This is a tale about the chicken and the duck. Yesterday, we have discussed why chicken is more popular than duck. But if you asked me, i’ll tell you i love my ducks more than my chickens. Just ordering half a chicken, i can actually get a bit sick of eating finish the meat, but for duck, i can have the whole duck and i can still carry on.
My friends have always complaint my blog feature nice food from Bukit Batok, is there truly no delicious food around? Actually yes and no, since different people have different taste bud, its quite hard to determine what is considered nice and delicious. But since we are on the topic of chickens and ducks, let me show you what i think is one of the better duck rice in Bukit Batok.
This particular stall is no strangers to Bukit Batok-ians, and even foodies living elsewhere. Their duck is the toast of the crowd, and it always sold out pretty fast, and sometimes if you are there at the wrong time, you’ll need to wait for them to roast the duck as they didn’t roast all their ducks at one go.
Their duck meat was considerately fatter than the normal ones, with a thick layer of fats beneath the unhealthy, yet-so-good duck skin. The meat was tender, and you must eat it together with the fatty skin to get the “oomph” kick! The only gripe - the serving was rather small even for half a duck, you couldn’t get enough of the meat.
Roast pork I also enjoyed their roast pork, with a super crispy skin. This is no joking matter, biting into the roast pork, will give you the “crisp” sound, that alone would tell you the crunchiness.
Char siew Their char siew was actually the weaker of the three. Althought it’s rather juicy, but the char siew meat somehow lacked the “wow” factor, and the sight of the bright red colouring also put me off. They also sell soy sauce chicken, but it’s not good compared to the rest.
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!
One fine day, the duck met the chicken and ask it a question, “why is it that you guys are more popular than us?” The chicken answered confidently, “Of course, we are the superior birds!”…
Have you ever wondered why is chicken more popular than duck? Ask a group of Singaporeans what are among their favourite local delights, and there are bound to be chicken rice, laksa, char kuay teow, and many others. But have you ever heard “Singapore duck rice”?
Looking at the offical statistics will tell a clearer picture, chicken consumed in 2007 was 33.0kg per capital compared to 3.2kg that of duck. That’s like 10 times the difference in the total amount consumed! Right, let’s discuss why chicken, is more popular than duck. First, the methods of preparing chicken are much more than duck, you can fried, steamed, stir-fried, boiled, roasted, chicken, but how about duck? You heard of fried chicken, but is there fried duck?
Half a chicken ($13) This particular stall in Bukit Batok block 273, always had long queues for their chicken. Actually i did try their chicken for quite a lot of times already but didn’t bother to feature it since you don’t bring your dslr to the market. The chicken was quite good, smooth and tender with the meat being flavourful, but rather on the salty side with the “over-generous” use of the light soy sauce.
The rice was fragrant, and not too oily. And the chili, was red hot spicy! I found it to be one of the more spicy chicken rice chilis around. But even though the chicken rice was quite good, i wouldn’t bother queuing up for it unless i really got the urge. Still, i dared say this is one of the better chicken rice stall around, in Bukit Batok. Watch out for “the tale of the chicken and duck part 2” tomorrow!
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!
I've always been an advocate/fan/fanatic/supporter of dim sum so when Dim Joy hopped onto the bandwagon a couple of months back, I was tempted to have a shot at it especially in this recession period where Yan Ting and Royal China are seemingly out of reach for my shallow pockets. Of course it helped that Dim Joy reportedly specialises in dim sum and sells only dim sum items throughout the day - a psychological effect?
And I finally got the chance to dine there on a Saturday morning. Playing anchor to a row of beautifully restored shophouses along Neil Road, Dim Joy oozes sublime old world charm with its facade and simply done up interior that allows natural light in. Cool airconditioning coupled with a nice warm glow from the sunlight make for a soothing and relaxing environment.
Lingnan Egg Tart - Although the lingnan egg tart didn't fall into the buttery crust category which I personally prefer, I have to admit that it was almost in a class of its own. A flaky crust that compounded the oven baked goodness with a smooth, wobbly and not too sweet custard filling that had an almost surreal semi liquid feel. Very delicately done if I may say so.
Savoury Beancurd Skin Roll - Not your usual beancurd skin roll, this one looked like it had tempura batter sporadically coated on it before deep frying. And there was no crackling crispy skin either. Instead, the roll was a tad crisp yet moist, not to mention fragrant with a light savoury aftertaste that complemented the filling of mushroom and radish.
Custard Bun - I wasn't too impressed by Dim Joy's rendition of the custard bun even though the the custard filling was semi molten and oozed out with ease with a break in the skin. The quintessential egg yolk taste was sorely lacking and I could make out some granular substance in the custard which I presume to be partially undissolved sugar (I'm just guessing). There were traces of egg yolk as well from the slightly rough texture but as mentioned earlier, the taste was minimal.
Honey Syrup Char Siew Bao - Unlike the custard bun, the Char Siew Bao was excellent, for lack of a better word. The dough was soft and fluffy with an ample bite to it. However the char siew filling came across as rather lacklustre, mildy sweet from the honey but with a rather high proportion of fat meat in my humble opinion. Having said that, the dough itself is enough to warrant seconds for me (Not that I did though).
Barbecued Pork & Celery in Rice Rolls - The rice roll aka Chee Cheong Fun was a little different from the usual silky smooth ones in that there was an oily finish to it, very much like kway teow or flat noodles. However, as with the char siew bao, the char siew filling in the rice roll was forgettable and overall a rather bland dish.
Century Egg with Lean Pork Congee - I personally dislike century eggs but this porridge was surprisingly decent, especially the pork cubes (actually they looked like chicken cubes), which were tender with a nice salty tinge to it. The porridge itself wasn't too starchy and the ginger slices kept nausea at bay. One serving can feed 2 pax easily.
