It's my first time eating at Bakerzin. I had a hearty dinner, then my friends has craving for sweet stuff. We ordered their Classics - warm chocolate cake, baked apple tart and profiteroles.
The servings are BIG. But we did manage to finished them all.
I had the Profiteroles. I thought it will be something that I had in Holland - Soft warm puff. But I was wrong. Its HARD COLD PUFF with not too bad Vanilla Ice Cream. Too much almond though.
Their services a bit slow. They did not served us any water, until our 2nd request and also when our orders were served.
Not sure if I will go back there to try other things. The main menu photos looks good though. :p
Was planning to have dinner at Amirah's neighbor stall, but was told it was already fully booked for that night. In order not to stay hungry for too long, we decided to give Amirah a try. The place was already packed with customers when we arrived as it was time to break fast.
We quickly ordered our food and thought the food would be served quickly. Well, our drinks did come almost immediately after our orders. But the rest took too long to come.
We ordered Hummus and Moutabel which are served with baskets of pita bread. The dishes were served cold but it took so long! The taste isn't as good as those I'd tasted few nights before at its neighbor's stall. But still not bad. The Moutabel lacked the texture that I wanted, perhaps their onion/garlic was over chopped. The pita bread served was not very good too. Some was either too tough or too soft.
Also ordered the mixed grill main course as seen in the photo. The meat were all rather tough to chew, was rather blunt and lacks in flavor. This only passable imo.
Overall the food is still considered as acceptable. Will probably not return for a next round due to the long waiting time and not so flavorful dishes.
(This review might seem a little unfair as I had a better experience few days before this nearby. Go give it a try and judge it yourself.) :)
I love Popiah. I like the crunchy peanuts crush and juicy turnip fillings. It’s hard to find a good one these days. Be it the tried type or the handmade type.
I went to the newly renovated hawker centre in Chinatown for dinner. I found one Popiah stall - An Zhen (安珍).
This stall DIY the Popiah Skin. They also sell Fried Yam roll. But I only tried their Popiah. The skin is crispy. What I like most is the little crispy inside. I duno what it is though. I find that the filling is a bit little. I prefer those FAT and JUICY type. However, my Dear Dear who dun really take Vegetable, surprisingly LOVE this stall’s Popiah very much. He even went for a second helping! Haaaa…. The queue is super long! He said he cannot taste much of the vegetables but alot of the sweet crispy crunch. :D
Recommended by a friend, so I went for lunch with some colleagues.
We ordered two items to share:
Gnocchi Di Patate It’s Potato base Pasta which they all it Potato Dumplings (Gnocchi) cooked in tomato sauce with cream and mushroom. Very chewy. I personally like it a lot.
Carnivora I do not take beef. But my colleagues are Carnivores so we order this which is full of meat - bacon, ham, chicken sausage, pepperoni (BEEF). Haaaa… I removed all the pepperoni ate it. I do like the thin crust. It’s good. Not too dry. But too much will kill me coz its too MEATY!
Their service is a bit slow even though there are not many customers. I guess its because they freshly bake everything. They only make the pizza when you order.
Suppose to meet my JC classmates at City Hall for dinner, but the place was too crowded with people going for COMEX, so we switch to Plaza Singapura. She recommended the Curry Omu Rice at Kyoto Sabo AjiTei. Initially I dun really want to go coz its under the same brand of Ajisen. Which I hated their so-called RAMEN. Anyway, as long as I dun order for RAMEN, it should be fine.
Both of us ordered this - Chicken Katsu Curry Omu Rice. It’s not too bad. The chicken katsu is crispy. The curry sauce is not too sweet nor spicy. The egg crepe is thin enough.
The Pork Wrapped Asparagus is delicious! The pork is not too tough. Just right!
This is definitely my FAVOURITE! IKA Tempura with Curry powder! It’s an interesting match! Haaaa… But the batter seems to be too thick. :p
Walked pass this cafe everytime, but din really thought of trying it, until I got the promo flyer about their ECONOMIC set meals. Heeheee…
Though they put up that the 20% discount is until 6pm, I went there around 9pm plus, they still automatically give me a 20% discount. Maybe becoz its a MONDAY. :p Soup of the day - Cream of Asparagus Thick and smooth and not too strong of the asparagus taste. Good.
Roast Chicken with linguine Delicious! But I think the sauce is more for the olive stir fried linguine than for the roast chicken. :p
Chicken Baked Rice Still prefer the White Dog’s Cafe.
Dessert - vanilla ice-cream Haaa… it’s the blue tub - Marigold’s ICE CREAM!
