Il Siciliano @ Faber Drive

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

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!

Baden @ Holland Village

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).

Tango's for Dinner

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.

Shou La Shou (Hand In Hand) Beijing Restaurant

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?

Sum Sanwich Joint Jus Next to Sim Lim Square

I fink it's calld 'The Patissiere' or sumfing... but dat can't be.... Cos I werk jus opposite 'The Pattisier' wich is lyk dis fuckin atas pastry shop.... So I know dat de sannie joint has a Patissiere or Patissier werd innit, but de actual name eludes me.... SO.... We went to Sim Lim Square to buy external hard disk drives fer us & we sat down at dis 'Patissier' place to sit down whilst he went thru all de pamphlets to decide wich HDD to buy & have a beer to cool off & a bite to munch on. Deir beer is quite cheep, I fink.... I FIIIINK a pint of Erdinger (bottled one) is $8-$10 (I can't rememba, cos it was a while ago). Dey got both de lite & dark one. Deir draft is Tiger. Dunno how much cos I wasn't lewkin. We had a (nowt furry nice) curry puff each. But I wasn't realli happi wif it (nowt dat I wasn hungry or anyfing, but I wantd to taste sumfing NICE..... So I made him share........

....DIS YUMMI SALMON SANDWICH wif me!!! I fink it's lyk $6.50 or $6.90..... On foccaccia bread. Wif dose Jack & Jill type of tater chips. Dun mind de bites in de sannie. I din fink de sannie'd be dat spectaculer until I bit into it..... Eheh.....

SEE!!! So much salmon lei!!! Alot of vege asso. I happi lyk cat liddat.... Wen I finishd my half, I was eyein his half.. AHAHAHAHA..... Anyways, dey got interesting sannies lyk 'Spinach & Camembert Cheese" fer $12.90 (mebe is $12.80) & 'Tofu & Sun-Dried Tomato' (same price). Dey got many otha sannies asso!!! Nowt cheep fer a hole-in-de-wall kinda plc, wif tables & chairs of de metallic kinda, but hey, de sannies are gewd..... Well, at least, de one we had was.......

27/08/07:

K... It's calld 'Cafe Patisserie', and it's at Burlington Square. Fanks Jian! Heh....

Portobelle @ Kiliney Road

Hrmpf.

De inside of Portobelle. It's dis lil restaurant along Kiliney Road. Opposite De NTUC dere. Feels kinda cosy inside, cept fer de lack of cushiond seats. Hyuk. ANYWAYS. I fink.... Despite de slightly haphazard (dey left 3 menus onna 2 seata table & left an order booklet on de table as well... even afta we sat down. But yew gotta fergif em. Dere's oni 1 person serving & 1 chef & 1 kitchen helpa... if am nowt wrong.) feel of de service, twas frenly & everyfing. Food was well prepared & served lewkin pretti enuff...


Our Melazane starta ($6.50). Is grilld eggplant in balsamic vinegar & olive oil & sprikled wif fried garlic. Got sum pickles to go wif em as well. Tastee!

Jian's Moussaka ($18.90). Is chicken & eggplant & a rich creamy sauce. Jian likens it to lasagna, wif de eggplant replacing de sheets of pasta. Is quite nice. He lyks lasagna & he lyks eggplant too, so he was happi.

My Vongole ($18.90). Yew choose yer pasta. I fink yew choose between spaghetti, fusili, fettucine (wich is wot I chose) & linguine. So many clams!!!!!!! Nice, but nowt speshul, I suppose. Realli, how speshul can pasta get, rite? But twas gewd.

Washd everyfing down wif dis wheat beer. 3 bottles (330ml) fer $26.90. Service charge & GST apply.

Bei Fang Feng Wei @ Pearl's Centre 01-24

We went to watch a derty movie dis aftanoon. Afta we bot de tix, we at lunch at dis (insert name) place. We noticed it de las tym we went to watch anotha (pathetic) derty movie. Dey haf anotha (prolli de main) branch at Smith Street asso. Dis stall is run by 2 Chinese nationals. Dey're pretti gewd! & I double checkd de meat in de dumplings. Din lewk (or taste) lyk solvent-soakd cardboard. We shared de Beef Noodles (soopy one. Dey ran out of Zha Jiang Mian), Fried Tofu in Chili & Pan-Fried Dumplings (Gow Gees, to our ang moh frens. I am furry amused wif de way dey spelt it inna cookbook dat I bot, nowt too long ago).

'Where? Where is my food??'

YUMMY! It tastes FURRY MUCH lyk de beef noodles frem Crystal Jade!!!!! & de guy pulls (meks) de noodles right in front of yer face!!! Fresh noodles!!!! WOW!!!!! Fer a mere $3!!!! I cood eat dis evryday!!! We wantd to orda de Zha Jiang Mian, but dey din haf.... Anyways... No nid to fret. I can walk ova any tym (lyk real all, de lazy fuck, dat I am).

