Just Ximply Food

Ivins

2009-03-04T11:19:00.008+08:00

Got to know about this place very very long ago... more than 15 years ago(if i didn't remember wrongly) and have loved the food there since the first time i stepped in. Food was affordable, very affordable and most of the dishes were really tasty. Dessert is nice too, ok there was once occasion where i had the dessert there and the coconut milk has turned bad.. but that didn't stop me from recommending this place to friends... finally, i took photos of the food and decided to post it here.

Ayam buah keluak, chicken cooked with the buah keluak nut. personally i dun like the nut but many friends actually love it, they will spend time to dig out the nut to eat however difficult it might be. this dish can be quite spicy.

Fried ngo hiang , actually this dish is quite normal, but i happen to like to have this dish with sweet sauce and they do serve it with sweet sauce (if you ask for the sauce).

Babi ponteh, quite a famous peranakan dish, you should know if you watch little nonya right? the one they have here is served with lean meat, dun seem sinful..

Honey pork, this is my favourite since the first time i put it in my mouth, doesn't look nice at all cos it looks like some charred meat, but it's sweet and somewhat reminds you of ba kwa. small serving, remember to order more servings if there's a large group.

Pong tauhu, another item on the menu that i will always order, the soup is really tasty with the bamboo shoots. pork ball is tender, probably because of the mixture with the tofu.

Garam assam fish head, we changed the fish head to fish fillet instead, cos felt that it's a little difficult to dig the meat out of the head. will order this if i'm there with a big group (say 4 or more) if you are in a small group, you can order the ikan masak assam pedas, almost the same, i feel that the gravy is the same, just smaller portion.

Daun keledek lemak, sweet potato leaves, cooked in a rather special way, cos there's quite a bit of gravy in this, coconut based but not thick, so you won't feel sick of it even if you have quite a bit of it.

Generally the dishes have quite a bit of gravy, unless if you order the fried stuffs, and the gravy is rather tasty, just nice if you are having it with plain rice.. they serve yellow rice (coconut) too, which will be more suitable if you are not taking the dishes with gravy, or if you like to have your rice dry...

address: 19/21 Binjai Park
contact: 6468 3060 (Website)
ambience: 6 (your clothes might smell a little after your meal)
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 8
overall rating: 8

Minoru Restaurant

2008-09-23T21:35:00.009+08:00

A few of my friends go to this restaurant quite often and i finally had the chance to go down there to try it out for myself with them...
This place is small and cozy, tucked in a place where there's totally no crowd, you can have a nice meal peacefully, the restaurant is clean and the ambience is really nice. brightly lit, warm and friendly staffs. and of course, the food was good.

Yakitori, chicken was tender and a little crispy on some parts. must have it immediately when it's served, very nice when it's still hot from the grill.
Agedashi tofu, this one is normal, nothing special, just like anywhere else.
Deep fried oyster, i didn't try this cos i dun like oyster, but from the expressions on their faces, i think no need to try.
Curry rice. curry is nice and thick. i find it slightly better than average, didn't made me feel that it was really fantastic though.
Saba fish. so so...
California maki, never miss this if you are there, there were 6 of us and we had 4 orders of this. something special, they addes a bit of soft shell crab in this, so you get something crispy inside the roll...i do not have photos of the california handroll, or ordered that by mistake and it's as nice as the maki.

Haha i realised after writing the above that the california maki and handroll is enough to make me wanna go back there again...

address: 214 West Coast Way, Hong Leong Garden Shopping Centre
contact: 67758879
ambience: 8
taste: 8
service: 8
value for money: 8
overall rating: small and cozy, nice food, affordable

Lerk Thai

2008-07-17T18:04:00.006+08:00

Lots of drinks to select from, i got the watermelon smoothie, which is refreshing, like watermelon ice blended, wise choice. friends were adventurous and got some drinks made of some thai herb and some thai flower, i find them tasting weird..
Vietnamese popiah, comes in a pair, prawn and chicken. nothing special, average tasting.
Pomelo salad. this is a must try, sweet spicy and sour, all in one, the perfect appetizer to start the dinner. quite expensive at $3 per serving though.
Prawn cake. another must try, the cake is really chewy, according to them, the prawn paste is freshly beaten and made into the cake upon ordering. not cheap too. $3.50 a piece. but it's worth it
Tom yum seafood soup, i quite like the tom yum soup, really sour, really spicy, really shiok to drink the soup. seafood in the soup are cooked just nicely too
Pineapple rice. nice presentation, but taste wise, not the fantastic. just another pineapple rice
Thai style fried glass noodles (tang hoon), not bad, but a little plain, it's only the tang hoon with some prawns on it, no other ingredients in it. so it's a little boring to have this item alone.. which i did.
Olive rice, again it's just like the olive rice you get from other thai restaurants, nothing special.

Generally, the food dun taste bad, and they have a few items that were really good, a place that i would definitely go again, i can say that it's my favourite chain thai restaurants around. if you haven't tried it.. go.. go.. check out their branches on their website.

address: 6 Raffles Boulevard, #02-202, Marina Square
contact: 63343323
ambience: 8
taste: 7
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: some items are very good

SoShiok Gourmet Safari

2008-06-15T15:13:00.004+08:00

Posted some entries on soshiok.com to try my luck in winning the gourmet safari about a month back and woah.. i really won, so called up 3 friends and off we went to novena square 2 for a sumptuous lunch on a sat afternoon.

First up, secret recipe. have tried the food here quite a number of times, and my fave has always been the lamb. today we chose the lamb again, and also the dory fish, lamb was still really tender as i have expected, and as a lover of potato, i find the mash quite nicely done. didn't really like the fish, probably cos the gravy was made from lobster broth and it gave a very fishy taste, the texture of the fish wasn't very great too. white choc macadamia cake was a little too sweet, the banana chocolate cake is still a better choice.

Next, we moved on to zhou's kitchen, a chain by the tung lok group, a general comment i would give is that the food tasted very homecooked, if you are a person who like the feeling of having home cooked food, this is a good place you can try. loved the sweet potato leaves, always prefer it to sambal kangkong, but you dun get it very often at the usual places. they cooked it very well here too, smooth and tasty. the xing hua noodle wasn't quite my kind of dish, a little bland, and the gravy was gluey. the pork was really good, tender but not fatty, soaked with the tastiness of the sauce, something nice to go with rice. dumplings were awesome, seldom you get to have dumplings with the skin so smooth so thin so silky, this is a must try.

Round 3, seoul yummy. The shrimp roe bibimbab with beef was ok, probably we were too full for rice, didn't really like this much, but i must say that their sliced beef was really tender and fill of taste, a little sweetness from the sauce, i think i'll have to try their beef alone the next time. didn't try the octopus cos i do not like octopus, dumplings were a little dry, the meat in it is not tender. dessert is really good, wanted to eat the items separately until we were told to toss them all together, the ice mixing with the yogurt ice cream was refreshing, a slightly different taste and texture from other desserts you get outside.

Finally, with a stomach that's already very full, we moved on to the last stop, lerk thai. pomelo salad and prawn cakes are a must. very spicy salad but the sweetness from the pomelo sort of mellowed the spiciness down a little. prawn cake was really good, freshly made, it had a really nice chewy texture. phad thai was too salty and i feel that the noodle was a little over cooked. didn't really like the pudding too, too much sago at the bottom of it and it made the whole thing a little mushy. if you are going there, remember to try the salad and the prawn cake.

Gotta thank soshiok.com for the wonderful lunch we had at novena square2!!

Food for Thought

2008-06-05T11:15:00.007+08:00

Stumbled upon this place quite a while ago, and have been to this place quite a few times since then, but i think i have been busy and just realised that i have not wrote about the food here. it's a small eatery, about to hold around 20 to 30 pax. had attended a birthday celebration there and it was good, warm and cozy place very a group of very friendly staffs, you will feel good dining and chatting or just lazing there.

Their signature soup, mushroom soup. one interesting thing about their soup is that although it looks creamy, no cream or milk was added to it. i dun really like the mushroom soup cos i personally dislike the taste of the chinese and the shitake mushroom. but if you are a shitake lover, i;m sure you'll love this soup. tried the broccoli soup, but i felt that it was a little bland, had to add pepper and quite an amount of salt to taste. would love to try the potato and leek but haven't had the chance.

There were quite a number of us so we decided to take the platter for many, and i love the way they serve the food, we get to eat almost everything, they serve 3 different salads, and all the different sandwich fillings, a good way to sample all their food.

Tomato lemongrass corn salad, just realised it's tlc.. interesting. chinese chicken caesar and i cannot remember the last one. the chinese caesar is really interesting, the dressing was dark soy sauce, a very new taste for salad and it's really nice.. something you never get anywhere else.

Oven-roasted steak, i find it a little tough, and tasteless, very dry with the bread. braised pork, very chinese taste, spicy with dark sauce and tofu pieces which we thought was cheese on the first glance, this is good with the bread, with the taste gravy, the bread don't seem that dry anymore.

Grilled sausage duo, slow roasted pulled pork, basil pesto chicken. the pork was heavenly, so soft and tasty, goes really well with their homemade bread. sausages were just normal, nothing special. chicken was not bad too, favourite is still the pork here!!

A place i would go again just because of the friendly staffs they have there, of course not forgetting the nice ambience, do call them if you want them to prepare food for a small gathering for you, i suggest 20 pax, more than that will get the place really heated up, unless they have upgraded their air conditioning system.

Check out their website here!!.

address: 420 North Bridge Road, North Bridge Centre, #01-06
contact: 6338 8724
ambience: 8
taste: 7
service: 8
value for money: 7
overall rating: cozy place for small gatherings, very friendly staffs

Bab Noodle

2008-05-28T12:14:00.005+08:00

A friend suggested having dinner at bab noodle at millenia walk, so went there for dinner with 5 other people. ordered a main each and some side dishes

Century egg with cold tofu, quite normal, nothing special, but i guess you cannot expect anything much from this, at least the tofu is fresh and the century egg is not mushy.

Chawanmushi, the egg seems more firm then the usual one i see. not as smooth and soft as the better ones.

Chilli soft shell crab, something interesting, the gravy is spicy, similar to the chilli crab gravy, only difference is that it's over deep fried soft shell crab instead of the usual large crabs. i find the gravy very spicy.

Tori karaage, fried chicken cubes, very tender meat and the skin is nicely done.

Ginseng chicken soup with vermicelli, the soup is really very tasty, very powerful. the chicken was totally cooked, the meat just breaks off from the bone easily. the glass noodles is just soso. but i really recommend this one. must try

The other items were ordered by my friends and i didn't get to try them, some were good and some were not.. i guess you'll have to go and try it for yourself to know.

address: 9 Raffles Boulevard, #01-20 Millenia Walk
contact: 6336 6770
ambience: 8
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Food is not bad, nice place for dinner

BBQ Chicken

2008-05-22T18:07:00.003+08:00

Looking for a place for dinner before a movie and saw this new place at the basement of cineleisure, decided to give it a try since the chicken on the posters look really nice and juicy. the place is more like a cafe rather than a restaurant.
Jerk chicken, not as nice as i tot it would be, although the korean bbq sauce is not bad, a little sweet, but i still prefer the next one..
Korean charboiled chicken. this is very nice, totally recommend this. actually, if there's 2 or more person, you can order both the chicken i posted here and share them.

Their fries are very nice too, fat and crispy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside.. just like the ones you get at mos burger.

address: Cathay Cineleisure Orchard, 8 Grange Road, B1-04/05
contact: 68873638
ambience: 6
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Chicken and fries are quite good

Ministry of Food

2008-05-19T17:30:00.001+08:00

Walked past mof many times when i was shopping around at marina square. finally got a chance to try the food there, from the posters, the food looks very similar to what you get at azabu sabo. the queue was really long on a friday evening, waited more than half hour to get a seat. and the food was served very promptly after ordering.. very efficient.

