Never Trust a Scrawny Foodie

London eats in brief

2012-01-28T04:19:00.001+08:00

I'm relaxing in the welsh countryside now breathing fresh air and enjoying the scenery which is a welcome change from London.

Dinner at The Green House in London - its a one Michelin star restaurant and serves modern European cuisine.

Had the winter tasting menu (£55++ per person for 6 dishes). I really liked the salmon with beetroot Our main was duck breast which was also very well done - tender pink and juicy.

Desserts - on top of the main dessert which had Guinness ice cream, there was mini portions of cheese cake, chocolate encased chestnut, lemon tart, some choc thing and hazelnut macaroon.

Hopefully i will have time to blog abt my lunch at Alain ducasse and dinner at hibiscus (which I really liked).- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Ramen champion in changi airport

2012-01-24T21:58:00.001+08:00

There's a Ramen Champion branch in T3 changi airport. It's rather small with 4 stalls only (gantetsu, riki, hakata gensuke and ikkousha). I've tried only gantetsu before. This is the ikkousha hakata style ramen - though hakata ramen isn't my favorite... The best thing about this was the perfectly boiled tamago with the yolk still runny. The soup was tasty but not very remarkable and I didn't quite like the char Siew cos it was choped up jnto small little pieces. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Happy Chinese new year

2012-01-22T17:39:00.001+08:00

First lo hei of the year!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Taro cake @ Coffee Stars by Dao

2012-01-22T13:35:00.001+08:00

Happy chinese new year! I'm feeling like Scrooge cos I have to work every single day during cny. The only redeeming fact is tt most of the shops will be closed tmr. This is the taro cake from Coffe stars a new cafe in wisma. It tastes very much like chilled ohr nee and the cream is actually coconut cream. The cake layers have bits of taro mixed into the batter. I shall slowly figure out where nine west has shifted to after I'm done wth this cake...- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hummerstons

2011-12-04T14:36:00.002+08:00

Hummerstons is a pretty new restaurant opened by the ex-PS cafe chef. It has the same casual laid back feel of PS cafe and tasteful, homely decor. I definitely wouldn't have visited it if Julie hadn't suggested it cos I'm so tired from work and not on the active lookout for new food places.

Their signature dish is the poutine, which is a home style gravy with potatoes dish with a variety of toppings. Their best seller is the Montreal poutine ($19++) which comes with a decadent combination of foie gras, mushrooms and emmenthal cheese. It looks boring and browy but is indeed a lethal combi and tastes great - thick cut potatoes immersed in tasty gravy and a soft wobbly blob of foie gras and tender juicy mushrooms. And as you eat the foie gras, its lovely fatty oils will ooze out and drip over the potatoes making it even more yummy.
Smoked duck quesadilla ($27++) didn't fare as well as the poutine. I thought it was way overpriced. It was interesting that they paired the smoked duck breast with sweet roasted pears but taste wise, it was very average.

The Chimichurri Lamb short ribs ($32++) were not bad, but not spectacular either. The lamb ribs were well marinated and soft, but a bit too oily and fatty for my liking. It comes with Jamaica Honeydew slaw (tastes just like regular coleslaw, maybe a bit more sour - wasn't very remarkable or I'd have remembered) and a twice baked potato.

I suppose I would revisit Hummerstons again to try other dishes, but price wise it's pretty steep. The Montreal poutine itself is totally worth coming back for!

11 Unity Street

#02-14 Robertson Walk

Tel 67378863

Bhutan - Last post

2011-11-27T03:34:00.001+08:00

Onto my last Bhutan post (been backlogging all the restaurants I ate at before gg to Bhutan).

I've gotten quite a few emails enquiring about travelling to Bhutan so I'll briefly mention a bit more about booking a tour there at the end of this post.

When we were there the guide kept asking if we want to have tea. Tea consists of hot tea either with milk and sugar or with butter and salt (this is their local tea, but I didn't like it). The butter tea reminds me a bit like the Werther's Originals (the buttery sweet) but just a salty version.

The meals were all included in the tour price - one reason for this is that they think that tourists won't like their local Bhutanese food cos they use alot of oil, salt and chili. Also, the hygiene level is very questionable as quite a few of their local restaurants don't have running water, and the food is usually pre-made so it sits there for quite a while before consumption. So your guide will try very hard to dissuade you from waltzing into a local restaurant and ordering a meal...

Our first dinner there - it's like a typical Asian meal with rice and dishes. Sometimes, the rice is broken rice but most of the time, tourists get polished rice. The food looks like a typical Chinese meal, but the taste is very different. For example, the bottom most dish is actually chicken, and looks just like sweet and sour chicken but it's just chicken with sauce. The cooking is very simple with salt, chilli and cheese being the main marinade.

Their main staple dish for any meal is chilli with cheese (ema dashi), which is something like Kimchi to the Koreans. The cheese they use is a plain fresh cheese very much like cottage cheese and the chili can be really spicy.

Most of our meals consisted of rice, vegetable dishes and one meat dish (usually chicken or fish). One of the other staples was deep fried potatoes. Bhutan produces lots of potatoes (usually a small variety) which are very much like new potatoes. Another thing that we had with every meal will be a vegetable dish cooked with cheese (as seen above) - either gourd with cheese or some dark leafy vegetable with cheese. The other vegetable dish will usually be a stir fried vegetable and the last one will be ema dashi. And potato. Throughout the whole tour, we had minor variations to these, but it's really essentially more or less the same. Sometimes, it'll be a buffet style meal where lots of tourist will congregate and have our non-spicy, less salty meal.

Variation with sliced potatoes and eggplant. The rice here is their local red rice. Sometimes, we would also get rice mixed with maize (cos rice is more expensive so sometimes, they use maize to bulk up the rice).

My best meals in Bhutan was in Bumtang Valley, at Wangdicholing Resort. It's a family run resort on top of a small hill overlooking the valley and a nice meandering river and many mountains and blue skies. If I'm not wrong, I think my guide mentioned that she was trained in Switzerland or had been to Switzerland and learnt to cook there.

A speciality of that region in Bhutan is their buckwheat produce. The first meal we had there was not very remarkable - cauliflower with cheese, cucumber salad with yogurt, fried soba noodles. Some of the American tourists had a pizza look alike, but we didn't get it the first day there.

We had buckwheat pancakes for breakfast - it's a very dense, clay coloured pancake but the best part of it was the locally produced Bumtang honey (which we kept drinking with hot water) and the resorts home made jam (bought back 2 jars cos it's really very nice - hand picked wild type strawberries from the resort's garden). Also, the chef made the yogurt in-house - and it was very creamy and delicious and went really well with the honey and the strawberry jam.

The first meal we had there, she cooked something similar to rosti (potatoes, egg and onion pancake) which I devoured after slowly starving for the last few days. The dried mushrooms with cheese (bottom left) was pretty good too. The lentil soup tasted like the Indian curry which comes with thosai.

The next meal we had there was spectacular. We were utterly miserable cos we weren't used to the food so we told our guide and he helped us ask the cook if she could give us something more suited to our palates for dinner. The hotel happened to have very few guests for dinner and the cook outdid herself. We got french fries (!) which tasted extremely good after eating roasted potatoes day in day out. French fries always taste good. And they even have their local Druk brand tomato sauce. Yum! I think that was the best french fries I ate. In fact, the other tourist in the same dining hall spied our fries and asked how come he didn't get any :P

And we got the pizza which was remarkably good considering that they don't have an oven there!

One of their local soba dishes (actually, I should stop calling it soba - it's actually handmade buckwheat noodles) is soba with curd and it's serve cold with some preserved vegetable which looks very much like konbu (though I'm very sure it's not cos it tastes like ?onion)
Our pizza :D Devoured all 3 slices. Best ever!
And despite being stuffed full, we had a fruit salad for dessert - fruit cocktail with vegetables and papaya and a vanilla custard. We were so stuffed that night and slept very well.

The Bhutanese people are very friendly and we were invited to a distant friend of our driver's family's friend (so they're actually unrelated) house warming. In Bhutan, the houses generally have 2 storeys, but only the upper storey is for living in. There's 4 rooms in each traditional house - one kitchen, one bedroom and 2 prayer rooms (which are usually connected). The toilet in the village houses are usually outside, but in some modern houses, the toilets are built in. I suppose it's quite tough to cook cos you'll have to carry buckets and buckets of water up and down the house to wash your dishes...

We were given some snacks during the house warming - from left to right - some deep fried rice crackers, rice puffs (which were plain and quite oily) and my favourite snack of fried puffed rice with butter and sugar. And milk tea.

Another local dish was this quite tasty boiled rice with milk and sugar. Reminds me of oats but it's creamier (probably cos the rice was boiled quite long?).

We had pork momos (like dumplings) which were extremely nice, much nicer than the ones we had at the hotels. It's very much like our gyozas/guo ties in Singapore just that they don't use vinegar as a dipping sauce.

Some beef dish which my friend said was very tasty but I didn't eat it.

The house warming party lasts for days and they have monks to pray and bless the house, and they also invite the local ladies to sing some songs and dance as part of the celebrations.

More momos - this ones beef from the trek up to Tiger's nest - smelt really nice but I didn't eat it :(

Charcoal roasted corn - we stopped by this makeshift stall along the road - the corn is not very sweet and much drier than the type that we get locally. I was totally convinced that I would get gastroenteritis after eating this but in the end I didnt!
Drying chillies on the roof top - the Bhutanese like to dry their excess food for storage purposes. Alot of times you will see them drying meats and vegetables to store for winter.
Rice fields where most of the harvest is done by hand
Black pig at Punakha - Bhutan only had black pigs and no pink pigs, and these pigs love to eat the marijuana which grows like a weed in Bhutan.
Another one of their interesting local dishes is beaten rice. It's made from unripe rice and these greenish grains are first dry fried over a charcoal fire. After which, they are placed into this stone with a hollow and pounded.
After the pounding, it's winnowed and the rice is then either kept or served as a snack.

The accommodation that we had was simple but comfortable, and the hotels were clean. Other than the hotel in Thimphu which had a lousy shower, the rest were really not too bad and exceeded my expectations. Most of the rooms had a television set, except for the one at Bumtang. The weather was cool so there was no need for airconditioning, though we had to use the heater on some of the cooler nights.

The bathroom - this is the at the same hotel in Paro - not all the hotels had bath tubs - most had showers.

I really enjoyed my trip in Bhutan and so far, it's my best holiday (other than my cherry blossom grad trip to Japan, where I got to lounge around in the onsen) and it has changed my life perspective (though my happiness index is probably negative 50 at this current moment).

Fortunately, I went to Bhutan before Khaw made his stupid idiotic comment on Bhutan or I'd be too embarrassed to say I'm from Singapore! But then again, reading about his comment online lead me to this nice Bhutanese blog which I visit from time to time.

I won't recommend the tour company that I used to book my tour cos they gave us quite a fair bit of grief, but the Bhutan tour company is called Thoesam Tours . If you're planning to visit western and central Bhutan (which is what I did) you'll need about 7 days minimum. I went for a total of 9 days.

If you're young and healthy, I would strongly suggest that you take a trek which can range from 3 days (the easiest is supposed to be the Druk path trek, from Paro to Thimpu) to >24 days cos the country is really so beautiful. I'd definitely come back and do a trek. It's a refreshing change from just visiting cultural sites. The altitude is about 2000 above sea level and it's not high enough to get altitude sickness though you'll feel a bit breathless on exertion the first few days.

If you're Bhuddist, then good for you cos you'll get to see all the extremely sacred relics and sacred sites like where the Guru (born from a lotus leaf) left his body print and hand print etc etc etc and you can buy lots of blessed good luck charms.

From next year, the Bhutanese government will be raising the visa prices from USD $200 to $250 per day per visitor, and there's a surcharge of about USD $30-40 for groups of less than 3.

However, this price is supposed to cover their local hotel (simple accommodation, not the high class world renown luxe hotels), the guide and the driver.

After paying for the tour, there's actually not much you'll need to bring for expenses (unless you're planning to buy lots of souvenirs and other than tips, we spent less than USD $30 (for drinks, snacks etc).

To get there from Singapore, you'll need to catch a connecting flight from Bangkok. Only their local carrier, Druk Air, flies to Bhutan, and there's a short transit (about 30-45min) at Calcutta (or some part of India - I was sleeping both ways so I'm not very sure abt this). There's only one flight per day, and for our trip, that was the limiting factor cos we couldn't get a flight on the day we wanted. The Druk air flight leaves in the wee hours of the morning so what most people do is to transit one day in Bangkok and stay at a hotel really near the airport so you can get up at the unearthly hour to catch a flight into Bhutan.

The peak travel seasons is from Oct to Dec (after which it gets to cold and rainy) and I think it'll be miserable being in Bhutan during the rainy season cos everything will be muddy and slippery and there'll be land slides. Even when we were there, the road was sometimes blocked off by land slides and the roads are already narrow and windy and it's quite treacherous at some points.

Do bring a long sleeved T-shirt cos you're not allowed to enter government places such as the fortresses which are in use (you'll know this when you see the Bhutanese flag raised on a flagpole).

I really had trouble appreciating their food so I'd suggest to bring your own cup noodles (though their local grocery stalls do sell instant noodles) if you're fussy about your food like me.

Other than that, go in with an open mind and you'll have an experience of a lifetime in this deeply religious, hidden country:)

Marmalade Pantry's Lemon tart is back!

2011-11-27T00:18:00.002+08:00

I'm so happy I'm having this weekend off (except for abt 2 hours this afternoon)... And I've caught back on all my sleep! Best weekend so far :D
Marmalade pantry's lemon tart is back! It's probably the only lemon tart I like (since I don't really like lemon to begin with) but it's missing the slices of strawberry at the bottom and I think it's slightly more shallow than the one they had a long time ago. I still think the sticky date pudding is the best dessert there!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wok and Barrel

2011-11-15T21:57:00.003+08:00

I'm back (after such a long hiatus) and I've been (barely) surviving my first 2 weeks in the busiest team. I went home when the sun was still up for the first time in 3 weeks (never ever see the sun in the mornings!) today! And I was actually happy to be stuck in rush hour traffic (as opposed to leaving after the jams clear)... I've actually got one last post on Bhutan, but it's too depressing thinking of the land of Happiness (esp since Khaw Boon Wan's tactless remarks in the newapapers), and my happiness index is probably minus 100 now
Lunch time at Wok and barrel - they don't serve their other interesting dishes like their Bak Chor Mee pasta but they have Nasi Lemak (about $8-10) with an assortment of sides. The nicest one was the mutton rendang which had an intensely fragrant and thick sauce. We also had the chicken curry (also as fragrant, but I like lamb more). The Asian coleslaw has a sourish vinegar-base dressing and was refreshing especially after all the oil from the nasi lemak and the curry.
The ikan billis was fried to a crisp and nicely salted.

The Shendol dessert which is a twist to the usual icy chendol dessert. It's more like coconut panna cotta with gula melaka and a cloyingly creamy (couldn't finish this) scoop of coconut ice cream (red bean was sold out).

The decor is simple, clean and service is quick and friendly. They serve complimentary iced water (if I remember correctly, it's self service).

I would definitely return to try their lamb charsiew and special blend of spiced crackling pork and of course, their famed bak chor mee tagliatelle.

Popped by to Flor which is just a few doors down and tried their chestnut cake. Too full to appreciate it fully tho!

Wok and Barrel

13 Duxton Hill

Singapore 089507

Tel 62200595

Bhutan 2 - Central Bhutan: Bumthang, Wangdue, Punakha

2011-10-13T22:32:00.002+08:00

Central Bhutan is even more beautiful then western Bhutan (Paro and Thimpu).

Shop in Bumthang with yak cheese hanging by the windows. All the Bhutanese buildings have these painted decorations.

Bhutan has many many dogs all just lying around peacefully - they curl up in the sun when its cool in the morning , and lay in the shade when it's warm at midday. The Bhutanese believe that dogs will be reincarnated into human beings after they die, so all dogs are treated with respect. The dogs aren't the rowdy, noisy strays that you find usually, but instead, they will just mind their own business and not bother you. Occasionally, the shop keepers or monks will feed them food so they're always well fed. Btw, if someone accidentally knocks a dog down and kills it, they will light a butter lamp at the temple for the dog.

There's lots of construction going on in the town square in Bumthang. They're in the midst of building their domestic airport. Most of their construction works are from India. Construction is one of the least desirable jobs to the Bhutanese, and most Bhutanese aim to be government officials. If they do well at school, the government will sponsor them fully for their university education after completing the compulsory 12 standards in school. There was a recent fire which burnt down most of the town so they've got a firetruck now. If I'm not wrong, its a gift from India. Bhutan has a very good relationship with India, and there's even Indian troops stationed in Bhutan for military protection against China.

The one and only Bumthang post office. You can get really nice stamps of Bhutan's festivals, flora and fauna here.

We stayed in this nice quiet hotel overlooking a beautiful valley in Bumthang. It was my favourite hotel for many reasons but the main reason was because the cook there was superb. It's called Wangdicholing Resort and the head chef was trained in Switzerland so she cooks really well. They make their own yogurt, strawberry jam (from strawberries grown in the hotel), buckwheat pancakes (very dense, grey coloured pancake shaped), pizzas, pound cake and she even made us french fries just because I was dying for familiar food (there were only about 8 guests that night and she had time).
Bumthang is also known as 'Little Switzerland'. It's really extremely pretty and it reminds me of New Zealand without sheep or Norway. You can see the town in a distance. This is the view from Wangdicholing Resort.
The temperature in Bumthang is much cooler than Thimpu. It was quite chilly the night we got there but our room had a traditional warmer (the Bhutanese have one of these in every house. They use wood shavings and firewood.

Our room got supremely overheated (no adjusting knobs to adjust the temperature) and felt exactly like a sauna cos it's made of wood, so we opened the windows to let some cool air in and the whole colony of insects descended upon our room to enjoy the lights with us. Gave us a lot of grief the first night cos we couldn't get rid of them :( Thankfully, they somehow disappeared or died after the first night and so we had a peaceful second night. (I was just reading some reviews on Trip Advisor - the beds are comfortable and the shower is decent, hotel staff are friendly +++)

Another view from the hotel - we took a walk back from the town square to the hotel and walked along the river.
More views of the Bumthang valley cos it's so pretty. I imagine that it's what the 'Land of milk and honey' looks like. Bumthang is also famous for producing honey and I bougth a few jars home.

