Another unique shop I visited recently. Saw some magazines featuring it.
Its a shop that allows many blog shops to display their products and for customers to try them on and not just looking at the beautiful models wearing them with photoshopped.
Im pretty impressed by the shop as they really carry many different 'blog brands' and their prices are affordable too. Not too sure if the price will be different from buying from the website itself but at least it saves me the worries of items being lost through mails.
Even with cheap pricing, some of their clothes comes in very good materials too. Their staff are friendly and not pushy, giving you all the freedom to look at their wiiiiiiddddeee range of clothings and accessories.
Id say I had some really good buys from the shop. But please dont repeat my mistake, one or two is cheap, but when you bought too many, it may be too late :)
I bought two make-up palettes from Magical Tannsu - the 88 Ultra Shimmery Eye Palette and the 66 Lip Palette as a gift for my friend, as I know she has been meaning to get them but never got around to doing it.
These palettes claim to be from the supplier of Coastal Scents, a claim I can neither refute nor confirm.
Anyhow, there are many blogshops selling the same item but I needed these palettes urgently, therefore I decided to buy them from this store as it was the only one that had both items in stock. Otherwise, I would have purchased them from My Classy Closet - they have better reviews and lower prices anyway.
So here's my experience - I added everything to cart, checked out and got an automated invoice instantly. There was no instruction on payment mode, I had to scour her very unorganized blog site before I found the "Payment Procedure" tucked away in a obscure corner of the sidebar.
There were 2 options - make my payment first to speed things up or wait for her email. I opted for the former, obviously because it was urgent.
After making my payment, I emailed her (Tues night) and politely requested for an immediate shipment the next day as it was a really urgent order.
I did not get a reply until Thursday afternoon. She confirmed my payment and stated that my parcel will be mailed out 3 days after payment. Obviously, she did not bother to read my emails, or she failed to understand the concept of urgency.
You may think that I'm being impatient, but let me point out what's wrong:
1) Other blogshops reply within 24hrs 2) Other blogshops send shipments the next working day after receiving payment. 3) While looking for her HP number on her blog, I realised she had time to update her many blogs, but did not have the time to check her emails, which, let me remind you, are the main source of her income, and the logic in that is completely beyond me. 4) She did not offer any explanation for the late reply, even though I emailed twice chasing for her to at least confirm my payment.
Fine, maybe she's too busy to read emails. I decided to text her and request for a self-collection instead, since it couldn't possibly reach me in time by post anymore. After some discussion, we decided on Thursday night itself. She said I could collect the items at her block anytime after 9pm and I could just text or call her when I was there.
So Thursday night, I reached her block at around 9.15pm. I called her phone. It was switched off. Naturally, I feared that I had been scammed. I tried to text, and called several more times. It was still switched off.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt still - maybe her battery died? I waited 5 minutes and called again. This time it was turned on but it rang and rang and rang until it got cut off and she still did not pick up. I gave her a total of 11 missed calls.
At 9.45pm, she called me back and said she just reached home and she was coming down with my package now.
She came down, with no apology, no explanation and handed me the items for me to inspect. I was fuming, but I kept quiet, because you don't reprimand the waiter before he serves you the food, right? I checked the items, they looked fine, and I left.
What I don't understand is, if you tell your customer to collect something after 9pm, you make sure you're bloody home by 8.45pm right? Instead, I was kept waiting, with no explanation. Even if she was going to be late, at least have the decency to inform me beforehand. I, the customer, was made to wait like a fool.
I find her absolutely irresponsible and inefficient. I will never buy from her blogshop again, and I strongly advise you not to either.
Many of us go in search for our 15 minutes of fame in life and apparently you can get your 15 minutes in a newly opened cafe which goes by the name of 15 minutes. And with a tagline like Friends, Food, Fame, it doesn't leave much to the imagination.
The cafe is nestled within the premises of the modernly funky Lasalle and sports a certain chic and youthful vibe with its soaring windows that offer a view of the edgy campus and of course the stage where you are allowed your 15 minutes of fame. The cafe also has a rather interesting concept whereby upon placing your order, an RF device is allocated to you, which vibrates and emit red flashes to inform you that your food is ready for collection.
Kaya Muffin - Apparently the kaya muffin has been well raved about in the media but given what I had, I wasn't quite sure the muffin deserved the hype. Spongy but a little too dry with a funny smell. There was kaya in the center but I don't think it tastes any different from the ones I get in a tub at the supermarket. Overall a very mediocre muffin that I would expect to grab from any generic neighbourhood confectionery.
Chicken Avacado Linguine - The name of the dish intrigued me for I never had avacado with pasta before, especially with a cream based sauce. I was mildly disappointed though as it really didn't taste out of the ordinary. Sure, I could see little greenish blobs of avacado in the sauce but that's about it. Nothing special. Did I mention that the sauce was overly creamy and the pasta a wee bit too soft for my liking?