Ladyironchef's namecard v1.0 was all given out, so it was to be a new look for the card. But as all the namecard was finished before i got the time to ask my friend to design a new card, so there's kind of rush to print the cards, so we just made some minor changes to the font, remove some pompous parts and the overall new look's, much simple and sleeker.
I did my first namecards with Tommy Print @ Funan, and i believe many people are familiar with them because they provide name cards at just $24 for 2 box. Needless to say as i was quite please with my first cards with them, i went back to them again for my second set.
A couple of months ago when i last went to Tommy Print at funan, there's only one branch, but they have since expanded to 2 new additionals at Square 2, and Anchorpoint. And since I'm a lazy person to go all the way to Funan, and Anchorpoint is much nearer to my place, it looked like a viable option for my future place to print my cards.
The location at Anchorpoint's much bigger than their original Funan one, for one its a proper shopfront here rather than the "kiosk" at Funan. There's one lady tending to the shop since there isn't much traffic enquiries everyday, the shop looked rather empty though, i wondered whether they really need the whole shop for their business, the one at Funan now look more than suffice. But nevertheless, a better shop means better reputation and looks better when you need to entertain yr customers.
Like what i did the last time, i saved my namecard format into thumbdrive and bring it there. But this time the lady wasn't like what her counterparts at Funan was. The last time they were very attentive to details, and went right down to guiding me to choosing the different things required for my namecard like the exact colour, font, and confirmation on a few other things, but this time there wasn't any such thing.
The lady just asked me to fill up my particulars, i paid up, and poof! It's done. No doubt it's fast, but i was quite sceptical since she didn't ask me anything about my namecard. I told her i done one before with Tommy Print and she asked for a sample of my old name card and said that she will do according.
After about 3-4 working days, i went back to collect my namecard, and to my horror, another staff showed me my "new" cards, they were my old version of the card. The staff on duty that day wasn't very sure what exactly happened. But she promptly called her boss or whoever to check, and when she checked the computer she saw the copy of my format saved, and it was indeed my new version saved there, which was different to what was print.
Anyway to cut the long story short, the staff was nice enough to apologise for the mistake made, and did the necessary "customer-service" by saying they will re-print my cards, the new one, and of course there's no additional charges. I accepted, and waited for another week before going back to collect the cards.
In conclusion, the incident could have been quite unpleasant when they print the wrong cards, but they did the necessary things to make sure that i got my new cards, and even though i had to wait an additional week for my name card, i was glad to get my new cards. Luckily i didn't need my new cards in a rush, if not the consequence will be a lot different. Anyway, i got two box of my old cards, and another two box of my new cards now!
What determine whether a dish is good? There are several factors, the freshness of the ingredients itself, the skill of the chef, and of course the sauces that are used in cooking the food. Sauces are vital to the overall taste of the dish, in simple terms, they helped to “colour up” and enhanced the food.
What will you say if chili crabs are served without the thick and spicy gravy sauce, or how about your burger without any mayo sauce? These are some simple examples, but i’m sure you got the idea. Village Wok Restaurant is a showroom for The Village Wok sauce room. Their core business is actually being a sauce distributor, and the restaurant itself is the place for their customers to sample the sauces.
Village Wok restaurant is located at Far East Square, Telok Ayer Street. I had the chance for a food tasting session there organised by Yebber, courtesy of Village Wok’s owner Miss Dawn. A table of 10, consisting of long-time yebbers and some new faces join us for this meal. The Central Business District (CBD) is virtually a ghost town on weekends, and when we went for lunch during a Sunday, there wasn’t anybody around, and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves.
Although the restaurant isn’t their main business, that doesn’t mean that the food there isn’t good, in fact it has to be good so that their customers get to taste their excellent sauce with the good food. The food at Village Wok has a large part to do with their sauces, so i thought it will be appropriate to introduce some of the sauces that we had.
I sweared by their sweet and spicy chili dip (top picture), like the name implies, the sauce is spicy with a hint of semi-sweet, excellent to go along with finger food like chicken wings and fries. There’s also the chili dip (right) which can be use for all kinds of dishes, but go especially well with chicken rice.
Popiah DIY $20 /set We started off our meal having some hands-on experience with the popiah DIY set. Now there isn’t much places which actually allow their customers to do-it-yourself (DIY) with popiah, and i have to admit the process’s very much fun and all of us enjoyed “playing” with the popiah. From what i understand, each popiah set can serve 6 people, personally i felt that the price was rather steep but for the experience of doing our own popiah, its rather worth it.
The restaurant prepared the ingredients like shrimp, lettuces, cucumbers, and the turnips (bangkuang), the popiah skin, and the sauces needed for the popiah. Everything was done in an orderly manner, you’ll just need to put all the sauces, and ingredients onto the popiah skin.