King Shrimp Har Gao - I would have preferred one large prawn in my har gao instead of 3 medium sized ones but I'm not complaining. The skin did seem a whisker too thick and elastic for my liking but on the upside, the har gao didn't carry the overwhelming prawn taste that plagues alot of har gaos.
Crispy Pumpkin Balls - This came complimentary with every spending of $30 and above. I'm not exactly a big fan of such stuff so I won't comment much except that it reminded me uncannily of those rounded pieces of chewy flour coated with sesame seeds on the outside that are being sold at most dough fritter stalls.
Durian Snow Pearl - This signature dessert reminded me of durian snow skin mooncakes except that the skin on this one was soft and excellent. No elasticity or excessive flour taste that I have a particular disdain for. The skin seemed to meld in rather well with the durian filling and cream when I popped one into my mouth. The only thing I didn't really appreciate about the dessert was the cream, which I personally felt marred the taste a little.
It does seem that Dim Joy is giving the bigger boys a run for their money with its relatively high quality of dim sum at a slightly lower price to boot. The 2 of us spent about $52 for a rather enjoyable and filling dim sum session in a nice soothing environment. Service was good but I wasn't exactly too pleased at being charged $1 for iced water.
Canelé Patisserie Chocolaterie, the fame dessert restaurant that had been making waves with its delicate and dainty small bites. With the mention of patisserie, the immediate reaction would be Canelé, which tells you something about the reputation that they had built up in a short period of time. Besides cakes and other desserts, Canelé also offered a variety of chocolates.
Canelé Patisserie has done a very good job with its marketing and branding strategy. The chic sounding name, the cool sun-shape logo, coupled with its stylish interior, and of course their “designer” cakes and desserts. Not to mention Canelé is under the Les Amis group, which has strong capital funding to make all these possible.
The miniuscule interior had few seats available. When we went around 3pm, the place was packed fully, and had to be put on the waiting list.
Seating are largely from the Al fresco area, built in mind to create the Parisian road-side cafe ambience, albeit it wasn’t prefect with the busy orchard road, and McDonald located just a stone throw away.
With the inauguration of their latest branch at Shaw centre, this brings the tally to four with the others located at Paragon, Raffles city, and Robertson quay. Like Starbucks, the opening of each outlet almost guaranteed full-house customers. This really makes me wonder why is there no other worthy competitor to come out and vie a share of the market.
Cafe caramel ($8.50) Milk chocolate coffee mousse, chocolate genoise with expresso, salty caramel and hazelnut feuilitine. Canele’s signature cake with the usage of the salted caramel, which gave an unique taste to it. However, there was only a single layer of salted caramel right in the middle of the cake, which my companion and I felt was a tad too little.
The strong chocolate, with the subtle coffee flavour, overwhelmed the salted caramel taste. But i love the hazelnut feuilitine which added crunchy bites to the cake. Having heard rave reviews for Cafe caramel, it fell short of our expectations. And we felt that the caramel didn’t really compliment the chocolate sponge cake.
Strawberry shortcake ($6.50) Japanese shortcake sponge, kirsch creme chantitlly, and fresh strawberries. Another famous cake, the strawberry was not very sweet, but it’ll be better if it’s those sweet tasting Japanese imported ones instead. We felt the cake was too tame, there wasn’t much flavour.
However, it could work either way, as it’s good for light tasting, the cream wasn’t overly heavy, the sponge was light, but not for me because i would prefer more intense flavour. Overall I felt it was mediocre as it lacked the kick and “wow” factor. But then again, its strawberry shortcake, what else could you expect?
And how can we forget Macarons? Canele’s ones are divided into two different type, with the classic and the signature flavours. With a total of 12 variety to choose from, I’ll definitely come back to try the rest.
The pricing however, remained a mystery to me. If you would do some simple maths, buying 6 pieces of macarons at $2.3 will be only $13.8 instead of $14.50 per box. So is Canelé charging extra for the cost of the box? I’ll thought that buying more will cost less, since it can encourage sales.
Hazelnut Praline with roasted hazelnut ($2.30) I told you, i loved my hazelnut! It was an obvious choice when my companion wanted 4 macarons. Hazelnut was supposed to be a safe and full-proof flavour for desserts, not lest macarons. But the one here was rather weak in flavour. The hazelnut taste was mild, and i’ll prefer it to be stronger. Obolo had a stronger case for its hazelnut macarons. Nonetheless, the hazelnut was still detectable, and there’s after taste of it.
Milk Chocolate feullitine ($2.30) How can anybody resisted the temptation of milk chocolate? Not me, that’s for sure! The silky milk chocolate, with crunchy bites of feullitine, was one of Canele’s signature flavours. There was nothing intriguing about it, just a reliable and safe option to taste the chocolate while munching on the chewy shells.
Rose ($2.30) We also picked the rose classic flavour for one of our macarons. The first taste of the lovely pinkish delight was subtle, the rose wasn’t very strong. But we did questioned whether real rose was used, as it tasted like rose syrup. Nonetheless, the rose should be a crowd favourite with the ladies.
Salty Caramel ($2.30) Introducing the saltey caramel once again! Even though we chose the cafe caramel, but we couldn’t miss out having the saltey caramel macarons. Like mentioned above, the salted caramel had a very unique taste, and compared to the Cafe caramel cake, this one was much better as you could taste the saltey caramel, whereby the former was overshadowed by the stronger chocolate companion.
Total bill was $28.45 for 2 cakes and 4 macarons. I’ve to confess, amidst all the high anticipation of Canelé, my first visit fell short of expectations. I think maybe it’s a case of ordering the wrong desserts. Or because i had high hopes, which resulted in the not-as-good outcome. Such is the magic of Canele, that i’ll definitely visit them again to try out the other cakes, even though the first escapade wasn’t really what i want.
