The Hungry Bunny

SICC Bukit Cafe

2012-01-28T00:43:00.000+08:00

I've reconciled with the sad conclusion that it's impossible not to put on weight during the festive period. Every single social event revolves around food so you invariably end up eating several times a day! Anticipating the amount of eating we'd be doing over the Chinese New Year festive period, we've had to go to the gym almost everyday prior to the festive period to combat the potential weight gain.

We usually end late at the gym so eating at the club makes more sense as it's convenient to go straight home after dinner. These were just some of our meals eaten at the club after our gym sessions.

The Pan-fried Cod ($21) with char-grilled asparagus served on a bed of truffle scented risotto with forest mushrooms, chervil sauce and lobster and saffron oil reduction was just okay, not bad but not impressive either. The risotto was a overcooked but the cod was done well, with a lightly caramelized crust and moist fleshy insides.

The Chicken Satay ($6.30 for half dozen) was one of the better done dishes, the skewered chicken meat was juicy and succulent, while the peanut sauce was chunky and textured.

The Ultimate U.S. Wagyu Beef Burger ($19.90) with its juicy and full-bodied 200g wagyu beef patty made this a repeat order. The portobello mushrooms and brie cheese fillings added to the luxury content of this burger.

There were hits and misses in the Nasi Goreng Temburong ($7.80). The whole crispy chicken drumstick and the fried egg were a little dried out, but the flavoured rice was good enough to eat on its own, peppery and richly flavoured. This was also served alongside generic achar, crackers and a potent fiery sambal.

The Tofu Claypot ($6.90) was a disappointment though, the pan-fried beancurd was severely waterlogged and the oyster-mushroom gravy laden with pak choy, cabbage and bell peppers was rather ordinary.

Bukit Cafe
Singapore Island Country Club, Bukit location
240 Sime Road
Singapore 578774
Tel: 6461 7439
Open on Mondays to Fridays from 11am to 10pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 10pm

Patara Fine Thai Cuisine

2012-01-27T18:46:00.003+08:00

Lips and I met up for dinner at Patara, our first monthly meet-up for 2012. I miss the food in Phuket, and Lips was trying on a vegetarian diet, and Patara Fine Thai fit the bill. The high-end Thai restaurant's dedicated a section of their menu just for vegetarian options. We were led to a booth seat, super cosy for us gals to yak the night away. Per "standard operating procedure", we ditched our other halves for dinner, but they were due to join us later for dessert. I love going out with Lips, we always have a blast and we never seem to have enough time when we're together.

As usual, the food was pricey, but authentic. Ambience was kept relaxed with warm low lights, but somehow the restaurant was, as before, quite noisy. The restaurant was a full house and diners were using their "outside voices" instead of their "indoor" ones. It didn't help that there was a fussy baby screaming his lungs out on the next table, so much so we had trouble hearing each other and were yelling at each other for most of the meal. Also, one thing I didn't realize the other time dining with Ernie, Ry and Buns, was that service here is very sluggish.The service staff are generally not as efficient or on-the-ball as I'd expect of such a restaurant.

We started off with the Satay Tao Hoo ($18) grilled mushrooms and tofu skewers with mildly spiced creamy peanut dip and tart cucumber salsa.

The Tom Yum Hed ($20 per pot), a clear sour and spicy soup with vegetables and mushrooms was the vegetarian version of the tom yum soup. This was manageably spicy so even people like Ernie can take this.

We also had another soup, the Poa Taak Pla Kapong ($23 per pot) another clear spicy and sour soup but laden with seabass. While the soup was nice and the fleshy pieces of fish tasted fresh enough, the fish somehow left a fishy smell on our breath.

The Gai Goong Phad Med Mamuang ($28) of stir-fried prawns and chicken with cashew nuts and spring onions was both robust and potent, with dried red chillis lending a subtle smoky heat.

We thought the Tab Tim Krob Ruam Mitr ($13) which was described on the menu as "bubur cha cha", had a very novel presentation. This was refreshingly good, the sweetened coconut milk was creamy and rich but not cloyingly so, while the various toppings were crunchy and fresh.

Patara Fine Thai Cuisine
163 Tanglin Road
Tanglin Mall
#03-14
Tel: 6737 0818
Open daily from 12noon to 3pm for lunch and from 6pm to 10pm for dinner
Website: www.patara.com.sg

Coffee Club, Raffles City Shopping Centre

2012-01-26T01:00:00.000+08:00

I've always thought Singapore was quite the deserted forsaken wasteland whenever Chinese New Year rolls around, all the malls and restaurants are closed, and there's really nothing to do or eat on our little island except visit your relatives or stay at home. If you wanted to do anything over the first couple of days of the Lunar New Year, you could do little other than catching a show at the cinemas. If you wanted to eat out, you're relegated to prata (Indian food), mee rebus (Malay food), Macdonalds (fast food) and the like.

It's changed though. I've noticed a lot more restaurants and shops open, even during the first day of Chinese New Year. On a hunch, we hit Raffles City on the second day of the Chinese New Year, hoping to get some breakfast. We figured that even if the shops weren't open, the hotel's in-house's restaurants would at the very least be open for business. As it turned out, most of the eateries at Raffles City Shopping Centre were open and we enjoyed a slow, leisurely, breakfast in a relatively deserted mall.

The All Star American Breakfast ($10.50) consisted of baguette toasts, crisp bacon, chicken sausages, chicken patty, grilled tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and sunny side up eggs. Substantial and delicious. The mushrooms and eggs weren't salted, which was really great, seeing as the salt content in the bacon, sausages and patty more than balanced out the mushrooms and eggs.

I had mine with scrambled eggs, fluffy and moist, just the way I like it.

The Mushrooms Bruschetta Bash ($9.50) is an absolute must-try, the mouth-wateringly good chorizo and portobello mushrooms bruschetta was served with perfectly executed scrambled eggs, a thick juicy chicken patty and vinaigrette-dressed mesclun salad.

Coffee Club
252 North Bridge Road #03-30
Raffles City Shopping Centre
Tel: 6336 8208
Open daily from 10am to 10pm
Website: www.coffeeclubworld.com

Paradise Inn, Funan Digitalife Mall

2012-01-25T12:44:00.002+08:00

We had our family reunion dinner this year at Paradise Inn. Buns and I alternate between our families every other year, and since we spent time with his family on Chinese New Year's eve last year, we decided to have this year's reunion dinner with my side of the family. Besides, my sister was back for the first time since she moved to Germany 5 years ago, and she brought along her newest addition, her adorable 5-month old son, Sammy.

As with any other Chinese restaurant on CNY eve, there were 2 dinner sittings, and we got the first. Dishes arrived in quick succession, the restaurant was operating at a full capacity and so, service was inevitably choppy and harried. Still, the food was not bad (mostly hits and not many misses), considering the dishes were pretty much mass produced (only set dinners were allowed, no ala carte orders) and the kitchen was obviously bursting at the seams.

We started off with the Salmon Yusheng, generic but otherwise a refreshing way to start off the meal.

The view of the salad with everything poured in but before the tossing so it still looks really neat and tidy.

We really liked the Seafood Fried Rice, each grain was individually coated with a thin film of eggy goodness and fried to a fragrant perfection. Tiny bright orange spots of fish roe littered the rice, providing a burst of umami flavour to the rice.

The Duo Combination of Teochew Prawn Roll and Jellyfish was also very well done. Prawn roll was nicely textured with chunky mince and bits of diced prawns, with a crisp flaky flour wrapping, while the garlicky marinated chilled jellyfish balanced out the savoury prawn rolls with its refreshingly clean flavours.

We also loved the assortment of bai ling, straw and champignon mushrooms with the velvety rich oyster sauce gravy in the Braised Assorted Mushrooms with Sauteed Broccoli. The Chicken with Herbs in Claypot was a heady, potent concoction with strong flavours, accented by peppery basil and cut chillis.

The Steamed Star Garoupa in Soya Sauce was unfortunately, over-steamed. The meat was dry when it should have been moist, tough when it should have been firm.

The Chilled Double-Boiled Hashima with red dates lending a nuanced sweetness and dried longan providing deep fruity notes was a very nutritious (hashima is good for your skin apparently although I hate it) way to cleanse our palates at the end of the relatively substantive meal.

Paradise Inn
109 North Bridge Road
#02-10/11 Funan DigitaLife Mall
Tel: 6338 4018
Open daily from 11.30am to 9.30pm
Website: www.paradiseinn.com.sg/

Tung Lok Classics, Orchard Parade Hotel

2012-01-24T16:11:00.002+08:00

We had our firm's Annual Chinese New Year Dinner to kick off the CNY festivities at Tung Lok Classics earlier last Friday. Tung Lok Classics serves traditional Sichuan, Shanghainese, Cantonese and Hubei cuisine, 4 of the 8 regional cuisines of China. The 8-course sit-down dinner ($888 per 10 persons) was, as usual, packed with laughter, joy and good food. While the firm may not be part of the "Big Four", or pay the highest salaries, the biggest draw for me here is the people. My team has, over the years, become part of my family. And that's the primary reason why I love my job.

I always think that the most important aspect of a job is the people in your team, which of course includes your boss. Remuneration is really a secondary consideration, as long as you can afford a comfortable life. Of course, what's defined as comfortable is relative and differs widely, depending on who you ask. Afterall, what's the point of going to work in a superbly paid company but hating every single second of your work life? I suppose that's the advice I'd give anyone stepping into the working world for the first time. Find a job that pays enough, which is easy enough (usually), but stick to the one boss that treats you well.

We started off the night tossing to "big bonuses" with the Hamachi King Fish Treasure Platter Yusheng.

Crackers (to symbolise lots of wealth with what resembles gold ingots) and the sweet sauce (for a good life filled with sweetness)

The finished product, a very piquant refreshing salad of julienned vegetables, and because I wasn't a proficient enough excavator, I didn't get any fish.

The second course was the Flambe Barbecued Whole Suckling Pig, very impressively presented lined on both sides with mini flames. The skin was crisp enough, but it could have been a piece of oil-stained, fat-lined, coloured, plain flour cracker for all I knew. This needed a lot of the sweet hoisin sauce to get through.

The rest of the meat was cut up and served neatly later. I didn't quite like this because of its very strong "porky" smell and taste. But to be fair, I've never liked suckling pig.

I loved the Double-Boiled Sea Treasures Soup with Chinese Herbs. It was delicate and clear but with depth and richness of flavour, with the use of a chicken stock base. Thankfully, there wasn't a strong herbal taste to this, I think the herbal part was due to the wolfberries, rich in anti-oxidants and good for your eyes.

The soup's ingredients were ladled out for consumption, and from what I could identify, an assortment of chicken chunks, sea whelk, sea cucumber, and what else, wolfberries.

The fish dish was a Shanghai-syled Steamed Soon Hock with Pickled Chilli, fresh, moist and flaky, with a chilli-laced soy emulsion slathered over this that was at once piquant, spicy and salty.Best dish of the night, together with the soup.

The Braised Dried Oysters with Black Moss and Vegetables was made unique with the addition of fresh crunchy prawns, but I would have preferred the black moss to be incorporated into the luscious gravy instead of being sprinkled very sparingly over the top.

While the sweetish gravy was rich and heady, with an accent of a herbal scent, the Shanghai-syled Braised Duck with Yam was a little tough, cold and gamey. I also liked the cubes of soft sweet yam that lent texture to the gravy.

Although I prefer ee-fu noodles as the obligatory carb dish in set meals, the Fried "Ying-Yang" Glutinous Rice with Preserved Meat was quite commendable. The rice was sticky, soft and moist, with an aromatic soy seasoning, while fried grains of rice thrown into the mix provided a contrast in textures. Diced mushrooms, Chinese sausages and yam also helped chunk up the dish.

The Chilled Mango Sago Cream with Pomelo was a refreshingly balanced way to round off the meal. Too bad the pomelo was excruciatingly sour.

Tung Lok Classics
1 Tanglin Road
Orchard Parade Hotel
#02-18
Tel: 6834 0660
Open daily from 12noon to 2.30pm for lunch and 6.30pm to 10.30pm for dinner
Website: www.tunglokclassics.com

Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie, Raffles City

2012-01-22T09:24:00.000+08:00

While Canele is known for their decadently scrumptious desserts, they do serve up a small selection of French comfort food. We were craving some homestyled French stews and macarons, and so, we made a beeline for Canele. We were at the supermarket doing groceries anyway.

Although the Portobello & Beef Ragout ($11) was, in my opinion, really quite pricey, especially in light of its minscule portion, it (sort of) made up for the price point by being quite delicious.

A rich and full-bodied stewed beef was layered upon a juicy grilled portobello and topped with melted mozzarella.

The Provencal Chicken Stew ($14) was, compared to the portobello starter, surprisingly priced very reasonably. I've always loved stews, and this didn't disappoint. It had a comforting chicken stock base, sweetened with celery and carrots, and chunked up with large pieces of succulent chicken. Oh and the crusty bread served alongside the stew was wonderful for wiping up any remnants of the yummy gravy.

The Braised Beef in Red Wine ($16) had a very deep, full-bodied and robust flavour to it, much richer than Casserole's version. Sweeter too, with the liberal use of root vegetables and tomatoes.

Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie
252 North Bridge Road
Raffles City Shopping Centre
#B1-46
Tel: 6334 7377
Open daily from 11am to 10pm
Website: www.canele.com.sg

Casserole @ Dine on 3

2012-01-18T10:04:00.001+08:00

Casserole is 1 of 3 restaurants housed together on the third floor of Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa Resort. While the other 2 restaurants serve Cantonese noodles and congee, as well as an international buffet spread, Casserole serves European and Asian stews. The concept's a little novel, I know, but somehow the menu spanning the gamut of Indian curries, Morrocan hotpots and European stews makes sense. Every single culture has at least a classic stew recipe. Stews are simply one-pot meals that are a combination of a basic stock, a meat, and several types of vegetables, resulting in a variety of flavours depending on the ingredients and cultural influences.

We happened to be in Sentosa attending a Beeps' baby boy's 1st birthday party, and decided to have dinner afterwards at Casserole. I've heard good things about this place and been wanting to try it out. The reviews were right. The food here is amazingly good, very wholesome, and with large portions to boot. The food facilitates communal dining, and each casserole can easily fill up 2 large eaters. In addition, every casserole is served with a carb (Asian stews are served with rice, European ones with mashed potatoes and Morrocan hotpots with cous cous) and a garden salad (because we always need our greens). We severely overestimated ourselves, and ended up not finishing 2 of our mashed potatoes, half the mushroom dish and most of the salad.

We started off with a Baked Seabass ($28) served atop buttered green peas, onions and saffron potatoes. The moist, perfectly salted, fish was kept light and breezy with a drizzle of lemon and some Italian herbs, while the potatoes were simply seasoned with bright sunny saffron. But, I felt the best part of the dish was the peas, they were so soft and buttery, with a sweet accent from the caramelised onions.

A highly recommended dish, the Beef Bourguignon ($26) was lived up to its much hyped recommendation. Chunks of beef were slow-cooked in a vegetable-sweetened stock with garlic, pearl onions, baby carrots, celery and white button mushrooms. This was a lot lighter than you'd expect of a beef stew, the broth was clear and delicate, but with the full flavours of the beef stock. But the piece de resistence has gotta be the beef, so flavoursome and incredibly fork-tender that even toothless peeps can enjoy it.

We also loved the Saute de Champignons Sauvages ($18) an assortment of shitake, enoki, porcini and white button mushrooms simmered with white wine and butter resulting in a luscious velvety gravy with earthy tones.

While we liked the combination of the Garden Salad, with baby spinach, olives, artichokes, cherry tomatoes and rocket leaves, we weren't fans of the mint dressing. We'd have preferred something a little more savoury, like a Japanese-inspired sesame dressing or olive oil.

While the Mashed Potatoes with chives were fairly ordinary, we used this to wipe up the rest of the delicious beef stew gravy.

Casserole @ Dine on 3
101 Siloso Road
Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa Resort
Level 3
Tel: 6275 0100 / 6371 1971
Open daily from 6pm to 10pm

Tung Lok Signatures, The Central

2012-01-16T23:58:00.002+08:00

The Tung Lok group, together with the Crystal Jade and Imperial Treasure chain, make up the "Magic Circle" of Cantonese restaurants in Singapore. I've always felt that while Crystal Jade and Imperial Treasure tend towards the classics, Tung Lok sets itself apart by being a little unconventional. This is made most obvious at Tung Lok Signatures, their fine-dining arm of restaurants. Most of their dishes here are made inventive with a slight twist of the typical Cantonese favourites.

We recently had dinner at Tung Lok Signatures, and discovered that they'd just revamped their menu. I like that there's some "rotation" in their menu so we don't get bored with their dishes, but I do miss a couple of their dishes.

Tung Lok Signatures now pairs the Sauteed Star Garoupa Fillet ($38) with asparagus and lily bulbs, instead of the one on the previous menu, which used sugar snap peas. Strictly as a matter of preference, I prefer the previous version. I'm really not a fan of asparagus.

A sprinkling of preserved vegetables imparts just enough flavour to the crunchy Wok-fried French Beans ($18) while minced pork lends texture.

The Braised Fish Maw in Thick Soup ($14) is now "Tan Jia" style, which tastes exactly like shark's fin soup but without the shark's fin, of course. I prefer the previous bisque-like version. While this was rich, smooth and yet delicate, I prefer the more rounded taste of the yellow bisque.

The current Braised Ee-Fu Noodles ($20) is now seasoned with Snow Fungus and Truffle Oil. We loved this, the heady, pungently fragrant truffle oil was incredibly luxurious and lovely when married with the soft textured noodles. Definitely a keeper compared to the one with sole fish on the previous menu.

The Braised Homemade Beancurd with Wild Fungus and Conpoy Crisps ($20) was one of the few dishes that remained from the previous menu.Soft, custard-like beancurd with a mashed spinach-base was slathered with a thick oyster sauce gravy, then topped with shimeiji mushrooms and shredded dried scallop crisps.

The Chilled Purple Rice Puree and Beancurd Pudding ($6) topped with vanilla ice-cream, had a soya bean curd base which differentiated this from the one with coconut ice-cream on the previous menu.This was commendable and made for a refreshing dessert, but we preferred the previous one.

Tung Lok Signatures
The Central #02-88
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
Tel: 6336 6022
Opening Hours
Lunch: 11.30am to 3.00pm (Mon to Sat); 11.00am to 3.30pm (Sun & PHs)
Dinner: 6.00pm to 10.30pm (Daily)
Website: www.tungloksignatures.com/

Trisara Sunday Champagne Brunch, Phuket, Thailand

2012-01-13T00:46:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since we indulged in brunch, and we were told not to miss out on Trisara's "legendary" Sunday Brunch (1,990 Baht per person for brunch only). While the selection at Trisara wasn't mind-boggling, it sure made up for the lack of variety with astoundingly high quality. All of their dishes were so good on their own that they could have been served up straight from the ala carte menu.

Also, I loved that Trisara offered bite-sized portions of everything, just so their guests get to sample the entire buffet spread.