And there we have it, our very own DIY popiah. Please don’t be deceived by the ugly appearance of the popiah, i guess our popiah-making skills aren’t up to the mark yet, some of us managed to do the popiah quite decently, while some were out of shape and doesn’t resemble a popiah at all. Nevertheless, the popiah fillings were fresh, and the sauces used greatly enhanced the flavor of the popiah, not to mention that it’s made from our very own hands.
Chilled crab with special vinegrette sauce ($30 per crab) The chilled crab on its own was fresh, but eaten with Village Wok’s special vinegrette sauce it did really compliment the meat very well. Their vinegrette sauce was made from top grade vinegrette with their special recipe of course, and it taste slightly sweeter than your normal sourish vinegrette. Having said that, i’m neither a fan of crab nor vinegrette.
Fried Brinjal with crispy squid in BXO sauce ($15) Unfortunately, the next dish wasn’t my favorite neither, i also didn’t like bringal. But for food tasting sake, i gave the fried bringal a try and to my surprise it doesn’t taste as bad as i had expected bringal to be. The purple vegetable was fried with crispy squid using their special BXO sauce, and it wasn’t as brinjal-ish as i thought. The crispy squid added some extra crunch to the dish, but overall it wasn’t to my personal liking.
The Phoenix soars ($21 ) Very nice name indeed, the phoenix soar is quintessentially roast and white boneless chicken. Both chicken tasted as nice, so we were having a debate as to which one was nicer. Some preferred the roasted chicken, while some found the white chicken tastier.
The yin-yang chicken came with lettuces wrap, together with some cucumbers, tomatoes provided it with some healthy touch. And of course chilli and garlic sauce, this made an excellent dish which we couldn’t get enough of, the chicken was gone in a flash.
Black pepper ham leg ($23 ) The black pepper ham leg or pig trotters was really one dish that lingered in my mind even after the meal. Usually I didn’t really fancy eating pig trotters because of the thick layer of fatty meat, but this one was exceptionally good. Under the skin was a layer of fats, the meat below was lean to eat. And it came with Village Wok’s black pepper sauce.
For those health conscious eaters, simply remove the layer of fats below the skin. We lamented the fact that we took too long taking photos of this, which resulted in the crispy skin being a tad soft when we started eating.
Village Wok Celebration Parade ($22 ) A combination of Village Wok mustard roast pork and BBQ pork char siew. Again we couldn’t agree on whether the roast pork or the char siew was better. The char siew was tender, juicy and fulsome with the BBQ sauce. Another thing to note, Village Wok didn’t use any colouring, so the char siew here wasn’t red in colour which was evident in the usual ones.
But I always favoured roast pork over the char siew counterpart, the mustard roast pork did not disappoint, crispy layer with really tender meat. The portion of fats to meat was well balanced, not too fatty and not too lean.The roast pork, or sio bak, was really one to die for.
Steamed Pating fish with preserved vegetables ($44 ) I always had the belief that fresh water reared fish won’t be as nice and fresh as seawater fish, but the pating fish here proved that there’s always an exception to everything. According to Miss Dawn, Village Wok actually had their own fish farm to rear the fishes, so freshness was definitely guaranteed.
They used preserved vegetables, or chye poh to steam the fish. It wasn’t came out to be as salty as i had expected because they had specially soaked the chye poh in water to reduce the saltiness of the preserved vegetables. Nevertheless, i preferred my fish to steam with either salted soy bean, salted vegetables, or light sauce.
Smiling fortune noodle ($8 ) The smiling fortune noodle was Village Wok’s rendition of prawn noodles. Tangy noodles harmonised with delectable fresh prawn essence, topped with big fresh prawns. The stock base was no doubt tasty, but too salty for our liking. There was a rush for water after finishing the noodle.
Home-made Nonya Kaya with bread We had a plesant surprise when they served bread with nonya kaya for our first dessert. The Nonya kaya was home-made from Miss Dawn’s grandmother recipe.The kaya was made without any flour, and was very eggy in taste. I liked it, but i did find the kaya flavor a tad strong, nonetheless we generously spread our thin slice of bread with super thick layer of kaya!
Black glutinous rice with coconut ice cream ($4.50) I did not find the glutinous rice with coconut ice cream that special since i didn’t really like black glutinous rice. But the rest unanimously agreed that this was the must-have dessert.
Lemongrass ice cream The lemongrass ice cream was another mystery to me as i couldn’t figure out the flavor of the ice cream initially until somebody pointed out it was lemongrass. I guess its due to the fact that Thai cuisine isn’t really on my radar often, but like what the others mentioned, the lemongrass flavor was very evident, and if you like the scent of lemongrass, this will do it for you.