Wasabi seafood salad. the dressing was really nice, personally i like wasabi, it's some sort of a wasabi mayo sauce, the seafood can be better though. doesn't seem really fresh, the ones at azabu was much better.
Agedashi tofu, friends ordered this and i realised when i was looking through the photos that i didn't try this.... so i guess there's nothing i can comment about the taste
Yakiniku bento set, meat is tender and really tasty, the egg is made quite ingeniously, i wonder how to make the egg into small little balls, sweet tasting egg over the rice is nice.
Cold soba. i always order this when i have jap food. the soba here seemed to be a little soft, not as chewy as i thought it should be. dun really think it's good.
Three colour bento set. If i'm not wrong , it's minced pork, diced cucumber and eggs. i personally find that diced cucumber tasted funny when mixed with rice like that. the egg is good..
Chicken karage (i'm not too sure if it's spelt this way). not as good as i expected since it was a chef recommendation. nothing special.
Unagi with tofu. i didn't get to try this as well.. but from the one who ordered this, it seems not bad.
Cannot remember the name, very obvious on the last page of the dessert menu, it's roasted mochi with peanut powder.. a little tasteless, good if you have many people to share, i feel that it's too boring to eat this whole thing if there's only 2 or 3 person.
Cannot remember the name too... try to recognise how it looks like and order it from the menu. the red bean paste was absolutely fantastic!! i will order this again just because of the red bean paste!! everything else in it is normal.

address: Marina Square #02-138E
contact: 63342202
ambience: 8
taste: 6
service: 8
value for money: 6
overall rating: Quite expensive for the standard of food they serve, i rather go Azabu Sabo

Sbey Sbey Thai Food

2008-04-30T09:28:00.006+08:00

On the recommendation of a friend, we went down to sunshine plaza for thai food. it's a cozy little restaurant tucked in a corner of this building, you gotta access it from the outside of the shopping centre. it was a good experience, not a very high class place, but very nice for a group gathering, very reasonably priced too, and the food is quite good.

Omelette, normal. nothing very fantastic about this.

Bbq pork. this one is good, a little charred on the surface and tender on the inside, we ordered bbq beef initially, but they ran out of beef, so we had this for substitute. i wonder how the bbq beef will taste like. perhaps better since it was sold out first.

Green curry, very thick, quite good but must take it with rice.

Pork with basil leaves. i like the smell and taste of basil leaves, this one is quite a nice dish too, a little spicy though, can get them to make it less spicy and you cannot take spicy stuffs.

Thai fish cake. this one is quite normal.

Pork salad. super shoik, spicy and sour, very rich taste for this salad, i dun really fancy the raw beans and veg by the side though, but the pork with the salad dressing is just fantastic!

Hmmm, i cannot remember what veg this is, but again, this one is nothing special.

Tom yum soup, chokingly spicy, we forgotten to ask them to make this less spicy, very nice rich taste in the soup, i think it will be just nice if it's a little less spicy.

Generally, i would recommend this place if you want to have some nice thai food with a group of friends, remember to inform them before hand if you cannot take spicy food well. oh and if i'm not wrong, they open till late everyday, around 1 to 1:30am in the morning.

address: 91 Bencoolen Street, #01-14/22 Sunshine Plaza
contact: 90143218
ambience: 6
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 8
overall rating: Go try it.

Ice3 Cafe

2008-04-18T07:30:00.001+08:00

A small dessert cafe at serangoon gardens, it's opposite serangoon gardens country club. other than getting ice cream in scoops, they have mudpies, crepes and waffles too. they also serve food, but i have yet to check that out, tried the ice cream, crepes and mudpies.
Interior of the cafe is cool, table with blue light in side, giving the cafe a nice cool feeling, although the place is not big, it's a nice place or a few friends to have a chat over some dessert. ok, here's the dessert we ordered.

A scoop of peanut butter ice cream. peanut butter taste is not too rich, the ice cream is just nice in terms of sweetness. if you like very rich and sweet ice cream, this is not for you.

Oreo mudpie. i like this one. very nice, not as sweet as the mudpies you get elsewhere, finishing up the whole thing won't give you a sugar rush, this is a good item from the menu to be ordered for sharing.

Crepe with chocolate coated sunflower seeds, whipped cream and i forgotten what ice cream.. the crepes are served with your choice of item to be wrapped inside, topping and ice cream. and on tuesdays, crepes are on half price!! don't choose sunflower seeds, it has a yucky oily taste, not fresh at all. the crepe itself isn't fantastic in term of texture and taste. but if you mix with the right side, it might be ok.

Crepe with brownies, peanut, strawberry cheesecake ice cream and caramel. this combi is much better the first one.

Check out their website here. They do have another branch in tampines.

address: 11 Kensington Park Road, Serangoon Garden Estate
contact: 62828126
ambience: 8
taste: 6
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: nice ambience, dessert so so.

Borshch Steakhouse

2008-04-13T11:19:00.006+08:00

A friend was asking if i wanted to join him and some friends for dinner, they were going to try this russian food at serangoon gardens. hmmmmm, russian food, something interesting, go i tagged along... the place looks normal from the outside, seems like it has been around for quite a while, should be quite good then. upon stepping in, the place had a very funny smell, not a pleasant one, i cannot describe it, but i got used to it after being inside for a while. we got the set dinner which comes with appetizer, soup, mains and dessert. $22+ and we ordered a dozen of escargot ($24) to share.
Carpetbed steak. the special part about this is that they stuff an oyster in the middle of the steak, and it's really in the middle, you have to cut the meat to see the oyster, but it's a mini oyster.. haha, according to those who had this, it wasn't fantastic.

Shashlik of fillet. medium rare. i had this and i find this quite good, portion i really small , but the meat was tender and juicy. served with a side salad and some grilled onions. did not regret choosing this one.

Cannot remember this. i think it was lamb cooked on a skewer like kebabs. forgotten to ask about the taste of this item.

Escargot, i feel that there isn't enough garlic, didn't have the shoikness i was hoping for.

Borshch soup, mushroom soup, shrimp salad. very disappointing. the borshch soup tasted like something anyone can whip out at home. mushroom soup was worse. shrimp salad was more like haybee salad.

Banana pancake and peach ice cream. very disappointing again. serving was so small, ice cream didn't even fill up half the cup. pancake was soggy and banana taste was for too artificial..

Taking the set was a wrong choice, should have ordered ala carte. oh yes, the drink that came with the set was in such a small cup, i think you need 4 cups to fill up a macdonalds small size drink. not going back anymore..

address: 58 Serangoon Garden Way
contact: 63834069
ambience: 3
taste: 4
service: 6
value for money: 3
overall rating: quite run down, food not very nice, quite expensive

Bosses

2008-03-31T19:51:00.008+08:00

Whenever i'm at vivo and i walk past bosses restaurant, i can't help but be attracted by the beautiful decor, and have been wanting to try it since long ago, and finally, i had my chance and here's my review of the food they serve.
For a start, you'll be served with this as appetiser, fresh carrots and this roll of hhmmm wanton skin? but it's quite tasty, something different from the usual peanuts..
Spinach with butter. dun really like this cos the vege has a very strong mud taste in it.. the gravy was nice though, with the rich butter taste.
Deep fried spicy chicken cubes. reminds me of the fried chicken cubes from the streets of taiwan. here the meat is done very nicely, tender on the inside, crispy on the outside. not as spicy as it seems ...
Wasabi prawns, very fresh prawns, wasabi flavour was just right, not too choking, this dish is getting more and more popular, seeing more chinese restaurant serving this nowadays.
Ma po tofu. this is fantastic, a little salty though, but it's good to go with plain rice, nothing special about the tofu, it's the gravy that i really like, i can eat just this alone with rice!!
Xiao long bao. i cannot deny the fact that this xiao long bao is the one with the most soup/gravy in it that i have every tasted, definitely more juicy then that of ding tai feng or crystal jade or imperial treasures. but there's something about the skin that made it lose out to the rest, else it would easily be the best!!
Sweet and sour pork. almost perfect, meat was tender, sweet and sour coating tasted just nice, i have tried some places where the vinegar smell was too unbearable, but this is good.

Check out the meat, it's pinkish, very soft, this dish is a must if you happen to be there!!

Had a generally good impression with the food and the service here, will definitely go again, probably going to try their dim sum next time round..

address: Vivo City #02-156/157
contact: 63769740
ambience: 9
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 8
overall rating: most of the dishes are good, worth the money although it's a little pricier than the usual chinese restaurant

Waraku

2008-02-15T03:41:00.001+08:00

Went to waraku (check out their website)at the central, heard quite a fair bit about the good foor there and so we decided to give it a try. it was quite a while ago, i hope i can still remember about the taste from the photos.

California roll, pizza, udon in cream sauce

sushi and potato mentai

handroll, katsu curry rice and sashimi.

80% of the food ordered were really nice. the rest were just average,. curry rice was quite normal. the items were somehow not very autentically japanese, other cooking styles were injected into the food, esp italian.. and the result was really good, food come out to be slightly less than $40 for each person

address: 6 Eu Tong Sen Street #03-89/97/98 The Central (Click to see other outlets)
contact: 63278860
ambience: 8
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Very tasty food, nice place to go once in a while cos quite pricey

Eat

2008-02-08T10:36:00.000+08:00

Went to this place called eat at rail mall (upper bukit timah road, hear hillview area) for supper. i always get the fishball noodle, i fell that the fishballs are quite alright, has quite a nice bouncy texture to it.

The noodles are quite good too, generally it's better than the average fish ball noodles you get at hawker centres but the price is nearly double too!! If you stay around that area and looking for something to eat late night, you might wanna try this, they are open 24 hrs..

address: 436 Upper Bukit Timah Road, The Rail Mall
contact: 64623034
ambience: 6
taste: 7
service: 4
value for money: 5
overall rating: Quite expensive for coffeeshop food, but taste is acceptable

Marutama Ramen

2008-01-18T10:12:00.000+08:00

Recommended by a friend, we went to try this ramen at central, it's a small but really cozy place, i estimate that it can take up to max 30 plus customers at any one time. nice lighting, comfortable place for a quiet meal with a couple of friends.
An interesting finding, they only serve 3 different kinds of ramen, chicken broth (spicy or non spicy), that makes 2, and one special one with broth made of 7 different kind of nuts. Remember to add on the fried garlic bits and sesame, it's self service, placed on the table. garlic is crispy and tasty! i personally like garlic a lot. on top of the ramen, they do serve some side dishes, a very simple menu but the food were good.
Remember to add an egg for your ramen, as it doesn't come with it if you didn't ask for it specifically, the egg was cooked just nicely, look at the yolk, nicely cooked with a sunny orange colour, unless the over cooked yolk we get at most places. this is a must order.
Seasoned radish, i'm not a fan of radish, dun find this item wonderful, but my friend loved it, so i guess you will have to try it for yourself to know if you like this.
Cha siew. another must order, do not expect it to taste like the usual chinese bbq pork, it's not that sweet, the meat is really tender, even the fatty parts dun seem fatty, they just melt in your mouth, and the sides and charred really nicely. please do not forget this item when you are there.
Dumplings, similar to the wanton we usually have, this one is not bad, but not exceptionally fantastic, if you are on a tight budget, save it fro the charsiew.

Generally, i will definitely go back to this place again, the ramen is simple and nice, although it's priced a little high for a bowl of plain ramen at $15, so going there to indulge in good food once in a while is still worth it, not a place for daily meals.. pocket will be burnt very soon in that case.

address: The Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street #03-90
contact: 6534-8090
ambience: 8
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Food is good, but a little pricey, around $20 a person.

Sakae Teppanyaki

2008-01-05T20:22:00.001+08:00

Visited sakae teppanyaki at bugis junction, wasn't planned, just walked past and decided on it. the place wasn't big, but it was quite cozy, and not very smelly, some places stick because cooking is done where you eat.
Seem quite stressful for the chef to cook in front of his customers, cannot make any mistake, must look pro somemore.. our chef did it very well. and the food turned out good.
Garlic fried rice is a must order, top up to change plain rice to garlic rice if you order the set. salad is very appetizing too, interesting chawanmushi, cooked on the hotplate in front of you in a nice round onion shell.
Everything you'll be eating will be brought out in plates like that, sometimes it feels quite weird to see raw meat right beside you when you are eating. usually that happens only at steamboats.
Most of the items are done very nicely, esp the bamboo clams, very nice and juicy.

This place is worth a visit. do try it if you have the time..

address: Bugis Junction, 230 Victoria Street, #B1-05 (Other outlets here)
contact: 63349015
ambience: 7
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Food was quite good, not that expensive for teppanyaki

Five Star Chicken Rice

2007-12-19T13:14:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-08T09:45:00.000+08:00

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

2007-12-07T17:19:00.000+08:00

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)

2007-12-03T01:19:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-24T09:02:00.001+08:00

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

2007-11-22T13:40:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-12T21:09:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-12T08:24:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-02T23:49:00.001+08:00

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.

Gyu Kaku

2007-10-28T21:59:00.000+08:00

Gyu Kaku is located in Chijmes, if you go in from the main entrance where the driveway is, it's on the left side. This restaurant serves japanese bbq food. initially i thought that most of the food are cooked bbq style, like yakitori and grilled meat etc.. later i realised that every table has a charcoal grill and you get to bbq the food yourself.
Horenso salad, with spinach and mushroom, drizzled with japanese sesame sauce. very simple dish, but the taste is wonderful. a must have before the meat dishes..

