The Hungry Bunny

Happy mid-Autumn festival everyone! We celebrated the Chinese festival by going out for a nice family meal at Lei Garden, one of our favourite, super reliable, fail-safe restaurants for authentic, exquisite Cantonese food. I have yet to bring a guest here and not get a rave review. While we're on the topic of Chinese festivals, it's nice that a lot of my friends still take the opportunity during notable Chinese festivals to gather with families/friends to celebrate each festival. Whoever said that tradition is lost on today's generation?! We may have bastardized the various festivals in a way, but shouldn't we still get some credit for celebrating our culture? I suppose that our method of modernizing the various Chinese festivals is a personalized way of commemorating each festival. The Braised "Lo Han" Vegetables ($28) was a wonderful medley of textures and nuanced flavour. The vegetarian dish has the capacity of being incredibly boring and ho-hum but...

Now that there's a branch of the critically-favored and popular Imperial Treasure restaurant within walking distance from my office, it's so so sooooo convenient when the craving for dim sum hits. I'm really appreciating the development of the Marina Bay area into the newest A-list financial hub of the CBD. There's suddenly an exponential increase in restaurants (of every type and cuisine) set up around the area to cater to the corresponding increase in professionals working and frequenting the area. Dim sum is great when you've got a craving but aren't looking to overeat. Dim sum is served in small portions so you can also indulge even with 2 diners, and the best part is that the bill surprisingly ends up being really wallet-friendly. You'd think that eating at a restaurant like this is reserved for special occasions, but nooooo, I had lunch there last week and only paid about $25 per person. The other good thing about this restaurant is that they are ...

We had Sunday brunch with Ray & Pat here for our monthly meet-up. They both live near Orchard so it was a lot more convenient for them to get to this location than the Chijmes one. Pat's from Hongkong so I was eager to see if she'd approve of the dim sum here. For the record, she did. While lunch with Ernie was a more relaxed affair with relatively unintrusive service, Sunday brunch was a much more bustling atmosphere and felt a little more rushed. Plates were cleared super speedily and dishes arrived in quick succession. After we'd finished our meal and been lingering over tea for a while, service practically shooed us away. They did explain to us and seek our understanding that it was because they had diners waiting outside for available tables though.  The Baked Honey Pork Pastry ($4.80)was buttery, flaky, and generously stuffed with a sweet and savoury barbecued char siew filling. I love the Pan-fried Carrot Cake with Waxed Meat ($4.80) here, soft, moist...

Lei Garden , a famed and much-lauded chain of Cantonese restaurants hailing from Hongkong has 2 Singapore outposts, the "original one" along Orchard Road, and the "pretty one" at Chijmes . While there are an equal number of loyalists who swear by each outlet for a variety of reasons ranging from service to food and ambience, I didn't feel that there was a discernible difference in service and food between the 2 branches. Having dined at both restaurants several times, the only material difference (to me, at least) is that the Orchard location offers free valet parking. I had my regular Saturday lunch date with Ernie here at the Orchard outlet. We're making the most of whatever free time he's got in Singapore before he heads back to Hongkong to start a new job in April. We started off with a plate of Crispy Silver Needle Fish ($7), with a deliciously thin batter coating the crunchy fish. We shared a portion of the Rainbow Egg and Shredded Pork ...

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 C...

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 ri...