All in all, Village Wok Restaurant did a great job matching the food with their speciality sauce, there was a different sauce for every dish, and it complimented each other very well. Prices are generally slightly higher, but given the comparison with other Chinese restaurants, they are still considered within range.
I heard that they are very crowded during weekday lunch as the office working crowd like to frequent the place, so do make reservations in advance before going. Once again, i’ll like to thank Yebber, and Miss Dawn for the food tasting session.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Located within the Arena country club at Upper Jurong Road, opposite the Singapore Discovery Centre, Tung Lok Seafood is the mainstay of the Tung Lok group (TLG). This dinner took place actually very long ago, five months to be precise. I was hesitant in writing the post since the food was unremarkable, typical at best, and there were too many photos to handle.
We chose to have their dinner a la carte buffet priced at $33.80 for adult. The buffet had a wide range of food like Japanese cuisines, cold cut appetizer, soup, seafood, meat, vegetables, rice & noodles selections, and desserts. With a total of 50 items to choose from, we managed to eat close to 30 variety.
I would say that most of the food was average, and we tried quite a lot of variety, so i won’t go into details for each and everyone of them. I’ll highlight the ones that stood out, and the rest are really up to your own judgement if you ever go to Tung Lok to try their dinner buffet.
The pictures were taken with my old canon ixus before i got my present DSLR, so do pardon the poor photos.
Poached prawns (limited to 100g per person) The poached prawns were one of the few dishes that had limits, which meant that they were not available for re-ordering. Not that the poached prawns were that fantastic anyway.
California Maki The California maki was actually the saving grace for the dinner. I wouldn’t say that the sushi was exceptionally fresh, but they were acceptable and we had two servings of them.
Barbeque roast meat platter The barbeque roast meat platter was also one of the few that stood out. The char siew was not bad, but the roast chicken was better. We were in half-mind whether to have second servings but later decided not as we were too full.
Beijing roast duck (limited to two slice per person) The Beijing roast duck was no doubt one of the more pricer dishes, hence the limitation of two slice per person. The waiteress brought the whole roast duck in front of our table to slice it on the spot and served with spring onion, cucumber and sweet sauce. One of the better dish, but pity the limitation of the serving.
Chili crab A La Tung Lok (limited to one per table) Tung Lok’s renown for their Chili crab, they are after all a seafood restaurant. Without a doubt, the best dish among the 50 selections, the chili crab was spicy and there was a sweet hint in the thick and wonderful gravy. Served with man tou (soft white bun), i’ll say that their chili crab is on par with Jumbo, NoSignBoard and Mellben. But again, there’s the limit of one per table. Nevertheless, if you are ordering a la carte, this definitely is a must order dish.
Old cantonese style sweet and sour pork I’m a huge fan of sweet and sour pork, but Tung Lok’s rendition didn’t have the “wow” factor to entice me for second helpings.
Deep fried “soon hock” fish We were not a fan of rear fish like soon hock, so we were not really expecting much from this dish. And it turned out to be what we thought, the fish wasn’t fresh.
Crisp fried baby squids You would thought that seafood dishes were be better at Tung Lok, but the baby squids were over-fried, too charred and dried.
Ice cream puff The ice cream puff was your normal ones found in the neighbourhood deli, but i was actually quite hooked with it. Well this actually show how desirable the other dishes were.
Total bill was $142.65 for 4 person dinner buffet. Although it came with a huge selections of 50 dishes, but most of them were mediocre and not worth trying. If you don’t really mind the quality of the food, the dinner buffet does makes a rather value option since you get to try so many dishes. But if you are the type who cares about the quality, I say skip the buffet and go for their a la carte menu instead.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Tiger Airways, Singapore's very own budget airline. Its the first time i've ever sat in anything other than an SIA plane in 3 years and a budget offering at that.
The first few things you notice is that there's free seating but seats can be allocated at a premium price. I managed to get a special discounted price for Western Australia at $650 to and fro with no additional airport tax or anything like that. Which i still find, is a pretty good deal given that no other airline i've checked can match that.
The second thing i noticed is that there's no free food and no free drinks and entertainment. Which was quite a shock since the journey is 5 hours and there was nothing to do. Worst of all is how dry the air in the plane is. You'll have to drink or face the dryness of it all. Its not really a choice in the end.
The planes are of a smaller variety and thus leg room is limited. Its also quite wobbly during take off and during flight which makes it rather difficult to sleep.
As a budget offering, its not too bad. Just that i'm too used to being pampered with unlimited drinks and entertainment. That said, i'll probably stick to SIA in future. Cheers and kudos to Tiger Airways still .
1=SGD 0.0587
It's my first time eating at Bakerzin. I had a hearty dinner, then my friends has craving for sweet stuff. We ordered their Classics - warm chocolate cake, baked apple tart and profiteroles.