Pork, i'm not sure if there's a special name for this pork. this pork is sliced very thinly and thus it cooks quite fast and won't get too tough.

Wagyu tongue, this item is something i have never had in my life, i tried a piece, the texture of it is a little chewy a little bouncy, a little like pigs liver, i dun really like that texture, but the rest of the guys loved this ...

Wagyu special plate, with meat from different parts of the cow. initially it looks scary, cos it quite bloody, but after cooking, it's really very good, esp with the dipping sauce provided.

Foil items, like prawns, scallops, butter potatoes and squids. the scallop tastes a little funny, like not very fresh, but the rest were just fabulous, esp the squid, the garlic and the squid tasted very well together, the prawns were large and fresh. the potatoes turned out a liitle charred, and the charred portion tasted very good with the butter. Because the items are all wrapped in the foil, and we are not good in cooking at all, we didn't know how long to leave the items on the grill, there was a staff attached to our table and he took note of all the timings of the items on the grill and removed them at the right time, thus all the food were cooked for just the right amount of time.

Beef fillet sizzling on the charcoal grill, the fire was strong, the meat cooks really fast, you just need to flip it over after a while and wait a while before you can have nicely barbequed beef in your mouth.. just pick it up with your chopsticks, dip it in the sauce and eat it!! this way of eating is really shoik.
As you bbq, there wil be bits of the meat stuck to the grill, a good service they provide is to change the metal grill regularly, so you always have clean non stick grill to bbq your meat.

Generally, the experience dining here was veryvery good, the food was near perfect. service is very good, i like the way they attach a staff to serve a few neibouring table, that staff knows very clearly what was ordered, how were the items cooked, and made sure things are cook just nicely. ambience was very cozy, one thing is that because everyone is doing barbeque, you leave the place with some smell on your clothes, not very strong though, cos they did install ventilation fans around the grills to prevent the smoke from filling up the place.

I think this is the best review i have given on this blog so far. i really feel that this is a wonderful place for a nice dinner with a group of friends, in fact it's a nice place for a dinner for 2 too.. check out their website..

address: 30 Victoria Street, #01-01/03 Chijmes
contact: 63334001
ambience: 8
taste: 9
service: 9
value for money: 8
overall rating: Very good food, Very friendly staffs, Cosy environment, it all comes with a price. approx $80 - $100 per pax. Must visit if it's within your budget

Va Va Voom Cafe

2007-10-24T11:05:00.000+08:00

A small but cosy cafe serving vietnamese food along seah street right opposite raffles hotel. the place is suitable for a gathering of small groups cos the place is not very big, they have sofa low seating areas too.

I didn't really look at the menu cos i always order beef soup noodle when i'm having viet food, here are the food we ordered

Morning glory salad with chicken. i'm not sure if the green stuff is raw kangkong, the dressing is quite sour and taste a little like plum sauce, a very interesting salad and it taste very good.

Stirfried beef noodles, it's a dry noodle that comes with this sour sauce, that i suspect is similar to the one they have on the salad, you decided for yourself how much of the sauce you wanna put in or maybe you'll prefer it without the sauce. interesting item, i have never tried something like that.

Beef soup noodle. the usual pho that you get at viet restaurants. the beef here is really nice and tender, gotta be the best pho i had as long as i can remember. love the mint leaves together with the soup and the noodle. wonderful..
Lemongrass chicken rice. the chicken is fried with with crushed lemongrass, again it's a taste that i never tried before, the taste was good, but i felt that the chicken is a little dry and tough.

It's a nice place with good food, definitely worth going down for a meal.. do check it out.

address: 36 Seah Street
contact: 63361248
ambience: 7
taste: 7
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: quite good food, nice cosy cafe

The Sweet Stone

2007-10-23T14:12:00.000+08:00

A friend told me about this place, and after 2 previous failed attempts to try the chocolate at the sweet stone (first time, i went at around 8pm, and it happen to be the day it closes early. second time i went during a weekday lunchtime, and it was closed, it was his sister's wedding day), i finally got to try it out and i must say that this is a place that all of you reading must go try!!
They sell waffles, and you can have it with their special belgian chocolate dip. the chocolate taste is really rich and the interesting thing is that it doesn't solidify!! usually when we have chocolate fondue at other places, they serve it with a tea light to keep the chocolate warm, but after a while, you see the chocolate dip turning hard on the bowl. this one they have here is not served with any heating element but it remainds liquid even till the last drop.. totally impressed.

We got the royal claypot fondue set which comes with waffles, fruits, marshmellow, and 2 scoops of ice cream. Having these with the chocolate dip was really heavenly.. they have a few flavours of home made ice cream, and you must try to super lemon flavour, very sour, very shoik!!! although it doesn't go well with the chocolate, but you can eat it separately right?

You'll get a loyalty card to collect points, and when you get 20 points, you get a fre waffle, and by registering the card online, you get extra 20 points!!! it's time to go collect my free waffle!! check out their website here..

address: Blk 505 Beach Road (Golden Mile Food Centre) #01-67/76
contact:
ambience: 5 (Hawker Centre)
taste: 8
service: 9
value for money: 7
overall rating: Something you won't expect in a hawker centre, much better than expectations. Impressive

Wong Kok Char Chan Teng

2007-10-19T18:14:00.000+08:00

You might have noticed a new hong kong style cafe at bugis junction called wong kok char chan teng. so one of the evenings, we decided to go check it out, the place was quite pack on a weekday evening at around 7pm. environment is roughly the same as most of the hk cafes in singapore, decor is generally the same too. they do have some special items on their menu though.

Baked rice with portugus sauce (i thin it's portuguese sauce, i wonder why they spell it that way) it taste a little like curry sauce but not that spicy. the sauce is quite nice. baked rice and the cheese not that good though. we tried the tomato sauce too, not a good choice, stick to portugus..

Chinese pan cake with sausage, dun order this, it's not good at all, very plain and tasteless pancake.

Cannot remember the name, it's some xo roll thing, this is a must try, it;s really good, it has pork floss and omelette in it, the egg is fragrant, the roll is a little savory with some sweetness from the pork floss.

Some tea, i cannot remember, i didn't try this

Instant noodle with luncheon meat and egg.

Snow cat, it's a drink with yougurt in it, if you like yougurt drinks, you might like this.

Things worth trying out is the xo roll and the bake rice with portugus sauce, the rest of the items are generally the same as other hk cafe.

address: Bugis Junction #02-50
contact:
ambience: 6
taste: 6
service: 5
value for money: 6
overall rating: Gotta order the right items, they have good and bad items on the menu

Barracks @ House

2007-10-19T16:42:00.000+08:00

You might have seen this old building which has been painted green at dempsey hill with a huge "house" printed on the wall. house is actually consist of a spa on the second level and a cafe/restaurant and bar on the ground floor, quite a different concept to mix spa and eatery. check out their website, it's quite nicely done up.

They called the cafe barracks, and it's made to look like an army camp, and the staff wears something that looks like uniform. look at the menu, they used the figurines that we used to play when we were kids, so cool..

They have very interesting teas in their menu, so since there were 5 of us, we decided to have 5 pots of tea.

Ordered this one called the jungle julip, supposed to taste of spearmint, when i took the first sip, i recalled the spearmint chewing gum that i used to like, and without sugar it taste like gum after you chew it for hours. and when sugar is added to the tea, it taste like fresh gum again. buddha blend taste like oolong tea. spa esprit smells like some aroma oil but taste like plain warm water.. not impressed with the tea at all.

Carrot cake, quite nice except for the rasins, i happen to not like rasins, but other than the rasins, it's a nice cake.

Strawberry shortcake, this one is good, rich taste and it has different textures in the cake, there's something crispy in it and the strawberry taste really good. must try.

The place is set up wonderfully, very good place for a chat, if you want privacy, they have a few private rooms which you can book, as long as you spend $300, there's no extra cost for the rooms (if i did not hear wrongly), the best room in my opinion should be the green house, it seems that you are dining in a green house with all the glas walls and ceiling and the green plants that put in the room. thumbs up for the decor!!

Some of the staffs are wearing uniform and a few were wearing own clothes, i would presume those are the owners or the managers.. but generally, it's the uniform ones who smiled more and were more polite, the better dressed ones were very stucked up.. maybe we don't have the rich men look, so they didn't bother about us, except this one called desmond, he was really patient with us when we asked him about the things in the menu, and he could even joke with us. The reason why we might go back to this place is definitely because of him, plus the ambience..

address: 8D Dempsey Road
contact: 6479 0070
ambience: 8
taste: 6
service: 5 (general) 8 (this person called desmond)
value for money: 7
overall rating: This place is more for ambience. food so so.. service not that good

Adam Road Food Centre

2007-10-19T16:20:00.000+08:00

A place that i have been visiting quite often recently is the adam road hawker centre. the stalls are devided into 2 sectiom the muslim section and the non muslim ones. quite a few food that i like from there.
Adam road prawn noodle. quite famous, and their prawns are quite large. not cheap though i think it's $5 for a bowl.
Fried carrot cake. please never order this. might look good, but the taste sucks.. please do not waste your money, there are many other nicer stuffs in the hawker centre. do not try their char kuey tiow too, waste your empty stomach only,
From the same stall, here's the pork rib noodle, with the same soup base as the prawn noodle. also very nice. they actually serve crabs too, with the same soup base.. again, i didn't find out about the cost for the crabs.
My favourite item from the place.. bbq sting ray, the chili sauce is fantastic, i find it really nice, comparable to another good one i tried at chomp chomp. go try this if you are there.

Another item that i like is the cheng tng from the dessert stall, their tau suan is not bad too... will try ti post more photos if i have more of them..

address: 2 Adam Road, Junction of Adam Road an Dunearn Road
contact: nil
ambience: 6
taste: 6 (general rating)
service: 6 (general rating)
value for money: 7 (general rating)
overall rating: can find quite a number of good food here.

Outback Steakhouse

2007-10-17T12:47:00.001+08:00

Had lunch at the outback steakhouse, was my first time dining there, but i gotta say that i was quite disappointed with the standard of the food. ambience was quite good, staffs were friendly. oh and if you have a friend celebrating birthday, there's something interesting, the staffs will bring the cake out from the kitchen, and at the same time, all the staffs will be singing the happy birthday song, very loudly and they are very in tune, birthday person will get a really pleasant surprise... ok, lets take a look at the food.

Outback sirloin. i felt that the meat wasn't tender enough although i already order medium rare. the garlic potatoes that it comes with was quite tasteless. i suggest that you order the grilled onions as the sides instead of the potatoes.

Spring chicken, didn't try this.

Mixed grill, the beef looks quite dry right? i didn't taste this either.

Ribs, the ribs was quite alright. a better choice as compared to the steak.

You might wanna check out thier website for the menu or promotions..

address: 9 raffles Boulevard, Time2 @ Millenia Walk
contact: 68373242
ambience: 7
taste: 5
service: 7
value for money: 5
overall rating: Pricey for the standard of food served. Not worth it.

Oosh

2007-10-01T23:51:00.000+08:00

Have been really busy with work, and time passes really fast, i realised that the last post was more than a month ago, i now have lots of photos in my harddisk waiting to be posted, but i have forgoten some of the dishes i ordered. Give me some time, i'll get them posted.

Went for dinner at oosh, it's quite a prominent place, you'll see it as you are driving up dempsey road, from the outside, this place looks really posh and really attractive. we finally found a chance to visit it and try the food.

Firstly, we had some appetisers.

Deep fried calamari

Potato wedges

Barbequed bacon

Barbequed shitake mushrooms

Salmon wrapped in bacon

Escargot with white button mushroom

The appetisers are quite good, not too sure about the shitake though cos i dun like shitake. my favourite gotta be the escargot. something different, served on a mushroom. now for the mains, the mains are quite disappointing though.

Seafood aglio olio

Tenderloin beef pasta

Pan fried dory

Out of all the mains we had, only the dory is worth trying, the pasta were quite bad. beef pasta seems like black pepper hor fun you get at normal tze char stalls. so we decided not to order dessert after being disappointed by the mains.

Ambience is really good, al fresco dining, very suitable for a cooling evening. dim lights, with just the right amount of trees and plants placed around the tables. would be perfet if the food is good..

address: 22 Dempsey Road
contact: 64750002
ambience: 8
taste: 5
service: 7
value for money: 4
overall rating: Expensive, low standard of food. the oly good thing is ambience

House of Bread

2007-08-19T18:54:00.000+08:00

A small place at a quiet corner of simpang bedok. they sell freshly made bread with no preservatives. but i happen to be there for just afternoon tea, so i didn't try their breads.
Quiche, very normal.
Pizza, it's curry flavoured, one thing different is that the base for the pizza is quite soft, so it seems more like bread with fillings on the top. taste wise, not fantastic. but price wise, very worth it. $2.80 for such a large piece.

