Makan Minutes

Another hidden Gem - Crab Specialist @ Defu Lane 10

2005-07-15T22:21:00.000+08:00

Last week's Sunday Times was uncovered some place that dish out excellent Claypot Crab Bee Hoon. We forgotten to save the article and was trying to look for the one nearest to me... @ defu lane.

We decided to drive around and see if we had any luck finding the store. Didn't had much luck. when we realised that there is Defu Lane 1 - 10. :( Instead, we stumbled upon this hidden gem. Not Claypot Crab Bee Hoon but their signature dish is Crab Vermicelli with Superior Stock.
The restaurant is The Seafood "Paradise" Restaurant. They call themselves "The Seafood Phenonmenon...." Open Daily till 11pm. Located at 91 Defu Lane.

Initally, we had some doubts about this coffeeshop/restaurant, but decided to give it a try anyways since we were hungry ;p The place is rather packed with family and business associates. Pretty surprising... for somewhere tuck away in the industrial estate.

We ordered three of their signature dishes... Crab Vermicelli with Superior Stock, Deep Fried Chicken Wings with Salt n Pepper and Home-made Tofu with mixed seafood.
Pretty yummy... didn't quite like the salt n pepper chicken wings. (didnt like the style... still prefer the good old har chong kai (shrimp paste chicken) or regular fried chicken).

Burp! the crab we had weighed about 1.8 Kg..its huge since only two of us were there.

Will definitely come back for more.... at least is only 5 minutes drive away. *Grin*

Chong Qing Hot Pot @ Beach Road

2005-07-03T00:54:00.000+08:00

Today, we deicided to have fun in the cool!

First we checked out the Harbin Wonderland, you can read about it in my friendster's blog. http://oinkster.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/

After that, we decided to go have chongqing hot pot to warm our body up before heading to another cold chill out place... Eski Bar @ Circular Road.

Walking down the stretch of Beach Road, there are quite a few "authentic" chongqing hot pot. There is even a price war "fight" there as well. All the stores are rather affordable... ranging from $10-$15 per head. We picked the most crowded one which is located at 101 beach road building. We sat there and ate for 2 and 1/2 hour... So full after that. Hehe, since this weekend is the start of the Singapore Food Festival, there was a food fest @ bugis parco. I walked there and bought black pepper crab to add to our dinner :P Yummy!

Check out what we had... :P

A pot full of Goodies...

Disappointment with Little Bali

2005-07-02T09:46:00.000+08:00

Little Bali @ Lock Rock
What used to be one of my favorite chill out place has just turned out to be a rather nightmare... :(

You must be wondering why?

1. Previously, anyone can use the pavillions. Now they impose a rule that you must spent at least $200.

2. They run out of bottle beer ... after a while...My group of friends had about 10-11 cans of KilKenny and they were out of them. Think the bar has yet to pick up on the high demand these days.

3. It gets overcrowded and pack

Late Night Supper with Jake

2005-07-01T02:05:00.000+08:00

Jake is leaving tomorrow back to HK... since the bunch of us know that he has yet to satisfy his Chilli Crab craving. We decided to bring him out for late night supper after a couple of drinks @ sound bar.

We went to fatty weng @ the badminton court... the old shophouse one not the aircon restaurant. We had deep fried soon hock, chilli crab, hor fun and kang kong balacan. Yummy! Although we were a little disappointed at the crab. the rest of the dishes were delicious! They serve really yummy deep fried soon hock but its rather pricey.

PS: I stuck to my promise. I didn't order him any pink drink this trip hehe! i just order him a rather "weird" soursop frozen margarita. :P

Almost disappointing day...

2005-06-22T00:34:00.000+08:00

Since the disappointment of the Chocolate Martini @ the Scarlet, I decided to intro my friends to one of my favorite martini bar... Morton's Bar. Managed to finish work early and rushed down to meet them for drinks. To our dismay, the bar was closed for private function. What a bummer!

Oh well... we decide to head for early dinner @ the newly opened Makansutra Gluttons Bay by the Esplanade. Similar to that of Glutton Square last year, it is made of a few famous hawker stalls around Singapore. The selection is rather limited... regardless of that, we managed to order quite a bit to share amongst 4 of us.

We had the hokkien mee (high recommended), zhong zhong wu xiang, bbq stingray, har chong kai (prawn paste chicken) and oyster omelette. PS: that was our 1st round of dinner.

More friends joined us later at another venue... Maxwell Market. Initally, wanted to go for dumplings @ Qun Zhong Eating House . Unfortunately, the queue was too long and it was almost closing time for them. I ended up tapaoing their guo tie and red bean pancake and joined them at maxwell market.

After a full meal, time to head home for a snooze... Too much alcohol for the last few days... need detox badly!

chill out @ Breeze, The Scarlet

2005-06-21T01:26:00.000+08:00

A drink after the dinner sounds really good... especially to get rid of the funky taste of the orh nee in our tastebuds ;p

Jane had to hit back to the office to finish some work, so we decided to proceed on for some drinks while waiting for her. Since we were nearby the Scarlet Hotel, we decided to check out the pub there. Heard a lot of about it but haven't been there.

It is a cool and chic boutique hotel ... (PS: must check out their website *grin* www.thescarlet.com ) It works on a very sensusous. Hmm.. it is rumored to be a "gay" hotel.

We checked out Breeze located on the 4th floor... interesting mediterranean styled open terrace bar and restaurant. It is a very charming place... a nice chill out place especially with the soft light jazz tha they play in the background. They also have nice indivdual marquees for people to have their own private space.

They served pretty exotic drink mix... hehe be very selective as some drinks tasted pretty strange....;p I think the next time i am there , I will stick with housepours :P I had a chocolate martini which was no where close to the ones @ Morton's Bar.

Hokkien Food @ Beng Hiang

2005-06-21T00:59:00.000+08:00

Jane arranged for tonight's dinner with pei and brad at this Hakka Young Tou Fu place at amoy street. unfortunately, the shop wasn't open today. We end up at Beng Hiang Restaurant... this place that serves hokkien food.

This is the first time I ever had food in a hokkien restaurant... hmm... dunno what to expect. Typically most of the time, i either visit restaurants dishing out canto or teochew dishes. By the time I got to the place, jane n pei had placed the order.

Not bad.... they ordered fried beancurd with pork floss, yam ring with assorted seafood and veg, kong bak pau (braised meat bun), fried hokkien mee, and orh nee.

Hmm, the food was not bad until we had our dessert - the orh nee. We were rather thrown off by the taste of this weird dessert. Hokkien orh nee is not something we are familar with.... coz it has some extra ingredient - sweet corn.... we were shocked. Weird combi - sweet corn + yam paste. That was the first time and the last time for us to order that dish! It was CANNED SWEET CORN... EEEKK!

I think before dinner, it was totally fine... until this dish..... haha! Definitely would love to try other dishes except the orh nee.

We need something to wash off that taste in our mouth!

Rasa Sentosa - bad service!

2005-06-19T20:50:00.000+08:00

Blah! We always have the impression that Rasa Sentosa is 5 stars... unforuntately, it doesn't seem the case.

A fren was having his wedding dinner @ Rasa Sentosa and the bunch of us decided to stayover as well. To our dismay, their room and food service was really bad. It is the worst hotel I ever stayed in... Worst than a motel.

I'm totally disappointed with the service quality in Singapore. They had double standards when come to their breakfast spread as well. We were told that due to overwhelming occupancy rate, they opened up a ballroom as a breakfast venue. To our dismay, the food served @ the silver shell cafe and the pavillion were different. The spread @ silver shell cafe was better. Damn!

Wan's Farewell Dinner (Part I)

2005-06-16T00:21:00.000+08:00

July is getting close and Wan is heading off to aussieland to study. The bunch of us decided to meet up for a farewell dinner. Asking her what she would like... her reply was... anything Asian/Chinese. Guess that's something that she might miss when she is in aussieland. Hmm... we decided to go for japanese buffet. The usual hangout, ikoi, was fully booked.. thus, we went to Hanabi.

The service at Hanabi was alright... a bit slow - the waitresses are a little forgetful with our orders. Previously, they used to give quite a bit of complimentary dishes aside from the usual selection ... guess they don't do it now... or hmm... are they too forgetful this time?

The sashimi was really good. Think we had a couple rounds of assortment sashimi. yummy....
Some of their fried stuff were a little too greasy... think we need to sip down a few more rounds of green tea.

After Hanabi, we wanted somewhere to chill. I brought the girls to Samar. The drinks came really slowly this time. haha... we waited for almost an hour and they didn't serve drinks for wan and rene. Liz ordered one of their house special dessert.... turned out it looks like a musseli and bread mix in a cup of milk heehe.... (that spells breakfast) Wan also tried the seesha... strawberry flavor... smelt realleeee good. haha... at least, we know we wont leave the place smelling like cigarettes.

Mo Tuck Teng Malacca Satay Celup (Lok Lok)

2005-06-15T23:14:00.000+08:00

After walking around CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia, we decided to hang around, wait for Ter to get off work and go out for a nice dinner nearby. The nearest location is either Changi Village or the old Bedok Camp Market.

I have been wanting to go try out this lok lok place located in Changi Village that I have read about on the Makansutra forum. So, we decided to go there.

Just when turning into the stretch of changi village hdb flats, we spotted the coffeeshop. It is located near the "Ren Ren Xia Mien" coffeeshop. The crowd was ok, not particularly packed. Anyways, the coffeeshop doesn't seem to have enough space to put a lot of tables as well.

No aircon but have a big screen tv to entertain you while you eat. Downside eating at this place is that there are a lot of insects flying around... got to be extra careful with the raw food and even the drinks.

The selection was ok...2 fridge full of skewkered meats/balls/fillets,etc.... quite a range for us to choose from. We were a big fan of the pork balls, quail eggs and prawns. There were two type of broth that was served ... a clear fish stock ... it was quite tasty especially after loads of sticks had gone into it. ...while another ... is satay sauce. We were told to stirr the satay sauce often, to avoid it from being burnt. The satay sauce is nothing to rave about... the sweet and sour chilli sauce was alright but the balacan chilli was good... especially with the dash of lime juice. Ben liked the balacan chilli with the sea hum.

The only thing is that, it is located far away... think if i am not in the neighbourhood, i would not have travelled all the way to try out this place. It is worth a try.

High Class Chicken Rice: Boon Tong Kee @ MacPherson Road

2005-06-15T21:33:00.000+08:00

Had a meeting in the morning at Pasir Ris... was dreading to take the public transport since it was pouring heavily. So, I took the car out... promised my dad that i will get it back to him by lunch time. Meeting ended quite late, rushed home to return the car before heading out again to CommuniAsia with Ben.

Stomach need to be filled first.. haven't had anything since I woke up and its around 2 plus. The nearest food I can think of is either the kopitiam or boon tong kee. Frankly, I am never a fan of boon tong kee... partly because they used to serve only hainese chicken (the steamed/broiled version). I only eat roasted chicken rice... never quite appreciate the taste of steamed ones. Until recently, I was told that they have roasted chicken as well. Decided to give them one chance for the sake of my hungwee.

Although this Boon Tong Kee is located fairly near me, this is the first time I actually dined in there. The waitress came with a small salad and 2 bite-size tobolene chocolate bar. The utensils were nicely wrapped in color coordinated paper... not just the typical serviettes.. The waitress is polite and friendly. Gulps... I wonder... are we going to pay a bomb becuase of their overly good service... the boon tong kee we all know that spur out along singapore is juz a regular kopi shop.

We ordered a plate of roast chicken for 2, a bowl of mei cai kou rou (braised pork with perserved veg), 2 rice and 1 jug of barley water. To my amazement, the roast chicken is professionally served just like what we get in chinese restaurant... instead of keropok, it came with pringles potato chips! The waitress even offered to squeese the lime into our sambal chilli sauce for us using a lime squeeser... I am so impressed! Downside, they don't serve regular clear soup that comes with normal chicken rice... guess they just want you to spend more money buying a bowl of soup as well.

The food is decent... a lot better than i had expected. The bill came out to be pretty reasonable.... about $25 for 2. Phews! I was preparing for the worst!

Think it did change my opinion of the boon tong kee and i might just patronize them again.

Mala Hot Pot

2005-06-13T23:20:00.000+08:00

Dunno what got into singaporeans or rather chinese nationals who are living in singapore... plenty of chongqing/mala hot pot been spurring up everywhere.... for example, in between beach road and bugis, you can see at least 5 of such joints. Once in a while, they will have a price war, i supposed.... guess they have to constantly be on the toes to avoid losing out.

With them dishing out similar food, which one should we patronize?

Well, I look at the price, the variety and the crowd.

Monday was a typical example. We were hungwee, in search for some light dinner. Steamboat sounded good... we decided to try out the mala hot pot along beach road. A banner that says Opening Special $10 per head... all -you-can eat ... caught our attention.

Unlike the others we had tried, this place, Xiao Bao, gave you an option for the soup base. They do not limit you to the yin yang: chicken broth and ma la. They have other varieties like tom yam, pork rib broth at no addition cost. We ordered the ying yang: chicken broth & tom yam....

Value for money... its pretty alright. Drinks were at $1 per can. Only think was they were refilling the food really slowly.... especially, the slightly pricey items like beef, prawns. They behave like it was getting late and they are closing soon.... the ice maker even ran out of ice! Their varieties were not as fancy as the rest.. guess, that is what we get for paying $5 less. Oh Well... it is ok. We wanted to give it a try anyway.

I was concerned about their hygience at one point... some of the veg looks unwashed.... but heng ah... i didn't get food poisoning after that.... so i am not complaining.

Do i think, i will be back for more? No sure tho...Maybe once in a while for late night steamboat craving... coz they claimed that they open till 5am.

Sunday brunch.... Spring Court Restaurant

2005-06-12T22:31:00.000+08:00

Today, Ter's dad decided to bring us out to Spring Court Restaurant for lunch. It is located opposite of Chinatown Point. (Spring Court Restaurant was previously located at Upper East Coast Road)

Woah! They have peking duck for 76 cents (with minimum purchase of $76) .... I have been craving for peking duck for a long time. wonder how it will taste.

When I got there, ter n his family had started with some appetizers and dim sum. Erm.... a plate of duck tongues....blah... it taste very plastic.... though it is supposed to be the restaurant's signature dish.. ok, that's not quite my type of food.

The dim sum was not too bad... they order cha siew soh, xiao long bao (haha din tai feng is better), hun tong gao (soup dumpling), glutious rice in lotus leaf and some beancurd skin roll.