Soccer match between 2 schools - I think nearly the whole town came to watch and support the local school team in the finals of this competition. The Bhutanese enjoy archery (their national sport, though it's not like the Olympics kind of archery) and soccer. There's only one soccer stadium in Bhutan, and it's located in Thimphu. Many of the Bhutanese have cable TV from an Indian company and they have all the channels under one package deal (unlike in Singapore, where you have to pay for a basic tier and pay even more to get the premium channels) so they have AXN, Star world, HBO and all the sports channels. A house with a large vegetable garden along the way back to the hotel. The red stuff on top is chilies drying on the roof top. The Bhutanese eat whole chillies with nearly everything and their staple dish is chillies with cheese.

Dog with puppies - the dogs in Bhutan look nearly all the same and comes in various colours.

The Burning Lake in Bumthang which got its name from this story: it was prophecized that the lake had a holy treasure in it, and the disciple of Guru Padmasambhava (the one who has 8 forms and was born from a lotus leaf) had jumped into the lake with a lighted butter lamp to retrieve it. Under it, he saw 100 doors, and one of them was lighted up. He went into this one and retrieved a holy scroll, and when he returned to the surface, the butter lamp was still lighted. For the record, no one has gone swimming or scuba diving in this lake, so we will never know if there's really 100 doors under water - it's really very dark. It gets rather dangerous when it's crowded cos there's this outcrop of rock which you stand on to admire the lake and there's no rails. An Indian tourist died here sometime last year cos he fell in.

More chillies drying on the house. If you look carefully, there's a long piece of wood below all the chillies which prevents them from rolling down.

Trongsa Fortress, which was built by the great-grandfather of Shabdrung (this great king who unified the country). The day that we were driving back to Wangdue, we decided to trek across from the fortress to the view point (where this photo was taken) and our guide kindly obliged us even though the trek wasn't in the itinerary and we were super tired from sitting in the car.

This is the river seen from the fortress, we basically trekked down from the fortress and climbed back on the other side after crossing the river (there's a proper concrete bridge at the bottom). After hating trekking for nearly my entire life, I have now learnt to enjoy it -but only when the weather is extremely cool (hate being hot) and there are no frogs or toads lurking under mossy rocks. I have been so un-enlightened all these years, maybe because the only trekking I ever did was up Bukit Timah Hill (equivalent to torture in my secondary school days) and in McRitchie reservoir which was always muddy and slippery (during the obligatory annual cross country run, also in secondary school). Miserable days since it's always hot and humid.

Spider's web

Lingzhi look a like mushroom

Domesticated yak that we saw on the way back to Wangdue - they're really smelly and when the wind blows there's many tiny specks flying out from their fur - I don't want to know if it's dust, dirt or fleas or one of the many assorted insects flying around them and they're quite smelly, just like yak cheese. More yak - btw the yak cheese which I tried (the hard white rectangle thing that I wrote about in the post before this) had a strand of hair so I wasn't really enthusiastic about chewing it in my mouth (also the idea of the white powdery thing being mould wasn't a very pleasant one). The yak come down from higher altitudes when winter comes. The yak herders are quite rich now cos they also sell cordyceps which is in high demand overseas.

White languar (which looks like a monkey) that we saw on the car journey - both to and fro from Bumtang. The Bhutanese believe that it's a lucky omen - we saw a whole hoard of them just chilling by the side of the road. Apparently, spotting the golden haired languar is an unlucky omen!

This is a stupa that we passed in Trongsa, which is a replica of a Tibetian (or was it Indian?) one, and the make actually carved it onto a turnip so that he could replicate it back in Bhutan.

We return to the Fortress in Wangdue, where festive celebrations were happening cos an ancient scroll had been rolled out. It occurs only once a year, and throngs of people will flock to Wangdue to see it. We had to get up at 6am to see the ancient scroll (whoever sees it will be blessed++) and since it's so ancient, it cannot be touched by the full sunlight and will be rolled up. Again, even though it was massively crowded, there wasn't any pushing or shoving, though these policemen had to make a human barrier to prevent too many people from being too near the scroll.

People of all ages queue up for really long just to walk infront of the scroll and to receive its blessing. They will do this bowing ritual in front of the scroll, which involves them bowing down (forehead all the way to the floor) for a total of 3 times.

The monks at the festival.

The extremely sacred scroll which only comes out once a year. I suppose these monks are going to make it their handphone wallpaper? The scroll is supposed to be hundreds of years old but it's really well preserved (asked our guide if it was preserved or retouched but he said no, its holy so it doesn't decompose. I think the biggest figure is Guru Padmasambhava (the one who was born from a lotus leaf) but my knowledge of all these things is appalling despite my guide's numerous attempts to explain it to me repeatedly (until he started saying 'the one who unified our country' or 'the one who was born from a lotus leaf').

Old monk watching the celebration from on top

This was a masked dance (not sure if it was at Wangdue) and it's supposed to chase away the demons.
Young monks resting in the shade - the Bhutanese are really friendly and will turn and smile for the camera.
Marijuana plants grow in the wild - in fact, it can be found nearly anywhere in Bhutan. Apparently the pigs love to eat them (but cows don't) and it's illegal smoking the weed.

At the Chimi Monastery near Punakha. It's the Divine Madman's temple and it was where he subdued a demon and kept it within the black chorten. Women wanting to have children will come to the temple to get blessed.

Local cow herder with a very interesting cap

Golden rice field in Punakha

Happy black pig resting in the shade - it's really hairy and black and big. Apparently there aren't pink coloured hairless pigs in Bhutan. I imagine this is what kurobuta pigs look like? When the locals slaughter pigs, they will use a piece of wood to whack the snout - apparently all of the pig's life force is concentrated in that snout and the pig will instantly die, after which they will soak it in hot water and shave the hair off and eat nearly every part of the pig - the cheeks are the most prized part.

Punakha fortress, where the King just got married today! It's a national holiday for 3 days to honor the event. Punakha is really a very beautiful place and it's very serene too. When we were there, the Punakha fortress was all decorated in preparation for the royal wedding.

One of the many interesting things in Bhutan - they have phalluses painted in front of their houses and it's believed to bring the houses good luck, thanks to the Divine Madman and his unorthodox teaching methods. If you look closely at the masked dance picture a few photos above (near the divine scroll) you can see that he is also holding a phallus...

Drive back from Wangdue to Paro

Bhutan is super quiet and serene (if you're not in the town center) at night and the next day you get to wake up when the sun is slowly rising and there's mountains, trees, blue skies and fresh air +/- a clear river. They really make an effort to preserve their culture and traditions (the locals favourite tradition is chewing betle nuts!). The first day after Bhutan, when I was in Bangkok it struck me how different it was waking up to tall grey buildings, grey skies, traffic jams and the hoards and hoards of people. The people here have their needs met and no one is in the highly stressful rat race. I don't think they're deliriously happy but they're contented.

Last time, I used to think that it was terrible to live in a developing country with no modern medical facilities - if you got knocked down by a truck you'd surely die cos there's only very basic medical facilitis, but I think it's better to die happy and have lived a fufilling life rather than to aim to accomplish millions of things and then get knocked down and die just before you achieve that. Or even worse die from some ruptured aneurysm from all the stress at work.

I'll be posting more on the food and the accommodation in the third and last post.

Bhutan - Paro and Thimpu

2011-10-12T19:44:00.002+08:00

I've been MIA-ing cos I've been having an awesome 9 days in Bhutan and another 1 day in Bangkok (eating lots of thai food!) I've just got back from my first annual leave this posting on Sunday and I'm having major post holiday blues :( iPhoto uploader is down and I can't upload my photos onto facebook! I decided to go to Bhutan since they're so big on their Gross National Happiness and I could definitely use some happiness especially in the few weeks leading up to my annual leave :D

The national carrier for Bhutan is Drukair. It transits in Bangkok and flies to Bhutan via Calcutta though there isn't any time to go down to the airport during the transit. Takes about 4-5 hours from Bangkok.

The meal from Paro back to Bangkok - there was some vegetarian curry thing with lots of cumin which I didn't like (I'm extremely picky about food especially on flights) but their bread roll was soft and nice.

Their international airport is at Paro, which is one of their bigger cities.

Their largest city is Thimphu but it's still relatively small since their total population is only about 700,000 people.

View from the airplane window - the highest peak in Bhuatan is Gangkhar Puensum.

Bhutan is a very mountainous and there's lots and lots of greenery. It's also very peaceful and there's always pristine meandering rivers, golden rice fields, bright clear blue skies and fresh air +++ so it's a great place for relaxing and leaving all the worldly thoughts and wants behind. It's zen-ness +++ and it's like paradise on earth. Bhutan has just made its way onto my favourite country list and is on par with Japan, my ultimate favourite country in the world.

The traffic police man in Paro - no traffic lights here. Majority of the people can speak English as there's a national free education program up to standard 12.

Their national animal is the Takin (until I did my very minimal research on Bhutan, I didn't know that this animal existed). According to Bhutanese mythology, Lama Drupkpa Kuenley (who is also known as the Divine Madman) created this animal out of a goat's head and a cow's body. It's a rather docile herbivore. This picture was taken at the Takin zoo in Paro.

The Paro Fortress (the major attraction of each city seems to be the fortress, which usually houses a monastery and a government administration office. Tiger's Nest Monastery (aka Paro Taktsang) is perched on a high cliff a few kilometers away from Paro town, and is one of the most sacred sites in Bhutan. It is where Guru Padmasambhava made his second visit to Bhutan, on the back of a female tiger to tame a demon. It took us 5 hours for a round trip (including many photo stops and a break midway at the cafeteria) to get to the top with many rest breaks along the way but I'm very sure most people will climb it much faster. It was burned down in 1998 after a fire from a butter lamp broke out and the caretaker died (as was the case for the Victory fotress in Paro town too).

We were reading up on Trip advisor about the climb up to Tiger's Nest - it sounds as if it's terribly daunting but it really isn't so bad if the weather isn't so hot and it's not raining.
The Memoral Choten in Thimpu was built in memory for the 3rd King of Bhutan by his mother. When passing all religious monuments and prayer wheels in Bhutan, it is customary and respectful to walk in a clockwise fashion. The many coloured flags are supposed to be good luck. Apparently, the prayer beads used are also turned in a clock wise fashion too. There were alot of people in the temple praying it looked like a festival or some sorts.This is the Victory Fortress in Paro, which lie in ruins cos of a massive fire (where the caretaker also died). It's pretty creepy and I bet it's haunted at night. From the top you can view one of the ultra luxe and incredibly expensive (think USD $1,500 per night) resorts.Thimpu Fortress, where we attended our first festival. The building is divided into 2 parts - one is a monastery and the other is a government administration building. During the festival season, the rituals and dances are held in the fortress square.

It was a Sunday and the whole town was dressed in their Sunday best - to enter a fortress, the local Bhutanese have to wear their national costumes. The males were a Goa with a white sash and the females wear a Kira. They're having a security check and they're very strict about checking the males. Btw, the Goa is like a robe and doesn't have side pockets. Instead, everyone just stuffs their belongings into the front of the Goa.

This is one of the many masked dances done during the festive season and the dancers spin round and round in circles.

It's supposed to ward away evil spirits and bring good luck to the spectators. It was massively crowded in the fortress square, but the locals don't push or shove and everyone just sits in their own spot (some families bring mats or carpets) and watch the show. families with extremely old people and young kids all go to the fortress to watch the show, and its like a picnic - they'll come with chips, cucumbers, and lots of betel nuts and spend the day in the fortress square.

The Kira, which traditionally has a dress inside and a colourful blouse worn over.

Two Bhutanese boys in their national costume playing with a tourist's camera

The Thimpu market sells all the usual vegetables, meat etc but they have interesting foodstuff that I've never seen before. The strings with white rectangles is actually yak cheese. dried and coated in some white thing (I think it's mould?) and it's usually chewed by the locals (but most of them prefer betel nut chewing rather than yak cheese chewing). Many of the local dishes consists of chili and cheese (this soft, white creamy cheese). They also have butter (the brown parcel like thing in the middle of the shelf).

Close up of the yak cheese - it's extremely hard and has a gamey smell.

This is a starter for rice wine. The locals like to drink this home made wine called Ara. Ara is also given to worshippers in the temples (but the ara from the temples is blessed). I think it's some yeast starter for the fermentation process.

The old school way of weighing vegetables that we will never see again in Singapore.

The grains section of the market. The Bhutanese people usually eat broken red rice but they also have puffed rice, beaten rice and the equivalent of corn flakes.

Chilies play a big role in Bhutanese cooking, and their most famous local dish is ema datshi which consists of chillies and cheese cooked in oil. The locals dry their surplus chilies in the sun to store for winter.

The 108 stupas at the Dochula pass at 3150m above sea level on the way from Thimpu. 108 is considered as a lucky number.

Picture of how the locals make beaten rice. The unmatured rice grains are first fried over a wooden fire, and put into this rock with a depression in the middle, then pounded using these wooden sticks. Thimpu town from the top of a hill, taken with my star filter (best buy ever from Japan).We visited one of the local houses (this Bhutanese movie director that our guide knew) and he kindly opened his house to us. A traditional style house in Bhutan usually has 4 rooms, out of which 2 are prayer rooms.
The alter in one of the prayer rooms - the locals clean the alter and change the water daily.

Roasted corn in a shop by the roadside - the corn is not the sweet juicy variety but is a dryer strain. Lots of these holy water along the way. The locals will stop and take a drink from the holy water to cure sicknesses and for general health and well being, just like how some people pop lots of supplements. Just that this holy water is free :)

A shop in Paro with the 8 lucky Buddhist signs - a vase, 2 fish, a flower, a never ending knot, a flag of victory, conch shell, an umbrella and a colourful wheel. The government has a law where houses in Bhutan have to built in the traditional fashion - so you'll not be able to find modern buildings in Bhutan. It's an effort to preserve their culture, though the interior can be modern.

Betel nut being prepared - they're de-husking the betel nut which is imported from India here. Cigarette smoking is illegal in Bhutan, but somehow it can be quite easily sourced from India.

Bhutan is really an amazing country. The king is getting married tomorrow so it'll be a national holiday. I'll be covering the rest of my journey in the next 2-3 posts (hopefully) along with some of the food that we had along the way.

Sigh +++ to post holiday depression and going back to work and slogging :(

Land of the Thunder dragon

2011-10-06T09:59:00.001+08:00

On vacation now so no food posts for the moment. This is the view from the hotel room in Huangdue and it's nice and cool in the shade but not in the sun. The food here is totally different and my internationally adjusted palate doesn't agree with the food:( I forsee post holiday depression +++ especially since I'm going to be back to work on Monday...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Strictly Pancakes

2011-09-27T20:55:00.002+08:00

Totally enjoying my annual leave D2! I just went to Aoki for lunch (and whatsapp-ing the photos to a poor colleague stuck at work ^-^) Annual leave is even better than school holidays - no need to worry about assignments, doing holiday homework etc! Best ever! I've been watching movies on my ipad and messing up my sleep cycle. Cant believe that I've worked without annual leave since January!

Finally tried Strictly Pancakes at Prinsep street - didn't attempt to go there before cos it's in CBD and the carpark's a pain. It still was a pain to park there on Sunday (I parked at Sunshine plaza, it's $3 per entry on Sundays) and took a short walk over. The seating's really limited and we had to wait about 30min (not like there were many other restaurants open around that area on Sunday morning, or we would have defected to another restaurant/cafe. It's a pretty interesting concept where all the dishes are pancake based and there's both savory and sweet pancakes.

Had the equivalent of Eggs benedict (can't remember the name of this dish, but it's essentially Eggs Benedict with pancakes instead of muffins). It looks a bit bare cos we got the Hollandaise sauce on the side. The eggs were nicely poached, not overcooked and still runny inside. It was also very reasonably priced. The pancakes are the thick floury kind which aren't really my favourite type but it worked well in absorbing the runny yolks and hollandaise sauce so no complaints here.

We also added an extra side of mushrooms which were pretty good for the price (I think it was $2.50-$3 additional charge)

Each of the mains come with a choice of butter (herb garlic, unsalted and salted) as well as maple syrup. Makes it a bit more interesting instead of eating a whole dish of savory pancakes. Do note that you would have to pay an additional charge to add maple syrup/butter to the dessert pancakes (or those that don't come with this butter and maple syrup).

I can't remember the name of this dish but it's a sure-win combi of all of my favourite things. Pancakes, kinder bueno (my fave chocolate snack ever! especially mixed into Horlicks Ice Cream from Ice cream chef!) and nutella and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The pancakes are special peanut butter pancakes which I really didn't like cos I found it too heavy going and a bit salty. They were quite stingy on the nutella spread. I think I'd have liked it better if it was plain pancakes with more nutella. The best way to eat this was to spread the 'innards' of the kinder bueno over the nutella side of the pancake and eat it with the ice cream.

Strictly Pancakes

44A Prinsep Street

63334202

Artichoke Revisited

2011-09-23T20:27:00.004+08:00

One more call before I go on loooong annual leave! :D

I just watched Tree of Life yesterday and it was really one of the most painful movies I've ever watched! I was just thinking to myself barely 1hr into the movie that it was really sad that I wasn't at Universal studios (cos it was raining madly in the morning) and that the movie was like watching fragments from national geographic channel without any narration :(

Went to Artichoke again (?a month back) cos I was missing the dips and the lamb ribs.

They've changed their dips - tzatziki and hummus were my faves (always are) but I didn't like the carrot and walnut dip (don't particularly like carrots). Turkish bread comes separately for about $3 (but it's a small portion)

Fried Halloumi Cheese with came with some grilled vegetables - my first time trying this cheese. It's very firm and looks a bit like a tau kua. Taste wise it's not very remarkable.
My favourite dish at Artichoke - their slow cooked lamb ribs with mint yogurt with a scattering of pomegranate seeds. The lamb is very gamey so people who don't like the lamb smell please avoid this dish!

We had one of their sharing meat platters which totally made everyone so uncomfortably full. The meat platter is really very very filling, salty and oily. And gamey. It comes with chicken, lamb, sausages. Please don't order the lamb ribs and the meat platter cos you'll really overdose on the lamb. Other than that, I quite liked the sausage and the grilled cherry tomatoes.

Was wayyy too full to even think about dessert.