There’s plenty of others which i’ll love to try, the le royale, canele pastry, jupitar, and many more. I think the next time round, i’ll probably go to the raffles city branch, since the “in-thing” is to be seen hanging around at their Shaw centre branch, seats are hard to get here. And one thing i noted, if the area behind that is housing The Canteen (another Les Amis restaurant), is used to expand Canelé instead, i’m pretty sure it will also fill up pretty easily.
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!
It’s dim sum time again! This time we are heading to Zhou’s Kitchen, a mid-tier casual Chinese restaurant under Tung Lok group (TLG). Judging by its menu and interior, it is clear that Zhou’s Kitchen caters to the palates and pockets of diners from all walks of life. For its Anchorpoint branch, Zhou’s Kitchen is uniquely housed in a separate double-storey building known as the ‘Copperdome’, just outside the sub-urban shopping mall. There’s also two other outlets at Square 2 and Far east square.
Zhou’s Kitchen caught my attention mainly because of their high tea buffet which is at $16.80 per head. Initially when they just launched this buffet, it was only on weekends, but they had since included in weekdays as well.
The interior was simple and decorated according to their theme of orange and green. There’s a total of 34 items to choose from the menu, which included some appetisers, soup, dim sum, rice & noodles, and desserts.
Prawn Crackers ($3 for 3 pax) Zhou’s Kitchen provided prawn crackers for us to munch while waiting for the dim sum to be served. And just in case you’re thinking, they were not free. They charged us $3 for them since we had 3 person, so i guess its by head count.
Wonton We was expecting wonton but it came in the form of the fried wonton skin instead. Fillings were minimum, but the sweet tangy sauce that accompanied the fried crispy skin was not too bad to start your meal.
Beef slices I didn’t know what to make of this, i felt that the beef slices was average, the taste was forgettable, but then again, my friends thought it was not bad.
Salad prawn with mixed fruits I’m a sucker for salad, so anything with salad wouldn’t taste that bad to me. The salad prawns were crunchy, a refreshing appetiser. But no doubt too much of good things could turn out to be bad too, as the salad dressings would be quite heavy.
Drunken chicken This was easily the most unmemorable dish out of all the ones we had. Drunken chicken? Like what my friend said, it tasted more like “pig tails” to us (not that we had eaten pig tails before).
Pan fried chive dumplings with chicken I ain’t a fan of chives, so anything from me about chives dumplings would surely be negative. You need to try this for yourself to find out.
Mini Egg tarts Now, this is the real deal. By far one of the better dim sum i’ve for this meal, the mini egg tarts beared a reminiscent to the ones i had at Wah Lok, smooth and eggy fillings. And like before, mini egg tarts only posed the problem of being too small. But hey, we’re having dim sum buffet, this was all-you-can-eat, so no issue there. I lost count of the egg tarts i eaten that day.
Steamed pork and shrimp dumplings As always, there’s pork, shrimp, fish roe in the Siew Mai. But Zhou’s rendition had a twist by adding in mushrooms as well. Although the taste of mushroom within siew mai didn’t really enhanced the flavour, but you got to give it to them for doing something different from the norm.
Steamed BBQ pork bun Any char siew buns which had three parts would do for me. The one here was not bad, and although its very filling eating buns, i couldn’t help myself to two of them.
Steamed shrimp dumplings The shrimp was good, crunchy and fresh. However, the skin was too thick and sticked to the teeth after eating it. But if you just wanted to make the most for your money, just order and eat as much as you can. Otherwise, i wouldn’t eat too much of it as the overly thick skin made me feel sick of dim sum.
Steamed pork ribs with black bean sauce I always didn’t fancy ordering steam pork ribs, since there’s always hardly any meat on this type of steamed ribs, and unlike those “pork ribs king” which are popular in Zi-char stores, there’s nothing for you to chew on the bones here.
Fried rice with chicken and salted fish The fried rice was surprisingly quite good, the wok flavour was evident with every grain of rice, and the clever use of salted fish did enhanced the taste of the fried rice. I’ll have ordered second servings if not for the fact that rices were very filling.
Deep fried prawn paste chicken Their deep fried chicken marinated with prawn paste sauce, or Har Cheong Kai, was a laughing joke. The chicken was skinny, bare to the bones, the prawn paste was weak. I could hardly finish one chicken wing. Period.
Baked flaky BBQ pork pastry The bbq pork pastry, or char siew sou, fared better than the rest. Although not excellent, but it’s still worth having second helpings if you are a fan of char siew sou like me.
Steamed custard bun Their steamed custard buns brought back bad memories like the ones i had at Victor’s, the custard wasn’t cold, but they were very hard, unlike those good ones which had warm custard fillings oozing out with the lightest break of the bun.
Total bill was $66.30 for 3 person, which worked out to be around $22 per person. TLG is well-known in the local culinary scenes with their chains of restaurants, thus i was thinking Zhou’s kitchen couldn’t be that bad. But having been there, ate that, i would say their dim sum wasn’t worth the effort.
No doubt it’s cheap for all-you-can-eat buffets, you can gorge yourself silly, but i’ll rather eat less in quantity, and more in quality. I won’t bother going back again for their dim sum buffet, for a short while, i even felt sick of dim sum after eating so much that day, that’s why i disliked buffets, especially so if the food ain’t good. And by the way, there were 34 items, we tried quite many of them, but i didn’t show all the pictures out since the rest was either not worth mentioning, or we didn’t try them.
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!
Expanding is always a problem for F&B operators, keeping to a solitary flagship store or opening new branches have their pros and cons. While it is good to retain it’s exclusivity by having just a solo location, it can be also a problem whereby you have limited seats to serve the ever-growing customers.
