Do you know that there is a RED DOT Museum in Singapore?
Do you know it is walking distance from tanjong pagar MRT?
Do you know that the prestigious buildin they are housed in is a former Singapore Traffic Police Headquaters?
Do you know that it is all AWARD WINNING STUFFS inside?
DO you know that you could rest your legs at an exquisite coffee place in the museum itself?
Do you know that after the sun set you can hang around there for a drink too?
If you want to know.. all it takes is a couple of hours an $5 for an entry to the museum... Breath in all the creative air inside the museum and chill out outside or reflect on a cup of wine while gazing at the busy buzzing road......
Its one of the theatres i have a love hate relationship about. Its very far lor.. if you walk from MRT.... You must first walk from City Hall Mrt Station to Marina square then you got to walk straight straight straight until you see John Little... Then up and then straight straight straight again pass the bowling alleys then you see you theatre.... The only thing i love about the place is that it is not usually crowded like the rest of the other cinemas... However do get your tickets early too as during weekends.... It will be still crowded.. because everybody will start thinking that everybody will not be going there to watch a movie and ended up... everybody is there.
The seats unlike the newer VIVO GV or GREAT WORLD GV that the centre divider can be shifted up... most of the seats in marina GV cannot remove the centre divider hand rest however they have a row of the LOVERS SEATS at the last row.. Don't ask me why removing the dividers are important ok... Its just...... MORE COMFY..........
As it is not a very new cinema, the cinemas are larger in size.. and I totally enjoy the bigger screen and bigger space..... Especially when there are very few people watching the movie or you are the only one watching the movie.. You would feel totally value for money lor.... Human are the bigger the better right? The sound systems and levels are quite balanced unlike some cinemas when i realise the volume is too high and I get the ringing sound after that..
However one thing i really dislike about cinemas.... The entrance is always a nice escalator with beautiful soft carpets and spacious toilets with attentive attendants and movie preview screenings while the EXIT is always the FIRE EXIT.. with dreadful smelling bare staircases that nobody dwells in and even a rubbish bin is hard to find.. on top of that no toilets...... until you walk back into the mall which is a long journey.. Its a bad icon to the service and entertainment industry.. Like after you have earned my hard earned money and screened your movie.... you can disregard me already. Oh comeon... what makes you think I won't buy a drink on my way out or but another ticket to watch another movie later... comeon....this is an area which much improvement must be done....
I like our science centre.. Matter of fact i was quite an astronomical fan when i was a few years younger then now. Though now i am still young, but i kind of relived my younger days everytime i step into science centre.
First I like the fact that parking is free.. on top of that you have a good array of affordable food like the Macdonalds, Suki Sushi, etc.... The entrance fee is reasonable as there are many features inside the centre itself. There is also a water play ground making use of physics and other science themes which is environmentally friendly and very engaging.
I totally agree that play is the best way to educate children and youths and with the environment the singapore science centre had set up. It was indeed a great place to teach students on primary and secondary school science. I perhaps am most intrigued by the lighting room. Where they will conduct some real lightnings for demo. It is fun yet exciting and not many can get to experience a lightning strike up close and personal yet still remain alive.
The centre itself is well catagorised and have a wide array of themes which is fun and creative. There are many hands-on experiments and science is all about working on stuffs.. making use of your 5 senses and discovering more about our world and ourselves.
You might also want to catch a glimpse and watch a movie at the omnimax theatre.. Where 3D movies brings dinosaurs to live. With the rounded screen and steep sitting. Getting into your seat is an excitement all by itself. Check out also the astronomy shop whereby you can get stargazing equipments and some tips to venture into the mysterious outer space.
Many do not know.. Matter of fact, there is a huge telescope in the vacinity of the science centre itself and it is open for star enthusiaste. There is a interest club you can join and activities held there in the event of a prominent meteor showers.
Its a wonderful place to hang around when you just have nothing to do. Most important, I can never stop myself from learning new stuffs there... Its a place though old but knowledge so generous that you can never learn them all in a day.... Discover something you thought you already know today.
See You Around!!!
Thai Food - $10 Dollars
Ang Mo Food - $20 Dollars
ATAS Chinese Food at the top level - $100 Dollars
A sit in Ootoya during Dinner Hours - Priceless
The sits outside Ootoya are not for resting your feet, but they are for prospective customers with rumbling stomachs and black black faces. Now we know why it always feels like being in a thunderstorm in orchard central. The temperature so low and freezing, atmosphere dark and gloomy and the roar of the thunder reigning in my ears.
Ootoya is like a little gem in this cosmopolitan like mall. They serve food i should say pretty different from other restaurants. I catagorise them..."Home-Cooked Jap Food". They don't serve funky affairs like raw lobster sashimi or tappenyaki with the fliping saucers and flying eggs; but casual yet chic home affairs like fried chicken with egg plant, scallop on rice, and many more tantalizing saliva dripping stuffs which are super duper delicious. I could not really recall the complicated jap names of these dishes but I could recall the yummy taste and the soothing aroma, which BTW is flashing through my senses now....