Oh and get this, a roving pair of masseuse went round giving free head and shoulder massages to the diners. How's that for 6-star pampering?

A mix-and-match Salad Counter, with arugula, romaine lettuce, red cabbage, cherry tomatoes, sliced almonds, pine nuts, julienned carrots and beetroot. Olive oil and thousand island were the duo of dressings available for your salads.

While I'm not a fan of Smoked Salmon because of its tendency towards fishiness, this was admittedly fresh and devoid of any fishy smells or taste.

Both seafood on ice, the Chilled Tiger Prawns and Chilled Lobster were super fresh and sweet.

My favourite kind of cold cuts! There were 3 varieties of delicatessen, Salami Nepoli, Parma Ham (best of all, with its silky salty ribbons) and Coppa Parma.

Fruit Cleansers are a great way to detox and start your day right with a super dose of fibre and vitamins, Carrot, Ginger & Honey Blended and Cucumber, Celery & Fennel Juice

We'll move on to the appetizers, all served in tiny little saucers or cups, so you get to try everything! They were all delicious, as it was really a matter of preference as to which ones I liked. Orange, Capsicum and Radish Salad.

Goat's Cheese and Tomato Gelette, with a light drizzle of aged balsamic for a piquant lift.

Golden Bag stuffed with Vegetables (aka vegetable wanton) in a pool of sweet Thai chilli sauce.

Spicy Tuna Salad Cucumber Roll, very cool and refreshing.

Smoked Duck Rolls with Hoisin

Mini Beetroot, Goat's Cheese and Walnut Tartlet

Bocconcini Skewer, with a cherry tomato and ricotta cheese with olive oil.

Lamb Chermoula with Eggplant Salad, very Mediterranean-influenced, but not my thing. Don't like lamb and don't like eggplant.

I super loved the Mini Caesar Salad, served very quaintly in a tiny glass. The poached chicken breast was moist, tasty and this was just the perfect size for a light bite.

The Shrimp and Tropical Fruit Salad, also very refreshing, with mango cubes complementing the sweet prawns, and capsicum providing a light kick.

I really liked the Mango Sushi Roll, sweet juicy mangoes and soft moist Japanese sushi rice, what's not to like?

In comparison to the mango sushi roll above, I didn't quite like the Mango Avocado Timbele, mostly because I don't like avocado. Too much of a mushy powdery texture, I'd feel like I'm eating baby powder.

Oh the Sesame Crushed Seared Tuna with lime and ginger soy dressing was yummylicious. I went back for seconds.

While i liked the quails egg in the Nicoise Salad, I wasn't a fan of the rest of the other ingredients.

Assorted Breadsticks, crunchy, savoury and a very nice snack if you're peckish.

My favourite station of all, the Pasta and Risotto Station. You can pick and choose the different types of pasta, sauces and fillings, and best of all, they're all in tasting portions so you don't get filled up.

We all loved the Porcini Mushroom Risotto, aromatic, al dente and thoroughly flavoursome. Super yums.

The Tomato Basil Fettuccine was also super well done, so simple but so comfortingly good.

The boys' favourite counter, the Carving Station with Red Wine Sauce, Dijon Mustard, and Apple Sauce.

The Ham was very good, moist and tender, with a fragrant herb coating to balance the saltiness of the cured pork.

The Potato Gratin was another favourite, soft scalloped potatoes layered with bechamel sauce and covered in cheese and baked till golden brown, all of us went back for third helpings of this.

The Roast Chicken was also fantastic, succulent juicy meat with thyme and oregano providing flavouring.

The Grilled Vegetables were seasoned simply with salt and pepper to bring out their natural sweetness. I loved the baby carrots and zucchini.

Trisara offers a basic selection of cheeses on the Cheese Plate, easy for the conservative cheese eater.

The Fruit Plate had standard fruits such as watermelon, papaya and pineapple, and less conventional ones such as pomelo.

Onto the desserts section of the brunch! The Raspberry Macaron Tartlet is admittedly gorgeous, but a little underwhelming.

We all loved the Chocolate Tart, moist rich dark chocolate with a buttery crust.

The Creme Brulee was commendable, not too sweet and the custard was nice and smooth.

I'm not a fan of orange-based desserts as i find that they tend to be a bit too sweet, and so, while some of the guys liked the Orange Mousse Cup, I wasn't a fan.

The Lemon Meringue had a pleasant refreshing tinge to it.

The American Cheesecake was well done, smooth, dense, balanced.

The Fruit Tart was also well done, the trio of berries were, unliked most other places, sweet.

The Opera Cake was undisputedly the best dessert of all, nuanced, bittersweet and sinfully delicious.

Baked Alaska is also not my thing, but the whipped cream was really quite fluffy.

Trisara
Phuket
Thailand
Website: trisara.com

Islamic Restaurant, North Bridge Road

2012-01-11T14:16:00.000+08:00

A couple of my gal pals brought me to Islamic Restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall Indian eatery along
North Bridge Road specialising in biryani. According to the gals, this is "the best biryani place in town". It's funny that I've frequented the nasi padang restaurants around the same area as Islamic Restaurant for years, and yet never even knew this place existed!

Please note that it's best to dine during the off-peak hours because the place is so tiny.All the tables are crammed pretty tightly so you inadvertently end up hearing the next table's conversation. While the restaurant is air-conditioned, a (slight) downside of the cool surroundings is that your hair does end up smelling of Indian spices by the time you leave the restaurant.

Save for the coriander, the Aloo Gobi ($5) was delicious! The vegetable retained its crunchy texture and the mildly spiced, cumin-accented sauce managed to complement the natural sweetness of the cauliflower stalks.

The thick spice paste in the Mutton Mysore ($7) had a delectably smoky tinge to it. While the mutton was fresh (no gamey taste or smell here), it could do with a couple of hours more on the stove. Some of the pieces were definitely a tad tough when it should have been fork-tender.

We all ordered 3 different varieties of biryani to share communally. The Chicken Biryani ($7.50) was yummilicious, flavoursome and moist and fluffy. The humongous hunk of a chicken was, despite being breast meat, super moist and tasty, with the spice rub totally absorbed into the inner recesses of the white meat.

The Prawn Biryani ($10) was my favourite, the rice was the most concentrated in flavour compared to the other 2 biryanis, and the deshelled prawns were fresh, sweet and thoroughly flavourful.

The Fish Biryani ($7.50) was fairly similar to the chicken version, with a huge chunk of fresh batang(?) fillet buried in the middle of the aromatic rice mound.

Islamic serves up a bowl of mild, lentil-thickened Curry together with their biryanis, a perfect accompaniment if you like it gravylicious, but seriously, the rice is so tasty on its own that we didn't really think of ladling this on.

Islamic Restaurant
745 North Bridge Road
Tel: 6298 7563
Open daily from 10am to 10pm

Trisara Dinner Room Service, Phuket, Thailand

2012-01-09T14:15:00.000+08:00

This is the all-day dining menu at Trisara, as opposed to the breakfast menu in the previous post.

We'll start off with the appetizers, Goong Sarong (THB490) prawns wrapped in rice noodle vermicelli with a honey mustard dipping sauce. I think freshwater prawns were used. While they are big and juicy, they weren't particularly sweet.

We totally loved the Gai Yang 'Phuket' (THB400), with succulent, thoroughly flavoursome and smoky barbecued chicken skewered on chopsticks, seasoned with fresh tumeric and served with a piquant, peppery nam jim jaew dipping sauce.We repeatedly ordered this throughout our stay in Trisara.

We also ordered several rounds of the Thod Mun Goong (THB490). The oh-so-juicy deep-fried shrimp cakes were the best shrimp cakes I've ever had, bar none. This was served with plum sauce, but seriously, the shrimp cakes were so good on their own that the dipping sauce was rendered completely redundant.

Of course we ordered the classic Thai soup of Tom Yam Goong (THB450) with gargantuan king prawns in hot and sour broth laced with lemongrass and galangal. While I found the broth overwhelming with the essence of prawn, my friend totally loved it and quickly lapped it up. To each his own, I guess. There was once I asked for the soup on its own, sans ingredients and Trisara immediately acceded to my request. I've never been able to do that at any restaurant or hotel without a fair amount of wrangling. That's how amazing the standard of service here.

We also loved the Phad Kra Proaw (THB450) soft, fresh, minced pork sauteed with rich dark oyster sauce, chili and hot basil leaves.This was very good indeed.

The Naree Lui Suan (THB400), chunks of juicy chicken were stir-fried with crunchy cashew nuts, dried chili, and capsicums in oyster sauce.

Onto the curries, the Gaeng Kiew Wan (THB450), green curry with pandan, apple, eggplant and chicken was creamy, rich and heady.

The Gaeng Massaman (THB400) with roasted pumpkin, sweet potatoes and grilled chicken was our favourite curry. It had a delectable smoky accent to it, and while it had a kickass spiciness to it (this really got us all sniffling), the flavour of the rich curry paste still come through every scoop. We practically licked this up.

The Panang Gai (THB450) with sliced chicken breast and coconut milk had a nutty quality to it, with sweet basil strips added for a little peppery element.

The Gaeng Daeng (THB450), red curry with chicken, was slightly milder, but no less potent, than the massaman curry. This was creamier, with the liberal use of coconut milk.

The only vegetables dish we ordered the entire time we were at Trisara, the Phak Ruammit Phad (THB300), stir-fried mixed vegetables in oyster sauce was a nice respite from the rest of the very fiery dishes.

We move on to the noodles and rice section of the menu, the Mee Sapam (THB400), Phuket yellow noodles with kale and chicken was by far our favourite carb dish. Mild but tasty and loaded with chunks of ingredients, this was such comfort food.

The Khao Phad (THB400) traditional fried rice with chicken, was well-fried, with each grain imbued with "wok hei". A little plain-ish, but still delicious to the last grain.

Trisara's Phad Thai (THB550), small rice noodles with grilled king prawns, tofu and banana blossom salad tended towards the sweet, but a generous helping of dried chili flakes kicked this up a notch.

The Phad Guay Jaub (THB400) thick flat rice noodles with chicken in oyster sauce, morning glory and eggs while commendable, had, unfortunately all of its flat rice noodles still rolled up, so some of the noodles ended up not being coated with the oyster sauce during the frying process.

We also indulged in some of the dishes from the western menu, the Parma Ham and Rucola Pizza was pleasantly authentic. The thin crust pizza had a wood-fired accent to its crispness, and the pungent saltiness of the Parma ham complemented the peppery rucola.

Although the only risotto available on the menu was supposedly cooked with a lobster, I asked for a vegetarian option, which they were, as usual, happy to oblige. The Porcini Mushrooms Risotto just oozed homestyle comforting goodness. Al dente, rich and woodsy.

The Spaghetti Aglio Olio was simplicity at its finest, just a bunch of garlic, olive oil and ham made this al dente pasta a hit.

We also loved the golden baked Potato Gratin, scalloped potatoes in a creamy sauce and loaded with cheese, this was decadently good.

The Deep Dark Chocolate Cake with Double Cream was sinfully delicious, with its dense but moist texture and bittersweet tones.

Trisara provides complimentary Chocolate Truffles, which were, suffice to say, gobbled quickly everyday. Don't worry, they're more than happy to top it up several times a day. These were filled with a bit of liquor for a little luxury, and coated with bitter cocoa to counter the sweetness of the truffles.

Trisara's in-house Assorted Cookies were also something to look forward to everyday, freshly made, I liked the cranberry cookies best, but Buns preferred the long tubular sugar cookies.

Trisara
Phuket
Thailand
Website: trisara.com

La Nonna, Holland Village

2012-01-07T20:01:00.000+08:00

I brought Buns along when I recently revisited La Nonna. I had a really good meal the first time round with Cho and I thought Buns would like it. In any case, he was craving risotto and we were in the area.

We started off with the Mozzarella e Parma ($19), pan-fried mozzarella wrapped in 18-month old Parma ham. This was originally meant to be served with a mesclun salad, but I asked it to be switched out for rucola leaves instead, which they happily obliged. Thumbs up for the service here. The mozzarella was soft, warm and chewy, while the ham provided a rich salty balance to the mild milky cheese. Aged balsamic vinegar lent a piquant lift.

The Risotto ($20), carnaroli risotto with porcini mushrooms was horrendously watered out, with the rice grains completely mush and awfully tasteless. The mushrooms were also water-logged. We needed a lot of grounded black pepper to get through this, and it was unfinished, of course. This was surprising, considering the version I had before with Cho was loads better.

The Ravioli ($20), filled with lobster and crabmeat fared much much better. While the pasta was slightly overcooked, the seafood was fresh, and the arrabiata sauce was tasty. Not the best pasta around, but definitely palatable.

La Nonna

26 Lorong Mambong

Holland Village
Tel: 6466 1982

Open daily from 12noon to 2.30pm; 6pm to 10.30pm

Website: www.lanonna.sg

Trisara Breakfast, Phuket, Thailand

2012-01-05T18:52:00.000+08:00

If you ever want to lap it up in Phuket, Trisara is the only place you should consider. It's the only 6-star all-villa resort in the whole of Phuket and in our opinion, the best place to stay at on the island. Service is unparalleled (they really want to say yes to all of your requests, no matter how ridiculous), food is world-class and the accommodations are pure luxury.

Trisara's located on a private beach, so you're assured of complete and exclusive privacy. It's an all-villa resort, so you get the privacy of a standalone villa (you really can't hear your neighbours then) and an ample-sized ocean-view plunge pool all to yourself, but the facilities of an all-inclusive resort, complete with a fitness centre, library, several restaurants and bars, full-service spa, hair and nail palour and large pool at the main foyer. It's a place to really get pampered, simply because it's utterly extravagant and indulgent.

We hear that the King of Sweden even owns a residence in Trisara (the 3 to 4 bedroom residences are privately owned but managed by Trisara and available for rental at a rate set by the private owners). We say, if it's good enough for Swedish royalty, it's good enough for us!

The resort may be remote (it's a 5-minute cab ride out to get to the nearest massage or food place) but the resort's all-inclusive so why on earth would you want to get out of the resort at all? With the exception of having dinner at Lotus Restaurant one night at Bangtao Beach, we never left the resort!

This is the start of all of our meals at Trisara, which is a lot, considering we were there for a whole week. Guests can opt to have breakfast at the restaurant at the main deck or order from the in-room dining menu and have it delivered to your room. There's a small continental breakfast buffet selection at the main deck, all of which, as we discovered, are available on the in-room dining menu as well. You can assume everything was good and yummy, unless otherwise stated.

Loaves of Bread from top to bottom, Sourdough, Corn, Oat & Seeds, Whole Wheat and Fruit Bread

Wholemeal and White Sliced Bread and a Toaster, if you prefer your bread toasted, like me!

Fresh Milk, nicely packaged in individual portions.

Syrups and Jams from right to left: raspberry, orange marmalade, chocolate & banana, maple syrup and honey

Yoghurt and Muesli and toppings from left to right: fruit cup, plain yoghurt and bircher muesli.

Cold Cuts and Cheese

Fruits (Trisara replenishes the daily supply of fruits in each villa everyday, but also refillable at any time if you're like Buns, who gobbled up the daily supply of fruits by mid-afternoon everyday)

Freshly Cut Fruits, for lazy people like me.

Fruit Juices from left to right: orange, pineapple, dragonfruit, watermelon, apple and carrot. Cereal from left to right: corn flakes, chocolate rice, koko krunch, and bran. Fresh Milk in pitchers.

Onto the mains, all of which are also available on the in-room dining menu. You can opt for any kind of eggs with a variety of sides, and these are the fluffy scrambled eggs with spinach, sauteed mushrooms and bacon. Trisara prides itself on serving wholesome organic food, but these didn't compromise on flavour. While some people may think that the spinach and mushrooms are undersalted, we thought that the natural flavours and juices of the greens were allowed to shine.

Eggs sunny-side up with spinach and fat, succulent pork sausages

Eggs sunny-side up with ham, sauteed mushrooms, spinach and freshly-made hashbrowns, not those of the frozen variety. This was more like rosti than hashbrowns.

Scrambled eggs with hashbrowns, perfectly crisp bacon and pork sausage

Wobbly runny poached eggs with ham, grilled tomatoes and pork sausages

We sampled some of the Thai breakfast selections, such as the Thai omelette, simply seasoned with chives and spring onions, this was a bit plain though. We preferred the western-styled eggs.

Sauteed Morning Glory with Oyster Sauce and loads of garlic

Sauteed Chicken with oyster sauce, green peppercorns and deep-fried garlic

Trisara
Phuket
Thailand
Website: trisara.com

Forlino

2012-01-03T22:59:00.000+08:00

Because most of my colleagues are taking turns being away during the festive period, a lot of them missed out on the last L.A. Lunch at Imperial Treasure. Since we had a bit of wriggle room in our budget, I decided to have another L.A. Lunch at Forlino on the last (official) work day of 2011 (I say Friday, 30 December 2011 is the last official work day of 2011 because, like a lot of my colleagues, I have a trial in early January 2012, which means that we'll all have work over the long weekend). Still, lunch at Forlino was a very nice way to round off the amazing year I've had.

Forlino remains one of the premier fine-dining Italian restaurants in Singapore. Walking past the robin blue walls adorned with intricate Baroque-style carvings that wouldn't look out of place in the ornate interiors of any of the European castles, you are greeted with the breathtakingly expansive view of the Marina Bay, one of the plus-points that draw its high-end diners back.

What I like about Forlino is the substantive portions. While the prices may be "cha-ching", the generous portions and authentic quality of the food make this one of the more worthwhile Italian ristorantes around to have classic Italian cuisine in sophisticated surroundings.

What I didn't like about Forlino was the very slow service. It was a good thing that none of us were really in a rush to get back to the office (it is, afterall, the last official work day of the year), because we were only served our amuse bouche and bread 35 minutes after we arrived for lunch. This is a place for a slow leisure lunch, not for busy work bees needing to keep within a single lunch hour.

The Amuse Bouche of the day was a Ricotta-filled Puff Pastry, with mild and fresh ricotta cheese encased in a buttery confection, delicious and just enough to whet your appetite.

Forlino's signature freshly baked Foccacia Bread, refillable and so flavoursome you don't need olive oil at all. The crisp, slightly caramelized crust is loaded with sesame seeds and gives way to soft fluffy airy bread. I could be happy eating this on its own.

There was a seasonal Festive Set Lunch ($58++), very reasonably priced, considering that you get 3 courses, making for a very full meal at a very easy-on-the-wallet price. This was the first choice of 2 starters, the Duck Galantine with Truffles and Honey Sauce, paired very nicely with a warm walnut and mushroom salad.

The other starter choice which was immensely popular, was the 'Zampone' Pork Sausage Ravioli set atop a soft polenta bed and complemented by a thick chickpea cream.

This was the first choice of 3 mains, a thick fillet of fresh Black Cod with seasonal Jerusalem artichokes, lentils and accompanied by a sunshiny bubbly saffron sauce.

The second mains option was the festive Roast Turkey stuffed with chestnuts, and a generous helping of truffle-infused brown gravy and a light-as-air cranberry foam.

