The Hungry Bunny

We escaped to KSL City in JB over the F1 weekend when the massive jams in the city got majorly annoying. The newish mall, opened in April last year, is like a half-priced version of our Far East Plaza. With about a gazillion mani-pedi bistros and massage (non-dodgy ones, mind you!) parlors, giant hypermart Tesco (which apparently reminds the Hubs of his poor broke undergrad days in the UK), and a huge cinema hall, we made a day of it exploring the labyrinth of a mall. And, with the very favourable exchange rate currently, our Singapore dollar was certainly stretched to the max. Brilliant for our self-imposed budget sequestration.  And while the food basement may not be as extensive as, say, Takashimaya's food basement, there are a couple of hidden gems here that the locals flock to and you'll do well to seek them out.  The Penang Laksa (RM$5) from D'Laksa was awesome and on its own, made our whirlwind trip worthwhile. The best Penang-style laksa we've ha...

September's L.A. Lunch was held at Burlamacco Ristorante , a new-ish Italian restaurant that's been making its mark along the dining enclave du jour of Amoy Street. The restaurant boasts distinguished pedigree, with its chef having honed his skills in a couple of Italy's 1-Michellin-starred restaurants, and then in the local kitchens of Senso and Alkaff Mansion, while the matrie d' has headed the front of house at the very prolific Les Amis, Iggy's and Garibaldi.  With pedigree like that, you would think that Burlamacco would be fantabulous right? Thing is, Burlamacco , in its attempt to set itself apart from its haute, stiff upper-lip heritage, has veered in the wrong direction. So anyways, Burlamacco purportedly means "carnival", and it appears that the service consequently adopted an overtly casual and uncomfortably familiar approach. Reactions to the well-meaning but inappropriate approach of the service staff ranged from the mild uncomfortable to ...

*Sidenote: Pardon my choppy posts, as I'm dealing with moving house and an upcoming trial. Oh my, when it rains, it pours.* I've always thought Old Town White Coffee is like a Malaysian version of Killiney Kopitiam . A primarily kopi place with a smallish warm foods menu centered around the breakfast duo of kaya toast and soft boiled eggs. Turns out, on closer inspection of its menu, the fare served up is really quite extensive, and very much in line with that of Madam Kwan's and Grandma's . Being a Malaysian franchise brought in by the multi-hypenate funnyman Mark Lee, the food is grounded in Malaysian classics like assam laksa, prawn noodles, nasi lemak, and ipoh hor fan. You wouldn't think that a skinny guy like Mark Lee would know much about food, but the food here is pretty awesome. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality, and how incredibly value-for-money the stuff is here. Take for example, the Signature Dry Ipoh Chicken Hor Fan ($8.90), which is ...

Clearly, this is quite an outdated post, and I'm not sure if this will still be relevant after the revamp, but here goes! I've never noticed this but there's quite a large number of stalls at Lau Pa Sat serving North Indian cuisine. It may have something to do with the fact that there is a correspondingly large number of Indian expats working in the CBD that flock to this open-air food court. Beeps was hankering for some Indian food that day and so, we decided to try the Indian food here. The only North Indian food I've ever had were from fairly notable North Indian restaurants, and never from a food court, so I was surprised to find that this wasn't half bad. In fact, it was more than passable. What made it more palatable was the price points of the lunch sets here. I suppose they don't need to factor overheads such as air-conditioning and rental of nice restaurant digs. The Lunch Set ($6) comprised some masala potatoes, cumin-laced sauteed long beans an...

Pan Pacific Hotel, in keeping with the times, recently underwent major renovations. High time, I say. The hotel had been looking a little dated amongst the gleaming younger set of hotels in the Marina Bay area. The third level of the hotel has been re-designed like a open-concept mezzanine reserved for the hotel's restaurants. Hai Tien Lo , the award-winning Cantonese restaurant favoured by the well-heeled, is now on the third floor, and no longer perched on the topmost floor of the hotel, so it's a fond farewell to the expansive seaviews. We'd decided we needed a change-up from our usual brunch at Cherry Garden , and hence, headed to Hai Tien Lo's Weekend A La Carte Yum Cha Buffet ($68++ for food only; $128++ with alcohol). It's not so much a dim sum buffet as it is a lunch buffet, but notwithstanding the limited range of dim sum, we really liked the buffet here. Hai Tien Lo is renowned for serving up some really exquisite Cantonese cuisine, so it's not too...