The Dessert is FAB...... especially the mochi or whatever sticky yummy think they call it... You can have a choice of it with coffee, green tea or vanilla ice cream. Its always important to conclude your meal with a fabulously fantastic dessert as no one would enjoy a movie without a good ending...
Now we talk about the most important part.. Will it burn a hole in your pocket.. I can tell you... judging by my weight, size and the amount of burnt marks on my tongue I get savoury piping hot food.. It is super affordable. Considering the venue, ambience, super attentive service, wonderful setting, generous portions and great tasting food. It is very value for money. On top of that... the green tea is free lor.. no need 2 dollars or $1.50.. not even 50 cents... and no need to buy mineral water from them lor.....
Then got BONUS.....
They have this tatami sitting.. in as the centre piece. Great for big groups, single diners or just for 2. You get to sit with strangers, altogether totally jap style lor.. Matter of fact, I didn't manage to sit there even though i went there to eat many times. I always wonder how they get in and out. If they will kick anybody's head when they get in/out.... Anyway.. this is something very interesting that I love...
You can also sit on normal tables for 2 or 4. They are spacious and comfortable and I love the window sits as I do get to see the miserable and impatient faces waiting outside to rush in for dinner. Its not a huge place and theres almost no reservation services available. Be early to secure a good seat or be in the midst of a thunderstorm.
I admit, I’m spoil. And I blame everything on Yanting. If I have not had better dim sum before, the ones at Wen Dao Shi might be consider pretty decent, but the truth is – they are not.
They need not be anyway, people come here for the nostaglic feeling of sitting by the roadside in the red district area. People come all the way here because there’s not much options when you suddenly have a craving for dim sum in the middle of the night. And people like it here because it’s unpretentious and affordable.
This is not a food review, it’s a night where old friends come together and have fun. I will tell you absolutely nothing about the food here, because on this night the food becomes secondary. But I can’t do that can I? You are after all here to find out more about the place, so here’s a few snippets about the dim sum:
For around ten dollars per person, we had quite a lot of food. There was the usual Siew mai & Har gau, the former was pretty decent while the latter did not impress. The skin of the shrimp dumpling cracked even before we picked it up.
You probably want to go with the fried stuff instead. The fried prawn dumpling that came with the mayo dip was pretty competent and the xiaolongbao was fairly average.
We had the steamed pork-ribs, and also the cheong fun. The rice roll came with a different type of sauce that I couldn’t make out, and there’s too little fillings inside.
If you are there, don’t bother to get the Char siew sou, the taste was completely flat – the puff lacked the crispy buttery flakes, and the char siew did not have the attributes to earn the rights to be inside the char siew sou. But I was surprised by the char siew bao, the buns were fluffy and soft, and it came pipping hot.
Since most places do not serve dim sum at night, and even for places that have dim sum for dinner, they close early and Wen Dao Shi is probably one of the few places that can satisfy your dim sum cravings in the middle of the night. While there are others who felt that the dim sum here is over-priced, on the contrary I thought that the pricing is pretty reasonable.
But the next time I have a dim sum craving? I will sulk, go to bed with an empty stomach, dream about it and wait till the next day for my favorite dim sum.
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
Come to think of it, I have been using the word feast very frequently, for a lack of better word. I mean when you are having a scrumptious seafood platter, tasty prawns, big crabs, fresh sashimi, gigantic clams – you can’t possibly say, oh I have a normal dinner can you?
We started with Tung Lok’s signature Seafood platter ($68, portion for 4), it had everything you wished for: cold crabs, sashimi, oysters. Okay maybe not, it would be perfect if there’s lobster too. Under our persuasion, we managed to convince one of us who never like oysters to give it a shot – the thing with oysters is you either love or hate it. The scene of her slurping down the cold raw oysters? Priceless.
How can a seafood platter be without sashimi? The raw fish was generously sliced, and ready to be savour. But the wasabi that came along with it was quite disappointing.
Luckily, we also had the Wasabi prawns ($24) which was excellent; fresh crunchy prawn balls coated with a thin layer of wasabi mayo sauce. I like how the wasabi provided the subtle flavor without the choking sensation.
The Roast pork shoulder ($24) was gorgeous in every way, beneath the char-grilled surface was the tender pork shoulder. I wouldn’t go as far to say it melted in my mouth, but it was pretty close. And having some fats once in a while won’t kill you.
This was the dish that all of us were there for – Singapore’s famous Chili Crab ($45 per kg). I was sexcited by the thought of dipping the deep-fried mantou buns into the thick spicy-sweet gravy. But the crab failed to impose its aura with the less-than-satisfying chili gravy which just wasn’t good enough. None of which, I should note, makes this the chili crab to die for. Maybe the mantou, but definitely not the crab nor the gravy.
I’m always a chili/salted egg yoke crab person, so I’m afraid you probably will not get a very fair rating about the Black Pepper crab ($45 per kg) from me. I’m happy to tell you that the others felt it was much better than the chili crab, however it was too salty for my liking. But then again, I’m not a crab-lover, so what do I know?