The last choice of a main was the Braised Wagyu Beef Cheek with Black Truffle Sauce, which proved to be a popular hit, for obvious reasons. The robust red meat was melt-in-your-mouth tender, finished with an equally rich gravy and topped off with a few shavings of decadent black truffles.

The rest of us opted for mains from the ala carte menu, starting with the Spaghetti "alla Chitarra" with Lobster ($48) handmade pasta made with a millenia-old Chitarra press and a heady cognac-tinged French bisque-inspired lobster sauce.

The Black Cod Capelletti ($38) was unexpectedly paired with a creamy broccoli mush and a few sprinkles of garlic confit.

The Porcini Mushrooms and Pumpkin Risotto ($38) was heavenly. Rich, creamy but with just that perfect bit of bite, this was sprinkled with sprigs of edible flowers that provided texture and beauty.

The Black Truffle Risotto ($58) was flavoured with Robbiola di Roccaverano cheese, a soft-ripened cream-coloured cheese from Piedmont and Lombardy made with cow's, goat's and sheep's milk, which lent a full, tangy and mildly sour flavour to the heart-warming risotto.

The Prawn Risotto ($38) was also lovely, done al dente and very light, delicate flavours.

The Wagyu Beef Cheek with Red Wine Sauce ($45) was pleasantly larger in portion than we'd expected. CC had trouble finishing it. This was good to the last drop, with truffle oil lending a lovely accent to the sauce and root vegetables providing sweetness.

Forlino
1 Fullerton Road
#02-06
One Fullerton
Tel: 6877 6995
Open daily from 12noon to 2.30pm for lunch and 6.30pm to 10pm for dinner
Website: www.forlino.com

New Station Snack Bar, Far East Plaza

2011-12-30T19:23:00.001+08:00

There's a slight lull in the crowds that throng the Orchard Road malls between the Christmas and New Years' long weekends, and so, I took the opportunity to squeeze in a haircut. I figured I better get a haircut before salon prices get inflated during the period leading up to the Chinese New Year, which arrives early next year in January.

As usual, we had a no-fuss dinner at our favourite cze char eatery in Far East Plaza after the haircut. Really, Far East Plaza is one of the few places left in Orchard Road that you can get decent cze char at a no-frills but air-conditioned eatery for cheap. If you look carefully, this old-school mall is not just teeming with angst-ridden teenagers, hair, nail and beauty salons, alteration seamstresses or Korean-pop wannabe fashion shops. There's a gamut of hole-in-the-wall eateries here, from Turkish cuisine to Japanese food and of course, local fare. Mind you, not all serve good food. They are, afterall, catered to the student dollar. Most do alright fare, with some establishments serving downright nasty food, but if you want a recommendation for above-average but cheap and value-for-money local food that's also tinged with MSG, this is it.

The well-fried Sambal Kangkong ($6) while soft, retained just that little bit of crunch. Loads of garlic and spicy potent sambal lent flavour and fragrance.

The Hotplate Beancurd ($10) arrived sizzling and bubbling with homestyle goodness. The thick gravy was accented by a whole bunch of ingredients, Chinese black mushrooms, sugar snap peas, cauliflower, fishcake, carrots, baby corn, squid and prawns.

The Spring Onion & Ginger with Chicken ($9) was also very commendable, with huge chunky boneless chicken pieces sauteed in an oyster sauce gravy. Heaty ginger, and fresh spring onions and crunchy onions provided a bit of lift to the otherwise one-dimensional oyster sauce.

While the beef had obviously been given the artificial tenderiser treatment, we still felt the Hotplate Pepper Beef ($12) was well done. This was flavoursome and aromatic, but a little oily. A word of caution if you're on a date though, the coarse pepper grains tend to get stuck in-between your teeth, so avoid this if you are still at the I-want-to-impress-my-date stage.Ignore the foregoing if you're married.

I loved that this place's version of the Sliced Fish Hor Fan ($4.50) contains more than the usual amount of gravy. I love the delicate luscious gravy that accompanies this type of hor fan, and am impressed that this place loads this noodle dish up with a lot of gravy. Fish was fresh but was in short supply here, and I wished they'd removed the heads and tails of the beansprouts. I spent a good ten minutes removing all of the beansprouts. (Yes yes, I'm THAT fussy. I actually spent a considerable amount of time during my wedding dinner removing parsley from some of my dishes.)

New Station Snack Bar
14 Scotts Road
#05-95 Far East Plaza
Tel: 6734 2862

Tien Court Restaurant

2011-12-27T21:56:00.001+08:00

We make it a point to avoid the Orchard Road vicinity during the year-end festivities. Traffic is horrendous (and don't even get me started on the horror of parking in the central shopping belt), masses of sweaty jostling crowds abound, and the repetitive loops of cheery Christmas songs over the intercom can get quite nauseating. It seems as if our little island has suddenly shrunk to a third of its size and the population has exploded by several times.

And so, hidden dining gems with a quiet, peaceful ambience are very much our go-to spots during this time of the year. I've mentioned before that Tien Court is one of those hidden gems, always tranquil and always a great dining experience. And although we were there for a late dim sum weekend lunch without reservations, we managed to snag a table without any fuss. While most of the dishes impressed, as usual, we were surprised that a couple of dishes were terrible and below par.

We started off great with a portion of the Crispy Roast Pork ($12), which was brilliantly done. The golden skin crackled when bit, the meat-to-fat ratio was just perfect, and the decadent roast was tasty without being overtly salty.

The generously portioned Crispy Fried Cod ($18) was brushed with honey for sweetness, and spiked with curry leaves and cut chillis for a little heat. This was addictively delicious.

We also loved the Deep Fried Mango and Tempura Prawn ($5.80) wrapped in filo pastry. The vermicelli wrapped around the mango and prawn filling was light-as-air and the sweet, juicy mangoes complemented the sweet succulent prawns.

The Steamed Prawn and Chive Rice Roll ($4.80) was one of the few dishes that disappointed terribly. The prawns were rubbery, tasteless and reeking a little of alkaline, and waaaay overcooked. Too bad, because the rice rolls were very well done, soft, thin and chewy.

The other dish that disappointed hugely was the Sweet Corn and Chicken Soup ($7), which is surprising really, because I usually love the soups here. Something just tasted off with the soup. The corn tasted like it was kept in the can past its expiry date and the soup should have been sweet, but it was just tasteless.

Purely on an unrelated note, we saw an elderly couple at the next table. The littlest of gestures from the wife, tenderly asking her husband to eat more of the scallops, was just the sweetest thing ever. Also, the diminutive figure of the wife pushing her husband's wheelchair while carrying a whole bunch of humongous bags just tugged at our heartstrings. It just reminded us how love like that, which transcends the passage and ravages of time, is so real and everlasting. We want to be just like that.

Tien Court Restaurant
Copthorne King's Hotel
Level 2
403 Havelock Road
Tel: 6318 3193
Opening hours:
Lunch from 12noon to 2.30pm
Dinner from 6.30pm to 10.30pm

Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck, Asia Square

2011-12-24T11:53:00.001+08:00

The great thing about the CBD being expanded into the Marina Bay area is that the food choices around my office area at Shenton Way has increased exponentially. The newest office building sprouted up in the area that's quickly becoming the next prime hub of the CBD is Asia Square Tower, which houses the Super Peking Duck branch of the Imperial Treasure group of restaurants. Finally, an award-winning Cantonese restaurant that's within convenient walking distance from the office! It really was a no-brainer then, that I decided to host our December L.A. Lunch here.

As usual, Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck didn't disappoint. Service was attentive and courteous, food was close to perfection, and the ambience was, as with most Cantonese restaurants, rambunctious and loud (and so, it was conducive for us to yak away).

We started off with the restaurant's namesake, a whole Peking Duck ($68). This was, of course, brought to our table whole, and carved by the chef right in front of us.

This is the best part of the skin, also called the "jing hua", a mere 8 pieces of the crisp glistening skin. Apparently, according to my colleague Jay, the best way to savour this is to add a dash of sugar before biting into this. He's right, it's delicious this way. Somehow, the sweet elements of the refined sugar balance out the savoury tones of the skin.

Toasted flour wrappers are used by Imperial Treasure to wrap a bunch of the duck, fresh cucumber stalks and some chives. These were delicious.

We opted to have the remainder of 1 duck cut up into pieces, which looks a little gross but is really good. The meat was tender, fresh and tasty.

We had the other duck fried into Ee Fu Noodles ($15 for medium portion of noodles), flavoursome and cut with fresh yellow chives and beansprouts.

I thought the char siew fared better than the roasted pork in the 2 Meat Combination ($36 for large). While the BBQ pork was delectably soft, sweet and yet savoury, the roasted pork had a tough chewy layer of fat that I had a hard time getting through.

At my recommendation, my colleagues had the Crabmeat with Conpoy and Diced Melon Soup ($8 per person portion), which turned out a hit. The clear chicken and seafood based broth had depth of flavour, which earthy white button mushrooms, bamboo pith and diced winter melon helped ground the soup. Dried scallops and crabmeat lent sweetness and flavour.

The Baked Prawn with Salted Egg Yolk ($78 for large portion) is a perennial favourite, large juicy prawns coated in a salted egg yolk batter were flash-fried to retain the prawns natural juices.

The Steamed Egg White with Mushroom ($28 for large), a yummy treat for most kids, was a wobbly egg white custard that was richly accented with diced assorted mushrooms, oyster sauce and coriander. I'd asked that the kitchen hold off the coriander but they obviously forgot those instructions. Nvm, the rest still liked this anyway...although, some of my colleagues (who aren't as averse to coriander as I am) did say that they would have preferred this dish without the coriander accents. Somehow, the heady herb overwhelmed the delicate nature of this dish.

What's lunch at a Cantonese establishment without dim sum? We started off with platters of Crispy Silver Fish with Salt and Pepper ($8), lightly seasoned with a little salt and pepper, spring onions and miniscule fried garlic.

The Steamed Pork Dumpling "Siew Mai" ($4.40) were succulent morsels of bouncy fresh minced pork and diced sweet prawns.

The Steamed Prawn Dumpling "Ha Kau" ($4.80) had a thin, mildly chewy skin which complemented the fresh juicy prawns inside.

Although The Professor preferred Lei Garden's version of the Steamed Rice Roll with Scallops ($5.50), I liked this just the same. The rolls were thin but not filmsy, with a little bite, and scallops were succulent and sweet, while the soy was delicate enough to impart just the right amount of flavour but not overwhelm the mild scallops.

The Steamed Glutinous Rice in Lotus Leaf ($3.80) was oversteamed, so this didn't have its usual moistness. Still, I thought it was yummy.

The Pan Fried Carrot Cake ($3.50 for 3 pieces) was moist and soft, with just enough charring on the sides for just a little crunch. Diced Chinese sausage provided flavour to the julienned strips of radish.

The Fried Hongkong Kailan Stems ($21) is a seasonal delicacy. While I'm not a fan of vegetable stems (I prefer leafy greens), this was addictively crunchy, with a slight hint of sweetness. Copious amounts of garlic lent aroma and flavour.

The chilled Mango Sago ($5) was a lightly sweet and refreshing way to round off the very satisfying lunch.

Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck
8 Marina View
Asia Square Tower 1
Asia Square Food Garden #02-08
Tel: 6636 1868
Open daily from 11.30am to 10pm

Crystal Jade Palace Restaurant

2011-12-19T12:16:00.001+08:00

Crystal Jade recently celebrated its 20th anniversary by introducing additional dishes into its already well-loved menu. We had dinner there to sample one of their 2 set dinner menus, launched as part of their rebranding efforts. The set dinner menu B ($68.80 per person) comprised 6 courses, with 2 choices in each course for you to pick from. This was incredibly value-for-money, and even though each course was a tasting portion, we were stuffed by the end of the meal.

We started off with a duo of roasted meats, the first being the Roasted Duck, tender, fresh, non-gamey and tasty.

And then there was the BBQ Pork, soft and moist, with a sticky sweet char siew marinade brushed over the meaty chunks.

There was a shark's fin soup, which we slurped up in a flash so there's no picture. We followed that up with a Steamed Seabass Fillet with Cordyceps Flowers, the mild flaky fish was paired with a herbal-infused soy sauce, while pickled ginger provided a spicy lift to the savoury sauce.

We opted for the Braised Beef Ribs with Assorted Mushrooms in Black Pepper Sauce as our meat course, beef was tender and juicy while the accompanying pepper sauce balanced out the robust elements of the beef.

We couldn't decide between the 2 carb options so we got both, the first was the Wanton Noodle in Superior Stock, large silky wantons stuffed generously with fresh minced pork and diced prawns were set atop springy egg noodles in a light prawn-based broth.

The other carb option was the Fried Rice with Assorted Grains, which I thought was a very tasty way to introduce fibre-rich brown rice into your diet. You'd hardly know there was brown rice in the mix! Plentiful corn kernals, diced melon, bamboo shoots, pine nuts, mushrooms, eggs and prawns helped liven up the healthy fried rice.

We rounded off the very lovely meal with a refreshing Double Boiled Snow Pear with Ginseng and Honey. This hit a bullseye with the sweet spot, it was light, it was nuanced and it was fruity, a perfect end to the very good meal.

The appetizers ($3), while a tad costly, was quite delicious. Served chilled, the mildly spiced beancurd cubes were coated in a sticky tomato-and-oyster based marinade.

Crystal Jade Palace Restaurant
391 Orchard Road
Ngee Ann City #04-19
Tel: 6735 2388
Opening hours
Lunches Mondays to Fridays 11.30am to 3pm; Saturdays from 11am to 3pm; Sundays from 10.30am to 3pm
Dinners daily from 6pm to 11pm
Website: www.crystaljade.com

SICC Bukit Cafe

2011-12-18T18:07:00.001+08:00

We've started allowing ourselves the luxury of eating carbs again. We haven't quite let up on the regular exercise (because we don't believe in letting ourselves go just because we're married), but we have eased up on the rigorous diet. We had dinner at the club after hitting the gym. On hindsight, this was perhaps not the most ideal place to expend our calories on carbs.

The Cantonese Beef Hor Fun ($7.20) while passable, wasn't all that great. The gravy was too starchy and the beef tasted a little artificially tenderised, but the flat rice noodles were smooth slippery and well-fried.

Buns had the Spicy Stewed Beef La Mian ($7.50) and the fall-off-the-bone beef brisket fared much better than the sliced beef in the hor fun, it was soft, flavoursome and robust. Noodles were soft and springy.

While the Hokkien Mee ($7.20) was generously portioned, it was a tad dry and lacking in the distinctive prawn stock flavour.

Bukit Cafe
Singapore Island Country Club, Bukit location
240 Sime Road
Singapore 578774
Tel: 6461 7439
Open on Mondays to Fridays from 11am to 10pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 10pm

Pizza Hut, Funan DigitaLife Mall

2011-12-17T13:24:00.002+08:00

I met up with Jal here for our monthly lunch meet-ups. Pizza Hut, like Pastamania, is one of those places I'd never eat at if not for Jal. But, Pizza Hut, like Pastamania, is halal certified, which means that it makes for a viable lunch option for Jal.

Compared to the rest of the bustling eateries in Funan, Pizza Hut is like a peaceful oasis. This is one place you can be sure of a quiet chat with your lunch companion. While service can be a bit choppy and hesitant, the food wasn't too bad. Well, it could be that I had the lowest of expectations walking in. That said, their set lunches are quite a steal, with a main, soup and a drink costing barely 13 bucks making for a decently substantive meal. And you get to choose between 2 different mains for the sets.

The Cheez Shroomies Wrap Thursday Set Lunch ($12.90), a tortilla wrap filled with button mushrooms, onions, garlic and dressed with grilled cheese sauce and mozzarella cheese was nicely toasted and generously stuffed. Sides of crisp waffle fries and a mesclun salad completed the really quite decent meal.

While the Chicken Vegetable Soup of The Day ($3.50) was a tad MSG-influenced, it was still tasty and the chicken chunks were relatively succulent and tasty.

Pizza Hut
103 North Bridge Road
#03-05 Funan DigitaLife Mall
Tel: 6339 8487
Open daily from 11am to 10pm
Website: www.pizzahut.com.sg

Soup Restaurant, Seah Street

2011-12-16T16:31:00.001+08:00

We'd originally wanted to go to Seah Street Deli for dinner but it was closed. I find it weird that an in-house restaurant at one of Singapore's most distinguished hotels is only open 5 days in a week (it's closed Sundays and Mondays). I would have thought that a 5-star hotel like Raffles would make it a policy that all their restaurants are open every day of the week.

Never mind that, we went across the street to Soup Restaurant for a healthy, light meal instead.

I always try to make it a point to order Soup Restaurant's Traditional Boiled Soup of the Day. It's light, delicate and always has a wholesome appeal to it. Today's soup was the lotus root and pork ribs soup ($12.90 for medium), refreshingly devoid of any MSG-taste, and very light, to the point it was almost plain. Still, this made for a a very homestyle comforting bowl of broth.

The San Yu Fish Slices Fried with Ginger and Spring Onion ($10.90) was equally light in flavour, thick slices of fresh fish were coated slightly with sprigs of spring onions and roasted ginger. Simple and tasty.

The Poached Baby Spinach with Conpoy in Century & Salted Egg Stock ($12.90) had a uniquely thickened stock base, with salted egg yolk stirred into the soup stock mix for a slightly grainy texture and eggy flavour.

The Samsui Ginger Chicken ($15.90 for small), a must-try here, was served, as usual, refreshingly chilled. Lightly poached but not stinging on flavour, the chicken was smooth, succulent and tasty.

Soup Restaurant's signature appetizers of braised peanuts ($2), soft, mushy and flavoursome.

Soup Restaurant
39 Seah Street
Tel: 6333 9388
Open daily from 12pm to 2.30pm for lunch and 5.30pm to 10pm for dinner
Website: www.souprestaurant.com.sg

Por Kee Eating House

2011-12-15T10:29:00.004+08:00

Many apologies for the long hiatus, The Hungry Bunny was busy becoming a missus. This was one of our last meals as an unmarried couple. Buns was clearing leave so he picked me up to go out of the CBD for an extended lunch break. We'd originally planned on some lor mee at the Tiong Bahru Market, but the entire hawker centre was closed for its monthly cleaning, so we headed to Por Kee for some good 'ol cze char.

Por Kee on a weekday afternoon is really quite different from Por Kee in the night. There are very few diners during lunchtime so you're almost guaranteed a seat in the teeny tiny air-conditioned restaurant, a welcome respite from the stifling heat of the afternoon sun.

We started off with a Seafood and Salted Vegetable Soup ($10), which was surprisingly good. I usually don't take much stock in soups from cze char places they're usually loaded with MSG, but this was pleasantly light. It still had a fair amount of MSG, but it was also chock full of fresh seafood, plentiful sweet plump prawns, generous slices of fish, soft squid and beancurd. Juicy tomatoes and salted veggies lent flavour to the clear broth.

The Foo Yong Omelette ($10), with plentiful sliced woodsy Chinese black mushrooms, julienned carrots, black fungus and chillis, was flavoursome and fluffy in texture.