Artichoke

161 Middle Road, Sculpture Square

Tel 63366949

Ramen Champion

2011-09-18T23:12:00.001+08:00

The wonders of technology - I've been slacking off and maximizing my off days - and I've gotten a new addition to my Apple family. I spent my off day and post call day watching movies on it instead of catching back my sleep, but it's so luxurious to turn on the airconditioning, lie in bed and watch movies with the ipad on my tummy:)

Ramen Champion has been gaining much popularity recently after the Straits Times published an article on the 6 famous ramen stalls from Japan battling it out to set up a store in Singapore. I've tried 4 out of the 6 ramen so far:Menya Ihora which comes from Toyama has this black shoyu (soya sauce) broth as well as a more traditional miso based broth. I tried the black shoyu broth and it has a really pleasant taste, and isn't oily. It sort of reminds me of brands chicken essence actually. The noodles are the curly springy yellow kind (the type I like, as opposed to the straight Hakata style noodles which are similar to the kind you'll find in Ding Tai Fung). They also had one of the best half boiled eggs with the nicely runny golden yolks.
Gantetsu - the 'stubborn' chef's recipe from Sapporo has a robust pork bone broth - I like the broth from this place the best and their signature ramen comes with the uslal bamboo shoots, sweet corn and freshly grated ginger. You can also choose to have butter added.
One of the more unique ramen is from Bario - it's superbly oily broth is tasty but slightly too salty for my liking (I suppose they haven't reduced the salt for the local palate). It's like the Menya Shinchuan Ramen style at Gallery Hotel where it's a huge heap of ramen with a equally generous portion of bean sprouts that's guaranteed to make the general population uncomfortably full. The broth is extremely robust and has a strong garlic flavour - you can even add additional garlic if you wish.
The thing I liked about Bario is the noodles which is unique - they're made from bread dough so it's firmer and flourier and they look messy and curly but tastes very good.

The other ramen I tried was from Tetsu (which I tried on my first visit to Ramen Champion). Their signature ramen comes with broth separated from the noodles, and you're supposed to dip the noodles into the broth when eating - very much like how you would eat cha soba. I really didn't like this one cos it was extremely extremely salty - felt like I was a salted dried fish after this and I needed to get a drink asap. The egg was also a disappointment - it was overcooked and the yolk was all powdery and yucky (I hate eating hard boiled egg yolks which taste terrible and are not worth the cholesterol).

I can't remember where I got these gyoza from but I think it was from Tetsu? They had this weird bamboo smell which I didn't like either.

Ramen Champion

#04-08

Opening hours 10.30am-11.30pm

Hanayoshi

2011-09-06T22:23:00.002+08:00

Had a delicious dinner at the month-old Hanayoshi, which is tucked away in Duxton Road. The simple wooden interior and Japanese decor is really nice.

Ordered the Chirashi don ($45++), and it came prettily presented, with perfectly vinegared rice, otoro (I didn't ask but it was so deliciously fatty and marbled) and uni (sea urchin). I also had the chawanmushi which was silky smooth and tasty. Didn't get a nice shot of it (partly cos I was using my iphone and not my S90, which I sadly left in another bag :(

The Salmon skin salad ($9++) was light and refreshing, and the salmon skin didn't have the oily taste. Comes with vinegrette dressing.The ice cream here is supplied by a secret contact that the restaurateur knows, and it's not ice cream but Gelato. I particularly liked the Ume ice cream ($8++ per scoop) which was pleasantly sour, not extremely tart and tasted very creamy. Very much like yogurt but it's plum! We also tried the green tea gelato and the peanut butter gelato, but my fave is still the Ume. I liked the mochi that came with the latter two:D

Since the restaurant is very new, it was pleasantly empty (apart from some other patrons in the private Japanese style rooms) so we had a nice quiet dinner. The service here is supberb and personalized. I think the lunch here is much more affordable than dinner, and the lunch sets come with a scoop of ice cream (do try the ume!)

Hanayoshi

21 Duxton Road Singapore 089487

Tel 62255567

Space @ my Humble House

2011-09-02T21:49:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone who is bored enough to come to my dying blog. I've been eating lots of good food (my to eat list is getting longer and longer everyday!) but I've been procrastinating more! Somehow, my job doesn't pay me enough to get stressed but it seems like I've been stressing over it everyday! :( And I'm reminded how lousy my Chinese and how successful LKY is in abolishing all dialects in Sgp... But seriously, I really really really cannot understand how someone living in Sgp their whole lives can only speak ONE language (dialect! especially the rarer ones like Hakka and Hainanese!) How do they buy bread or roti prata or any other dishes for that matter?

Anyway, the pictures below have been edited with Lightroom as opposed to my usual Paintshop Pro 7 (which is so outdated!) I've been inspired by my colleague to learn how to utilize my totally underutilized macbook pro (which costs slightly less than my upcoming holiday).

Space@my Humble House is the poor sister of My Humble House where one can get local fare with a modern twist. Here's the Laksa with oyster and scallop and a very un-spicy but fragrant soup. Laksa again, and very expensive XO Carrot Cake with scallops and prawns. I found the chunks of carrot cake too large and floury. Smaller pieces = more surface area = tastier carrot cake.

Their famous Chicken Rice - I'm not a fan of chicken rice and the last time I ate chicken rice was when I was on call and didn't have any other choice. I suppose it's the thought that counts and it was free...

Their Herbal Jelly with Aloe Vera and lime juice. The aloe vera comes pre-marinated with lime juice but I was really dying to eat the Herbal Jelly. Big mistake cos the aloe vera is really very well marinated with lime juice and I hate anything citrus mixed in my food.

Their nice simple decor with green apples. And I now suddenly recall why I ate here - went to watch this magic show called Vsion which is staged by our very own local talent - it really exceeded my expectations - they managed to make a Lotus appear.

8 Raffles Avenue

Esplanade Mall

Tel 64231881

Woori Nara - Korean Fried Chicken

2011-08-10T22:25:00.002+08:00

As usual I have been busy at work - my youth is being stucked out of me and I feel like I'm 10 years older compared to last year :( Hopefully I don't look so old but I defnitely feel less adventerous and I have been sticking to my usual favourite food places and hardly venturing out and trying new and exciting foods.

So on my usual to eat list I have Itacho and Akashi and Ootoya for Japanese, Noodle House Ken for ramen, Old town Wanton mee and the blueberry smoothie for most of my lunches. I'm growing to become a boring person!

I have been having a recent craving for fried chicken, and just yesterday I went to Ion and ate Popeyes instead of my usual Itacho (partly because the queue was insane). Anyway, I shall aim to go and try somewhere new and exciting this Friday... Woori Nara is located at Upper Bukit Timah Road (near Udders) and is this Korean fried chicken place which, according to Posh Nosh in Urban, serves one of the best fried chicken.
Being a Korean restaurant, they gave us the usual spread of Korean starters (free too!)

We had the fried chicken sampling platter which has 3 flavours - the original (front), some soy and garlic (right) and the spicy chicken (left). I particularly liked the spicy one, which wasn't very spicy at all (just right for my pathetic chili tolerance). I particularly liked the sweet mustard sauce in the middle. The chicken really didn't live up to my high expectations, but since it's nearby and reasonably priced, I won't mind dropping in again, but please don't travel across half of Singapore to try this chicken.
The seafood pancake wasn't very outstanding and I found it a bit too floury. And the seafood was very scarce.

The Bibimbap - nothing spectacular either.

Dumpling and rice cake soup - I ordered this one cos I wanted to try the rice cakes, which I didn't like in the end. The rice cakes were mushy and didn't have the mochi texture like I had imagined it to have.

We ajourned to the neighbouring Udders solely because there's a lack of good dessert places in that area. The waffle smells much better than it looks.

This is the end of my depressing post - I'm feeling super sian cos I have to do call tmr and we are overflowing everywhere and my annual leave is in 2 months time but I really feel like having a holiday now.

Woori-Nara Korean Restaurant

19 Lorong Kilat

#01-02 Singapore 598120

Tel: 6464 9282

Hanito - honey toast from pasta de waraku

2011-07-23T18:57:00.001+08:00

I had the honey toast from pasta de waraku ytd for dessert. It's supposedly from shibuya (not that I recall seeing any of these there when I went there last yr). It's a generous thick toast sliced into 9 cubes for easy consumption. I think it's partially cos I like those Hong Kong style thick toasts but this is even better cos it comes with a layer of honey spread on top and there's so many different choices for toppings.
We shared the mixed fruit Hanito cos it looked like it had the most ingredients on top.
This is probably the best thing I've eaten from pasta de waraku (don't particularly like the pastas).

Mega full even after sharing the dinner set. Comes with corn soup (creamy and sweet)Salmon teriyaki was quite well done but I didn't like the overly sweet teriyaki sauce. Those little fried bits in the middle are tofu. Spicy prawn carbonara was really quite spicy cos they use those really tiny chilies.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Blu Kouzina

2011-07-19T21:52:00.002+08:00

I'm post a very good call (one of my best actually) and I'm now trying to clear up my back logged posts. And I'm also extremely pleased cos I managed to drink my favourite antioxidant juice drink (recommended by cel, who has warned me that I must not blog where this particular drink is cos it's always sold out in the evenings). Blu Kouzina is a rather new Greek restaurant along Bukit Timah Road. I'm a noob when it comes to Greek food - somehow there aren't many Greek restaurants in Singapore and I think the most I've been to is the Mediterranean restaurants which I didn't particularly like cos I've always found the food too salty.
The restaurant is prettily decorated in the country's colours and they're very generous with the water, and glass bottles of chilled water are provided so you can drink as much water as you want. I think it's a really smart move as it saves the waitstaff lots of time refilling cups especially when the restaurant is busy.

The Tzatziki (Greek yogurt, cucumbers, garlic and olive oil) was a cooling and refreshing start to the meal, and tasted great with the warm pita bread. I love all these dips (just like hummus and Baba ghanoush) with pita bread.
Feta cheese and spinach samosas (I can't remember the fancy Greek name cos I can barely pronounce 80% of the dishes in the menu) which didn't have much feta. Won't be ordering this again cos I don't like the pastry and there was no feta.

There are quite a few beef mains in the menu. The server highly recommended the fish (but it was for 2-3 people and there were only 2 of us) so we settled for the lamb. Acc to hungrygowhere, the grilled fish is supposed to be very good so I will endeavour to try it the next time. The grilled lamb ($28? was delicious) - tender roasted lamb chops which are simply marinaded, with a drizzle of olive oil and no other distracting sauces. It came with a grilled capsicum stuffed with flavoured rice.

The food here is tasty, simple and good though prices are slightly steep (just like most of the other restaurants along Bukit Timah).
They have alfresco seating (both outdoors and indoors) as well as an air-conditioned area on the second storey. We booked late and ended in the indoor alfresco seating, which was quite unfortunate cos it was a hot and humid evening.

Overall, the food's good, service quick and efficient just that those people who are driving beware - carpark lots are pretty hard to find and you'll have to park in the nearby residential estate which is already crowded with patrons of the nearby tzechar restaurant Forture and the bar. Do make a reservation - the restaurant looks packed nearly every day...
Blu Kouzina
893 Bukit Timah Road
Tel: +65 6875 0872

http://www.blukouzina.com

Summer Pavillion Dian Xin Lunch

2011-07-14T22:15:00.005+08:00

I'm back after another long hiatus! Work is super tiring (glad to know that I'm in the 18% of Singaporeans with stagnant pay) - this lunch happened many calls ago but I've just had the ultimate killer call on Sunday-Monday which will probably add to my eyebags and premature ageing...

The starter was this very unassuming looking dish which was deep fried diced yam. It's coated with some sugar and actually tasted much better than it looked. The shotglass on the right is some haw juice (can't remember the Chinese name) which was very sour and acidic, the perfect drink to kick off the meal and stimulate the salivary glands but I would much prefer another plum wine sherbert anytime.

Nourishing soup - came here when I was post call so I was craving for soup and decided to indulge in the Shark's cartilage soup. It's milky, warming, tasty and perfect post call food. Best of all, there's supposedly alot of collagen in this soup to combat against the oxidative stress from the night before...

Dian xin - the main reason why we went to Summer Pavillion was to eat this. It's one of the few Chinese cuisines that I enjoy. Though the menu at Summer Pavillion is very modest, the most of the dian xin you get here have a mordern twist. For example, instead of the plain fried grated yam cake (left), the yam cake comes with a layer of pumpkin. It was very moist and one of my more favourite dish. The har gao comes unadulterated - no suprises inside... Behind is some chive dumpling (had something interesing inside but I can't remember already).

Siew Mai - also unadulterated.

The green thing at the back had crab meat with mushrooms and was really quite tasty.
Another intersting dian xin they had was this triangular corn one which different kinds of vegetables inside. The corn kernels were very sweet and juicy and the skin is very thin and translucent.The obligatory char siew pau
Some fried thing - looks similar but one has bean curd skin outside

Boxthorn with 3 different kinds of eggs - I don't think boxthorn is very common here - can't remember the Chinese name for this tho... I think it tastes a bit like spinach but more delicate and there aren't any annoying stems which spoil the nice soggy texture of the leaves.

Onto the multiple desserts - sesame paste glutinous rice ball coated with ultra fine peanut powder.

Mango pomelo sago - not very spectacular cos I prefer the milky kind.

Hashima with almond tea

Herbal Jelly

Overall, the dining experience was pleasant as expected, with extremely attentive service. Of course, I would expect nothing less from the Ritz.

*Random thought: whenever I think of the Ritz, the first thing that pops up in my mind is the short story the Diamond as Big as the Ritz.

Summer Pavillion

7 Raffles Avenue

3/F Ritz-Carlton Millenia
Tel: +65 6337 8888 (Reservations recommended)

Lunch from 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. (a la carte & dim sum)
Dinner from 6:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. (a la carte)

Keyaki

2011-06-27T21:18:00.005+08:00

I was just going through my old posts (when I was young and gainfully unemployed) cos I just ate a weird timing but very satisfying breakfast/lunch meal today. And it's a Monday again! So the famous stall was closed... And there's no more $2 prawn noodles anymore... Guess everything but my salary is going up...

Went to Keyaki last weekend. Made a grave mistake cos we had initially planned on going to Cherry Garden for dim sum but didn't know it was Father's Day and it was fully booked :( Just another reminder to myself - Cherry Garden is at Mandrin Oriental and not Marina Mandarin - spent nearly half an hour crawling around looking for the restaurant. It is never a good idea to be supremely famished, finaly reaching the restaurant and being told that it's full and yet being able to smell all the lovely freshly steamed dim sum. We had 2 different sets - I had their Keyaki set (I really cannot remember what it was called but its the weekend special lunch set) which came with a very insipid potato salad. The other lunch set (which is in the main menu) had this really refreshing plum wine sherbert and probably one of the better ways to kick start a great meal.
In fact, it was so nice that the next day at work I was craving for this halfway through the morning and just wondering where I could get some good quality plum wine from (though I'm mainly a procrastinator so I still haven't gotten it...)

Another 3 dished starter - some fish cake thing, minced meat with grated radish and pumpkin chicken cube (my pumpkin piece was miniscule).

California maki - which is totally un-Japanese but very delicious anyway.

Extremely fresh and juicy sashimi - my fave part of any meal

Tempura - one of my least favourite Japanese foods though I really like eggplant and pumpkin Fried rice with little morsels of seafood and chicken - I would have much preferred garlic fried rice (which most mid range Japanese restaurants do quite well). The pickles (top left) are pretty interesting cos they also had pickled mushrooms.

Grilled cod fish
By this time I was really full but there were still some more dishes...

Pork Teppanyaki - the alternative being beef (which I don't eat cos of prions, though I'm seriously reconsidering now cos I really miss eating BK mushroom swiss and Macdonalds double cheeseburger...)
The other lunch set (which was around the same price ~$60++) had a nicely grilled half lobster which was really fresh.

The Cha soba here (came with the other lunch set) was pretty good but not as spectacular as the Tsuen one from Japan (which I sadly will not be able to eat in the new future)... It's a remarkably easy dish to prepare just that the noodles have to be watched closely cos they become soggy once overcooked.

Dessert - green tea and black sesame ice cream. The black sesame one is much better so if you're ever given the choice do take the black sesame one - it has coarse grains of black sesame and an intense sesame taste. Just like eating black sesame paste but in the ice cream version.

Personally, I still find Aoki's lunches is still in the number 1 position in my list of lunch places... I think I'm growing old cos I feel much less adventurous and I've been stagnating at my usual food places for the last few months... Oh well, I will be hunting for a new lunch place on Wednesday if my list doesn't explode terribly...

Keyaki
7 Raffles Boulevard

4/F Pan Pacific Singapore
Tel: +65 6826 8240

Nourishing soup at Pu Tien

2011-06-23T21:13:00.003+08:00

I'm not sure if I've blogged about my favourite post call food ever but I've just dug out some really old photos that I took in happier times (i.e. when I was not a slave to my company). The most awesome post call food ever (for me at least) is the Pu Tien soup. Since I really don't know what it's called in the menu, I've been calling it the 'nourishing soup'. It comes in this old style Chinese cauldron which helps to keep the nourishing soup warm while you slowly sip it. The soup is so milky and looks like it's been boiled for hours. It's extremely tasty (probably cos of the fatty pork and the long clams). And it comes with healthy stuff like lots of long cabbage and bean curd.
I think it's next best to soaking in an outdoor onsen during winter/spring (which I will not be doing in the near future or when I am post call). It's very warming and comforting and after taking this I would happily go home, bathe and sleep until the next day.
Sadly, I've only eaten it once ever when I was post call but it was the best post call lunch ever! I must find a Pu Tien near my workplace now so that I can endeavour to get myself some nourishing soup... My second most favourite dish (though it's not another nourishing post call dish) is the Pu Tien Mee Sua. This is unlike other mee suas I've eaten cos it's extremely fine and it's not served with soup. It comes topped with seaweed, nuts, seafood and pork and like the soup, is very tastey.

The other noodle dish here is the luo mee which I don't quite like but here's a picture. The noodles have the consistency of soggy ban mian but the soup is rather nice and similar to the nourishing soup.

Other not bad dishes to try are the cockles (it's <$10 per plate) of prettily shelled clean cockles served with lots of raw garlic and the sweet and the sour pork with lychee (nice fat chunks of pork battered with floor and coated with their sweet and sour sauce). The ohr nee (yam paste dessert) here is less than spectacular. I would recommend trying it elsewhere.

I'm not sure if the stuff served at Pu Tien is a good reflection of the Heng Hwa cuisine, but their dishes are above average and with reasonable prices, they look set to give the average Singapore diner more mid-range Chinese food choices (other than the default Crystal Jade and Ding Tai Fung, and perhaps Paradise Inn)

Pu Tien, here I come (soon, hopefully on Saturday??)

Pu Tien Outlets are at:

Kitchener Road

Nex

City Square Mall

Vivocity

Tampines Mall

Parkway Parade

The Plain

2011-06-12T13:07:00.004+08:00

Tried this Australian style cafe after reading a glowing review in the newspapers (a few months back, just that I'm a professional procrastinator and didn't blog about it). We must have trudged up and down Craig road at least 5 times and walking past the cafe even more times before we actually found it. And to think that we parked at Craig place which is literally opposite the Plain.
Trudging up and down in Singapore's weather makes one extremely hot and thirsty. And in want of airconditioning. They're coffee is supposed to be fantastic but too bad I don't drink coffee except for the occasional ice blended ones... So instead, this is the iced chocolate with real chocolate painted onto the sides of the glass. Not bad but I've defnitely had better.
Their speciality is their sourdough bread with a variety of toppings. We tried their Dean's breakfast - poached eggs on melted cheese & vegemite on sourdough toast. Being a fan of vegemite and cheese, I quite liked this dish though the stingy in me thought of ways to obtain sourdough bread and make it in the comfort of my home...