Banoffee - 15 minutes had a different take on this classic English dessert. There was no pastry or cream, just solid bananas in a toffee mixture with lots of crushed biscuits. Interesting but can be a little too dry and sticky.
I don't quite fancy the food but prices aren't expensive and I love the youthful exuberance the place emanates. Makes me feel young all over again. Now that's reason enough to go back, don't you think so?
Located at the poolside and rooftop garden level of Traders Hotel along Cuscaden Road, Ah Hoi’s Kitchen is widely decorated with dining accolades displayed proudly on its wall. Take a step into the restaurant and you are greeted with a casual, relaxed atmosphere – high ceiling fans, warm lighting and full glass panels.
The dinner was underway with the Crispy Fried Homemade Beancurd ($6.00) coupled with Wasabi-mayo. Salted Egg Yolk along with Seafood and added crunchiness of the Water Chestnut – What’s not to love about this? Love it!
The Doubled-boiled Duck with Black Dates and Peanut Soup ($8.00) reminded HFB of the typical type of soup that granny will boil during family dinner. Traditionally using Pork Ribs or Chicken, the chef decided to replace it with duck instead for an enhanced taste. The dates, wolfberries and peanut lend sweetness and natural goodness to the soup and the doubled-boiled technique ensures the essences of the ingredients are not loss during the process. HFB is a big fan of this warm hearty soup.
HFB has absolutely no idea who “Ah Loong” is from the Ah Loong Paper Bag Chicken ($8.00) dish that the restaurant named after. And the only reference he had to this dish was from the Union Farm Eating House along Clementi Road some time back. He can’t say which is better, however, despite the limited reminiscence, Ah Hoi’s version is definitely less oily, and the meat more tendered.
What’s neither French nor long, but green and crunchy? Kenya Bean Stir-fried with Crispy Silver Fish ($8.00) of course. It’s really crisp, with a lingering sweetness within, and comes with an addictive bite. The silver fish also provided that extra crunch and saltiness in tandem. This dish really stood out that evening despite its humble ingredients.
At $72.00 per serving, customers are guaranteed a jumbo sized Sri Lankan Chilli Crab with Deep Fried Chinese Mantou. Estimated to weigh around 1.5kg thereabouts, the flesh of crustacean was firm with a slight sweet aftertaste – much expected from the Sri Lankan crabs as compared to the Indonesian counterparts. HFB didn’t like the fact that the sauce was starchy – but having said that, the sauce was still appetising enough to go with the mantou – although HFB still much preferred the mantou from Seafood Paradise.
Supposedly their signatured dish, the Seafood Black Pepper Kway Teow ($15.00) came with nice Wok Hei flavour along with a unique robust taste from the black pepper. It was certainly an interesting dish coupled with plentiful ingredients, but HFB did find the dish slightly too salty for the palate. He would prefer the pepper flavour to take centre stage instead of the salt.
Supposedly their signatured dish, the Seafood Black Pepper Kway Teow ($15.00) came with nice Wok Hei flavour along with a unique robust taste from the black pepper. It was certainly an interesting dish coupled with plentiful ingredients, but HFB did find the dish slightly too salty for the palate. He would prefer the pepper flavour to take centre stage instead of the salt.
Ever since I discover the existence of macarons, I’m hooked. There are some fantastic ones, while some are just very bad; macarons are lovable, how can something so small and petite, taste so, so good!
The most delicious way, to eat a macaron will be: admire her perfect figure, pick it up and smell her fragrance. Never shovel in and swallow the whole thing in one bite. It’s like foreplay, you need to arouse the palates first; you nibble a bit of it, and I finish it up the rest. Macarons, taste the best, when I share it with you.
The very pretty lady in raspberry winks at me as I walk over. Hello, can I buy you a dessert? Do you want chocolate fudge? Or how about some cheesecake? No? You want both? Okay sure, in that case I’ll get you the Raspberry Cheesecake ($7.50).
Rosemary Chantilly with a layer of raspberry jelly, adorns the top part of the cake. There’s cheesecake sandwiched in between, with the chocolate fudge layer completing the dessert. My only grudge? It tasted weird when everything is combined together, raspberry, cheesecake and chocolate fudge just do not works for me. But eaten separately, it’s good.
Having seen the Fondant Choccolat ($8), I happily/naturally assumed that it will be the type that has lava chocolate oozing out. Except, it did not. No chocolate lava. No warm chocolate oozing out from the middle. And oh, the fondant wasn’t heat up too.
Luckily there’s Chantilly. She is pleasant, sweet and makes everyone around happy.
Which one is the mousse and which one is the cream?
Dark chocolate, your love. I know you’ll have like this one. The flourless chocolate sponge increased the density of the chocolate, with the dark chocolate cream in between layers. And I like how they pretty things up with a spot of chocolate on top; simple and chic. Gateaux Chocolat ($6.50)
* * *
After so many times to Canele, I’ve yet to try out all their creations. Maybe some day, definitely one day.