After that, lunch was served... we had stirred fried deer meat, mushrooms with mustard veg, pan fried noodles, steamed bamboo clam with garlic and peking duck (yummy.....)

PS: there is a catch.. haha .. for 76 cents, you get only the peking duck skin haha! and the condiments that come along with it. You need to pay extra $10 for them to stir fried the meat for you... or you can choose to bring home the meat/bones (not sure if there is gonna be surcharge).

Burp! After all that grease... I need a coke!

Thumper @ Goodwood Park

2005-06-12T10:59:00.000+08:00

Yester, after attending a fren's wedding dinner @ Mariott Hotel, the bunch of us headed to Thumper for a drink. The dinner started late and ended really late as well.... by the time we made our way out of the hotel, its almost 11.45pm.

This is my first time @ Thumper. It was really packed to the brim... both inside and out... barely had any room to dance. We hang around for a while.... The drinks were alright... i had a lychee martini... the crowd is pretty interesting... not sure if there were some event going onz before we got there but there were a bunch of people dressing up as characters in various comic strips. Pretty hilarious.

They had live band, too.... singing to the beats of the 80s and rock-n-roll.

Maybe I will check it out again another day again....was getting tired and grastic was acting up... time to ciaoz!

Bad Thai Food...

2005-06-11T01:33:00.000+08:00

After a nice pampering manicure and pedicure, time to pamper my growling tummy. Rene n I walked around China Sq and Far East Sq looking for food. initally, we wanted to go ooster's but it was really packed. Finally, we came to Beppu Menkan and decided to have our meals there. Beppu Menkan has two outlets @ Far East Square - one dishing japanese ramen while the other dishing thai food.

It was a BIG MISTAKE!

The thai menu looks good... we decided to try their thai food. Previously, I had tried the japanese ramen before and it seemed rather decent.

We ordered a pad thai, olive rice, mango salad and 2 glasses of lemongrass drink.

The pad thai was too dry and quite tasteless. The olive rice was rather oily and blend. Mango Salad was too salty and sourish while the lemongrass drink was not frangrance enuff. On the whole, the portion were pretty generous but was rather disappointed with the quality of food.

The lemongrass drink was served with a glass of drink with a lemongrass stalk (stirrer) and a small container of sugar water. The waitress told us that we should add in the syrup water sparingly if not its too sweet. Initally, I just added a little bit and was complaining to rene that there wasn't much of a lemongrass taste... suspect they probably use really old lemongrass to make the drink and the flavor was lost. Turned out after couple of experiment, the syrup water contains lemongrass flavor extract... coz the more we add the syrup water, the more it brings out the flavor of the lemongrass..

Sigh! It was not a satisfying meal... what a bummer....

Cocoon Bar - Indochine Clarke Quay

2005-06-11T01:30:00.000+08:00

Juz got back from an impromtu drinking nite.

While having a really yucky dinner, Rene and I decided that we should proceed to somewhere nice to chill. We started buzz some of our regular drinking khakis. Since we were at china square, clarke quay seems rather near.

Wanted to go igauna for nice marquita but they were full and not accepting any reservations. Decided to check out the newly revamped clarke quay... hmm.. let's go cocoon bar... (one of the indochine chain).

Nice oriental deco. Too bad... most of the cosy settings were taken... getting very packed for the night. We managed to secure ourselves a small tiny table setting (which was meant for 2)... We had a crowd of 5. Managed to fit ourselves comfortably there. :)

The housepour were at $10 nett all night long. That was tempting but i am more interested in their house specialty. Ordered "Terra Cotta", a house special made with passionfruit volka, lychee, mango juice and so forth... it tasted like a spiked mango juice.. pretty good but very sweet.

Would love to try their desserts one of these day but was told that they don't serve dessert @ the bar.. what a bummer!

Lai Lai Beef Noodle

2005-06-07T22:14:00.000+08:00

Finally, "grandma" finishes her exams and is able to join us (jaime n me) for pig out session. Since, the two have not been to lai lai beef noodle, we decided to give it a try.

We ordered 2 set meals (their signatured beef noodle + bubble tea + a side dish) and some al carte items. We had 2 bowls of beef noodle, 1 bowl of braised pork rice, 1 plate of century egg tofu, 1 plate of taiwanese fried chicken and some drinks.

The food was alright. Still edible but not as yummy as I used to remember. I haven't been there for at least more than a year.

Chill Out @ Morton's Bar

2005-06-06T23:07:00.000+08:00

Last few days been rather crazy... been busy preparing for classes and the techXplorer event. Would be good to have a drink and chill.

The event is said to end at 5.30pm. hmm... it is at suntec convention. After that, we can head off to the Oriental and chill @ Morton's Bar. hehe.. Prefect Plan. Heading for the mortini's night - $7.95 for selected martini with free flow of steak sandwhich. PS: it's not exactly free flow. You can only have one per round. This time, we had about 4 rounds each.

After the event, we cleaned up and walked over.. just in time for a nice cold martini and some rounds of filet mignon steak sandwhiches... :) Feel bad behaving like freeloaders but oh well.... free is good, rite.

Feel tipsy from the strong martini ... stomach half-filled with dinner.. need more food....

Pig out weekend...unknowingly... hehe!

2005-06-04T21:56:00.000+08:00

Started out the morning rather early but didnt have a chance to buy breakfast. Since, it was almost lunch time, we decided to have ba ku teh for lunch at a coffeeshop in balestier which we frequent.

After brunch, we headed to the PC show. My auntie would like to buy a new computer and asked me to recommend her one. After walking around the packed hall, we were a little tired and thirsty. On the way out, I suggested to go to the old bedok camp food centre for cheng ting.

Yummy, Thirst Quenching and Refreshing... 1 bowl is never enough. While we were there, we decided to check out some of the malay stores since the prawn mee not open yet and wanton mee is closed for the day. Ter and Ben ordered the malay style chicken rice... the portion was really generous and delicious. :) I, on the other hand, wanted mee siam. I had wanted mee siam since breakfast. Unfortunately, the mee siam was quite disappointing. Initally, I like the strong tamarind and lime taste but after a while, it was too much to stomach in.

We also tried the kang kong/cuttlefish from the cheng ting's neighbour. Think the two shops are related... they have the same signboard. It is pretty good too but i am not a big fan of cuttlefish.

Also, packed the cheng ting home for the family.

Satay Steamboat @ Circuit Road

2005-06-03T22:48:00.000+08:00

Got off work rather late today, feeling hungry and having this craving for steamboat. hmm.... where to get steamboat at 9pm?

Procrastinated for a while, decided that I shall have dinner near home... circuit road market.
We sat down and ordered satay steamboat.

Satay steamboat is a dying trade in singapore. Very few places still dish that out these days. Unlike the one at old airport road, this uncle don't string up the food with satay sticks. Instead, he will first show you plates of food and you pick the dishes you want. We picked a small assortment dish, a veg, beef, pork ball and tofu. Find that the beef is not very fresh. On the whole, the food was alright, we haven't had that for a while.

We also ordered hor fun which is super salty! yuck....

Well, beggers can't be choosers. better luck next time.

Tuesday - Half price Waffles

2005-05-31T23:55:00.000+08:00

Every tuesday, its half price waffles at Gelare's.

After we finished dinner @ Hibiki's, the night is still young and we wanted to get some desserts. Decided to go for Gelare's half-priced waffle with a scoop of chocolate overload ice-cream.

It is better than the pathetic McD's hotcakes i had for breakfast... yuck!

Simply irresistible :)

Hibiki @ the Legends

2005-05-31T23:26:00.000+08:00

Today is the last day of uob dining privileges for the month of apr/may... decided that i should make use of some of the good dining promotions.

Decided to give Hibiki @ the Legends, fort canning a try. The offer from uob was 1 for 1 al carte main course. Instead of allowing us to choose from a variety of main courses, they have a list of those qualifiable ones. BLEAH! the selection was rather limited. :(

Got there rather early and it was empty. Had some doubts about it, but decided to give it a shot. Well, The worst would be... walking out of there and going somewhere else for food.

We ordered assortment sashimi, grilled lobster with special sauce, dobin moshi (teapot soup), beef terriyaki and cha soba. It was great. (had some pixs on it but unfortunately, i have accidentally formated them)

Since we were the only table in the restaurant, the service was pretty good. I find that the price is slightly steeped and for that price, I would have preferred shiro.

Settler's Cafe - The boardgame cafe

2005-05-30T23:16:00.000+08:00

Finally, we managed to find a day that everyone (almost everyone) is available for our company outing. Decided to check out the board game cafe... heard so much about this place... think it might be a good way for some bonding session within the group.

HAHA! it was definitely not a boardgame night for the group of us.... we played only card games.... (1. this weird game that the shop introduced us... "saboteer" - Similar to that of murderer but you have to either block or path the way for your miners to reach the pot of gold. Too cheem for our brain and 2. uno - looking at us played uno is a realleeee sad thing i must say.... after 4 rounds of shuffling the cards, we still couldnt end the game.) hehe... they had a variety of board games but we didn't know what to play... though there were a lot of really interesting ones as well.....one that caught my attention is galloping pigs... hehe for name sake i supposed.

We ended up getting a impromtu mini Mac training from Ad ... hehe... since we hardly meet up as a company and he had his powerbook with him. haha!

Would love to check out their other games... very interesting.. but i would not recommend dining there. hehe.. their food was not so avg.... only the chicken cutlet was passable.

Mini Steamboat @ Rajah Inn

2005-05-29T22:43:00.000+08:00

Of course, the brunch is unable to last us through the afternoon. Not long after, we were hungwee.... since we had to be in tiong bahru area. We decided to have mini steamboat @ Rajah Inn. They are now located in Tiong Bahru Shopping Centre.

All i can say is I missed the days when they are located behind Killney Road .... dishing out bigger portions of steamboat.

The tom yam soup was not too bad but the ingredients were a little a pathetic... maybe they were forcing their customers' to take the buffet special...

One of their must have ... the tahu telur. (Tofu + fried omlette)

We were rushing for time so we stuck with the set menu.

Brunch @ River Cafe

2005-05-29T20:29:00.000+08:00

It has been weeks since we were talking about brunch @ river cafe. Since today was one of the rare occasion that we actually made it out early enuff for brunch, we decide to give it a try. Initally, we were worried that we might be undressed. We surfed the website, it looks rather posh.

Phew... we are not the only two in t-shirt and shorts. :P

The brunch menu is rather limited, the lunch menu had more variety but we were too early for lunch. The menu looks similar to bill's in sydney. They dished out similar signature dishes... ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb and banana, sweet corn fritters with roasted tomatos and bacon. We were a little disappointed with the portions especially for the pancake (in the ad, the pancake portion looks huge - misrepresentation) but it was a good substitution. hehehe

It is rather satifying... more would be better. We ordered one of their breakfast drink - sunrise. It's yummy and refreshing ... made with fresh fruits and yoghurt.

I want more!!!

The brunch is from 9am to 3pm (I think)... only on weekends. The lunch is available from 12 noon.

Awon Korean Restaurant + Max Brenner Chocolate Bar

2005-05-25T01:07:00.000+08:00

Jane and I wanted to have Korean food today for dinner. I introduced her to this restaurant, Awon Korean Restaurant, that a friend had recommended me years ago. It's been a long time since I last visited the place.

The restaurant is located in excelsior hotel... on the 4th floor. next to a nightclub. (a note to the girls, don't dress to sleazy or u will be mistakened.. hehe) We waited a while for our dinner even though we were there rather late.... we got there around 8.30pm. The restaurant was quite packed and they were shorthanded. A group of Korean tourists have just vacanted their seats... the waitress didn't have time to clear up. We ordered the korean bbq/steamboat buffet. It is rather reasonably priced. It comes in this interesting grill that allows you to do korean bbq and retain the flavor for the broth.. unlike the typical seoul garden bbq/steamboat thingy. Other than the bbq/steamboat, they also serve those korean side dishes like anchovies, potato salad, kimchi, preserved raddish and so forth.

After a yummy korean bbq, we were craving for chocolate. Both of us have sweet tooth. We decided to take a walk to esplanade and enjoy a cuppa of hot chocolate. Ended up i have a milk chocolate sucao (It is served with a cup with a wamer and a stirrer/straw. Chocolate chips and milk are given to you separated and you diy your drink) while jane had a belgium waffle.

It is satisfying!

Chicken Rice Ball, Chomp Chomp,etc...

2005-05-24T01:45:00.000+08:00

Didn't go anywhere and do much this long weekend, needed a break after the crazy fiesta with getting my costume created,etc... queueing for Star Wars collectibles,etc...decided to take the day slow.

Picked up the complimentary cake from the Line. Woah.... it is a long and slim cake... came in a huge box... haha... Its rather yummy... made up of mandarin orange and chocolate.

My parents decided to buy the chicken rice ball from Toa Payoh Lor 1. (Blk 111 corner coffeeshop)Name of the store: Good Year Local Hainese Chicken Rice Ball. The hawker painstaking shaped and compacted the rice into a tennis ball size rice ball. They have regular chicken rice if you chose otherwise.

Prepare to wait at this store as well. Very crowded during lunch time. Even though there are a lot of helpers, the service is quite slow.

We ordered 1/2 chicken, a portion of roasted meat and 10 rice balls. That is pretty sufficient to feed 7 of us at home. There was a lady infront of me and wanted free soup and the auntie at the store was making noise about it.. For takeaway, you have to pay for soup. Oh well, the chicken soup is yummy and i don't mind paying 50 cents for a big packet of it . And I did that...

Headed home for lunchie!

After lunch, we nuahed at home and watched some vcds which our friends had borrowed from Video Ezy while enjoying the cake. Our friends came over n join us for the video screening.

After 2-3 video screening, its time for dinner. :P Worried that everywhere would be super crowded during dinner time, we decided to head out for an early dinner. Damn, great minds think alike... we went to chomp chomp and realised it is super packed. Regardless, we managed to find a table at a cooling spot and enjoyed our dinner. Another major pig out feast that include, hokkein mee (we waited patiently for 45 mins), fried kway teow, fried tofu, satay, stingray and the famous huge glasses of sugar cane/lime drink.

Burp!

Almost Brunch

2005-05-21T13:38:00.000+08:00

Initally, the group of us decided to give River Cafe a try for their brunch menu. We saw on their ad on IS magazine and it is similar to that of Bill's (in Sydney). But at the end, We decided to go for bak ku teh insead. Well, It was raining and a bowl of Bak Ku Teh juz came in handy.

This bak ku teh store is located in ang mo kio. Seng Kee Bak Kut Teh - Located at Chong Boon Food Centre at Blk 453, Ang Mo Kio Ave 10.