I had a cup of hot chocolate as wwll and it was good. will try to drop by to try the bread another time. anyone tried the bread before?

address: 12 Jalan Pari Burong
contact: 62442838
ambience: 6
taste: 6
service: 5
value for money: 6
overall rating: need to go again to rate

Lotus Thai Restaurant

2007-08-19T18:15:00.000+08:00

Recommended by a friend, we went to this small restaurant for dinner at murray terrace, near tanjong pagar. quite a cosy place, cannot take many people because of the limited space.
Crackers will be served before the food and the chili dip is quite interestingly tasty with teh crakers. remember to try it with the dip.

This lemongrass salad was recommended by the staff. it's served warm, and you are supposed to have it with lettuce. it has the usual thai salad taste with a strong frangrant of lemongrass, special because it's warm and it's a mixture of many ingredients.
Deep fried kangkong. i never had kangkong cooked this way, i was staring at it when it was served, and i had to ask what it was. it comes with a gravy which is thick and tasty, like thai curry. may be a little oily but very different and nice.
Pineapple rice. not very special, can get this anywhere. i think plain rice would taste nicer with all the gravy dishes that we ordered.
Beef with basil, not bad, quite tender, but taste wise, also nothing special.
Green curry with chicken, this is really good, thick curry that will go very well with rice.
Omelette with pork. they actually made the omelette crispy on the outside, really fragrant. love this dish too.
Flaming chicken. a whole chicken, fried and then sweet and sour sauce is splashed over it. nothing special except the flaming part in the beginning for a few seconds. normal fried chicken, and normal sweet and sour sauce.

Check out their webpage here, you can see the full menu they have. and if i didn't remember wrongly, uob cardholders have 20% off for dinner.

address: 16 Murray Terrace
contact: 62246416
ambience: 6
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 8
overall rating: good food and good price

Fish & Co.

2007-08-13T17:22:00.000+08:00

Went for a gathering at fish & co at novena square on a weekday evening. the place was quite quiet, many tables were empty. it wasn't my first time at fish & co, but previous experience wasn't really good, cos i felt that the food were too oily.

While waiting for the late comers, we decided to get some appetizers to start off. ordered the fried calamari and the caesar salad.
The salad was ok, tasted like how a caesar salad should taste like. many places out there actually serve caesar salad with some creativity and it turn out to be something you shouldn't call caesar..
The fried calamari was good, so much better than the roasted ones.
In the end, 7 of us shared 2 orders of seafood plater for 2, which consists of prawns, mussels, fries, flavoured rice and roasted calamari, and the amount was just right. they still do serve food is large portions. i can never finish the portiion for 1 person. so if you haven't been there, try to go there in a larger group so you can order some mains and share it among yourselves. and this time round, i realised that the food isn't as oily as i remembered it to be a few years back.

address: 238 Thomson Road, Novena Square, #03-11/12 (other branches)
contact: 62557001
ambience: 7
taste: 6
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Larg serving, not very expensive, good for large group gatherings

Yet Con

2007-07-23T13:35:00.000+08:00

An old authentic restaurant at purvis street. i think it has been there for quite some time. you can see from the decor and the signboard. it's not a big place, so try to be there early if you do not want to wait for tables. they serve chicken rice, tze char and steamboat, all hainanese style. We ordered a mixture of them so that we can try them all out.

The chicken is tender and nice. although not the best that i have tried, it's better than most chicken rice stalls.

The pork chop is very good. pork is first deep fried, but it didn't make the meat become tough, then it's stir fried with sweet and sour sauce and potato. excellent, please remember to order this if you go there

The steam boat comes in sets. beef or non beef. the beef set just has for lot's of beef chunks with an egg, the non beef set comes with pork, chicken, fish, crockles, pig liver and an egg. the soup looks boring initially, but after a while of cooking, it became very tasty, but towards the end, it became very salty. so remember to drink the soup at the right time.

I think this place is quite well known, on a sat, it was already fully seated at around 7pm. a good time to be there will be 6 or slightly earlier. i dun think they accept reservation. and the aircon was good. there are some steamboat places where the aircon dun funtion really well and you end up soaked with sweat after the meal. this is someting you dun have to worry about over here.

address: 25 Purvis Street
contact:
ambience: 6
taste: 7
service: 5
value for money: 7
overall rating: nice good food. not very expensive too

Soup Restaurant

2007-07-23T12:55:00.001+08:00

Had lunch at the soup restaurant in causeway point. it was a long time ago that i ate at soup restaurant. this place is not crowded on a weekday lunch time, we didn't have to wait long for seats or the food. and i like it that way.

Didn't order too much as there were only 4 of us. so here are some of the items
Lotus root soup. quite tasty, gives you the home cooked food feeling. maybe because it tasted like my mum's version of it.
Samsui chicken, this is a must have if you step into this restaurant. the chicken is really soft and tender. the samsui ginger sauce is quite oily though, you wrap the chicken in a piece of lettuce and eat it with the ginger sauce. it's really really good. i can have this alone, maybe with some plain rice, cos the sauce is a little salty.
Tofu with hay bee and cai por. very interesting dish, the tofu is very soft, but the skin is fried crispy. and the gravy that comes with it will definitely remind you of teochew style steam fish. it's like eating steam fish without the fish...
address: #03-01, 1 Woodlands Square, Causeway Point
contact: 68942322
ambience: 7
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: not a cheap place for a normal meal, but the food is good.

Soon Kee Eating House

2007-07-23T11:56:00.000+08:00

Went to this coffee shop in upper thomson for lunch. as dad said that the duck rice here was good. it's near the famous ampang yong tau hu, which my dad doesn't like because he's not allowed to choose the items even after queueing for so long. so i decided to write about this duck rice.
Price is normal, just like any other coffee shops. taste wise, it's not superbly good that i would travel all the way there just for the duck. but it wasn't so bad that i would never want to return there again. slightly above average, the duck was quite tender, they serve with white rice. the soup they serve with is quite nice though.

address: Upper Thomson Road. junction with Thong Soon Road
contact:
ambience: 3
taste: 5
service: 4
value for money: 6
overall rating: Nothing really fantastic, but at least i won't mind having it again if i'm nearby

The French Stall

2007-07-21T08:32:00.000+08:00

Have been hearing about this place, and i finally found a chance to try it, on a sat evening. tried to make reservation but they do not entertain that, so we just gotta try our luck walking in. we were there at around 7 in the evening and we had the last table, those behind us had to wait some while before they get their tables.

It's quite a small place and they have quite a number a tables, so you can expect that the next table is actually quite near. if you are thinking of a quiet private dinner, this is definitely not the place. we saw the food on our neighbouring tables and they all look very presentable.. the menu has got lots of items and it took us some time to decide on what to have. we took up the set dinner that comes with a starter or soup, a main and a dessert.

Chicken liver pate. this has to be the best choice for starters. other options were soup of the day and the french onion soup. and if you choose the more expensive item, you gotta top up a couple dollars. this liver tasted very nice esp with the baguette.
The escargot was a let down. i was expecting it to come in shells and we'll get the trill of digging for the meat.. unfortunately it came like that.. without the shell and the garlic butter didn't taste strong enough, it was quite tasteless...
French onion soup. quite good. interesting that they had pieces of soaked baguette in the soup topped with a bit of cheese.
For the mains... i had the dory fish. i'm glad i ordered this, the fish was nicely done, there was no fishy taste. the garlic butter was perfect for the fish.. maybe because i like garlic butter in the first place. the mash potatoes that came with it is wonderously smooth and buttery, just to my liking.
Chicken thigh. quite good too, just that the serving of the meat was a little small. the potato seems to be the main rather than the chicken. this rosti like potato block tasted very good too...
Pork chop. wrong order. the pork was way too tough and tasteless.. again, the potato is wonderful.. i think they are really good with their potatoes.
The default dessert in the set, creme caramel. nice and sweet, but not too thick.
Chocolate cake. didn't look good, seems hard and dry, but i was wrong.. it was soft and not dry at all. the texture of the cake is somewhat different from the usual chocolate cakes that we have tried.

Generally, the food is ok, although some items have disappointed us, but at least it's not that all the food dun taste good. might be going again. and the price came out to be about $33 a person, cos we ordered a glass of wine each (not worth it, cos a glass is really small) very very small..

address: 544 Serangoon Road
contact: 62993544
ambience: 6
taste: 7
service: 5
value for money: 6
overall rating: food is slightly above average, but this place is one of a kind, gotta go try it, experience high class food at not so high class environment and of course much lower price

Olio Dome

2007-07-16T08:38:00.001+08:00

Dinner at olio dome at suntec. i like the ambience of the place. warm lighting, tables not too near one another, very friendly staff too (at least most of them). it was not crowded on a sunday evening, i think all singaporeans are flocking to vivo city, so places in town seem to be good choices for dinner over the weekends. here are the iems we ordered.
I forgotten what burger this was. but the serving was quite huge. the burger was just right, it's the amount of fries that was shocking. didn't try this, so not able to comment on the taste.
Sirloin steak. quite nicely done. not a bad item to order.
Seafood risotto. this is wonderful. the last time i had risotto was in italy. i never knew that you can find such good risotto in singapore. very tasty, highly recommended.
Spinach fettucine with mushroom cream sauce. i ordered this, but after trying the risotto, i regretted. it's about the same price. but this come in such a small serving, and it's vegetarian. no meat. but taste wise, it was good. no complains for the pasta and the sauce.

address: Suntec City, fountain terrace
contact: 63347555
ambience: 8
taste: 6
service: 7
value for money: 6
overall rating: very nice ambience. food not bad. nice place to go if you have a small group

Thai Express

2007-07-10T01:39:00.000+08:00

Went thai express at junction 8 for lunch on a weekday. the place was about half filled. but it took a while before they serve the food we ordered.
Springroll, very normal. nothing special.

Honey chicken with rice. according to the person who ordered this, the chicken is far too sweet.

Seafood green curry with rice.

Omelette with rice.

Stick Noodles with Sliced Beef in Beef Broth, i thought it will be the kuey teow like noodle. but it came with beehoon. hhmmm never knew that stick noodles are the same thing as bee hoon!! the beef slices are overcooked, very tough.

Comments wasn't good for the food we ordered, but i heard that different branches do have difference in their standard of food. i do remember dining at thai express q few times before, but food wasn't as bad as this time round.

address: #01-32 Junction 8 Shopping Centre (Other branches here)
contact: 62500466
ambience: 6
taste: 4
service: 6
value for money: 4
overall rating: food is quite bad, but i heard it varies from branch to branch

Secret Recipe

2007-07-10T00:45:00.000+08:00

Went to the secret recipe at holland grove. it's opposite raffles girls primary school on the first storey of an old apartment block. if i'm not wrong, this should be the first secret recipe branch in singapore.
I loved this branch because it's located at a very quiet place, out of the crowed and noisy town area. the small little park right outside the cafe is a relaxing sight to look at while having a nice afternoon dessert and tea. but this time, i went there for dinner. and i guess i ordered the wrong item on the menu, it taste quite bad
Catch of the day with lobster sauce. when it was served in front of me, there was this foul smell, i was thinking to myself, "Wow, the fish must be really stale for me to smell it from so far" after that i realise it's the smell from the lobster sauce.. hhhmm i think the last time i had lobster was many years ago, but i dun remember lobster tasting or smelling like that.
My friend had the grilled chicken with mushroom sauce. i didn't try that.

A few items that you must try, the chocolate banana cake is definitely a must try, the lamb stew is very good too. the rest of the items, so so.. but please do not order anything with lobster sauce.. will still go back there for the ambience and atmosphere. and i should probably be less adventurous when ordering the next time.

address: 42 Holland Grove Road (Other branches here)
contact: 68751233
ambience: 6
taste: 3
service: 5
value for money: 4
overall rating: They have good food, but i was unluckly this time round

Adam Mutton Soup

2007-07-05T02:26:00.000+08:00

My dad loves the chinese mutton soup at adam food centre. I'm not too sure how does good mutton soup taste like, but i quite like this one. there isn't too much of the foul mutton smell or taste. probably because of the ginger they put in the soup. the soup is really rich in taste and they serve the soup with cabbage rice. at least it;s not plain white rice. If you happen to be there, please give it a try and let me know how this soup is compared to the other chinese mutton soup stalls in singapore

address: 2 Adam Road, Adam Food Centre
ambience: 3
taste: 7
service: 5
value for money: 6
overall rating: above average

Margarita's

2007-07-03T16:33:00.000+08:00

Seldom go for mexican food cos unlike jap or italian, you have in mind what kind of food you are going for. i totally have no idea what to expect for mexican food except for nachos.. this place was suggested by a friend who has got a good experience dining here.
It's located near clementi, and you gotta drive there, it'sat the end of a road in a private estate, it's on the first floor of an old apartment. looks interesting from the outside. a little retro i gotta say.