We also had the Darling's eggs. It's poached eggs with ham, cheese & roma tomatoes on sourdough toast.

I preferred the Dean's breakfast cos of the vegemite but I think it would be supberb to have everything on one like a full house sandwich i.e. cheese, vegemite, tomatoes, ham and eggs all stacked on top of each other :P

The chilled Fruit salad came with a bright and colourful array of fruits, and a side of honey-infused yogurt.

The concept and decor really reminds me of Fourty Hands. If it was nearer my house, I won't mind going to the Plain again but it's really a pain to queue up fro food on a nice weekend morning as the cafe is extremely popular and the seating is very limited.

The Plain Cafe

50 Craig Road #01-01
http://www.theplain.com.sg/

PS Cafe at Ann Siang Hill

2011-06-05T21:57:00.002+08:00

I'm not a big fan of PS cafe, but after visiting their branch tucked away in a quiet corner at Ann Siang Hill, I'm now a convert! The decor is so quaint and plush it feels as if I've stepped back into time. Best of all, it's not overrun by hyperactive screaming kids (unlike the Dempsy one where there are SCREAMING kids) so it's a perfect place to chill and catch up!I had the Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and avocado. There's wilted spinach under tha pile of lovely goodness and the muffin is spread with cream cheese. Delicious! The hollandaise is really good - thick, creamy with a slight tinge of sourness. Chorizo sausage breakfast with foie gras and scrambled egg whites and a sourdough bread. It's a really hearty breakfast and the sausage is really tasty and mildly spicy.

Vanilla pancakes with whipped cream (the delicious fatty kind not the one that comes from a cannister!) and freshly chopped mint leaves. Topped with poached berries and maple syrup! YUM! These pancakes have similar consistency and texture to the macdonalds pancakes (whic are my 'gold standard' for pancakes). I liked how they added creshly chopped mint to the whipped cream.And these are strawberry vanilla pancakes so there's slices of strawberries in them :D
What better way to end the meal than to have a towering plate of truffle fries... Yellow is the cheerful feeling that you get when you sit in front of a pile of these :D The Truffle fries here come with fresh grated parmesan cheese. If Macdonalds served this, I would have a heart attack in an instant...

On a side note, after brunch, I had to RUSH down to my car cos my carpark coupon had expired about 30min ago and the carpark attendant was FINING people. It was such a relief when I reached my car and the attendant was 5 cars away. Whew! Saved myself a massive fine which would have to come out from my food allowance....

45 Ann Siang Road
#02-02
Singapore 069719
T:(+65) 6222 3143

Graze @ One Rochester

2011-05-18T20:45:00.003+08:00

Went to Graze for Sunday Brunch quite a few weeks ago I had my default Eggs Benedict ($19++)- I can hardly ever resist having this dish if it's on the menu cos I really like hollandaise sauce. The Eggs benedict at Graze comes with either ham, smoked salmon and chives or spinach and mushrooms. They were rather stingy on the hollandaise sauce - see how the sauce on my second egg hardly covers the top of it. I requested for more sauce and the waitress said that I would have to pay for a top up. To which I protested cos the portion is really stingy. Fortunately, she returned with a small bowl of it, much to our delight. And at no further cost either.

The Old fashioned pancake stack ($14++) comes with crispy bacon, bananas and lots of dipping sauces. Honey, maple syrup and chocolate sauce, as well as a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The pancakes are thick and fluffy, not overly floury and it was really delicious. If I had to recommend a dish, I would definitely recommend this cos it was unanimously the best dish of the meal.
The Spanish omelette ($19++) is a rather small thin omelette with chorizo, bell pepper and smoked cheddar. I suppose tha the chorizo is the most expensive part of the omelette (I just went to Cold storage the other day and 2 pieces of chorizo costs $14+) so I supose that is why this omelette is more expensive. Recommend this for people with little appetites...
The corned beef hash ($24++) which I didn't try...

A dissappointing dish was the cinnamon and raisin butter toast ($7++) served with some kind of jam. It looked like it came from one of those packets of buns from Cold Storage... Really very ordinary and I would defnintely not order this again.

The service here can really be improved. Somehow I get the vibe that the entire crew is extremely unhappy and this somewhat marred the dining experience. Even more so since the food is nothing much to shout about, and prices aren't exactly the cheapest around... In view of this, I would very much rather recommend other branch places, since there is an abundance of these brunch places popping up all over.

Then again, if you're into alcoholic drinks, their Sunday Brunch has some alcoholic drinks like the Mimosa (and some other drink, I think a Bloody Mary?) at a mere $6 (If I am not mistaken) top up with some brunch sets. Which makes it really worth it but it's a pity I don't like oranges and they won't serve it with any other juice, which I thought was really ridgid and inflexible. The ambience is really nice, just like all other restaurants at One Rochestor. If you're not scared of the heat and the UV radiation, I would highly recommend sitting outside in their nice garden setting. They have a pond with lots of fishes, lush greenery with lots of bamboo (my fave plant ever!). But being true Singaporeans, we hid from the humidity and sat indoors;P

Graze @ One Rochester

4 Rochester Park

Tel: +65 6775 9000

Yee Shun Milk Company, Hong Kong

2011-05-04T21:55:00.006+08:00

So I've survived my first day gardening and though I've yet to adapt to the painfully slow computer system, blundering and floundering around with all the new systems, I was pleasantly suprised that I could leave at 5pm. On the dot! :DAnother post on HK! Lol I'm getting supremely distracted.
When I was doing my last minuted research for food in Hong Kong, I stumbled upon this BC magazine (or something or another) which had a list of dessert stalls to visit in HK. Also I read about it at Camemberu's blog. Yee Shun milk company was one of the highly recommended dessert places, and best of all, it's located really near to where I was staying (I was staying near Elements Mall at Kowloon MRT station). In fact, the article I read said something like 'condolences if you're lactose intolerant' cos the dessert here is so good!

If you can see closely - there's this film of 'skin' on top of the milk - so it's the 'shuang1 pi2' or two skinned milk dessert. I'm not a big fan of the skin but I really do like the wobbly custard like milk pudding. I have never found a milk pudding in Singapore which can come close to rivaling Yee Shun's.

Lots and lots of the milk pudding dessert - it comes in an assortment of flavours, with options to add toppings but I think it's best enjoyed original and unadulterated and without the interference of all the other additions.

Another thing that I liked about this place is that the service is really friendly. Which is marvellous by Hong Kong standards as most of these small business are extremely brusque. When we got to this place, they welcomed us with smiles and patiently recommended their desserts (to try the original if it's the first time we were here).

Yee Shun Milk Company

513 Nathan Road

Hong Kong

Tel: +852 2374-5460

Randomness End of the 'P' plate postings

2011-05-03T21:09:00.011+08:00

So it's going to be 4th May 2011 tmr and it will be exactly 1 yr since I've started work! Which is exciting and scary at the same time... I think the last 3 months flew by so quickly and I've had lots of fun working and learning with all my colleagues. Even the 8 months of eating crap food in the crap canteen in the far east seems so distant now that I'm going to the land of plenty and good food... And if anyone is wondering, I would truly and wholeheartly recommend doing a posting there cos it's a really friendly and nice place!

Somehow when I think of the new batch of juniors coming in I am reminded of Haruki Murakami's 'living desert': "Our world is exactly the same. Rain falls and the flowers bloom. No rain, they wither up. Bugs are eaten by lizards, lizards are eaten by birds. One generation dies, and the next takes over. That´s how it goes. Lots of different ways to live. And lots of different ways to die. But in the end that doesn´t make a bit of difference, All that remains is a desert."
Anyways, hope that everyone will have a great next posting, as great has eating truffle fries with freshly grated parmesan cheese (from PS cafe) with friends on a lazy drizzly Sunday morning especially if you don't have to work. I really like my photo - its even more cheerful than sunflowers especially since you can eat it and inhale that wonderful relaxing truffle aroma! No need for aromatherapy anymore...

And onto gardening next!

Well, to the people who have assess to Starbucks during working hours (i.e. ME!;D)
Happy Hour at StarbucksTo celebrate the launch, Starbucks will holding a week-long Happy Hour event. From 16th May (Monday) to 20th May 2011, 3pm to 5pm, customers can enjoy their personalized Frappuccino® at any Starbucks store for half price. Just got this in the mail today so I decided to share! :D

Todai

2011-05-03T20:27:00.006+08:00

Todai is this newly launched Korean seafood buffet. It's a pretty popular buffet concept in Korea, and they've just opened another branch in Singapore at Marina Bay Sands. Today hs a sprawling 87-metre long buffet line with emphasis on seafood. They also have an open kitchen concept so you can see most of your food being prepared.

(Btw, this is posted using another Canon camera and not my usual S90 which was unfortunately at servicing cos it wasn't focusing well)...Lots and lots of seafood. There's freshly shucked oysters (limited to 2 pieces per person per time, but you can queue unlimited times), prawns, mussles, scallops etc.
Another draw is the chilled snowcrab legs (seen in the first picture). Personally it's not my favourite way to eat crab (my last very memorable crab meal was the salted egg crab at Big Eater) and the legs are my least favourite part of the crab.
They also have an assortment of sashimi and other shellfish There's also a long line of different kinds of sushi and many original creations, with interesting names such as Volcano and Merlion.

Some of the random appetisers I had - there's celaric salad (this type of root which is very crunchy and has a distinct taste), pasta salad, mashed sweet potato (tasted really nice, but I'm biased cos I love sweet potato), caesar salad (my fave kind of salad cos its also one the unhealthiest!)

The pizza was suprisingly really delicious. Initially, to 'save space' we decided to share one piece but it ended up not being enough! The crust is really thin and it's baked in a clay oven.

There's also a Brazilian Churassco station (which features tenderloin and various cuts of beef, and beef is the main draw here) which looks really good but since I don't eat beef I didn't try it, though the people seated at my table had positive comments for the grilled beef.

There's also a Korean station which has rice cakes, gyoza etc and other lesser known Korean foods.

Another dish which I really enjoyed was the seafood pasta which was much more galicky than the Italian version, but came with a generous serving of seafood. It's freshly cooked on the spot in front of you and it's really worth getting, though I would recommend sharing it with a friend. One of their specialities is their tempura Ginseng. It's actually these small little pieces of ginseng deep fried in tempura batter, and since Ginseng is bitter, there's honey to drizzle over the ginseng tempura. Taste wise, it tastethress exactly like how ginseng usually tastes, just that the texture is rather interesting. It has th

There are also vare texture of a sweet potato - which isn't suprising since it's actually a storage root.

Another highlight is the dessert stations. Not only do they have soft serve ice cream (vanilla and chocolate), there's also free flow of Korean strawberries. Since discovering Korean/Japanese strawberries a few years back, I have never ever wanted to go back to the dark red, bulbous USA/Australian strawberries. The Korean/Japanese strawerries are much more delicate, and have an intense sweetness and burst of flavour, exactly like how all the Japanese Strawberry sweets taste like. Also, they have none of the tartness and 'bite' that the USA/Australian strawberries have. I think I can finish 4 punnets of these easily!

There are also various bite sized cakes, the cheesecake was pretty good too. I was really full by this time so the cake must be really good... There's also creme brulee and mango pudding.

Todai also has free flow of soft drinks, iced flavoured tea, Nescafe coffee as well as my favourite chilled Milo. Milo is my favourite drink even though the packed kind is made with palm oil instead of milk! Bet my arteries are all clogged from my many years of Milo drinking.Thanks to the staff at Todai, Wanxuan, Maeva for the wonderful dinner which left us bursting at the seams...

If I'm not wrong the buffet is about $55 or $65 per person (need to confirm this but it's around that price).

Todai Singapore

The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands

2 Bayfront Avenue

B2-001, Singapore 018972

Aoki Lunch

2011-04-29T21:06:00.005+08:00

I'm supposed to minimise my consumption of food from Japan cos of all the radiation but even though the spirit is willing, the body is weak. So to treat myself for my last 'p plate call', I had my postcall lunch at Aoki, which is my favouritest Japanese place in Singapore. I must say that after 1 year of torturing myself on calls, I can now at least stay awake long enough to eat a nice lunch before concussing for the next 12-14 hours.

I shall return to Japan about 10-15 years from now, my logic being that it's the half life of caesium), so from now to then, I shall just have to satisfy my Japanese food craving with little portions of good quality Japanese food instead of large quantities of mediocre ones.
Hijiki seaweed - reminds me of the one that Wasabi Tei used to serve but it's less sweet and has a bit more meat.

Aoki's signature salad wich a nice tangy wafu dressing

Radiation +++ but it's so delicious! Especially the tuna belly (look at all the nice marbling) which literally melted in my mouth and glided down my throat. I actually wanted to eat my usual 'cheapo' Maze chirashi but it was sold out already. I really wanted to eat that nice egg castella thing and have the delicious uni (sea urchin) and salmon roe...

The rice has anago (sea eel) as well as this sweetened pickle. And some other pickles like the eggplant thing on the right side (which I don't like but it's supposed to be v popular in Japan).

Of course, the meal ended with Aoki's signature trio of desserts - the only fixed one so far has been the plum wine jelly (top right). There's also a milk custard with mango sauce but I think and a sakura flavoured ice cream.

Maybe I should come up with a list of my fave post call foods especially my 'nourishing soup' from Pu Tien which I rate as my number one most essential post call foods... Then again, it will be luxury during my next posting, so maybe not! At least I'm going to the place with the best food (though I have doubts that I have enough time to enjoy it).

Aoki
1 Scotts Road

#02-17 Shaw Centre
Tel: +65 6333 8015

Lung King Hin - Four Seasons, Hong Kong

2011-04-11T22:38:00.006+08:00

I visited Hong Kong at the end of March during my leave... Booking a lunch slot at Lung King Hin is no easy feat. My recommendation is that you book very early. As soon as you secure your flight dates, as this restaurant is immensely popular. It's a three star Michelin restaurant, and the main draw here for me is that they serve dim sum, which is my favourite type of Chinese food. Furthermore, the lunch set is affordable, unlike the western kind of Michelin star restaurant where a meal can come up to a few hundreds. The main draw for me is the dim sum, which is only served during lunch. During dinner, you'll get Cantonese dishes. The restaurant has a nice view of the harbour, and as expected of any posh restaurant, impeccable service.

Condiments - chilli, XO sauce and some black bean sauce.

Baked BBQ pork buns with Pine Nuts (Polo Pau with Char siew) (HKD$52++ for 3 pieces)- these little mini buns were nice and sweet, and as I'm a big fan of polo buns so I really enjoyed these. Though I thought that the onions were a bit too chunky and raw for my liking. I especially like the char siew polo buns from the Kee Wah bakery (which can be found next to Yung Kee and in the airport) which are really value for money (and plus the convenience) cos of the great surface area so you get more of the sweet polo crust.

Steamed Lobster and scallop dumpling (HKD $36 per piece)

All the dian xin skins (the translucent covering) were so thin and translucent, and the ingredients were very fresh. I shall just upload the pictures with minimal commentry cos the food here was really good.

Steamed fish dumpling with air-dried meat, conpoy and coriander (HDK$48++ for 3 pieces)

Steamed vegetable dumplings with bamboo piths (HKD $48++ for 3 pieces)

Steamed Shrimp dumplings and bamboo piths aka Siew Mai (HKD$48 ++ for 3 pieces)

Crispy Taro dumplings with Seafood and vegetables in XO chilli sauce (HKD $52++ for 3 pieces)

This was one of my faves. I really like to eat yam basket but it's messy and you need many many people to eat it with you or there'll be diminishing returns. This is like a bite sized yam basket, with extremely smooth yam, crispy coating and fresh seafood bits altogehter in one portion size helpings (though I could easily eat 3)

Another dim sum that I was yearning for since reading the numerous reviews online was the Baked Whole Abalone Puff with diced chicken (HKD $48 per piece). It didn't dissappoint. It's a braised whole baby abalone perched on top of a buttery pastry and the tart is filled with juicy tender morsels of chicken pieces. The abalone is even sliced diagonally into 2 for easier consumption. And the Xiao Long Pau which Ding Tai Fung single handedly propelled to popularity in Singapore. These were delicious and came on this wooden contraption, I suppose, for ease of dousing vinegar on...

They also had an executive set lunch menu which comes with 3 pieces of selected dim sum (which are some of the above but I'm not sure which). The set lunch costs HKD $450 per person though after trying both the dim sum and the set lunch, I would recommend the former without a doubt, though I am biased already since I really love dim sum and not Chinese food.

The soup of the day - can't remember what kind of soup but it's pork with something or another. The Cantonese can't do without their soups...

Pipa style BBQ duck with seafood sauce

For the life of me, I cannot appreciate roasted meats, so no comments on this.

Braised tofu with scallops and fresh mushrooms in abalone sauce

Another very Chinese style dish, which I thought was passable, the tofu was nice and smooth, scallops exquisitely fresh but it's the Chinese cooking which I cannot appreciate. Wok-fried chicken fillet with dried chillies and shallots

Steamed fried rice with conpoy wrapped in lotus leaf

This was closer to the 'dim sum' category so I really liked this. The lotus leaf made the rice really fragrant and the meat (char siew, dried scallop etc) were cut into very small pieces so the rice was very tasty and infused with the flavour from the meats. Chilled Mango and Sago Cream and Pomelo

This is one of the best Mango pomelo sago I have tried - the mango taste is really fresh and intense, and there'a even a layer of mango pudding right at the bottom. The sago balls are not the soggy kind but are very bonucy and QQ when you chew on them.

Petit Fours

The red bean and coconut agar jelly was pretty nice, but I was too full to appreciate the red bean pastry.

I also ordered 2 additional pastries to complete our meal

We had the baked cream custard puffs, which are leaf shaped and patterend. The pastry here is nice and buttery, though I thought that the custard was a bit too dry for my personal liking.

I really enjoyed the Crispy Carrot Puffs with Milk Custard. Not only do they really look like carrits, they're filled with milk custard. The pastry is the kind of pastry similar to those you get from the A1 curry puff stall, which, on a normal day. Their presentation is really interesting.