But having mutiple locations doesn’t necessary mean that it’ll be good for the business, even thought you have more accessible points, but the higher costs which comes along with it will poses a difficulty to the operators. However, the issue we are more concern with, will be the drop in quality of the food.
It is a common scene in the F&B industry with the increase in branches, the quality of the food will somehow be affected, and not on par with their original outlet. That’s why i don’t trust franchising, or the commercial restaurants. It can be a dilemma, and expanding should always be taken into consideration seriously.
Having went to Rong Guang @ Alexander Village, I was expecting the same standards at their other branch located at Ulu Pandan, near Sunset way. However, the same experience was not replicated this time round.
Rong Guang @ Ulu Pandan was much bigger than the one at Alexander Village (AV), they had their own area, which was spacious and could seat many. Ventilation was definitely much better than the stuffy hawker centre at AV. But the business there wasn’t as good, which only made us wonder why.
BBQ Sambal sting ray ($14) The notable difference with the one at AV was the pricing. The small, medium and large portions were $10, 12, and 14 respectively, was more expensive than the pricing at AV, at $8, 10, 13. The sting ray here was not bigger than the one at AV, thus i concluded the higher price was because of their higher rental fee.
Sambal Kang Kong ($8) One of the most popular dish in Zi-char stores, the sambal kang kong that we had was fierce and fiery with the sambal belachan. But the vegetables were too “old” and lacked the crunch, which rendered fail for this one.
Sweet & sour pork ($8) I think i never mentioned before that i absolutely love sweet & sour pork, since my recent posts didn’t featured any at all. I’ve been looking around for good sweet & sour pork, but sadly to say, i couldn’t find any.
Good sweet and sour pork, must have the right amount of bite in the pork and the not-so-sweet nor the not-so-sour taste in the sauce. Needless to say, the one here wasn’t up to my expectations.
Prawn paste chicken ($8) The prawn paste chicken, or Har Cheong Kai, was another dish that we always ordered at zi-char store. Its always freshly fried, not too oily, crispy on the skin, and juicy in the meat. With a twist of lemon on it, no wonder Har Cheong Kai is always a crowd favourite.
But the description that i had just mentioned was not about Rong Guang’s version. The prawn paste flavour was quite tame, and not strong enough. For a fried chicken its still all right, but it didn’t make the cut for a prawn paste chicken.
Prawn roll ($8) As a kid, i always look forward to Chinese new year since my grandmother will always prepared lots of prawn roll, or heh zhor. The waterchestnuts and minced prawn and pork wrapped within the crispy skin, dipped in the sweet sauce, was always addictive.
Total Bill was $50.3 for 4 person, and like what i mentioned, prices here are slightly more than their original location at AV, and I think that food quality-wise, AV also fared better than the one here. Serving was very fast, less than 5 minutes for the dishes to be cook since there wasn’t much people eating there.
This actually bring about another question, since there aren’t much customers, which could mean that there is a possibility that the food is not as fresh as compared to AV which had better customers flow. Again, this is based on my personal opinion, and does not reflect the truth for Rong Guang. But for me, i’ll go back to Rong Guang @ Alexander Village, not this one.
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!
Yesterday we mentioned that oyster omelete’s a crowd favourite in hawker centres, how can we missed our fried kway teow? Imagine this, you went abroad for a period of time, which local food will you missed the most? For me, it’s a no-brainer, i’ll definitely missed char kway teow the most. No matter how much i like chicken rice, duck rice, laksa, or the other local favourites, my heart remains with char kway teow.
Char kuay teow ($2.50) A plate of greasy-looking kway teow and thick noodles fried in dark sauce, is always a good reason to put on some calories. High blood pressure, high cholestrol, I don’t care what you say, but i must have my fix of char kway teow! I will definitely order a plate of char kway teow from Xin Heng when i visit Bukit Timah food centre. Their rendition might not be the best out there, but it’s good enough for me to make perennial visits.
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!
Oyster omelete or ‘hao jian’ is another popular dish in our local hawker scene. Who can resist the big pearly oyster together with the tasty omelete? Not me, i’m a big fan of omelete, but i’ll rather it be shrimp than oyster anyday.My family always frequent Heng Leong for their oyster omelete.
Fried Oyster Omelete ($4) Although both oyster omelete and carrot cake both used eggs as the chief ingredient, but the former is always more expensive than the latter since oyster is being used. But given a choice, i’ll go for fried carrot cake since i don’t really like oyster. Back to the point, we felt that Heng Leong’s oyster omelete was not as good as it was before, the omelete wasn’t as well-fried, somehow, the feeling wasn’t right.
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!
Soya beans are scientifically proven to have many benefits, personally i’ll like to think that bean curds from soya beans help to beautify the skin, because they are so so smooth and velvety! I always had my fix of bean curds from Soyako whenever i visited Bukit Timah food centre since its so near to my place.
I haven’t try the famous Yong He soy milk at Geylang, so there isn’t any board to compare against. But i like Soyako’s rendition, silky to the esophagus, and furthermore there’s a plus point, it’s freshly made on the spot!
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!
When i mentioned spaghetti, did you immediately thought of the mind-blowing carbonara at La Strada’s, or that excellent plate of pasta you had at Da Paolo’s, or even the relatively average angel hair at Bonta’s? You got me wrong of course, we are on a budget course here, and all your luxurious thoughts will crash with our initial plans. How about a plate of pasta at $4? What do you think?
Chicken and tomato pasta ($4) Just nestled within Bukit Timah food centre, there’s Mien by Firstpasta, which was opened by the chef and his wife, with their children watching by the sidelines. There wasn’t anything intriguing about their pasta, just a generous and hearty portion of the Italiano’s staple.At $4, you can’t really complain! When you are on a budget deficit, and don’t have the lavish of buying the $30 spaghetti, here’s the place!
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!