The Chicken with Dried Chilli and Cashews ($12) was rich, potent and tasty, with sweetish dark oyster sauce and dried chillis that provided a smoky heat.

Por Kee Eating House
69 Seng Poh Lane #01-02
Tel: 6221 0582
Open daily from 11.30am to 2.30pm, 5.30pm to 12.30am

Sushi Tei, Ngee Ann City

2011-12-03T04:56:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since we last went to Sushi Tei, and we were craving for some Japanese food today. I usually avoid Orchard Road like the plague come Christmas period but I had to run a couple of errands in the area so we popped by the Sushi Tei branch at Ngee Ann City.

I must admit I've never been a fan of this Sushi Tei branch because it's right smack in the middle of nowhere. The almost glass enclosure is separated from the main shopping mall, between the super busy taxi stand and the always jammed packed Orchard Turn, so all you see are cars, cars and more cars. I much prefer the gleaming Paragon outlet. But, we were in the area and wanted a quick Japanese fix. Get in and out of Orchard area with as little to do with the Christmas crowd as possible.

Buns is a lot more disciplined when it comes to his pre-wedding diet of cutting out carbs. He relies on a staple of meat, fruits and vegetables, so beef is his best friend right now. The Gyu Yanagawa ($12) beef with burdock root and egg on a hotplate was sweet and savoury at the same time. Egg was nicely done, still a teensy weensy runny, and the beef was soft and tender.

The Saba Shio ($10) grilled mackerel with salt was fresh, moist and soft, with nary a hint of fishiness as most freshwater fish usually do.

The Jumbo Yakitori ($6.50) grilled chicken skewers brushed with teriyaki saucewas juicy and succulent. Leeks help balance out the sweetish marinade with a refreshing element.

The Yasai Itame ($6) pan-fried assorted vegetables went a little overboard with the shoyu. Even the generous helping of fragrant garlic in this couldn't mask the saltiness of the dish.

The Agedashi Tofu ($5) deep fried beancurd was crisp on the outside with a thick chewy batter, and smooth, soft and wobbly on the inside.

I couldn't resist ordering the Cha Soba ($8) my favourite cold green tea soba noodles. At least this is choc-a-bloc with antioxidants and nutrients. I couldn't quite finish this on my own though.

I was left to fend for myself with the Ebi Tempura ($10) as well. No fried foods for Buns who's gunning for his 6-pack. This, to me, was well worth the caloric grease. Succulent prawns coated in a golden crisp light-as-air batter, delicious.

Sushi Tei
391 Orchard Road
#02-13
Ngee Ann City
Tel: 6737 8878
Open daily from 11.30am to 10pm
Website: www.sushitei.com

Pariaman Warong Nasi

2011-11-22T23:29:00.000+08:00

Sunil and Subhas first introduced this nasi padang stalwart to me when I was still doing my pupillage. It's one of their all-time favourite spots for nasi padang, and really, the snaking lunchtime queue speaks volumes of its popularity. However, having recently revisited it, I really don't see the fuss with this particular nasi padang eatery. Of all the many nasi padang restaurants littered along Kandahar Street, Pariaman is my least favourite. The variety of dishes is limited, dishes tend towards the delicate, and for all the rave reviews this place gets, their food is quite underwhelming. Mind you, I'm not saying that the food's bad. I'm just saying that the food just doesn't tickle my fancy. In my opinion, Rumah Makan Minang, Sabar Menanti and Hjh Maimunah serve up much better food. Of course, as I've said before, Minang is still the best for nasi padang.

Unless you can't take spice and prefer your nasi padang very mild. You'll do well eating at Pariaman then. Their food is a lot milder than what I'm used to at the other eateries. Even Ernie, who usually breaks into a sweat eating just Nonya-style chicken curry, barely sniffled eating at Pariaman.

That said, I do have to say one thing though, this place is really quite dirt-cheap. An entire meal consisting 6 dishes for 3 persons cost barely $30. Another thing to note is to hit the eatery early, like before noon, because they sell out real fast.

Despite the chilli seeds and fiery appearance of this dish, the Fried Batang Fish with Sambal was surprisingly mild. The sambal was more tangy than spicy, but it lent itself well to the clear salty taste of the fried fish. Buns detected a hint of fishiness, but I didn't.

The Omelette is a must-try here. It's cooked upon order, so you won't see it over the ordering counter. This was fluffy and choc-a-bloc with mildly peppery green chillis and sweet caramelized onions.

The Sayur Lodeh, was unexpected, Pariaman does a very mild and watery version of what we're typically used to, with only long beans, a couple of sliced carrots and firm beancurd as the central ingredients. Not my cup of tea and strictly for people who can't take spicy food.

The Beef Rendang was good though, moist, fork-tender full-bodied meat that was thoroughly braised and packed with flavour, spicy, nutty and robust.

The Curry Chicken was also one of the more typical Padang dishes, the gravy was creamy, rich and loaded with enough heat and spice, while the chicken was juicy and well-marinated.

The Fried Long Beans with Beancurd was quite an unusual dish, crunchy diced long beans were paired with beancurd cubes, flavourful ikan bilis and a light peppery sambal for an addictive nibbler.

Pariaman Warong Nasi
738 North Bridge Road
Kampong Glam Conservation Area
Tel: 6292 5958
Open Mondays to Saturdays from 7.30am to 3.30pm, closed Sundays

NYDC, Holland Village

2011-11-20T22:59:00.000+08:00

We passed on dessert at Michelangelo's because we were all hot, sweaty and bothered, being given a table at the outdoor terrace.But, we still wanted dessert, and so, we walked across to NYDC at Holland Village for a sweet treat in comfortable air-conditioned surroundings. Or so we thought. The air-conditioning at NYDC was obviously wonky that day, and it was later confirmed by the staff, so we still ended up hot and bothered. Ah well, that's Murphy's Law isn't it?

We got a couple of desserts to share amongst ourselves so we could spread the consequential guilt around.

The Pick Me Up ($7.20), which is really just a creative name for what we know as tiramisu, is a layered creation of mascarpone, Kahlua-soaked lady's fingers drenched with espresso and chocolate. This is loaded with cocoa powder, which contains caffeine, so I guess it does "pick you up". NYDC's version wasn't as moist or as fluffy as we'd like, the liberal dusting of cocoa powder, the lack of "soaking" of the lady's fingers, and the shortfall of mascarpone made this disappointingly dry.

We got our favourite, That Boney Cake ($~~11.80~~ 9.80), which, on the other hand, was a hit as usual. A huge slice of rich chocolatey Elmer Fudge cake was served warm with creamy macadamia nut ice-cream and an additional scoop ($3) of double chocolate chip ice-cream. Indulgent, decadent and so yummy.

Greedy us were hit with a case of the munchies and so we ordered a portion of the Brooklyn Wings ($8.80), deep fried drumlets and wings brushed with a paprika-spiked orange cajun dip. This was nice, chicken was well-marinated and juicy and the dip was delectably piquant, peppery and sweet.

NYDC
30 Lorong Mambong
Holland Village
Tel: 6469 2998
Open Sundays to Thursdays from 11.30am to 11pm
Fridays, Saturdays and eve of PH from 11.30am to 12midnight
Website: www.nydc.com.sg

Shiraishi

2011-11-15T00:21:00.000+08:00

Shiraishi is one of those places that towkays and bankers with fat expense accounts love to dine at. Every meal here is unfailingly impressive, with the quintessential Japanese hospitality of their wait staff upping the ante of the dining experience. Shiraishi is, to those in the know, renown for its extremely refined and elegant Japanese cuisine. And, for a fine-dining restaurant, this is a surprisingly "unstuffy" place. The restaurant may be understated and fly below the radar, especially in light of the celebrity restaurant bigwigs that have sprouted up in the IRs, but this old-timer can certainly hold its own. The restaurant consistently serve up the most exquisite flavours by rotating its menu regularly and focusing on the seasonal's best.

We had dinner here one night to celebrate Beeps birthday, she wanted Japanese food and this is one of my favourite places for special occasions. We got a table at the counter, which I love, because you usually get entertained by the chefs. Plus, you invariably get a lesson on Japanese dining from the chefs. Apparently, all of the pretty flowers and greens on your plate are meant to be eaten and not placed on the plate just for decorative purposes. You just need to know how to eat those seemingly inedible stuff.

We got the Sushi Kaiseki Set ($170) which has 8 courses that features the best of what Autumn has to offer.

The Amuse Bouche of the day was a dollop of chilled smooth potato mash with carrots and cucumber, very creamy and refreshing, a great start to a fantastically memorable meal.

The first course was a trio of Appetizers. My favourite was the chilled Sesame Tofu block in the middle, floating in a puddle of shoyu and with a dab of freshly grated wasabi for a piquant heat.

The pickled fried fish was also served chilled, this was savoury but nicely refreshing. The fish was so soft that it could be eaten whole, bones and all.

The Steamed Baby Yam (at the back) and Gingko on a stick (in the foreground) were my favourite starters. The gingko nuts were so soft they practically melted in the mouth, their mild nuttiness enhanced simply with a sprinkling of salt. The yam, meant to be picked up with the fingers and squeezed out from the leafy shell, was creamy, smooth and delicate. Such simple uncomplicated flavours.

The Sashimi was, as expected, exquisite and unbelievably fresh. Thickly sliced, these were generous pieces of fish. I particularly loved the melt-in-the-mouth fatty otoro. The shiso leaf, with its anti-bacterial properties is used to wash down any remnants of bacteria, if there were any, off the raw fish. The stalk of mint flowers, hand-smashed and then dipped into the soy for flavour, lent a fresh accent to the fish. The lime, meant to drizzle over the sweet prawn, white fish and scallops, helped "cure" the seafood.

If I had to choose, the Steamed Dish would be my favourite. Shimeiji mushrooms, luxurious freshly shredded hairy crab, baby lady's fingers were set atop a chunk of radish and then steamed to fragrant perfection. Yuzu zest provided a citrusy zing to the savoury dish.

The Grilled Dish of soy-glazed seabream fillet, with shitake mushroom, was next. We learnt that the white part of the pink pickled ginger stalk can be eaten. Any stingy pungency was removed by the pickling process. There was also a fried dish of tempura moriawase before this but I promptly gobbled it up so there was no picture!

The assorted Sushi was the last substantive course.Soft perfectly formed rectangular rice, a dollop of freshly grated wasabi and a sliver of incredibly fresh sashimi made for a recipe of wonderfully clean flavours.

The Clam Soup, despite its deceptively clear appearance, was amazingly rich in depth and unami flavour.

A slice of Japanese Mush Melon was served for Dessert. This was so sweet we all thought it was artificially sweetened. It's THAT amazingly sweet. This was a very nice way to finish off the wonderful meal. Great company. Great food. This really is the life, isn't it?

Shiraishi
7 Raffles Avenue
#03-01
Ritz Carlton Millenia
Tel: 6338 3788
Open daily from 12noon to 2pm for lunch and 6pm to 10pm for dinner
Website: www.shiraishi.sg

Asia Square Food Garden

2011-11-13T20:30:00.000+08:00

With the Marina Bay area being developed into the next prime business district, there have been a slew of new food options. Asia Square Tower, a new-ish office building with retail and F&B outlets, has just launched a novel-concept food court. Instead of the usual food court stalls, they've managed to convince big-ish-name restaurants to set up stall fronts here. The loft-like food court, located on the second floor, boasts an airy, roof-garden feel, and notable names like Imperial Treasure Windows on HK, western franchises like Canadian burger chain Triple O's and Astons Specialties, Asian favourites like Toastbox and Manna Korea, and for those looking to eat light and healthy, Fresh+ Salads and The Soup Spoon.

Because of its proximity to the office, I'll definitely be back in this food court.

I've always liked the food at Imperial Treasure, so I was delighted to find that they've got a stall serving cha chan teng cuisine here.

With the North-East monsoon season upon us, a piping hot bowl of soupy Wanton Noodles ($8) was just the fix to comfort your insides on a cold wet day. Springy egg noodles, bouncy fresh wantons floating in a densely flavoured, albeit MSG-laced, prawn broth was all it took to warm out tummies.

The Soya Chicken and Roasted Duck Rice ($9.50) with moist flavourful meats and a drizzling of delicate soya sauce over plain white rice, was simple, fast and substantial.

The Wanton Soup ($8) was standard fare of Imperial Treasure, 6 good-sized wantons in silky soft skin.

I loved the decadently indulgent Roasted Pork ($7). Crisp skin, a nice sliver of fat and salty meat.

The Barbecued Pork ($7) was done well, sliced thickly, tender and sweetish, with a generous helping of watery soya sauce slathered over it.

Imperial Treasure Windows of Hong Kong
#02-03/04/05

Asia Square Food Garden
8 Marina View
Asia Square Tower 1
Level 2
Open weekdays from 9am to 9pm

Aerin's

2011-11-11T01:00:00.000+08:00

Aerin's is like a peaceful tranquil oasis in the middle of the very bustling and noisy Raffles City Shopping Centre food basement. A place for a nice quiet meal that's also reasonably priced. This is a rare find, especially since Aerins' got an open atrium concept. It's funny that I've dined at Raffles City countless times and yet, never bothered to step into this long-time food tenant of the mall. The food basement has definitely gone through major changes, but Aerin's is one of the pioneers amongst the restaurant outlets here. Having eaten here recently, I was very impressed with the standard of the Australian cuisine. I'll definitely be back to sample the other items on their fairly extensive menu.

The Surf & Turf ($28) with fall-off-the-bone-tender beef short ribs that were braised to a sticky sweet and savoury goodness was paired with a salmon fillet that's fresh, seared well on the outside but still moist on the inside and well-salted. The sides of sauteed mushrooms and ratatouille were also commendable, the tomato based vegetable stew was particularly delicious.

The Prawns Risotto ($17) is possibly one of the most value-for-money versions around. You'll think that at such a pricetag, it was gonna suck. But nooooooo, the arborio rice was creamy and full-flavoured (I think full cream and cheese was used to finish this off...bye bye diet!), with lemon zest and splashes of juice providing lifting notes. The bay prawns were plentiful and sweet, while the baby asparagus contrasted well with the softer textures of the dish.

Aerin's
252 North Bridge Road
#B1-11/12
Raffles City Shopping Centre
Tel: 6337 2231
Open daily from 11am to 10pm
Website: www.aerins.com.sg

Siang Hee Restaurant

2011-11-10T19:47:00.001+08:00

Siang Hee is our current go-to spot for cheapo but deliciously satisfying meals. We have at least half our meals here. What's not to like? Easy-on-the-wallet prices (which, with today's alarming inflation rates, is such a rare find), check. Yummy, honest-to-goodness food that isn't loaded with MSG or salt, check. Value-for-money proportions, check. Central convenient location at Zion Road (until after Chinese New Year 2012, that is. They're moving to Commonwealth Food Centre then), check.

The Hotplate Beancurd ($8) arrived with the loosely scrambled egg sizzling on the griddle is one of the best versions around. I hate it when a supposedly hotplate dish is served on a cast-iron plate that isn't pre-heated, what's the point then of serving it on a "hotplate" or calling it a "hotplate" dish? This was very good, and we loved pricking the half-done unbroken egg yolk and smearing it over the rest of the ingredients. Good flavours and textures in the dish, with crunchy sugar snap peas, juicy mushrooms, bouncy mince and diced prawns and silky wobbly egg beancurd.

The piece de resistance in the Spinach with Mushroom ($8) has gotta be the luscious and thick tasty brown gravy slathered over the soft greens and juicy braised mushrooms.

The Claypot Chicken with Salted Fish ($8) managed to not be too salty, even without pairing it with plain white rice. You can still taste the accents of the salted fish though, but it was more like a guest-star than a recurring actor on a TV series. A whiff and that was it. The wing part of the chicken was used, succulent but a little bony. This was kept nuanced with lots of ginger, onions and fresh spring onions.

The Crispy Shrimp Dough ($8) really wasn't quite what I expected. Very flaky and airy, the crust was a mix of beancurd skin and flour, with hints of chilli and spring onions for extra oomph. Shrimp was pounded and made into a lightly chewy fishcake-like filling and sandwiched between the layers of pastry.

The Mongolian Pork Ribs ($8) was also very unique, it's like their marmite pork, but the pork was coated in flour and then fried instead, and the sauce was distinctively different. It was all at once tangy, mildly spiced and savoury. Definitely a must-try here.

Siang Hee Restaurant
Blk 89 Zion Road #01-137
Tel: 9736 4067
Open daily from 11am to 10.30pm
Closed once every 3 weeks on Tuesdays

Michelangelo's

2011-11-09T21:58:00.001+08:00

Michelangelo's is one of the longest-standing Italian restaurants in Singapore. The last time I was there was when I was still in my teens, which is to say, a very long time ago. I remember the food being very elegant and refined, but hearty. While the food is still hearty, I didn't quite think the refinement was maintained as before.

The meal started off badly. I'd made reservations mid-week for 3 persons indoors over the long weekend, but when we arrived, we were told that there was no such reservation. Only after I'd made noise (and a small scene) that they provided us a table (out on the terrace with the humidity, no less, so we were left sweating mid-way through the dinner). They may have served us spittle, and that may have contributed to the less-than-glowing review of the restaurant, but I didn't think I was wrong in insisting that they provide a table for us. Someone on their staff definitely screwed up. And I'm certainly not one to lie my way to get a table without reservations.

In general, the food was very ordinary, standard fare of almost every other Italian establishment in town. Service-wise, with the exception of our waiter not understanding the phrase "hold off the parsley", it was alright. Ambience was romantic, with candles and dim lighting for illumination, but the heat and humidity of the outdoors terrace deterred us from lingering, and ordering dessert. We just wanted to eat and run (not dine and dash, mind you). With such an illustrious history and judging from the number of dining awards garnered by the restaurant, the dining experience was a little underwhelming.

The Beef Carpaccio ($22) thinly sliced tenderloin of beef topped with arugula and parmesan shavings was supposedly sprinkled with truffle oil, but I couldn't quite taste (or smell) any truffle essence. Truffle oil is very distinctive and a drop alone is enough to accent any dish, so I don't think there was any truffle oil in this. Otherwise, beef was fresh, moist and tender.

The Capesante e Gamberi ($26), a pairing of pan-seared scallops topped with caviar atop a bed of onion confit and garlic tiger prawns perched on sundried tomato pesto and lemon butter is one of my must-orders whenever I spy it on a menu. This was quite good. Scallops were succulent and sweet and prawns were huge and crunchy.

I wanted more prosciutto on the Mozzarella di Bufala con Prosciutto ($24), buffalo mozzarella wrapped in Italian prosciutto on a leafy bed of arugula and drizzled in vintage Italian balsamic vinegar. The ratio of mozzarella to the silky ribbons of prosciutto was lower than I'd liked.

The Penne Sambuca e Gamberi ($26), deshelled tiger prawns and sundried tomatoes were tossed in a tomato cream sauce and then flamed with a shot of Italian sambuca was probably the best main. The sambuca lent a refreshing whiff of mint and sweetness to the rich cream sauce.