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!
First time to the newly open Ion Orchard's Swensen outlet. So much had been heard about the place especially the ice cream buffet. (I will touch on that later), decided to meet up with my friends for dinner yesterday. Since the place is newly open, I would expect quite a crowd there and the place to be packed to brim during meal times. On a Monday night, I can say that the place is packed to the brim with a long queue outside as well.
When I was looking through the menu, the waiter was quite attentive, coming every 5 mins asking if we want to order. Seems that they added in a few local dishes but if I want to eat dishes like chicken rice, I am sure that Swensens is not the first place I will think of. For mains, we ordered the normal dishes such as Swesens's Combo, BBQ Half Chicken and Breaded Chicken. (All the fried stuff less the BBQ Chicken). For dessert, we decided to go for the ice cream buffet.
Have to say that the mains came out pretty fast, within 15 mins. However have to say the portion or the taste of the food leaves much to desire. The fries are soggy, the fried stuff are oily, no taste, seems like they are fried again food. Simply BAD! With the food on our table, we were not served our cutlery, I have to remind the waiter for it before he too realized that he forgot about it. He came back telling us that they had ran out of knives, instead he passed us some spoons. In short, even after we finished the mains, we never saw the light of the knives. Such a BIG restaurant but they ran out of knives. Hmm....... Meantime, the whole place is buzzing and the waiters were walking past our table every other minute, but to get their attention was such a difficult task.
Next was the ice cream buffet, seems like they got lots of ice cream and topping to offer, still have waffles, mini pancakes, both dark and white coco fondue with strawberries and marshmellows and some pies. Too bad one of the ice cream fridge is down, this means all the Gelatos are out, we have 15 less flavors to choose from. However the price of the ice cream buffet did not drop due to that. I am very very disappointed with the buffet. From very sour strawberries to lack of ice cream flavors, and the service of the crew tending the ice cream bar really needs to improve (a lot!).
From the initial excitement to major disappointment! There is only 1 thing I am going to say: I AM SO NOT GOING TO SWENSENS ANY TIME SOON!
It is pretty hassle-free and cheap to print namecards here. Much can be improved about the service though.
After many back and forth emails about how my image is not in the right colour mode, after me changing it several times, they finally provided me with a screenshot about what they meant.
It was such a duh moment, they could have provided me with a screenshot right from the start, I bet it's a common occurrence especially when most people design in RGB rather than CMYK.
So anyhow that got settled, and they told me I could collect it on 1 Sept but they will call me when it was ready.
1 September came and went, with no calls.
So I emailed them to ask about my order, only then did they reply to tell me that my order was ready.
When businesses promise a service or a product, make damn sure they deliver it, or it'll just reflect really badly on their image.
But I've got to admit, it's cheap and the quality's pretty okay for its price.
In life we have dreams; they are our goals to work towards to, one step by one step, and approached it. I’ve always wanted to visit Spain; the country, with its rich culture and vibrant cities appeal to me, and of course, Spanish food.
I simply love the idea of Tapas; the option of having more variety of food in smaller bite sizes, seduces me. Why have two dishes when we can have four? And so our Spanish adventure started with the Plamuk tod ($12), tempura style calamari rings. Limon did a thinner version using less batter which allowed the taste of the squid. But the amazing thing was the strawberry yoghurt dip which came along with the calamari!
Tartar sauce? That’s so last season. Mayonnaise? That’s so passe. Try strawberry yoghurt dip!
Tapas has many similarities with our Chinese Dim sum; it’s the communal way of sharing food. Both encouraged people to try out more varieties, and at the same time shared the food with others. The Patatas bravas ($10) was essentially Spanish fried potatoes.
A little bit of this, plus a little bit of that
No I’m not talking about our saliva! We get to share food and try a bit of everything without getting full, isn’t that a brilliant idea? There’s no beef in the Moo curry ($12), instead there was pork & potato cubes pan-fried, with the red curry sauce being a tad strong.
How come the sausage tasted like brinjar?
It was hilarious when we mistook the eggplant for sausages at first bite, I’m never a fan of the purple plant. The fusion aspect was on display by preparing the Spanish Bibao (sausages) with Thai green curry sauce. Chorizo con curry verde ($14)
Honey, they shrunk the prawns!
I was sceptical when the “king prawns” that they’d mentioned was so tiny, but for what was lacking in size, the prawns more than made up in taste. The “tiny” creature was so prawny and crunchy! With ingredients like olive oil, lemongrass, black pepper, garlic, nameko mushroom; it was a mixture of flavours.
The Gazpacho con vino blanco ($12) was a traditional Spanish cold soup, with the novelty level upped by serving it in a baby coconut husk. The white wine flavour was subtle, but the experience of drinking soup was redefined into drinking coconut!
Paella. This was THE dish besides churros that I was looking forward to. And I had problem pronouncing it the whole night, so I came up with a simple way of remembering it, paella (my own pronunciation: Pie-ya). It was done with a Thai twist; incorporating tom-yum with the Spanish paella, there was plentiful of mixed seafood. It was delicious, every grain of rice tasted so good. Since I did not have paella before, there was no way I could make comparison, but it was good enough for me. And the tom-yum flavour wasn’t even strong (at least to me). Paella de tom yum ($20 for main size).
You like fish?
You will definitely love the Bacalao ($36)! The blue cod fillet was so fresh that it seemed alive on my plate, but I would prefer it to be slightly more pan-fried on the surface. Every piece of flesh was so delicate when our utensils touch it, oh baby, I’m gonna eat you up!
The lomo de cordero ($35) was a perfect sight to behold. There’s something about the Rack of lamb, which always make it so sexy! But somehow the ingredients like rosemary, oregano, mint, white wine, lemongrass sauce did not manage to cover the gamey taste.
Lobster, I love lobster! And I’m not going to share with you. No, get your hands off, it’s mine, it’s all mine! I was freaking excited when the Live lobster krapow ($38) arrived on our table. Every bite of the oven-baked lobster was so good, but there wasn’t enough meat for me! Taking a fork, I tilted the lobster head upside down, and dug at the shell beneath it, and yes, there was more lobster meat there!
On first look, I thought it was panna cotta, the Italian dessert. But it wasn’t. The dessert in picture was a Lemon caramel egg custard flan ($10). The texture was very similar to panna cotta, but I couldn’t quite figure out what was the difference.
And yes, I know chocolate cake has nothing to do with Spanish or Thai, but apparently the pastry chef at Limon does such a good chocolate cake that they decided to put it in the menu. And boy, it was true. The Homemade Chocolate cake ($9) paired with vanilla ice cream was a delight! If you could look at the plain chocolate cake up there, there’s the lava-flowing chocolate on top of the moist chocolate cake. Even though it was a pity there wasn’t any vanilla bean ice cream, but a scoop of cold icy one was enough to bring out the best of the chocolate cake.
I love to share food. But somehow the evil twin in me took over when we had the Crema Catalana con frescas ($10). There are times where you eat something that was so good, yet you couldn’t tell what it was, so you just ate, and ate, and ate. This was what I did, I took a spoonful of the egg based cream, put it in my mouth, and I couldn’t taste what it was. And the second bite became even better. So I simply took up the whole glass, dug, and dug further into, until the whole dessert was finished.
It was a medley of flavours when the Spaniards and the Thais come and play together. This was my first time trying Paella, and I’m glad I tried it! My appreciation to Towie, the owner of Limon, and Nicole for hosting us 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!
I love watching dramas, because they got fairy-tale endings; there are moments where you smile like a fool, or weep together with the scenes, but at the end it will be a happy ending – I like happily-ever-after outcomes.
And there are always food in the show, the characters are only human, they need to eat too! So when I watch dramas, I will always get hungry. This bring us to Korean food, it’s a shame that we can’t put our hands inside the screen and grab that very delicious-looking food. So, we hunt, for Korean food.
We wanted the spicy looking Korean noodles but it was sold out; so we took the next-spicy-looking, kimchi soup set ($5.50) instead. It came with a appetiser with choices of tofu or anchovy, kimchi soup and rice. The kimchi soup was fabulous; spicy yet not to the extent of fiery, with a subtle hint of sweetness – I love it!
Bibimbap ($5) will always my choice when I have Korean food, not that I’ve eaten much, but I like the mixture of everything in one bowl. And I also like it to be in a hot stone bowl so that the rice will be piping hot! The one at Ming Jia was pretty decent, just that it wasn’t hot enough! Still, it was great to mix everything with the spicy-and-slight-sweet chilli!
(1) Ming Jia is very near my place.
(2) Ming Jia is very affordable.
(3) Ming Jia is unpretentious and homely.
(4) Ming jis is helmed by a Korean lady, and Koreans go there too.
(5) Ming Jia will be the place to go when I’m craving for Korean food.
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 was a really foolish inccident. i went to exchange 2 tops from cotton on that were meant to be gifts but in the end found unsuitable.
in the store, i was browsing and asked for a price of a tank top from a lady. she told me one for $13, two for $20. i took one.
with some balance, i took a shorts which also states 2 for $20, assuming 1 piece is also around $13. i exchanged them with my original items at the cashier, paid the balance and left.
it was about 5 minutes later i looked at the receipt, and it says 1 pair of shorts for $19.90. and i remembered two for $20. thinking that its so foolish of me that i could have just paid 10cents more and get another pair of shorts, i went back to the store and asked if i can get an additional pair of shorts.
i was then told that they only allow one exchange.
alright, i admit it was my fault i did not check properly initially and i cant blame them. but id really appreciate it if the cashier who attended to my exchange told me i could just top up 10cents for another pair of shorts.
1=SGD 0.0587
Another unique shop I visited recently. Saw some magazines featuring it.
Its a shop that allows many blog shops to display their products and for customers to try them on and not just looking at the beautiful models wearing them with photoshopped.
Im pretty impressed by the shop as they really carry many different 'blog brands' and their prices are affordable too. Not too sure if the price will be different from buying from the website itself but at least it saves me the worries of items being lost through mails.
Even with cheap pricing, some of their clothes comes in very good materials too. Their staff are friendly and not pushy, giving you all the freedom to look at their wiiiiiiddddeee range of clothings and accessories.
Id say I had some really good buys from the shop. But please dont repeat my mistake, one or two is cheap, but when you bought too many, it may be too late :)
Rating given:
I bought two make-up palettes from Magical Tannsu - the 88 Ultra Shimmery Eye Palette and the 66 Lip Palette as a gift for my friend, as I know she has been meaning to get them but never got around to doing it.
These palettes claim to be from the supplier of Coastal Scents, a claim I can neither refute nor confirm.
Anyhow, there are many blogshops selling the same item but I needed these palettes urgently, therefore I decided to buy them from this store as it was the only one that had both items in stock. Otherwise, I would have purchased them from My Classy Closet - they have better reviews and lower prices anyway.
So here's my experience - I added everything to cart, checked out and got an automated invoice instantly. There was no instruction on payment mode, I had to scour her very unorganized blog site before I found the "Payment Procedure" tucked away in a obscure corner of the sidebar.
There were 2 options - make my payment first to speed things up or wait for her email. I opted for the former, obviously because it was urgent.
After making my payment, I emailed her (Tues night) and politely requested for an immediate shipment the next day as it was a really urgent order.
I did not get a reply until Thursday afternoon. She confirmed my payment and stated that my parcel will be mailed out 3 days after payment. Obviously, she did not bother to read my emails, or she failed to understand the concept of urgency.
You may think that I'm being impatient, but let me point out what's wrong:
1) Other blogshops reply within 24hrs
2) Other blogshops send shipments the next working day after receiving payment.
3) While looking for her HP number on her blog, I realised she had time to update her many blogs, but did not have the time to check her emails, which, let me remind you, are the main source of her income, and the logic in that is completely beyond me.
4) She did not offer any explanation for the late reply, even though I emailed twice chasing for her to at least confirm my payment.
Fine, maybe she's too busy to read emails. I decided to text her and request for a self-collection instead, since it couldn't possibly reach me in time by post anymore. After some discussion, we decided on Thursday night itself. She said I could collect the items at her block anytime after 9pm and I could just text or call her when I was there.
So Thursday night, I reached her block at around 9.15pm. I called her phone. It was switched off. Naturally, I feared that I had been scammed. I tried to text, and called several more times. It was still switched off.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt still - maybe her battery died? I waited 5 minutes and called again. This time it was turned on but it rang and rang and rang until it got cut off and she still did not pick up. I gave her a total of 11 missed calls.
At 9.45pm, she called me back and said she just reached home and she was coming down with my package now.
She came down, with no apology, no explanation and handed me the items for me to inspect. I was fuming, but I kept quiet, because you don't reprimand the waiter before he serves you the food, right? I checked the items, they looked fine, and I left.
What I don't understand is, if you tell your customer to collect something after 9pm, you make sure you're bloody home by 8.45pm right? Instead, I was kept waiting, with no explanation. Even if she was going to be late, at least have the decency to inform me beforehand. I, the customer, was made to wait like a fool.
I find her absolutely irresponsible and inefficient. I will never buy from her blogshop again, and I strongly advise you not to either.
Rating given:
Many of us go in search for our 15 minutes of fame in life and apparently you can get your 15 minutes in a newly opened cafe which goes by the name of 15 minutes. And with a tagline like Friends, Food, Fame, it doesn't leave much to the imagination.
The cafe is nestled within the premises of the modernly funky Lasalle and sports a certain chic and youthful vibe with its soaring windows that offer a view of the edgy campus and of course the stage where you are allowed your 15 minutes of fame. The cafe also has a rather interesting concept whereby upon placing your order, an RF device is allocated to you, which vibrates and emit red flashes to inform you that your food is ready for collection.
Kaya Muffin - Apparently the kaya muffin has been well raved about in the media but given what I had, I wasn't quite sure the muffin deserved the hype. Spongy but a little too dry with a funny smell. There was kaya in the center but I don't think it tastes any different from the ones I get in a tub at the supermarket. Overall a very mediocre muffin that I would expect to grab from any generic neighbourhood confectionery.
Chicken Avacado Linguine - The name of the dish intrigued me for I never had avacado with pasta before, especially with a cream based sauce. I was mildly disappointed though as it really didn't taste out of the ordinary. Sure, I could see little greenish blobs of avacado in the sauce but that's about it. Nothing special. Did I mention that the sauce was overly creamy and the pasta a wee bit too soft for my liking?