1=SGD 0.0587
This is a tale about the chicken and the duck. Yesterday, we have discussed why chicken is more popular than duck. But if you asked me, i’ll tell you i love my ducks more than my chickens. Just ordering half a chicken, i can actually get a bit sick of eating finish the meat, but for duck, i can have the whole duck and i can still carry on.
My friends have always complaint my blog feature nice food from Bukit Batok, is there truly no delicious food around? Actually yes and no, since different people have different taste bud, its quite hard to determine what is considered nice and delicious. But since we are on the topic of chickens and ducks, let me show you what i think is one of the better duck rice in Bukit Batok.
This particular stall is no strangers to Bukit Batok-ians, and even foodies living elsewhere. Their duck is the toast of the crowd, and it always sold out pretty fast, and sometimes if you are there at the wrong time, you’ll need to wait for them to roast the duck as they didn’t roast all their ducks at one go.
Their duck meat was considerately fatter than the normal ones, with a thick layer of fats beneath the unhealthy, yet-so-good duck skin. The meat was tender, and you must eat it together with the fatty skin to get the “oomph” kick! The only gripe - the serving was rather small even for half a duck, you couldn’t get enough of the meat.
Roast pork
I also enjoyed their roast pork, with a super crispy skin. This is no joking matter, biting into the roast pork, will give you the “crisp” sound, that alone would tell you the crunchiness.
Char siew
Their char siew was actually the weaker of the three. Althought it’s rather juicy, but the char siew meat somehow lacked the “wow” factor, and the sight of the bright red colouring also put me off. They also sell soy sauce chicken, but it’s not good compared to the rest.
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:
One fine day, the duck met the chicken and ask it a question, “why is it that you guys are more popular than us?” The chicken answered confidently, “Of course, we are the superior birds!”…
Have you ever wondered why is chicken more popular than duck? Ask a group of Singaporeans what are among their favourite local delights, and there are bound to be chicken rice, laksa, char kuay teow, and many others. But have you ever heard “Singapore duck rice”?
Looking at the offical statistics will tell a clearer picture, chicken consumed in 2007 was 33.0kg per capital compared to 3.2kg that of duck. That’s like 10 times the difference in the total amount consumed! Right, let’s discuss why chicken, is more popular than duck. First, the methods of preparing chicken are much more than duck, you can fried, steamed, stir-fried, boiled, roasted, chicken, but how about duck? You heard of fried chicken, but is there fried duck?
Half a chicken ($13)
This particular stall in Bukit Batok block 273, always had long queues for their chicken. Actually i did try their chicken for quite a lot of times already but didn’t bother to feature it since you don’t bring your dslr to the market. The chicken was quite good, smooth and tender with the meat being flavourful, but rather on the salty side with the “over-generous” use of the light soy sauce.
The rice was fragrant, and not too oily. And the chili, was red hot spicy! I found it to be one of the more spicy chicken rice chilis around. But even though the chicken rice was quite good, i wouldn’t bother queuing up for it unless i really got the urge. Still, i dared say this is one of the better chicken rice stall around, in Bukit Batok. Watch out for “the tale of the chicken and duck part 2” tomorrow!
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:
I've always been an advocate/fan/fanatic/supporter of dim sum so when Dim Joy hopped onto the bandwagon a couple of months back, I was tempted to have a shot at it especially in this recession period where Yan Ting and Royal China are seemingly out of reach for my shallow pockets. Of course it helped that Dim Joy reportedly specialises in dim sum and sells only dim sum items throughout the day - a psychological effect?
And I finally got the chance to dine there on a Saturday morning. Playing anchor to a row of beautifully restored shophouses along Neil Road, Dim Joy oozes sublime old world charm with its facade and simply done up interior that allows natural light in. Cool airconditioning coupled with a nice warm glow from the sunlight make for a soothing and relaxing environment.
Lingnan Egg Tart - Although the lingnan egg tart didn't fall into the buttery crust category which I personally prefer, I have to admit that it was almost in a class of its own. A flaky crust that compounded the oven baked goodness with a smooth, wobbly and not too sweet custard filling that had an almost surreal semi liquid feel. Very delicately done if I may say so.
Savoury Beancurd Skin Roll - Not your usual beancurd skin roll, this one looked like it had tempura batter sporadically coated on it before deep frying. And there was no crackling crispy skin either. Instead, the roll was a tad crisp yet moist, not to mention fragrant with a light savoury aftertaste that complemented the filling of mushroom and radish.
Custard Bun - I wasn't too impressed by Dim Joy's rendition of the custard bun even though the the custard filling was semi molten and oozed out with ease with a break in the skin. The quintessential egg yolk taste was sorely lacking and I could make out some granular substance in the custard which I presume to be partially undissolved sugar (I'm just guessing). There were traces of egg yolk as well from the slightly rough texture but as mentioned earlier, the taste was minimal.
Honey Syrup Char Siew Bao - Unlike the custard bun, the Char Siew Bao was excellent, for lack of a better word. The dough was soft and fluffy with an ample bite to it. However the char siew filling came across as rather lacklustre, mildy sweet from the honey but with a rather high proportion of fat meat in my humble opinion. Having said that, the dough itself is enough to warrant seconds for me (Not that I did though).
Barbecued Pork & Celery in Rice Rolls - The rice roll aka Chee Cheong Fun was a little different from the usual silky smooth ones in that there was an oily finish to it, very much like kway teow or flat noodles. However, as with the char siew bao, the char siew filling in the rice roll was forgettable and overall a rather bland dish.
Century Egg with Lean Pork Congee - I personally dislike century eggs but this porridge was surprisingly decent, especially the pork cubes (actually they looked like chicken cubes), which were tender with a nice salty tinge to it. The porridge itself wasn't too starchy and the ginger slices kept nausea at bay. One serving can feed 2 pax easily.