The Risotto con Porco e Porcini ($28), Italian arborio rice simmered in porcini and champignon mushrooms with white wine braised pork belly and a hint of truffle oil, didn't impress. I couldn't even smell the truffle oil and the addition of the porkbelly was simply one ingredient too many. The dish suffered from an overcomplication of flavours and textures.

I appreciated the fresh seafood in the Linguine Frutti di Mare ($32) flat pasta tossed in a medley of crayfish, squid, barramundi fillets, scallops, prawns and green-lipped New Zealand mussels in a zesty tomato chilli sauce.

Michelangelo's
Blk 44 Jalan Merah Saga
#01-60 Chip Bee Gardens
Holland Village
Tel: 6475 4319
Open
Website: www.michelangelos.com.sg

Sabai Authentic Fine Thai Cuisine, Ngee Ann City

2011-11-06T10:31:00.004+08:00

After a fantastic experience at Sabai along the waterfront, I wanted to see how the original at Ngee Ann City stacked up. It's funny, that I've walked past this strikingly fire-engine red hued restaurant countless times but never ventured in, until I tried the sister branch at Customs House. Maybe it's just that the completely-decked-out-in-red-carpet Thai restaurant just looked incongruent with its concept of Thai fine dining. The decor just didn't come across as appealingly classy or particularly chic. In fact, it just seems more like a garishly gilded and mis-matched living room. Which is weird, because they serve up one of the most refined Thai menus ever. Methinks they just need to overhaul the entire design of the restaurant for a more inviting and elegant feel.

I was there with Lips for our monthly meet-ups on a Thursday evening for dinner, and the restaurant was barely occupied. I suppose that's a good thing (for us, and not the business), we enjoyed the quiet of the restaurant very much.

We had the Moo Tawd Kratiem ($24.70) tender morsels of pan-fried seasoned pork topped off with aromatic crispy golden garlic and peppercorns for some heat.

The Kai Yad Sai ($18.50), a homestyled omelette stuffed with minced chicken, prawns, tomatoes, onions and carrots was a hit with its amazingly neat and tidy presentation.

But what lay inside was a luscious stuffing of sauteed mince, diced prawns, peas and onions that was both chunky and spicy.

Sabai does one of the better versions of this classic Thai soup, the Dtom Yam Gung ($20.50 per pot) spicy and sour and laden generously with huge tiger prawns and straw mushrooms, and laced with lemongrass, galangal, chilli, kaffir lime leaves, fish sauce and lime juice.

The Pat Thai ($19.30) flat rice noodles with yellow beancurd, eggs, shallots, beansprouts, ground peanuts and sweetened tamarind sauce was well-fried, so the noodles were moist without sticking together in a lump.This tends towards the sweet, but a sprinkling of red chilli flakes would lift the flavour of the noodles.

The Tap Tim Grop ($7) is my favourite Thai dessert, refreshingly crunchy water chestnut, coated in a red starchy ball, and then doused in syrup, coconut milk and shaved ice. I liked that this was nuanced and unlike the one at the Customs House, was less saccharine.

The Kao Niew Durian Nahm Gati ($9.50) is really just the Thai version of our durian penget, but with the addition of sticky glutinous rice at the bottom. This was very balanced, creamy but not rich and sweet but not cloying.

Sabai Authentic Fine Thai Cuisine
391B Orchard Road
#04-23 Ngee Ann City
Tel: 6333 8491
Open daily from 11.30am to 3pm for lunch; 6pm to 11pm for dinner
Website: www.sabaifinethai.com.sg

Gelare, Vivocity

2011-11-04T00:00:00.000+08:00

Surprisingly, The Professor was too full to eat dessert after lunch at HK Kim Gary, and so, Mr J, CC and I had a waffle all to ourselves. Which works out just well for me. Yay, more for us then!

Gelare's waffles are THE PLACE to go to whenever a waffle craving strikes. And you'll do well if the craving hits on a Tuesday, because that's when they have the 1-for-1 waffle promotion. The Australian import does waffles well, they are always fresh out of the oven, fragrant and such a complement to their delish in-house ice-creams.

We had the double chocolate ice-cream paired with the Waffle with Single Scoop Ice-Cream ($10.60). Such a lovely way to round off a good lunch.

Gelare
No 1 Harbourfront Walk
#01-114
Tel: 6376 9664
Open Sundays to Thursdays from 10.30am to 10pm
Fridays, Saturdays and PH from 10.30am to 10.30pm

Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant, Vivocity

2011-11-03T22:11:00.000+08:00

I bumped into CC, The Professor and Mr J, who were on their way to lunch at Vivocity, and I, of course, shamelessly tagged along. There's only one place at Vivocity that they'll have lunch at, and where else but The Professor's "happy place" - HK Kim Gary. Besides, Mr J had a groupon voucher for a Gelare waffle that he wanted to use, so we were all going to indulge in a bit of dessert after lunch.

I know I'm supposed to refrain from carbs and sweet things and all things sinful, but I do allow myself "cheat meals", so I don't end up going on a binge after the wedding. And so, you will still see carbs and decadent stuff making their appearance on the blog.

Do you ever notice that you get hungry whenever it's rainy? I think it's got something to do with the whole piping hot bowl of savoury that's so comforting during a rainy day.This was my "cheat meal" of the week...and such a treat especially since it was all rainy outside.

Mr J and I had the Set Q ($8.90) comprising a substantial Chinese Mushroom and Shredded Pork Rice. I loved the drizzling of soy seasoning over the rice, tender flavoursome pork, salty braised sliced mushrooms and the corn kernels, even if they were of the canned variety, lent texture and sweetness.

All the set meals were accompanied by a choice of a creamy mushroom soup, or this Borsch Soup, which is really like a thin tomato soup with mixed veggies. This was surprisingly good, although I admittedly didn't have high expectations.

CC had the Set G ($6.90) with a Pork and Vegetable Wanton Soup Noodle main. The handmade noodles were soft, tasty broth wasn't too loaded with MSG and the wantons were plentiful and fresh.

The Professor had his favourite, the A-Mix Set Meal ($10.90) with chicken steak, pork chop, hotdog, ham and fried sunny side up egg with spaghetti. A hearty meal with cholesterol-laden meats.

Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant
1 Harbourfront Walk
Vivocity #02-128
Tel: 6376 8183
Open daily from 10am to 10pm

A-Roy Thai, Funan DigitaLife Mall

2011-10-31T12:25:00.000+08:00

Now that Adee works in the same building as Jal, he's joined in our monthly lunch meet-ups. Adee was a fellow classmate of ours back in VJC, and like Jal, is now a father of a precocious 5 (or is it 4?) year-old boy. It's still difficult to picture him as a father though (Methinks his wife, also a fellow classmate of ours, has got to be the disciplinarian of the 2 coz he's one of the most playful, rubber-faced guys I know). Next to Jal, he's the funniest and wittiest guy in my class. Even though Jal is away in the USA and thus, unable to join us, Adee and I still met up for lunch anyway.

We took to Adee's suggestion of A-Roy Thai at Funan, just beside his office. This place is perpetually filled during lunch time. It's easy to see why. The eatery serves up value-for-money Thai-Chinese food that's familiar and comforting.

You'd think I'll be sick of Thai food, after having been in Bangkok for a week and indulging non-stop in Thai cuisine. But, noooooo, I love Thai food. I can have it everyday and not get sick of it! YUMS.

The robust Beef Noodle Soup ($6.90) was generously filled with tender beef chunks, and crunchy beansprouts to cut through the heady, full-flavoured broth.

I liked the deceptively clear Tom Yum Seafood ($13.90 for small), spicy to the hilt and loaded with fresh squid rings, sweet huge prawns, fish slices and mushrooms.

A-Roy Thai
109 North Bridge Road
#04-06 Funan DigitaLife Mall
Tel: 6338 3880
Open daily except Saturdays from 11.30am to 2.45pm for lunch, 6pm to 10pm for dinner
Saturdays from 11.30am to 10pm

Chijmes Lei Garden Restaurant

2011-10-30T18:12:00.001+08:00

This month's fast shaping up into a whirlwind of meet-ups with friends. We had lunch with Ernie and Thom, who are bunkmates at our Phuket wedding, to catch up. Ernie's on a 3 month leave so he's got loads of time to meet up. And Thom, being the sweetheart that he is, will always make time to meet up. My friendship with both guys go such a long way back I can't even remember how we met! I think I met Ernie through another friend at a party (though I cannot, for the life of me, remember which friend or which party or when), and Thom, I think I also met him through a friend (though I also cannot remember which friend and when). As mentioned earlier, because we've got so little time for meet-ups this month, we've decided to combine our meet-ups so we get to see all of our friends.

We all felt like dim sum, and Lei Garden at Chijmes is the one place we know will always have availability at the last minute without reservations.

We started off with a portion of the Crispy Roasted Pork ($14.80), crackling top skin, tender and tasty meat with a decadent sliver of fat wedged between the layers.

We also ordered Buns' favourite, the Steamed Custard Buns with Salted Egg Yolk ($3.80), chocolate-swirled fluffy buns encasing smoothened mashed up salted egg yolk custard.

The Steamed BBQ Honey Pork Bun ($4.20) is also another favourite, fluffy and moist buns with a filling of sweet sticky barbecued diced pork.

The Steamed Rice Roll with Prawns ($5.20) was Ernie's favourite (he loves anything with prawns). A drizzling of delicate superior soy was all it took to season the chewy rice rolls with fresh crunchy prawns.

The ubiquitous Steamed Pork Dumpling ($4.80) was as usual, juicy, succulent and bouncy.

The Pan-Fried Carrot Cake with Waxed Meat ($4.80) soft and mushy with slightly toasted caramelised crust and interlaced with cubes of Chinese sausage and julienned radish, was also yummy.

It was just too bad the Beancurd Skin Roll with Prawns ($4.80) was laced with too much parsley, I left this to the rest to eat.

The Har Gow ($5.20) was also one of the better versions around, with thin translucent chewy skin, fresh bouncy sweet prawns.

The Beef with Black Pepper Rolls ($8) were also a hit with the boys, juicy peppery beef stuffed in a flaky shortcrust pastry that was baked to perfection.

The Grilled Cod in Japanese Style ($9.80) was fresh, flaky, and soft, with a hint of aromatic coffee.

Chijmes Lei Garden Restaurant
Chijmes #01-24
30 Victoria Street
Tel: 6339 3822
Open daily from 11.30am to 2.30pm for lunch and from 6pm to 10.30pm for dinner
Website: www.leigarden.hk/eng/

Siang Hee Restaurant

2011-10-29T20:26:00.001+08:00

We had dinner with Kang and Long, 2 of our best men, for our once-a-month meet-ups. We usually meet up with each of them individually, but this month's been really hectic for us, what with our trip to Bangkok and the appeal papers all being due this month, and so, we had them both for a joint-dinner. We brought Kang and Long to Siang Hee, one of our favourite choices for a cheap and good meal. The plus point about Siang Hee is its centralised location at Zion Road, which is going to be a thing of the past, as the entire estate has been en-bloc-ed. We've been informed that they will be moving to the second floor of the Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre.

As usual, we had an amazing time, munching and chatting slowly through the delicious dinner (we've now made them both fans of Siang Hee), and then over drinks at the nearby Great World City. There's a reason why these guys make up one half of my best men. They've been my lifeline through the years and really, the brothers I never had. I'm truly blessed to have them in my life.

We started off with the Chef Special Beancurd ($8), cubes of silky smooth and soft wobbly beancurd lined on one side with mashed spinach, drenched in a starchy delicate gravy. I liked that shimeiji mushrooms lent a luxurious element.

The Roasted Pork Omelette ($6) was perfectly done, with sweetened caramelized onions and halved prawns chunking up the slightly-burnt-at-the-edges-but-oh-so-yummy fluffy omelette.

The Five-Spice Roasted Chicken was, for a coffee shop cze char production, unbelievably commendable. This was restaurant-standard. Crisp flavoursome skin, moist tender tasty flesh, lightly accented by lime and spiced with the accompanying chilli dip, this was delicious.

The Butter Cream Prawns with Pumpkin ($15), with the jumbo-sized prawns encased in a thick batter and fried to a crunch, and slathered in a golden thick pumpkin mash with peppery elements of curry leaves and cut chilli padi.

The Fried French Beans with Dried Shrimps ($7) was a well-fried balance of soft and crunchy textures, with salty fried shrimps providing the flavour to the sweet vegetables.

Siang Hee Restaurant
Blk 89 Zion Road #01-137
Tel: 9736 4067
Open daily from 11am to 10.30pm
Closed once every 3 weeks on Tuesdays

Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ Restaurant, UE Square

2011-10-26T22:25:00.001+08:00

Being on a low-carb, low-fat and high protein diet (Buns is trying to get his 6-pack in time for the wedding) means that meal options are generally limited. Italian's a big no-no, so you won't be seeing any Italian food posts for a while. So is Japanese (sushi and maki all contain rice), Indian (curries are only great with plain white rice), oh, pretty much any Asian cuisine because we're so rice-centric. But, Japanese BBQ is perfect for us now because it's really all about meat. We brought a couple of our friends, Ray & Pat, who'd just settled in Singapore after having lived in London for the last decade or so, for dinner at Gyu-Kaku, one of 2 main Japanese BBQ chains here (the other being Aburiya). Apparently, Japanese BBQ isn't quite as well known or received as Korean table BBQ in London. In fact, according to Pat, she'd never heard of Japanese BBQ before! I suppose that in Singapore, we really do get just about any type of cuisine because we're so cosmopolitan!

We started off with our favourite salad, the Horenso Salad ($9.90), a Japanese styled spinach salad topped with crisp garlic slices, bacon dressed in savoury creamy sesame.

The Assorted Bacon & Sausage ($15.90) is also a diner favourite.

The coarse pepper crust cut through the salty elements of the bacon, lending dimension and providing balance.

The assortment of sausages, cheese, chicken and pork, are a must-get for a sausage-lover like me.

Ray & Pat got the Yakionigiri ($6.90) plain rice cakes, to supplement the meat-heavy meal. This was quite good lightly toasted on the grill.

The Chicken, seasoned in Tare ($10.90), a combination of orange juice, soy, sake and ginger, is the best complement, adding a little sweetness, acidity and heat to the juicy chicken chunks.

The succulent, simply flavoured chicken chunks.

I know a lot of people swear by the wagyu cuts, but we're really ok with the already-very-marbled normal cuts of beef here. The Karubi, seasoned simply in Tare ($20.90 for large), turned out tender, fairly fatty and moist.

The Buta Karubi ($14.90 for large) pork belly brushed with spicy miso for a little heat and a little sweetness to cut through all that fat, was decadently indulgent. Buns, of course, abstained from the layered-in-fat strips of pork belly.

The Buta ($17.90 for large), pork collar seasoned in Tare, was also very yummy, juicy and tender.

The Hotate in Black Pepper ($10.90), scallops bathed in butter and cracked black pepper and wrapped in foil, was meaty and fresh.

I liked the Gindara Ponzu in Foil ($14.90), an fresh fillet of oily cod seasoned in ponzu and garnished with julienned carrots, shitake mushrooms and onions.

The Assorted Mushroom with Butter in Foil ($9.90) was earthy and wholesome, its juices mingled with the unsalted melted butter. Just be careful not to overcook this or risk getting this dried out.

Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ Restaurant
81A Clemenceau Ave
UE Square #01-18/19
Tel: 6733 4001
Open daily for lunch from 11.30am to 2.30pm;
Sundays to Thursdays for dinner from 6pm to 11.30pm
Fridays and Saturdays for dinner from 6pm to 12midnight
Website: www.gyu-kaku.com.sg

Asian Corner, Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok, Thailand

2011-10-25T11:30:00.001+08:00

This was our last meal in Bangkok at the airport before flying off back to Singapore. As we didn't have much time before boarding, we stopped by the first casual Thai eatery we saw and promptly made our orders.

Their set meals are quite value-for-money, with 2 dishes and a drink, so we got the Set B (450 Baht).

The Tom Yum Goong (220 Baht for ala carte) had a humongous freshwater prawn and loads of straw mushrooms. This was spicy but was too saturated with prawn stock. The concentrated broth got cloying after a while.

The Pad Ka Pao Kai (180 Baht), chicken sauteed with basil and cashew nuts, was good, with tender chicken chunks flavoured with chilli and peppery basil, but a little tiny in portion. Then again, this is a set meal after all, and still worth the value.

Asian Corner
Suvarnabhumi Airport 3rd floor
Thailand

Somboon Seafood, Bantadthong, Bangkok, Thailand

2011-10-23T23:55:00.001+08:00

We had dinner again at Somboon Seafood. It opens till late, which was great, as we finished late at the gym that night. One thing about Somboon was the speed in which the dishes were churned out. We didn't quite notice it on the first night, but it certainly didn't escape our attention the second night we had dinner there. Barely 2 minutes after our orders were taken, the dishes were all out on our table. No way the dishes were made fresh upon order. They were probably pre-cooked, chilled, then re-heated after orders. Except the lobster, because Buns picked it right out of the tank.

Another thing to note is that they don't accept credit cards here, so if you're planning to spend a bomb here, make sure you have enough cash on you.

Buns were craving lobster, and opted for the Grilled Lobster with Garlic (5700 Baht). On hindsight, we shouldn't have ordered this. It was obscenely expensive, costing about S$250. Then again, we can't say we got ripped off because they did let us know the price of the dish and got our approval before cooking the lobster. Apart from the extremely painful pricetag of the dish, this was delicious. It was a humongous lobster, meaty and succulent, with lots of aromatic garlic to provide flavour.

The Steamed Seabass with Soy Sauce (360 Baht) wasn't particularly fresh, and the steaming methodology only served to emphasize the fact. Also, the flesh deep in the middle was still cold. We should have stuck to the fried fish instead.

I loved the Roasted Fresh Water Prawns with Glass Noodle in Hot Pot (250 Baht) though. This was the best dish of the night. The clear vermicelli soaked in all the flavours of the ham and garlic and prawn stock so it was rich and tasty. Prawns were huge, meaty and sweet.

Somboon Seafood
Bantadthong
895/6-21 Soi Chula 8
Bantadthong Rd
Wangmai, Pathumwan
Bangkok 10330
Tel. 02-216-4203-5
Open daily from 4pm to 11.30pm
Website: www.somboonseafood.com

Thai Peppery, Asian Cuisine, Siam Paragon, Bangkok, Thailand

2011-10-22T11:30:00.000+08:00

Thai Peppery is another casual Thai eatery at the food basement of Siam Paragon. (Ging Kalpapruek being the other one) This stall is part of Asian Cuisine, which looks like a food court, but is really just a single restaurant with 3 different asian concepts selling Indian, Chinese and Thai food. We were a little worried because we saw so many Caucasians dining here, but the food turned out to be fairly authentic.

The Thai Glass Noodle (130 baht) stir-fried with egg, prawns and mixed vegetables was our carb dish of the day (we indulged a little and allowed ourselves a carb dish a day) and well worth the calories. This was choc-a-bloc with vegetables, prawns and eggs, and the clear vermicelli was simmered with enough stock to be tasty and soft, but with a little bite.