It was my first time having Steamed Razor Clam ($8 each) with garlic, and it was big/huge/enormous/gigantic! The vermicelli absorbed the essence of the sauce, and it was pretty rewarding to dig out the clam meat. Fine, I exaggerated – what I merely did was just to fork it inside my mouth.
* * *
This is part of a series that I’m doing with Standard Chartered, I will like to thank Claudia from 24seven Communications, and Standard Chartered Bank for the invitation.
Just a quick note about their new credit card campaign, I’m sure most of you will have seen their latest Barry and Fin advertisement; first you get 15% off total food bill (click here for the list of restaurant), and at the end of the month if you have charged more than the minimum amount of $500 (which can be anything, not just dining), you are entitled to an additional 15% cashback which applies to all restaurant in Singapore.
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
It started with another email thread again, this time Camemberu suggested to check out the famous Founder Bak Ku Teh and a date was set. I don’t usually write posts about hawker food. It’s not like I don’t eat hawker food, but the problem is I have too many backlogs of the nice places that I went recently.
Founder is one of the few popular choices that most people will think of them when you mention Bak Kut Teh. You know a place is famous when we actually queued up twenty minutes for a table by the road side of Balastier road, watching the others slurping down their warm peppery soup.
The fact that the walls are filled with the numerous photographs of famous celebrities, and there’s hardly any empty space for new photographs that they probably paste it over some of the fallen-stars. Or the fact that even when we left the place, there’s still a snake-like queue waiting outing for their turn to get in – just for a bowl of bak ku teh.
While the highlight of the show should be the pork ribs, but the pork trotters was even better. Surprisingly, the proportion of lean meat to fats was just right; there wasn’t much fats like the usual pork trotters. The meat was so tender that it falls off the bone and melts in your mouth splendidly.
We also had an pig organ soup that consisted of kidney, liver and small intestines. I like how the medium-rare liver retained it’s tinge of pink, and the robust flavour of the kidney, but the soup lacked the wow factor.
The Bak kut teh was quite a let-down – we were expecting a lot for the fact that we queued twenty minutes for this. Or for the fact that we ordered wrongly and had the normal tough pork ribs instead of the supposedly superior loin ribs. There was the usual side-dishes like youtiao, beancurd skin, salted vegetable, and braised taupok (beancurd).
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
One of the reasons why I hardly blog about Japanese food is because I always have difficulty in remembering all the mind-boggling names. I heard of Standing Sushi Bar a while back when it just opened, and the first question on my mind: “are there seats inside?”
The catchy name certainly helps to pique the curiosity of most people, and I found out that the theory of stand, order sushi and eat only applies to lunch where there are no seats. For dinner you can sit down comfortably (although it’s kind of cramp) and enjoy your sushi.
There was six pieces of the California roll ($6) each; since the others were saving up their stomach for the other courses to come, I had the lion’s share of it. There’s just something about California roll that attracts me; this is the kind of thing I could keep eating and still never get enough. Okay fine, that’s just an excuse – I’m a glutton.
SSB’s owner Howard made the selections, and he chose a platter of five nigiri sushi for us; Maguro ($2), Sake Toro ($2), Hamachi ($4), Aburi Hotate ($4), Shime Saba ($3). I particularly enjoyed the scallop which had a tangy sauce to further enhance the sweetness of it.
And how can we do without Sashimi? The Chef’s special ($25) will definitely delight all the sashimi fans out there; I bet you are already salivating at the prospect of putting the thickly sliced, fresh sashimi with a pinch of wasabi into your mouth.
I was particularly intrigued by the Anago nigiri ($6) when it arrived on our table. The long and slimy salt-water sea eel looks so tantalizing with a coat of sauce, and there was the challenge of gobbling it up with one bite.
I have mentioned it before, but girls seem to love their Salmon a lot. And the Salmon Yuzu Yama-mayo yaki ($15) will be the perfect choice; the fish crumbled at the lightest touch and it was tasty with the appetizing sauce, but I would prefer it to be slightly more charred on the surface.
Besides all the raw nigiri sushi and sashimi, there was also some cooked food available and we had the Mix Kinoko Foil Yaki ($10) which by all accounts, wasn’t cheap for just mushrooms, but I have to say it was delicious. There was the special-sauce-which-the-chef-absolutely-refused-to-divulge that is supposedly the success behind the three mushrooms.
And we also had the Tori Karaage ($6) which was quintessentially fried chicken wrapped with seaweed. After having so much raw food, it was nice to have some sinful, deep-fried food for a change.
Standing Sushi Bar has a pretty value for money set lunch, so if you are working in the area, check them out, but you have been warned – there’s no seats during lunch.
* * *
This is the first part of a series that I will be doing with Standard Chartered, I will like to thank Claudia from 24seven Communications, and Standard Chartered Bank for the invitation.