Looked at the menu and as expected, i didn't know what to choose, so what we did was to get the waitress to help us with the food, told her what we do not want to have and she suggested a few items for 6 person to share. and definitely we gotta try their margarita since they are named after this drink.
Plain nachos with salsa dip was served as appetizers. the dip was really spicy, i dun really fancy spicy food but i happen to like this.. i could take the salsa even without the chips.
The appetizer was so good that we decided to try the nachos in the menu, it was served impressively, the garnishing the cheese, and we finished a plate in no time. we had to order another plate after the latecomers arrive.
Lime margarita, frozen, really nice. i never liked tequilla, but over here the tequilla taste that i didn't like wasn't that obvious, probably the lime had covered it, and the drink it strong, i could feel it after a glass of it.
Chicken quesadillas,a little like popiah but with slightly thicker skin. there's melted cheese and chicken strips in the wrap and the combi is fantastic. just a small slice for each of us and it made us more hopeful for the upcoming dishes.
Didn't know the actual name for this dish, only knew that it was cod fish. fried, it was very crispy on the outside but the fish is still tender and very soft inside. with some bean sauce to go with. i realised that they use a lots of mash beans in their food.
Chicken again. but this time it's as a main, the gravy reminded be of idian food, a little spicy, you can smell like curry like smell when it was served. chicken is tender, and the gravy is interesting
This was served with the chicken. initially i thought it was something like curry rice, but when i tried it, the gluey things that came with the rice is actually mash beans again. felt a little like mash baked beans but without the tomato taste.
Final dish was the beef. suppose to wrap it in the tortila and accompanied by the various sauce. i especially like the fruit salsa, sweet and sour and refreshing.

The experience there was really good, the staffs were friendly and helpful. food was delicious, ambience was really good too. it's quite a small place, so remember to make reservation if you intend to try it out.dinner came out to be $300 for 6 person. quite expensive considering we didn't order dessert, but i felt that it was quite worth it. a nice place to go again but not often, or i'll have a big hole in my pocket..

address: 108 Faber Drive
contact: 67771782
ambience: 8
taste: 8
service: 8
value for money: 7
overall rating: wonderful experience, will definitely go back again

Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits

2007-06-28T17:00:00.000+08:00

The first time i saw this fast food chain was when i was in jakarta, but never tried it there. i first tried it around a year ago at changi airport and i totally loved the biscuits. soft on the inside and hard on the outside.I don't get to go there often as the airport is quite far from my home and also from work. but whenever i'm there, this place is always having a very long queue.
The fried chicken is similar to kfc's crispy fried chicken. but i think popeye's have a slightly richer taste. but my fave is still kfc's original. also note that if you want specific chicken parts, you gotta add 50 cents.. hhmm when if i like the small little wings, so if i choose 2 pieces of wings which is so much smaller than the other parts, i still gotta add 50cents?
My favourite item, the buttermilk biscuit. loved the milk and butter taste in it. i can even eat it on it's own. but i feel that the best way to eat it is with the mash potato and the gravy. always feel like having more than 1, but i usually order the chicken and i have no more space for extra biscuits. next time i gotta order just biscuits and mash potatoes.
Mash potato is smooth and soft, gravy is special, with minced meat and some other stuffs. prefer this to the kfc's version.

Coleslaw is a little too sour for me. still prefer the sweeter version at kfc.

I loved this place so much that i almost forgotten what else there is to eat at the airport. whenever i'm there, be it going overseas, sending friends and family overseas etc etc, i'll get everyone to go eat at popeye's, i wonder if they will even open branches out of the airport...

address: Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 1, 3rd floor.
ambience: 5
taste: 5 (7 for the biscuits)
service: 5
value for money: 6
overall rating: nice biscuits you dun get anywhere else

Ah Yat Abalone Forum Restaurant

2007-06-27T01:00:00.000+08:00

This restaurant used to be at singapore shopping centre, before they shifted to allson hotel about a year ago. it took me some time to find the phone number to call to confirm the address
Please remember to call up to make reservation, cos we didn't and ended up waiting more than half and hour for a table, there's an uncle sitting at the entrance of the carpark, just let him valet park your car, i think it's free. driving into the carpark yourself is going to be a horrible experience, because it's really small

We took the set meal because we do not have to wait too long for that. anyway, it was the abalone that we wanted to try, and it's included in the set meals. here are some of the dishes we tried
Buddha jumps over the wall. this soup has a really rich taste and the ingredients are really good. large pieces of shark's fin, sea cucumber, chicken, pork, etc etc. wonderful start for a meal.
The famous abalone with goose feet, this abalone is really different from those you get from cans. it's much more tender, the ones you get from cans are usually quite tough, this one is really slippery and tender when you bite into it.
Shark's fin. so different from the ones you get at wedding dinners. the fins come in a piece like fish maw..
A different version of the shark's fin.

The set meal you can choose from cost $48 or $60 before extra charges. not cheap, but the quality of the food is very good. another thing i'd like to add is that the service standard of the staff is very very high. i have never been to a place with such good service for a long time. every single staff, from waitress to managers, never fail to put the smile on their faces, prompt response to all your requests, like new plate, more tea, even an simple after meal chit chat. this should be the first time i'n giving a 9 for service on my blog.. this service makes you really feel that it's worth the money eating here. maybe that's why this place is so crowded.

address: 101 Victoria Street Allson Hotel Level 1 & 4
contact: 63322288
ambience: 8
taste: 7
service: 9
value for money: 7
overall rating:

Shun Kee Eating House

2007-06-26T14:28:00.000+08:00

This is a place at gaeylang, right opposite the beef hor fun and dou jiang you tiao. they serve the usual zi char food. but the cooking style here is a little different from what you get at normal zi char places.
Kangkong with garlic. simple dish, nothing special.
Cereal prawn. usually the prawn is deep fried and then stir fried with cereal bits and butter etc. over here, the prawn is first coated with a thin layer of batter, making the prawn crispy with the shell intact. if you like to take the prawn together with the deep fried shell, you're going to love this
Herbal frog soup. very rich herbal taste, i loved the wolfberries taste, the frog is really tender, i can actually have this soup with rice alone.
Bbq stingray. this is not the best sting ray i've had. i think it loses out in the chilli.
Crab. i dunno what flavour you call this. but it's the same taste as the claypot frog without the dried chilli, the sause is a little sweet. very tasty, something out of the ordinary chilli or black pepper crab that we usually have in sinagpore.

They have seats by the main road and it's well ventilated, a very nice place for dinner if it's not raining. wonderful for supper too..

address: 208 Geylang Rd
contact: 67440966
ambience: 4
taste: 6
service: 8
value for money: 7
overall rating: cooking style slightly different

Galbiati Gourmet Deli

2007-06-26T01:15:00.000+08:00

A small little deli situated in rail mall. if you have never heard of rail mall, it's near hillview, just before dairy farm if you are travelling along bt timah road towards woodlands direction. the setting and ambience seems good, so we decided to try it out
There's no menu, you order what you want from the large blackboard hanging above the counter.
Antipasti items are displayed for you to choose from. they have quite a wide selection, and we just ordered without even asking abotu the price.

After taking a few shots around the restaurant, i was told that photography is not allowed there, so that;s the reason for the lack of food photos. anyway, the food isn't fantastic, so you are not missing anything much

We ordered a few pastas, some anstipasti, a bottle of white wine, a pizza and shared the food. the lasagna was good and i felt that it's worth the $12.50. if you choose to takeaway, it's only $10.50, i'm considering going back there just to take away the lasagna. pastas are $17 or $18, and most of them are not worth that price. pizza seems a little cold, even though they reheated it.

Waiter refused to serve ice water in the beginning, they say they do not have tap water, we could buy the bottled drinking water if we wanted plain water. but after some time, they decided to serve us ice water. i wonder how they got the tap in just a few minutes... wasn't happy with this kind of service at all, and we paid nearly $200 for a mea lfor 5.

address: The Rail Mall 400 Upper Bukit Timah Road
contact: 64620926
ambience: 8
taste: 6
service: 4
value for money: 3
overall rating: just go for the takeaways

Taste of Thailand

2007-06-26T00:16:00.000+08:00

Those staying in yishun sembawang and woodlands would most probably have heard of "a taste of thailand" situated in sembawang shopping centre. it used to be one of the stall at the basement food court before giant took over the basement level. then it took up a huge space on the 4th storey. now that sembawang shopping centre in under major renovation, they have shifted to a coffee shop in yishun. a few items that you must not miss if you happen to be there.

1. the famous fried fish with thai chili sauce the fish is so nicely fried that i can chew on it;s bones till everysingle bit of flesh is eaten up, leaving the plate with a set of clean bones, try not eo pour thw sauce on to the fish. dip the fish into the sauce just before eating
2. deep fried sotong. reminds me of calamari, this goes very well with the fish's chilli sauce.
3. pineapple rice. i love this esp with lots of pork floss, and you gotta mix them up real well before eating so that you have the pork floss all tossed up in the rice.
4. tom yam soup. i like their soup, but some of my friends doesn't. you gotta try this yourself. photo of the soup wasn't nice, so i'll update on the photo when i try it again next time.

some vege that we ordered. nothing special

address: 1001 Yishun Industrial Park A, Yishun Industrial Food Centre
contact: 67589121
ambience: 3
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: cheap and good food

Mini Steamboat Delight

2007-06-20T12:20:00.000+08:00

Mini steamboat delight is located at parkway parade, in the basement food court, right beside the drinks stall. i'm not sure if you can make reservation cos while we were queueing, there was this customer who said she called to make reservation and then the staff said she dunno anything about it and then walked away.

They have their 2nd branch at novena, opposite novena square, and i think there's a thrid branch at junction 8.
The sauce the serve is very similar to the one at coca. and i really like the one at coca, every now and then, i'll still go there for steamboat just because of the sauce. so here you have a cheaper option but with service standard much lower.

No buffet available here, everything is ala carte, they have packed all the food items into individual packages and nicely wrapped, when you place your order, they will serve these wrapped items to you, and the rest is up to yourself. including adding more soup. you gotta go get the soup and add it in yourself!! first time i encounter this at any steamboat joint.

One important item in steamboat for me is the pig's liver, their pig's liver is fresh and is sliced very thinly, so it's easy to cook, i like it this way. at some places, sometimes the liver is not fresh and after cooking it becomes very powdery and it contaminates the soup with that powder. sometimes it's sliced too thick and by the time the liver is cooked the layer outside had become too tough.

No complains about the food.. just not happy with the service and the attitude of the staffs. there was only 1 staff who actually smiled and was really courteous when serving us our drinks.

address: 80 Marine Parade Road, #B1-118 Parkway Parade
contact: 63482070
ambience: 4
taste: 7
service: 3
value for money: 4
overall rating: very nice sauce, food quite fresh, poor service.

Poh Kee Hokkien Mee

2007-06-19T01:22:00.000+08:00

Many of us know that there's are quite some good food at maxwell food centre, they have been reviewed by numerous tv programs, food critics, blogs etc..
But now, i chance upon this stall there there has no posters of any kind of recommendations at it's stall, neither is there a long queue of people outside the stall.

It's call poh kee, and we tried the fried hokkien mee. the staff was really friendly and he wears a smile on his face. recently, i've been lucky, most of the places i go to have got service better than expected. of course there are still the famous but dao stalls around...
The hokkien mee was wet and tasty, i think they put in quite a lot of effort in the soup base for the mee. too difficult to describe the taste, go try it for yourself, anyway you dun have to wait long for this.

I do not know their opening hours though, tried it twice, once was at around 6 plus in the evening and another time was around midnight. there was another time i went there at about 1am and they were already closed.

address: Maxwell Food Centre (Stall #82)
contact:
ambience: 3
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: no posters of any recommendations, but it's still good

EsTeler 77

2007-06-14T07:48:00.001+08:00

Had dinner at es teler 77 in cineleisure, never knew it existed here cos it's in a corner and you'll only see it if you walk to this part at the basement. quite a handful of indonesian customers here, i assumed so cos they are chinese who speak bahasa indonesia.