The Sliced Charcoal Grilled Pork (180 Baht) served with Thai E-Sarn style northeastern sauce was very very VERY good. An absolute must-try here. It was flavoursome, it was tender, it was juicy and it had that delectable smoky finish.

The Tom Yam Goong (130 Baht) prawns with mushrooms in rich broth, chilli, lemongrass and lime leaf, unfortunately, was the only disappointing dish. It was too mild! Zero heat at all. This would otherwise have been a great dish, the broth had depth of flavour, and they were very generous with the mushrooms and prawns.

We also loved the Thai Deep Fried Chicken (130 Baht), topped with aromatic crispy garlic bits and served with a sweet Thai chilli dip. The fried chicken was awesome, it was incredibly fragrant and delicious, juicy and succulent on the inside while crispy and golden on the outside. I ordered another portion to takeaway.

While the Stir Fried Mixed Vegetables (100 Baht) with oyster sauce was generic and uneventful, this was a well-executed dish. Vegetables were crunchy and fresh, and the oyster sauce wasn't overtly salty.

Thai Peppery
Asian Cuisine
991 Rama 1 Rd
Siam Paragon Food Hall
Ground Floor
Pathum Wan
Bangkok 10330
Thailand
Tel:
Open

Ging Kalpapruek, Siam Paragon, Bangkok, Thailand

2011-10-21T17:48:00.000+08:00

Siam Paragon is my favourite shopping malls to eat at whenever I'm in Bangkok. This mall is like our Ngee Ann City, but 3 times the size of our most popular mall. The food basement is choc-a-bloc with a mind-boggling array of food courts, casual eateries, standalone food stalls and fine dining options. One of the 2 casual Thai eateries in Paragon's food basement is Ging Kalpapruek.

Kalpapruek is a chain of contemporary Thai bistros that's usually frequented by the local hi-sos (Thai slang for high society types). They have about 3 branches in Thailand, all located in the more upmarket areas in Bangkok. The pretty and quaint French bistro-styled restaurant oozes a casual but elegant vibe and serves up a wide range of modern Thai cuisine. Although I've heard rave reviews about the food and service here, I wasn't quite so impressed when I ate here. The staff that day were surprisingly surly and sour-faced, with nary a sign of the Thai hospitality that I've grown accustomed to whenever I'm in Thailand. Food-wise, it was good but not mind-blowingly great. The price-tag of this place wasn't as cheap as if you were to eat at the roadside stalls, but it was reasonable, considering the ambience and portions of the dishes.

While the Tom Yum Kung (185 Baht) Thai spicy prawn soup with lemongrass was rich in depth and flavour, this was lacking in the spice level. It was weird because the local Thais dining in the restaurant were sniffling away at the spice level of their tom yum soups, so obviously, they must have automatically assumed that we couldn't take the heat and presumptuously toned down the heat off our soup.

The Grilled Beef (120 Baht) was tender and juicy with a hint of smokiness from the grill, though not particularly robust in taste.

We would have preferred if the thigh was used, as the breast meat was a little dry in the Fried Chicken with Chilli and Cashew Nut (130 Baht). Still, this was flavoursome and savoury.

The veggies in the Fried Morning Glory with Oyster Sauce (100 Baht) were lightly fried, so it retained its crunchiness.

The facade of the restaurant.

The entrance of the restaurant. They do their own ice-cream too.

Ging Kalpapruek
991 Rama 1 Rd
Siam Paragon Food Hall
Ground Floor
Pathum Wan
Bangkok 10330
Thailand
Tel: 301 1893 104
Open daily from 10am to 10pm

Cinnabon, Siam Paragon, Bangkok, Thailand

2011-10-18T13:23:00.000+08:00

Krispy Kreme has hit the Thai capital. Now, you may wonder why I'm talking about Krispy Kreme when this post is titled "Cinnabon". Well,we chanced upon Krispy Kreme while shopping at Siam Paragon and were ecstatically queuing up for a sugary glazed donut (to share between ourselves so we wouldn't throw off our entire pre-wedding diet-and-exercise regime), but then we googled the calorie count of this sweet treat, and changed our minds.

You know, if not for the wedding, we would have gone all out and stuffed ourselves silly on this trip to Bangkok. But, as with any other couple on the planet, we want to look our best for the wedding, and so, we've embarked on a year-long diet-and-exercise regime to get into shape. No shortcuts or crash diets for us. It's all about consistency and discipline.

Then, we came upon Cinnabon. Okay, we didn't see it as much as we smelt it. And then gravitated towards it. The sweet smell of baked cinnamon and fresh warm pastry really did us in.

Remember when cinnamon buns were all the rage in Singapore? You couldn't walk 100 metres and not hit a cinnamon bun shop, complete with snaking queues and all. But, like all the other million-and-one food fads, cinnamon bun shops left our shores as quickly as they took root. Apart from that one lonely shop in the basement of Great World City, I don't quite see any more cinnamon bun shops in Singapore.

I've always liked cinnamon buns, they're fluffy and incredibly aromatic. It's been a while since i last had a cinnamon bun. We shared a mini-sized, appropriately-named Minibon (49 Baht), and it was delicious. Fresh out of the oven, it was piping hot, fluffy, sweet and totally satisfying. A little tiny treat that went a long way to hitting the sweet spot.

Cinnabon
991 Rama 1 Rd
Siam Paragon Food Hall
Ground Floor
Pathum Wan
Bangkok 10330
Thailand

Hotel Intercontinental Room Service, Bangkok, Thailand

2011-10-18T01:00:00.000+08:00

Holidays needn't be fattening. I know this may be surprising, but I find that I generally get fitter and consequently, lose weight, every time I go on holiday. Work, on the other hand, makes me fat, because after a long hard day racking my brains at my desk in front of the computer, there's just no motivation to exercise after that. Plus, I'm just too tired after work to work up a sweat. But it's different when I'm on holiday. I get to sleep in, and only when I'm truly refreshed, slowly make my way to the gym and work out at my own leisure.

Of course, it helps when the hotel gym is gorgeous and brilliantly comprehensive to work out in. Perched on the 36th floor of the 5-star hotel and right smack in the middle of the Siam shopping belt, the floor-to-ceiling windows boast a stunning view of the city. You just get inspired to keep running on the treadmill when your voyeuristic tendencies come out to play, looking out at the busy world below. There's also a jazucci, steam room, sauna, rooftop pool and in-house spa to detox and relax. The gym alone makes this hotel, in a city loaded with luxurious hotels, my favourite to stay at, hands down.

The hotel's also impressive because of its immaculate service standards. Staff are polite to a fault, genuinely smiley and always helpful. The centralised location also makes this hotel a winner, it's connected to the BTS (Bangkok's version of our MRT and by far the most efficient way to get around the city cos the jams are horrendous) bridge walkway, so we walk everywhere! The hotel's just next to Gaysorn Plaza (a super high-end shopping mall, think Palais Rennaissance) and Central World, Siam Paragon and MahBoonKrong are just a short walk at 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres away respectively.

While the rooms may look generic and undistinctive, they are spacious, clean, modern and chic. It's a luxurious hotel with all of the trappings but still affordable at about S$200++ a night for a standard room.

Whenever I'm in Thailand, I just spend my days working out, getting massaged (Thai massages are quite ridiculously cheap, an hour-long oil massage costs just 400-500baht, the equivalent of S$17-S$20), taking long bubble baths and stuffing my face silly with amazing Thai cuisine. That really is THE LIFE, isn't it?

As per standard operating procedure, we ordered lots of room service. Hmm, come to think of it, we've never had a holiday where we didn't order room service. I guess that's why 24-hour room service is one pre-requisite of any hotel we stay at. We work out so we get to eat, guilt-free and deserving of treats! Okay okay, so that's our usual "operating procedure", but since the wedding's getting close, we cut down on our carb intake and resisted sweet treats as well. This is probably the holiday where we ate the least.

The Phad Thai Goong (300 Baht) Thai-style rice noodles, stir-fried to a fragrant heap, was loaded generously with prawns and chicken chunks. A carefully crafted egg mesh was layered upon the dish.

To mix it up, we also tried the Guay Tiew Phad Si-ew (290 Baht) stir-fried thick flat noodle sheets with prawns was sweeter and smokier in flavour than the pad thai, and oilier. Still, this was good food, sinful, but good.

The Phad Pak Ruam Mitr (290 Baht) wok-fried garden vegetables with beancurd and mushrooms was crunchy, sweet and yet savoury with the use of garlic and a little oyster sauce.

The Gaeng Kiew Waan (320 Baht), green curry chicken was rich, creamy and spicy, while the chicken was chunky, juicy and fresh.

The Gaeng Massaman Gai Rue Nua (300 Baht) was a nutty, thick but not as creamy, massaman-style chicken curry. The gravy was like a mix of our nonya chicken curry and satay sauce.

The Gai Satay (260 Baht), Thai-styled grilled chicken skewers with home-made peanut sauce is really no different from our local Malay-style satays. While there wasn't a discernible layer of fat between the skewers, the chicken was juicy, moist and tender.

While the Tom Yam Goong (320 Baht) had plentiful fresh and sweet prawns and straw mushrooms, the lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf spiced broth was just not spicy enough. My theory is that Buns' very very oriental look made them think that we cannot eat spicy food, and so they toned down the spice level of the soup.

We also got a dish from the Chinese portion of the menu, cooked by their in-house Chinese restaurant, Summer Palace. The Stir-Fried Fish Fillet (350 Baht) with ginger, spring onion and capsicum was really a sweet and sour version of flour-battered fried fish chunks. Homestyled taste.

You can order also eggs as late as 11pm at night, the All-Day Breakfast (320 Baht) consists of 2 eggs cooked any style you want, served alongside grilled tomato, hash brown nuggets, and your choice of chicken or pork sausage. Mine was scrambled with chicken sausage. This was just okay, wasn't as fluffy as I'd like and a tad too much cream in the batter.

Buns got 2 portions of eggs (which makes it 4 eggs in total, by the way), both cooked his favourite style of sunny-side up, one with chicken sausage.

And the other with pork sausage and extra baked beans for protein.

Hotel Intercontinental Bangkok
973 Phloenchit Road
Patumwan
Bangkok 10330
Thailand
Tel: 66-2-6560444
Website

Somboon Seafood, Bantadthong, Bangkok, Thailand

2011-10-16T20:37:00.000+08:00

Bangkok is one of my all-time favourite city holiday destinations. Thai food's amazing (so much so that I can eat it everyday...there's a reason why Thai food is found everywhere in the world), the people are warm and friendly, the shopping's addictive (coz it's so cheap!) and the Thai capital is just a hop and a skip away, barely 2 hours from Singapore.

Admittedly, the traffic is horrendous (you're in for a shock if you think Singapore drivers are bad. Thai drivers don't seem to use their signal lights and traffic is constantly bumper-to-bumper, but Thais are a lot more polite than Singaporeans...you'll hardly hear the Thais using their horns here) and the city's quite polluted (it looks like they're hit by the haze all the time and clear skies are a rarity), but it really adds flavour to the vibrant city.

Hotels and flights abound aplenty so you can get in anytime the travel bug bites, and accommodations at their 5-star hotels are ridiculously cheap. Well, cheaper than Singapore's ones at least.

We headed to Somboon Seafood, our first food stop right after landing. This venerable seafood restaurant, with 5 branches littered around Bangkok, is a culinary institution in itself. Any foodie worth his salt will know that this is THE PLACE to go to. Also, you absolutely must try the curry crabs here.

We started off with the ubiquitous Thai spicy sour soup, the Tom Yum Goong (220 Baht), served and kept steaming hot in a charcoal steamboat pot. This was spicy, heady and potent. Fresh bouncy prawns, together with straw mushrooms, were aplenty in the rich spicy broth. I've noticed that Thai prawns are amazingly sweet, large and bouncy. Even if you were to go to the cheapest, most dingy-looking roadside stall in Thailand, the prawns will always be fresh and sweet. I've never eaten a prawn that was powdery and/or stale in Thailand. The consistently fresh quality of their prawns is exclusive to this crustacean though. I can't quite guarantee the always-fresh quality of the other seafood like fish, squid or crabs throughout Thailand.

To break the spice-laden "monotony" of the other dishes, we ordered the non-spicy Stir Fried Mixed Vegetable (100 Baht), with baby corn, carrots, snow peas, cabbage, kailan and mushrooms, crunchy, delicate and light, a nice balance to the other spicy dishes.

The Stir Fried Pork with Basil Leaves and Chilli (100 Baht) was distinctively peppery and aromatic. Soft tender minced pork was sauteed lightly with oyster sauce and chili for some heat.So simple, so delicious.

Ahh, the piece de resistence, you'll see this on EVERY table. The Fried Curry Crabs (400 Baht for medium) is a signature dish that's garnered this Thai-Chinese restaurant numerous local and international dining awards. The gravy is an scrumptious medley of scrambled eggs, chilli oil and spring onions. If not for the fact that we're on a strict diet for the wedding, we'd have ordered lots of plain rice to pair with and wiped up the gravy. Oh, one thing about Thai crabs, they are a lot smaller than the Sri Lankan ones that we're used to. This was their medium sized crabs, which corresponds to the size of a teeny tiny baby Sri Lankan crab (for point of reference, this was so small that there was no point eating the legs). Somboon does have "Jumbo" sized crabs though, and you'll do well to order those instead, it's bigger, meatier and a lot more satisfying with the gravy.

The Fried Grouper (300 Baht), fresh out of the water tank, was slathered in a garlicky sweet chilli sauce and topped with sprinkles of fried curry leaves and sliced chillis.

Somboon Seafood
Bantadthong
895/6-21 Soi Chula 8
Bantadthong Rd
Wangmai, Pathumwan
Bangkok 10330
Tel. 02-216-4203-5
Open daily from 4pm to 11.30pm
Website: www.somboonseafood.com

Crystal Jade Kitchen, Great World City

2011-10-12T21:11:00.000+08:00

We were running errands at Great World City and decided to have lunch at Crystal Jade Kitchen there at the same time. We're on a bit of a dim sum craze so it's been consecutive dim sum lunches every weekend.

We started off with some meats, the Soya Sauce Chicken ($8) was succulent, juicy and flavoursome, thoroughly braised with delicate soya sauce.

The Sweet Corn and Minced Chicken Thick Soup ($7.50) is one of my favourite soups here, luscious, thick and with plentiful sweet corn kernels and minced chicken.

The Steamed Pork Rib with Black Bean ($3.50)would have been nicer if the sliced chillis had a bit more kick to balance out the decadently fatty ribs. That said, the ribs were cooked just right, moist and tender.

The ubiquitous Steamed Pork with Crab Roe Dumpling "Siew Mai" ($4.30), filled with fresh minced pork and diced prawns, was, as usual, bouncy and juicy and delicious.

Our carbs for the day, Steamed Glutinous Rice ($4.20), tasty and moist and generously filled with conpoy, dried shrimps, diced chicken and Chinese black mushrooms. Here's a tip for those of you watching your weight. Glutinous rice, which is complex carbs, is one way to get your daily dose of carbs without the guilt and calorie overload.

Crystal Jade Kitchen
1 Kim Seng Promenade
#03-30
Great World City
Tel: 6738 2911
Open daily from 11am to 10pm
Website: www.crystaljade.com

Peperoni Pizzeria, Greenwood Ave

2011-10-09T01:30:00.000+08:00

We'd previously dined at Peperoni's sister outlet at Binjai Park, and despite the horrendous parking issue, discovered that it's one casual Italian joint where you can get good Italian food late at night. We were hit with an Italian food craving after working out at the gym late at night and were in our sweaty gym gear, and bound by the perimeters of a casual, no dress code policy that allowed for sweaty gym gear and late-night dining hours, the choice was fairly obvious. We headed to the dining enclave of Greenwood Ave instead of Binjai Park, where the first outlet of Peperoni was opened. It's a lot nearer the gym and our home than the one at Binjai Park.

The Portobello Mushroom ($18), a starter dish of a juicy whole portobello, breadcrumbed and fried, then topped off with a chunky chicken and red wine-infused brown gravy was delicious. Peppery rocket leaves help lift the slightly heavy elements of the gravy.I prefer this version of the portobello starter, the "Niru" styled one was too spicy for me. Buns, preferred the "Niru", for obvious reasons.

The Minestrone Soup ($8) was well done, rich in flavour and depth. The clear tomato based broth was also generously filled with mixed vegetables.

I loved the Prawn Risotto ($24) with crunchy zucchini and plentiful sliced garlic in a tangy starchy tomato sauce. The generous helping of prawns were sweet and fresh, and not in an overly alkaline crunchy way. Risotto was done al dente, soft but with the tiniest bit of bite. If I had a gripe about this dish, it would have been that there was too much garlic. I like my garlic as an accent, not omnipresent as a huge pungent slice in every bite.

The Manzo ($21), penne tossed in a beef with peppers and onions brown gravy was like a pasta version of our local cze char beef stir-fried with oyster sauce dish.Very Asian influenced, and it was not something we particularly liked because we weren't expecting such local flavours. It would have been nice to have been informed, through the menu description, that this was an Asian creation. We were in the mood for a taste of Italy, and definitely ordered the wrong dish for it. That said, if we had been in a mood for something different, this would have been a good dish. Beef was robust and tender, with peppers and onions cutting through the rich brown gravy.

Peperoni Pizzeria
6 Greenwood Ave
Hillcrest Park
Tel: 6465 6556
Open Mondays to Saturdays from 12noon to 12midnight
Sundays from 11am to 12midnight
Website: www.lesamis.com.sg

Jumbo Seafood, East Coast Seafood Centre

2011-10-07T20:30:00.000+08:00

Buns and I went to Jumbo at East Coast originally intending to takeaway dinner, but the sea breeze and sunset venue lured us into staying and dining in instead. I'd just finished a very tiresome week at work, and it was just as well that I got to enjoy the languid pace of East Coast Park. The relaxed vibe of East Coast Park was just what the doctor prescribed for a horrendous work week.

I like the Ginger and Onion Fish Fillet ($14) at Jumbo. The fish is sliced thickly, smooth and soft in texture, and slightly coated in a delicate savoury spring onion and ginger-tinged oyster sauce.

It was a good thing that the pepper gravy was served separately from the Beef Fillet with Pepper Sauce ($9 each fillet, minimum of 2 pieces). The grilled beef was flavoursome enough on its own, tender to the bite and had a smoky charred edge. No need for the straight-out-of-a-can-tasting pepper gravy.

The Mixed Mushrooms with Beancurd ($14) was nice as a normal cze char fare, even if it wasn't the most refined dish. The beancurd tasted refried, as the crisp skin was a tad chewy. That said, the shimeiji and enoki mushrooms provided a luxe element to the starchy oyster sauce gravy.

My favourite seafood chain to indulge in black pepper crabs, Jumbo's Black Pepper Sri Lankan King Crab ($42 per kg) are always sweet, meaty and fleshy, with a coating of fiery peppery sauce to complement the sweetness of the crustacean.