Just a quick note about their new credit card campaign, I’m sure most of you will have seen their latest Barry and Fin advertisement; first you get 15% off total food bill (click here for the list of restaurant), and at the end of the month if you have charged more than the minimum amount of $500 (which can be anything, not just dining), you are entitled to an additional 15% cashback which applies to all restaurant in Singapore.
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
It took me a year to finally visit Raw Kitchen Bar. Actually I dropped by when they just opened a year ago, but I did not have my dinner there back then. And despite staying just 10 minutes away from the place, it took me until now to pay them a visit. Yes, I’m a year late, but it’s better to be late than never isn’t it?
And boy oh boy, December is almost here. I like the year-end, for one it’s the month of celebrations with Christmas and New year, and I get to sum up my adventure for the whole year. Food-wise, this has been a fulfilling year, and I thought my winner for the best new restaurant is already decided, until I visit Raw.
Stepping inside, there’s just something different about this place. There’s the flimsy light bulb with different pieces of whimsical furniture to begin with. Then you have the quaint and charming backyard that looks like an awesome place to throw a tea party. The chef/owner Javier comes out and greet every table, all in all, you have the feeling of dining in the chef’s house.
The food is pretty good too. While we looked through the menu debating over spaghetti mentaiko, and commenting that the bun noodle sounds cute; we finally decided on the Capellini cream of ebiko and sauteed prawns ($19). Every slurp of the angel hair pasta seems to make its existence for your taste of the food. The portion might be a tad small, but it should be adequate for one person’s serving. We also like how the succulent prawns and flavorful ebiko enhanced the taste of the al dente pasta.
The Balsamic duck ($23) was a bit of let-down though, and not that it wasn’t good. The duck drumstick was firm and quite unlike that of a duck confit, but it had an uncanny similarity to the Chinese braised duck in terms of the smell and taste. We would probably enjoy it more if we did not have braised duck before; fusion dishes don’t work in this case, but maybe it’s just us. And for someone like me who usually don’t like mashed potato, the ones that came together with the petite drumstick here, was gorgeous in all sorts of ways.
The choice of the pizza was through an elimination method since there was only three to choose from. Spring vegetables pizza didn’t sound exactly appealing to us, and my friend did not want the mozzarella basil rosemary pizza, so we were left with the Prawns & chili pizza ($19). It was an irony that Raw Kitchen Bar was housed in the former premises of a firestation, wewe were about to call in the fire brigade for help – this pizza’s one kick-ass, fiery, spicy pizza.
This might not sounds convincing since I do not have high tolerance for chili to begin with; but even my friend who claimed that she grew up eating chili, agreed that this pizza was literally hot. And for the price, we weren’t expecting it to be so huge, which sort of compensate for the petite portions in the other two dishes.
Now I have a tough choice for the best new restaurant (among the places that I went to), and I know there’s probably a few more like Spruce & Hacienda (I have not been there yet) that will probably make the cut too. See you there!
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
It’s that time of the year again – the hairy crab season.
The October and November period is the time for harvesting the tiny crustacean; while they are definitely not the biggest in size, it is often touted as the king of crabs (maybe with the exception to the Alaska king crab).
Almost every decent Chinese restaurant will be offering this delicacy; it’s either you have this, or be square. And they are also not exactly cheap, the better quality ones can cost up from fifty to hundreds of dollars. I was invited to a tasting session by Food Junction recently – they are the first and only food court in Singapore to offer hairy crabs.
The highlight of the hairy crab is definitely the rich roe within; the main difference of the male & female hairy crab will be the latter having more roe.
Here’s the step by step guide provided by Food Junction on “How to eat Hairy Crabs”
Step 1: Lift flap on the underside of the crab. remove the heart.
Step 2: Pry open the toe shell to enjoy the roe.
Step 3: Remove gills
Step 4: Hold on to the legs & break the body in half.
Step 5: Cut crab leg into smaller segments.
Step 6: Push it through to the narrower segment of the claw into the other to extricate the flesh in the latter.
Step 7: Remove Pincer from crap and snip into smaller segments.
Step 8: Cut along the sides of the pincer to extricate the flesh.
The hairy crab set consists of one crab and ginger tea, with the necessary tools like the scissors and gloves (if you need one). We also had some side dishes of steamed pork dumpling (xiaolongbao) which I found to be ordinary; the skin cracks when I tried to lift them up. Order the fried pancake instead, it is a better appetiser and fares much better than the xiaolongbao.
To be honest, I’m not a big fan of crabs in general. I don’t understand why people spend so much time and effort to pry out so little meat hidden within the shell; fine I admit, I’m lazy – I don’t like to get my hands dirty! Anyway if you are keen to have a hairy feast, the hairy crabs will be available at three Food Junction food court (Bugis Junction, Great World City and The food place @ Raffles city) from now until 20th December; with the male ones priced at $18.80 and the female one at $23.80. I will like to thank Pris & Racheal and Food Junction for the invitation.
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
Do you know that there is a RED DOT Museum in Singapore?
Do you know it is walking distance from tanjong pagar MRT?