King Shrimp Har Gao - I would have preferred one large prawn in my har gao instead of 3 medium sized ones but I'm not complaining. The skin did seem a whisker too thick and elastic for my liking but on the upside, the har gao didn't carry the overwhelming prawn taste that plagues alot of har gaos.
Crispy Pumpkin Balls - This came complimentary with every spending of $30 and above. I'm not exactly a big fan of such stuff so I won't comment much except that it reminded me uncannily of those rounded pieces of chewy flour coated with sesame seeds on the outside that are being sold at most dough fritter stalls.
Durian Snow Pearl - This signature dessert reminded me of durian snow skin mooncakes except that the skin on this one was soft and excellent. No elasticity or excessive flour taste that I have a particular disdain for. The skin seemed to meld in rather well with the durian filling and cream when I popped one into my mouth. The only thing I didn't really appreciate about the dessert was the cream, which I personally felt marred the taste a little.
It does seem that Dim Joy is giving the bigger boys a run for their money with its relatively high quality of dim sum at a slightly lower price to boot. The 2 of us spent about $52 for a rather enjoyable and filling dim sum session in a nice soothing environment. Service was good but I wasn't exactly too pleased at being charged $1 for iced water.
See all my pictures here.
Rating given:
Canelé Patisserie Chocolaterie, the fame dessert restaurant that had been making waves with its delicate and dainty small bites. With the mention of patisserie, the immediate reaction would be Canelé, which tells you something about the reputation that they had built up in a short period of time. Besides cakes and other desserts, Canelé also offered a variety of chocolates.
Canelé Patisserie has done a very good job with its marketing and branding strategy. The chic sounding name, the cool sun-shape logo, coupled with its stylish interior, and of course their “designer” cakes and desserts. Not to mention Canelé is under the Les Amis group, which has strong capital funding to make all these possible.
The miniuscule interior had few seats available. When we went around 3pm, the place was packed fully, and had to be put on the waiting list.
Seating are largely from the Al fresco area, built in mind to create the Parisian road-side cafe ambience, albeit it wasn’t prefect with the busy orchard road, and McDonald located just a stone throw away.
With the inauguration of their latest branch at Shaw centre, this brings the tally to four with the others located at Paragon, Raffles city, and Robertson quay. Like Starbucks, the opening of each outlet almost guaranteed full-house customers. This really makes me wonder why is there no other worthy competitor to come out and vie a share of the market.
Cafe caramel ($8.50)
Milk chocolate coffee mousse, chocolate genoise with expresso, salty caramel and hazelnut feuilitine. Canele’s signature cake with the usage of the salted caramel, which gave an unique taste to it. However, there was only a single layer of salted caramel right in the middle of the cake, which my companion and I felt was a tad too little.
The strong chocolate, with the subtle coffee flavour, overwhelmed the salted caramel taste. But i love the hazelnut feuilitine which added crunchy bites to the cake. Having heard rave reviews for Cafe caramel, it fell short of our expectations. And we felt that the caramel didn’t really compliment the chocolate sponge cake.
Strawberry shortcake ($6.50)
Japanese shortcake sponge, kirsch creme chantitlly, and fresh strawberries. Another famous cake, the strawberry was not very sweet, but it’ll be better if it’s those sweet tasting Japanese imported ones instead. We felt the cake was too tame, there wasn’t much flavour.
However, it could work either way, as it’s good for light tasting, the cream wasn’t overly heavy, the sponge was light, but not for me because i would prefer more intense flavour. Overall I felt it was mediocre as it lacked the kick and “wow” factor. But then again, its strawberry shortcake, what else could you expect?
And how can we forget Macarons? Canele’s ones are divided into two different type, with the classic and the signature flavours. With a total of 12 variety to choose from, I’ll definitely come back to try the rest.
The pricing however, remained a mystery to me. If you would do some simple maths, buying 6 pieces of macarons at $2.3 will be only $13.8 instead of $14.50 per box. So is Canelé charging extra for the cost of the box? I’ll thought that buying more will cost less, since it can encourage sales.
Hazelnut Praline with roasted hazelnut ($2.30)
I told you, i loved my hazelnut! It was an obvious choice when my companion wanted 4 macarons. Hazelnut was supposed to be a safe and full-proof flavour for desserts, not lest macarons. But the one here was rather weak in flavour. The hazelnut taste was mild, and i’ll prefer it to be stronger. Obolo had a stronger case for its hazelnut macarons. Nonetheless, the hazelnut was still detectable, and there’s after taste of it.
Milk Chocolate feullitine ($2.30)
How can anybody resisted the temptation of milk chocolate? Not me, that’s for sure! The silky milk chocolate, with crunchy bites of feullitine, was one of Canele’s signature flavours. There was nothing intriguing about it, just a reliable and safe option to taste the chocolate while munching on the chewy shells.
Rose ($2.30)
We also picked the rose classic flavour for one of our macarons. The first taste of the lovely pinkish delight was subtle, the rose wasn’t very strong. But we did questioned whether real rose was used, as it tasted like rose syrup. Nonetheless, the rose should be a crowd favourite with the ladies.
Salty Caramel ($2.30)
Introducing the saltey caramel once again! Even though we chose the cafe caramel, but we couldn’t miss out having the saltey caramel macarons. Like mentioned above, the salted caramel had a very unique taste, and compared to the Cafe caramel cake, this one was much better as you could taste the saltey caramel, whereby the former was overshadowed by the stronger chocolate companion.
Total bill was $28.45 for 2 cakes and 4 macarons. I’ve to confess, amidst all the high anticipation of Canelé, my first visit fell short of expectations. I think maybe it’s a case of ordering the wrong desserts. Or because i had high hopes, which resulted in the not-as-good outcome. Such is the magic of Canele, that i’ll definitely visit them again to try out the other cakes, even though the first escapade wasn’t really what i want.