Banoffee - 15 minutes had a different take on this classic English dessert. There was no pastry or cream, just solid bananas in a toffee mixture with lots of crushed biscuits. Interesting but can be a little too dry and sticky.
I don't quite fancy the food but prices aren't expensive and I love the youthful exuberance the place emanates. Makes me feel young all over again. Now that's reason enough to go back, don't you think so?
See all my pictures here
Rating given:
Located at the poolside and rooftop garden level of Traders Hotel along Cuscaden Road, Ah Hoi’s Kitchen is widely decorated with dining accolades displayed proudly on its wall. Take a step into the restaurant and you are greeted with a casual, relaxed atmosphere – high ceiling fans, warm lighting and full glass panels.
The dinner was underway with the Crispy Fried Homemade Beancurd ($6.00) coupled with Wasabi-mayo. Salted Egg Yolk along with Seafood and added crunchiness of the Water Chestnut – What’s not to love about this? Love it!
The Doubled-boiled Duck with Black Dates and Peanut Soup ($8.00) reminded HFB of the typical type of soup that granny will boil during family dinner. Traditionally using Pork Ribs or Chicken, the chef decided to replace it with duck instead for an enhanced taste. The dates, wolfberries and peanut lend sweetness and natural goodness to the soup and the doubled-boiled technique ensures the essences of the ingredients are not loss during the process. HFB is a big fan of this warm hearty soup.
HFB has absolutely no idea who “Ah Loong” is from the Ah Loong Paper Bag Chicken ($8.00) dish that the restaurant named after. And the only reference he had to this dish was from the Union Farm Eating House along Clementi Road some time back. He can’t say which is better, however, despite the limited reminiscence, Ah Hoi’s version is definitely less oily, and the meat more tendered.
What’s neither French nor long, but green and crunchy? Kenya Bean Stir-fried with Crispy Silver Fish ($8.00) of course. It’s really crisp, with a lingering sweetness within, and comes with an addictive bite. The silver fish also provided that extra crunch and saltiness in tandem. This dish really stood out that evening despite its humble ingredients.
At $72.00 per serving, customers are guaranteed a jumbo sized Sri Lankan Chilli Crab with Deep Fried Chinese Mantou. Estimated to weigh around 1.5kg thereabouts, the flesh of crustacean was firm with a slight sweet aftertaste – much expected from the Sri Lankan crabs as compared to the Indonesian counterparts. HFB didn’t like the fact that the sauce was starchy – but having said that, the sauce was still appetising enough to go with the mantou – although HFB still much preferred the mantou from Seafood Paradise.
Supposedly their signatured dish, the Seafood Black Pepper Kway Teow ($15.00) came with nice Wok Hei flavour along with a unique robust taste from the black pepper. It was certainly an interesting dish coupled with plentiful ingredients, but HFB did find the dish slightly too salty for the palate. He would prefer the pepper flavour to take centre stage instead of the salt.
Supposedly their signatured dish, the Seafood Black Pepper Kway Teow ($15.00) came with nice Wok Hei flavour along with a unique robust taste from the black pepper. It was certainly an interesting dish coupled with plentiful ingredients, but HFB did find the dish slightly too salty for the palate. He would prefer the pepper flavour to take centre stage instead of the salt.
You can view all the photos here.
Rating given:
Ever since I discover the existence of macarons, I’m hooked. There are some fantastic ones, while some are just very bad; macarons are lovable, how can something so small and petite, taste so, so good!
The most delicious way, to eat a macaron will be: admire her perfect figure, pick it up and smell her fragrance. Never shovel in and swallow the whole thing in one bite. It’s like foreplay, you need to arouse the palates first; you nibble a bit of it, and I finish it up the rest. Macarons, taste the best, when I share it with you.
The very pretty lady in raspberry winks at me as I walk over. Hello, can I buy you a dessert? Do you want chocolate fudge? Or how about some cheesecake? No? You want both? Okay sure, in that case I’ll get you the Raspberry Cheesecake ($7.50).
Rosemary Chantilly with a layer of raspberry jelly, adorns the top part of the cake. There’s cheesecake sandwiched in between, with the chocolate fudge layer completing the dessert. My only grudge? It tasted weird when everything is combined together, raspberry, cheesecake and chocolate fudge just do not works for me. But eaten separately, it’s good.
Having seen the Fondant Choccolat ($8), I happily/naturally assumed that it will be the type that has lava chocolate oozing out. Except, it did not. No chocolate lava. No warm chocolate oozing out from the middle. And oh, the fondant wasn’t heat up too.
Luckily there’s Chantilly. She is pleasant, sweet and makes everyone around happy.
Which one is the mousse and which one is the cream?
Dark chocolate, your love. I know you’ll have like this one. The flourless chocolate sponge increased the density of the chocolate, with the dark chocolate cream in between layers. And I like how they pretty things up with a spot of chocolate on top; simple and chic. Gateaux Chocolat ($6.50)
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After so many times to Canele, I’ve yet to try out all their creations. Maybe some day, definitely one day.