This is a popular joint and the queue is rather infamous. Fortunately, the queue wasn't too long when we got there. Usually, the wait can be quite bad. We ordered 4 bowls of Bak Ku Teh (with Long Ku a.k.a dragon bone haha), 1 bowl of liver soup, 1 plate Perserved Veg and 1 bowl of Braised Pork Leg (Te Kar). Their Pork Knuckle is very delicious... braised in a thick and savory gravy.

Point to note: The portions are rather generous and the pricing is very reasonable. If you ta pao (takeaway), the portions doubled for the same price. :)

Simply delicious.....

Filled up my tummy, ready for the star wars walkdown in orchard road. Yeap... to sidetrack, a bunch of us dressed up as various starwars characters and marched down orchard road. Pretty Cool! :) Followed by another round of Star Wars episode III, The Revenge of the Sith.

Dinner @ the Line

2005-05-21T09:37:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was Ter's bday. We can't decided what cuisine to go for thus ending up eating buffet. The Line is a relatively new restaurant at Shangri-la Hotel. The descriptions I read from the various forums and websites sounded really good... and for the fact, I am dying to check out the chocolate fountain. *hehe*

Before we went there, I had this impression that it is a chic and cool dining place...with nice ambience. The deco was cool and all but to my disappointment, it looks more like a high class food court. Sigh! Oh well, probably it is also the start of the long weekend and all, it was rather packed with big groups. The entire restaurant was like a marketplace. What happened to the a quiet dinner.

I must admit they hae a good international selection of food. They have different counters dishing out a wide varieties of food selection.
Seafood/Shellfish Counter - raw oysters, oyster shooters, chilled prawns, chilled crabs and other unique seafood hors d'oeuvre
Sushi and sashimi Counter - swordfish, yellowtail, salmon, tuna, optopus, assorted of sushi and handrolls
Salads and appetizers - Variety of salads, cheese platters
Italian/European food - roast beef, grilled meats and seafood, pastas and paellas
Local delights - Satays, Assorted dishes
Chinese - Shark Fin soup, dim sums, roasted meats
Indian - Naans, Tandoori Chicken, Chicken Masala, Murtabaka, Paper Prata
Noodle - Wanton, Laksa and Prawn Mee
Dessert - Assortment of cakes, ice-creams, savory crepes and chocolate fountain.

Hmm, I was rather disappointed with some of the food I had that night... esp the chocolate fountain, there was a lot of hype about it but was definitely overrated.

In terms of variety, the Line has it all. On the whole, I still prefer the Ritz Carlton buffet @ the Greenhouse to that of the Line for its the atmosphere and the quality of the food. I feel that the buffet @ the Line is not value for money.

Sigh!

Wan Toh Say

2005-05-20T00:05:00.000+08:00

Juz got back from supper...

Bz day for Ter and he had not eatten dinner so we decided to go grab a bite at Wan Toh Say. For those who don't know this place, Wan Toh Say is a place to be at for late night dim sum... In fact, this joint is 24 hours.

They have a wide selection of tim sum... ranging from traditional char siew paus to specials orders like thai style deep fried frog leg, prawns wrapped with taro strips and so forth.

We ordered thai style deep fried frog leg... very yummy... highly recommended. Other stuff that we had were century egg porridge (nothing to rave about), prawns wrapped with taro strips (Interesting) and fried rice rolls with minced pork (Not too bad) and not forgeting their huge tub of barley drinks to wash down the greasy food.

After that, I ordered 6 char siew pau for my family for the next day's breakfast. Yummy! Love their pau skin.

Burp!

Zion Rd Food Centre

2005-05-18T23:58:00.000+08:00

Today is the day for all the star wars fan in singapore. It's the preview of ROTS. The saga is now completed. :) In the evening, GV Grand had organized a star wars costume party with free heinkein for all the star wars fans out there while at it, we caught the 7.40pm show.

We were so caught up by the moment that we all skipped dinner. Of course, after the show, our stomachs were growling away. And, to the nearest food centre we must. That is Zion Rd Food Centre.

We ordered 1 plate of medium fried hokkein mee, 1 plate of medium char kway teow, 1 plate of carrot cake, 1 plate of the fried tofu and fritters and sugarcane drinks for everyone.

Hungwee we were, chowing down the food we did. The food were ok, nothing extraordinary.... char kway teow was pretty good.

Galactic Characters are now in B.K

2005-05-16T23:42:00.000+08:00

Burger King has become a galactic world... during this Star Wars fever. They have several promotions for the upcoming Star Wars movie.... (Its 2 days more to its opening)

Hongzi and I decided to go eat BK kids meal to collect the figurines.... (This week giveaway - R2D2 and Darth Varder). I love BK but I usually have either the whopper jr. meal or the mushroom swiss meal... had hardly venture pass the 2 choices.... Only now, it made me released how expensive the kids meal is in BK but its worth it.... Hmm... we are talking about star wars collectibles here! :) Woo.. hooo.... finally got my darth varder with the purchase of the chicken cheese stick meal.

laters...

Sushi Tei @ Paragon

2005-05-15T20:33:00.000+08:00

Wanted to eat something relatively light for tea time... ter n i decided to go for japanese food. We were in orchard road and decided to head for food @ sushi tei. Haven't been to sushi tei at paragon for quite some time now...

We ordered a dragon roll (Avacado + King Prawn tempura), hamachi sashimi in special sauce, diy grilled beef slices and a chawamushi.

The grilled beef wasn't very impressive but I liked the dragon roll and hamachi sashimi in special sauce. Ter felt that the special sauce resemble that of those you eat yusheng @ a porridge store.

Yummy indeed. Rather filling it was.

BZ day... Granny's Bday Celebration

2005-05-14T23:55:00.000+08:00

Today was BZ day.

First, today, at cineleisure, LIME is giving out free yoda poster with every purchase of lime magazine. There is the redemption for Kellogg's Star Wars Collectable, as well as Star Wars M&Ms carnival. Being a crazy star war fan, that did take some priority. Having to sacrifice a proper lunch to queue for the posters, I decided to eat Shilin Taiwanese Xiao Chi (Oyster Mee Sua and Crispy Chicken Cutlet).

After the redemption, we rushed home to help out and prepare for Granny's bday dinner. Went with mom to get the popiah ingredients and skins from the famous Joo Chiat place.Also, decided that I will make my speciality... Vietnamese Netted Spring Rolls. The rest of the family contributed with variety of dishes.

At the end, we had way too much food... but we managed to finished a fair bit... hee at least i know that the popiah and netted rolls were cleared. Hehe, i added extra ingredient to the popiah, which made it so popular.... i added sliced abalone :P (Not everyday, we will get that in the popiah). Other than the two rolls, we had a yam basket with assorted vegetables, stewed sea cucumber, luo han zai (uncle's famous vegeterian dish), bbq chicken, fried aspargus and a soup.
To top it off, we have a mango birthday cake for grandma.

Burp! Food overload!

Chill Out @ Little Bali

2005-05-13T23:57:00.000+08:00

It's Friday the 13. Good thing there wasn't anything went too wrong :) Was a pretty good day.

The girls decided to meet up for dinner and drinks. A good place to do that would be Little Bali. A cool chill out place tucked away at lock road. Hehe.. not exactly cool.. it can get rather warm at times if you chose to sit outdoor.

KW n Rene go there first and managed to secure one of those tables at higher grounds - one of the pavilions .... Good for group gathering. Hmmpf. the next table had took most of the cushions, leaving us rather uncomfortable. We managed to get a waitress to find us more cushions.

We had many failed attempt to try their indian food, this time, we have succeeded. The indian food was from one of the famous north indian restaurant in singapore, Kinara. We had their tandoori chicken, curry chicken, tandoori lamb chunks with spice and yoghurt and naans. Pretty good but could have been better.

Hmm... heard that we can actually bring our own snacks and food to chill here. Not sure how true it is... but one group who were sitting near us did that. They bought cze char and ate at Little Bali. We didnt feel it was a right thing to do.

Today wasn't exactly a good day chill there as it was rather warm... Think the place is good during cooler days.

Pigging Out (Mid Week)...Almost...

2005-05-12T23:46:00.000+08:00

Initally, there was plan to go eat Japanese buffet at Hanabi but at the end it was shelved as most people cant make it that evening. At the end, Ben and I decided to proceed on with dinner.

Started the evening off at Morton's Bar before dinner... yeap... there's the mortini night where classic martinis are priced at $7.95 +++ and it comes with free flow of steak sandwhiches. I had my usual - chocolate martini. Managed to have 3-4 rounds of the steak sandwhiches... Pretty filling after that. :P Haven't been back there for a while, lately, its getting very crowded.

Wrong move! After the steak sandwhiches, we didn't have much room for dinner. Hmm... guess we should go for something light or let our food digest first. Ended up in orchard rd as I had to pick up the starwars (digital) tixs I ordered for May 21. Walked around Cineleisure and Taka, couldnt figured out what to eat. Feel like eating japanese tho since we were supposed to have japanese buffet.

I remembered that a friend once brought me to this traditional japanese restaurant tuck away at one end of the taka food court basement. When we got there, we realised that the place has undergo renovations and it is now taken over by Ajisen. This is not the usual Ajisen Noodle Bar, this is their japanese dining restaurant , Nagomi. It looks rather classy. Decided to get it a try.

The food was value for money. The bento boxes were huge. Enough for two to share if you are not too hungry. The sashimi was rather fresh. We ordered the Saba Shio Zen Bento consisting of Salted Saba, Terriyaki Chicken, Japanese appetizers, Rice, Chawamushi, miso soup and fruit.The food was rather satisfying. (Actually, didn't go there with high hopes since I didnt quite like the Ajisen's noodle bar). Hmm... maybe its newly opened and the chef has to gain the trust of its customers. *grin* Will come back again in the near future for food however I must say... the service was REALLY BAD!

The waiters were impatient, lack product knowledge , rude and lazy. When we were looking through the menu and wanted to figure out what's in some of the innovative dishes, the waiter couldnt tell us. They had to ask their counterparts and couldnt come back with a proper answer. Some of them don't even speak english. Had problems communicating with them when requesting for something. In addition, we had to prompt them a few times before we got our tea refilled. The worst was when we weren't done with dinner, we were already shoved the bill. (Personally, I hate people who do that.) It's not like we are gonna run away after our meal or something.

It makes us wonder how long the restuarant will survive if their customer service continued to be horrible.

Oh yes, for a limited period time, they are also doing VIP card recruitment. You can purchase the card for $2 and get a immediate 10% discount on your meal. (Hmm... don't think i will have a lot of use for the card ... ehehe)

Gotten quite irritated by them, we left as soon as we were done with the food. Ended up, grabbing a cuppa of cafe latte from coffee bean & tea leaf before heading home.

Si Chuan Dou Hua Restaurant

2005-05-08T22:27:00.000+08:00

Today's Mother's Day.

Ter decided to bring his parents out for lunch to celebrate mother's day. I tagged along. Initally, we decided to go Chef Chan... but later, we decided to give Si Chuan Dou Hua Restaurant a try. None of us been there before.

We offered the pan fried guo tie, Fresh Scallop with Garlic & Chilli in Basket, Stir-fried Chicken with Dried Chilli & Cashew Nut, Baby Cabbage with Black Mushroom and Steamed Tofu with egg white and minced meat. For our staple dish, we each ordered a bowl of noodles so that we had a few varieties to try from .... we had zha jia mien, braised beef noodle, braised pork rib noodle and Dao Xiao Mian. Ended off with mango pudding. Very interestingly stuffed.... with dry ice effect. (picture to be uploaded.)

Pretty good. The service is rather pleasant too. Since it was mother's day, there were no discount given for uob credit card but in return they gave ter's mom a stalk of tulip and a box of their pastries.

Definitely would like to try other dishes... It was a bummer that they were not serving peking duck that day :( Well, Would love to try their buffet at ParkRoyal....

White Pepper Crab

2005-05-08T01:08:00.000+08:00

Yet Another ultimate pigging out day.

Lunch was at a fren's house. Her mom cooked bryani, fried chicken, chicken curry and sambal prawns.... yummy! Followed by some movie marathons... we watched "Meet the Parents" and "Meet the Fockers". Its very hilarious. In the midst, Ter got a sms from a fren asking if we are keen in joining them for dinner @ No Signboard (414 Geylang Rd). Hmm... Sounds good! Haven't had that for a while. Tho it's a last minute arrangement, we all somehow have forgotten that it's Mother's Day weekend and would be super pack.

Nevermind, our frenz had move forward the dinner plans... 7pm instead of 730pm. When they first got there, there wasnt much of a crowd.... Guess these days, Singaporeans eat late dinner. We managed to get a table. Ordered Wah Dan Hor (Hor fun with egg), their signature White Pepper Crabs, Har Chong Kai (Shrimp pasted Chicken), Sambal Kang Kong and Yi Pin Guo (A Wok filled with mixed veg and seafood) Came up to $160 plus.

Geylang Branch was supposedly the cheaper and better branch... despite the one hardest to find parking. A friend couldn't find a lot, end up going for valet parking... At the end, waited for at least 20 mins before he got the car back. Uncle has parked the car at some Geylang Lor and it took them awhile to drive back due to heavy traffic. (Hmm.. we wonder... where they find the lots?)

Overall , we were quite disappointed by the quality of the food this evening... The first few dishes were too salty... the chef must have added a pinch too much of salt. The last few dishes were slightly bland. We still have not learn the lesson of pigging on a festive/celebrative day. Usually, the food would have been much better.

Regardless, the crowd continue to build up... even after we left the place ard 9ish, we heard there was an 1 1/2 hr wait for seating.

Following dinner, we went to siglap for drinks. Cant really go anywhere fancy as most of us were in t-shirts & shorts + slippers.... (Ai yo... of course go non-aircon kopitiam eat... no need to dress up mah!) Went to Via Mare... wasnt particularly interesting... the aircon was not working too well too... Sigh! Maybe should have gone to Little Bali instead (too bad it was rainy and little bali has mainly outdoor seatings.)

Probably Another time... Ending a day of Pig Out. Totally stuffed.

Sin Hoi San

2005-05-04T01:50:00.000+08:00

Where should we go for supper? I was craving for steamboat AHAHA!

Driving aimlessly in the car... hmm....Big headache... dunno where to go... should we go bak ku teh @ balestier road, wanton mee @ lavender food centre, nasi lemak @ adams road?

End up.... Sin Hoi San @ Tiong Bahru Road.