Do you know that the prestigious buildin they are housed in is a former Singapore Traffic Police Headquaters?
Do you know that it is all AWARD WINNING STUFFS inside?
DO you know that you could rest your legs at an exquisite coffee place in the museum itself?
Do you know that after the sun set you can hang around there for a drink too?
If you want to know.. all it takes is a couple of hours an $5 for an entry to the museum... Breath in all the creative air inside the museum and chill out outside or reflect on a cup of wine while gazing at the busy buzzing road......
Put it into your 2010 wish list today....
Rating given:
Its one of the theatres i have a love hate relationship about. Its very far lor.. if you walk from MRT.... You must first walk from City Hall Mrt Station to Marina square then you got to walk straight straight straight until you see John Little... Then up and then straight straight straight again pass the bowling alleys then you see you theatre.... The only thing i love about the place is that it is not usually crowded like the rest of the other cinemas... However do get your tickets early too as during weekends.... It will be still crowded.. because everybody will start thinking that everybody will not be going there to watch a movie and ended up... everybody is there.
The seats unlike the newer VIVO GV or GREAT WORLD GV that the centre divider can be shifted up... most of the seats in marina GV cannot remove the centre divider hand rest however they have a row of the LOVERS SEATS at the last row.. Don't ask me why removing the dividers are important ok... Its just...... MORE COMFY..........
As it is not a very new cinema, the cinemas are larger in size.. and I totally enjoy the bigger screen and bigger space..... Especially when there are very few people watching the movie or you are the only one watching the movie.. You would feel totally value for money lor.... Human are the bigger the better right? The sound systems and levels are quite balanced unlike some cinemas when i realise the volume is too high and I get the ringing sound after that..
However one thing i really dislike about cinemas.... The entrance is always a nice escalator with beautiful soft carpets and spacious toilets with attentive attendants and movie preview screenings while the EXIT is always the FIRE EXIT.. with dreadful smelling bare staircases that nobody dwells in and even a rubbish bin is hard to find.. on top of that no toilets...... until you walk back into the mall which is a long journey.. Its a bad icon to the service and entertainment industry.. Like after you have earned my hard earned money and screened your movie.... you can disregard me already. Oh comeon... what makes you think I won't buy a drink on my way out or but another ticket to watch another movie later... comeon....this is an area which much improvement must be done....
Rating given:
I like our science centre.. Matter of fact i was quite an astronomical fan when i was a few years younger then now. Though now i am still young, but i kind of relived my younger days everytime i step into science centre.
First I like the fact that parking is free.. on top of that you have a good array of affordable food like the Macdonalds, Suki Sushi, etc.... The entrance fee is reasonable as there are many features inside the centre itself. There is also a water play ground making use of physics and other science themes which is environmentally friendly and very engaging.
I totally agree that play is the best way to educate children and youths and with the environment the singapore science centre had set up. It was indeed a great place to teach students on primary and secondary school science. I perhaps am most intrigued by the lighting room. Where they will conduct some real lightnings for demo. It is fun yet exciting and not many can get to experience a lightning strike up close and personal yet still remain alive.
The centre itself is well catagorised and have a wide array of themes which is fun and creative. There are many hands-on experiments and science is all about working on stuffs.. making use of your 5 senses and discovering more about our world and ourselves.
You might also want to catch a glimpse and watch a movie at the omnimax theatre.. Where 3D movies brings dinosaurs to live. With the rounded screen and steep sitting. Getting into your seat is an excitement all by itself. Check out also the astronomy shop whereby you can get stargazing equipments and some tips to venture into the mysterious outer space.
Many do not know.. Matter of fact, there is a huge telescope in the vacinity of the science centre itself and it is open for star enthusiaste. There is a interest club you can join and activities held there in the event of a prominent meteor showers.
Its a wonderful place to hang around when you just have nothing to do. Most important, I can never stop myself from learning new stuffs there... Its a place though old but knowledge so generous that you can never learn them all in a day.... Discover something you thought you already know today.
See You Around!!!
Rating given:
Thai Food - $10 Dollars
Ang Mo Food - $20 Dollars
ATAS Chinese Food at the top level - $100 Dollars
A sit in Ootoya during Dinner Hours - Priceless
The sits outside Ootoya are not for resting your feet, but they are for prospective customers with rumbling stomachs and black black faces. Now we know why it always feels like being in a thunderstorm in orchard central. The temperature so low and freezing, atmosphere dark and gloomy and the roar of the thunder reigning in my ears.
Ootoya is like a little gem in this cosmopolitan like mall. They serve food i should say pretty different from other restaurants. I catagorise them..."Home-Cooked Jap Food". They don't serve funky affairs like raw lobster sashimi or tappenyaki with the fliping saucers and flying eggs; but casual yet chic home affairs like fried chicken with egg plant, scallop on rice, and many more tantalizing saliva dripping stuffs which are super duper delicious. I could not really recall the complicated jap names of these dishes but I could recall the yummy taste and the soothing aroma, which BTW is flashing through my senses now....