There’s plenty of others which i’ll love to try, the le royale, canele pastry, jupitar, and many more. I think the next time round, i’ll probably go to the raffles city branch, since the “in-thing” is to be seen hanging around at their Shaw centre branch, seats are hard to get here. And one thing i noted, if the area behind that is housing The Canteen (another Les Amis restaurant), is used to expand Canelé instead, i’m pretty sure it will also fill up pretty easily.
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:
It’s dim sum time again! This time we are heading to Zhou’s Kitchen, a mid-tier casual Chinese restaurant under Tung Lok group (TLG). Judging by its menu and interior, it is clear that Zhou’s Kitchen caters to the palates and pockets of diners from all walks of life. For its Anchorpoint branch, Zhou’s Kitchen is uniquely housed in a separate double-storey building known as the ‘Copperdome’, just outside the sub-urban shopping mall. There’s also two other outlets at Square 2 and Far east square.
Zhou’s Kitchen caught my attention mainly because of their high tea buffet which is at $16.80 per head. Initially when they just launched this buffet, it was only on weekends, but they had since included in weekdays as well.
The interior was simple and decorated according to their theme of orange and green. There’s a total of 34 items to choose from the menu, which included some appetisers, soup, dim sum, rice & noodles, and desserts.
Prawn Crackers ($3 for 3 pax)
Zhou’s Kitchen provided prawn crackers for us to munch while waiting for the dim sum to be served. And just in case you’re thinking, they were not free. They charged us $3 for them since we had 3 person, so i guess its by head count.
Wonton
We was expecting wonton but it came in the form of the fried wonton skin instead. Fillings were minimum, but the sweet tangy sauce that accompanied the fried crispy skin was not too bad to start your meal.
Beef slices
I didn’t know what to make of this, i felt that the beef slices was average, the taste was forgettable, but then again, my friends thought it was not bad.
Salad prawn with mixed fruits
I’m a sucker for salad, so anything with salad wouldn’t taste that bad to me. The salad prawns were crunchy, a refreshing appetiser. But no doubt too much of good things could turn out to be bad too, as the salad dressings would be quite heavy.
Drunken chicken
This was easily the most unmemorable dish out of all the ones we had. Drunken chicken? Like what my friend said, it tasted more like “pig tails” to us (not that we had eaten pig tails before).
Pan fried chive dumplings with chicken
I ain’t a fan of chives, so anything from me about chives dumplings would surely be negative. You need to try this for yourself to find out.
Mini Egg tarts
Now, this is the real deal. By far one of the better dim sum i’ve for this meal, the mini egg tarts beared a reminiscent to the ones i had at Wah Lok, smooth and eggy fillings. And like before, mini egg tarts only posed the problem of being too small. But hey, we’re having dim sum buffet, this was all-you-can-eat, so no issue there. I lost count of the egg tarts i eaten that day.
Steamed pork and shrimp dumplings
As always, there’s pork, shrimp, fish roe in the Siew Mai. But Zhou’s rendition had a twist by adding in mushrooms as well. Although the taste of mushroom within siew mai didn’t really enhanced the flavour, but you got to give it to them for doing something different from the norm.
Steamed BBQ pork bun
Any char siew buns which had three parts would do for me. The one here was not bad, and although its very filling eating buns, i couldn’t help myself to two of them.
Steamed shrimp dumplings
The shrimp was good, crunchy and fresh. However, the skin was too thick and sticked to the teeth after eating it. But if you just wanted to make the most for your money, just order and eat as much as you can. Otherwise, i wouldn’t eat too much of it as the overly thick skin made me feel sick of dim sum.
Steamed pork ribs with black bean sauce
I always didn’t fancy ordering steam pork ribs, since there’s always hardly any meat on this type of steamed ribs, and unlike those “pork ribs king” which are popular in Zi-char stores, there’s nothing for you to chew on the bones here.
Fried rice with chicken and salted fish
The fried rice was surprisingly quite good, the wok flavour was evident with every grain of rice, and the clever use of salted fish did enhanced the taste of the fried rice. I’ll have ordered second servings if not for the fact that rices were very filling.
Deep fried prawn paste chicken
Their deep fried chicken marinated with prawn paste sauce, or Har Cheong Kai, was a laughing joke. The chicken was skinny, bare to the bones, the prawn paste was weak. I could hardly finish one chicken wing. Period.
Baked flaky BBQ pork pastry
The bbq pork pastry, or char siew sou, fared better than the rest. Although not excellent, but it’s still worth having second helpings if you are a fan of char siew sou like me.
Steamed custard bun
Their steamed custard buns brought back bad memories like the ones i had at Victor’s, the custard wasn’t cold, but they were very hard, unlike those good ones which had warm custard fillings oozing out with the lightest break of the bun.
Total bill was $66.30 for 3 person, which worked out to be around $22 per person. TLG is well-known in the local culinary scenes with their chains of restaurants, thus i was thinking Zhou’s kitchen couldn’t be that bad. But having been there, ate that, i would say their dim sum wasn’t worth the effort.
No doubt it’s cheap for all-you-can-eat buffets, you can gorge yourself silly, but i’ll rather eat less in quantity, and more in quality. I won’t bother going back again for their dim sum buffet, for a short while, i even felt sick of dim sum after eating so much that day, that’s why i disliked buffets, especially so if the food ain’t good. And by the way, there were 34 items, we tried quite many of them, but i didn’t show all the pictures out since the rest was either not worth mentioning, or we didn’t try them.
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:
Expanding is always a problem for F&B operators, keeping to a solitary flagship store or opening new branches have their pros and cons. While it is good to retain it’s exclusivity by having just a solo location, it can be also a problem whereby you have limited seats to serve the ever-growing customers.
