Wong Kok Char Chan Teng

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

Ah Yat Abalone Forum Restaurant

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:

Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant

Was told that Kim Gary is a fantastic hk style cafe and was recommended to try the baked rice. But because of the queue that never seems to go away, i did not have a chance to try it.. until last weekend, when i walked past the restaurant and saw no queue, so we decided to give it a try.
As usual, i gotta first try the hk milk tea. very thick, and it has quite a strong milk taste, if i'm not wrong it's the taste of carnation milk. milk tea has passed the test.Spaghetti with steak in tomato sauce. very good. the spag is a cooked for a longer time that you usually expect from an italian restaurant, but still ok, the sauce is good and the steak is tender. please try thisWe ordered 3 different kinds of baked rice, the one with the steak and the chicken was good, pork chop was too tough. as for the choice of sauce, my personal preference is the red (tomato) sauce).

If you need make a choice for soup, my preference is the borsch soup, very rich and tasty, the cream soup is too normal, you can get it everywhere.

address: Vivocity #02-128
contact: 63768183
ambience: 6
taste: 7
service: 6
overall rating: 7

Tong Shui Cafe (Revisited)

Been to another branch of this cafe some time ago, you can see the review here. Decided to give it one more try since this is a new branch, it might have tasier food.

Ordered the usual milk tea, something you won't miss at any hk style cafe. the one they have here is totally unpassable. it's worse than the $1 one you get at coffee shops. It's not thick , not sweet, seems as if water is added to dilute the drink.. even i can make one better than this.
Deep fried prawn with mango.. haha .. where's the mango? we couldn't even tast it... another failureBaked rice, not pad, this is the only passable item we ordered. quite tasty according to my friends, i did not try this.I ordered the macaroni cos it was not bad when i tried it the last time. but standard has dropped, soup was not tasty. that's bad enough because it's the soup that makes a difference since the rest of the items cannot differ much.

Dun try... go to the other cafes ..

address: 215 Upper Thomson Rd
contact: http://www.tongshuicafe.com/
ambience: 5
taste: 2
service: 4
overall rating: 2

Victor's Kitchen

Went to try the dim sum at victor's kitchen from the recommendation of a food blog that i stumbled upon. it was said that the food there was good and cheap, so i gotta go try it. got the phone number, i called up to make a reservation, the person on the other line seemed to be very busy, talked very fast in a hong kong accent. i told him the time and number of people, he replied ok and hung up, he didn't even ask for my name and contact number... hhmmm. we were quite surprised when we reach there cos we ended up sitting along the corridor of the shopping centre. when we finally got the food, i can agree with the recommender that it's really very good!!
Char siew bao, fluffy on the outside, sweet and tasty in the inside.
Pork ribs, very tender, not tough at all.
Chee cheong fun, smooth and slippery with large fresh prawns in it.
Ha gao, thin skin packed tightly with lots of prawns.
Fried wanton, very large with crispy skin served with a special vinegar sauce.
Chicken feet, never tried this, i dun eat chicken feet
Carrot cake, very different from others, steamed till soft and gluey, served with soy sauce.
Siew mai, nothing special about this
Chicken porridge with century egg, look bland but actually very tasty.


This is one of the best dim sum i have ever tried, and it's only $27 for 3 person. really very cheap and we ordered so much food. This is definitely a must try! Dun bother making reservations, they won't remember it, they are too busy in the kitchen, go there and look for seats yourself.

address: 91 Bencoolen Street, Sunshine Plaza, #01-21
contact: 98382851
ambience: 4
taste: 8
service: 6
overall rating: 7

Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe

Another hong kong style cafe, it's at cineleisure, there's branches at marina square and kovan heartland mall too, heard from friends that this place is onr of the better hk cafes around, and finally got a chance to try it out. Food looks good from the large poster of photos that greeted us while we were queueing to get a get seat for ourselves.
I have always love the hk style milk tea, in their menu the have the normal milk tea and the extra rich (kao) milk tea, so since i prefered the tea to be a little bitter, i ordered the kao version, in the end it its more bitter, but it taste like ice milk tea place on the table for half an hour and the ice has all melted into the tea!! peanut butter toast was just too normal, anyone could make this at home!!
Luckily the dim sum was good, all the above items taste great, i will give a score of 7 for the dim sum.
My favourite, cheese baked spagetti with pork chop, this one is fantastic, lots of cheese, they are not giamsiap(stingy) with the cheese at all, maybe because i like cheese, so i thought this dish was good even though the pork chop and spagetti are just normal..

Updates (15 Apr 2007)

Went to the marina square branch of xin wang hk cafe. this item on the right is the mango and watermelon with chin chow, totally not worth it, it seems like something we can easily make at home! Ordered some dim sum too and they were not bad.


address: Cineleisure Orchard #12-11
ambience: 7
taste: 5
service: 5
value for money: 6
overall rating: good and bad stuffs, you gotta go to judge for yourself

Hong Kong Cafe

It's not the first time i went to hong kong cafe, in fact this is the first hong kong style cafe that i've been to. the food and drinks there are generally good, we ordered a few stuffs and they all taste very good.
HK cafe special baked, comes in 2 different sauces, seafood in one of them and pork chop in the other, both sauces are very good.
French toast with fresh bananas, also worth trying, cut it up and eat it with the syrup provided, it's not as oily as the toast you get at some other similar cafes
HK panfried carrot cake, this item seems to be a little over fried, it will be nicer if it's not fried for that long a time, the skin of the carrot cake is a little charred.
Luncheon meat and egg instant noodles, the noodles are cooked just right, still very Q, not soggy at all.




"Si mud" tea, Must try, this tea really taste like you are having tea in hk, the flavour is thick and the milk is also thick, but if you do not like sweet stuffs, this might not be for you.





Purple rain, this is an ice blended drink, it's orh bee beh, or pulot hitam blended with ice and topped with a vanila ice cream, very interesting



Food is good, but it comes with a price, what you see above costs S$45.70, so go there if you feel like spending a little more than usual for supper.

Updates (14 Apr 2007)
The east coast branch crowded with customers at around 9pm on a friday evening.. at around 10pm, there seems to be no empty seats indoor, not too sure about outdoor seats though.

Spicy salt and pepper squid. i always though the one at crystal jade kitchen was good, oooh.. this one is better!



address: 378/380 East Coast Road , 275 Thomson Road
#01-08 Novena Ville
contact: 64403808(Eastcoast), 6256 5655(Novena)
ambience: 7
taste: 8
service: 7
overall rating: very good food, Must try

Tong Shui Cafe

An elaborately decorated cafe in liang seah street, you won't miss this cafe when you are walking down the street, it has many red chinese lanterns hung on the outside.

This place boast a menu of more than 300 items! but after trying it a few times, i felt that the food is not that worth it, price is a little high for a cafe like that. Here's a bowl of instant noodles with luncheon meat and egg ($3.88). the only thing that seems worth it is the gigantic bowl.

Their toast is supposed to be quite good, but maybe because we ordered the peanut better one, it was too sweet and thick for us to even finish the toast. i think i gotta try a different flavoured one one more before deciding that this cafe is not workth visiting anymore. They have quite a nicely done website but i wonder why this branch is not on the site at all, maybe this is a new branch and they have yet to update the website.

address: 1 Liang Seah Street #01-05/06
contact:
ambience: 6
taste: 3
service: 5
overall rating: Try it if you are around that area and you are sick of all the cafes around there