The Dessert is FAB...... especially the mochi or whatever sticky yummy think they call it... You can have a choice of it with coffee, green tea or vanilla ice cream. Its always important to conclude your meal with a fabulously fantastic dessert as no one would enjoy a movie without a good ending...
Now we talk about the most important part.. Will it burn a hole in your pocket.. I can tell you... judging by my weight, size and the amount of burnt marks on my tongue I get savoury piping hot food.. It is super affordable. Considering the venue, ambience, super attentive service, wonderful setting, generous portions and great tasting food. It is very value for money. On top of that... the green tea is free lor.. no need 2 dollars or $1.50.. not even 50 cents... and no need to buy mineral water from them lor.....
Then got BONUS.....
They have this tatami sitting.. in as the centre piece. Great for big groups, single diners or just for 2. You get to sit with strangers, altogether totally jap style lor.. Matter of fact, I didn't manage to sit there even though i went there to eat many times. I always wonder how they get in and out. If they will kick anybody's head when they get in/out.... Anyway.. this is something very interesting that I love...
You can also sit on normal tables for 2 or 4. They are spacious and comfortable and I love the window sits as I do get to see the miserable and impatient faces waiting outside to rush in for dinner. Its not a huge place and theres almost no reservation services available. Be early to secure a good seat or be in the midst of a thunderstorm.
Rating given:
I admit, I’m spoil. And I blame everything on Yanting. If I have not had better dim sum before, the ones at Wen Dao Shi might be consider pretty decent, but the truth is – they are not.
They need not be anyway, people come here for the nostaglic feeling of sitting by the roadside in the red district area. People come all the way here because there’s not much options when you suddenly have a craving for dim sum in the middle of the night. And people like it here because it’s unpretentious and affordable.
This is not a food review, it’s a night where old friends come together and have fun. I will tell you absolutely nothing about the food here, because on this night the food becomes secondary. But I can’t do that can I? You are after all here to find out more about the place, so here’s a few snippets about the dim sum:
For around ten dollars per person, we had quite a lot of food. There was the usual Siew mai & Har gau, the former was pretty decent while the latter did not impress. The skin of the shrimp dumpling cracked even before we picked it up.
You probably want to go with the fried stuff instead. The fried prawn dumpling that came with the mayo dip was pretty competent and the xiaolongbao was fairly average.
We had the steamed pork-ribs, and also the cheong fun. The rice roll came with a different type of sauce that I couldn’t make out, and there’s too little fillings inside.
If you are there, don’t bother to get the Char siew sou, the taste was completely flat – the puff lacked the crispy buttery flakes, and the char siew did not have the attributes to earn the rights to be inside the char siew sou. But I was surprised by the char siew bao, the buns were fluffy and soft, and it came pipping hot.
Since most places do not serve dim sum at night, and even for places that have dim sum for dinner, they close early and Wen Dao Shi is probably one of the few places that can satisfy your dim sum cravings in the middle of the night. While there are others who felt that the dim sum here is over-priced, on the contrary I thought that the pricing is pretty reasonable.
But the next time I have a dim sum craving? I will sulk, go to bed with an empty stomach, dream about it and wait till the next day for my favorite dim sum.
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
Rating given:
Come to think of it, I have been using the word feast very frequently, for a lack of better word. I mean when you are having a scrumptious seafood platter, tasty prawns, big crabs, fresh sashimi, gigantic clams – you can’t possibly say, oh I have a normal dinner can you?
We started with Tung Lok’s signature Seafood platter ($68, portion for 4), it had everything you wished for: cold crabs, sashimi, oysters. Okay maybe not, it would be perfect if there’s lobster too. Under our persuasion, we managed to convince one of us who never like oysters to give it a shot – the thing with oysters is you either love or hate it. The scene of her slurping down the cold raw oysters? Priceless.
How can a seafood platter be without sashimi? The raw fish was generously sliced, and ready to be savour. But the wasabi that came along with it was quite disappointing.
Luckily, we also had the Wasabi prawns ($24) which was excellent; fresh crunchy prawn balls coated with a thin layer of wasabi mayo sauce. I like how the wasabi provided the subtle flavor without the choking sensation.
The Roast pork shoulder ($24) was gorgeous in every way, beneath the char-grilled surface was the tender pork shoulder. I wouldn’t go as far to say it melted in my mouth, but it was pretty close. And having some fats once in a while won’t kill you.
This was the dish that all of us were there for – Singapore’s famous Chili Crab ($45 per kg). I was sexcited by the thought of dipping the deep-fried mantou buns into the thick spicy-sweet gravy. But the crab failed to impose its aura with the less-than-satisfying chili gravy which just wasn’t good enough. None of which, I should note, makes this the chili crab to die for. Maybe the mantou, but definitely not the crab nor the gravy.
I’m always a chili/salted egg yoke crab person, so I’m afraid you probably will not get a very fair rating about the Black Pepper crab ($45 per kg) from me. I’m happy to tell you that the others felt it was much better than the chili crab, however it was too salty for my liking. But then again, I’m not a crab-lover, so what do I know?