Jumbo Seafood
Blk 1206 East Coast Parkway
#01-07/08
East Coast Seafood Centre
Tel: 6442 3435
Open Mondays to Saturdays from 5pm to 11.45pm
Sundays and Public Holidays from 12 noon to 12 midnight
Website: www.jumboseafood.com.sg

Food Junction, Funan Digitalife Mall

2011-10-05T18:00:00.000+08:00

I make it point to call Jal out for lunch or coffee every time I'm at the High Court. His office is directly opposite the High Court so it's really convenient to meet up. Plus, Funan, which is full of coffee joints and restaurants, is just right around the corner of both his office and the High Court. Today, I managed to get a hold of him during the lunch hour so we headed to the food court for lunch.

From the Malay stall, Jal got the Ayam Penyet ($6.50). Although the sambal was kickass, the chicken was dry and tough and tasteless on the inside, even if the skin was crisp, fatty and devilishly delicious. This needed a lot of the sweetish fiery sambal to get through. Oh well, it is food court standard afterall.

From the chicken rice stall, I got the Chicken Macaroni Soup ($4), a piping hot bowl of homestyled comfort food. I was feeling under the weather and this slightly MSG-tinged chicken broth hit the spot. It was delicate, light and just the right amount of flavour. I opted for a thigh portion of the poached chicken instead of the usual shredded chicken breast, much juicier and less dry. Macaroni was done al dente, soft with the barest bit of bite. I actually do crave this stall's chicken macaroni soup whenever I'm sick. They do a really swell rendition!

I supplemented the chicken macaroni soup with a side of Soya Braised Egg ($0.70) and a portion of the Roasted Pork ($4). While the soya braised egg was fairly standard, the roasted pork was a disappointment. The skin was rock hard, and the meat waaaaay too fatty.

Food Junction
109 North Bridge Road
Funan Digitalife Mall
5th Floor

Imperial Treasure Nan Bei Restaurant, Ngee Ann City

2011-10-02T22:50:00.000+08:00

We made a surprising discovery over the weekend. That you can still find yummy dim sum at 5pm on a weekend! We both were craving dim sum after our workout at the gym, and went to Imperial Treasure Nan Bei Restaurant at Taka on a hunch, hoping that they'd have some leftover dim sum from the lunch crowd. Unexpectedly, they were still churning out piping hot baskets of juicy dim sum morsels! With the exception of some roasted meats that had sold out, they still served up the entire gamut of Cantonese and Shanghainese dim sum.

The Steamed Pork Dumplings ($4.40) were juicy and bouncy, the "siew mai" used fresh minced pork and prawns, and topped off with a little diced mushrooms for texture.

The Steamed Rice Roll with Scallops ($5.50) was very delicate, fresh succulent scallops enveloped in a thin soft rice sheets. I liked that the soy sauce was equally light, so as not to overwhelm the mild sweetness of the scallops.

The lightly battered Deep Fried Silver Fish ($7.30) was snacking at its simplest, crunchy and tasty, using only a little salt and pepper for seasoning.

The Beancurd Thick Soup with Seafood ($7) was thick, chunky and comforting, with plentiful fresh seafood, prawns, scallops, sweet melons and silky smooth beancurd.

The clear broth-based Crab Meat with Conpoy and Melon Soup ($7) was rich in flavour and depth, with woodsy white button mushrooms, diced winter melons, shredded crab meat and dried scallops.

Imperial Treasure Nan Bei Restaurant

391 Orchard Road
#05-12
Ngee Ann City (Takashimaya Shopping Centre)
Tel: 6738 1238
Open daily from 10am to 10pm

Kinki Japanese Restaurant + Bar

2011-09-30T00:00:00.000+08:00

September's L.A. Lunch was held at Kinki, a Japanese restaurant that doubles up as a bar come nightfall. Its brilliant location on the second floor of Customs House ensures an expansive view of the Marina Bay waterfront.

While the quality of the food was generally fair, the prices made this place a no-go for future visits, especially since the portions of the ala carte dishes were quite miniscule. My tip is to only order the set meals as they are a lot more value-for-money. Or else, take a business associate there if an expense account is applicable.

Lunch was kicked off with a Sashimi Platter, consisting Maguro ($24 for 5 pcs), Kajiki ($20 for 5 pcs) and Sake ($18 for 5 pcs) which is essentially tuna, swordfish and salmon respectively. I liked the freshness and natural sweetness of the thickly sliced fish, but thought $62 for the entire platter was shockingly pricey.

The Tofu Steak Set Lunch ($18) comprised a grilled organic incredibly smooth tofu steak slathered in a fragrant garlic teriyaki sauce, then topped off with sauteed mountain vegetables and served with a side of juicy seasoned momotaro tomatoes.

I really loved the Pan-Seared Foie Gras & Scallop Sushi ($88 for 4 pcs) and Wagyu Aburi Sushi ($35 for 2 pcs). I'm not a fan of foie gras per se, but the melt-in-your-mouth goose liver married the fresh scallop perfectly, and the seared beef was also meltingly tender and flavoursome. Ridiculously expensive sushi, but memorably delicious.

The Sashimi Set with Rice ($38) was a favourite with the gals in my firm, fresh, plump sashimi paired with steamed rice made for a healthy and calorie-light meal.

The Sushi Set ($32) was another firm favourite with those watching their waistlines. These were fresh, light and well-made.

The Buta Sushi ($18 for 2 pcs) with a delectable topping of slow roasted pork belly was moist, flavoursome and decadently fatty, with a wrapping of seaweed lending dimension to the sushi. Still, it was a bit painful knowing each mouthful of sushi cost 9 whole buckaroos.

The Salmon Don Set ($26) made up of slices of cooked salmon atop pearl grains of moist rice, was a substantive but tasty set.

The Baked Scallop Maki ($24) was matched with sweet fleshy snow crab, and crunchy asparagus and cucumber.

The Prawn and Spicy Tuna Maki ($22) was a very nice savoury lightly battered prawn tempura roll stuffed with spicy tuna for contrast and flavour.

The Chirashi Don Set ($32), a Chef's daily special of premium seafood on rice was a medley of diced scrambled eggs, salmon sashimi, tuna sashimi, salmon roe, flying fish roe scattered atop sushi rice.

The Sake Teriyaki Set ($22) was made up of a grilled flaky salmon steak brushed with sweet teriyaki sauce.

The Amaebi Sashimi ($35 for 5 pcs) of sweet prawns lived up to its name, very sweet and delicate.

The Garlic Beef Set ($28) featured a U.S. prime grade beef coated in sweet yakitori sauce with golden crisp garlic and sliced onions sprinkled on top.

The beef was juicy and tasty, especially with the aromatic garlic slices.

The California Roll ($16) was very refreshing and light, with cool avocado stuffed together with crunchy cucumbers.

The Kurobuta Katsu Curry Set ($35) with a fat succulent patty of minced black pork cutlet was paired with a lusciously sweetish curry. Diced apples help lift the curry from its heavy peppery elements.

All of the sets were finished off with chewy and mildly sweet Mochi Balls.

This was the most popular dessert because they're just so light, scoops of Black Sesame Ice-Cream ($5), Matcha Ice-Cream ($5) Yuzu Sorbet ($5). My fave is the refreshingly citrusy yuzu flavour for its palate cleansing elements.

The Oreo Sesame ($12) was an indulgent black sesame ice-cream blended with oreos and sesame seeds sprinkled on top.

Kinki Japanese Restaurant + Bar
70 Collyer Quay
#02-02
Customs House
Tel: 6533 3471
Open Mondays to Fridays from 12noon to 3pm for lunches
Mondays to Saturdays from 6pm to 10.30pm for dinners
Closed on Sundays
Website: www.kinki.com.sg

Fatty Weng Restaurant

2011-09-28T20:00:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since we've double-dated with Beeps and her hubs. Now that there's 3 of them, with a baby boy in tow, it's harder to meet up with them. But it's nice that we still make time for each other. We were hankering for some cze char fare and revisited Fatty Weng, one of Beeps' favourite cze char places.

This old-school eatery may look unassuming, and almost derelict due to its open-air roadside location, harsh florescent lighting, and makeshift plastic tables and chairs, but it's a firm favourite of many Chinese tow-kays. While the food is a mixture of hits and misses (more hits than misses), I thought the prices, in general, were a little upmarket for a place like this. Still, they do good, familiar cze char fare that tends towards Cantonese favourites.

The Winter Melon Soup ($15) is only available sporadically, but boy, is this good! A refreshingly delicate and clear broth is chunked up with diced carrots and meat in a hallowed out winter melon and steamed for hours so the nutrients of the winter melon seeps into the broth.

We scraped out the sides of the winter melon and slurped up the rich yet light soup. Nutritious, wholesome and utterly delicious.

The Ginger Spring Onion Chicken ($12) was very homestyled, and utilised the simpliest of seasoning, fresh spring onions and heaty ginger, to flavour the dish. Only gripe I had was that the chicken was very boney. Too little meat for such a dish.

The Black Pepper Beef ($12) was, in contrast to the chicken dish, was very robust, with a heady pepper gravy dousing the tender beef slices. A generous helping of crisp onions help lift this dish from its spiciness. Not very refined but comforting.

The Crabmeat Beancurd ($12) was quite disappointing, the beancurd waterlogged, the snow peas tasteless, and the crabmeat was of the frozen variety, so it had a fishy element to it.

The Spinach with Mushrooms ($15) was delicious though, plump, juicy, well-braised mushrooms, with simply sauteed spinach in a luscious oyster sauce gravy.

I didn't think the San Lao Hor Fan ($8) was that great, but Beeps certainly thought so. I felt that while the fish was fresh, the slices were a little too skinny, and the beansprouts should have been relieved off their heads and tails.

Fatty Weng Restaurant
90/92/94 Guillemard Road
Tel: 6345 2702
Open daily from 4pm to 2am

The Lounge, Intercontinental Singapore Hotel

2011-09-24T15:20:00.002+08:00

I like chilling out at hotel lobby lounges. You're almost always ensured a tranquil setting, impeccable service and a classy crowd. If given a choice, I'd prefer meeting up with my friends at a hotel lobby lounge than at a coffee joint, mostly because you're guaranteed not to be disturbed by rambunctious noisy teenagers, or studious teenagers that don't seem to be able to find any other place than a bustling coffee joint to study and invariably end up hogging the very crammed tiny coffee tables. Yes, I'm old. 10 years ago, and I'll be one of those annoying teens, but now that I'm old(er), I like my peace and quiet.

The Intercontinental Singapore is within walking distance from home, so naturally, it's my default chillout spot. The ambience is relaxed and soothing, partly due to its setup as a Peranakan living room, and partly due to the light jazz and easy-listening hits belted out by the in-house piano player. Although the menu consists of a limited selection of light bites, you can request food from any other restaurants in the hotel to be served to you at the lounge. The staff are more than happy to oblige.

I usually just nurse a pot of mint tea, but today, I was hungry, so I got the Fried Char Kway Teow ($23). It wasn't hawker-fantastic, but it was satisfying. Pricey, but large in portion and generous with the prawns and squid (which were very fresh).

The Lounge
Intercontinental Singapore Hotel First Floor
60 Middle Road
Tel: 6825 1046
Open Mondays to Saturdays from 8am to 1am,
Sundays from 8am to 12midnight

Peperoni Pizzeria, Binjai Park

2011-09-21T00:06:00.045+08:00

Peperoni Pizzeria is the casual Italian arm of the Les Amis Group. Like fellow Italian joints Valentino's and Rubato, Peperoni is designed to be a neighbourhood eatery hidden deep in posh residential enclaves. Since the first Peperoni opened in 2007 at the affluent Greenwood area, it's since spawned another 2 outlets, also situated deep in the equally upscale neighbourhoods of Binjai Park and Frankel Ave.

The atmosphere here is convivial, laidback and very casual, tee-shirts, berms and sandals largely being the attire of choice here. The restaurant is catered to the immediate residential estate surrounding it because it's really quite hidden deep in the Binjal Park estate and out of the way from the main road. You really can't get in there unless you take a cab or drive, which brings on another set of problems...parking. My tip is to park anywhere you can slot your car into without blocking anyone's path and turn on the "Summons Auntie" app!

While the food at Peperoni is good and fairly consistent with the Les Amis standard, its inconvenient suburban location, and the fact that parking's a pain in the a*s, is why I wouldn't come back unless I'm in the area. If I'm craving Italian under the Les Amis group, I'd just go to La Strada, Peperoni's upmarket sister which is a lot more conveniently located at Shaw Lido.

We got 3 mains, 2 starters and 4 desserts to share amongst the 3 of us. The bill came up to $122 that night, which is really quite reasonable for a hearty meal.

The Pancetta ($19 for 9" medium) with premium salty bacon, juicy tangy tomatoes and a soft runny egg in the middle was a treat. We had a hoot smearing the perfectly soft egg into the pizza. A nice thin smoky crust was the perfect base to the simply topped pizza.

The Funghi ($19 for 9" medium), with its assortment of shitake, white button and porcini mushroom varieties was a delicious complement to the light cheese and tomato-based pizza.

I love portobello mushrooms and couldn't miss out on one of the two portobello starters. The Portobello "Niru" Style ($18) was a juicy deep-fried and breadcrumbed confection, slathered with a potently spicy chunky zucchini and olives laden arrabiata sauce.

The Mozzarella Fasciata Con Prosciutto ($17) was a pan-fried roll of chewy and milky buffalo mozzarella wrapped in salty prosciutto ham for flavour. A helping of bittersweet rocket leaves drizzled with olive oil completed the wonderfully aromatic starter.

For dessert, we started off with some Lemon Sorbet ($4) to cleanse our palates. Sour and sweet and refreshing, this was a great way to clear our systems of the hearty savouries.

The Tiramisu ($11), tucked into a coffee cup, was an aromatic heady confection of fluffy Savoiyard biscuits and marscapone and coffee accents.

Although I'm not really a fan of Creme Brulee ($9), this was a commendable rendition of the classic Italian dessert. A well-caramelized burnt sugar topping broke away to reveal creamy smooth custard underneath.

The Frangipane ($12) was a dense almond sponge cake, served warm and topped with icy vanilla ice-cream and raspberry drizzles.

Peperoni Pizzeria
7 Binjai Park
Tel: 6463 7800
Open Mondays to Saturdays from 12noon to 12midnight, Sundays from 11am to 12midnight
Website: www.lesamis.com.sg

Princess Terrace Cafe, Copthorne King's Hotel

2011-09-19T00:01:00.001+08:00

Copthorne King's Hotel may look like an unassuming, and somewhat run-down hotel in the midst of the 5-star accommodations that throng around our little island, but this is one hotel that really shines through its food. It's Chinese restaurant, Tien Court, serves exquisite delicacies, while its coffee house serves up one of the best Penang food around. It could be Singaporeans' never-ending love for buffets, as we were here on a Tuesday night and the entire buffet restaurant was full. But, I've long heard people rave about the Penang buffet here. While the selection may not be as varied as The Line at Shangri-La, or as luxurious as Greenhouse at the Ritz, the food here is authentic, hearty and comforting.

That said, we weren't really in the mood for a buffet (we're both trying to stay trim for our wedding...hah!) though we were in the mood for some Penang cuisine, in ala carte portions.

The Penang Chicken Curry ($16.80), a rich creamy and headily spicy nonya-style chicken curry is paired wonderfully with fragrant steamed rice.

The Penang Char Kway Teow ($15) is an aromatic smoky wok-fried flat rice noodles with crunchy bean sprouts, Chinese sausage, prawns and eggs in savoury black soya sauce. We slurped this up happily.

The Chicken Satay ($12) tender chicken skewers marinated with an oriental flair is served with a spicy peanut dip. I liked this, even if it didn't have a discernible sliver of pure fat, it was still moist, flavourful and tender. Buns, who prefers his satays dripping with fat, thought this was a little dry for his liking.

Princess Terrace Cafe
1st floor, Copthorne King's Hotel
403 Havelock Road
Tel: 6318 3168
Open daily 6am to 1am

Chili's Grill & Bar, Tanglin Mall

2011-09-17T13:41:00.001+08:00

We were craving some ribs, so we headed to Chili's for dinner. It's been a while since we've been here, and while there aren't anymore queues at this American grill spot, it was almost a full capacity on a Friday night. We wanted to see how it was keeping up, a year after it reopened on our shores, and was very pleased to find that they'd remained consistent in both their service and food. This is why they are still doing a roaring business every night and have opened a second outlet at Resorts World.

Because their portions are so frikkin huge, we had 2 mains (and had to doggie bag a part of it) without any dessert or starters. The Grilled Baby Back Ribs, half rack with the triple-basted classic Chili's Original BBQ and the other half rack with a tangy and sweet Honey-Chipotle ($39 for a mix and match 2 half racks flavours). The ribs were meaty, tender and had a very nice caramelization over the mesquite smokiness. We got the Black Pepper Mashed Potatoes and Corn on the Cob as the 2 sides, which were delicious. I particularly love the corn, all buttery and juicy and sweet. I swear they've done something wonderful and brilliant with it. It's that good!

The Monterey Chicken ($24), an entire grilled chicken breast with BBQ sauce, laden with applewood smoked bacon, cheese and tomatoes is one of the moistest chicken breast I've had the pleasure of savouring. It's a thick slab but because it's so moist, you don't feel like it's chicken breast at all. This was served with steamed broccoli and carrots, and black pepper mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes are also a hit here. This is authentic, freshly mashed potatoes, skin and lumps and all, no instant mix crap here. Slather a creamy peppery gravy over it and it's good on its own.

Chili's Grill & Bar
#02-23 Tanglin Mall
163 Tanglin Road
Tel: 6733 3317
Open Sundays to Thursdays from 11am to 10pm, Fridays and Saturdays from 11am to 11pm
Website: http://chilis.sg/

Noble House, Tung Lok Group

2011-09-14T11:43:00.001+08:00

Beeps and I brought CC out for lunch at Noble House for his birthday. The last time any of us were here was for Beeps' birthday 2 years ago! Time really flies, Beeps' is now a mother of an adorable little boy, and I'm getting married. And well, CC's still CC, he's totally the same guy! He's evergreen, like the classics.

We've never been the buy-a-birthday-cake-and-surprise-each-other-in-the-office type of people. And for as long as I've worked with CC and Beeps, we've always just bought each other meals for our birthdays. It's a lot more cosy, and we always have a hoot chatting over a long meal (as if we don't already talk A LOT to each other in the office...hah).

Noble House is located at UIC Building, which is super convenient for us because it's just opposite our office building. According to CC, UIC Building is going to be torn down by the end of the year. I wonder what's gonna happen to this venerable restaurant. Hmm.

We started off with the Steamed Glutinous Rice ($4.20 for 2 pieces), moist pearly grains of sticky rice stuffed with a mixture of dried shrimps, diced chicken and seasoning. This wasn't the best I've tried, but good enough.