Dis one came wif rice, actualli. We din wannit, so we returnd it to dem. Nice. Dunno wot kinda chili sauce dey use, tho. I lurv tofu, so pretti much any tofu (I havn't tried Smelli Beancurd tho) sits well wif me. I especialli lyk de wobbly kind, lyk dis one. $3.50.

Dumplings were alright. Which is nowt a bad fing, realli. I cooda said dat dey suckd, rite? De haf pre-prepared dumplings in dis fridge (de kind dat yew open frem de top, lyk de kind dat de ol lady in Desperate Housewives used to store her ice cream & her dead husband in) & dey boil em or fry em on de spot. Akcherli, I suppose yew cood say dat de dumplings were pretti gewd la. Yummy. Oh & dey got a few different kinds of condiments. De chili dat Jian took was pretti tasty. Is de type of chili dat has a thicka consistency. $3.50 fer de dumplings. Which brings it to a total of $10 fer de both of us!!!!! WOW! & den we went to Portobelle to eat & drink $77 werf of food & beer. Dat post will come lata.

Dere is anotha eatery in Chinatown dat is pretti gewd too. I fink it's on Smith Street as well. It's calld Vietnamese #1 (yar, I KNOW de food group is nowt de same, but de area is.... HAAHAA). In my eyes, it realli is yummi. My tum finks so too.... Run by troo bloo Vietnamese. I will write abowt it next tym asso. I realli feel quite lazee now.

HOOTERS - such a disappointment

WELL WELL WELL WE FINALLY GOT TO HOOTERS ONE DAY, and it is such a DISAPPOINTMENT!

Expensive, no nice things to see or eat ..... haizzzzzzzzzzzzzz .... at least the champagne was cheap! Other than that ... nothing else to write about.

Wings sub-standard, goto Handle Bar if you like really good Buffalo Wings or even Jerry's, Billy Bombers is nice as well! The so called reallhy spicy Buffalo Wings can't match up ... if I can say it's not spicy, well there you go, it ain't spicy!!!! ................................ ARGH ...................... WELL KNOWN .............. eeekkkk ........................

What else did we eat? Hmm lemme see ... Seafood Sampler Platter ... PATHETIC!

And why is it that they don't have their FAMOUS Steamed CLAMS everytime I ask for them .... I mean come on, their supposed to be famous for all this stuff aren't they? So why don't they have them???

I think the main people at HOOTERS from MIAMI should come down and check out how pathetically bad the food here is ... not to mention, the gals aren't too pretty also ... the best gals, are still down in Miami!!!!!!

I don't have any pics ... I think someone else has them, so will wait for them to post!

Valentine's Dinner at Hue Restobar

So it was Valentine's Day and I had made reservations at Hue Restobar at the Amara Hotel. It was supposed to be a surprise (surprise as in dunno what to expect, not surprise as in WOW!) for Sumdumful, except Simon didn't know it was supposed to be a surprise and told her I was gonna bring her here. Anyway, we have walked past this place several times but had never really paid much attention to it.

Hue Restobar (pronounced as 'Hway')
Our Vietnamese Restaurant and Bar, offers authentic Vietnamese cuisine in a contemporary and minimalist interior. It is the perfect setting for a sumptuous lunch, a romantic dinner or a relaxing after-hours hangout.

I had picked this place because they were offering an affordable set dinner including glass of red/white wine. I was expecting more of a Vietnamese menu (perhaps presented french style), but it turned out more like European food that's slightly Vietnamese influenced. Well, not that I'm complaining actually.

When we arrived, the restaurant looked pretty good with its minimalist decor in dim lighting and rose petals strewn around on the floor. However, they were playing mushy love ballads which made me cringe at times. Sitting through an entire dinner with mushy love songs is overkill and unbearable if you ask me. I really hope they play better, more appropriate music like chillout, lounge music on normal days as the ambience would have been a million times better!!

We were the first to arrive, which was good in the sense that it kept the suspense for us as we couldn't see beforehand how the next course would be served. I'm sure we must have spoilt the fun for the rest of the couples everytime our courses arrived! Bwahahahaha!

They promptly served us our wines when we sat down. The first course was Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Seafood Quenelle. The soup was very delicious and it an excellent smooth, creamy consistency. The Seafood Quenelle is something like a poached dumpling made with mashed seafood - a bit like a soft fishball with seafood flavour.

The next course of starter was this Warm Salad of Scallop and Endives Duck with Grand Marnier. Interesting flavours nicely presented. It made me look forward with anticipation to see how the rest of the courses would be like. Sauce can look sexy sometimes if drizzled sexily on a plate.