It was my first time having Steamed Razor Clam ($8 each) with garlic, and it was big/huge/enormous/gigantic! The vermicelli absorbed the essence of the sauce, and it was pretty rewarding to dig out the clam meat. Fine, I exaggerated – what I merely did was just to fork it inside my mouth.
* * *
This is part of a series that I’m doing with Standard Chartered, I will like to thank Claudia from 24seven Communications, and Standard Chartered Bank for the invitation.
Just a quick note about their new credit card campaign, I’m sure most of you will have seen their latest Barry and Fin advertisement; first you get 15% off total food bill (click here for the list of restaurant), and at the end of the month if you have charged more than the minimum amount of $500 (which can be anything, not just dining), you are entitled to an additional 15% cashback which applies to all restaurant in Singapore.
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
Rating given:
It started with another email thread again, this time Camemberu suggested to check out the famous Founder Bak Ku Teh and a date was set. I don’t usually write posts about hawker food. It’s not like I don’t eat hawker food, but the problem is I have too many backlogs of the nice places that I went recently.
Founder is one of the few popular choices that most people will think of them when you mention Bak Kut Teh. You know a place is famous when we actually queued up twenty minutes for a table by the road side of Balastier road, watching the others slurping down their warm peppery soup.
The fact that the walls are filled with the numerous photographs of famous celebrities, and there’s hardly any empty space for new photographs that they probably paste it over some of the fallen-stars. Or the fact that even when we left the place, there’s still a snake-like queue waiting outing for their turn to get in – just for a bowl of bak ku teh.
While the highlight of the show should be the pork ribs, but the pork trotters was even better. Surprisingly, the proportion of lean meat to fats was just right; there wasn’t much fats like the usual pork trotters. The meat was so tender that it falls off the bone and melts in your mouth splendidly.
We also had an pig organ soup that consisted of kidney, liver and small intestines. I like how the medium-rare liver retained it’s tinge of pink, and the robust flavour of the kidney, but the soup lacked the wow factor.
The Bak kut teh was quite a let-down – we were expecting a lot for the fact that we queued twenty minutes for this. Or for the fact that we ordered wrongly and had the normal tough pork ribs instead of the supposedly superior loin ribs. There was the usual side-dishes like youtiao, beancurd skin, salted vegetable, and braised taupok (beancurd).
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
Rating given:
One of the reasons why I hardly blog about Japanese food is because I always have difficulty in remembering all the mind-boggling names. I heard of Standing Sushi Bar a while back when it just opened, and the first question on my mind: “are there seats inside?”
The catchy name certainly helps to pique the curiosity of most people, and I found out that the theory of stand, order sushi and eat only applies to lunch where there are no seats. For dinner you can sit down comfortably (although it’s kind of cramp) and enjoy your sushi.
There was six pieces of the California roll ($6) each; since the others were saving up their stomach for the other courses to come, I had the lion’s share of it. There’s just something about California roll that attracts me; this is the kind of thing I could keep eating and still never get enough. Okay fine, that’s just an excuse – I’m a glutton.
SSB’s owner Howard made the selections, and he chose a platter of five nigiri sushi for us; Maguro ($2), Sake Toro ($2), Hamachi ($4), Aburi Hotate ($4), Shime Saba ($3). I particularly enjoyed the scallop which had a tangy sauce to further enhance the sweetness of it.
And how can we do without Sashimi? The Chef’s special ($25) will definitely delight all the sashimi fans out there; I bet you are already salivating at the prospect of putting the thickly sliced, fresh sashimi with a pinch of wasabi into your mouth.
I was particularly intrigued by the Anago nigiri ($6) when it arrived on our table. The long and slimy salt-water sea eel looks so tantalizing with a coat of sauce, and there was the challenge of gobbling it up with one bite.
I have mentioned it before, but girls seem to love their Salmon a lot. And the Salmon Yuzu Yama-mayo yaki ($15) will be the perfect choice; the fish crumbled at the lightest touch and it was tasty with the appetizing sauce, but I would prefer it to be slightly more charred on the surface.
Besides all the raw nigiri sushi and sashimi, there was also some cooked food available and we had the Mix Kinoko Foil Yaki ($10) which by all accounts, wasn’t cheap for just mushrooms, but I have to say it was delicious. There was the special-sauce-which-the-chef-absolutely-refused-to-divulge that is supposedly the success behind the three mushrooms.
And we also had the Tori Karaage ($6) which was quintessentially fried chicken wrapped with seaweed. After having so much raw food, it was nice to have some sinful, deep-fried food for a change.
Standing Sushi Bar has a pretty value for money set lunch, so if you are working in the area, check them out, but you have been warned – there’s no seats during lunch.
* * *
This is the first part of a series that I will be doing with Standard Chartered, I will like to thank Claudia from 24seven Communications, and Standard Chartered Bank for the invitation.