I didn't try the Rice Flour Rolls ($5.50) "cheong fun" because it was laced liberally with parsley, alongside cubes of barbecued pork. Apparently, according to Beeps, this was pretty nice. Flour skins were thin enough.

We like the Barbecued Pork Buns ($3.80) "Char Siew Bao" here. Fluffy buns stuffed with sweet and sticky barbecued pork.

We also liked the Deep-fried Beancurd Skin Rolls with Prawns ($4.80), prawns were sweet, juicy and crunchy while the beancurd skin was tasty and crisp. A sliver of mango lends a fruity contrast to the prawns.

Somehow, the Braised Fish Maw ($14) in supreme broth here isn't as good as the one at Tung Lok Signatures at The Central at Clarke Quay. It was just lacking in that umami depth and the fish maw wasn't as tasty.

We eat lots of greens whenever we go out with CC, and this was one of 2 vegetable-centred dishes. The Poached Seasonal Vegetables ($18) with bamboo fungus and crispy conpoy in superior stock was very light, very delicate, with a milky stock reminiscent of shark bone soups.

The Sauteed Star Garoupa Fillet ($38) with fungus and greens is also one of my favourite dishes whenever I visit any Tung Lok outlet. The dish is so lightly seasoned that the focus is all on the main ingredients, fresh plump flaky fish, crunchy black fungus and sweet snow peas.

Noble House
5 Shenton Way #06-13
UIC Building
Tel: 6227 0933
www.noblehouse.com.sg
Open daily from 11am to 3pm for lunch and 6.30pm to 11pm for dinner

Lau Pa Sat Festival Market

2011-09-13T12:19:00.032+08:00

Now that Beeps is back at work, I've got back my regular lunch buddy. She's the one person I can always count on as a regular lunch date. We had lunch at Lau Pa Sat, which isn't the best place to get local hawker food, but it'll do as a convenient (cos it's right next to my office building), and (relatively) cheap place to eat at in the CBD area.

The Fishball Noodles ($3) had springy egg noodles, done al dente, with bouncy fresh fishballs and fishcakes, and tasty minced pork for texture.

Stall 13, Blue Star Fishball Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle Stall

I've noticed that most yong tau foo stalls are usually very popular with the lunch crowd. It's probably due to the fact that it's a healthy, calorie-light meal option, and its popularity ensures a daily turnover of the food, so the ingredients are always fresh. Beeps had the Yong Tau Foo ($4.50), in a yellow bean accented clear broth, plentiful fresh ingredients and soupy rice noodles to make it a filling meal.

The Curry Yong Tau Foo ($3.50) is the not-so-healthy option, but so yummy! (On a quick sidenote: why is that the unhealthy food options are always the most delicious?!?) A generous helping of fibre-rich greens (somewhat) help balance out the creamy and rich curry.

Jason Yong Tau Foo stall front

Lau Pa Sat Festival Market
18 Raffles Quay

Renn Thai, Clarke Quay

2011-09-12T20:55:00.001+08:00

I've mentioned previously that Renn Thai is quite obviously geared towards the tourist dollar, so unless I'm in the area and craving Thai food, I wouldn't think of Renn Thai as the go-to place. But, this is one of Pops' fave Thai eateries, and since it was his birthday and he was craving Thai food, we met up for dinner there.

We started off with the Si Ahan Wang ($21) a combination platter of deep fried spring rolls, Thai satay, fish cakes served with peanut sauce, rice crackers with minced chicken and prawn dip. With the exception of the fish cakes, which I'm not a fan of, the rest of the starters were great.

We had an extra portion of Por Piah Tod ($8.50) deep fried spring rolls that managed to stay juicy inside but with a wonderfully crisp golden exterior.

The Satay Gai ($12.50) Thai satay chicken was succulent, juicy and paired with a kickass spicy peanut sauce.

The Guy Yang ($17) Chiangmai grilled chicken was aromatic and had a very pleasant smoky accent to the thoroughly marinated meat.

I liked the addition of sugar snap peas in the Phad Kra Pow Gai ($18), stir-fried chicken with basil and peppercorns. The greens lent texture to the spicy fragrant mince.

The Kaeng Kheow Wann Gai ($22) rich and creamy green curry chicken was great with steaming hot white rice.

The Tom Yum Gai ($18 for pot) spicy sour soup with chicken was heady, robust and tangy, but despite the menu claiming that the pot can feed 3-4 persons, this can really only feed 1 hungry person, or 2 small eaters.

The Phad Phak Narm Mun Hoi ($14) stir-fried mixed vegetables with oyster sauce was a welcome respite from the rest of the spicy dishes. This was a nice balance of textures and nicely savoury.

Renn Thai
Blk 3D River Valley Road
#01-05 Clarke Quay
Tel: 6338 7200
Open daily from 12noon to 11pm

Man Fu Yuan, Intercontinental Hotel

2011-09-11T18:55:00.001+08:00

Man Fu Yuan is the in-house Cantonese restaurant of Intercontinental Hotel. It's walkable from my home so I arranged to meet up with Long, one of my best men, for our monthly meet-ups there for a dim sum lunch. Since he's newly single, it's a lot easier to meet up with him. I predict he won't stay single for long though. He's like the sweetest guy, hardworking, humble, honest, reliable and the typical guy-next-door. Hahaa, I do sound like I'm placing a personal ad for him, don't I? Interested parties, please PM me.

I was surprised to find that Man Fu Yuan was a near full house on a weekend lunch, because it's quite the ghost town during a weekday dinner I had before. The service was faultless and superb, very much in line with the standard of a five-star hotel. However, the food wasn't commiserate with the prices charged. The more-than-Lei-Garden-prices didn't even translate to Lei Garden-quality food. (Lei Garden is my yardstick for the best Cantonese food that's also pricey) I suppose they charge a premium due to the use of costly luxurious ingredients in an effort to incorporate an unusual twist in their dishes. In my view, they really don't need to do that because I taste no discernible difference between the food here and the ones at say, Imperial Treasure, so prices need to be at least a-third less than what it is now to draw in the masses.

The skin of Prawn Dumpling "Ha Kau" ($6.80) was delectably thin and chewy, and diced green melons lent a sweet accent to the crunchy prawns. This was good, but not worth the $6.80 pricetag. Just for comparison, Lei Garden charges about $4.80 for the same thing.

The "Siew Mai" ($6.80) purportedly had premium lingzhi mushrooms in the minced pork dumpling but to me, there wasn't a discernible difference between the lingzhi mushroom or the Chinese black mushrooms added to other minced pork dumplings. That said, this had a nice juicy and bouncy texture.

The Honey Glazed Pork Buns ($5.20) was also commendable, fluffy buns filled with sticky sweet smoky diced barbecued pork.

The barbecued pork stuffed inside the steamed buns.

The Eight Treasures Glutinous Rice with Chicken ($6.80) supposedly had premium ingredients as well, but it still didn't taste like it was worth its pricetag because there was too little ingredients. Still, the rice was suitably moist and tasty.

It's most apparent from the rice rolls that Man Fu Yuan is too pricey, as Lei Garden's ones are only $4.80. Although the Rice Rolls with Prawns and Yellow Chives ($8.80) look an unappetizing mess, the rice rolls were quite delicious. The somewhat thicker-than-usual rice rolls were saved by a very delectable chewy and filmsy texture, and the addition of chives lent a fresh quality to the savoury dish.

The Rice Rolls with Barbecued Pork and Preserved Vegetables ($8.80)was unusual in a sense that sweet preserved vegetables lent a piquant sweetness to the barbecued pork.

I didn't quite like the Pan-fried Radish Cake ($5.20) with preserved meat. The texture was a little pulverised, like too much flour was added, so it turned out a little generic and plain.

The Deep-fried Beancurd Skin Roll with Prawns ($6.80) was rendered inedible as it was peppered with way too much flat-leaf parsley, which both Long and I don't eat.

Man Fu Yuan
80 Middle Road
Intercontinental Hotel 2nd Floor
Tel: 6825 1062
Open daily from 11am to 2.15pm for lunch, 6pm to 10.30pm for dinner

Ayesha's Kitchen and Passion Cafe, Tung Ann Building

2011-09-10T12:18:00.000+08:00

Min and I met up for lunch at the row of eateries along Maccallum Street on the first floor of Tung Ann Association Building. Although there are about 5 different eateries, you can order from several stalls at the furthest end of the row while sitting at the opposite end. Generally, the Indian and Malay stalls serve better food. The good thing about the food here is that it's cheap and fairly good, the bad thing is that it's not air-conditioned, so unless there's a steady breeze, you'll end up back in the office dripping with sweat.

The Bee Hoon Goreng Ikan Bilis ($4), from Ayesha's Kitchen, had a nice smoky scent to it, with salty crisp ikan bilis lending flavour to the noodles.

The Mee Rebus ($3), from the Passion Cafe, needed a bit more depth in the gravy. It had too much starch but not enough nuttiness and flavour.

Ayesha's Kitchen
141 Cecil Street
#01-01 Tung Ann Association Building

Muthu's Curry, Race Course Road

2011-09-09T16:50:00.000+08:00

I've been eating at Muthu's Curry ever since I was little. I remember sniffling through the entire meal, eyes and nose all leaking, because the curries here were so spicy. In order to stay competitive, Muthu's Curry has since evolved and upped its game. It's most apparent to people like me, who's dined here since the 80's. They are a lot more service oriented now, and make a conscious effort to check up on their diners. Plus, the design of their restaurants are a lot more sleek and modern now.

For the Cook A Pot of Curry Day, a few of us headed to Muthu's Curry at Race Course Road to have some fish head curry, a local creation blending both our Chinese and Indian cultures.Yes, I know it's supposed to be "cook" and not just "eat", but it's too "lei chey" (read: troublesome) to cook curry lah!

The Fish Head Curry ($30 for large) with okra, and tamarind and pineapple which lent a piquant tinge, was as potent and spicy as ever. The only gripe we had about this dish was that it could have been served piping hot, with steam wafting out of the bowl, and not just warm.

We also had some Chicken Masala ($8) equally potent and with a kickass spicy paste. This is like the Indian version of the Malay chicken rendang. The thick spice paste that liberally coats the chicken helps keep it moist and juicy, so even the breast meat was very palatable.

Muthu's Curry
138 Race Course Road
#01-01
Tel: 6392 1722
Open daily from 10am to 10pm
Website: muthuscurry.com

The Sailors

2011-09-08T10:00:00.005+08:00

The Sailors is a hidden gem in the food enclave of Robertson Quay. The new-ish Italian joint is brought to you by the same people behind Buono, an extremely popular Italian establishment at Serangoon Gardens. The food here is hearty and generously portioned (read: value-for-money), and while it isn't super refined haute cuisine, the food served here is very homestyled and has a comforting appeal to it. The owner, a booming friendly man who chats you up like an old pal, is what makes the restaurant tick and keeps the ambience casual and relaxed. I mean, you can keep hanging out (in the open terrace but not indoors) even past the already very late closing time of 1am, and the staff, before leaving, just asks you to switch off the lights and fans after you're done.

Because the portions are so huge, we had 2 mains, a soup, a starter and desserts to share amongst the 3 of us. The Linguine al Granchio ($24) flat pasta with a whole crab, shell on, and tossed in a spicy tomato sauce is a potent and heady dish. Unlike other places where the crab meat is all extracted, this dish incorporates the entire crab, whole, so you'll have to eat with your hands. Some may find it troublesome, we found it fun and entertaining to use our hands. Afterall, this place never touted itself as a fine-dining option.

The Risotto Sailors ($24) with prawns, broccoli, and carrot in saffron is possibly the most healthy risotto option on the menu, so it translated to the dish being "boring" and a tad plain, especially if compared to the spicy linguine. I guess we're used to the seafood tomato based ones or the creamy mushroom ones. That said, the risotto was perfectly al dente, and had a very delicate saffron flavouring.

The Zuppa del Pescatore ($16) was a fisherman styled soup with mussels, calamari, prawns, clams and seabass. Seafood was incredibly fresh and plentiful, which made this soup very value-for-money.

The Carpaccio di Manzo ($20) of marinated beef tenderloin with cherry tomatoes, shavings of parmesan, and rocket in lemon dressing was a nice starter, the beef was robust but kept light and refreshing with the use of zesty lemon.

The Sailors has a nice repertoire of desserts, beginning with the classic Tiramisu ($10) with marscapone, tia maria, espresso, was an aromatic, spongy confection.

The Panna Cotta ai Frutti di Bosco ($10) was a wobbly custard with half a fresh juicy strawberry and raspberry jus for flavour. Not great, but commendable.

The Crostata Dei Marinai ($10) was a homely lime pie, crumbly buttery crust and refreshingly sour and sweet filling.

The Sailors
15 Merbau Road
Robertson Quay
Tel: 6737 3069
Open Mondays to Thursdays from 5.30pm to 1am
Fridays and Saturdays from 5.30pm to 2am
Sundays from 5.30pm to 12midnight
Website: www.thesailors.com.sg/thesailors/Welcome.html

Crystal Jade Palace Restaurant

2011-09-07T11:32:00.000+08:00

We were in Takashimaya getting Buns fitted for his suit when the hunger pangs struck. We'd originally planned to get his fitting done before going to the gym for a workout, then have lunch after. Ah well, our schedules are quite flexible. As we happened to be there at 11am on a Sunday morning, before the crowds hit (the shopping malls get crowded after 12noon because people usually sleep in and usually thins out before dinner-time on Sundays because people usually have family dinners on Sundays), we managed to snag a table at Crystal Jade Palace Restaurant, the fine-dining arm of the Crystal Jade group of restaurants. We were, of course, told that we'd have to finish in an hour, which isn't a problem really, because Buns wolfs down his food anyway.

We had the Deep-fried Seabass Fillet ($10) which is really just sweet and sour fish, with pinenuts thrown in for a luxurious feel. Fish was fresh and moist, with a golden crisp lightly battered crust.

The Siew Mai ($5) was a juicy steamed fresh pork dumpling with mushroom with a delectable bouncy texture.

The Glutinous Rice in Lotus Leaves ($4.80) was moist and generously filled with tasty dried scallops, succulent mince and diced mushrooms. Although the restaurant was a bustling crowd, the service standard is still top notch. Efficient and thoughtful, our waitress had assisted us to unwrap the lotus leaves and plated the rice for us on clean fresh plates.

Cedele Bakery Cafe, Robinson Road

2011-09-04T17:53:00.000+08:00

Had lunch with CC at my favourite healthy lunch chill-out spot.

The Smoked Salmon Sandwich ($7) with nicely complemented by the homemade dill and yoghurt dressing, finished with fresh crisp lettuce and juicy tomatoes

The daily sandwich special, Roasted Chicken Sandwich ($7.80) had a fresh beetroot wedged in between and onion chutney to top off the very refreshing and clear-tasting sandwich.

The smooth Roasted Vegetable Soup ($7.50 for standard soup) had hints of red pepper, sweet corn and creamy pumpkin. I liked this.

Cedele Bakery Cafe
71 Robinson Road
#01-01
Tel: 6534 9581
Open Mondays to Fridays from 8am to 7pm
Website: http://www.cedeledepot.com/

The Blue Ginger, Tanjong Pagar Road

2011-09-03T22:35:00.002+08:00

L.A. Lunch for the month of August was at The Blue Ginger for some Straits-Chinese food. In line with our melting pot culture and all things that celebrate our nation's birthday, we decided to have Peranakan food, which is really a marriage of two of our heritages, the Malays and Chinese. The food's spicier than Chinese food but not quite as fiery as Malay food, utilising spices distinctive of both Malay and Chinese cuisine.

I'd previously reviewed this place, so I'll just leave out the dishes I've featured before.

The Ayam Buah Keluak ($17) of tender chicken pieces braised with tumeric and galangal was made distinctive by Indonesian black nuts, which can be quite an acquired taste. Its pungent yet creamy nuttiness is great when spread over white rice.

We liked the Bakwan Kepeting ($5.50), a classic Nonya soup with bamboo shoots and fat meatballs filled with crabmeat and minced pork.

The Itek Tim ($19.50) was another typically Nonya soup consisting of a savoury duck and pork knuckle soup base, cut with salted vegetables and sour plums. Freshly cut green chillis gave this dish a lift with their mild heat.

The Beef Rendang ($12.90) was made up of fork-tender beef cubes simmered in rich coconut milk spiced with ginger, lemongrass, lime leaves and a dash of curry powder. Quite kickass gravy and very moist beef.

The Ngo Heong ($10.50), rolls of minced pork and prawns seasoned with five-spice powder and fried to a crisp golden brown was unfortunately made inedible (for me only) due to the liberal addition of flat-leaf parsley.

The Otak Otak ($3.40), enhanced with tumeric, lime leaves, galangal, chilli, candlenut and shrimp paste had a very homestyle appeal to the lightly spiced and bouncy fishcake.

The Curry Vegetables ($9.50) with an assortment of ladies fingers, eggplant, tomato, and cabbage was cooked in a thick, assam-accented curry. Somehow, I didn't quite take to this as I did the Chap Chye. I think it's coz the curry tasted so generic and like it was straight-out-of-a-pre-mix-packet.

The Sambal Udang ($20.80) had fresh, medium-sized prawns stir-fried in a rich, hot, spicy chilli paste that managed to complement, not overwhelm, the sweetness of the prawns. We liked this.

The Ketak Lada ($30.20) crayfish in black peppercorn sauce wasn't great, the crayfish had a powdery texture and slightly stale-ish taste.

The Scallops Nonya ($30.20) had incredibly fresh and succulent scallops steamed with preserved bean paste flavoured with fresh garlic, chilli and spring onions. The sweet scallops were set atop silken beancurd mounds for a contrast in textures.

The Telor Cinchalok ($7) a flavourful omelette densely packed with fermented baby shrimps, onions and chilli was another hit. I liked that the very salty cinchalok was used sparingly to impart just the right amount of seasoning to the omelette.

The Blue Ginger
97 Tanjong Pagar Road
Tel: 6222 3928
Open daily from 12noon to 2.15pm for lunch and 6.30pm to 10pm for dinner
Website: www.theblueginger.com

Parklane Zha Yun Tun Mee House, Boon Tat Street

2011-09-02T10:19:00.000+08:00

Many apologies for the hiatus, my computer crashed! I think it's time to get a new lappy, the old one's served me for the past 10 years. Yes, you heard right. 10 whole long years. The old lappy's quite the dinosaur.

Parklane Zha Yun Tun Mee House is a pseudo-air-conditioned eatery along Boon Tat Street, which is so important in our sweltering humidity. I say "pseudo" because the air-conditioners are switched on, but the eatery isn't enclosed, so you get cooled but not chilled. Although they specialise in their namesake of fried wantons and fried wanton noodles, I like the fried breaded chicken cutlets here.

The Chicken Cutlet Hor Fan ($3.50) consists of a juicy breadcrumbed chicken patty, paired with some green leafy veggies and finished with slippery flat rice noodles in a flavoursome, albeit MSG-loaded, black soy-infused gravy. A nice, comforting, substantial lunch.

Parklane Zha Yun Tun Mee House
21 Boon Tat Street
Tel: 6225 2881
Open Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 4pm