Was told that this chicken noodle is one of their speciality, but i wasn't impressed at all. the chicken cubes were really tough, totally over cooked, the noodle was fine, quite bouncy and chewey. but taste wise, hhmm quite tasteless, i gotta att sweet sauce myself to make it taste better

The fried chicken set is a much better choice, the chicken was tender, the skin was crispy and they had a but of sweet sauce on the chicken, the sauce is silimar to those you get at indonesian bbq food. this item is quite good. i should have overed this instead of the noodle

address: #B1-02 Cathay Cineleisure Orchard
contact: 67364439
ambience: 4
taste: 6
service: 5
value for money: 6
overall rating: feels like eating in a canteen, not all items are good

PS Cafe

2007-06-13T23:39:00.000+08:00

Heard about ps cafe some time back from a few people, got mixed reviews about the place, finally i went to to see it and taste it for myself. been there twice, both times late at night, just for tea and dessert.. i've yet to taste the food there. i wonder if it's good, cos it's not very cheap.

Here are some of the stuffs that i've tried.

Mint and lime soda, tasted like normal lime juice with mint leaves scattered over it.

Earl grey tea. they give quite a generous amount of tea leaves, even after you ask for a refill of hot water 3 times, the tea still comes out thick and fragrant.

The "something i cannot remember" brownie with ice cream. dun really like the texture of this brownie, it felt that it's too thick and sweet.. i have tried their double chocolate cake and felt that it's a better choice as compared to this.
Here's something interesting, they serve their sugar cubes in a small glass and they throw pieces of cinnamon into the cup. i think they left it like that for a while, cos you can actually smell the cinnamon when you pick up the cubes.. i think the sugar cubes itself with the thin taste of cinnamon makes a good candy..

The first visit gave me a good impression, ambience and environment is good, service was good, drinks and dessert are not bad too.. but the second time, we encountered a little rudeness in the service. hopefully it's a rare case.. will definitely go back there though. i think a good time to be there is during dusk, try sitting there and feel the environment change from day to night.

address: 28b Harding Rd
contact: 9070 8782 / 6479 3343
ambience: 9
taste: 6
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: nice and quiet place to chill out. wonderful environment

Hog's Breath Cafe

2007-06-09T07:55:00.000+08:00

7 of us went to the hog's breath cafe at vivocity for dinner, the place was suggested cos a friends tried it once and found it not bad. decor of the place is quite different from the usual restaurants, it gives you the country ranch feeling. if you get a seat by the window, you get a wonderful view of sentosa and if there's a cruise parked at the cruise centre, yu can see it very clearly too.

This is interesting, we were a little shocked to see the salt and pepper placed in a large corona beer bottle. i think they do not need to refill the bottle for many months, there's just so much in them..

since there're so many of us, there'll be photos of quite a number of items to come, will give my views on the food items individually, and it's up to you to decide if you wanna go try it out for yourself. managed to find the menu online at their website, so i decided to place the price here too.

Caesar Salad($12.50) . the egg was wonderfully cooked, just nice with a bright orange coloured yolk, i can never get this effect at home, usually the eggs anywhere else are overboiled. the chicken taste alright, and the salad is fine too. nothing really special except for the egg.

Crispy Chicken & Ranch Salad($14.50) . dun really like this cos these vege are a little bitter. didn't try much of this, oh and there's chopped baked potato in this salad, quite special.

Finger Food Combo ($17.95) . potato skins is not nice, calamari is good, buffalo wings is fine, chicken tenders are not really tender. the honey mustard is nice though.

Macho Nacho($11.95) . totally not worth it, nachos are normal, would expect the dips to be better, the ones here are quite tasteless, and they seemed to be a little stingy with the cheese. we have to dig to find the melted cheese. i dun think you can even see it in the photo.

Cheese Burger in Paradise($14.50) . not bad according to a friend.

Blackened Prime Rib($32.50) . the beef was good. we had it done medium, i think it would be nicer medium rare. oh and if you order a main and had to choose between mash, baked potato or fries, choose mash potato, their mash is fabulous, very smooth and buttery.

Chicken Dijonnaise($20.50) . this chicken is tougher then the chichen tenders on the finger food platter. the sauce is unique and quite tasty though.

Fish and Chips($19.50) . dun be fooled by the size of the fish. 2/3 of it is flour and oil. there's only a thin slice of fish inside. a very oily item, you feel a little sick of the oil after a while, i guess too much batter is used and lots of oil are trapped there

Atlantic Salmon($20.95) i realised that i didn't get to try this, maybe if anyone who have tried it can comment on this.

The bill came out to be about $31 per person, i felt that it's on the high side, considering we didn't order drinks, no dessert, no liquor, only food!! I dun think i'll go there again. But i gotta comment that the waitresses there are all very courteous and friendly, with one of them being a little forgetful but comical.. no complains about the service standards. they should lower the price of the food..

address: #03-07A VivoCity (see other branches here)
contact: 6376 8378
ambience: 7
taste: 5
service: 7
value for money: 5
overall rating: generally quite expensive for the food standard

Basil Alcove

2007-06-04T03:28:00.000+08:00

Found a wonderful place for dinner, the food is great, in fact i felt that the ambience is great too, although some might feel that it doesn't fit with the kind of food served. i think the last time i had food that was presented in such a way was when i had dinner at equinox.. to me, fine dining is an expensive experience, but with basil alcove, this has changed. it's fine dining without the hole in the pocket and you can dress as comfortable as you wish and you can talk and chat any way you want to (but being too loud might still attract too much attention from the other customers). now lets take a look into the food... lot's of food.. starting with the side orders and appetisers
fresh white button mushrooms, nice and fragrant, something you would love to start your dinner with.
forgotten the name for this, but it's pig's trotter on the inside, and it's somewhat in a jelly form, never tried something like that, quite refreshing, the meat doesn't have the usual pig stink. interesting
Ceasar salad with chicken, a little disappointing though, didn't had the usual ceasar salad taste, maybe i should try the plain one the next time, cos this one taste more of the grilled chicken. and this review might probably be biased cos i cannot stand rasins and there are lots of it in this salad..
Bruschetta with fresh tomatoes. something simple, seems normal, just that i seldom try having fresh tomatoes on toasted bread
Pasta with bratwurst in cream, i hope i didn't remember this wrongly. very tasty cream sauce, and the spaghetti was well done, not too soggy. totally worth it
Cod fish, served with mash potatoes and beetroot cream. fish is done very well, but the taste seems normal, cos fish always taste this way, this item seems a little more ex than the rest, maybe cod is expensive.
Vegetarian pasta, lots of shitake mushroom it it. this is a little spicy though, the aglio sauce taste very much of the mushroom.
The duck, there's only 1 duck item on the mains, i forgotten the actual name for this. this is really very good, the meat and the sauce blends in totally. the meat was tender and the sauce was apetizing.
Salmon, i felt that this is the item that was most elaborately presented, and it was the first mains to be served, i was so impressed by the presentation, doesn't lose out to the high class fine dining restaurant at all.

If some of you wonder why i said that the dining environment doesn't really match the food, it's because you dine right by the road side, it's outside fortune centre, you the tables are set along the pavement, you can see and hear the vehicles driving past along middle road, pedestrians walking along the pavement walk right beaise you as you dine. interesting? i find it a wonderful experience to dine this way, and i urge you all to try.

With all the above dishes, 2 of the duck item, a bottle of australian white wine, some beer, it comes out to only $169 for 6 person. less than $30 each.. without the liqour, it's below $100.. i dun think you can find this anywhere else. if you do, please let me know, cos i wanna go try it..

address: 190 Middle Road, #01-07, Fortune Centre
contact: 63361318
ambience: 5
taste: 8
service: 9
value for money: 9
overall rating: a place i would going again and again.. hopefully they will have new items in the menu

Other reviews:
ieat-ishoot-ipost

Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle

2007-06-03T10:15:00.000+08:00

A friends was telling me there's a very famous bak chor mee at crawford lane, and there's always a queue for it, so since we are going somewhere near town, we might as well drop by to try it out.While queueing, i was reading at some of the posters they had on the wall. this hill street tai hwa pork noodle, has been around for very long, as the name suggest, it was initially at hill street, and there was a time they were at marina square food court, there was even quite a large newspaper article where they posted on their relocation to the current place at crawford lane. btw, i realised that thei have a website here.

The noodle is not cheap though, it;s $4, $5 or $6. compared to the usual bak chor mee at coffee shops or hawker centres, it's slightly more expensive.. but definitely worth it. if you are going to try, i suggest the $5, because it comes with more ingredients like the wanton.

The mee pok is cooked just nicely and there are so much ingredients in a bowl of noodle.
This is the mee kia. they put vinegar just to the right amount that makes it taste really great, some places put too much that it smells pungent. i'm not a fan of chilli, so didn't had chilli on mine, but my friend's comment was that the chilli is really good, and since it;s not very spicy, you should actually add more of it.

address: Blk 466 Crawford Lane #01-12
ambience: 3
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: wonderful.. must try

Botak Jones

2007-05-23T14:23:00.000+08:00

Had dinner at Botak Jones a few times since some time last year when i was told the food there was good. They boast to have damn good food at damn good price.... hhhmmmmmm... But the place is quite cool, at a coffee shop, seems like a make shift restaurant in a kopi tiam. I've always been to the amk branch, never been to the others, i heard there's a new one in a coffee shop opposite cmpb.

It's called Yue Hua Coffee Shop.. most of the customers there are patrons of botak jones, you can see it from the menus on their tables or the food items they are eating.

Fish is very good, Sausage very salty and beef patty of the burger have a smoky taste and the beef pieces falls off easily. fries not bad.

address: Yue Hua Food Place, Blk 608 Ang Mo Kio Ave 5
contact: 67551225
ambience: 3
taste: 7
service: 5
value for money: 7
overall rating: Selected items are really good.

Shin Kushiya

2007-05-22T00:27:00.001+08:00

Have read about this place, and had wanted to try but never had the chance. finally i got to step into the restaurant to see if the food taste as good as it looks on the menu. it;s a japanese charcoal grill restaurent, so i presume their grilled stuffs should be nice.

Interesting salt we see on every table, flavoured salt for the bbw food to enhance the flavour. i tried the salt even before the food arrives. they all taste the same, very salty, only the green tea flavoured one had a light bitter taste of tea in it. but i was thinking when you eat it with the food, it wil just taste salty.
This place had a really nice ambience, although the tables are quite near one another, you really feel that you are in a different place when you walk into the dining area, warm lights, transclucent curtains to divide the place in to many sections. sea view by the window. loved it. now it's time for the food
Complimentary salad, it comes with a sauce that taste a little like the chinese bean paste. not bad.
Ton katsu curry don. the curry has a slightly different texture, it seems as if there's small bits of potato or isit mashed raddish in the curry. the chicken was a littel tough too.
Miso soup with yellowtail. not bad, the fish didn't have a fishy smell.
Grilled salmon steak. quite an expensive item, but it wasn't that fantastic, neither the fish not the sauce.
Forgotten the name for this. the on on top is called something like isobeyaki the one at the bottom was suggested by the waitress, so i didn't even see the name. the yakitori was again not a good as i have expected, since it's a charcoal grill restaurant. the flavoured salt didn't help much too.

i had dinner before going, so i didn't order any main course, only snacked on the yakitori and a few bites of the other items. but the bill for 2 still came out to be $50 plus, eyes' opened when we saw the bill.

address: #02-120, Vivo City
contact: 62758766
ambience: 8
taste: 6
service: 6
value for money: 4
overall rating: Quite expensive, don't feel that the taste is worth that much

The Coffee Connoisseur

2007-05-22T00:13:00.000+08:00

Commonly known as tcc, come out a couple years back and it is becoming very popular. i have never tried their food there and this is the first time, and i'm quite pleased with it.

We went to the branch at bugis junction, the decor was wonderful. the service was exceptionally good, it has been quite some time since i last went to a place with such good service, you actually feel as if you are not in singapore. firstly the waiter knows the menu pretty well, he was able to tell me what ingredients was used in the items. very very polite, all of them carry a smile on their faces as they walk past your table.

I only took photo of this, cos i was late and everyone else had finished theirs, this is the japanese mozza tofu (somehow, i think i didn't remember the name exactly). it;s tofu with sukiyaki sauce and baked with a layer of cheese.. it was great, he sauce was slightly sweet and with the warm melted cheese, i didn't regret ordering this.

Added (4 July 2007)
Went to the branch at millenia walk on a sunday. the place was quite quiet very suitable for lazing there, enjoying the peaceful environment. i ordered earl grey tea as usual and also pizza baugette, it was not bad. but i'm rather satisfied with the ambience and the atmosphere there. very suitable if you are looking for a quiet place for a lazy sunday afternoon.
address: #01-92-96 Bugis Junction (Click here for other branches)
contact: 68372027
ambience: 8
taste: 7 (only tried 1 item)
service: 8
value for money: 7
overall rating: very impressed by the service, food is good too.

126 Dim Sum

2007-05-20T12:26:00.000+08:00

Found at a corner of geylang along sims ave, somewhere near lor 15, was told by a friend that this stall is famous for their dim sum, but because it was late and i had a filling dinner, i didn't eat much.