This coffee shop is tucked away @ one of the old shop houses located along Tiong bahru road.. nearer to the outram side. Business is pretty good for this cze char place...which is specialized in seafood... exotic seafood raather like geoduck and various shell food. Hmm... a place where anyone might blow a hole in the pocket if they feast on the seafood. We decided to stick to regular items like wa tan hor fan and har chong kai (shrimp paste chicken wings). Pretty tasty... almost similar to that of fatty weng coffeeshop.

When we were waiting for the food, we thought of ter's frens who were staying near there... We buzzed them to see if they wanted supper. At the end, they came and joined us. With that, we had more varieties... egg foo young (surprisingly this was my first time eating this @ a cze char restaurant) and fried hongkong mee. Disappointing was the hong kong mee, it tasted like fried wanton mee....

That's all for now.... We would probably head back there when we feel richer and try their exotic seafood .

Potluck!

2005-05-01T22:23:00.000+08:00

Star wars fever is in the house!

A friend threw a Star Wars Party at his place.... well, sorta of a star wars party... rather... star wars costume making session while catching the 5 starwars films that have previously produced as we were all gearing up for the final installment.

The invite says... potluck.

hmm.... what shall i bring? After going through my options, i decided to do the vietnamese net spring rolls. Unfortunately, the shop that sells the net spring roll skins were closed for the public holidays. What a bummer!

Decided to make a little ammendments... and used the rice paper wraps but it end up spelling diaster. Since I have the mix ready, I improvise and made it into chicken meat balls. HEHE... a chance to test out the deep fryer that I just bought for my mom. Fortunately, the fried meat balls turned out pretty good. :) Yipppeee! It was pretty hot seller... or rather i made too little heheh! They were gone pretty snappy!

Got to my fren's house, goodness... look at the amount of food they have... and it kept increasing whenever a new guest arrive. By the evening, everyone were rather bloated from the non-stop pigging out. Most of the dishes were sinful yet irresistable! Like the carrot cake, fried chicken wings, papadams, brownie and the guo tie. There were many more dishes like fried claypot rice, fried rice, macaroni and cheese and mee siam.

Burp!Hmm... Another 18 More days to star wars!

Din Tai Feng

2005-04-30T22:06:00.000+08:00

It's been quite a while since we went back to eat at Din Tai Feng. Thus, we decided to go there for lunch today. Hmm... not very packed today... the wait is about 3-5mins. HAHA! maybe cos we are having a rather late lunch... about 3pm.

Din Tai Feng is a chained taiwanese restaurant brought into singapore by BreadTalk. They are famous for their mouth-watering xiao long bao.

We had our almost usual order... the crab meat xiao long bao.....(10pcs), 1 bowl of braised beef noodles (hong shao niu rou la mian) and 1 plate of pork chop fried rice.

The food was ok... except that the beef chunks were rather tough today. :(

Other our hot favorites are xiao long bao, the chicken soup, the beancurd + vermicelli soup

PS: once you tried crab meat xiao long bao... you usually dont go back to the reg one... to sidetrack, a friend once said.... it taste like "chinese style cheeseburger" :P

Old Airport Food Centre - A Food Galore

2005-04-29T23:42:00.000+08:00

This evening, ter and some of his colleagues were going to Old Airport Road Food Centre to pig out. Decided to tag along as well.

We had satay steamboat... one of the diminishing trade in sg. That was the highlight of the dinner... It's sticks skewed meat/seafood (similar to that of satay), cooked in a broth. When the food is cooked, you dipped with satay sauce and eat it. You can eat it with rice or satay beehoon.

Other than that, we had fried oyster omelette, char kway teow, rojak, otah, chicken wings, bbq stingray and ah balling soup. The stingray wasn't that fantastic... it doesnt have chincilok as a dipping sauce... the chilli didnt test quite right for the stingray.

Another interesting mention... would be the drink that 2 of the girls had. Hmm... its soursop + sour plum drink! Took me a while to digest that thought... i tot yikes... what a weird recommendation. One of the gers mentioned that the last time when she came to this food centre, the auntie recommended it as her signature drink.... and since then, they liked it. I got to try to believe but the thought of soursop + sour plum really puts me off... Verdict.. The drink is pretty alright. Got a little after taste... but it is rather decent as a drink... the more you drink, the more you will appreciate it..

Tho the weather is really warm, pigging out at this food centre still rocks! There are so many delicious and mouthwatering food here. Better enjoy it while it last... heard that they might be closed soon for renovation.

Thai High Tea @ Parkway...

2005-04-29T23:05:00.000+08:00

Stomach was growling .... Am super hungwee... Was supposed to meet Meiyi for lunch but by the time she made it to Parkway... its almost high tea...3pm.

Hmm.. hardly have such a late lunch, I decided to try the high tea @ parkway thai. the price looks rather decent as well... $8.90 Nett. I checked with the waitress and she mentioned that there are a lot of variety.... including noodles and rice dishes. Hmm... sounds good coz I liked their thai desserts.

BAD choice.
1. Its an auntie galore.... Goodness.. never knew that their high tea was so popular with the aunties. They were like vultures ready to devour its preys. The ugly singaporean mentally juz surfaced. Literally, need to "fight" with the aunties for food.

2. Lunch selection was a lot better than high tea. The hot food that they had for lunch were fried noodles, fried rice, laksa (hmm... thats not thai!) and fried corn fritters. Nothing that is extraordinarily yummy or appealing. The desserts on the other hand were pretty decent... Tho a lot of the nicer ones get snap up fast!

Katong Shopping Centre Chicken Rice

2005-04-26T23:59:00.000+08:00

Once again, I went back to the Katong Shopping Centre Chicken Rice Stall... Pretty yummy.
This time, we ordered the roasted chicken, some char siew and shao rou.... uncle recommended the braised tofu and we decided to give it a try... hmm... when i tried it, it wasn't the braised tofu i am used too.... dint quite like it. Its rather bland.

Today, the free soup is some herbal chicken soup...phew! it wasn't black chicken soup coz i dont appreciate that.

The shop owner was feeling generous today. After we finished our meal, we were given ice-cream compliments of the owner. That's really nice of him... Everyone who ordered from his store had free ice cream! Comes in handy on such a warm day! :)

Space @ My humble house

2005-04-24T22:04:00.000+08:00

Initally, I had planned to have brunch at River Cafe @ Robertson Quay. Unfortunately, due to time constraint, I decided to change the lunch venue to Esplanade.

Esplanade was rather quiet at 12 noon even though its around lunch time. Tho the restaurants were opened for business, the business was brisk. I walked around and contemplate what we were having for lunch. Finally, the "rather" newly opened Space @ My humble house caught my attention. The spot was previously taken up by Rice Paper , a vietnamese restaurant. It has very simple yet chic deco, located next to its sister restaurant "My humble house".

The food served was local delicacy mixed with a tint of fusion flavor. Pretty interesting concoction like bak kut teh, using tender New Zealand lamb rack, deep-fired roast duck cigar roll served with chilli sauce and achar, and Mama Leong’s chicken rice. They specialised in huge one-bowl meals. Oh yes, in line with the World Gourmet Singapore Cuisine 2005, there is a new range of dishes that the chef has created like Gourmet Wanton Noodles in Superior Consomme,
The Silkiest Soya Milk Beef Hot Pot and Lamb Shank Nasi Goreng.

A good place to get a quick pre-concert meal. The waiter/waitress would help you speed up your order should you be in a hurry to catch a play,etc... I was in a hurry to catch a "Starwars behind the scene presentation" @ Oriental Hotel at 1pm. She gladly rushed for my order. The service was alright, except that we got a trainee waitress to serve us and she is quite blur.

We ordered the roast duck cigar roll, X.O (deep fried chicken drumettes) and the Gourmet Wanton Noodles in Superior Consomme (Angel Hair Pasta with Wanton trio of scallop, crab and prawn).

The food is pretty unique and rather tasty. Much attention was spent on decorating the food.
The price is rather steep.... you can eat few plates of the simlar items at a hawker centre. Oh well, once in a while, our taste buds need some pampering ;p

One of these days, we would like to try the humble house . Heard that is a classier environment and you are required to dress up to dine there... bleah!!!!

A Feast @ Sakae Sushi, HaborFront

2005-04-23T22:54:00.000+08:00

A 10-inch pizza at KM8 shared amongst the 5 of us were not substantial.

Walked to haborfront from the bus interchange in search for food, the first thing that caught our attention other than subway was Sakae Sushi.

Hmm...we sat down and ordered like we were a pack of hungwee wolves. We ordered a beef tappanyaki set (Only available @ Haborfront, Parkway and Funan Centre), fried ebi, gyoza, ageshi tofu, chicken katsu don, hana maki, soft shell crab, and much more...

Rather Satisfying! Oh no... we looked at our watch. It is 5pm... Soon.. its gonna be dinner time for most of us and we were already stuffed.

BTW, if you don't have a sakae sushi VIP card, you can get 10% using UOB or HSBC card. DBS,too, but with a minimum of $30 spent.

A 2nd Chance @ KM8

2005-04-23T20:50:00.000+08:00

A bunch of us decided to go suntaning today in Sentosa.

Initally we agreed to meet at 10am at Seah Im Food Centre but hahha.. i overslept. hehe... good thing Rene called me or I would be still snoozing in my bed. Took the NEL to harbourfront..and by the time, I met up with the rest, it was 11am. We took a bite at the food centre and took the bus into Sentosa.

Hmm... which beach shall we go? Siloso, Palawan or Tanjong Beach. Hmm.... every one seems to be packing themselves on to the buses that were heading to Siloso Beach. Let's go to the quieter beach...Tanjong Beach. We took the blue line to dolphin lagoon and walked there.

Hmm... when we got there... we were procrastinating if we should hang around the KM8 Bar so that we can use the deck chairs. Hmm.... 4 of us had pretty bad experience there the other day so we were quite hesistant at first.... but we decided to go for it.

The deck chairs were not as comfy as the ones we had at other beach resorts but... its better than lying on the hot sand. Plus, KM 8 has a jacuzzi-like pool where we can dip in... much better than dipping in the lagoon/beach filled with many micro-organism. Jane was quite badly bitten by them when she was soaking in the lagoon.

The attitude and service were much better than that night. Unlike most places, this place is more of a day place. More life in the day time as well. Very satisfying...Nice chillout music, with ice cold cocktail, a dip in the pool and complete with a nice tan.

Unfortunately, they ran out of gas and we couldnt order any fried food/finger food except for pizzas. (They were waiting for the gas man to showup... but by that time.... we were already leaving). The special pizza is basically typical hawaiian pizza. Nothing extra-ordinary but its pretty good.

Hmm... think the Singapore sun caused us to burnt faster.... We were pretty much looking like lobster before we left. After soaking up most of the sun, we decided to call it a day at about 3 pm.

Went to get ourselves cleaned up and headed back to Haborfront and get some late lunch/tunch.

PS: At Tanjong Beach, there is only portable toilets for the public. So, if you want to use a clean and nice toilet or even a nice changing/shower place, you just gotta be a guest at KM8.

The Oriental

2005-04-19T21:17:00.000+08:00

Hmm... I had a full-day MS Technical training on MLG @ the Oriental Hotel today. Just like most of the conference, I look forward to be fed. Hmm... Every 2 hours or so, we will be fed.... Maybe that is to make us stay awake or rather.... food usually make most people sleepy thereafter.

Argh.... Morton's bar is juz staring at me but it is still close. HAHHA... too early to be thinking of drinks at that time.. Well, I am craving for the cosmopolitan martini or the chocolate martini with their mouth-watering steak sandwhiches. If you dont know, there is this great offer by the Morton's Bar.... every mon-friday from 5 - 7pm, there are 4 variety of martinis (priced at $7.95+++) and you get free flow of steak sandwhiches along with it. It is a offer too good to be missed. :P (esp for those who crave for the expensive morton steaks.. good substitute..)

I think many of us were concentrating on the nice view outside the window of singapore rather than listening to the speaker. (opps....)

Tea break was ok... the typical coffee tea and some light snack. We had har kow and scorns in the morning tea break. For afternoon tea break, we had spring roll and mini pizza. Nothing very value to comment about it.

Lunch was great. We had it at Dolce Vita. A restaurant that was located on the 5th floor by the poolside. (Previously, this spot was taken by the outdoor Poolside Italian restaurant, Pronto.) Now transformed to a classy medditerrian dining atmosphere. Great place for a nice quiet and relaxing semi-alfresco dinner. Service is pretty good too. ( A Diversion.... Darn, I am so envious of those people suntaning... sure wish to be out in the sun than in the freezing conference room. :P)

It was a three course set lunch consisting of smoked salmon salad, a medditerrian chicken dish and a refreshing raspberry icecream with mixed fruits. PS: Seen many familar faces who were also at last year's training, think this lunch was better than the week long we had at Raffles Convention ;p

Think will find a chance to come back and try the other stuff on the menu. The day view was pretty alright, think the night view will be better. Can watch sunset and dining away from the maddening crowd. In the day, it is only indoor dining but at night, it is semi-alfresco style.

PS: Heard that the price is not cheap... Avg about $80 for a 4 course dinner. Hmm... Shall wait for offers from Credit Cards,etc... heheheh!!!

Ikea Cafe

2005-04-17T17:47:00.000+08:00

Hmm... I usually go Ikea not to shop but to eat. Sounds weird but hahaha thats one of my favorite hangout whenever I am around Queensway area.

Today, Ter wanted to go Queensway Shopping Centre to shop for some sport shoes... hmm... immediately, ikea cafeteria came to my mind. :P

I can never say no! to their swedish meatball and fried chicken wings. DROOL! Oh yah.. and for those who have ikea card, you get two glasses of soft drink for free and 2 dicounted meal.

These two items on their menu... are like what makansutra would say "DIE DIE MUST TRY!"

Ps: word of warning: the meatball is a mixed of pork n beef for those who dont know.

Cheap Drinks

2005-04-16T11:57:00.000+08:00

Hmm... Want to drink but do not want to spend a bomb? Check out O Bar @ Robinson Walk.
Think by far, that's one of the cheapest place to get yourself sloash!

hmm.... a housepour drink @ $3 ... a jug @ $12. I think no one is complaining. Hmm... some other cocktail are only @ $6. The cover charge is rather affordable ... $10 for ladies and $15 for men.

Great place to treat your friends to a drink but... its can get rather packed. This place has been around for a while.. just that I have not been back there since a while back. To think of it, its been a while since I last hang out at Mohd Sultan.

Tonight was like a sauna in there. Even though I could fee the aircon blasting... I can feel body heat rather than the cold air from the vent. Sigh... Its a bad day to be out!

Tried to dance abit but the heat got too unbearable. And the music was rather extreme... they played all sorts of music... very rojak! and they played the entire song... its a bit TOO long!

Think... I am happy with just a nice quite place to chill like little bali..

Canele - Cafe @ Robinson Walk

2005-04-16T11:30:00.000+08:00

After the dinner, we wandered around to look for the dessert place. Hmm... managed to find it. Woah.. the chocolate and cakes on display looks very yummy. We just couldnt resist the temptation hahah... tho we were rather full!

We ordered jupiter (chocolate cake), new york cheese cake and a meringue. Simply irresistable!

Simply Sinful!

Heheh. but needless to say, we couldnt finish the cakes ;p

I will definitely come back and try their other cakes and chocolate another day!

Ladies Night Out @ Mohd Sultan

2005-04-16T11:16:00.000+08:00

Its been a while since the four girls (kahwai, liz, rene n me) met up for dinner.... gone where the almost weekly pig out... everyone have been rather busy lately. We finally could agree on this friday nite... dinner @ 8pm.

Hmm... en dining it shall be. After that, if we still have the stamina, we can go dancing.... hmm... haven't been clubbing since christmas eve 2004.... wah.... its been a while. sign of us getting old i guess hahaha....

When I got there, they just managed to get a table. Sigh... forgot to make reservation... ended up with tall table... quite uncomfortable to eat sitting on high chairs. Plus weather was really warm that night.... there wasn't much wind. The restaurant was very packed. Good thing we managed to get a regular table after a while but not any of those inside the restaurant. Nevermind... what matters is the food. We remembered that this place had pretty yummy and decent japanese food even till the late hour. Haven't been back there since a couple of months ago.... Can't say that the standard haven't dropped.

We had the following items:
2 plates of salmon sashimi - simply yummy. Very fresh cut.
1 plate of garlic fried rice - not as yummy. cooking style has changed.
1 plate of soft shell crab - pretty alright. quite oily.
1 plate of tofu steak - still yummy. Would be better if they have more miso sauce on it
1 plate of grilled shitake mushroom stuffed with minced chicken - not too bad. the meat a little tough.
1 plate of grilled yellowtail tail with salt - the meat quite tough.... too bad... they run out of the yellowtail cheek.
1 plate of beef carpaccio - the meat tasted quite raw. Not enough marination. sigh!
1 plate of stuffed chicken wings - yummy! still as good :)

It was toooo warm to be dining al fresco style tonight. Needed a nice aircon place to chilled. Serene suggested that there is a pretty new dessert/cafe place @ robinson walk. We settled our bill at en dining and wandered off to find the place.

A little disappointed with this place. Maybe they were too crowded and the chef cookin is affected. Might give them a 2nd chance... but hahaha looking around i see many new japanese eateries in that neighbourhood. hmmm.... they better buckle up! :P

24 hours - egyptian/arabic cafe

2005-04-14T02:30:00.000+08:00

Hmm... looks like we have stayed long enough at Oosters. Think that they are gonna chase us out soon. Well, since we hardly met up, we decided to find a cafe or pub for a drink and continued our girl talk...(I haven't met up with Limting since Nov 04 while Jane has not seen Limting since 5 years ago)

Got back on the car, driving aimlessly to find a place that is still open late on a weekday and somewhere that is not too noisy... a chill out place. Not long after, Jane suggested Samar.

Samar is a 24 hour egyptian/arabic cafe located at Baghdad Street. (Somewhere near Arab St). It is quite commonly known as a shisha cafe. Unlike Al Majilis, Samar has spent a lot of effort in creating a nice relaxed atmosphere for their customers. It is very cool place... without doors and windows ....Apparently, it is been around for at least the past year or so... Guess Arab St is a place I have yet to explore.

Since it was a weekday, it is very quiet. Only a few tables were occupied. Will check out the place again another time. Would like to try their food menu too. We had their iced mint tea. Very refreshing!

Hmm... will get the pixs we took @ the cafe from limting and upload them here. Check back at this spot for the pixs.

Belgium Beer n Mussels

2005-04-14T02:00:00.000+08:00

I was having a craving for an ice cold peach beer n a pot of belgium mussels and managed to get some frenz with me to go oosters bar and restaurant @ capital square.

What are we having? well, needless to ask, we are having mussels. we ordered 2 pot of 500g mussels (in 2 different broth). We had the one with spicy tomato sauce (moules pedas) and the other in vegetable broth (moules mariniere). They were rather addictive but not as yummy as those I had from the same place as well... what a bummer. Other than that, we have seafood croquettes, baked sea bass and calamansi prawns. Not forgetting the delicious belgium beer. Hmm in belgium, there are more than 500 different beer bewery dishing out yummy beer. Belgian beer is usually served in a glass produced specifically for that particular type of beer, with some really extravagant designs. One of my all time favorite since my trip to brussels years ago is the peach beer - one of the many fruit beers.
We had ordered peach beers and grape beers. Some of the other old time favorite belgium beer is duvel, hoggarden , hoggarden forbidden fruits and the leffe.
Wish i am in belgium now... chocolate, frites and mussels..... totally sinful!

Fyi: Keep the shell of the first mussel you eat. You should use this shell as a pincher to pluck the rest of your mussels. So please, No Knives and Forks!

Menotti High Tea Special

2005-04-10T22:07:00.000+08:00

Both Jane and I had chocolate craving this week.... after a few failed attempts to meet up for chocolate cake, today we finally did.

Since we were around city hall area, we decided to go Menotti's. Pretty crowded. Initally, we wanted to order a tiramisu and a tartufo to share among the 3 of us. Then, the waiter told us that there is a uob promotion... 1 for 1 high tea set. Hmm... pretty good offer.... Each set cost $12. It comes with 1 tea/coffee of your choice + 3 pieces of sandwhiches (chef choices) + 3 pieces of pasteries (chef choices).

We had 2 sets of the high tea, 1 chocolate frappe and 1 tiramisu....

very delicious... tho hahahha sidetrack... the tiramisu is shaped like a doggie poo ahhaha! ;p

Pig out day!

2005-04-09T22:04:00.000+08:00

Morning....
Woke up at about 9 am. Hmmm....what shall i have for breakfast....Maybe I shall make some waffles. Haven't had that for a while plus the two notti ones (my cousins Kaiwen and Qiming) are here.

Waffles it shall be. Took out the pancake mix and other ingredients.... hmm.. realised no milk. Too lazy to walk out and buy. Ok... will make shift. Instead of using fresh milk... we will use condensed milk to make a glass of milk. ;p Started making n cooking the waffles. Pretty successful. Topped if off with some maple syrup.

Not long after....
Lunch....
Went to pick up my mom and together with her, we went to buy lunch. Initally, we wanted to go tiong bahru market to buy lunch... at the end I suggested Chicken Rice @ Katong Shopping Centre. Hehe... was thinking of it ....

We ordered takeaway.... for everyone @ home.
Let's see what we have....
1/2 a roast chicken
$6 worth of roast pork and chinese sauages (lup cheong)
5 packets of rice
1 box of achar
1 box of preserved veg
2 eggs
1 bowl of black chicken soup

It was really yummy.... and rather cheap... All for $25.50. Hmm... do you know... the box of achar, preserved veg and soup are complimentary from the store.
Never knew they would be so generous even if you have the food to go.

This place was introduced to me by my colleagues. Pretty interesting how they are rather inexpensive and yet they are rather generous. Went there once before this.

Burp!!!

Tea Time ... hehe!
Didnt have much plans this weekend. hmm... what shall we do? hmmm... heard that the bedok camp hawker centre has reopened. Hmm... lets check the place out and hopefully the cheng ting from "Yee Lai Xiang" store is still there.

Yeap, it is ... very crowded .. juz like the old days .... only thing is the place is revamped. a lot more decent from the old attap house looks. The standard of the cheng ting is still there. Between Ter n me, we had 3 bowls.. hehee.... Also, bought some home for the rest.
Got tempted to have the fried hokkien mee as well. It is just 2 stores away from the cheng ting store. Hmm, the famous one (red plate) was not opened for business yet. Uncle is still busy preparing the ingredients... but the queue was already building up... Not too sure what time he is ready, we decided to have the other store. It also had a queue.
Verdict: Not as good. Slightly different style. Not as wet as the red plates ones. Didnt find it as tasty.
PS: when we were done with that plate, we realised that the uncle started taking orders and cooking... as you can guess... we ordered another plate from this store too ;p

We are such gluttons. Oh well, eating is such a joy :)

Beach to Beach - beach pubs

2005-04-09T10:43:00.000+08:00

The Makan Queen is back in action. Finally, I'm recovered (I think)

Yesterday was eevon's birthday and we celebrated it @ a beach pub... or rather 2 beach pub.

Journey started when Rene's "school bus" picked us up. In a "school bus", we were all headed for sentosa.

Hmm... Eevon was overly hyper last nite... (hmm... she is hyper usually) probably she had one too many to drink! Anyways, the birthday girl deserves to make herself happy. And oh she had a headstart @ Paulaner Bräuhaus before meeting us.

First Venue: KM 8 beach pub @ sentosa

After reading some raving reviews about this newly opened pub, we were all really excited about checking out this beach pub... heard that they have a big soaking pool. hmm.... and so the dress code is swimming wear. Sidenote: Eevon even volunteered to let us all dumped her into the pool! :P

When we got to there... it was rather empty. It looked rather cold and abandoned....The place was quite bare...had some interesting deco tho. Hmm the couches near the bar counter looked comfy. We were about to settle ourselves at a cosy corner, the waiter came up and told us that the section was reserved for its member only. Sheesh... Not like the place is super packed. We tried to get him to agree but he insisted that its his bosses' order. He redirected us to a table outside the bar enterance. hmm..... is he discriminating us coz we are not ANG MOs aka foreigners/westerners. It seems that the ang mos had no problem just walking in to the members only area and were warmly welcomed. hmmm... or we didnt take off our tops and showed off our bikinis hahaha....

As for the Pool...it was not too bad but Empty. Maybe, we came too late. Maybe this pub has more of a afternoon crowd? Anyways, the pool is not for everyone. Specifically, its only for ladies & couples. Sorry guys, you are not allowed in there unless you have company. Looking at their attitudes, we were not so keen on jumping into the pool anymore.. maybe its for members only.

Guess we are probably not going there again! The waiter is rather rude too. Before we got our order, he was already asking us for the credit card for payment or rather to keep the bill open. The only redeeming point of that place, it has Kilkenny draught. hahahah!

Weird. Same management as soundbar and this place is so crap!

Hmm.... anyways, we were there to celebrate eevon's birthday right... hahaha.... so, what did we do to her?....hmm...nothing very crazy i guess. Rene got her a little cute hello kitty cake stuffed with candles ;p .... Eevon was probably sugar high at the end of the evening as that was the 3rd cake she had for the day ;p Rene also bought her a bouquet of flower from her shop, Purple Pots. Ter n I got her champagne chocolates from Royce which all of us had some to eat too. :) We were rather bored after a while... There wasnt much of a crowd, so no people watching. Hmm...fortunately, I brought the game "rush hour" or "traffic" and we were playing that. (sad, right!)

Time to proceed to somewhere more lively and possibly somewhere with food! There were a few suggestions and we decided to head for Bernies @ East Coast Park.

Back into the "school bus" and off we go to... East Coast Park ;p

Hmm... hopefully, Bernie's dont disappoint us.

Bernie was alright. Loads better than the "clapping" mossies.... Km 8 bar. They have live band there and music was pretty good. Vic wanted to play pool but there wasn't any vacant table. We sat there enjoy the music... and food... hehehe yeap they have food. Buffalo Wings. Rather, it is fried chicken wings with some sauce. Quite yummy tho. Hmm... since i just recovered from gastric, i better not drink too much. Had a milkshake instead but the milkshake didnt look quite right but it taste alright hahaha!

We chilled there for a while then we decided to call it a nite..... onto the "school bus" and we headed home.

lobster Ramen

2005-04-08T20:36:00.000+08:00

Today, Ter came and had lunch with me. We went to Koo Kee Dumpling House just downstairs of my office @ parkway parade. I think this joint is similar to the famous Koo Kee Yong Tao Hu.
Walked past the Dumpling House, a promotion caught my attention. hmmm Special promo: Lobster Ramen for $13.90++ (UP $22.90) Looks yummy.

We decided to go for it. Ordered 1 portion plus other dishes like beancurd with century egg, xiao long bao and guo tie (gyoza).

PS: The lobster ramen is quite a good deal. It is served with 2 small lobsters.... (4 halves) in thick soup stock. I do recommended it value for $$ but do note the noodle taste rather bland. I added the sauce from the beancurd to the noodle... since i cant take chilli yet.

BTW, its weird to have meals there coz the whole place seems of Roti boy. HAHAHA!
It kinda of takes the frangrance of the food away ;p

Will be back for more. :)

Burp! Stomach still slowly accepting oily intakes hehehe.....

Makan Queen Out of Action

2005-04-06T22:24:00.000+08:00

Sob! Makan Queen is probably out of action this week... Am down with food poisoning & gastric flu ... sigh!!!!

Can't believe I can get food poisoning from BAN MIAN!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHH

PS: I highly suspect that its the ban mian as a colleague had tummyache after that too.. think her stomach stronger than mine... i have a very weak stomach... sigh! Miss pigging out... Now living off porridge and macaronic.... :(

hopefully it gets better tomorrow.....

Vegeterian Kway Chap

2005-04-04T01:00:00.000+08:00

Vegeterian Kway Chap... hmm can you imagine how it would taste like? hmm.. the thoughts of it didnt sound good. The brown sauce would not have tasted good without the essence from the pork,etc... how decent can it be?

Well, to my family's amazement, it tasted good.... pretty decent and "healtier" choice. That would be something to consider if we are craving for kway chap but... its quite a distant away.... hahahaah

How did I stumped upon this store and where?
By chance i guess. this morning, my parents were bringing my granny to a clinic in ang mo kio as she was complaining about pain and aches. Since, i have yet to recover from a flu, i decided to tag along and see the doctor. When we got there, it was a long queue and instead of waiting in the clinic, my mom, ter n i decided to explore the nearby market I had not taken my breakfast yet so, was walking around, hoping to find something interesting for breakfast. hmm.... nothing seemed very interesting to me. Finally, at one stretch of hawker stores, i saw a super long queue for food. What could it be that is so popular? Usually, there is this mindset that the food must be good if there is such a long queue of partons. hmm... its vegeterian kway chap?!?! The first thing on my mind was... i love vegeterian food but hmm... vegeterian kway chap... thats something i have not heard before... hmmm.... does it taste good? I had some doubts about it but still decided to join in the queue. Ter had pretty low opinion of it as he strongly feel that kway chap broth should be made of pork and not anything else... he likes kway chap but never like anyone that serve with anything else except pork... even the duck store that sells kway chap is no exception.

Feast of the Indochine

2005-04-03T11:05:00.000+08:00

Our Indochine Feast
Picture Courtesy of HongZi's T610

Crazy as we might be... we really attempted to cook viet/thai food for dinner yesterday. hmm... it is pretty successful... other than a little tad too much of henessy in the onion soup + ice wine and everyone were a bit high.... :P

Well, it all started with Mikho's bbq....inspired to arrange for the next cookout. Justin went to vietnam with his family in feb during the cny weekend and he was inspired to attempt cooking the vietnamese beef pho for all of us.

The date was set... 2 Apr. Sadly, a few of the people were unable to make it for that cookout but we proceeded with it anymore... We just have more food to eat amongst the 7 of us ;p This time... the venue is Justin's place.

Technically, we were supposed to have everyone contributing a dish... At the end... ahhaha the chefs@work were Justin/Hazel and me/Hongzi. The rest were assistant chef... or instructors :P

After spending hours preparing the food from 4 - 9pm, and finally ate our dinner @ 9pm :P Novice Cook @ work so ahahaha...... the dinner was served pretty late and some of the food had turn cold/soggy ;p but it was still edible ;p

Anyways, Our spread for the evening....

Appetizer: Thai Mango Prawn Salad (Hazel/Justin), Vietnamese Fried Net Spring Roll (Hongzi/Jo) and Rice paper Roll (Joanne)
Soup: French Onion Soup - hehe... i know thats not viet or thai but.. hehehe vietnam was once a french colony ;p (Jo/Ben)
Entree: Beef Pho (Justin/Hazel) or Chicken Pho (Joanne)
Meat: Grilled Lemongrass Pork Chop (Joanne) and Stuffed Chicken (Jo/Hongzi/Ter)
Desserts (bought by ben) : Assorted Thai Salad ( from Parkway Thai) and Mango
Drinks: Viet Bandong (Justin/Hazel) and Inniskillin Ice Wine (Compliments of Ben)

Note: Will post the recipes to some of the dishes soon.... ;p

We were totally stuffed..... and we ended the evening watching a vietnamese movie "Three Seasons".

Till the next cookout....
(PS: Next Month: Italian Tappas Nite. Venue and Time to be announced.)

Bon Appetite

2005-03-30T23:27:00.000+08:00

It took me a long while before I managed to secure the reservation @ Cafe De Amigo using the DBS Credit Card 1 for 1 set meal offer. Today was the only date that was available to me.

Not exactly a very good day to start off... wasnt feeling too well, was coming down with a cold. Hmm.... should i still proceed with the reservation. I guess I should... as I am constantly searching good french food in singapore and i shouldnt miss this chance... as I heard some friends raving about the food there before...Managed to slot in the dinner in midst of some errands I had to run as well.

Met up with Ben for dinner.... We were there earlier than our reservation time. Hmm... oppsie... the reservation book didnt have my name.. but fortunately the cafe honored my reservation.

The boss was kinda of pushy about their drinks menu as he insisted both of us should order a drink each for him in return for the 1 for 1 set meal discount. I told him that I needed more time to decipher the menu but within a minute or so, he is back to bug me about my drink order before another waiter came to take our dinner order. I was annoyed but decided to get over with the drinks order.... ordered a iced lemon tea and a lime juice.

Dinner was great but the soup was disappointing. I think I got a little too high expectation for french onion soup since I heard raving about their onion soup too. (I really missed good french onion food from some cafes/restaurants in paris and new york) It smelt right but when I drank it... something felt amiss. *Sigh*

But the appetizer, main course and dessert made up for that. Think I would go back there again but I think I will give the onion soup amiss.

Jo had French Onion Soup, Escargot Ragouts, Duck Breast with Red Wine Sauce and Tiramisu
Ben had Cream of Mushroom, Oyster Florentine, Ribeye Steak and Tiramisu

Pretty Satisfied with the meal. The service was pretty good other than the insistance of the Boss to order a drink... much better than Shashlik or Borsch Steakhouse.

At the end of the night... the search for french onion soup continues.... ;p

Pigging Out in Phuket @ a rather affordable price

2005-03-26T00:05:00.000+08:00

After the Tsunami of 26 Dec 2004, Phuket tourism has been affected and there were a lot of discounts and promotions were going around to help Phuket boost their tourism again. I got to know of a pretty good deal for Banyantree Phuket plus tiger airways had tixs for S$19.90. We (Rene, Vic, Ter n I) decided to go for it... (Initally, I was kinda hesistant about going there.... but after seeing my boss's pixs from his recent trip, I was convinced to take a vacation there.

And on 22 March, we were off to Phuket and today we just got back :) Here a gimpse of what we had over at Phuket ....maybe you can get a tip or two from it ...

Hmm.... we got our daily supply of fibre from the complimentary fruits @ the villa daily (so far we got... rose apple (Jambu), mangoes and pamelo). Hmm.. interesting.. but it kinda of a mess trying to peel the pamelo hahaha!

Day 1
Lunch: Phuket Bay Restaurant.

Dine by the Phuket Bay

Edible but Not very nice... Quite Expensive. Probably a tourist trap that the cab driver got brought us to. *Argh* We told the driver we want nice cheap local thai food and he brought us there to be "KA" :(

We had tom yam soup, green curry beef, mixed veg and pineapple rice

Dinner: In-Villa Homemade BBQ

Romantic Candlelight Dinner for 4

A sumptous DIY in-house candle dinner by the 4 chefs :P
We lugged a instant bbq pit (bought from Giant for $3), went to the supermarket in Phuket, bought some chicken wings, pork, sausages, porkball, mango, instant noodle, baked beans and spam). Prepared our own marination... making do with the ingredients we had... eggs, fish sauce, garlic, pepper, butter and sugar.

Day 2
Breakfast: In-Villa DIY Breakfast

Our Breakkie

A range of healthy and unhealthy snacks hehee...
From the supermarket outing on day 1, we bought Pringles Potato chips, Breakfast Ceral, Meiji Chocolate Milk. Hahaha... Not recommended for daily consumption ;p

Lunch: Eatery @ Patong Beach

Local Thai Food

Pretty delicious.
We had tom yam soup, thai spicy salad and green curry chicken to share while each of us had our own entree... Ter had shrimp paste fried rice, Rene had Macaroni and Cheese (which remotely do not look like Macaroni.. more like Hollow Spagetti), Vic had Pad Thai and I had beef kway teow soup.
Much better than day 1 lunch and its cheaper. Only complaint was that the eatery is filled with a lot of Ang Mo... and the waitress dont seem so friendly.... sigh.. maybe cos we are Not ang mo and that Vic looks like a local.. :P And the coconut drinks were not very nice as the coconuts are too old but well, its refreshing.
PS: Patong Beach seems to be back to normal... Don't see much of the devastation... everywhere is slowly spring back to live.

Snack: Ice Cream @ Baskin Robbins 31
The sun is scorching hot... ice cream would be great .... interesting flavor they have like... mangosteen... yummy!

Dinner: Savory Seafood Restaurant

The Catch of Day
Phuket is known for its seafood, we can leave the place without trying any. Hmm...Ter been to phuket couple of years before and he recommended Savory. Since the 3 of us had no preference, we proceed with it. Big Restaurant... Very segmented... One interesting obervation, all singaporeans seems to be sitting together in the same area... hahha or is it pure coincidence. Haa.... recongised some familar faces from the same flight in as well as the distinct singaporean accents haha!
We had a feast of seafood.. hmmm.... a little too much i think. We had steamed sea hum (cockles), thermidor lobster, garlic steamed tiger prawns, deep fried mantis prawn, claypot vermicelli with prawns and thai style fried fish. We can see our cholestral level shooting up!
The food was a good spread but the food were slightly overcooked. Some of the meat were too tough... but it was alright. Spent a bomb on the seafood.

Day 3
Breakfast: Slight more healthy....
Cereal and Milk for most of us except Ter had a cup noodle.

Midday Snack: Sands Restaurant @ Bangtao beach
Hmm.... Am hungwee after much suntaning ;p lemme check out the menu at the beach bar. Hmm they have bbq chicken wings... yummy... ordered a plate to share with the rest....

Lunch: In-villa dinner ala Cup noodles ;p
By the time we are done @ the beach, it was getting a little too late for us to get a good lunch. Well, we all made a 330pm spa treatment appointment. Cant have lunch too late... need time for food to digest before we act like merlion during the massage ;p So, the easiest alternative... Cup Noodle + Pamelo and Mango. Just to get food in our tummies.

Snack: Iced Lemongrass Drink + Fruit/Veg Platter

Relax!
After a relaxed massage, rather all of us were pretty much snoozing away.... Too tired from the suntaning.... We had a refreshing iced lemongrass drink and some fruits. :)

Dinner: Local Thai food @ Black Cat

Burp!

We decide to explore the pubs just outside the Laguna Entrance. Hmm... we went into a pub called JJ's and had a couple of beer to cool us down on a warm day. We were trying to figure where we can get a delicious meal since we only had cup noodles for lunch. Going through some tour guide books,etc... and spoke to the pub owner.... we made a decision to try out his suggestion... local thai food @ Black Cat Pub and Restaurant.

It is great and affordable! We enjoy our food... and we wiped clean everything ;p The pub/restaurant serve both thai and french food. Since we had thai food in mind, we ordered mainly thai food except hehehe.. the french onion soup. Well, no regret... one of the yummiest french onion soup i had in a long while hehe.
Hmm.... we had a lot of dishes until the waitress was in shocked. Amongst the 4 of us, we ordered 10 dishes excluding dessert ;p And at the end of the meal, the plates were rather clean out... ;p Let see what we had....from what i remembered
Appetizer: Assortment Appetizers, Thai Salad with Vermicelli
Soup: French Onion Soup
Entrees: Pad Thai and Pineapple Rice
Meats: Green Curry Fried Chicken
Vegetable: Fried Tofu, Stir-Fried Vegetable
Seafood: Squid (Calamari), Egg Omlette with Crab

The waitress was amazed that we still had room for dessert. We shared a fried vanilla icecream with banana and chocolate syrup while ter had a scoop of coconut icecream. I recommend this restaurant pub... our favorite during the trip. :)

Finally the last day...
Before we headed for our flight, we needed breakfast. Since, we realised that we probably did not have anytime to eat before that since we had to be at the airport about 8am. Darn, why didnt tiger airways launch its afternoon flight that day :( (On the advertisments it was, but well, think it must be a print error :X) Fortunately, there was Burger King there.... Breakfast is solved. Weird that they didnt have a breakfast menu for BK.... its Whopper for Breakfast... hmm.... a bit heavy for breakfast.. but ter had no problem finishing it... while rene n vic had a fish burger. ;p

That's all folks... its back to Singapore... back to reality...end of relaxation. The trip was a little too short.... Sure wish its longer.... hmm.. maybe not too good an idea since we were all looking like lobsters and are suffering from sunburnt ;p

Oh yes.. Happy Easter Everyone! :)

BBQ @ Mikho's

2005-03-20T01:04:00.000+08:00

The start of a series of monthly cookout session ;p

Month of march: BBQ

BBQ @ Mikho's

Mikho booked a bbq pit @ her place and invited us over. No particular reason for this gathering... juz a bunch of foodie gather together for a feast....

As that week was a busy week for me, i didnt had much time to chip in and help with the coordination of the bbq like i initally promised mikho. Thankfully, all went pretty well that nite. :)

We had a wide spread of items .... salad... otahs...satays...kebabs...bee hoon...watermelon...sauages.... Jo's special Buttered Mushrooms.... Stingray... Chicken wings....and so forth......... a delectable spread. Not forgeting... mashmellow .... ;p This time, we gave the bbq wholesale another chance... (ordered from them otahs, satays and bee hoon)

hehee.... i had many supporters for my mom's secret recipe chicken wings and my very own buttered mushrooms by the end of the evening. ;p (hehe maybe i should start selling the recipes)

After dinner, we patiently roast our mashmellow over the open fire. Sounds like campfire all over again... ;p Following that, we proceed to mikho's apartment for desserts.... Ice Cream! :)

Burp! Enuff for the nite...
Till the next pig out - 2 Apr.... Feast of the Indochine.... Vietnam meets Thailand

Jake's Vist...

2005-03-16T00:33:00.000+08:00

Day 1

Woah... it must be about 4 years or more since I last see Jake. He still look pretty much the same hahah. Since it's his first visit to Singapore, he should experience our hawker centre. Going through the list of hawker centre, I decided to bring him to Chomp Chomp together with ter and winston. (Newton is too touristy and the food is not exactly very fantastic.)

Let me just say ... winston and jake can really eat. I kowtow to them! Let me juz run through our dinner menu....

4 BBQ Chicken Wings
1 plate of BBQ Sambal Stingray
1 plate of Sambal Squid
1 plate of kang kong
1 plate of char kway teow (medium)
1 plate of fried prawn mee (medium)
1 plate of fried carrot cake
1 plate of fried oyster omlette
4 gagantic sugarcane juice + 2 small sugarcane juice
1 plate of lala
1 plate of fried prawn roll (ha chor)

hehe for the record, jake is a water tank... he drank down the huge glass of sugarcane @ a record breaking time. He even ordered more...

After dinner, we showed Jake around and brought him to the Railway station. Hmm.. Too stuffed to eat anything, just had a drink. HAHAHAH wanted jake to try bandong since he didnt want a caffine free drink. He really hated that drink. He called it the pink drink that taste like cough medicine. At the end, He got himself a peelfresh juice after that. :P

Day 2
Two days later, we met up with Jake again. What shall we surprise him? Hmm....
His colleagues have brought him to the seafood restaurant, palm beach so he had tasted the chilli crab. Hmm.... we will bring him to ... my favorite haunt .... Gayatri Restaurant. (Since last November, I am hooked to this place.) They serve pretty good curry fishhead at a discount on monday and wednesday. (Each fish head is $10... dine in or takeaway).

We had the curry fishhead, chicken masala, sambal tiger prawn and papadams (it is delicious to eat it just as it is or dip it in the curry), vegeterian rice set and appam + lime juices. The curry fishhead was slightly disapponting that day... too spicy but on the whole it is alrite but think Jake got a little freakout about eating the fish-head. heheeh!

After dinner, he need to buy some singapore beef jerkies back for his colleagues...My immediate response was "hmm thats not a local singapore delicacy...do you mean barbequed pork aka bak kwa?" Well, he didnt have any clue ... but my assumption was its bak kwa he is talking about. We drove down to Lim Chee Guan to buy 1 Kg back.

Jake & the Singapore Sling

The night is still young plus its his last nite in town, I brought him to one of my favorite off-beaten track hang out... Little Bali. He liked the place.... this place is very surreal considering Singapore is a concrete jungle for most part of it. Lots of trees and plants.... very balinese. We got a really nice platform to chill. It is filled with cushions... hahah look very tempting to my sleepy soul. Hmm...I think he liked the place until he trusted me to order his drink. (big mistake) hehehe.....My rational behind the drink I got for him was... since he is in singapore, he got to try Singapore Sling. When the drink came, it was slightly pinkish... bad sign no 1 coz it reminded him of the bandong drink i ordered for him a couple days ago. He took a sip and his face didnt look quite right. You must have guessed it by now... hehehe another cough mixture hehehe. He totally dont trust me to order his drinks anymore .... Not until he got over his fear of pink drinks. Hiaks Hiaks. I decided to be nice and trade my gin-tonic with the pink cough mixture.

After nuahing there for a bit, it was getting late and we had to go off.....

PS: Jake, hope you had fun in singapore. Don't forget about this wonderful experience you had in singapore... pigging out with Jo. :) See you soon... in Hong Kong (I hope)

Railway Alfresco Dining

2005-03-03T00:50:00.000+08:00

Read on Makansutra about this off-beaten track dining experience. Decided to go see for myself (hehe.. got ter to come along) ... a whole stretch of street hawker selling malay food located juz behind the tanjong pagar railway station, similar to that of the roadside stalls in JB. (We think it might even be malaysian citizens selling the food since that plot of land still belongs to Malaysia)

Well, it was an eye opener. It would have been better if it had more stores and variety... just like the glutton square (when it was in operation). Tho it is supposed to be 24 hours, most of the street hawkers started packing up around 11 plus. It would be a nice place to chill over a teh terik and shisha (the egyptian water pipe smoke). It is good for big group outdoor gathering.

We had Kambing soup (Ter said that it was pretty delicious compared to most kambing soup he had tried in singapore), appam with eggs (tho living in singapore for most of my life, this is the first time i ate that), satays (pretty normal) and Putu Piring (hot and fluffy). Plus... Teh terik.

Yummy! Will come again to try out other dishes

Being a Carnivore...

2005-02-14T23:40:00.000+08:00

It's Valentine's Day today. Not exactly having a very good day ... but nevertheless, stomach still need to be feed.

Initally didnt know where to go.... at the end, made a reservation at a newly opened Brazilian Churrascaria at Chijmes.... Carnivore.

Well... I wasnt that impressed with the food and service. I still prefer the Brazilian Churrascaria @ sixth avenue.

Ter got there before I did... so while waiting, the waiter as if he wants still or sparkling water.... bleah... he say still which usually means regular water. Instead they gave us a bottle of evian... And sheeshhh.... it cost us $8 per bottle.... When we finish our water, without asking, the waiter open another bottle of evian.....bleah $16 bucks went to water that evening. Boy, They will really know how to earn their bucks. Most tables were having the evian water with some exception where they manage to ask for tap....

When I got there, I ordered a caprioska and I waited and waited... after a long while... finally my caprioska came... sigh! Not just that, if I didnt ask, they didnt even gave me the sauces/condiments that go along with the meat... sheeesh!

Hmm... before I made the reservation, I saw on the chijmes website that "For one set price, you can experience one or all of a variety of succulent cuts of meat – beef, lamb, pork, chicken and seafood – continuously served until you are finished eating. And for a well-rounded meal, you can also enjoy a sumptuous buffet of salads, fresh cut vegetables, and a variety of side dishes." Oh Well, it doesnt seem to be case tonight. We keep seeing the servers going round with various beef cuts... didnt see any seafood at all. We waited and waited.... didnt see lamb or seafood.... we asked the servers... they told us to wait.... didnt get anything much other than beef , ham and grilled pineapples.... Getting abit annoyed... and for no apparent reasons, I started breaking out in rashes, we decided to call it a night and head home....

The total damage came up to $110 plus .... hmm... I still think it would be better heading back to the one at sixth avenue. Well, for everything there is a first try. Or maybe like every other restaurant, they are just trying to captalize for the fact it is the all commerical V-day!!!

Popiah Overdoze ... CNY week

2005-02-13T01:26:00.000+08:00

Oh No... what have i done?

After i introduced the minimal frill popiah party to my parents.. it seems like we are starting to eat that non-stop. Since my CNY gathering, I have been having popiah every other day in mass!

My parents stocked up on the popiah filling from the Joo Chiat shop + the kway pie ti.

Case 1: CNY EVE...
usually mom will cook but this year she figured that she would reduce her dishes in quantity as usual we would have a fair bit of leftover.

We had the usual...yearly Steamboat + a couple of cny dishes + yusheng (from ichiban boshi) but at the end, before the dinner, she was worried that the quantity was not enuff to feed a house of 15 adults and 2 kids. She took out the reserve... popiah filling and kway pie ti.

One good thing, at the end of the evening, most dishes were gone... including the popiah. Last year, everyone had fun playing with the grill on the steamboat cum bbq pot. this year, the novelty wore off... And the new novelty was DIY kway pie ti. :)

Case 2: Dad & His friends... Yearly gathering on 2nd day of CNY
Past few years, one of his friends would coordinate with a caterer and have buffet lunch/dinner @ our place. This year, they decided to do away with that. Juz a group of old friends meeting up and having a nice chat. Being the host, we decided that we should have finger food for them aside from the heaty cny goodies. No pressie for guessing... what we end up preparing...drumroll..................... POPIAH!

This time, mom did her own popiah fillings and we went to joo chiat and buy the popiah skin. Goodness, we went in the morning about 10am and we queued for almost an hour. The line was rather long and the people just keep streaming in...The popiah uncles/aunties were keeping their hands busy making the skins...well...its worth the queue...freshly handmade skins...much better than the ones from the supermarket. beside ntuc wasnt open that day!

I think i have stuffed myself silly for the week on popiah. I foresee I wont have popiah for quite a while! hehe... i wasnt the only one that suffered this fate of popiah. Terence too :P

Not just popiah.. CNY is a season to pig out.... its a galore for cny goodies... like pineapple tarts, bak kuas and much more....and not forgetting mandarin oranges.

Gong hei fatt choy everyone... where's my angpow.... I am still eligible and proud of it :)

All you can eat Japanese Buffet

2005-02-11T22:25:00.000+08:00

Burp! x2

Juz got back from Hanabi. A contemporary Japanese restaurant located in King's Arcade (Bukit Timah Road next to Coronation Plaza). Adding this to the cny feasting agenda haha!

Heard of this restaurant before but have yet to make my maiden voyage there. Had some pretty good reviews from friends who had been there and decided to give it a try.

They had a choice of ala carte or buffet. Oh course being the greedy pig , we picked buffet + the fact that there was a special valentine's day promotion by UOB. (With purchase of 2 adult buffets, you get a plate of black pepper beef or seared scallops and 2 soda. And if you dine on v-day, you get a free gift too) We were more interested in the promotion of the food than the free frangrance minatures....and today was the only day we are available to pigout without having to go house visiting,etc...

A wide selection... similar to ikoi @ Miramar Hotel. Both place give you a lot of compliment items from the kithen even though you are struggling through their buffet menu. heh! The dining experience is different. At ikoi, I felt i am in a marketplace... its packed with people to the brim and sometimes the waitress or servers are not too friendly + food can get pretty salty @ the restaurant but usually it makes up for it by their sashimi selection. At Hanabi, the setting is more cosy yet modern and chic. The waiters/waitress were rather friendly even tho they did had a tendency to forget our order or serve the wrong dish.... one waitress came up and serve us our black pepper beef when clearly we can see it not beef but chicken... she insisted she was correct but at the end she realised the mistake and made the change for us. The food were less salty than ikoi.

At the end of the night, we struggled through, feeling totally stuffed! No room for desserts.... It is worth a try. Can come back for more...

The Damage: Buffet is at$30+++

Lo Hei .... 1 Week before CNY

2005-02-07T02:00:00.000+08:00

I love food... I love parties... makan parties that is... booze are welcomed too!

In light of CNY and the fact that some friends wont be in town during the CNY week, I have decided to have my CNY gathering a week early. Invited a diversed group of friends... always felt that the more the merrier.

Party venue: My place

Food menu? Well.....for once... its NOT steamboat :P Ter n I, both have a great passion for steamboat hahahaa... and rene juz dont understand why ....
For a change, we are having Popiah Party with additional varieties... black pepper crab (from koon seng road/still road) , salmon sashimi (toa payoh lor 1 mkt) and.... not forgetting YU SHENG!

Lo Hei!

Wanted to ask my mom to make the popiah filling but decided it is too troublesome. Decided to do a little google search and located this famous popiah skin maker @ Joo Chiat. Shop name: Kwang Guan Huat - 95 Joo Chiat Road. Verdict: Yummy but a bit expensive. Their popiah is nonya style. Need to get extra ingredients like prawns, eggs, and lettuce to make it like the hawker centre style popiah. Got some kway pie ti too.

Does that spell diaster? hopefully it didnt... but everyone have some pretty weird wraps at the end of the nite.

One funny note> tried to have a DIY abalone yusheng (from new moon). I happily bought the pack from Giant Supermarket... Cool! We are having abalone... HAHAHA... Welll.... feedback, the abalone was tooo chewy, too tiny and not tasty. We should juz buy a can of abalone and add to our regular yusheng. To make up for the bad abalone, we had a lotof fresh salmon sashimi to contribute to the dinner plate... (compliments of Wan)

The Birthday Girl

Of course, the nite did not end there. We also celebrated Xinyi's birthday as her bday is juz round the corner... Got a chocolate cheesecake from Don's Chicken Pie (Tho its a pie shop, they make good cheesecakes.) HEHEHE... i remembered the year when Meiyi, Kay and I created chaos @ my place in new york just to bake her a "chillipadi" birthday cake :P

Ending the nite, playing with stacko and uno.... with slightly blurred vision from the effects of ice wines and other liqours. :P Its not very easy to concentrated hahaha!

Queen back in town!

2005-01-31T12:49:00.000+08:00

Met up with queen and gang yesterday.

Hmm....Haven't seen queen for a while, since my last trip to nyc in oct. Sure love to catch up with her. Arranged for the rest of the gang to meet up as well. Haven't seen xinyi, celine and winston for the longest time.

Wanted to go glutton square (located opp Centrepoint) but we felt that Queen will melt in the hot weather. So, we decided to go Soup Restaurant @ DFS Scotts. (Tin... its soup restaurant not mouth restaurant). Made the reservation for 8 but at the end only 5 of us.

Soup Restaurant sells "new year" dishes that the samsui women (hong tou jin) eat...

Had our usual share of pig out... standard menu... not from their set but ala carte...
some of our favorite dishes....
1. samsui chicken (aka...steamed chicken with ginger sauce)
2. olive rice (not the thai style one :P)
3. you mai cai with blackened fish (one of the few vegetable that jo actualy eats)
4. Tofu and Shrimp (it taste like chilly crab without the crab)

After dinner, Winston and Xinyi joined us... couldnt get a place to do dessert in orchard.. most of the cafes were fully packed or have a long wait... so, i suggest ooster's... still dreaming of the mussels i had weeks ago and the belgium beer.

Got to oosters, without much hesitation, i placed my orders... to my dismay, a voice says "Sorry mdm, but we are out of mussels. If you were here 15 mins ago, you could have the last pot..."
Wait?!? would 15 minutes make a difference... I am so disappointed. Fine, no mussels... just a nice peach beer to cool me down.

Tin's Birthday @ Menotti's

2005-01-24T00:41:00.000+08:00

Just got back not too long ago from celebrating Tin's birthday @ Menotti's.

The Birthday Boy

Haven't tried the food at menotti's but their desserts are very interesting and worth trying. Will go back there to try it one of these days... its in the queue of Jo's must try food/restaurant.

We thought of checking out the new cafe in town, never knew that they had a great offer too. Lobang queen forgot to do her homework... hiaks hiaks. But fortunately, it turns out there is 1 for 1 for the ice-cream orders.

I had their version of frozen hot chocolate... it is far from the well-know seredipity 3 frrrozen hot chocolate.... i miss that. sure wish to have a glass to myself now...... esp the peanut butter frrrozen hot chocolate... can someone fly me to new york city now, pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Hazel was having fun snapping away with her new bought polaroid camera... heheeh.... she claims she is a non-techie...and happily satisifed with her new found polaroid camera.... (Jo: too low tech... dunno how to use .. hehe) BTW, Hazel... where are the photos!!!! :P

Seafood Galore

2005-01-17T12:15:00.000+08:00

Once in a while, my makankakis n I will go the distance for good food. A while back, Rene recommended us to this little hidout in Johor for seafood. (PS: lately, it doesnt seem to be a hidout anymore, we see more n more singapore tour buses visit the eatery.)

So where oh where is this mysterious place?

It's Good Luck Restaurant ... (the first time i heard the name, i was like... wish me luck! didnt know what i am in for.. but i must say i am happily surprised!) What does this place has to offer? Delicious Seafood @ Affordable Price.. cheaper than Jumbo, No Signboard and Palm Beach thats for sure.

It is located in Penggerang or Sungei Regit. A rural place where cyclists like to visit. It is near desaru. Close to Sebana Cove.

How to get there?
a 2-3hr car ride or
take a 50 minutes bumboat ride from changi village or 1 hr ferry ride to sebana cove and grab a cab to the town. Its a very small town... its like singapore in the 70s n 80s.

Specialty: Seafood...namely lobsters. Dont expect big huge lobsters.... the small ones are yummy too. buttered and deep fried.

Burp! After a good meal.... ZZZ

Usually, i will head to this place with about 12 pple. enuff to fill a bumboat so we dont have to wait for other passengers to fill up the boat. Then we will go there... launch a lunch attack, head to sebana cove to chill for a bit or take a scroll ard the rustic penggerang town and take a ferry back.

The owner restaurant usually has some memory of us... a bunch of yeow gius hehe! Usually we go there and eat as if we were starved for days or weeks.... a typical menu would be
2 plates of oysters omelette
1 plate of hotplate tofu or house special tofu
1 big plate of small/medium lobsters
1 plate of garlic steamed prawns or cereal prawn
1 plate of stir fried deer/ostrich meat/wild boar
1 plate of sambal kangkong
1 plate of crayfish (if in season) or manis prawns
1 plate of chilli/black pepper crabs
loads of fried man tou
1 plate of deep fried baby squid
1 plate of shrimp paste chicken
1 plate of shelled fish.... like lala/clams/tou dao

Note: fish is usually not recommended unless its baked in their special sauce or deep fried because they do not have salt water fish

hmm... are u drooling yet ;p

plus lots of coconut drinks and softdrinks...

heheh must make the trip worthwhile.

All in all, usually, we dont exceed SG$50 per pax (inclusive of transportation)

Note: We found a cheaper restaurant.. looks equally good and apparently recommended by yummy king. maybe next round, we should give it a try.. its jade garden palace or somethng....

Cant wait for the next round... anyone?

Ok.. we are crazy... we finish late lunch, went to sebana cove to take a ferry back... then a bunch of us actually head down to ooster's @ capital square for mussels and belgium beer. We are a bunch of nuts head aint we ... heheh! Mussels and Belgium Beer rocks! Tip: order the spicy tomato based mussels... :)

Private Dining @ Equinox

2005-01-08T10:23:00.000+08:00

Couple of days ago, I received this email invite for a NYU Stern Alumni Gathering @ Equinox. hmm... that's one rare invite esp its a free expensive meal from NYU on Jan 7. hahah! hmm... wonder what's the agenda? (PS: there were some school updates and fundraising talk.... zzz....)

Unlike many other oversea uni alumni, i think i have yet to hear an official one here in Singapore. What's the occasion? The Deputy Dean, Dean Winer, of the school was in town for a visit and he was keen to meet up with the alumini here.

Spoke to some friends (Connie, Mikho, Derrick and Justin) and we all agreed that we should go take a look and in hope that we can do some catching up as well... havent seen some of them for almost a year.

When we got there, it was quite a shocker. 1. Everyone were more matured than us - in age and looks. The 5 of us were the youngest at the dinner table. Everyone graduated from the Stern MBA program while the 5 of us were from the undergraduate program. 2. It is assigned sitting and they separated the 5 of us. Hmmpf. Time to mingle! Surprisingly, we managed to converse pretty ok.... tho I am not a typical Business Student... (I always felt that I am a stray cat from the litter). I tried my best to diverse the conversations to more interesting topics not corporate biz talk. At least, managed to get acquainted with some alumnae who are in town... The crowd that turned out where mainly expats tho.

Enuff said, dinner was delicioius but hmm.... not too filling. hehe! It is more of being aesthetically appleasing pieces of artwork :P We had a 3 course (soup/salad, entree and desserts) + wine/cocktails + cookies + coffee/tea.

My choice was seafood chowder with a stick of scallop, a rack of lamb and a Jivara Milk Chocolate and Raspberry Tart.

The other option available were Seafood salad and the Pan-Fried Tiger Prawn and Seared Scallop.

Dinner started around 8ish. Hmm... it ended rather late too! Supper, Anyone heheh!

Hopefully there are more alumni events in the future. Great to be connected!

Happy New Year

2005-01-02T04:33:00.000+08:00

First posting of the New Year.

How did I usher the new year? Well, with a bunch of friends... pigging out @ Curry Flavor, Stamford House.

Inital plan (Picnic @ East Coast Park then stroll on Sheare's Bridge to watch firework @ the count of midnite) was thrashed... No choice coz there were notices that all fireworks are cancelled as a sign of repect to the victims of the horrifying tsunamic on 26 Dec 2004. (Let's observe a minute of silence for all those who had perish in Aceh, Phuket, India, etc... it left a scar in everyone's memory.)

Met my friends at 8pm. 9 of us pigged Out @ Curry Flavor...Yummy Jap Curries ... Love the Spicy Beef Don as well... Oh ... Not forgetting their mouth-watering desserts the mango slushies.... mango mambo.

PS: One of their bosses aka YW is very entertaining... provide you with "free" dinner entertainment... giving you a run for your buck hahaha! Pardon him for his sick jokes @ times :P

Proceeding that, we went to chjimes ... there was a Salsa Party there. We brought along two bottle of ice wines (Robert Mandavi's and Inniskillin) and some disposable wine glasses :P . NOTE: the bunch of us highly recommend ice wine. Drink it when its chilled.... WArning: a wine for those who have a sweet tooth. and dont be too addicted to it coz it will burns a hole in the pocket too. (unless you can find cheap ice wine from Giant supermarket in Malaysia)

Cheers...A Toast to a new beginning. a new year!

It feels weird to start off a new year so quietly... no big bang... no fireworks. but oh well...life still go onz. At least at chijmes, they had some pyrotechnique tho no fireworks.

Ketch 'Up

2004-12-31T14:19:00.000+08:00

Its been a long while since I have met up with Diana, Susan, Shafie, Johnny, Kurt and a few others... my ex-colleagues from a Not so Keen Foundation ...

Since its the festive season, decided to take some initative and arrange for a get-to-gether.

Venue: Lagun Sari @ Peck Seah Street.
Type of Food: All you can eat indonesian restaurant (halal)

Had a meal there a few years back and as far as I remembered... they were pretty decent for an affordable price. Sigh! years later... I was horrified. The food quality wasnt as good as before. Some selections were still decently edible but not the others.

Guess that is the last time I am going back there... I think Rice Table is much better!

How disappointing!

Oh well, but ... it was a good evening...tho many could not make it at the end, we got to catch up w. everyon's life update and gossip of the ex-company (ahhaha) with those who came... namely, Shafie, Johnny, Kurt, Lucas (Guest Appearance) and Grace.

Hmm... Any suggestion for another outing...

KL Makan Getaway

2004-12-28T02:26:00.000+08:00

Took a long (super heavy traffic) bus ride to KL on Christmas Day and back together with terence, daimien and elizabeth... We arrived safely and intact... stayed @ Crowne Plaza Mutiara.
Verdict...Location... not too bad! Serivce.. SUXS! Food... Double Suxs!

The trip was alright... spent the most part of our times pigging out. Here's a preview of what we had....

Day 1:

Lunch: Skipped (on a stinky bus. lost of appetite coz an old man did his BIG business and we almost suffocated!)

Snack @ the hotel: Soto Ayam (Super Salty!)

Dinner @ Chinatown:
1. Hokkien Mee by the roadside... supposed a very famous hokkien mee store in KL. I think the store is "Ji Lian An" Ordered other dishes like shrimp paste chicken, sambal kangkong, Garlic/Ginger Deer Meat

2. BBQ Seafood (Stingray & Sotong) by the sidewalk too. (Very crowded...Very Popular had to queue for about 1/2 hour)

3. Luo Han Guo + Logan Drink from Ayer Mata Kuching stall. (Die die must try!) I think I had 3 cups of it that nite :P The ones in Singapore can't compare to this.

VERDICT: It looks gross and dirty ... looks like back in the 80s to be eating at such unhygience conditions but... beyond that... the food were two thumbs UP! :) Three cheers to good food ... Hmm.... didnt had diaherra after that... Hurray!

Supper @ the hotel:
1. Room Service: Nasi Goreng + Soto Ayam(Took more than 1/2 hour to excute the order. Food items were missing from the menu. Food taste rather horrible)
2. Ter and Elizabeth bought the "original" Gua Lin Guo... herbal jelly said to make from tortise shell... hmmm...... the thought of it.. rather sick... i passed.....but they enjoyed it.

Day 2
Breakfast @ the hotel: Buffet @ the ballroom ?!? It says the Planter's Inn for breakfast but before we got there, we were directed to the ballroom. Weird... but we just followed the instruction.

Ballroom was super cold. Not all food had food warmers thus... cold breakfast...cold tea. YUCK!
VERDICT: We were rather disgusted and we almost swore off breakfast the next day.

Lunch @ Sungei Wang:
There is this cantonese roast meat place at the entrance of Sungei Wang. Pretty good food they have there and its always so packed!

Snack: Cheesecake from Secret Recipe
Well-acclaimed.... looks yummy. taste alrite.

Dinner @ Bangsar
Took a super chiongster cab and reached bangsar... Wondered around aimlessly not knowing where to eat... found a corner zi char eatery and ate some pretty decent food there. The usual, fried mee, soup, chicken, seafood and satays.

Dessert @ Alexis
This is TWO Thumbs Up! (Thanks Adrian for the recommendation.. tho I heard he had never tried it hahahah) Searched hi and lo, finally found Alexis. Before I left for KL, Adrian was raving about the tiramisu... saying its best in singapore and malaysia. Managed to convince all the stuffed people to try. Order two tiramisu... BIG MISTAKE. Cant finish... Its too big. Not the typical tiramisu that one would expect. It was topped with crunchy nuts! Simply DELICIOUS!
VERDICT: Regret not lugging back a whole cake :P

Supper/Drinks @ the hotel:
Totally Stuffed so No Supper. But we had some drinks. Another cheap lobang from Adrian...(Thanks.. boss!)
Affordable Ice Wine @ Giant Supermarket. Hmm...Where can you get candian best gold reserve ice wine for SG$25 (RM$59.90). Now we know.. Too bad.. cant bring in Alcohol from Malaysia.. DARN! Think I need to make more trips there! :P

Day 3
Breakfast
As you remembered early... we swore off breakfast at the hotel. We intended to go MacDonald's for breakfast instead. Hmm... since we have the breakfast vouchers, we decided to grab a glass of juice/milk before we set off. Similar to Day 2, we were redirected to the Ballroom. Seeing the buzz at the planter's inn, I violently object to comply coz I saw a lot of empty tables. I insisted that I want to be seated in the restaurant. Told the waitress that I will wait if need be. After a while, she gave in and gave us a table near the pool. Near environment. The buffet spread looks more appealing... more variety and on-the-spot cooking too. We decided to give the breakfast another chance. It is so much tastier than yesterday's.

PS: What we observed from the two days were they only direct the Singaporeans and locals to the ballroom while the business executives and ang mo have the luxury of dining in the restaurant. Super discriminating! I am going to lodge a complain! (Note: Yup.. wrote in a complaint and got back some refunds....) Oh yes, behind my group, there was also another singaporean group who refused to comply and insisted to dine at the restaurant. Guess, they overestimated us! We know our rights...How can they treat us 2nd class... its unfair... we are paying customers too! This is so maddening!

Lunch @ Mdm Kwan's.
My all time favorite... Mdm Kwan. This place has really delicious fried chicken. And once in a while, I have craving for it. Finally after a year and the half, I am back! I shall return again. Till next time.... save some fried chicken for me.

That pretty much concluded my 3 days kl makan fiesta...... I feel like a pig. Wait.. I am a pig. (Oink ! Oink!)

Christmas Dinner

2004-12-25T02:04:00.000+08:00

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas to all! Hmm.. Where's my christmas pressie...?

Just got back from drinking teh... @ this indian coffeeshop next to ah meng cafe. And before that, clubbing @ rouge.. (got to catch up with Dave, briefly and as usual we manage to make it 15 minutes before the clock strike 12.)... and before that...dinner @ kahwai's.

Kahwai decided to be host of this year's Christmas Dinner. After much discussion and procrastination, we decided to do away with the traditional christmas dinner and proceeded with BBQ. Initally we were hopping for a no-frill bbq dinner @ 15 per head... but oh well... it didnt turn out that way.

It's almost a dinner gone wrong... hmm.. how wrong can it get?

1. BBQ

Well.... we (the planning committee - rene, kahwai n myself) decided to cater instead of the usual DIY but of course...BBQ with Jo is never short of her signatured "buttered mushrooms".
We catered from BBQ Wholesale (located at Geylang). the usual stuff, chicken wings, beef, otahs, stingray,etc.... plus some contributions from rene & kahwai.

Just before dinner, kahwai called and told us that the food didnt look enuff from what we ordered for the bbq. Ended up, she went to cold storage and stock up on more meats,etc. And ordered leg of lamb from Brazil.

VERDICT: the food from BBQ Wholesale were edible but they look rather pathetic.... Maybe its the feative season.... will give them another chance another day.... the stingray was yummy. We had a tad too much food at the end with the amount of potato salad, spagetti and a bunch of cooked food.... lots of otahs leftover. (Goodluck to kahwai and her family .. hehe)

2. HAM

Both of us ordered the ham from Brazil (almost a yearly tradition) beforehand, since its a double order, I cancelled mine. So, I left kahwai to pick up the ham. She had forgotten to tell the shop that she wanted cooked ham. At the end, her sister collected 1 kg of "raw" ham. Good thing, she had other ham @ home which was cooked.

3. Birthday Cakes

Christmas Eve @ Kahwai's

Aside from the yuletide season, there were 2 birthday girls in our midst.... Wan & Hazel. We were gonna give them a surprise celebration.... afterdinner affair. We waited and waited and waited... and Hazel never made it to Kahwai's place.

Serene bought 2 DIY warm chocolate cakes from Carrerfour and since Hazel wasn't there, she heated up 1 warm chocolate cake. Ermm... it looks rather unsightly after that... Good thing we have gelare ice cream cake as backup :) ... Happy birthday, wan!

4. Wines/Liqours...
We had a few variety of wines/port that nite... dont remember what we have but the "yellow label" sure left us with some deep impression.... right? (hiaks hiaks)

Ok... that's it for now... Gotta sleep... going KL in a couple of hours....

Festive Season - its Pig Out at its Peak

2004-12-10T12:46:00.000+08:00

Hmm, first week of Dec is slowing creeping past. Its 2 more weeks to christmas. Hmm... everyone is scramming to make their last minute orders for christmas roast, confectionaries, dinners,etc.... A bunch of us are no exception. We have decide to throw a christmas eve dinner at a friend's house. Good that the venue is secured... but the food items are not. We can't decide if we want to have yet another traditional christmas dinner or a bbq. Tough call. Anyways, for those facing the same dilemma, here are a few carterers and food sources that we have found. Hope that this is useful for the rest out there.

Freebies

1. Spend SG$1000 on any standard chartered credit cards and you can redeem a free chocolate mint log cake from Marriott Christmas booth (Forecourt stall) . Limit to 80 a day. Redemption till 25 Dec

2. Spend SG$500 on any standard chartered credit cards and you can redeem a jar of cookies from Marriott Christmas booth (Forecourt stall) . Limit to 80 a day.
Redemption till 25 Dec

Getting Started

2004-12-09T12:00:00.000+08:00

Trying to get over my addiction to my new toy a.ka. the X-box, I decide to do something useful and that is ... to get the ball rolling for the long awaiting Oinkster's Mankan Minutes.

Hmm... How should I start? By cuisine, area or price? Let me think....

After long procrastination, there will be a few categories like by food type, group size, ambience,etc... Will just arrange the info as we go along. Feel free to contribute, okay!