Galbiati Gourmet Deli

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

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

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

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

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

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

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