Upon arrival, i was quite surprised to see that it's really packed! at midnight on a weekday, and also realised that the name of the shop in cantonese sounds like 126 in english. quite interesting.
Siew mai, doesn't look good, cos the colour was dull. taste wise, it was alright. slightly better than usual.
Ha gao, prawn dumplings, the prawn was good but i think the skin could have been better.
Chee cheong fun with prawns, this is fabulous, it's this item that made me wanna come back to try the other dishes..

address: 126 Sims Avenue
contact:
ambience: 4
taste: 7
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: didn't try much, but it's enough to make me wanna go back to try other dishes

Por Kee Eating House

2007-05-19T11:21:00.000+08:00

Por kee eating house is situated in a carpark at tiong bahru, and in my impression, this plase have very good food and unforgetable yam paste for dessert.So we decide there for dinner once more.
Cereal prawn, didn;t see much oat in this dish, it seems more like butter prawn, but i remember having must nicer cereal prawn here, this one was very bland and it's not worth it at all.
Soon hock steamed hk style. very fresh fish, nice bouncy texture. very good.
Yam basket, not impressive, seems like the yam has been fried some time ago and the other items in this dish is not tasty.
Braised tofu, the tofu is really very very silky soft, wonderful texture, the gravy was very nice too. wonderful dish yto have with rice.
Champange pork ribs. i felt that this was good, but some others feels that it was even better in the past
Nai bai. very normal, nothing special.
Yam paste. very good. i dun mind coming here just to have this dessert. and i think you can come here to buy the yam paste for take away.

address: Blk 69 Seng Poh Lane #01-02
contact: 62210582
ambience: 6
taste: 7
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: grnerally, food is not bad, some items are really good

Azabu Sabo

2007-05-15T23:37:00.000+08:00

Second time here for a meal, i have heard good and bad reviews from this restaurant, but there are a few items i like, so i won't mind going for those items.Check out their website. you get to see the menu there before going down to try it out.
Seafood salad, very nice jap style salad with the usual jap tasting salad dressing, the prawn is quite fresh, but the scallop seems a little tasteless.

This is my favourite, it's the cold ramen with seafood in sesame mayonnaise. something different, very refreshing, lot's of chopped lettuce and almond flakes, making it slightly crunchy. you must try this.

Chicken teriyaki bento. i didn't try this but i think it's not bad too.

Hot bowl with ice cream. this is a very special dessert too, cos it has hot and cold items in the same bowl. very nice love the red bean paste. the vanila ice cream is very good too.

Dumplings with fruits and kanten jelly. very disappointing, dumplings are just normal, just like that one my mum cook during the winter solstice festival, fruits are just fruits, a strawberry and 2 small pieces of rock melon, kanten jelly seems like normal agar agar jelly with no colouring and no sugar.

You gotta try the cold ramen, and as for desserts, i advise that you can skip those with soft ice cream, kanten jelly and fruits, cos they are not worth it, you should try the more innovative items.

address: #02-170/171 Marina Square
contact: 6338 1244
ambience: 8
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 6 (some dessert are totally not worth it)
overall rating: interesting dishes, some very nice food but some dissappointing

The Soup Spoon

2007-05-13T22:16:00.000+08:00

Went to the soup spoon for take away
Tokyo chicken and mushroom stew. maybe because it's a clear soup, it seems a little not worth $5. but it was really tasty, only a little salty. dun really like the bread though, maybe because it's not fresh from the oven.

address: Raffles City Shopping Centre, B1 #75/76
contact:
ambience: 6
taste: 6
service: 5
value for money: 5
overall rating: cannot comment much, didn't try much.

Chippy British Take Away

2007-05-13T21:58:00.000+08:00

Many of you might have seen this, it's right opposite the very much talked about donut factory. and it has been around for some time. something all the way from uk..
Deep fried mars, very special, the flour batter made the super sweet snack less sweet actually, and the cold ice cream with the warm mars bars fits very well. but beware, having too much of it it really heaty
Fried chicken with cheese sauce. maybe the one i had was a little over fried, there were too many small chunks of really hard pieces. not as good as it looks, maybe it'll taste better if you eat it right after you buy it.
cheese saussage with mash potato. i was quite dissappointed when i saw that the mash potato is the one you get at seven eleven. although the one at 7-11 is quite good actually, but now i'm paying quite a lot more, so expectation is higher. but the saussage is big and juicy, very nice..

we were standing near their drinks fridge while waiting for the food and their staff actually banged on to the glass wall very rudely from the inside to get us to not block the fridge and gave us a frustrated look... what kind of service is this?

address: #B1-58 Raffles City Shopping Centre
ambience: 3
taste: 5
service: 3
value for money: 5
overall rating: something special (deep fried mars), but not suitable for frequent consumption

Curry Favor

2007-05-13T21:35:00.000+08:00

This place has nice japanese curry, it's slightly different from the other jap curries you try out there, it has a bit of indian spice taste, like a fusion of jap and indian curry.
Beef and mushroom curry set. very good, must try, the mushrooms have a fragrant butter taste it them.
Pork katsu set. the pork seems a little too tough for me. but it;s a really large piece of meat here.
Dun really remember this, i think it;s the fried cuttlefish roll with cheese. not very fantastic
Beef yaki... or isit yaki beef.. very tasty, will be even better if the beef is not that well done.
Fried mushroom. this one is really very food. very crispy on the outside with a whole big fresh mushroom inside, perfect with the sauce it comes with.. must order

And the portion for the mains is really huge. if you have a big appetite, this will satisfy you, if not 2 person can share a main. 5 of us went, and we ordered 2 mains 3 sides and 4 small bottles of beer ... it cost $98

Any maybe we were unlucky, the waitress was a little rude. after we ordered our food, we were still looking through the menu for drinks, so she waited for us to flip the menu and look for something we wanted. after that we decided to order later so we told her that. and she replied "oh, and you made stand here to wait for you." before she walk back to the kitchen.. so for that i will have to deduct some score from the service.

address: 39 Stamford Road, #01-09 Stamford House
contact: 68831087
ambience: 7
taste: 7 (for some of the items)
service: 3
value for money: 6
overall rating: A little expensive but the food's not bad.

Bedok Chuew Kuey

2007-05-13T20:23:00.000+08:00

This is undeniably my favourite chuew kuey. first tried it many many years ago at the bedok interchange food centre and since then, i realised that many branches have appeared in all other parts of singapore. and i have tried them when i see them and the good thing is every branch still maintains the same good standard. i hope it will stay this way.
If you have not tried this, please go try it when you come across it. it's just a dollar for 4 pieces.

address: too many to list
ambience: 3
taste: 8
service: 4
value for money: 9
overall rating: cheap and good

Sumo House

2007-05-05T00:12:00.000+08:00

A amall jap restaurant at clementi, not a posh place, but we cannot expect much if the food is really cheap right?

their cheapest set is the chicken katsu don set going at $2.90 only. it's situated inside a departmental store, i forgotten the name, but it's the building where kfc is in, opposite the old empress cinema.

Chicken teriyaki, very worth it, because it comes in a hughe portion, big enough for 4 person to share, if i didn;t remember wrongly this is $4.90
5 pcs of gyoza at only $1.90
California maki cold soba set. $6.90, very filling, 4 pcs of cali maki, 1 inari sushi, cold noodle, 2 pcs orange and miso soup..
Salmon teriyaki set. $4.90. and green tea is free flow for all customers.

address: Clementi Central
contact:
ambience: 3
taste: 7
service: 6
value for money: 8
overall rating: food is not bad, definitely worth the money, good a budget but nice meal

Bakerzinn

2007-05-03T02:09:00.000+08:00

Been here a few times, but whenever i go there, the same dessert is always ordered. bakerzinn have this fantastic chocolate cake with thick chocolate sauce oozing out from the cake, it's called the warm chocolate cake. this is a must have if you happen to be there.I ordered the iced lychee tea, i usually dun drink coffee, so usually left with tea, the lychee tea was really refreshing, and i was glad they have this on top of the usual lemon and peach tea. althought the photo in the menu looks like there's 5 lychees in the glass, i was only served with 2.This black forest cake wasn't anything special, just a normal black forest cake..

address: Check out their website
contact: Click on the site above
ambience: 7
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: nice deserts,

Ichiban Boshi

2007-05-03T01:47:00.000+08:00

Have seen this restaurant around for some time, but never went in cos i knew it was opened my the same people who did fiesta, rememeber? they sell the baked cheese cake too? didn't have a good impression of their food then. but a friends tried ichiban boshi and told us it was really good, so this time we went to try it out.

Very colourful menu, they still have the usual stuffs you see at places like sakae or sushi teh, but other than those, you will see that they have quite a number of innovative items, a lot of them has got cheese, which is something you seldom see in normal jap food. i didn;t have the time to find out what was ordered, so here are all the photos without their names..
It was quite a good experience, and food was definitely better then i have expected, you must try the salmon sashimi salad.. very very good. go take a look at the menu and experience for yourself something slightly off the mainstream jap food.

address: Wisma Atria #03-15, there are other branches around too
contact: 67347277
ambience: 7
taste: 7
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: very innovative dishes, good experience

Zi Yean Restaurant

2007-05-02T03:13:00.000+08:00

Quite an interesting restaurant, situated at the 1st storey of a block of old hdb flat. you usually see provision shops and coffee shops at places like this, but here you find a restaurant that take up all the units on the whole of the 1st storey. i used to eat at zi yean before they shifted here, but when they shifted, i had no idea where they relocated to of that they closed down, until i saw it here at leng kok bahru when i was driving past some time ago.

Doesn't seem the same as previously, we thought the food was better previous and definitely quite a lot cheaper. We ordered less expensive dishes, meaning no fish, no crab, no lobstor, no exotic stuffs.. and it still came out to be about $20 per person.

Reccommended fried prawn in beancurd skin, the skin was very thin and crispy, and the prawn was quite fresh, but it wasn't something really fantastic, we felt that we should have stick to our original order of the cereal prawn
Fried tofu in oyster sauce, tofu was really smooth and the skin is nicely fried.
Pork rib king, this is very good, the meat was really tender and they took out the bone. in most places, this dish is usually quite tough and it's difficult to eat because of the big bone inside. no such problem here.
Brocolli in xo sauce. a little spicy, nothing really fantactis about this.
Duck in claypot with five spices or some call it dog stew duck. the most special dish of the evening, saw this is almost all blogs that talks about this resturant, so we gotta try it. you must have enough people to have this dish, cos the sauce is very thick and rich, you need more people to be able to finish the whole pot. the duck is nicely cooked,the sauce is very fragrant too.
Yam paste. they added pumpkin in it and their coconut milk seems different. it's nice but not the nicest around. gotta go try the one at por kee.. will try to find a chance to go there again and review on it.

I really wonder if we will go down again.. i guess probably for chinese new year, to lou hey, just like the good old days..

address: Blk 56 Lengkok Bahru #01-443
contact: 64740911 64710253
ambience: 7
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 6
overall rating: generally quite expensive for a place in the hdb estate, but food is fairly good

Golfer's Terrace

2007-04-30T02:27:00.000+08:00

Golfer's terrace is situated on the second floor of the main clubhouse at warren golf & country club in choa chu kang. it's a cafe that overlooks the green, the view is awesome, perfect for a lazy weekend, where you want to relax at a place and have some nice food while you chat and relaxThis place is run by hoshigaoka singapore pte ltd,which started their buisness in singapore with japanese restaurants. so i guess the jap food on the menu should be quite good.The beef teriyaki set came in quite a big portion, there was lots of beef. it was quite tasty but the beef seemed a little tough. The chicken katsu don, the chicken tasted fine. this place doesn't serve fantastic food, but i like the feeling of dining here with the greens in view, it gives you a very peaceful and serene feeling while eating. do not expect a posh restaurant here, go there in casual clothes, like berms and t shirt, but this place might be a little warm on a hot day.

address: 81 Choa Chu Kang Way
contact: 65861296
ambience: 7
taste: 6
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: Wonderful place to relax and eat on a weekend afternoon

Kenny Rogers Roasters

2007-04-25T01:35:00.000+08:00

This restaurant have been around for sometime, has been quite a popular place for gatherings of old classmates, cos you can eat and chat and make lots of noises and you won't feel out of place.