Just a quick note about their new credit card campaign, I’m sure most of you will have seen their latest Barry and Fin advertisement; first you get 15% off total food bill (click here for the list of restaurant), and at the end of the month if you have charged more than the minimum amount of $500 (which can be anything, not just dining), you are entitled to an additional 15% cashback which applies to all restaurant in Singapore.
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
Rating given:
It took me a year to finally visit Raw Kitchen Bar. Actually I dropped by when they just opened a year ago, but I did not have my dinner there back then. And despite staying just 10 minutes away from the place, it took me until now to pay them a visit. Yes, I’m a year late, but it’s better to be late than never isn’t it?
And boy oh boy, December is almost here. I like the year-end, for one it’s the month of celebrations with Christmas and New year, and I get to sum up my adventure for the whole year. Food-wise, this has been a fulfilling year, and I thought my winner for the best new restaurant is already decided, until I visit Raw.
Stepping inside, there’s just something different about this place. There’s the flimsy light bulb with different pieces of whimsical furniture to begin with. Then you have the quaint and charming backyard that looks like an awesome place to throw a tea party. The chef/owner Javier comes out and greet every table, all in all, you have the feeling of dining in the chef’s house.
The food is pretty good too. While we looked through the menu debating over spaghetti mentaiko, and commenting that the bun noodle sounds cute; we finally decided on the Capellini cream of ebiko and sauteed prawns ($19). Every slurp of the angel hair pasta seems to make its existence for your taste of the food. The portion might be a tad small, but it should be adequate for one person’s serving. We also like how the succulent prawns and flavorful ebiko enhanced the taste of the al dente pasta.
The Balsamic duck ($23) was a bit of let-down though, and not that it wasn’t good. The duck drumstick was firm and quite unlike that of a duck confit, but it had an uncanny similarity to the Chinese braised duck in terms of the smell and taste. We would probably enjoy it more if we did not have braised duck before; fusion dishes don’t work in this case, but maybe it’s just us. And for someone like me who usually don’t like mashed potato, the ones that came together with the petite drumstick here, was gorgeous in all sorts of ways.
The choice of the pizza was through an elimination method since there was only three to choose from. Spring vegetables pizza didn’t sound exactly appealing to us, and my friend did not want the mozzarella basil rosemary pizza, so we were left with the Prawns & chili pizza ($19). It was an irony that Raw Kitchen Bar was housed in the former premises of a firestation, wewe were about to call in the fire brigade for help – this pizza’s one kick-ass, fiery, spicy pizza.
This might not sounds convincing since I do not have high tolerance for chili to begin with; but even my friend who claimed that she grew up eating chili, agreed that this pizza was literally hot. And for the price, we weren’t expecting it to be so huge, which sort of compensate for the petite portions in the other two dishes.
Now I have a tough choice for the best new restaurant (among the places that I went to), and I know there’s probably a few more like Spruce & Hacienda (I have not been there yet) that will probably make the cut too. See you there!
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
Rating given:
It’s that time of the year again – the hairy crab season.
The October and November period is the time for harvesting the tiny crustacean; while they are definitely not the biggest in size, it is often touted as the king of crabs (maybe with the exception to the Alaska king crab).
Almost every decent Chinese restaurant will be offering this delicacy; it’s either you have this, or be square. And they are also not exactly cheap, the better quality ones can cost up from fifty to hundreds of dollars. I was invited to a tasting session by Food Junction recently – they are the first and only food court in Singapore to offer hairy crabs.
The highlight of the hairy crab is definitely the rich roe within; the main difference of the male & female hairy crab will be the latter having more roe.
Here’s the step by step guide provided by Food Junction on “How to eat Hairy Crabs”
Step 1: Lift flap on the underside of the crab. remove the heart.
Step 2: Pry open the toe shell to enjoy the roe.
Step 3: Remove gills
Step 4: Hold on to the legs & break the body in half.
Step 5: Cut crab leg into smaller segments.
Step 6: Push it through to the narrower segment of the claw into the other to extricate the flesh in the latter.
Step 7: Remove Pincer from crap and snip into smaller segments.
Step 8: Cut along the sides of the pincer to extricate the flesh.
The hairy crab set consists of one crab and ginger tea, with the necessary tools like the scissors and gloves (if you need one). We also had some side dishes of steamed pork dumpling (xiaolongbao) which I found to be ordinary; the skin cracks when I tried to lift them up. Order the fried pancake instead, it is a better appetiser and fares much better than the xiaolongbao.
To be honest, I’m not a big fan of crabs in general. I don’t understand why people spend so much time and effort to pry out so little meat hidden within the shell; fine I admit, I’m lazy – I don’t like to get my hands dirty! Anyway if you are keen to have a hairy feast, the hairy crabs will be available at three Food Junction food court (Bugis Junction, Great World City and The food place @ Raffles city) from now until 20th December; with the male ones priced at $18.80 and the female one at $23.80. I will like to thank Pris & Racheal and Food Junction for the invitation.
Long story short, if you like my review please do come by ladyironchef . . . for the delicious in you
Rating given: