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Food & Beverage
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1=SGD 0.0587
Had the opportunity to partake in a tasting session at Persimmon one Wednesday evening, courtesy of its co owner, Helena, who also co owns the casual eatery Epicurious at Roberston Quay. Persimmon bills itself as a fusion restaurant, incorporating both chinese and western food to blend up its own variety of fusion. Think somewhere along the lines of another Singapore fusion restaurant, Wild Rocket.
Stepping into Persimmon is reminiscent of stepping into a high class coffeeshop, with its checkered tile floors, white top tables and wooden chairs. What it lacks is the spinning ceiling fans which have been replaced by air conditioning units but I'm definitely not complaining. Not with Singapore's heat and humidity. Coupled with a low ceiling and retro music, it made for a soothing and laid back atmosphere.
Mushroom & Sesame Shooter - I liked this inconspicuous little shot glass of warm mushroom soup. Savoury with a hint of sesame and bits of mushroom. There was suppose to be 绍兴酒 in it but that was apparently not evident.
Fisherman's Pie - Persimmon's rendition of the fisherman's pie took a different twist from the norm. Instead of the usual seafood ingredients enveloped within a mould of pastry, this one was more of a soup bowl covered with a puff pastry lid. Another interesting thing was the choice of soup, which was a less oily version of the ubiquitous Laksa gravy. Honestly, I didn't find the soup or the ingredients very outstanding, coming across as decent at best. The pastry also needed some reworking in my humble opinion, probably through the addition of more butter to make it more fragrant and creamier to the tastebuds.
Fried Kway Teow with Wagyu Beef - I'm sorry to say this, but as fragrant and tasty as the kway teow may be, it is still CKT (Char Kway Teow), albeit of a less oily version than the ones you find in hawker centres outside. It came with a poached quail egg and mushrooms but lacked the discernible wok hei taste due to it being pan fried I believe. Did I mention that it was a tad too salty as well?
The accompanying wagyu beef came served atop a bed of beansprouts and was tender, juicy and almost mouthwatering. But being too thinly sliced, it was a little overcooked and I honestly couldn't tell that it was wagyu beef. So much for such an expensive breed of beef.
On a side note, it would definitely be funny if someone called it 牛肉河粉.
Wagyu Beef - As with the wagyu beef from the CKT, this dish of wagyu was thinly sliced and a tad overcooked, but at least portions were more significant and each slice held more bite. I just wonder how much would such a dish cost.
White Pepper Crab Cake with Tunghoon Salad & Scallop - I've never really been a fan of crab cakes and Persimmon's offering wasn't just about to change that. But thats not to say it wasn't good. As a matter of fact, it was quite decent, with lots of shredded crab, but just not outstanding.
The tunghoon salad held quite a few surprises with its overly zesty taste harbouring a spicy aftermath that hits you slowly but surely. And the lone fleshy scallop that came alongside was a little too undercooked, soft and bland.
Pineapple Tart - Now this was one huge unconventional pineapple tart. A scoop of ice cream atop a sweet pineapple ring, covering a layer of caramelised pineapple, all on a huge tart base. I'm a sucker for pineapple tarts so I liked it quite a fair bit with the nice and smooth ice cream but I did think that it could have been better. The tart base lacked the oven baked taste which I personally like and it wasn't crumbly enough. That aside, its really quite worth the eat.
Overall I think the food is pretty decent and probably a few minor tweaks here and there would suffice. As mentioned earlier, it was a complimentary tasting session hence I am unsure of the prices but a quick glance at the regular menu shows most main courses to be in the $20 range. I might do a revisit, just as soon as I am able to ascertain the food prices.
To end, please allow me to extend my thanks to Helena for the invite and for being an excellent host.
See all pictures here.
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Joe’s kitchen may look ordinary on the outside, or even you might totally missed it when you passed by the place at its location at Bukit Merah, just directly opposite Alexander Hospital. I did. Having passed by the area a few times, i didn’t know there was this hidden gem offering authentic thai food experience in our midst of our heartland.
I was given this opportunity for the wonderful Makan experience organized by Leslie of ieatishootipost fame. A total of 47 food punters joined us on this occasion. Some of which were ieat’s old makan kakis, while many like me were first-timers joining ieat on his makan session.
The interior of the place was simple, the place wasn’t very big but it managed to squeeze all 47 of us inside the place. I wondered how all of us managed to eat inside that night. Miracle!
The event was supposed to start at 7pm, i got there around 645pm and there were people there already. Damien was the co-organizer for the outing. Jiawei and Shanice were the earliest there if i’m not wrong, i seated in the same table with them. Also on the same table as me were liverpool, eastcoastlife & hubby, yanti & friend. All of us had a wonderful time chatting taking photos, and savouring the food.
The crowd starts to come in and by around 740pm or thereabouts almost everyone arrived. The menu was to be 14 dishes including some starters, mains, and desserts. All the dishes came in sampling tasting size so that we can have a bit of everything. The female boss, Jamie (chef Joe’s wife) is friendly and attended to us warmly.
Crispy rice cake
The Kao Dang Na Dang help to kick-start our makan session. Not commonly found in Singapore. the cripsy rice cake, was supposed to go together with the peanut sauce. I didn’t quite enjoy this appetizer as i found it to be way too dry for my liking.
Prawn Cakes
The Thot Man Goong or Prawn Cakes was nice to eat, it was crispy and the prawn taste is just right.
Mango Salad
The mango salad is one the appetizer dish that you will not be surprised to find in a Thai restaurant. No doubt about it, th salad is packed with everything. The first taste of it, refreshing. The initial impression was its not as spicy as i thought. But the magical part of it was the longer it gets, the spicier it became. A few more bites and the mango salad got to its “full level”
As most of us waited quite long for everyone to turn up before the dishes to serve, by the time the mango salad came out everybody were famished. We literally “attacked” the salad, and it was until ieat told us to hold our horses, that the salad was supposed to eat together with the sticky rice and chicken which were not out yet then we realized that.
Gai Yang (Grilled Chicken)
The grilled chicken was quite good to be honest, everyone got a bite of it. Placing the mango salad and the chicken onto the sticky rice, the taste is very different from eating the three dishes separately.
Grilled Pork Collar
This was no doubt for me, the star of the show! The Khaw Mu Yang, or grilled pork collar was somewhat similar to our Chinese char siew, albeit Thai style. Many of the kakis found it to be good too! Its also commonly eaten together with the sticky rice and mango salad. But its so good that we eat it on its own.
Tom Yum soup with fried fish
In my personal opinion, how good a Thai restaurant is can be based on the test of their Tom Yum soup. Unquestionably. Tom Yum soup is the first thing that most people will think of when they think of Thai food. Well i say the Tom Yum soup by Chef Joe should passed with flying colours. The soup is really spicy, at least from my perspective. Dipping the crispy fried fish into the soup was quite a experience for me.
Green curry beef
The beef was tender, and immersed with the essence of the green curry.
Deep fried Grouper with Thai chili
The Thai chili was excellent here, real hot and a little sweet spicy. But i couldn’t help drinking more water so as to have a few more mouthful of the chili with the deep fried grouper.
Red Curry Roasted Duck
Having seen the green curry earlier, my first thought was red curry after green? This was followed by roasted duck curry? I have never heard of roasted duck curry, let alone tasting it. But this dish was really not bad, i’m not sure how the roasted duck came about, whether Chef Joe roasted the duck, or he brought it from elsewhere and cook it with the red curry, but nevertheless its good.
And to our astonishment, there were grapes, yes grapes inside the curry! Talk about surprise, first roasted duck in curry, then grapes?
Basil leave minced pork
I was never a fan of minced pork in the first place, n’uff said!
Claypot Crab Vermicelli with fatty pork
Although the claypot crab was suppose to be the highlight here, but we got into eating the vermicelli instead. After cooking, the essence of the crab and fatty pork all went into the vermicelli, that alone should suffice for eating the vermicelli.
Poom Fy Dang - Kang Kong Thai style
Like all the other dishes in Joe’s Kitchen, the first taste was not very spicy, but the second bite was real hot. The Kang Kong got hotter with each bite, i suggested just swallow the veggies!
Mango Stick rice
To round off our authentic Thai food experience, we had Mango sticky rice, the mango was real sweet!
Tapioca with Coconut milk
I didn’t like tapioca, so this dish was not to my taste bud
Total Bill was $1646 for 47 people, $35 per head for the Authentic Thai food experience at Chef Joe’s place. I love going to Makan outings with big groups because we can get to know more people. Think Yebber Party @ MINT where there were about 50 people, the Social Media Breakfast with around 40 odds people, and now this ieat makan outing with 47 people.
Credits to Leslie (ieat) and Damien whom organized this makan session for everyone to get together and enjoyed food. I looked forward to the many more outings organized by them, to meet more people and eat more food!
The beauty of food, it can bring everyone from all ages, different backgrounds together, for one common purpose that is to savour all the good food. How often do you see strangers getting together and seating down for a meal? I’m going to organised LIC food event soon, do watch out for the post!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
” Authentic Thai Food experience, in the midst of our heartland “
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Finally stepped my foot into this outlet situated in the east! It is located all the way on the top storey of Parkway Parade which is accessible by both the life and the escalator. I took the lift up at first and it is interesting that one has to walk through the multi-storey carpark to get to the club. Yet, it also gives greater privacy and exclusiveness when they have the entire floor to themselves.
The club was big, though second to their 2-storey outlet at Suntec City. The layout of the whole place was pretty much similar to that of Great World City's but here is definitely alot more spacious than Great World. Without any windows overlooking the view outside (just roads & flats anyway), the place was nicely done up with big mirror walls. Most of the equipments are new and have been neatly arranged accordingly.
There were 3 studios, 1 for spinning, another one for mind & soul classes and the last one for high-intensity exercise. All three will not very big, but good enough to hold a class of 30-40 people.
Not forgetting the toilets. At least for the ladies, it was huge & spacious! The individual shower room was big too!
I totally love this outlet and will try to attend more classes here!
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Having heard about the pizzas served here, I finally got the opportunity to try! Lucky that my friend & I were early for dinner. The two of us managed to find a 4-seater table in the tiny shop. Hee hee....
Don't judge by the size of this shop. I was surprised by the variety of food that's available on the menu. Besides having a good variety of pizzas, there's pasta and bake rice as well. We were so spoilt for choice! We finally settled on a BBQ chicken personal pizza ($6.80) and a chef's favourite personal pizza ($8.80). Being a big chilli lover, I requested for "4 chilli" for the spicyness (I think the most spicy was "5 chilli") of my chef's favourite pizza. Haha
All you have to do is to write down your order on the memo, go to the cashier and make payment. Oh yes! This shop doesn't charge service charge :)
The pizza was soon served to us, piping hot! One bite on the pizza was good enough to draw the conclusion. GOOD!!!! The crust was thin & crispy and their generous amount of cheese and toppings just make it perfect. Oh yes, the "4 chilli" really made the pizza very spicy but I enjoyed every single bite of it. The 4 slices for the personal pizza was just enough to satisfy my hunger that day. But if you are a big eater, that's definitely not sufficient.
The bill came up to $17.50, which includes the 2 pizzas and a drink and i find it pretty reasonable.
I'll be back again!
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Ice cream!!!
My friends and I wanted to find a place to sit down for a chit chat and also to have some ice cream dessert after a not-satisfying meal. Decided on this place as there are small round tables for us to crowd around to chit chat as well for an ice cream.
Having sat down, my friends and I looked through the menu but because one of my friends and I would need to rush off soon, we decided to get a scoop of ice cream each to be taken away. But then, we were told by their waitress that if we were to take away our orders, we could not occupy the seats meant for dine-in customers only. At that point, my friends who were still at the table were still deciding on their orders. Even though I told them this, my friends were still being chased out of their seats.
What I noticed was that none of the waitress was willing to serve me at the cashier before my friends got chased out. I can't help but wonder if it's because they wanted to make sure that my friends were successfully chased out of the place before they can accept my payment as for take away orders. Just for that 10% service charge & 7% GST, this was what they did to their customers? That's very wrong of them!
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After walking around Parkway Parade, my friends and I have came to conclude that this looked like a pretty decent dining place for us and there we went.
We waited at the entrance for quite a while before a waiter came over to bring us to our seats. I thought that it is a standard practice for restaurants to inform their customers of their soup of the day. This place just failed to do so. Not so much that it is important, it took us quite a while again to get the attention of the staff so that we can check out what's the soup of the day. Mind you, this is a not a big restaurant, just a small cafe size eating place with 4-5 staffs around and the place was not even fully packed with customers! Like what my friend had commented, all the staff here put on a long face, hardly any smile on their face with the exception of one waiter.
Oh yes, having said so much, I've not even talked about their food. Besides the ala carte menu, they provide all-day set meals which have been grouped into 3 categories - Executive set ($13.80), Gourmet set ($19.80) and for the last one, I can't recall the name but it costs $20.80. Each set comes with free-flow of bread, soup of the day main course and a coffee or tea.
We ordered 2 seafood pasta, one with tomato sauce while the other aglio olio and a caesar salad.
The bread was available at their bread counter and all for you to cut. There's even a toaster for you to toast your bread. The bread tasted ok, not too dry to eat on its own. In fact, I would say that the bread tasted so much better than their main course. Soup of the day was cream of seafood. I didn't find much seafood in the soup, just alot of potato & carrot. Hmm...
After a long wait, finally came our main course! Too bad, it was a real disappointment! Spaghetti was very salty for both the aglio olio & tomato based pasta. Clams were salty too, prawns & crayfish were overcooked.
During our hour-long stay in the cafe, we met the one & only friendly staff who was concerned with our dining experience there. I guess that's the only saving grace for the cafe which is seriously worthy of that one star from me.
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Had dinner at Da Paolo La Terrazza - one of 7 Italian restaurants/bars/gourmet shops that the Da Paolo group has opened up since their early days as Trattoria Da Paolo in Tanjong Pagar.
Located just a stone's throwaway from the ever crowded Holland Village in the quiet, tree lined stretch of Jalan Merah Sage, La Terrazza offers a respite from the hustle and bustle of life as the rat race takes a back seat in this charming little neighbourhood restaurant. The decor is simple yet comfortable, with its rattan chairs and a small alfresco dining area to cater to those who wish to enjoy the humidity of Singapore. Then again, there's only the air curtain to seperate the air conditioned area and the alfresco area so sitting inside doesn't guarantee a cool dinner, which was the case that very night I was there.
The complimentary bread was a good start to the meal. Fragrant, soft and moist on the inside yet crisp on the outside. It would have been better if served warm though.
La Terrazza's offering of the minestrone soup hit some rather flat notes to render it painfully average. I could have gotten the same standard of soup at most decent western restaurants for a lower price. Probably the only interesting thing was that the soup came with a slice of cheese in it, something I've not seen anywhere else. Not that it really made much of a difference to the taste of the soup though.
Cappesante Alle Erbe e Brandy - Sauteed Scallops with Brandy and Herbs - I like scallops hence I tend to have higher expectations of them. And these failed miserably. The scallops were bland and soft, not firm as I would have expected and there was no taste of brandy whatsoever. The only discernible taste came from the ground pepper scattered atop.
Tagliatelle Al Granchio - The Tagliatelle Al Granchio aka crab meat pasta provided a much needed boost to the disappointing dinner thus far. Al dente without being too heavy on the cream or taste. Nice and filling just the way I liked it. Could do with a little more crab meat though.
Crespelle Alla Crema - Caramelised Thin Pancakes with Vanilla Pastry Cream and Vanilla Ice Cream - This is probably one of the very very few times where I order pancakes for dessert. But I'm glad I did. The caramelised pancakes were rather interesting because as the name implies, the pancakes were coated with a hardened layer of caramel, making it sweet. Personally, I would have prefered chocolate cream instead of vanilla cream inside though.
Tiramisu - Undoubtedly the star of the evening, and one of the main reasons why I wanted to eat at La Terrazza - the tiramisu. The not overly wet sponge to mascarpone cheese ratio was quite even and overall the tiramisu came across as light and fluffy with a stronger than usual hint of alcohol. A slice costs $10 and if you want the entire cake, its $60.
$94 for a soup, an appetiser, a main and 2 desserts certainly isn't prohibitively expensive considering the relatively above average quality of food in general. But it isn't cheap either. On the flip side, service is good and efficient but rather mechanical, lacking the personal touch and warmth.
See all my pictures here.
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ladyironchef finally got his namecard!! Namecards are important, first they tell others your name, and then they also make them remember your contact number. Its a hassle to liase or socialise with people if you don't have one.
Encountering the problem at Yebber first anniversary party at MINT, and at the Social Media Breakfast where LIC got to meet many people but didn't have any namecard to exchange with.
LIC got a friend to design his namecard, the layout is simple and nice (i hope), styled in black background at the front and white background at the back.
And the rest is easy, bringing down the template in thumbdrive saved as the format required. There was two lady when LIC went to Tommy Print. One was cold and had few words, while the other was friendly and helpful.
They guided me to choosing the different things required for my namecard, and it was not much of a problem. I choose the cheapest, but very nice Gloss/Matte Lamination.
As this is my first time printing my own namecards, i chose 200 pieces at $24, instead of the otherwise more worth-it 300 pieces at $30. Its suppose to take them 4-5 working days to print, but i got the call from them on the 3rd day. So i guess they are quite efficient.
The results of the namecard are nice, better than what i expected really. And at $24 for two box, its really very cheap and affordable for anyone and everyone to own their own namecards.
Meet me at the next Yebber outing, i'll pass you one of mine : )
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You was not expecting ladyironchef to get his DSLR from challenger after reading all the rantings and praises he had for the different camera shops.
After the complaints against Alan photo, and the praise on John 3:16, you must be wondering why didn't LIC got his DSLR from John 3:16?
Well, first thing first, LIC love canon products, the old camera is a canon ixus 60. But for DSLR, for the budget LIC has now, Canon doesn't seem so viable. Nikon D40 for &750, D60 for $950, Canon 400D for $1080, Canon 450D for $1490.
I'll love to get from John 3:16, but they are not a fan of Nikon, and the model that i wanted to get D40, they are not selling it anymore. End of story.
On the other hand, Challenger is having this promotion for Nikon D40 for $749 which comes with a nikon bag, 2GB SD card. But we hit one snag, the promotion lasted until 30 april only.
As i was there last sunday, but i didn't buy the dslr as i was in rush of time. The sales associate Shawn he remembered me, and despite the promotion is over, he gave me the 2GB SD card. Thats service to me.
After which, i asked him where can i get the screen protector, challenger is selling at $9.90, but then even though its not part of the deal, he say he gave it to me. Its not the freebies, but the service provided by Shawn. Kudos!
And i am proud to annouce Ladyironchef is a owner of the magical DSLR, the Nikon D40!! Thank you for reading through all the previous posts, hope i didn't confuse you where i was buying from : )
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John 3: 16 has the BEST services if you are looking for your camera. The staff there are real friendly, and always more than willing to answer your any doubts or enquiries.
Just asked them for a hands-on experience on a dslr or camera, and there was no slight frown, or look that says "are you really going to buy?"
Leslie is the one who attended to me, and he's very knowledgable about the products that he's selling. Real friendly too. I had some hands-on testing with the dslr, and he patiently explained to me the difference between the diff models and lens.
But, good services come with a price after all, the quotes you get from John 3:16 will not come cheaper than the other shops. In fact i think the price tag is slightly higher by $20-$30?
Not much diff, but still enough to buy another additional memory card. If you are the kind looking for service and don't mind paying a bit more, then John 3:16 is definitely the place for you, but if you don't mind poor service, so long can get a cheaper deal, den please look else-where.
Oh ya, i forgot to mention, John 3:16 lot is totally pro-canon. They support canon, so despite me telling myself they are not biased, but i cant help feeling that they will advice and tend to pyscho their customers to buying canon products.
One obvious part which i noticed was, John 3:16 is not a Nikon authorised dealer. And i wondered why.
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