The servings are BIG. But we did manage to finished them all.
I had the Profiteroles. I thought it will be something that I had in Holland - Soft warm puff. But I was wrong. Its HARD COLD PUFF with not too bad Vanilla Ice Cream. Too much almond though.
Their services a bit slow. They did not served us any water, until our 2nd request and also when our orders were served.
Not sure if I will go back there to try other things. The main menu photos looks good though. :p
Rating given:
Was planning to have dinner at Amirah's neighbor stall, but was told it was already fully booked for that night. In order not to stay hungry for too long, we decided to give Amirah a try. The place was already packed with customers when we arrived as it was time to break fast.
We quickly ordered our food and thought the food would be served quickly. Well, our drinks did come almost immediately after our orders. But the rest took too long to come.
We ordered Hummus and Moutabel which are served with baskets of pita bread. The dishes were served cold but it took so long! The taste isn't as good as those I'd tasted few nights before at its neighbor's stall. But still not bad. The Moutabel lacked the texture that I wanted, perhaps their onion/garlic was over chopped. The pita bread served was not very good too. Some was either too tough or too soft.
Also ordered the mixed grill main course as seen in the photo. The meat were all rather tough to chew, was rather blunt and lacks in flavor. This only passable imo.
Overall the food is still considered as acceptable. Will probably not return for a next round due to the long waiting time and not so flavorful dishes.
(This review might seem a little unfair as I had a better experience few days before this nearby. Go give it a try and judge it yourself.) :)
Rating given:
I love Popiah. I like the crunchy peanuts crush and juicy turnip fillings. It’s hard to find a good one these days. Be it the tried type or the handmade type.
I went to the newly renovated hawker centre in Chinatown for dinner. I found one Popiah stall - An Zhen (安珍).
This stall DIY the Popiah Skin. They also sell Fried Yam roll. But I only tried their Popiah. The skin is crispy. What I like most is the little crispy inside. I duno what it is though. I find that the filling is a bit little. I prefer those FAT and JUICY type. However, my Dear Dear who dun really take Vegetable, surprisingly LOVE this stall’s Popiah very much. He even went for a second helping! Haaaa…. The queue is super long! He said he cannot taste much of the vegetables but alot of the sweet crispy crunch. :D
Rating given:
Recommended by a friend, so I went for lunch with some colleagues.
We ordered two items to share:
Gnocchi Di Patate
It’s Potato base Pasta which they all it Potato Dumplings (Gnocchi) cooked in tomato sauce with cream and mushroom. Very chewy. I personally like it a lot.
Carnivora
I do not take beef. But my colleagues are Carnivores so we order this which is full of meat - bacon, ham, chicken sausage, pepperoni (BEEF). Haaaa… I removed all the pepperoni ate it. I do like the thin crust. It’s good. Not too dry. But too much will kill me coz its too MEATY!
Their service is a bit slow even though there are not many customers. I guess its because they freshly bake everything. They only make the pizza when you order.
Rating given:
Suppose to meet my JC classmates at City Hall for dinner, but the place was too crowded with people going for COMEX, so we switch to Plaza Singapura. She recommended the Curry Omu Rice at Kyoto Sabo AjiTei. Initially I dun really want to go coz its under the same brand of Ajisen. Which I hated their so-called RAMEN. Anyway, as long as I dun order for RAMEN, it should be fine.
Both of us ordered this - Chicken Katsu Curry Omu Rice. It’s not too bad. The chicken katsu is crispy. The curry sauce is not too sweet nor spicy. The egg crepe is thin enough.
The Pork Wrapped Asparagus is delicious! The pork is not too tough. Just right!
This is definitely my FAVOURITE! IKA Tempura with Curry powder! It’s an interesting match! Haaaa… But the batter seems to be too thick. :p
Rating given:
Walked pass this cafe everytime, but din really thought of trying it, until I got the promo flyer about their ECONOMIC set meals. Heeheee…
Though they put up that the 20% discount is until 6pm, I went there around 9pm plus, they still automatically give me a 20% discount. Maybe becoz its a MONDAY. :p
Soup of the day - Cream of Asparagus
Thick and smooth and not too strong of the asparagus taste. Good.
Roast Chicken with linguine
Delicious! But I think the sauce is more for the olive stir fried linguine than for the roast chicken. :p
Chicken Baked Rice
Still prefer the White Dog’s Cafe.
Dessert - vanilla ice-cream
Haaa… it’s the blue tub - Marigold’s ICE CREAM!
Rating given:
Ladyironchef's namecard v1.0 was all given out, so it was to be a new look for the card. But as all the namecard was finished before i got the time to ask my friend to design a new card, so there's kind of rush to print the cards, so we just made some minor changes to the font, remove some pompous parts and the overall new look's, much simple and sleeker.
I did my first namecards with Tommy Print @ Funan, and i believe many people are familiar with them because they provide name cards at just $24 for 2 box. Needless to say as i was quite please with my first cards with them, i went back to them again for my second set.
A couple of months ago when i last went to Tommy Print at funan, there's only one branch, but they have since expanded to 2 new additionals at Square 2, and Anchorpoint. And since I'm a lazy person to go all the way to Funan, and Anchorpoint is much nearer to my place, it looked like a viable option for my future place to print my cards.
The location at Anchorpoint's much bigger than their original Funan one, for one its a proper shopfront here rather than the "kiosk" at Funan. There's one lady tending to the shop since there isn't much traffic enquiries everyday, the shop looked rather empty though, i wondered whether they really need the whole shop for their business, the one at Funan now look more than suffice. But nevertheless, a better shop means better reputation and looks better when you need to entertain yr customers.
Like what i did the last time, i saved my namecard format into thumbdrive and bring it there. But this time the lady wasn't like what her counterparts at Funan was. The last time they were very attentive to details, and went right down to guiding me to choosing the different things required for my namecard like the exact colour, font, and confirmation on a few other things, but this time there wasn't any such thing.
The lady just asked me to fill up my particulars, i paid up, and poof! It's done. No doubt it's fast, but i was quite sceptical since she didn't ask me anything about my namecard. I told her i done one before with Tommy Print and she asked for a sample of my old name card and said that she will do according.
After about 3-4 working days, i went back to collect my namecard, and to my horror, another staff showed me my "new" cards, they were my old version of the card. The staff on duty that day wasn't very sure what exactly happened. But she promptly called her boss or whoever to check, and when she checked the computer she saw the copy of my format saved, and it was indeed my new version saved there, which was different to what was print.
Anyway to cut the long story short, the staff was nice enough to apologise for the mistake made, and did the necessary "customer-service" by saying they will re-print my cards, the new one, and of course there's no additional charges. I accepted, and waited for another week before going back to collect the cards.
In conclusion, the incident could have been quite unpleasant when they print the wrong cards, but they did the necessary things to make sure that i got my new cards, and even though i had to wait an additional week for my name card, i was glad to get my new cards. Luckily i didn't need my new cards in a rush, if not the consequence will be a lot different. Anyway, i got two box of my old cards, and another two box of my new cards now!
Rating given:
What determine whether a dish is good? There are several factors, the freshness of the ingredients itself, the skill of the chef, and of course the sauces that are used in cooking the food. Sauces are vital to the overall taste of the dish, in simple terms, they helped to “colour up” and enhanced the food.
What will you say if chili crabs are served without the thick and spicy gravy sauce, or how about your burger without any mayo sauce? These are some simple examples, but i’m sure you got the idea. Village Wok Restaurant is a showroom for The Village Wok sauce room. Their core business is actually being a sauce distributor, and the restaurant itself is the place for their customers to sample the sauces.
Village Wok restaurant is located at Far East Square, Telok Ayer Street. I had the chance for a food tasting session there organised by Yebber, courtesy of Village Wok’s owner Miss Dawn. A table of 10, consisting of long-time yebbers and some new faces join us for this meal. The Central Business District (CBD) is virtually a ghost town on weekends, and when we went for lunch during a Sunday, there wasn’t anybody around, and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves.
Although the restaurant isn’t their main business, that doesn’t mean that the food there isn’t good, in fact it has to be good so that their customers get to taste their excellent sauce with the good food. The food at Village Wok has a large part to do with their sauces, so i thought it will be appropriate to introduce some of the sauces that we had.
I sweared by their sweet and spicy chili dip (top picture), like the name implies, the sauce is spicy with a hint of semi-sweet, excellent to go along with finger food like chicken wings and fries. There’s also the chili dip (right) which can be use for all kinds of dishes, but go especially well with chicken rice.
Popiah DIY $20 /set
We started off our meal having some hands-on experience with the popiah DIY set. Now there isn’t much places which actually allow their customers to do-it-yourself (DIY) with popiah, and i have to admit the process’s very much fun and all of us enjoyed “playing” with the popiah. From what i understand, each popiah set can serve 6 people, personally i felt that the price was rather steep but for the experience of doing our own popiah, its rather worth it.
The restaurant prepared the ingredients like shrimp, lettuces, cucumbers, and the turnips (bangkuang), the popiah skin, and the sauces needed for the popiah. Everything was done in an orderly manner, you’ll just need to put all the sauces, and ingredients onto the popiah skin.
And there we have it, our very own DIY popiah. Please don’t be deceived by the ugly appearance of the popiah, i guess our popiah-making skills aren’t up to the mark yet, some of us managed to do the popiah quite decently, while some were out of shape and doesn’t resemble a popiah at all. Nevertheless, the popiah fillings were fresh, and the sauces used greatly enhanced the flavor of the popiah, not to mention that it’s made from our very own hands.
Chilled crab with special vinegrette sauce ($30 per crab)
The chilled crab on its own was fresh, but eaten with Village Wok’s special vinegrette sauce it did really compliment the meat very well. Their vinegrette sauce was made from top grade vinegrette with their special recipe of course, and it taste slightly sweeter than your normal sourish vinegrette. Having said that, i’m neither a fan of crab nor vinegrette.
Fried Brinjal with crispy squid in BXO sauce ($15)
Unfortunately, the next dish wasn’t my favorite neither, i also didn’t like bringal. But for food tasting sake, i gave the fried bringal a try and to my surprise it doesn’t taste as bad as i had expected bringal to be. The purple vegetable was fried with crispy squid using their special BXO sauce, and it wasn’t as brinjal-ish as i thought. The crispy squid added some extra crunch to the dish, but overall it wasn’t to my personal liking.
The Phoenix soars ($21 )
Very nice name indeed, the phoenix soar is quintessentially roast and white boneless chicken. Both chicken tasted as nice, so we were having a debate as to which one was nicer. Some preferred the roasted chicken, while some found the white chicken tastier.
The yin-yang chicken came with lettuces wrap, together with some cucumbers, tomatoes provided it with some healthy touch. And of course chilli and garlic sauce, this made an excellent dish which we couldn’t get enough of, the chicken was gone in a flash.
Black pepper ham leg ($23 )
The black pepper ham leg or pig trotters was really one dish that lingered in my mind even after the meal. Usually I didn’t really fancy eating pig trotters because of the thick layer of fatty meat, but this one was exceptionally good. Under the skin was a layer of fats, the meat below was lean to eat. And it came with Village Wok’s black pepper sauce.
For those health conscious eaters, simply remove the layer of fats below the skin. We lamented the fact that we took too long taking photos of this, which resulted in the crispy skin being a tad soft when we started eating.
Village Wok Celebration Parade ($22 )
A combination of Village Wok mustard roast pork and BBQ pork char siew. Again we couldn’t agree on whether the roast pork or the char siew was better. The char siew was tender, juicy and fulsome with the BBQ sauce. Another thing to note, Village Wok didn’t use any colouring, so the char siew here wasn’t red in colour which was evident in the usual ones.
But I always favoured roast pork over the char siew counterpart, the mustard roast pork did not disappoint, crispy layer with really tender meat. The portion of fats to meat was well balanced, not too fatty and not too lean.The roast pork, or sio bak, was really one to die for.
Steamed Pating fish with preserved vegetables ($44 )
I always had the belief that fresh water reared fish won’t be as nice and fresh as seawater fish, but the pating fish here proved that there’s always an exception to everything. According to Miss Dawn, Village Wok actually had their own fish farm to rear the fishes, so freshness was definitely guaranteed.
They used preserved vegetables, or chye poh to steam the fish. It wasn’t came out to be as salty as i had expected because they had specially soaked the chye poh in water to reduce the saltiness of the preserved vegetables. Nevertheless, i preferred my fish to steam with either salted soy bean, salted vegetables, or light sauce.
Smiling fortune noodle ($8 )
The smiling fortune noodle was Village Wok’s rendition of prawn noodles. Tangy noodles harmonised with delectable fresh prawn essence, topped with big fresh prawns. The stock base was no doubt tasty, but too salty for our liking. There was a rush for water after finishing the noodle.
Home-made Nonya Kaya with bread
We had a plesant surprise when they served bread with nonya kaya for our first dessert. The Nonya kaya was home-made from Miss Dawn’s grandmother recipe.The kaya was made without any flour, and was very eggy in taste. I liked it, but i did find the kaya flavor a tad strong, nonetheless we generously spread our thin slice of bread with super thick layer of kaya!
Black glutinous rice with coconut ice cream ($4.50)
I did not find the glutinous rice with coconut ice cream that special since i didn’t really like black glutinous rice. But the rest unanimously agreed that this was the must-have dessert.
Lemongrass ice cream
The lemongrass ice cream was another mystery to me as i couldn’t figure out the flavor of the ice cream initially until somebody pointed out it was lemongrass. I guess its due to the fact that Thai cuisine isn’t really on my radar often, but like what the others mentioned, the lemongrass flavor was very evident, and if you like the scent of lemongrass, this will do it for you.
All in all, Village Wok Restaurant did a great job matching the food with their speciality sauce, there was a different sauce for every dish, and it complimented each other very well. Prices are generally slightly higher, but given the comparison with other Chinese restaurants, they are still considered within range.
I heard that they are very crowded during weekday lunch as the office working crowd like to frequent the place, so do make reservations in advance before going. Once again, i’ll like to thank Yebber, and Miss Dawn for the food tasting session.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Rating given:
Located within the Arena country club at Upper Jurong Road, opposite the Singapore Discovery Centre, Tung Lok Seafood is the mainstay of the Tung Lok group (TLG). This dinner took place actually very long ago, five months to be precise. I was hesitant in writing the post since the food was unremarkable, typical at best, and there were too many photos to handle.
We chose to have their dinner a la carte buffet priced at $33.80 for adult. The buffet had a wide range of food like Japanese cuisines, cold cut appetizer, soup, seafood, meat, vegetables, rice & noodles selections, and desserts. With a total of 50 items to choose from, we managed to eat close to 30 variety.
I would say that most of the food was average, and we tried quite a lot of variety, so i won’t go into details for each and everyone of them. I’ll highlight the ones that stood out, and the rest are really up to your own judgement if you ever go to Tung Lok to try their dinner buffet.
The pictures were taken with my old canon ixus before i got my present DSLR, so do pardon the poor photos.
Poached prawns (limited to 100g per person)
The poached prawns were one of the few dishes that had limits, which meant that they were not available for re-ordering. Not that the poached prawns were that fantastic anyway.
California Maki
The California maki was actually the saving grace for the dinner. I wouldn’t say that the sushi was exceptionally fresh, but they were acceptable and we had two servings of them.
Barbeque roast meat platter
The barbeque roast meat platter was also one of the few that stood out. The char siew was not bad, but the roast chicken was better. We were in half-mind whether to have second servings but later decided not as we were too full.
Beijing roast duck (limited to two slice per person)
The Beijing roast duck was no doubt one of the more pricer dishes, hence the limitation of two slice per person. The waiteress brought the whole roast duck in front of our table to slice it on the spot and served with spring onion, cucumber and sweet sauce. One of the better dish, but pity the limitation of the serving.
Chili crab A La Tung Lok (limited to one per table)
Tung Lok’s renown for their Chili crab, they are after all a seafood restaurant. Without a doubt, the best dish among the 50 selections, the chili crab was spicy and there was a sweet hint in the thick and wonderful gravy. Served with man tou (soft white bun), i’ll say that their chili crab is on par with Jumbo, NoSignBoard and Mellben. But again, there’s the limit of one per table. Nevertheless, if you are ordering a la carte, this definitely is a must order dish.
Old cantonese style sweet and sour pork
I’m a huge fan of sweet and sour pork, but Tung Lok’s rendition didn’t have the “wow” factor to entice me for second helpings.
Deep fried “soon hock” fish
We were not a fan of rear fish like soon hock, so we were not really expecting much from this dish. And it turned out to be what we thought, the fish wasn’t fresh.
Crisp fried baby squids
You would thought that seafood dishes were be better at Tung Lok, but the baby squids were over-fried, too charred and dried.
Ice cream puff
The ice cream puff was your normal ones found in the neighbourhood deli, but i was actually quite hooked with it. Well this actually show how desirable the other dishes were.
Total bill was $142.65 for 4 person dinner buffet. Although it came with a huge selections of 50 dishes, but most of them were mediocre and not worth trying. If you don’t really mind the quality of the food, the dinner buffet does makes a rather value option since you get to try so many dishes. But if you are the type who cares about the quality, I say skip the buffet and go for their a la carte menu instead.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Rating given:
Tiger Airways, Singapore's very own budget airline. Its the first time i've ever sat in anything other than an SIA plane in 3 years and a budget offering at that.
The first few things you notice is that there's free seating but seats can be allocated at a premium price. I managed to get a special discounted price for Western Australia at $650 to and fro with no additional airport tax or anything like that. Which i still find, is a pretty good deal given that no other airline i've checked can match that.
The second thing i noticed is that there's no free food and no free drinks and entertainment. Which was quite a shock since the journey is 5 hours and there was nothing to do. Worst of all is how dry the air in the plane is. You'll have to drink or face the dryness of it all. Its not really a choice in the end.
The planes are of a smaller variety and thus leg room is limited. Its also quite wobbly during take off and during flight which makes it rather difficult to sleep.
As a budget offering, its not too bad. Just that i'm too used to being pampered with unlimited drinks and entertainment. That said, i'll probably stick to SIA in future. Cheers and kudos to Tiger Airways still .
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