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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First time to the newly open Ion Orchard's Swensen outlet. So much had been heard about the place especially the ice cream buffet. (I will touch on that later), decided to meet up with my friends for dinner yesterday. Since the place is newly open, I would expect quite a crowd there and the place to be packed to brim during meal times. On a Monday night, I can say that the place is packed to the brim with a long queue outside as well.
When I was looking through the menu, the waiter was quite attentive, coming every 5 mins asking if we want to order. Seems that they added in a few local dishes but if I want to eat dishes like chicken rice, I am sure that Swensens is not the first place I will think of. For mains, we ordered the normal dishes such as Swesens's Combo, BBQ Half Chicken and Breaded Chicken. (All the fried stuff less the BBQ Chicken). For dessert, we decided to go for the ice cream buffet.
Have to say that the mains came out pretty fast, within 15 mins. However have to say the portion or the taste of the food leaves much to desire. The fries are soggy, the fried stuff are oily, no taste, seems like they are fried again food. Simply BAD! With the food on our table, we were not served our cutlery, I have to remind the waiter for it before he too realized that he forgot about it. He came back telling us that they had ran out of knives, instead he passed us some spoons. In short, even after we finished the mains, we never saw the light of the knives. Such a BIG restaurant but they ran out of knives. Hmm....... Meantime, the whole place is buzzing and the waiters were walking past our table every other minute, but to get their attention was such a difficult task.
Next was the ice cream buffet, seems like they got lots of ice cream and topping to offer, still have waffles, mini pancakes, both dark and white coco fondue with strawberries and marshmellows and some pies. Too bad one of the ice cream fridge is down, this means all the Gelatos are out, we have 15 less flavors to choose from. However the price of the ice cream buffet did not drop due to that. I am very very disappointed with the buffet. From very sour strawberries to lack of ice cream flavors, and the service of the crew tending the ice cream bar really needs to improve (a lot!).
From the initial excitement to major disappointment! There is only 1 thing I am going to say: I AM SO NOT GOING TO SWENSENS ANY TIME SOON!
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It is pretty hassle-free and cheap to print namecards here. Much can be improved about the service though.
After many back and forth emails about how my image is not in the right colour mode, after me changing it several times, they finally provided me with a screenshot about what they meant.
It was such a duh moment, they could have provided me with a screenshot right from the start, I bet it's a common occurrence especially when most people design in RGB rather than CMYK.
So anyhow that got settled, and they told me I could collect it on 1 Sept but they will call me when it was ready.
1 September came and went, with no calls.
So I emailed them to ask about my order, only then did they reply to tell me that my order was ready.
When businesses promise a service or a product, make damn sure they deliver it, or it'll just reflect really badly on their image.
But I've got to admit, it's cheap and the quality's pretty okay for its price.
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In life we have dreams; they are our goals to work towards to, one step by one step, and approached it. I’ve always wanted to visit Spain; the country, with its rich culture and vibrant cities appeal to me, and of course, Spanish food.
I simply love the idea of Tapas; the option of having more variety of food in smaller bite sizes, seduces me. Why have two dishes when we can have four? And so our Spanish adventure started with the Plamuk tod ($12), tempura style calamari rings. Limon did a thinner version using less batter which allowed the taste of the squid. But the amazing thing was the strawberry yoghurt dip which came along with the calamari!
Tartar sauce? That’s so last season. Mayonnaise? That’s so passe. Try strawberry yoghurt dip!
Tapas has many similarities with our Chinese Dim sum; it’s the communal way of sharing food. Both encouraged people to try out more varieties, and at the same time shared the food with others. The Patatas bravas ($10) was essentially Spanish fried potatoes.
A little bit of this, plus a little bit of that
No I’m not talking about our saliva! We get to share food and try a bit of everything without getting full, isn’t that a brilliant idea? There’s no beef in the Moo curry ($12), instead there was pork & potato cubes pan-fried, with the red curry sauce being a tad strong.
How come the sausage tasted like brinjar?
It was hilarious when we mistook the eggplant for sausages at first bite, I’m never a fan of the purple plant. The fusion aspect was on display by preparing the Spanish Bibao (sausages) with Thai green curry sauce. Chorizo con curry verde ($14)
Honey, they shrunk the prawns!
I was sceptical when the “king prawns” that they’d mentioned was so tiny, but for what was lacking in size, the prawns more than made up in taste. The “tiny” creature was so prawny and crunchy! With ingredients like olive oil, lemongrass, black pepper, garlic, nameko mushroom; it was a mixture of flavours.
The Gazpacho con vino blanco ($12) was a traditional Spanish cold soup, with the novelty level upped by serving it in a baby coconut husk. The white wine flavour was subtle, but the experience of drinking soup was redefined into drinking coconut!