But having mutiple locations doesn’t necessary mean that it’ll be good for the business, even thought you have more accessible points, but the higher costs which comes along with it will poses a difficulty to the operators. However, the issue we are more concern with, will be the drop in quality of the food.
It is a common scene in the F&B industry with the increase in branches, the quality of the food will somehow be affected, and not on par with their original outlet. That’s why i don’t trust franchising, or the commercial restaurants. It can be a dilemma, and expanding should always be taken into consideration seriously.
Having went to Rong Guang @ Alexander Village, I was expecting the same standards at their other branch located at Ulu Pandan, near Sunset way. However, the same experience was not replicated this time round.
Rong Guang @ Ulu Pandan was much bigger than the one at Alexander Village (AV), they had their own area, which was spacious and could seat many. Ventilation was definitely much better than the stuffy hawker centre at AV. But the business there wasn’t as good, which only made us wonder why.
BBQ Sambal sting ray ($14)
The notable difference with the one at AV was the pricing. The small, medium and large portions were $10, 12, and 14 respectively, was more expensive than the pricing at AV, at $8, 10, 13. The sting ray here was not bigger than the one at AV, thus i concluded the higher price was because of their higher rental fee.
Sambal Kang Kong ($8)
One of the most popular dish in Zi-char stores, the sambal kang kong that we had was fierce and fiery with the sambal belachan. But the vegetables were too “old” and lacked the crunch, which rendered fail for this one.
Sweet & sour pork ($8)
I think i never mentioned before that i absolutely love sweet & sour pork, since my recent posts didn’t featured any at all. I’ve been looking around for good sweet & sour pork, but sadly to say, i couldn’t find any.
Good sweet and sour pork, must have the right amount of bite in the pork and the not-so-sweet nor the not-so-sour taste in the sauce. Needless to say, the one here wasn’t up to my expectations.
Prawn paste chicken ($8)
The prawn paste chicken, or Har Cheong Kai, was another dish that we always ordered at zi-char store. Its always freshly fried, not too oily, crispy on the skin, and juicy in the meat. With a twist of lemon on it, no wonder Har Cheong Kai is always a crowd favourite.
But the description that i had just mentioned was not about Rong Guang’s version. The prawn paste flavour was quite tame, and not strong enough. For a fried chicken its still all right, but it didn’t make the cut for a prawn paste chicken.
Prawn roll ($8)
As a kid, i always look forward to Chinese new year since my grandmother will always prepared lots of prawn roll, or heh zhor. The waterchestnuts and minced prawn and pork wrapped within the crispy skin, dipped in the sweet sauce, was always addictive.
Total Bill was $50.3 for 4 person, and like what i mentioned, prices here are slightly more than their original location at AV, and I think that food quality-wise, AV also fared better than the one here. Serving was very fast, less than 5 minutes for the dishes to be cook since there wasn’t much people eating there.
This actually bring about another question, since there aren’t much customers, which could mean that there is a possibility that the food is not as fresh as compared to AV which had better customers flow. Again, this is based on my personal opinion, and does not reflect the truth for Rong Guang. But for me, i’ll go back to Rong Guang @ Alexander Village, not this one.
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:
Yesterday we mentioned that oyster omelete’s a crowd favourite in hawker centres, how can we missed our fried kway teow? Imagine this, you went abroad for a period of time, which local food will you missed the most? For me, it’s a no-brainer, i’ll definitely missed char kway teow the most. No matter how much i like chicken rice, duck rice, laksa, or the other local favourites, my heart remains with char kway teow.
Char kuay teow ($2.50)
A plate of greasy-looking kway teow and thick noodles fried in dark sauce, is always a good reason to put on some calories. High blood pressure, high cholestrol, I don’t care what you say, but i must have my fix of char kway teow! I will definitely order a plate of char kway teow from Xin Heng when i visit Bukit Timah food centre. Their rendition might not be the best out there, but it’s good enough for me to make perennial visits.
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:
Oyster omelete or ‘hao jian’ is another popular dish in our local hawker scene. Who can resist the big pearly oyster together with the tasty omelete? Not me, i’m a big fan of omelete, but i’ll rather it be shrimp than oyster anyday.My family always frequent Heng Leong for their oyster omelete.
Fried Oyster Omelete ($4)
Although both oyster omelete and carrot cake both used eggs as the chief ingredient, but the former is always more expensive than the latter since oyster is being used. But given a choice, i’ll go for fried carrot cake since i don’t really like oyster. Back to the point, we felt that Heng Leong’s oyster omelete was not as good as it was before, the omelete wasn’t as well-fried, somehow, the feeling wasn’t right.
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!
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Soya beans are scientifically proven to have many benefits, personally i’ll like to think that bean curds from soya beans help to beautify the skin, because they are so so smooth and velvety! I always had my fix of bean curds from Soyako whenever i visited Bukit Timah food centre since its so near to my place.
I haven’t try the famous Yong He soy milk at Geylang, so there isn’t any board to compare against. But i like Soyako’s rendition, silky to the esophagus, and furthermore there’s a plus point, it’s freshly made on the spot!
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:
When i mentioned spaghetti, did you immediately thought of the mind-blowing carbonara at La Strada’s, or that excellent plate of pasta you had at Da Paolo’s, or even the relatively average angel hair at Bonta’s? You got me wrong of course, we are on a budget course here, and all your luxurious thoughts will crash with our initial plans. How about a plate of pasta at $4? What do you think?
Chicken and tomato pasta ($4)
Just nestled within Bukit Timah food centre, there’s Mien by Firstpasta, which was opened by the chef and his wife, with their children watching by the sidelines. There wasn’t anything intriguing about their pasta, just a generous and hearty portion of the Italiano’s staple.At $4, you can’t really complain! When you are on a budget deficit, and don’t have the lavish of buying the $30 spaghetti, here’s the place!
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: