭火"-

2008-03-09T19:41:00.005+08:00

Santouka is a popular hokaido style ramen shop in Japan which is now located in The Central @ Clarke Quay, #02-76.

The regular ramen - Miso, Shoyu, Shio, Karai Miso are going for about $12++ per bowl, char siew ramen (with same flavours) is about $15++ per bowl.

The prices are ok, but the shop is really small, I think at max you can probably fit about 30 people inside.

I was with some friends so we basically each had one type of ramen! I couldn't really determine what all the hype was about, as I found that it was comparitive to other ramen joints that I have been to. I ordered the Tokusen Toroniku Ramen the house speciality with kara miso. Tokusen Toroniku is roasted cheeks from the pig's head; it is very tender and tasty (this is the only differentiating factor compared to other ramen shops). They only have enough to serve 80 servings of tokusen toroniku each day and when their soup runs out they will close early. The meat is served separate along with the condiments for the ramen.