Lung King Hin

Four Seasons Hotel

8 Finance Street Central, Hong Kong

Tel. (852) 3196-8888

Gusttimo Gelateria

2011-04-10T18:31:00.000+08:00

Singapore is probably one of the best places to sell ice cream in (even though we are quite saturated with so many new ice cream stalls being set up now) cos there aren't any winters and the weather is so hot that ice creams are Their gelatos have a good mix of fruity and creamy, and one of the most popular gelato flavour here is the black rice. It's not like pulut hitam (black glutinous rice) but is a nuttier version. I also like their cheese ice cream lots. Their fruity flavours are very refreshing, and I particularly liked the strawberry gelato. Some other worthy mentions include the Rose (which sounds good but I didn't have enough space in my dessert stomach to try that) and rum and raisin.

Gusttimo doesn't only serve ice cream, but it also has 4 new desserts on their menu. Gusttimo has recently started serving desserts on top of their many gelatos. Each dessert costs $12.80, (which is around the usual market price for such desserts) and comes with a scoop of gelato of your choice.Sticky date puddings are one of my most favourite dessert - I have to order it whenever I see it on the dessert menu. My yard stick is still marmalade pantry's but the best I've tried in Sgp was from Boomerang. The sticky date pudding comes with a pool of butterscotch in the centre. I liked the sweetness and taste, but the outside of the pudding a bit too dry, though it was easily remedied by dipping it into the butterscotch... Somehow I just think that sticky date puddings shouldn't come in this shape cos they'll be slightly more dry.My second favourite was the Molten Chocolate lava cake. It's like licking the batter of the spoon when you bake a cake. Eating molten chocolate cake always reminds me of that. And since it's chocolate, it's hard to go wrong with this dessert. I quite liked Gusttimo's version of this cos the crust was a really thin layer and there was a large amount of the molten chocolate inside. If this cake is cooked too long, the insides will get cooked just like a regular cake. The brownie was the most underrated dessert of the day. If I had had one of these by itself, I would have said that it was a really good brownie since it was moist, soft and chocolatey but it was really overshadowed by the sticky date pudding and the molten chocolate cake.

The apple crumble had delicious bits of apple and cinnamon filling in just the right proportions, but the crumble was slightly soggy.

Somehow I always forget about Gusttimo whenever I go to Ion and my brain has up till now been wired to think of TWG and Marmalade Pantry for desserts in Ion. I must remind myself next time that there's also Gusttimo hidden in the corner of the first floor. It's probably because I never ever shop on their first floor?

Gusttimo Gelateria

2 Orchard Turn

Level 1 #01-17

ION Orchard

Tel: 6509 9380

Thanks to Gusttimo for the invite!

Yung Kee's Century eggs

2011-04-03T22:15:00.004+08:00

Hello! Sorry for the lack of updates - been very busy, and busy procrastinating. I've still got many posts that I haven't blogged about including a dessert tasting at Gusttimo (will be up as soon as I'm done editing the humongous photos).
I've just gotten back from Hong Kong (stressed my pancreas lots by eating many meals and desserts everyday) and in Shenzhen (shopping and relaxing) and I'm now back relaxing infront of my laptop eating the famous Yung Kee century eggs. Didn't eat at their restaurant tho cos the last time I ate there July the food wasn't impressive enough to warrant another visit. Though I must say that their century eggs are worth the cholesterol, crawling up the mountainous area in Central and lugging back since they have such a nice oozy molten center. They're the equivalent to half boiled eggs in the century egg world. And the ginger is really nice. In fact, the ginger is the first preserve ginger that I actually enjoyed and thus now I am less adverse to eating preserved ginger (though I do enjoy ginger in nearly every other form except its original form).

Yung Kee

Address: 32-40 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong

TWG Brunch

2011-03-22T17:22:00.003+08:00

Previously, the only sad choice for tea in the heart of Orchard used to be Royal Copenhagen but their desserts leave much room for improvement. TWG's dining does come with a hefty price tag though - if you're willing to blow about $40++ on brunch, this is definitely the place to splurge your money on. Not to say that the food is fantastic, but just the ambience and the vibe makes it worth it. The interior is decorated like those opulent quaint hotels/restaurants with lots of gold embellishments.

Since we were feeling indulgent and thanks to work the weekend brunches are few and far between, we decided that it was well worth the splurge to try TWG since it looked so nice (lol I'm superficial when it comes to restaurants!)

Breakfast sets aren't available on weekends, so the only choices are the brunch and the lunch. Sadly, we were an hour away from lunch so we ended up having their brunch. (Not a bad thing but I'd rather come back for their tea time sets which look extremely yummy!)

I had the Gourmet Brunch set ($40++) which comes with a TWG tea ($11++ ala carte), Freshly squeezed apple/orange juice (I had the apple juice, which has a nice rosy hue), Scrambled eggs (Fresh Farmhouse eggs scrambled with a choice of Matcha green tea, pure saffron threads or white alba truffle oil). No prizes for guessing which one I chose.

I didn't quite like the eggs cos they were a bit too watery and clumpy for my liking. The eggs were served with smoked salmon (one thin piece) and a mixed salad of tender spinach shoots and marinated shrimp. Again, not very impressive.

My set also came with French Brioche toasts served with TWG tea jelly. I didn't particularly enjoy my toast as it was slightly too dry and a bit too crispy for my liking. I still like Wild Honey's Brioche best.

Each of the brunch sets came with a TWG tea patisserie from the tea trolley (urgh forgot to take a photo of it cos I was too busy deciding which one to eat!) It's really fun peering into their dessert trolley and choosing a pastry cos everything looks so nice...

The Midsummer Brunch ($40++) set comes with a TWG tea, juice, a Summer Quiche - warm rustic French style vegeterian quiche filled with seasonal vegetables an served with a light cream sauce, garden salad (don't you just like their descriptions? Makes you feel like eating everything!) and a 'Choice of 2 freshly baked muffins or scones' as well as a TWG tea patisserie.

I'm not a big fan of quiche so that quiche tasted rather passable to me. It's a generous serving and quite a thick size quiche.
My lousy angled shot of the 3-tiered tray which had our Brioche toast and the scones. The scones at TWG are lovely. In fact, for 2 weeks after that especially while on call (all my cravings hit when I am on call) I was longing for the lovely buttery scones which are dainty and small and studded with sweet raisins. They're served warm with butter, tea jelly and whipped cream.

The tea jelly is probably made with apple juice cos there was a pleasant apple flavour.

Paired together, the tea jelly and scone are spectacular and I would return just for them. The texture is moist and soft, and yet sturdy enough to pile on lots of tea jelly and whipped cream.

Their tea comes in a nice tea pot which has a layer of insulation so that your tea stays piping hot while you spend your time chatting. Do note that they don't do tea refills (the teapot doesn't have any tea leaves just the ready made tea).

When we were there, we must have stretched our server's memory cos we simply had such a difficult time deciding from the array of tea choices (one whole menu filled with numbers - and no descriptions so we had to ask our server to describe the nicer sounding ones). In fact, I've forgotten what kind of tea I drank (lol!) but I know it's a green tea... I really can't imagine the amount of time the servers spend memorising their tea menu! Worse than memorizing dictation...

Our tea pastry - this one is a cheesecake with a green tea base. I can't really remember what it's called but it was nice and creamy and the bitter green tea base offset the richness of the cream cheese layer.

Some chocolate dessert we chose (I actually cannot remember the name) but perhaps it was cos I was already full so there was diminishing returns and the dessert isn't outstanding enough for me to remember much about it.

If there's room for improvement, the dessert department needs some serious working on, especially on the presentation. Our second chocolate pastry was collapsing onto itself. I'm not too sure if it was too warm in the restaurant but it looked quite sorry by the time it reached our table. Other than that, the meal was realy pleasant and I'd definitely be back for some scones and to soak up the nice ambience :D

TWG Tea Salon and Boutique

Ion Shopping Mall

2 Orchard Turn

#02 - 21Singapore 238801

http://www.twgtea.com/

Cocotte at Wanderlust Hotel

2011-03-09T20:14:00.004+08:00

Read a glowing write up on Cocotte in the Straits Times Lifestyle section a while ago along with the 23456643 other people who saw the article. I think it was Wong Ah Yoke who wrote about it ? And the description of the the Cocotte chicken and how it is lovingly marinaded and cooked for 2 days (hence the limited supply). I was sold after reading about the chicken.

So many moons later, I finally make it down to Cocotte to sample their famous French chicken. Being the last minute people we are, we made a booking at the last minute (actually, we had wanted to try No Menu but being last-minute, there was NO space - Forlino is popular ++) and hence we settled for second choice at Cocotte. Which had space - just that we had to vacate the table by 830pm.
To start, mini French Baguettes with French butter which were nice and crusty on the outside and cottony soft on the inside. Good restaurant bread puts me in a good mood for dinner. In particular, I like the one from Bonta (winner of all restaurant breads - there's a lump of cream cheese hidden inside!) and from Otto (onion bread is fantabulous!) The fresh pear, macadamia nuts and blue cheese (or was it gorgonzola?) salad with a light lemon-olive oil dressing didn't quite hit the spot for me. I partially attribute it to the extreme bitterness of the greens. Though I did like the combination of crisp, juicy pear, creamy pungent cheese and macadamias.

The escargots come with a tomato coulis (fancy name for paste) which was tart and refreshing, as well as a ?basil sauce. Instead of being baked in the usual tray (that most escargots come in) with butter and garlic, these came in dainty choux pastries. The snails themselves were tender, moist and juicy though I won't get the appetisers here again. Passable but not spectacular.

The Chicken (fancy name is Poulet Roti) is only available for dinner and costs a whopping $60 for a full chicken. It's marinaded for 2 days and roasted. And it's no ordinary chicken - it's a hormone free chicken (I suppose they left out the 'injected' cos any live chicken cannot possibly be hormone free).

The meat is so soft, succulent and juicy, that even I, the one who does NOT eat chicken breast (cos I find it much coarser and drier than the lovely juicy thigh) ate the breast happily. The skin is roasted to a brown perfection (though it's not the crispy kind).

The presentation is really nice and I can just imagine how appetising a whole fat roasted chicken sitting on the wooden chopping board... but they've kindly catered to diners in smaller groups and this is the half chicken ($45++) which is meant for 2 people.

The rustic French coutryside vegetables (at least, that's how I imagine it to be, though I can't say for sure where these veggies come from) and the aromatic brown gravy. The roasted baby potatoes are seasoned with coarse sea salt, and the vegetables (asparagus, fennel, peas +++, carrots) are nicely roasted and a nice balance to the chicken.

It was at this point I started regretting ordering a starter because I was 1) getting full 2) really enjoying the chicken.

Though we were slightly full, I had to try the apple tart tartin ($21++, meant for 2 people) which was another of their signature dishces.

The Tart tartin is basically an upside down tart - it was served in a pan and flipped onto a plate at the table. The apples are caramelized into a sweet syrupy pulp but not too soft hence they're able to retain their shape. But bit into one and it will yield to the slightest pressure. The apples also have a nice dark red hue.

I particularly disliked their shortcrust pastry as it was thick and hard. Not very buttery either. Ended up not eating the tart at all. But the apples are delicious - especially when eaten with the creme fresh.

The strawberry pistachio tart ($11++) is a dainty dessert which had fresh strawberries stacked on a thin buttery cookie. The green stuff is actually pistachio paste. It's more elegant than the apple tart but I think if I had to choose between the two, it'll really be a tough fight.

Pink macaroons, with complements from the chef

The bill for all the food above was $135 nett - and we didn't take any drinks. I really cannot remember how much each of the dishes cost but I suppose if you really want to find out, you could either search the internet or call the restaurant.

The general consensus is that it's rather expensive, not the most accessible place (though they do provide free valet). Go for the mains and desserts. Starters we tried were less than impressive. Part of my dining expirence was marred due to a particularly large group in the adjacent table with young children. One of them kept shouting and crying throughout the later 3/4 of our meal which totally spoilt the ambienceD:<

Wanderlust hotel's waiting area is rather intersting and they have all these unique chairs - this one's made from a supermarket trolley (no wheels so you won't roll away) and there's even an old school barber's chair (think Sweeney Todd) in front.

Cocotte

2 Dickson Road,

Ground Level

Wanderlust Hotel
Tel: +65 6298 1188

Pamplemousse Weekend Brunch

2011-03-03T21:56:00.005+08:00

I've been wanting to blog about Pamplemousse for the longest time but I haven't gotten around to doing it cos I've never been in the mood somehow... just like how I've never gotten down to packing my horrendous room even though it's nearly 1 year since I've started work!! Can't seem to throw away all my old stuff....

And another thing is that I have to be in a 'chatty' mood before I do all my blog posts and have no one to talk before I am compelled to blog... I suppose this is a chatty mood of mine (at around 1030pm on a weekday and being severely sleep sleep deprived makes me slighly more rambly tho). Pardon the lighting - the restaurant had a combination of both daylight and the lightbulb light so I didn't get the lighting settings rignt on my camera until after I munched down my bread. I've recently taken a liking to baguettes, which I previously used to avoid like plague - somehow I'm now able to appreciate the crusty exterior and cottony soft interior... Under the bell shaped glass is the butter (good quality and very fragrant!). In fact I had 2 pieces of bread and had to resist getting the 3rd cos it was so yummy!

I had this Baked Eggs in Cocotte ($22++) which came with foie gras (yum!) and truffle salt (another yum!) which are 2 of my more favourite things in life... The bread somehow didn't do the eggs justice cos they were buttery and sweet at the same time and a bit too sweet for my liking.

The pool of black/brown stuff is actually the lovely oils spewing out from the foie gras. Though it was a tiny piece and cos it was baked it didn't have the nice crispy exterior, it's oils and juices infused their delicious flavour into the eggs...

It's actually very tiny but filling cos it's cream based and I was rather full by the end of it (and the breads that I ate)...

Just a random thought - I've gone to Cocotte (the restaurant at Wanderlust hotel) and it was great (though I'd rather go back to Artichoke...) but I haven't shrank and edited the photos...

Soft Boiled Egg ($15++) which came with pureed porcini mushrooms, oyster mushrooms (pureed too), parmesan foam and truffle oil
Probably one of the most expensive soft boiled eggs I've eaten (usually get those in the morning 'breakfast set' along with hot milo and 2 pieces of kaya toast for $2) but this soft boiled egg comes with truffle oil and being the biased person I am, I will like nearly everything with truffle oil. Another thing to note is that they use proper chives (which are expensive locally) and not spring onion.

For dessert, we had the Crepes ($11++) which came with Nutella (another thing that can easily win me over anytime!) home made milo ice cream (my favourite drink the morning), and chantilly cream (fancy name for vanilla cream). I liked the milo powder thing at the side (which also had a fancy name that I cannot remember). I think I would have gladly swapped the chantily cream for another scoop of milo ice cream - the scoop was rather skinny and not enough to eat with 2 pieces of crepes...

Pamplemousse is a really nice place to chill and have a slow Sunday Brunch... I'm dying to try their lunch but my previous attempts have been thwarted as work ended late (their last order for lunch is at 2pm on weekdays).

Pamplemousse

Blk 7 Dempsey Road, #01-04
Tel: +65 6475 0080

Cucumber Sandwiches

2011-03-02T18:06:00.003+08:00

I was having this terrible craving for cucumber sandwiches which I suspect was triggered off by my brunch at TWG (insanely expensive for the stuff you're getting - wonder if I'll ever do it again?) as well as a colleague talking about birthday brunch at somewhere lovely with not one but TWO kinds of cucumber sandwiches...

I was in dire need of a cucumber sandwich yesterday so I had to occupy my mind by finding out more of this very humble sandwich (which doesn't have very humble origins) on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, it's a sandwich for the high class British people who had lots of time to eat (cos they didn't have to work) and thus they will have a very 'light' and un-nutritious cucumber sandwich for tea, as opposed to someone who had to work hard and needed something heavy and more substantial for manual workers.

Of course, I also went to check out many sites on cucumber sandwich recipes (I was wondering if I had to pickle the cucumbers actually...) and I think one of the better sites is here (it's quite an entertaining read even if you don't really want to find out how to make cucumber sandwiches). I decided to pickle my cucumbers so I placed them in a rice vinegar water bath (it's supposed to be cider but I didn't have that at home and I suppose something acidic will do) along with a spoonful of sugar and a dash of salt. I'm using Japanese cucumbers (the local variety looks too soggy and looks as if they will fail me on my cucumber sandwich mission) so I had the slim dainty Japenese strain (which were grown in Malaysia so it's still cheap).

I suppose you can have them fresh and unpickled but I just wanted to try pickling them cos it sounded like they would taste crunchier and nicer... Btw, I used a fruit peeler to get them into really thin slices - my kitchen knife skills are lousy ++ though I must admit that the strips were way too thin and didn't have enough crunch.After taking a bath(yay for post calls!) and letting my cucumbers soak in the water bath, it's time to dry them off using paper towels. According to the Paupered chef, it's importent to get rid of as much moisture as possible so your bread doesn't become soggy.

Prior to putting the cucumbers on the bread, it's important to spread butter/cream cheese (or one on each side of the bread as I did) over the entire surface of the bread in contact with the cucumber so that it will act as a barrier cream does on skin and the bread wont soak up the juices and become wet.

Arrange the cucumbers into neat little strips (just being OCD here it's not necessary at all) but it's important to try to get the same thickness throughout the bread...

For me, the cucumber sandwich wasn't interesting enough so I decided to make a cucumber smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich. I must admit that it's much harder than it looks and I was in danger of leaving my finger marks everywhere on the bread (it's the Gardenia bread with blue colour packaging)

Of course, I don't think it's worth the effort in making it again myself, but I did teach my maid how to make them. Next time I need a cucumber sandwich, I will get myself a cup of tea to go along with it :D

Riverside Indonesian BBQ

2011-03-01T15:52:00.001+08:00

The grilled chicken set from this small stall at 313 somerset was surprisingly nice. According to the sign in front of the stall, they use only fresh chicken and it's grilled using this machine then dipped into a sweetish saltish black sauce. Saw quite a few people eating this dish so decided to try it ( or rather, my mum ate it and I pinched some from her).
The chicken thigh was nicely tender and juicy and I suppose there is mass appeal as the sauce is salty and sweet. The steamed white rice is drenched in fragrant coconut curry and there's a few pieces of fried omelette.
Not bad but I'm not a rice person (unless it's in sushi) so I doubt that I will be coming back specially for this. Furthermore the seating in 313 food area is rather scarce and it took a while to get a seat even at the odd hour of 230pm.

Somehow I am craving for cucumber sandwiches ++++ now. Tragic since I'm on call and there will be not a cucumber (much more a cucumber sandwich) in sight until after lunch Tmr. Can't wait to get myself a neat little pile of cucumber sandwiches tmr!!