Paella. This was THE dish besides churros that I was looking forward to. And I had problem pronouncing it the whole night, so I came up with a simple way of remembering it, paella (my own pronunciation: Pie-ya). It was done with a Thai twist; incorporating tom-yum with the Spanish paella, there was plentiful of mixed seafood. It was delicious, every grain of rice tasted so good. Since I did not have paella before, there was no way I could make comparison, but it was good enough for me. And the tom-yum flavour wasn’t even strong (at least to me). Paella de tom yum ($20 for main size).
You like fish?
You will definitely love the Bacalao ($36)! The blue cod fillet was so fresh that it seemed alive on my plate, but I would prefer it to be slightly more pan-fried on the surface. Every piece of flesh was so delicate when our utensils touch it, oh baby, I’m gonna eat you up!
The lomo de cordero ($35) was a perfect sight to behold. There’s something about the Rack of lamb, which always make it so sexy! But somehow the ingredients like rosemary, oregano, mint, white wine, lemongrass sauce did not manage to cover the gamey taste.
Lobster, I love lobster! And I’m not going to share with you. No, get your hands off, it’s mine, it’s all mine! I was freaking excited when the Live lobster krapow ($38) arrived on our table. Every bite of the oven-baked lobster was so good, but there wasn’t enough meat for me! Taking a fork, I tilted the lobster head upside down, and dug at the shell beneath it, and yes, there was more lobster meat there!
On first look, I thought it was panna cotta, the Italian dessert. But it wasn’t. The dessert in picture was a Lemon caramel egg custard flan ($10). The texture was very similar to panna cotta, but I couldn’t quite figure out what was the difference.
And yes, I know chocolate cake has nothing to do with Spanish or Thai, but apparently the pastry chef at Limon does such a good chocolate cake that they decided to put it in the menu. And boy, it was true. The Homemade Chocolate cake ($9) paired with vanilla ice cream was a delight! If you could look at the plain chocolate cake up there, there’s the lava-flowing chocolate on top of the moist chocolate cake. Even though it was a pity there wasn’t any vanilla bean ice cream, but a scoop of cold icy one was enough to bring out the best of the chocolate cake.
I love to share food. But somehow the evil twin in me took over when we had the Crema Catalana con frescas ($10). There are times where you eat something that was so good, yet you couldn’t tell what it was, so you just ate, and ate, and ate. This was what I did, I took a spoonful of the egg based cream, put it in my mouth, and I couldn’t taste what it was. And the second bite became even better. So I simply took up the whole glass, dug, and dug further into, until the whole dessert was finished.
It was a medley of flavours when the Spaniards and the Thais come and play together. This was my first time trying Paella, and I’m glad I tried it! My appreciation to Towie, the owner of Limon, and Nicole for hosting us 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!
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I love watching dramas, because they got fairy-tale endings; there are moments where you smile like a fool, or weep together with the scenes, but at the end it will be a happy ending – I like happily-ever-after outcomes.
And there are always food in the show, the characters are only human, they need to eat too! So when I watch dramas, I will always get hungry. This bring us to Korean food, it’s a shame that we can’t put our hands inside the screen and grab that very delicious-looking food. So, we hunt, for Korean food.
We wanted the spicy looking Korean noodles but it was sold out; so we took the next-spicy-looking, kimchi soup set ($5.50) instead. It came with a appetiser with choices of tofu or anchovy, kimchi soup and rice. The kimchi soup was fabulous; spicy yet not to the extent of fiery, with a subtle hint of sweetness – I love it!
Bibimbap ($5) will always my choice when I have Korean food, not that I’ve eaten much, but I like the mixture of everything in one bowl. And I also like it to be in a hot stone bowl so that the rice will be piping hot! The one at Ming Jia was pretty decent, just that it wasn’t hot enough! Still, it was great to mix everything with the spicy-and-slight-sweet chilli!
(1) Ming Jia is very near my place.
(2) Ming Jia is very affordable.
(3) Ming Jia is unpretentious and homely.
(4) Ming jis is helmed by a Korean lady, and Koreans go there too.
(5) Ming Jia will be the place to go when I’m craving for Korean food.
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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it was a really foolish inccident. i went to exchange 2 tops from cotton on that were meant to be gifts but in the end found unsuitable.
in the store, i was browsing and asked for a price of a tank top from a lady. she told me one for $13, two for $20. i took one.
with some balance, i took a shorts which also states 2 for $20, assuming 1 piece is also around $13. i exchanged them with my original items at the cashier, paid the balance and left.
it was about 5 minutes later i looked at the receipt, and it says 1 pair of shorts for $19.90. and i remembered two for $20. thinking that its so foolish of me that i could have just paid 10cents more and get another pair of shorts, i went back to the store and asked if i can get an additional pair of shorts.
i was then told that they only allow one exchange.
alright, i admit it was my fault i did not check properly initially and i cant blame them. but id really appreciate it if the cashier who attended to my exchange told me i could just top up 10cents for another pair of shorts.
lesson learnt, please check properly next time.
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