This was my choice of Main Course - Spring Chicken simmered with Red Wine and Grilled King Oyster Mushrooms. I wasn't sure there were any Grilled King Oyster Mushrooms on my plate though. I think the chef somehow decided to serve it with Sumdumful's Cod instead. :-S

The aforementioned Sumdumful's Grilled Cod Fillet with Braised and Crayfish Sauce. The slices you see are probably the grilled king mushrooms that should have been on my plate. HAHA. The cod was delicious. OK, actually, cod is almost always delicious, but this cod was pan seared perfectly and the sauce complemented it beautifully.

Eat finish already. Full. Burp.

Dessert - Champagne Sago Soup with Summer Fruits. We couldn't really taste any champagne in the sago. The summer fruits were an assortment of berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrents etc) cooked with sugar until the juice reduces into a sauce. However, it was way too SOUR. Not enough sugar.

Ok, at least the Chocolate Pralines were nice.

One glass of wine each is never enough for us. We also drank some draft Hoegaarden.

Yes, this "I Love You" cushion is mushy. But not my fault, it's free! At least I HOPE it is, cuz I took it from the table. And it's smooth and nice to squeeze.

Overall, it was a pretty good experience, the food was good and thumbs up for the service. Pity about the music though. *EEeWWW*

1 Lunch and 2 Dinners

Brussels Sprouts
80 Mohammed Sultan Road #01-12 The Pier @ Robertson
Tel: 6887 4344



A beautiful day like Sunday landed me at Robertson Quay... my favorite hangout place on Sundays; you gotta love the ambience. And instead of coffee, tea or juices, we started with the typical breakfast for a sunday!

So the day of festivities started at Brussel Sprouts for lunch, really besides the beer being slightly reasonably priced, the food itself is no big hoohah... I mean honestly, the mussels that they so claim popularity for was smaller then the head of the fork ... basically pathetic ... now for some self praise ... I heard a few friends commenting that my impromptu sake mussels tasted better! Here are some pics for ya! Oh yah, the sausages were cut, so they look even more ugly then they actually are... hahahahaha ... One more thing to add, they have free flow fries with an order of mussels.

Unfortunate for you all, I didn't go out with my handy camera and was just using my phone to take pics, so the images are really off in colour.

Expensive food but cheap drinks and nice comfie decor, but I think you would rather stick to sitting inside cause the outside seats do get pretty warm. If you are looking for better mussels, you may want to try out Ooster http://www.oosters.com.sg/ at Pekin Street, I hear they have a good selection of Belgian beers as well.

Oosters' address:

25 Church Street, #01-04 Capital Square Three,Singapore 049482Tel: 6438 3210

And off I went with Lynx and Rice King to Crazy Horse for their last show, and of course I had to try the food before they closed ... so there we went for a rushed dinner! Ambience is lovely, love all the red and plush everything ... so cozy I wanted to sleep ... I mean honestly all of Crazy Horse is like RED, very classy not gaudy type.

The food was good, we had a type of crab meat salad which was deliciously done, and then shellfish bisque, which kind of tasted like penang prawn mee soup base, which we also loved; lastly we tried the steak (rib eye). Pretty much a thumbs up, too bad not many people knew about their restaurant ... from my understanding, there set lunches were reasonable.

I won't bother with posting up the address because they're closing down anyway and whatever takes over that spot will probably have a new kitchen crew and all.

I find it pretty disappointing that people don't know how to enjoy the Crazy Horse show as a type of French Art .... I mean honestly speaking the end of Crazy Horse may set back the education that Singapore has been trying to promote by maybe 2 years. Too early for their time, but of course the show does get stale if they don't do anything about changing the sets; however, that being said, Crazy Horse could have done more ... so I guess they weren't fully ready to take on Singapore and Singapore also wasn't ready for something like this.

Guess what, after the show and all, we were still having our little hunger pangs, so we went to search for food. We were supposed to go eat Naan, but then we came across Park 10, Korean Cuisine and Izakaya Bar.

Park 10, Clarke Quay, 3B River Valley Road, #01-14, Singapore 179021

Tel: 6332 1010

Last order is at 10:00 I think and restaurant closes at 11:00.

We ordered bbq beef ribs, pork collar neck, raw beef, and miso beef soup; all were pretty delightful. Unfortunately, the pricing is still pricier than our favorite Da Chang Jing, but what can I say, when you are craving for food, well you just gotta go eat it! Also they don't give as much side dishes :-( But to add to the plus part, the alcohol isn't expensive, we paid about $18 for a small bottle of sake. The thing about this place is I don't think they allow you to cook the food, so it's not as fun ... they have this big charcoal run bbq pit that they do all the bbq'ing in. Nice posh up class Korean joint!