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Nanjya Monjya

2011-02-22T15:30:00.004+08:00

I've been told my blog is dying - not that I haven't been happily going out to eat very often, it's just that I've been too lazy to edit my photos and to upload all of them!
Went to Nanjya Monjya for dinner a while back - don't go there if you've got somewhere to go after dinner cos you'll end up stinking of okonomiyaki tho!Basically, Nanjya Monjya is an okonomiyaki place, specialising in all these pancake like things. I really liked their okonomiyaki whcih had cabbage, bits of the preserved ginger, chives, egg and potk belly. The batter is light and fluffy and the okonomiyaki is one of the best I've had in Singapore. At the end of it, there's the brown okonomiyaki sauce and lots of japanese mayonnaise and bonito flakes to pile onto your okonomiyaki. You can either DIY if you're an expert but being the noobs we were, we got the waitress to cook everything for us in fear of burning and destroying the food.

This is their Monjayaki (もんじゃ焼き) which is this messy wet batter cooked over the pan. It still remains a wet mess after cooking. To eat, use the tiny metal spatula to scrape off parts of the wet mess - a thin layer of brown 'skin' will form at the bottom of the batter which I suppose, is the equivalent of the burnt rice layer in claypot rice? The monjayaki we got was the seafood one and though it was quite enjoyable watching the preparation, I'd rather stick to my usual okonomiyaki. Yaki soba with seafood - the high class version of the yaki soba you see at Takashimaya food court and Ion's food court. More meat and vegetables though I think I still prefer the okonomiyaki than this.
Their tofu with cheese and mentaiko (cod roe) was creamy and delicious though it's not a very unique dish and I could easily find it elsewhere.

On the first photo collage there's a picture of the daikon salad ($9++) which I really liked - it's strips of daikon in a tuna and mayo dressing with bits of other vegetables. The daikon is really juicy and very refreshing to eat especially since it's served very chilled. I would highly recommend this salad since I haven't seen it being served elsewhere (not that I have been looking very hard...)

I also had the Calpis Chu which is calpis (one of my favourite drinks!) mixed with plum wine. Though I must say that the combination tasted like medicine.... Will stick to my usual calpis drink (I love the calpis rich which is even milkier than the normal calpis!)

Pricing wise, it's not that cheap with each dish costing around $20 or so and it's not particularly filling either. Though I must say that it's really a nice experience pretending that I'm back in Japan eating okonomiyaki ;)

Nanjya Monjya

390A Havelock Road

#01-03/05, Waterfront Plaza Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel
Tel: +65 6738 7177

Freshness Burger - Spam Burger

2011-02-03T00:48:00.005+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year to all my Readers! I know I've missed New Years and Christmas :(

Next post up will be the obligatory lo hei dinner post :D And after that, hopefully I will stop procrastinating and start on my Pamplemousse post!Had the Spam Burger from Freshness Burger (after a positive experience, and after checking out a couple of blogs and finding that most people who tried it enjoyed it). At first sight, I thought my eyes were deceiving me cos the bun was white and coated with sesame seeds but I distinctly remembered the chicken teriyaki burger had a soft yellow bun! Fret not cos the teriyaki chicken burger really has a different bun from the spam burger.

The Spam Burger has a pan fried thick piece of spam (aka Luncheon meat) sandwiched between their signature juicy tomato slice (big sweet and red) and a sunny side up egg. In the other blogs that I checked out, they had runny yolks which looks so delicious - imagine the golden yolk oozing over the spam and dripping onto the burger - makes me feel like eating one right now. Perhaps it was cos I had takeaway so my egg wasn't runny anymore?

The spam makes the burger really delicious especially when coupled with a warm fried egg and cottony soft buns. Somehow unhealthy food tastes so good - perhaps it's cos it's a rarity? There's also a bit of mayo with the shredded cabbage at the bottom so the whole burger is nice and moist. I liked how they used cabbage instead of lettuce cos the lettuce would just soak up all the oil and turn translucent and gross. The cabbage still retains it's crunchiness and adds texture to the burger.

Of course, I had these with my Kiwi Mix Protector ($4.90) in hopes of its antioxidants clearing out the junk I've been eating, just because it has real fruits blended in ;p I still stand by my avocado salad ($3) which comes with nice ripe diced avocado, minced onions and cucumbers, with a dash of what I think is Tabasco for some zing.

The coleslaw on the other hand is very unremarkable - the corn is sweet and juicy but the dressing lacks a punch and it's only shredded cabbage and corn and isn't particularly tasty.

I also decided to clog up my arteries with the onion rings (highly recommended by atetoomuch) and I had no regrets. Whole onion slices deep fried in a light airy batter (think the kind of batter that comes with beer battered fish and chips, minus the beer). Though my only complaint is that the portion is rather small and after popping what seems to be a few of these onion rings in, you'll realized that you're through the packet before you know it.

Freshness Burger

2 Tampines Central 5

#01-37 Century Square

Singapore 529509

When I was working today, I had one extremely nice incident and another unpleasant thing happening to me. I was so touched by the first one and it really made my day:D
The other one was this filthy liar b*tch (and it's not the female dog I am talking about) that I was unfortunately working with previously who I again had the misfortune of interacting with today. Of course, what goes around comes around ;) We shall have to wait and see;P

Nandos @ Tanglin Mall

2011-02-01T22:34:00.001+08:00

I have somehow been returning to Tanglin Mall many many times in the last 2 months - about 4 times I think! Especially since there's absolutely nothing good to buy there (one of my aims of going to shopping malls for meals is so that I can buy things!) So I've finally tried Nando's after nearly the rest of the world has tried it. I had the quarter chicken with 2 sides ($13.80++) and requested for the thigh (which is my fave part of the chicken cos it's tender and meaty). I had the 'mild' spiciness (hence the 'tickle your tastebuds') and it's really quite mild even for my very low standard chili tolerence, I was able to complete the chicken without any water.

Of course, being flame grilled chicken specialist restaurant, their chicken doesn't dissappoint. The skin is charred just right so that it's crispy and there's hardly any fat under the skin. The chicken is well marinaded in their spices, and an additional layer of sauce (mild, moderate or spicy) coats each piece. Best of all, it's not too salty either. The thigh was on the skinny side, so it really wasn't that satisfying. They have their special sauce in 3 different levels of spiciness on every table - so if it's not tasty/spicy enough you can always feel free to add more. The mildest sauce is the Lemon herb sauce which isn't to my liking since I don't like citrus but the mild is pretty tolerable.

I had the potato salad and coleslaw for sides - the potato salad is pretty nice different from usual potato salads in that it was new potatoes and had this quite watery saue. The spiced rice was a much better choice and had this nice middle eastern taste.

Just as well that their mild sauce wasn't so spicy since Nandos' has joined the league of other 'no tap water' policy, which is such a shame since they have pretty good chicken. And pricey considering that you only get restaurant service but no water with it.
Though the chicken tastes great, prices are on the steep side, which makes me feel like just roasting my nicely marinated chicken thighs in my oven at home - rather than spending around $15 nett on a skinny thigh and 2 sides, and no free water. Not even a compromise if you paid 50 cents/80cent/s 1.20 you CANNOT get water here - you just have to buy bottled.

Nandos
163 Tanglin Road
#01-14/15 Tanglin Mall
Tel: +65 6235 3555

Mood Boosting Sticky Date pudding

2011-01-30T16:28:00.001+08:00

The day is so perfect so nice cool and rainy for sleeping in and eating macdonalds pancakes but I'm on call!! So tragic. And I got woken up at 550am cos I forgot to turn off my work phoneD:<
Had my fave marmalade pantry sticky date pudding ytd after eating alot of sushi at Itacho. Sticky, chewy and warm with sweetness from the dates and a huge scoop of kapiti vanilla bean ice cream. Topped with butterscotch sauce. So satisfying. I suppose that I will think of this when I eat qiji for dinner:(
Maybe I shall return there tmr for more sticky date pudding to boost my mood. Morale is at an all time low...

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Cold Poached Chocolate

2011-01-29T15:25:00.001+08:00

I've never particularly been interested in Awfully Chocolates chocolate cakes until trying their cold poached chocolate. I've tried their Super Stacked Chocolate Cake a few times and their usual chocolate cake a few other times but they never were extremely inspiring so I've never blogged about them. Furthermore, Awfully Chocolate outlets have sprouted out everywhere like mushrooms after the rain, and hence it was never really worth blogging abt.

However, I've just had an epiphany and I'm now really inspired to blog after trying their awesome Cold Poached Chocolate. I've never been interested in trying it cos there's a mountain of whipped cream over a relatively small lump of chocolate and I'm not a big fan of whipped cream. They prepare the cold poached chocolate on a cold slab with these circular chocolate moulds (very much like the met moulds you use while making a perfectly circular sunny side up egg) and then leaving it there to 'poach'.

The product is a mousse like chilled chocolate dessert. The whipped cream comes in 2 different flavours -Bailey or butterscotch.

The chocolate is just as I have described but it's extremely rich and satisfying. Like eating those delicious chocolate mousse cakes without any of the interfering cake layers.

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Fourty Hands

2011-01-28T16:16:00.001+08:00

Fourty hands is this Eco friendly cafe tucked in the recesses of the sleepy Tiong Baru estate. (I still don't know why it's Eco friendly - says all abt my environmental friendliness...)

We had their poached eggs with muffins which was not bad,though nothing extremely spectacular which I will crave for. Muffins were a bit soggy too.

The lamb sandwich($9 something) stole the show tho it was so delicious and smelt really strongly of lamb and assorted spices. There were also diced crunchy cucumbers, onions and peppers. The foccacia bread is nicely toasted in the press grill and it's quite affordable and filling.

We also had the chocolate tart which has a chocolate tart base but the filling was had the texture of pudding/custard.

It's a nice place to chill, though it can be a bit noisy cos the place is quite small. Will come back to try their other sandwiches!

Fourty Hands
Block 78 Yong Siak street
#01-12
tel 62258545

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VeganBurg

2011-01-19T19:18:00.001+08:00

Tried vegan burger on a weekday last week. The name is such an oxymoron and I don't know why people want to eat pseudo-meat (with the exception of myself since I am very kaypoh and want to know what everything tastes like). I suppose eating pseudo-meat is against some peoples principles;) Actually I have no idea why people need to make fake meat when there's perfectly good meat around other than for religious reasons. Personally I don't see why bother making vegetable material into the form of real meat - I mean doesn't the thought of eating meat make vegetarians feel guilty?
This is the Tangy Tartar ($5.85 for the burger, $9.85 for burger, fries and juice) which is a breaded flakey vegan patty (I suppose it's trying to be a fake fish patty?) which was supposed to come with lettuce and alfafa but the latter was missing. It comes with a whole meal bun and tangy tartar sauce (which tastes like tartar sauce with an extra squirt of lemon).
Their pseudo fish patty is deep fried and has a texture quite close to a badly fried fish fillet but it was the better burger out of the 2 we tried that night.
I had the Pineapple soy burger and the patty was actually quite mushy but had the texture of meat and didn't really taste of much besides the sweet plum sauce. The ciabatta bread was one of the highlights and I liked that the bread came with pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Though I didn't quite enjoy my burger cos it was too sweet and I was really craving for something savory.

From my very limited experience with all these soy patties and Iif my memory doesn't fail me, and if I remember correctly from my secondary school days, they actually can use yeast in a reactor and then spin down the proteins to make these patties! so some of these vegan patties are actually made from yeast cell walls though I think Vegan burger uses soy. Btw, Marmite/Bovril is also made from yeast... I've tried the Subway Veggie patty (which is very ridiculously priced cos it's flown in from the USA) and I think they're more or less the same - quite mushy and not having any particular taste.

There's also some more interesting burgers like the Char-grilled satay burger and another one called Cracked pepper mayo which has a vegan patty with cracked black pepper. I suppose if I ever come back, I'd go for one of the more 'tasty' ones.

The meals all come with seaweed fries which are pretty unremarkable, but then again, I am not a fries lover.
I also had the spinach potato pops which are quite pricey at $3.80 for 5 pieces (looks like alot but its just lettuce underneath). Wouldn't try those again... It's like deep fried herbed potato balls nothing amazingly special. But I would have liked to try the veganfranks which is a pure vegan sausage (but it really looks like a sausage!) I really want to know how a fake sausage tastes like...

They also have these really 'healthy' drinks like passion fruit and orange juice hough it's not freshly squeezed. I had the spinach and wheatgrass which j thought tasted moe syrupy than anything and it had a fruity base (I think it's pear juice?). Somehow after having this meal I missed my usual coke/green tea.

I think it's a pretty interesting concept but I'm totally heading to Freshness Burger at Century Square instead! And just a note if you're curious about Vegan burger - I was studying their menu and I think that if you want to try the burger and vege franks, the best meal to get will be the VeganKidz meal which has a kid sized burger (Looks like the tangy tartare one) and vegefranks and fries, including a kid size juice.

Vegan burger
44 Jalan Eunos Singapore 419502

Tel 68446868

www.veganburg.com

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Soup Broth Asia

2011-01-12T22:31:00.004+08:00

My life is passing so slowly it feels like 2 months has passed in the last 10 days. Omg! I still have 15 more weeks left!!! :( I am damn sad cos the canteen has the worst food possible. And then there are issues of respecting privacy which is important to me +++++ So the whole sum of nonsense things is making my life damn sad that I cannot sigh enough times to make myself feel happier. HAIZ!!
Anyway onto a nice meal I had what seems EONS ago cos my life is crawling by sooooo slooooooooowly like a geriatric snail.

Went to try Soup broth Asia at Raffles City. They have these mix and match set meals where you can have either a 1 appetiser, 2 sides, rice and a soup for about 12-15 bucks. Some of their soups are very commonly found in S'pore like their fish slice soup, which I think I will not spend my money on cos I can get it for much cheaper in a hawker centre, but they have other interesting ones from different regions in Asia like some Korean chicken ginseng soup (which apparently has no ginseng taste), some Indonesian duck (or was it chicken) soup, some spicy curry etc.

I tried the soup which has soy milk added and tofu as well as some weird gluten ball thing as well as pork slices. It's really pretty tasty, not too salty (considering my salt tolerance is v long) and there's an option of upgrading (for aobut 1.50 or 2 bucks) the plain white rice to either yam rice (which I wanted, but was sold out) or fried rice (which I took cos I don't like eating white rice).

The fried rice has lots of egg and a mild wok hei taste and smell, though it's nothing spectacular.
Their sides are pretty interesting - I tried the stir fried kai lan with garlic which wasn't too bad just that it was slightly too oily, sweet and sour pork which was average, and the potato salad. I think the wasabi prawns looked much better - dunno why I didn't choose that? And they have healthy cold tofu with ponzu sauce.
The soups tend to sell out when it's too late (like when we decided to have dinner) so if you want all the options available, go early...
Bumped into Julie there too!

Soup broth Asia
Raffles City B1-62

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Freshness Burger at Nex

2011-01-06T21:23:00.004+08:00

Hello everyone! I've been MIA-ing again but I'm actually free-er now with more regular working hours even though I feel like someone has suddenly pressed the 'slow motion' button on my life! It's a morning crawl around instead of a heart pumping adrenaline surge in the morning(which I much prefer!). And on top of that I feel redundant! and like I haven't moved around in eons even though it's been only 3 days and my day feels uberrrrrrrr long! Hopefully it stays this way so I can slowly sink back into a nice relaxed mode which I have not been doing for the past 8 months.

Here's another post on food I ate during my end of December annual leave. I ventured North to try the much raved about Freshness Burger from Japan. Prior to this, there weren't many Japanese burger joints. My teriyaki chicken burger ($4.50) which is really better than Mos burger's. The serving is rather small (the bun is definitely of a smaller diameter than the usual burgers from BK and Macs) but the bread has the nice bakery smell and has a nice yellow hue.
The chicken isn't over salted (I tend to find food from most Japanese chains too salty) though it is rather thin widthwise.
I suppose that I like the burger bun more than the filling, but then again, since I don't eat beef, the bun is usually the main draw and then the filling secondary.
I had the Kiwi Mix Protector ($4.90) which is also the most expensive drink on the menu. I asked the counter staff if it was made from fresh fruits and she said yes - so hopefully all those antioxidants in the kiwi and pineapple will negate those generated by my burger. It's quite refreshing and has little bits of kiwi seeds which get stuck in my teeth. It's even more expensive than my burger...
I also had the Avocado Salad ($3) which is really nice and refreshing - the tomatoes are the nice mega large juicy kind (see the thick red piece in the burger below) and they are even skinned. The avocado is slightly mushy and the Christmassy combination of green avocado and red tomatoes are topped with chopped fresh shallots and a dash of spicy sauce. I think they go really well with the burger and I ate half of it as it was, and another half over my burger.

The Freshness Burger ($4.50) has a beef patty and some chilli sauce as well as their picture perfect juicy red tomato. Can't comment on this since I didn't eat it.

One gripe is that the burgers are really much more pricier - the pricing above is for the burger alone with no fries. I didn't manage to try the fries which are supposed to be really good cos they're made from Hokkaido Potatoes.

Freshness Burger
23 Serangoon Central #B2-48/49 NEX Mall Singapore
Tel: +65 6634 4439
(btw the carpark is annoying ++++++ the mall's carpark is perpetually FULL and there's an insanely long queue leading to it, and the HDB parking opposite is also full ++++... I shall just have to get my burger fix from their other branch at Century Sq)

Artichoke

2011-01-02T23:51:00.002+08:00

Happy belated new year everyone! Didn't have a chance to blog cos I was happily spending my new year doing what I do best - eating and slacking. I finally caught my first movie (The Tourist) in a super long time (though I must say it's really not worth catching after all). 2010 has been a great year - can't believe how fast it has passed (signs of age here! but I have been enjoying the last 3 months lots) and I'm 2/3rds done with my first yr at work... Anyway, I had lots of feasting during the last week of 2010 (many more posts to come) and I spent new years day eating again.Since my new years dinner was so delicious, I've decided to let it 'jump queue'. I first read about Artichoke in the papers under the article of the young and up and coming chefs in Singapore. All these articles are great ways for sourcing for new food places to go to but I usually wait 1-2 weeks for all the hype and queues to die down before I visit them. Artichoke serves Mediterranean/greek/middle eastern food (not really sure exactly what type but under Hungry Go Where it's labelled as Greek) so it means all the delicious bread and dips.

Hummus and babaganoush - chickpea puree and crushed roasted eggplant with sumac, EVOO and Turkish Toast ($9) (the 2 plates on the right)
Hummus is one of my favourite dishes (especially when eaten with flat bread) but it's not readily available in Singapore. I've tried making my own hummus with canned chickpeas but I was lacking the tahini so it wasn't tasty. The hummus has a very mild garlic taste and is very smoothly blended. Babaganoush is the brownish lumpy dip on the top right corner of the picture and is actually mashed roasted eggplants. Although I liked eggplants, I was more partial to the hummus cos it was creamier in texture.

Turkish bread ($4) - we loved the dips so much that we decided to get another plate of Turkish bread to go with them. The Turkish bread is crusty and crispy and goes extremely well with the tasty dips.

Char-grilled globe artichokes with wild thyme and EVOO ($7)

The namesake dish - smokey grilled artichokes with lots of extra virgin olive oil perfect for dipping the crispy Turkish bread into. It's served slightly chilled. It's quite hard to find this in most restaurants locally, and other than the artichoke salads at those buffet salad bars, I've only eaten it in pizza.

Roasted beetroot with homemade labneh (lebanese yogurt cheese) pistachio dukka and garlic breadcrumbs ($11)

Beetroot is one of my more favourite root vegetables cos of it's purple colour (same reason why I like eggplants so much) and I like it's earthy sweetness and juiciness. The yogurt cheese is light and creamy and goes very well with the crunchy beetroot, and the pistachio dukka and breadcrumbs add texture and taste to the whole dish.

Twice cooked Lamb Shortribs ($21) - with Moroccan chermoula spices and garlic yogurt

This was my favourite dish (apart from the hummus) of the night. The shortribs were incredibly delicious and tasted awesome. The shortribs were infused with the exotic spices and each bite was incredibly flavourful. The meat was very soft and juicy, not fatty, and went very well with the herbs and yogurt. Do note that I really like this dish alot because the shortribs have a very strong lamb taste - so people who dislike the lamb smell and taste, this dish is not for you...

I think I am completely capable of polishing off the whole plate of 7 ribs myself cos it's so tasty.

Date pudding with smoked milk custard and salted caramel ($10)

The date pudding here is completely different from the sticky date puddings I usually blog about. It's not sticky at all and is more like a cake. Though I couldn't really taste the dates, the smoked milk went very well with the cake. The cake was sprinkled with chocolate powder and had shards of salted caramel on top. The smoked milk custard is actually dulce de leche (or something like condensed milk but slightly creamier) and they're really generous with it.

Apple cake with crumble and vanilla marscapone cheese and maple syrup ($8)

Perhaps it was cos I was very full and I had just eaten 3/4ths of the date pudding and slurped up the milk custard, the apple crumble tasted rather bland and un-interesting. The serving of walnuts is really generous tho!

I like how everything comes with the extra virgin olive oil which purportedly has lots of health benefits (though I'm sure it comes with lots of calories too). The olive oil keeps the dishes moist and has this nice aromatic smell and a peppery zing at the end of it. Great for dipping the bread. The only complaint I have is that my bread seems to run out really quick! And the $4 servings never seemed enough.

The young service crew is eager to please and although I have read reviews online saying their service is slow, it wasn't the case for me. Though the waiting time for the food was fair (then again, we just arrived after 2 large groups ordered) the food came all at once and the food was so delicious so I'm not complaining. I liked how they leave a whole bottle of chilled water at the table - really saves the waitstaff lots of time and manpower.

I am returning soon to try their many 'large plates' and sharing platters like the Haloumi and Mushrom $23) which has pan fried greek chese with organic mushrooms and smashed avocado as well as their lamb kleftiko (stolen lamb). If the lamb shortribs are anything to go by, I'm totally dying to try their stolen lamb...

Artichoke
161 Middle Road, Sculpture Square
Tel: +65 6336 6949

Burger Bench and Bar

2010-12-30T16:18:00.002+08:00

There's quite a few non-beef choices, including the Japanese curry chicken katsu burger ($7.90), soft shell chilli crab burger ($7.90) and Green Curry Catfish Burger ($8.20). But if you want a grilled option, it's only the chicken breast burger ($8.50) which is what I had for dinner. I found the chicken breast pretty alright, though not as juicy as I would have liked. It comes with their yummy chunky tomato relish and some jalapenos for spiciness (though I don't take spicy stuff so I threw them out). Bun is pretty normal - nothing fantastic and not toasted either. I'd prefer it if it was toasted and buttered - untoasted buns just give the burger a very unfinished feeling. Of course, if you eat beef, you really shouldn't get this burger - chicken is always the less tasty of the two...

This is the cheese and mushroom beef burger ($8.20). Of course I don't eat beef so I cannot say how it tastes. Just that it's unremarkable? Lol neither dry nor juicy I suppose...
Their signature soft serve dark chocolate ice cream ($3) which is pretty good, though it's really not as creamy as I'd have liked it to be, it's very chocolatey and a really nice way to end the meal.

Burger Bench and Bar's started up by Willin Loh, who also owns Wild Rocket and Relish. It's supposed to be a mid-range fast food joint targeting younger people with tighter budgets. They don't use preservatives, MSG, processed meat etc but it's still pretty pricey compared to the other fast food joints, considering that the prices I've quoted in my post are only for the burgers - you'll have to add about $1.50 (or is it $2?) if you want their special hand cooked potato chips. I suppose I won't mind visiting it again - but going to Cine really makes me feel freaking old :(

Burger Bench and Bar

8 Grange Road

#01-02 Cathay Cineleisure Orchard
Tel: +65 6737 9947

Ding Tai Fung's Truffle Xiao Long Pau

2010-12-29T20:33:00.003+08:00

Normal Xiao Long Paus Red Bean Xiao Long PausTruffle Xiao Long Paus - according to the sign, it says it's only available at Paragon, and in Taiwan, it's only available to special guests! Fortunately, we're not in Taiwan, so even a pleabian like me can eat the truffle xiao long pau ;P There's a few morsels of truffle in each pau, and it's not truffle paste. I think truffle goes really well with the xiao long pau though I won't really be hankering with more. I prefer my truffle in ang moh dishes.Truffle Xiao Long Pau s $3.80 per piece of $14.80 for 5 pieces at the Paragon outlet only.
My usual pork cutlet fried rice - I think that it's one of the few rice dishes I really like (and sushi cos it's Japanese!) Ok I shant blog about the other mediocre things that I ate during the meal like the dou miao (I like the way Ding tai fung does the veggies cos it's not over or under cooked).

Sakuraya @ Westcoast Plaza

2010-12-28T21:03:00.001+08:00

Here's what I had for Christmas dinner with my family - somehow my family is very un-festive so we usually eat Japanese or Chinese during Christmas and Indian for our CNY dinner (but not the extended family one cos my grandmother will protest). Of course, since I was on call on Christmas eve, all these lovely goodies were eaten through my post-call daze, which somehow makes food taste less good than sleep... I suppose I have bad luck which even bathing cannot get rid of.

Lots of fresh fish . We had the scallops and the cockles (top left) though we didn't attempt a whole fish even though the counter lady kept recommending the red one over the top right hand corner.

Many more sashimi packs - choose anything and they will prepare it for you

Loved the little orange pile of uni (sea urchin) which was reasonably fresh (though definitely not the freshest) and the bloody cockle, which is the super-sized version of the sea haam we get in char kway teow here. Tastes much cleaner too! And we had 2 different types if scallops - one's a razor scallop which is a rather big skewed looking shell, about 1.5 times a whole hand (my hand at least) and the normal kind of scallop which was sweeter and had a smoother and softer texture. We also got a nice pack of oysters at $11 per box. They were clean tasting, creamy and fresh (though, like the uni, not as fresh as some I've tasted) but it's reasonable freshness for the price. Ate this with ponzu sauce, which is my favourite way to eat raw oysters.They also had the 'fish sperm' (technically it's fish testicles I think?) which is cholesterol laden super creamy tasting and melt in the mouth. Looks a bit like brain (though I haven't had the opportunity to try brain before) and I like the way theyh prepare it wiht ponzu sauce, some spicy radish and finely sliced spring onions.
Those round disc shape (white and purple) are the bubble-gum chewy raw octopus. I dislike the rubbery boiled ones that's usually found at the take away sushi counters cos they're always tasteless and have such a tough texture that makes them a chore to eat. Fresh octopus doesn't have much more taste, but the texture is less tough and it remindes me a bit of ika (squid) but slightly more chewy. I think I will stick to the prepared chopped octopus marinated with sauce and wasabi from now on.
In the back, we have mekajiki (used to hate this but now it's on my top 3 most favourite sashimi), kampachi and hamachi as well as salmon. It was really too much sashimi so we ended up taking back some of the salmon and kampachi (though they all disappeared from the fridge really fast). Felt like I was eating a sashimi buffet here...Seafood handroll - nothing special but the rice is pretty nice. I don't think they toast their seaweed though...

We ended up eating so much at Sakuraya that we ended up paying enough to get a decent Christmas set at a nice restaurant. Super fresh Sashimi washed down with sake always makes for a yummy meal. Sakuraya offers fresh sashimi at very reasonable prices (think of the Isetan/Mediya supermarket price) but with casual restaurant style service.

Sakuraya Fish Mart

154 West Coast Road

#B1-50/51/52 West Coast Plaza

Tel: +65 6773 6973

Funny Chinese book

2010-12-27T21:34:00.001+08:00

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Andre

2010-12-26T23:51:00.008+08:00

I'm lagging again! Hope all you readers had a merry christmas and happy boxing day.This year's Christmas eve and Christmas was spent working - was saying that I've never worked on Christmas, but then someone pointed out that I've never had a job prior to this:/Thankfully, I didn't end up with chicken rice for Christmas dinner or my Christmas would have been even more tragic.
Happier mealtimes from nearly a month ago, just that I didn't have time to upload everything onto my comp. Spectacular meal with even better company:)
And so begins the food journey at Andre...

Starters including some popcorn thing with vanilla sauce (in the middle) and a delicious aji tatare in a crispy shell (far right)

Crispy chicken skin, which reminds me of the one I had at 53
Extremely thin and translucent, crispy without the oily fatty taste of chicken skin

Fresh scallops with purple cauliflower consomme - I liked the light purple hue of the dish if anything... it's cold and has some interesting kind of oil (of which I've already forgotten what kind of oil it is)

Delicate and fresh oyster encased in a wobbly piece of seaweed with apple foam and finely diced green apple

The oyster is so fresh that it feels like the oyster was just alive and happily sitting in the sea just seconds ago...

I really cannot remember what this dish was, just that it has macadamia nut shavings and caviar... If I'm not wrong, it has eggplant?

My favourite dish of the night - maybe cos it tasted very Japanese. Raw fish (can't remember what but I think it was aji?) with the swetest tomatoes and a refreshing tomato sorbet The other part of the dish (served together) was a seafood risotto and raw prawns (which were so fresh my tongue and ears started itching, as they always do when I eat raw prawns lobsters and crabs).

Chef's cheeky play on ingredients and textures - When this dish is served, you'll be asked which one's the squid. It's a dish with squid and rice, and keropok-like crackers (I suppose they're blackened with squid ink?). This dish is made from luxurious ingredients including Iberico Ham, Black truffle and some special egg. So shoot me cos I don't eat beef (even though I really miss BK's mushrom swiss and Mac's double cheeseburger) - the beef was tender and pink and looked incredibly juicy.

Since I don't eat beef, it was substituted for chicken (most un-worth it, I can hear all the beef eater's screaming in horror at the waste...) Chicken breast it was, cooked in a salt water bath. Every morsel of this was so tender and juicy it didn't even feel like I was eating chicken breast. The skin was crisped like crackling pork. I was quite intrigued by the the little pile of worm-like starchy root vegetables (from France, if I remember correctly).

Chef Andre serves this dish under the 'Memory' section of the menu. It's a foie gras custard (looks like creme brulee) with a aromatic layer of truffle oil on the top. Every scoop is so creamy and rich, it feels like I'm going to get an instant heart attack, but it's so yummy that I had the dish scraped clean. According to our server, this dish is extremely close to Chef Andre's heart... I agree totally - I'm sure a new plaque is wedged in my coronary arteries now...

Lastly was dessert - spongy chocolate cake (which looked like those natural sea sponge bath sponges) chocolate soil and a chocolate capsule

Andre

41 Bukit Pasoh Road (Opposite Oso)

Singapore 089855

Tel: +65 6534 8880

reserve@restaurantandre.com

Btw, parking's a pain in the neck since the public carpark is being renovated, but they have valet parking.

Smiths Fish and Chips

2010-12-18T08:05:00.002+08:00

Smiths Fish and Chips is a much blogged and talked about Fish and Chips, ever since it was featured in the Posh Nosh Section. So we went with very very high expectations to try the Haddock ($13 for the fillet alone, and $16.50 for fillet and fries). True to the British style of eating fish and chips, the fish and chips here come served all nicely wrapped up in the parchment paper parcels and served to our table.
The haddock was nice and oily, soft and flaky, but nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose that if you live in the east and was hankering for some good fish and chips, this will be the place for you. More so if you're also hankering for a beer. I think this would have tasted superb with a nice icy cold beer (but drinking and driving are mutually exclusive).
The batter is very light but overall, the fish is oily. My parchment paper became an oil slick in no time. I really liked the malt vinegar bottles they had at each table - it's very rare to find malt vinegar available so abundantly at fish and chips stalls in Sgp...
Fries are the chunky home made kind, soggy and oozing with oil. I like! (not the oil part) I'm a soggy fries person and thus Macdonald's fries aren't my favourite kind of fries. But for people who like the golden shoe string crispy kind of fries, this is definitely not for you. The serving is more than generous and I was struggling to finish my fries (in the end I gave up and didn't so my arteries would have leeway to get clogged up by something else).
The Mushy Peas ($2 per 8oz cup) was an unexpected winner. For someone who picks out all her peas and throws it at the side of my plate or onto the tray (depending on how much peas there are in my dish, sometimes they will overflow onto my tray), I thought that I wouldn't enjoy this dish but it's really warm and hearty, and the best thing is that the peas don't even taste like peas and taste more like tasty mashed potatoes. No gross wrinkly hard peas in here, only soft mushy ones! The photo looks v unappetizing but their really good just not photogenic
The salmon cakes were pretty disappointing as I was hoping for more salmon rather than potatoes. It was extremely herby and peppery but at $7 for 2 cakes, the price was slightly too steep.
I think perhaps it was so overhyped that I had higher expectations for it. Though I loved the mushy peas (must try!) the fish wasn't something that I'd be hurrying back for more - I think Fisherios (sp?) at the Taka basement food court does a decent rendition of the fish and chips and they even have beer batter.
The chef (husband and wife?) duo are really friendly and smiley! Service with a smile wins extra points anytime! Sadly there weren't any pickled eggs left -only pickled onions

Smiths Fish and Chips
230 Tanjong katong road

Btw I've only realized after my expedition to Smiths Fish and Chips that I've never been to Tanjong Katong. And Smiths Fish and Chips faces TKGS! It's the same green as their uniform... A good landmark for Smiths is the Carltex station. Smiths is across the road.

Laurent's chocolate tart

2010-12-15T17:22:00.001+08:00

Sundays are for lolling and lazing. Last Sunday was post call day but I dragged my mega tired lazy self of to have a yummy lunch at shunji and dessert at the Nazi Laurent chocolate.

My all time fave chocolate tart is still as good. The chocolate filling is just right - neither too eggy so that its texture is not like a curd or custard and not too creamy so that it tastes like mousse. And their shortcrust pastry is so thin and buttery. At $7++ for a tart, it's not cheap by tastes great - I'd have this over cakes from Starbucks or coffee bean for the same price
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Huhu udon @ Ion Orchard

2010-12-12T07:47:00.001+08:00

Huhu udon is a newly opened udon stall at ion. Had their mentaikocream pasta which was salty +++++++ my tongue felt like a pickle after that. The sauce is extremely creamy and interspersed with salty little bursts of mentaiko. They were having an offer last month so that's why I had it. Its around 15 bucks without any discount, I think there's better ramen and udon around.
Huhu udon ( near Gogo curry)
Orchard Ion b4
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Otto - My Annual White Truffle Affair

2010-11-21T23:43:00.001+08:00

There are days where I eat to live (ie >90% of my time especially since I've started working) and there are the wonderful days I live to eat. I'm so superemely rested and satisfied after having good food for the past 3 days and I'm all prepared to go back to my eating to live days (until my next annual leave, that is...)The pockmarked lump on that weighing scale is the white truffle I had during lunch. Not the whole thing cos its costs >$1K ;)Had lunch at Otto (omg it felt >1 yr since my last meal but I've just checked it was just Jan this year!! Feels so long ago!!) I had the truffle creme brulee the last time and it was sooo good I had to go back this year.

Their delicious restaurant bread - the onion bread is my fave - they also have walnut, cranberry and olive but the onion's the tastiest.

Octopus - not my fave seafood unless it's raw...

Shaving the truffle. Truffle is weighed on the electronic weighing scale. The chef then shaves it over the dish of choice (in my case, it's scrambled eggs with crab meat) and reweighs the truffle after shaving. Had 2 grams of truffle with my dish. 1 gram just isn't enough, 2 is just right, since my budget isn't expandable. 3 would be such a luxury!

Chef reweighing truffle in the background - he's wearing those surgical latex gloves! :)

My scrambled egg with blue swimmer crab ($19++, excluding price of truffle) was creamy, piping hot and smelt so heavenly after the truffle was shaved over it :D Best ever way to eat scrambled eggs...

My Red Wine Pappardelle with Guinea foul ragout and crispy bacon ($28++)

Somehow both times I've been to Otto my dessert and starter was nicer than my mains. I was enticed by the Guinea Foul cos I had previously watched Iron Chef on TV and they had a cookout using Guinea Foul so I wanted to try it for myself. It tastes like chicken. The sauce was tasty, noodles done al dente, and the crispy bacon minced so finely but somehow it didn't taste particularly memorable. Maybe cos it was my only non-truffle dish??
Paccheri with Grouper ragout, Pachino tomatoesAtlantic Cod Tagliata with Porcini mushroom crust and creamed baby spinach with white truffles
If the scrambled eggs with crabmeat and truffle was good, the cod is sublime! It's seriously the best cod I've ever tasted. I'd have thought that the cod was so marvellous on it's own, but paired with the aromatic white truffle, it was even more sublime. If I had the cash, I'd rush down to Otto just to have this dish. The porcini mushroom crust is not crispy, and more like a finely minced layer of tasty mushrooms coating the fish. The fish is buttery and oily, and it's seriously melt in the mouth. Haven't tasted fish like this for uber long! And the sauce is simple, creamy and doesn't interfere with the delicious aroma of the truffles. Ah I think this will probably be the best fish I've tried the whole year...

Their signature creme brulee with berries marinaded in balsamic vinegar.

But for me, their truffle infused creme brulee is the dessert of choice. Otto's creme brulee tastes great already, but when paired with truffle oil, it takes the creme brulee to a whole new playing field. Their creme brulee is excellent - such a pleasure to have creme brulee like this.

I'm superbly satisfied after my annual white truffle meal. Such a joy to eat such great food. Even more so since I've maximised my leave eating my way thru lots of good food. I'm all prepared for suffering for the next 6 months rotting in the east and eating lousy canteen food :D

White truffle season doesn't last forever, and this year, Otto will be serving their white truffle special menu until about mid December. So do go down if you want to get a taste of Chef Michele's delectable cooking.

Otto Ristorante
28 Maxwell Road
#01-02 Red Dot Traffic Building
Tel 62276819
Closed on Sundays

PS Hello to Kok's gf! Ask him to bring you to eat lots of truffles from Otto :P

Boomerang Sticky Date Pudding

2010-11-18T22:10:00.007+08:00

I'm so sad that my 2 days of annual leave flew past in the blink of an eye!! I think that getting back to worse is 1000x worse but I shall now slowly blog about my delicious food adventures during leave so that I can look forward to my next annual leave, which will again, be spent eating ;) (since I'm too lazy to plan anything or to crawl anywhere...) I've had a brilliant total of 5 days indulging in all my favourite foods, and sleeping >12h each day :D Though I am very sure that Friday's call will undo all my sleeping... You know how food doesn't taste as good when you're full? I just ate the bento set from Tomo Izakaya, and had 1.5 tacos from Spruce, and had the Sticky Date Pudding from Boomerang to top it all off. And it still tasted amazing. Amazing enough to taste even better than Marmalade Pantry's Sticky Date Pudding. I think it would have been even more amazing if I had been hungry! So this is how freaking good the sticky date pudding from Boomerang was... (Lol I know that I am very gluttony, but I have been eating crappy food and will be eating crappy food for the next 6 months...)

Melt in the mouth texture, if you inhale deeply just before eating, you can smell the butter. And the taste of dates is distinct and not hidden under the sugary goodness.

However, I must say that Marmalade Pantry's Kapiti ice cream beats Boomerang's default vanilla ice cream (a very unmemorable one I must say) hands down. No real vanilla beans in this ice cream! Cost wise, it's same as Marmalade Pantrys at $12 ++ (it's around $14 after all the pluss-es).

I'd say that this definitely beats Marmalade Pantry (but not the ice cream!) but Boomerang is so out of the way, especially since Marmalade Pantry has moved to Ion. (Come to think of it, the last time I had their crabmeat linguine was so long ago! Time to pay them a revisit soon!) But for convenience, since Boomerang is really out of my radar and since there isn't any aircon (which is a essential for me especially with our sweltering hot weather), I'll still be patronizing Marmalade Pantry.

On a side note, I've been to Boomerang for their brunch, but it's not that impressive as their sticky date pudding. I'm still dying to try Pamplemousse for brunch tho!

Boomerang Bistro and Bar

60 Robertson Quay

#01-15 The Quayside

67381077

Spruce Taqueria

2010-11-16T22:45:00.002+08:00

Part 2 of Day 1 of Annual leave! Pardon the interruption from the Truffle Infused Creme Brulee I was so overjoyed after eating it I had to blog about it stat.

I've positively been dying to try Spruce Taqueria but their office worker unfriendly cos their opening hours are only weekdays 12-3pm. So I used my annual leave day 1 (for this posting) just to try it (and many other yummy foods which I will be blogging about later).

Somewhere around 2pm, we arrived at the much awaited Spruce Taqueria (right on top of the hill, at some obscure corner of phoenix park). Underwhelmingly, it's a little black and white shack with a small shelter infront and some plastic/wooden tables and chairs thrown around. Suprisingly, there was a rather huge group of people there feasting on the tacos already.

We decided to have the set with 2 tacos, corn chips and their salsa, plus a drink ($9). For the set, you can only choose one type of filling for both tacos, so we settled on the pork carnitas. There's other choices of beef tongue, grilled snapper, portobello mushroom etc but pork it was... No regrets about the pork - insanely soft, juicy and with a bit of that porkey smell, its a generous portion (for $3 per taco) of succulent tasty pork topped with guacamole. Though it got a bit soppy and wet after a while when the pork released its juices on to the corn tortilla and onto the plastic plate...

It's purely al fresco seating right next to nature - think having a nice picnic with wooden tables under a large shady tree, with all the ants, houseflies as well as a cacophony of crickets to accompany you and your meal, not to mention patches of birdshit on the tables and chairs... We found ourselves taking refuge in the car - the carpet of decaying leaves and lots of ants under our table was too much to handle. Of course, the tortillas being slightly wet from the juicy pork made it even trickier to eat inside the car...

I really pity the people working hard inside the little shack during midday, when the sun is scorching hot. No air con inside either! But thanks to them, yummy soft corn tacos for a super worth it $3 a pop.

The watermelon with lime drink (it's some fancier name in the menu, but essentially, it's watermelon with lime) is extremely refreshing, and I think it'll taste even better with a dash of vodka... Though I must say it did the perfect job of washing down the spicy salsa dip...

I really cannot figure out why Spruce would want to have this little shack instead of opening up their main restaurant. But it's really yummy so if you're not afraid of the heat, the long trek up the slope (unless you drive) and if you happen to be free from 12-3 on a weekday, do go down to try some tacos. Though if you're a non-nature lover like me you would probably want to drive and have it inside the car...

Spruce Taqueria

320 Tanglin Road

68365528

Btw I have 1 more post before I blog about my annual truffle affair at Otto! *satisfied and highly contented sigh*

Truffle creme brûlée

2010-11-16T13:41:00.001+08:00

I'm going to die happy had my annual white truffle infused creme brûlée from Otto. Super divine.
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Tomo Izakaya - Clarke Quays' $15nett set Lunches

2010-11-15T20:34:00.003+08:00

Having cheap set lunches were the joys in my life but ever since starting work (think weekends PLUS public holidays and 6 calls/month) I've been missing out heaps on the wonders of set lunches. But I have reason to rejoyce cos I'm on annual leave! :D I'm going to maximise my leave by catching up on the hundreds of hours of sleep I've missed and perhaps if I'm feeling not too lardy tmr, I shall go down to borrow Inception dvd :)

Actually I had wanted to eat Pamplemousse for lunch today but Pamplemousse is CLOSED on Mondays! Sadness. Looks like the next time I'll be free to try it will be Sunday Brunch :(

I'm going to share one of my best finds ever - Clarke Quay is still having their $15nett set lunch promos at certain participating outlets - and if you have either DBS or POSB cards, you are entitled to further discount/offers on top of the $15nett set lunches. Spent quite a long time debating between Tomo Izakaya, Fremantle Fish Market as well as Hotstones, but we settled for the Japanese bento box lunch at Tomo Izakaya.

Had the bento boxes Set A and Set B for $15 nett each. Set A is the grilled mackeral and set B is the exact same sides with pumpkin croquette. I'd say to go for the fish instead of the pumpkin, even though the pumpkin croquette is so nicely fried and battered, and the golden pumpkin puree inside is extremely tasty, I somehow don't feel satisfied until I have a piece of meat in my meal (unless I've already psyched myself up for vegeterian lunch ;P) It comes with mustard leaf salad with sesame dressing, duck and spinach salad, 2 types of sashimi, pickles and miso soup. The rice they use is the normal long grain rice, not the nice glossy Japanese rice though I suppose for $15 nett it's alright? Pretty worth it considering it's in a restaurant and it's nett price.

And if that's not enough, if you pay using DBS/POSB, you'll get a returning dining voucher of $15 when you spend $30 bucks. Shiok or not?

3A River Valley Road

#01-04 Clarke Quay

Tel 6336 0100

I shall blog about part 2/3 of my delicious lunching on annual leave day 1 later.. more delicious food to come - including Spruce's Tacos and a sticky date pudding which is better than Marmalde Pantry's!

The Tanglin Tree

2010-11-07T22:28:00.003+08:00

So I have been not blogging consistently despite getting my iphone.

Good stuff that's been happenning lately (in no particular order)
1. Having yummy food at Pu Tien and Tangling Tree
2. Massive discharge though only enjoying the fruits of labour for 2 days
3. Sleeping >3.5h last night and eating a yummy++ vietnamese dinner
4. Drinking Gong cha at least once weekly - Fresh milk with hearbal jelly and Winter melon tea with BC jelly are my current faves
5. Looking forward to my leave next week!! Super excited I am going to go for a darn good Japanese lunch stat!
6. Friends coming back from overseas!

The not so good stuff
1. Going postcall at 730pm and having EEOD calls.
2. Missing dinner at TGIF cos I was too tired and sleepy
3. Cancelling meetups cos I'm too sleepy (sorry pok!)
4. Napping at 330pm and waking up at 930pm and being hungry
5. Hong Kong Cafe at Novena closing down! Just realized last weekend!
Had a suprisingly good breakfast at The Tanglin Tree - their breakfast set of eggs, bread, baked beans, bacon, sausage and salad ($12.50++) was filling and satisfying, and yet won't burn a hole in your pocket (unlike those overpriced at Dempsey). Choices of add ons include mushrooms with garlic ($3) which is yummy and a worthy add on, as well as hollandaise sauce (ok, so so but what are poached eggs without hollandaise sauce?)

Scrambled eggs with the same breakfast set minus the add ons - so so I think their poached eggs are better.
Minus points for the little kiddy birthday with screaming kids ++ Fortunately they left halfway through our meal. Another kid friendly restaurant I suppose? There's an al fresco seating area (which didn't have screaming kids) but I don't like the thought of sitting next to the main road and inhaling car exhaust while eating my breakfast.

One of the must trys here is their Trufflle Mashed Potatoes. Move over House's Truffle fries - for just a mere $5 bucks the truffle mashed potatoes come served to your table piping hot with the aromatic truffle smells warfting all over. Sprinkle on some freshly cracked black pepper and mixed salad leaves. The truffle mashed potatoes are very light smooth and airy. Supberb in every way. Totally didn't regret my greedy decision to order this on top of the breakfast.

Tried Cedele's Gula Melaka Pandan Cake ($5.80)

Walked over to Tanglin Mall for some desserts. Saw this in the Posh Nosh section of Urban.

Somehow the cake didn't live up to it's hype - the gula melaka frosting didn't have a strong enough gula melaka taste that I was expecting, and the pandan cake was rather hard and totally not like the soft spongy pandan chiffon I was imagining, though I suppose that perhaps it's more dense and compressed so that it can take the weight of the true Cedele style's thick slather of gula melaka icing. I'm liking the layer of kaya in between the cakes lots! I think the next time I eat pandan chiffon, I shall procure some really good quality kaya to go along with it - somehow it tastes really good together and they're 2 of my more favourite things.

The Tanglin Tree

56 Tanglin Road

#B1-01 Friven & Co Building

Singapore6733 0992

Yoguru and gong cha at raffles city

2010-11-01T12:03:00.001+08:00

Free toppings every weekend at yoguru. Had my default plain ice cream yogurt from here. On top of their signature berry flavor they also have a new mango flavor. Didn't quite like it cos There was a slight bitter tinge. Best of all, yoguru at raffles city is very conveniently opened next to the newly opened gong cha.

Melon tea with BC jelly is my current fave- tho u can't have it less sweet. Tastes great with additional ai yu jelly which is essentially the same as the jelly in ice jelly cocktail.
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Gogo curry

2010-10-28T19:05:00.001+08:00

Gogo curry is this budget friendly fast food curry chain from japan which has recently opened up a stall in ion orchard. Their curry is simple and fuss free with different combinations of deep fried pork cutlet/chicken cutlet/shrimp/sausage/egg placed in top if steaming rice and doused in their signature brown curry sauce. Japanese curry sauce is less spicy and sweeter than the local curries we are generally used to. I like to load my curry with cheese ($1 additional charge) and I like the thinly sliced raw cabbage on the side which reduces the oily feeling of the cutlets and heavy sauce.

Gogo curry
Ion orchard b4
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The Insatiable Beard Papa Chocolate Eclair Craving

2010-10-20T22:27:00.007+08:00

I've never blogged abt this before but I must now cos I've been having this incredibly mad Beard Papa chocolate eclair craving for the whole freaking week and haven't gotten it out of my system since I haven't had the time to go down to Beard Papa to settle my craving...

The Beard Papa chocolate eclair is probably the next best eclair (which is convenient and extremely affordable) in my food inventory.

I love the thick layer of chocolate which melts instantly in my mouth (and even when I hold the eclair the wrong way). It's a bit like the nice chocolate coating that Magnum ice cream has, but just thicker and melts more easily and tastes better.

And then there's the delicious puff - of course nothing like the wonder of Sadaharu Aoki's eclairs but the puff part of the eclair is just the right texture. It's nice and soft but not wimpy and soggy- and it's just the right balance of firmness to hold in the moist filling.

And the innards just complete the whole lovely eclair. Instead of the usual traditional whipped cream, it's luscious chocolate custard - same texture as the Beard Papa Cream Puffs vanilla custard filling, but it's in chocolate. And not those dark and bitter or overly sweet kind of chocolate - it's just right and goes exactly well with the puff and the outer chocolate layer.

I think this has to be one of the most underrated desserts around! and it's super affordable too I think it's merely $2 or $2.50 for such a divine eclair. I think I could eat 5 of these at one go but the most I've ever eaten is one ;p

The last time I had a mad eclair craving I tried to settle it with an eclair from Polar (which is very extremely convenient for me since there's one at my work place) but it was Dry and Hard and really didn't settle my craving at all. Tragic.

I probably have a shot of the eclair stowed somewhere in my computer but I think once I see a picture of it my craving will be unbearable ++. Hopefully I can scuttle down to Vivo/PS/Bugis soon to get my eclair. I think I will get Two if I do go down. Just to ensure that my Beard Papa Chocolate Eclair Craving doesn't come back so soon...

I have been talking about it so much that now everyone I've spoken to wants to try it and I am making myself really hungry thinking about it.

I'll put a photo of the Eclair up once I'm done eating it...

District 10 Bistro

2010-10-16T16:50:00.002+08:00

District 10 bistro has been opened for quite some time now and I've been wanting to try it for a really long tim - I am very sad I only discovered it after I was posted to the far east and not when I was a stones throw away from it for 4 months! The lighting is rather dim even my S90 couldn't save the photos (so they are edited+++) We had some platter thing (not so sure what this was called but it costs around $28 bucks? or was it $18) which had 3 pieces of everything including duck spring rolls (not particularly yummy or memorable), fried fish (just like fish and chips), fried prawn etc... Ordered this cos we were hungry and were waiting for the rest of the group to come...

The soft shell crab chilli pizza was pretty interesting, though I wasn't crazy over it. Deep fried soft shell crab with a mildly spicy chilli sauce and rocket leaves over a thin crust pizza.

My fave dish of the day (didn't go there with Julie but we ordered the same thing!) was the special Florentine Truffle Pizza (it's not on the menu!) which came with 8 blobs of oily truffle paste. The black goodness went supremely well with the cheese and the al dente pasta. Though the egg in the middle was overcooked and hard, I'm willing to close one eye on this cos the truffle made the pizza taste so lovely. It's a white base pizza so no tomato sauce here!

I think this was a prawn tagliatelle but it wasn't my dish. The sauce was really good - very robust, tasty and tangy - I would definitely order this and the truffle pizza the next time I'm down.

Dessert platter with 4 different types of chocolate dessert (I think it was either $12 or $14 bucks). The chocolate mousse (2nd from the front) is uber delicious - can totally taste all the egg and chocolate and cream they used to make it! Other than that, the profiterole was very unremarkable, and so was the ice cream and brownie...

Overall, district 10 bistro has great ambiance and is a really nice place to chill. Too bad I didn't discover this sooner!! Carpark's not a problem either - $2 per entry or just park along the road (after 7pm cos it's a single yellow line - I think).

District 10 Bistro

10 Winstedt Road (it's the turn after the petrol station on your way toward Newton Circus)

#01-17
Tel: +65 6738 4788

Tatsuya Sushi Omakase

2010-10-14T22:48:00.002+08:00

Sianz I am having major sushi craving especially for another lovely platter of sushi omakase from Tatsuya [which I cannot afford at this point cos I just spent ALOT of money changing my wheels and tyres! But looking at my new tyres (which have little 'hairs' on them cos they are very very new and smelling the fresh rubber makes me v happy every morning before I go to work!! I think it nearly makes me as happy as when I drink my gong cha on the way to work!)]

I think sushi omakase is best eaten at the sushi counter, but since it was a family dinner, we sat on a table for 4. Makes the sushi omakase half as exciting, but the sushi was awsome.

There's sushi with caviar, sushi with goose liver :D, otoro (fatty tuna belly - the best part of the tuna!), aburi (flame grilled) salmon belly, anago (sea eel), cockle (which is so freaking fresh not like those dirty little cockles we get in char kway teow, and nearly as fresh as the cockles I had in Hokkaido!). Gave away my prawn cos I will most definitely get an allergy reaction (mega saddenning raw prawns are so lovely but if I eat it I will most surely not be able to taste anything else!) and a lovely raw tako (octopus) which is fantastic compared to the horrendous rubber tasting cooked ones we usually get.

Sigh need to satisfy my sashimi/sushi/raw food craving soon!! I want to eat more raw octopus, cockles and tuna! And I wanna eat fresh oysters in ponzu sauce... I think I am just hungry and I should go and sleep before I get more wrinkles and turn into an old hag...

Btw, my dining experience at Tatsuya was somewhat marred by this irritating snobbish waitress when I have more time I shall blog about the Kaiseki and her annoying substandard service. But for now, before I sleep I shall think happy sushi thoughts...

Tatsuya

Goodwood Park Hotel

68874598

Itacho sushi - scallops &dorsal fins

2010-10-12T20:19:00.001+08:00

I'm totally craving for more jap food even though I just ate at Itacho sushi this weekend. The flame grilled dorsal fin is definitely one my faves. And I am missing how the sweet fat fresh and juicy scallop slides down my gullet. Of course being the greedy person I am I chose the jumbo scallop ($3.70) which is always more satisfying. The salmon sushi is rather unremarkable but I really like the grilled salmon which I had the last time ( it was sadly sold out when I went on Sunday)

I'm also missing how the ridiculously long eel looks perched on top of a normal pieces of sushi rice though I'm not too crazy over how sweet it tastes.
Lol I think I am v hungry but the though of food from my 'favorite' canteen just makes me. Un-hungry again...I'm missing the marmalade pantry sticky date pudding too I think can eat it every week and not get sick of it!!
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Marmalade Pantry's sticky date pudding

2010-10-10T19:39:00.001+08:00

One of my favourite desserts of all time is marmalade pantry's sticky date pudding. Steaming hot Sticky chewy date pudding which is super sweet and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream drizzles with toffee sauce. The portion of ice cream has shrunk but the sticky date pudding still tastes at good. I still haven't tried boomerang's sticky date pudding which is reportedly even better but since boomerang is out of the way marmalade pantry's sticky date pudding will suffice.
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