National Day Feast (With TV Off)

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!

Birthday at Moi Lum

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

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.

Economy Rice @ Home

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.

Soupy Noodles at Maxwell Food Center

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.

Cook of the Day

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

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!

Ba Yu Ren Jia

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!

Bee's @ Menara TM Asia Life Building

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!

Tuck Shop - Tanjong Pagar Road

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!

Chatter Box - Orchard Mandarin

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 ...

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!

Hog's Breaf (Monday No Nid To Werk One.. Bwahaha)

Nice view, hur?

Went out wif my 'Dunlop St Gang' on Monday. Monday bloos ma.... & asso, mad fren Karen was off... Mad Faith was tekin a break between jobs asso.... So we went to Vivocity to shop. & eat.


Hog's Breaf has promotions fer everyday. Mondays are d all day happi hour days. I dunno wot else fer every otha day. Apparently tho, d Hog's Breaf at Vivocity is jus a franchise. Dunno.. Dun realli care.


D set lunches are a real value fer munni (I suppose dey all are yar?)! Cheepa dan if yew orda it ala carte & it comes wif a soft drink (sprite, coke or iced lemon tea) & a starta (cream of mushroom soop, fish chowda soop, or garlic bread.... We had one of each! Jus nice eh!!).

My Steak Sandwich ($12 before all dat plussing). Huge! Much 'Hog's Tail' Fries! Salad fresh & green! Was actualli temptd to try d Chicken Dijonaise (got avocado one....LUV dat stuff!) but d waitress said dat it wood b a lil dry... fer $15.50, well, I thot I'd gif it a miss.... Yew can choose wot kinda potaters yew want wif dat (d Chicken Dijonaise), tho! Baked tater or mashd taters or Hog's Tail Fries.

Lewk! Fried (caremalised?) onions on top! Lewks juicy?? Yesh it IS!!!!!

Beetroot on d bottom, complete wif a slice of cheese!!!!

Mad Faith's Cheeseburga ($11.50). So Pretti, it is!! We were all furry impressd dat dey all came wif a slice of beetroot! We lyk to eat beetroot! Juicy!!

Mad Karen's Hawaiian Chicken Burga ($11.50). Furry pretti asso, but chicken abit dry... Chicken breast meat ma.... Pity.... But I did get warnd abowt d chicken breast meat aready ma...

Temptd as we were abowt d happi hour, Mad Faith & I refraind... Happi hour prices are oni 25% off regula price.... & dun ferget d plus-plussing.....

Chicken Chop or Kill The Chicken

Wahhh look at us ... all ready and prepared to attack the kitchen!!!

Well well, we decided to cook again cause it's just too tough thinking about what to eat when we go out when Lynx is on this wonderful Atkins diet. Last week when we went grocery shopping I picked up some chicken and promised Lynx that I'd cook chicken chop for her, after her yucky experience at Coffee Club with their Rosemary Chicken. It was tasteless and dry with little bits and pieces of rosemary. Instead of Rosemary Chicken, I made her Chicken Chop in brown sauce. Actually I didn't realize it was Rosemary Chicken ... Anywho, that's what I made Chicken Chop Yum Yum ... it's pretty difficult cooking for Lynx now cause everything has to be flourless and carbless ... we've cut down on carbs so much in the house that I feel faint sometimes.

Of course, my attempt at food styling is pathetic (partially it's cause I couldn't thicken the sauce) ... anyway I am practicing, next time will make one nice nice for you all to see! Oh and to add to that we had some salad and fried cod fish with chowda garlic and onions!

Jerry's Delivery Courteosy of Cuisine Express

One late night me, Rice King and Lynx decided we were too lazy to cook, however, our ultimate problem is that Lynx is on the Atkins Diet ... what a pain in my butt!!!!

So we decided to order from Jerry's! The food was good as usual ... mmm you gotta try it ... delicious ... the wings are delicious as usual ... but kind of lacked the kick you can get at Jerry's itself.

Maybe I am going through my super spicy phase where I can eat lots of spicy things, cause the other day when I went to this Mala Steamboat at West Coast there ... well it wasn't really spicy enough for me also. Hmmm ..... like Lynx says: ur so strange ... sometimes can eat spicy sometimes cannot even touch.

Feast your eyes on our food for 3: