Five Star Chicken Rice

They have quite a number of branches, can google for the addresses of the other branch, i went to the one at river valley and 3 of us ordered half a chicken and 2 side dishes.. i find the food so so only... nothing fantastic

Half a chicken, i felt that it wasn't tender enough, the savory sasame and suy sauce they had over the chicken was nice and salty.. goes well with the cucumber.
Baby kailan.. not bad. but nothing special.
Deep fried tofu thai style. the tofu was soft and smooth, the thai style sauce is the same everywhere, nothing special.

This meal costs us around $30, the price was fine for a clean and comfortable dining environment, food was decent. maybe i need to try boon tong kee soon, so i can compare these 2.


address: 417 River Valley Rd
contact: 62356760
ambience: 6
taste: 6
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: not very expensive, but food also not that great

Cold Rock

Heard about this ice cream cafe when it opened up at holland village, but never got the chance to try it out until now. the cafe has got limited seats in side, most of the seats are outside, without air con.. decor is very refreshing, mainly white, quite a wide selection of ice cream flavours and crunches/toppings.

The main speciality is that you can choose your ice cream flavours, and then choose the crunches or candies like mars bar, snickers bar, fudge etc etc, and they'll mix everything up before serving the ice cream to you.
Chocolate with marshmellows and i forgotten what it was which was crunchy. the ice cream itself wasn't very good, the only thing i like is that i can choose the crunches i can have in the ice cream.
Honeycomb ice cream with violet crumble and cookie dough. the cookie dough taste very raw, very floury. should have gotten fudge instead. again ice cream was just so so, the crunchy violet crumble made it much nicer.

Generally speaking, i feel that it was not worth the price, but if you have never tried ice cream with additional items added in like that, you might wanna go take a look, i forgotten to take photos of the staff mixing the stuffs on the cold plate.

address: 24A Lorong Mambong, Holland Village
contact: 67631323
ambience: 7
taste: 4
service: 6
value for money: 4
overall rating: not that fantastic, quite expensive

Kazu Sumiyaki

This place was recommended by nuanda after he read my post on gyu kaku a while back. A small cozy, but a little cramp restaurant in cuppage plaza. as the name suggest, their speciality is grilled items, mostly on skewers, or many of us know them as satay sticks. they have a very comprehensive selection of bbq items, and the boss himself is at the kitchen grilling the food. nuanda thinks that the boss looks like a japanese surfer. so if you see someone fitting this description, that's the boss.

Brown tea is served free, unlimited refill, but if you order the cold brown tea, which is exactly the same thing except that it's chilled, it's $1 per glass.. just a note in case you feel that $1 for tea is too expensive. but since you are there, be prepared to spend. The restaurant has small tables and chairs and you sit very closely to the people on the neighbouring table, very typical of japanese restaurant. but the good food will definitely make up for the squeeze.

Lots of photos.. click on the photo to see a larger version of it.
Asparagus with bacon, australian wagyu beef, bacon with golden mushroom, japanese shitake mushroom, sausages. sausage seems a little out of place although it tasted well, not very jap. i prefer the beef at gyu kaku, the rest of the items above were very good. oh couldn;t comment on shitake mushroom, cos i'm not a mushroom fan.

Chicken skin, quail's eggs and chicken ball (tsukune), foie gras, scallops with prawns, lamb chop. crispy part of the chicken skin was good, but i dun really like to soft part cos it feels very fatty, foie gras was quite good, not very oily, and the taste wasn't too strong, at $6.50 for a stick like that, i think it's worth it, i do not eat foie gras often to know whether this is high quality or not. lamb chop was absolutely delicious.

Squid with bacon, chicken wings, chicken with apple, tako ball with mayonnaise, cod fish. chicken wings were crispy on the outside, warm and tender on the inside. chicken with apple is really very good, you can taste the sweetness from the apple in the chicken cubes, tako balls were unlike the ones we have at pasar malam ot food courts, this one is filled with meat, like a huge delicious meat ball.

Raw cabbage, garlic rice, pot rice (kamameshi), tofu with unagi, cold cha soba. cabbage is served before the food, you eat it raw with the miso sauce provided, squeeze some lemon into the sauce so that it's doesn't taste that salty. 5 of us finished 3 bowls of cabbage! the pot of rice was quite expensive, $22, a little like chinese claypot rice, i dun really fancy this dish. tofu was good esp with the eel.

Containers like this are provided for you to place the "satay sticks" after eating the food. the more sticks you see in there, the more satisfying it feels, but i means a longer and bigger bill.

When we were there, this staff by the name of yingjie was serving us, and i just have to commend on her service, full marks!! explaining the individual items, explaining all the dessert so that we know which one to choose, telling us about the boss, and a little on the history of the restaurant, giving us a feww cabbage cos we really liked it. btw this place has been around for 14 years. so if you happen to be there, you might wanna ask for her, actually the other staffs should be equally good i guess.
We were looking at this funny cutlery places on out table, there was one for each person, and even after thinking for a while, we couldn't figure out with it's for, so we just had to ask. it's for you to remove the items from the skewers without using your bare hands, wah it was quite cool, you can remove the meat and place them on your plate before eating them with a pair of chopsticks.
Finally, it was time for dessert, and we chose the grilled mochi with ice cream. fantastic choice, the presentation was astonishing!! look at it!! it's like an artpiece, the moshi was really soft and chwey with the skin a little charred from the grilling, but inside it the ice cream remains cold and together with the sweet dressing, it was fabulous.. must try..

address: 5 Koek Road #04-05 Cuppage Plaza
contact: 67342492
ambience: 7
taste: 9
service: 9
value for money: 8
overall rating: Wonderful food with equally wonderful service.

Crystal Jade Restaurant (Airport Branch)

Crystal jade is a chain of restaurants that we are quite familiar with, and i have always have good impression of their food, from crystal jade kitchen to crystal jade la mian xiao long bao. but this time round, this one at the airport was really disappointing. the best dish we had for the whole of dinner was the plate of peanuts with ikan bilis.

Deep fried squid with pepper and salt. it seems as if it was fried quite some time before it was served, not crispy at all, the one at crystal jade kitchen is much better.
Steam chicken with ham. quite an expensive item, $20+, ham is very salty and chicken is very tough, feels like chicken that we usually cannot finish , leave it in the fridge and reheat it the next day.
Briased beancurd with vegetable, ok this dish was passable.

Something else to note, plain porridge is very very salty, never order that... hhmm i think better don't visit that place at all... the above items came out to be nearly $80 for 4 person, and we left still feeling hungry.



address: Changi Airport Terminal 2, Viewing Mall North # 036-084
contact: 6214 1488
ambience: 8
taste: 4
service: 6
value for money: 3
overall rating: Very bad food, dun waste your money

Sze Hwa Ba Kut Teh

Was at kulai on a visit to my relative's place, had to go up early in the morning so that we won't be caught in the jam, and since we are there early, cousin brought us to this coffee shop kind of place for ba kut teh, yes for breakfast.

Salted vegetable is something you must get to eat with your ba kut teh, the one they have here is normal, nothing too special.
Ba kut teh.. fantastic, in singapore we usually get the very pepperish soup, and you can feel the spicy sensation after drinking the soup. over here at sze hwa, the soup is not pepperish at all, it has a nice herbal taste to it, i just love it!! the meat was really tender too, according to them, the meat taste good becasue it's fresh pork meat, not frozen one like we have in singapore, frozen meat can never achieve such standards.
You cha kuey is a must for me, i love to soak the you cha kuey in the soup before eating it, i myself can finish 2 bowl of this!!

But one thing i dun really like is their pig organs, they seemed to be a little overcooked, cos the kidney and liver were both quite tough. so if you happen to be there, just order the ba kut teh.. this meal for 7 person cost around rm$80. you decide for yourself if it's cheap of expensive.

address: Kulai, Johor, Malaysia (Do not know exact address)
contact:
ambience: 6
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: very tasty, but not as cheap as expected

Lemongrass

Crackers with spicy chilli dip. crackers are normal, friends say that the dip is nice, but i dun really like it, i took the crackers without the sauce.

Pineapple rice, this item was normal. nothing different from the ones at other thai restaurants.
Pomelo salad. this is fantastic. i think i can go back to lemongrass just to eat the salad. the pomelo is rally sweet, the sauce is sour and spicy, just love all the different tastes mix into one.
Steam fish with lime, very refreshing way of cooking fish because of the lime. but one sad thing is that the fish is not fresh, and the meat was quite tough. this dish will be very good if the fish was good.
Green cury with prawn, this one is good, not too thick, very nice with plain rice.
Beancurd with crab meat. normal dish, nothing special in terms of taste.
Garlic fried chicken. i love garlic so initially i felt that this dish was quite nice, but after a while, the garlic tasted very bitter, i'm not too sure if it's supposed to be like that or there might be a way to fry the garlic so that it's not that bitter

Forgotten to take photo of the entrance of the restaurant.. but it's quite obvious wen you get to the 5th floor of heeren. can check out the other lemongrass branches here

address: 260 Orchard Road, #05-02A The Heeren
contact: 67361998
ambience: 7
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 6
overall rating: Food not bad, but quite expensive.

Ambush

This is an interesting place, they serve italian food like pasta and risotto, but it's in a food court, at basement 2 of takashimaya shopping centre, you just had to queue up and order and the staffs will arrange seats for you.

Their kitchen is the open concept kind, you can actually stand in front of the galss panel and see how the chefs are whipping up the dishes, i find this quite stressful from the chefs..

Appetizer platter consisting of cheese stick, calamari and fried prawns... totally not worth the price, looks like stuffs you can get from the supermarket and deep fry it yourself at home.. please do not order this

Mushroom soup with garlic bread. the bread was good, they use foccacia for the garlic bread.. the soup was uite tasteless though.

Baked risotto with cod fish, the fish was quite good, but the rice was too watery and the cheese didn't taste good, portion is quite huge, a little too much for 1 person.

Baked risotto with sausage, ham and i think it was bacon. nothing special, i could only finish half of it.

Japanese baby scallop penne in cream sauce with prawn roe. the pasta was not bad, the sauce was interesting and tasty. i should have ordered pasta instead or rice..

Generally i wasn't impressed with the food, i might go again to try out the pasta, this meal for 3 (soup an garlic bread for all) person costs $52, you decided for yourself if it's expensive. portion is large though

address: Takashimaya food court #B2-04-2-1
contact:
ambience: 4
taste: 6
service: 6
value for money: 5
overall rating: not expensive, but the food is not great too

Thai Accent

Was walking at vivo, looking for a place to eat and we came across this thai restaurant, i have never seen it, so we decided to give it a try.

Phad thai noodles with chicken. the noodle tasted alright, but it was a little too dry and sticky, the chicken was quite badly done, i think it was deep fried then stri fried, it made the chicken pieces very tough, it's like eating reheated overnight chicken. I think this plate ast around $14.

Thai mango salad that cost $10. not a large serving, taste wise passable, but not fantastic.

Plain drinking water are chargable at 30 cents (refillable)

The place is quite big, lots of seats and it has a nice view of the sea facing sentosa.

address: #02-145/146, Vivo City
contact: 63769282
ambience: 7
taste: 6
service: 7
value for money: 5
overall rating: Food is not that great considering the price.

Botan Japanese Restaurant

A small scale restaurant in far east square, the place is not very big, so remember to call up for reservation if you want to dine there. I heard it's always packed during weekdays for lunch.
Very cosy interior, jap decor, makes you feel quite warm having jap food there. staffs are quite friendly, and you need really patient staffs because someone like me will ask quite a lot about the food items because the menu doesn't say much. and everytime i was there, the staff never fail to please me with their patience. thier sets are quite worth it, i feel that the portion is too large for 1 person, so 2 person can actually share 1 set and order a couple side dishes.

My favourite, the cold soba with tempura set.

Special order, not in the menu, chicken with ginger and spring onion, this taste very chinese style.

I dunno how to name this, also a special order, spcifically ask them to make this cos i like this kind of egg. but realised that all the sets come with it... should have ordered something else.

If i didn't remember wrongly this is the botan set. very comprehensive set, sashimi, sushi, tempura etc etc...

The chef, i think he's a japanese, cos he was talking to a few customers in jap.. and for the japanese to visit this palce, i would think it means that they feel that the food here is authentic right?.. go try it.. and taste it for yourself..

address: 36-37 Pekin Street (Far East Square)
contact: 65364404
ambience: 8
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Large servings, order different sets to share.