This is the branch at suntec city, and it's quite empty on a weekday at 5pm.. i usually order the chicken but this time, we had more people to share, so we ordered the ribs and wings.
The bourbon ribs was quite good, although it will be better if the meat could be a little more tender. the bbq sauce on it was sweet and nice. chicken wings are just normal.
As for the sides, the cheese macaroni is a must have, the corn bits are warm and buttery, potato salad is just normal.. and not forgetting the corn muffin, this is the item that makes me wanna go kenny rogers again, it's delicious, expecially when it's warm. a little crunchy on the crust and soft and warm on the inside..

address: 3 Temasek Boulevard #B1-64 Suntec City Mall
contact: 63372815
ambience: 6
taste: 6
service: 6
value for money: 7
overall rating: nice place for a casual dinner, quite large portions, good to share food

Malan Gourmet

2007-04-20T21:08:00.000+08:00

Had a simple family dinner at malan gourmet at esplanade mall. we were looking for chinese food at esplanade and humble abode seems out of our budget, the one other choice we had was this. so there was no choice even though there was only 1 table of customers at around 7:30pm whereas thai express right beside was almost full house
Xiao long bao (shanghia soup dumpling), the soup in the dumpling wasn't really tasty, i wasn't impressed by it.
Seafood claypot with beancurd, this one is quite salty, but when taken with plain rice, it taste quite well. beancurd is soft and nice.
Xo fried rice, i felt that the rice was too soggy, i prefer fried rice where the rice is dryer.
Braised soft tofu, which is not soft at all, it taste like the tau kwa you get at normal kuey chap stalls
Mango prawn fritters, the mango seems a little too cooked cos it was slimy, prawn was so small i had to dig for it.

address: 8, Raffles Avenue #01-13C, Esplanade Mall
contact: 68357988
ambience: 7
taste: 4
service: 7
value for money: 4
overall rating: the food is not worth trying, you can easily get this standard at hawker centres

Eatzi Steakhouse & Bistro

2007-04-19T02:29:00.000+08:00

Since a few months ago, i realised that the cafe at safra yishun undergone renovation and the place is taken over by eatzi steakhouse & bistro. if i'm not wrong, they belong to the same company as jack's place. finally got a chance to have a lunch session there.

Went through their menu and realised that the price is a little steep for a neighbourhood pool side cafe, until i saw the set lunches. these set meals looked more suitable for me as a casual weekday lunch.
Fried calamari, quite a small serving. presentation is not very good, not too bad on the taste, really crispy on the outside.
Deep fried dory fillet. $10.50 for the meal which includes tea, soup and a small cake. the frying was done quite well but i think the fish wasn't very fresh, the fish meat kept breaking up in to small chunks when i tried to pick it up with my fork.
Half spring chicken with sambal sauce, this is quite worth it at $8. chicken is fried till it's crispy on the skin but it's meat is still tender, sambal sauce is a failure, even the ketchup goes better with the chicken.

There weren't many people at the restsurant when we were there at 12 plus in the afternoon. the food wouldn't make me wanna go back or wanna recommend to others. but i like the ambience, quite shoik and different to be able to have lunch by the pool. maybe next time i try the other items on the menu, hoping to find better food here.

address: 60 Yishun Ave 4, Safra Yishun
contact: 68528270/67562118
ambience: 7
taste: 5
service: 7
value for money: 7 (more for the ambience than the food)
overall rating: if you happen to be near yishun, can got there for lunch.

Xiang Ji

2007-04-17T22:00:00.000+08:00

Went to bedok corner food centre again, tried something new this time. heard that xiang ji wanton noodles is good, so i got a plate to try.

Verdict, not worth the trouble to go all the way there for the noodles. the noodles was fine, at least it's not soggy, but the sauce was so so, the char siew was not good. the wanton was above average though.
At $3, i think i would rather go east coast for hwa kee.. anywhy, here are the other stuffs you can try at this food centre.

address: 1 Bedok Road, Bedok Corner Food Centre (Stall 30)
ambience: 3
taste: 5
service: 5
value for money: 7
overall rating: average only, char siew is not very good.

New York New York

2007-04-15T12:22:00.000+08:00

If you take mrt often, you would have seen this when you are walking along citilink, a restaurant that always has a long queue of people waiting for a place in it. is the food that good? ambience is not bad though, a suitable place for group gatherings (group shouldn't be too big, 5 to 6 will be a nice size). it's my second time there and the first time i was quite disappointed with the food, only the fish and chips could make it.
This time round i ordered the caesar salad, nothing fantastic, chicken strips you can get from anywhere, bacon bits you get of the rack at supermarkets.The mushroom soup cappuccino, something different, gotta applaud them for the innovation, but foamy mushroom soup tasty a little finny, texture is similar to melted low class icecream.

So i guess the food as disappointed me once again. if you happen to be there for a gathering, just order the fish and chips! Now i'm wondering, how come there are so many people waiting to eat here!! willing to wait in the queue for that long for mediocre food!!?

address: 1 Raffles Link, Citylink Mall #B1-47A
contact: 6341 9695
ambience: 7
taste: 4
service: 6
value for money: 3
overall rating: 4

Yong Chye Chicken Rice

2007-04-10T21:16:00.000+08:00

Have been eating the chicken rice and zi char at this place since secondary school, it's been 17 years since the frist time there. the food here isn't fantastic but the place brings back memories.This plate of chicken rice with veg and char shao cost $3.50, and you get lots of rice, i could only finish half the rice. for those who has huge appetite, and need lots of rice, you musn't miss this.

address: King's Arcade, Coronation Road, opposite Coronation Plaza Shell Station
ambience: 2
taste: 5
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: 6

Cafe Cartel

2007-04-08T23:52:00.000+08:00

You get to see cafe cartel all over singapore. one of the things i like about it is the free flow of bread, i love to eat bread with frozen butter.. and here it's free!! you can take some of the grated cheese as toppings too, i missed the times in the past where their cheese contain herbs. if i was not wrong, the first branch that i've been to was the one at siglap..

I heard and seen many bad reviews about this place that their food is not good etc etc.. but one thing i feel that they are a cut above the rest is their death by chocolate milkshake, i wonder which brand of ice cream the use for this milkshake, cos it just has this special taste that i can't find in any other milkshakes. i could just walk in and order a glass of this milkshake, and sit there for a chat with a friend.

Anyway, i didn't order food this time round, these are the items my friends ordered
Some burger .. didn't get to taste it
St. louis ribs. i tried this before and i felt that it was not bad, the meat wan tender and sauce was sweet and nice.
Carbonara pasta. somewhat special with an uncooked egg yolk in the middle. taste wise, so so only.

Not recommending the food here, but if you heppen to be there some how, please order the milkshake, the chocolate one, i'm not too sure about the other flavours.

Updates (12 May 2007)
Went cartel for breakfast and realised that it's quite good, feels like those american continental buffet breakfast you get at nice hotels.
Bacon and sausage set

Ultimate set

French toast set

scrambled egg was good, sausage is nice and juicy, bacon is normal, french toast not bad, but the muffin sucks

address: see official website
contact: see link above
ambience: 6
taste: 5 (8 for chocolate milkshake)(6 for breakfast)
service: 6
value for money: 5 (8 for chocolate milkshake)
overall rating: 5

Lana Cake Shop

2007-04-08T12:00:00.000+08:00

Many would have heard about lana's famous chocolate cake. there was once i stumbled upon this cake shop to get a cake, not knowing that it's the famous lana cake shop and i asked for thier selection of cakes. they told me to get the chocolate cake, but i told them no, not chocolate, then everyone who's queueing up for payment turned and glared at me.. Anyway, this is one of my favourite chocolate cake, the other is awfully chocolate, one day i gotta buy both and try them one after the other to really know which one i prefer more.I got a cake for a friend's birthday, wordings are nicely written and the cake is always wrapped in this violet ribbon and violet plastic bag, probably cos the boss is mrs violet kwan. if you want to see how the cake itself look like, you can check it out here... or here.. for this, you must go get a cake for yourself and try it, they only sell whole cakes, smallest is 3/4 kg @ $26. try to place an order before hand to avoid disappointment. oh and it's cash only.

address: 36 Greenwood Avenue
contact: 64665315, 64668940
ambience: 3
taste: 9
service: 8
value for money: 8
overall rating: 8

Pepper Lunch

2007-04-08T11:44:00.000+08:00

I have never tried the food at pepper lunch, so decided to try it for dinner, and i went to the branch at novena square. they have quite a few other branches around the island. the waiting time for the food is slightly longer than other fast food joints, but for steaks, i can say this timing is quite fast. pricing is also more expensive than other fastfood around.

Hamburger steak, my friend tried this so i;m not too sure of the taste. Hitokuchi cut steak, i spent too much time taking it's photo that one side of the meat got cooked too well, and became a little tough, the other side was nice though.

Generally, it;s a nice place, you can play with you food a little before eatting, tossing the meat and the veg around, decide doe yourself how well done you want your beef to be. add just the right amount of sauce for yourself. a nice idea. and food is quite tasty, will go back, and this time, i'll make sure i'll flip my meat early to get it cooked just the way i want it to be.

Updates(2 May 2007)
"Yaki Shabu" Pepper Lamb, very good, there's that bit of the lamb taste that i like, but not so strong that you cannot haldle it. and it cooks very fast, just gotta give it a few stirs, and you can leave them on the bean sprouts..
Salmon and chicken combo. not a good idea to order chicken, because even till the time the heat wears off from the hot plate, the chicken is still not fully cooked. go for items that cooks easily.

An advise, do not stay in the restaurant for too long, unless you don't mind smelling like your lunch for the rest of the day.

address: check out their website
contact: click on the link above
ambience: 6
taste: 6
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: A fun place for meal, food will be good if you can do it well.

Hwa Kee Barbeque Pork Noodles

2007-04-08T11:25:00.000+08:00

I have always loved the wanton noodles at east coast.. oh.. over here, it's called the bbq pork noodles, not wanton, i guess becuase their wantons aren't fantastic but the bbq pork is just fabulous... the sauce they use for the noodles is really shoik too!! i was so into eating the noodles that i forgotten to take a photo of the stall. but luckily i found others who blog about this and photos are available there. Whenever i'm at east coast food centre (before renovation) i must eat this noodle, the sauce is really sweet, i like it that way.. and the bbq pork is juicy with come 'chao ta' crispy parts .. but after renovation, i thought this stall has shifted away cos i couldn't find it... until now!! and this plate that you see is only $3, i'd gladly pay that amount for such nice food.
Fried wanton, not bad too, the small bite size wantons are good to go with the noodles.

Updates (14 Apr 2007)

Went there again to take a photo of the shop since i missed it the first time round, but this time the queue seems to move slower, it took us about 20mins to get to the front of the queue, you might wanna see the queue here. and the auntie asking for orders at the shop seems very friendly for such a famous stall (usually the attitude of the staff is inversely proportional to the polularity of the stall).

address: 1220 East Coast Parkway, East Coast Food Centre, Stall No. 45
ambience: 5
taste: 8
service: 4
value for money: 9
overall rating: 8

The Wine Company

2007-04-06T20:45:00.000+08:00

Went to the wine company at evans road to chill out after dinner. i have always liked to drink at this place because of the wonderful ambience. we were too full to order anything to eat, so no photos of food.
We just had a bottle of white wine and i guessed we really didn't know what was good and what was not .. cos we had a bottle that didn't taste nice .. haha.. gotta learn from the pros. i remembered having something really nice at this place, but i just cannot remember the name, and the menu that has like more than 50 different wines didn't help. i remembered it was sweet, and slightly sparkling.
Something interesting, they serve char kuay teow here and it's under the the pasta section on the menu. i've never tried it but i heard it was good, i guess that should be the reason why this item which seems so out of place on this menu is there in the first place...

A very nice place to hang out after dinner, after work, to chat or just for a drink. you gotta go to feel it for yourself.

address: 26 Evans Road #01-05, Evans Lodge
contact: 67321229
ambience: 9
taste: 6
service: 6
overall rating: 8

Hong Kong Street Chun Kee Thomson

2007-04-06T19:50:00.000+08:00

Somewhere near the junction of upper thomson road and sin ming road, you can see the bright red signboard from the main road. heard from a friend that the food here is quite good, so we decided to give it a try while looking for a place to eat at this stretch along upper thomson road. was told that the "san lou" keuy tiao is good, but my dinner pal this evening doesn't fancy kuey tiao or bee hoon.. so we got this...Yi mee. quite a normal dish, tasty, but not fantastic.Fried chicken with prawn paste. again tasty but not fantastic. taste similar to the one i had at xo fish head bee hoon at holland village.Cereal prawn. This dish taste a little special, it isn't as oily as what we usually have and i think milk powder was added to give it the special taste, it's just an assumption, go try it and let me know if you think they added milk powder.

Not a very posh restaurant, it's a place where you can go for a nice chinese dinner without having to worry about poor dressing.

address: 222/224 Upper Thomson Rd
contact: 6454 2988
ambience: 4
taste: 5
service: 6
overall rating: 5