Central @ Clarke Quay, one of the place with many japanese restaurants around. At first we wanted to try Ma Maison, but in the end we end up in Kyomomoyama for some unknown reason. hahaha! Hmm.. Kyomomoyama, how the heck do you pronouce it? I think its Kyo-mo-mo-ya-ma : )
When we went in at about 1130am, there was not much people around, so we manage to get the window seats by the river. The interior was quite well decorated, pleasant and neat looking. The menu is quite extensive with a wide range of sashimi, sushi, and japanese food. And their set lunches are quite reasonable, prices ranging from the cheapest at $12 to $30.
Saba set: Grilled Mackerel ($15)
Served with appetizer, pickles, steamed egg, rice, miso soup and dessert.
Set lunch special eel set B ($18)
Kyomomoyama is offering this special eel set lunch with four different sets available. My set consist of green salad, special eel roll wrapped with japanese radish, steamed custard egg with eel, grilled eel (above), pickles, rice, soy bean soup, & dessert. At $18 i though the price was pretty decent. The eel was nice, as in you don’t feel the eel-ily taste, in fact i felt it was rather delicious.
Unagichatsuke ($28.80)
Grilled eel served with seaweed tea. The grilled eel here was the same as the eel i had for my eel set, just that there is two piece of eel here (more expensive).
Sake Teriyaki ($12.80)
Side order we had sake teriyaki - which was grilled salmon
Overall, our bill was $113.45 for 4 person. The price is quite reasonable i guess, that is if you stick to the set lunches, if you start to order the side dishes, this is wad happen to us. hahaha! But one thing is by the time we leave about 1pm, the place is not really full, as compared to the other restaurants beside Kyomomoyama, the rest are almost full. For a sunday a restaurant not full is not really a good sign. The lady boss was quite friendly, she came out to chat with the customers, when she was at the next table to us, we pay up and fled. lol! Somehow, the lack of a theme for Kyomomoyama i don’t know works to or work against them. For restaurants like Waraku, they have causal japanese dining, Wakashiya is famous for its curry udon, Ma Maison is its european-japanese fusion of western food, Marutama everyone knows it for its ramen. What do you think?
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
Went to Vil''age (pronounced "V-Lah-J") for dinner with my friends some time back. Upon entering the restaurant, we were given a bar-code ticket which was being used to scan for any food or drinks purchase.
This idea of using a bar-code can be good or bad; good because we can pay upon leaving for what we actually selected from the freshly produced products available at the many market stalls, giving us the freedom at eating in a peaceful mind, and bad because we will end up losing control, because it is simply very easy to just scan your card without thinking of the price.
I ordered a pork chop with potato mash which comes at 8.80. I found the price to be rather reasonable although the servings are rather small and not filling. One of my friend ordered steak which has salad with it. The steak is so small that it is not bigger than my palm, i kid u not.
My other friends ordered sausages, pizza which turn out to be quite decent, but of course it came with a price.
Overall, Világe provides a new eating experience, dining in Vila'ge is like sitting in an old European Village outdoors and eating direct from the Farm fresh market stalls on a Saturday market. The environment and atmosphere is pretty good, but if only they provide a bigger serving. "
When you are at Vivocity and did not feel like going to foodcourt, but at the same time also want to give the posh-yet-expensive restaurants a miss, Terra Cafe might just work for you. Although the food there might not be comparable to good restaurants, but the price certainly will give most cafes or restaurant a run for their money, especially so with their set meals available whole day.
Terra Cafe have different set meals available, and of course all this are the difference in the price. Decor-wise, simple and plain, but then do you really expect more for the interior when the set menus are at this price? Service-wise, i do not really appreciate the waiter’s attitude, he wasn’t very interested in taking orders. A friendlier approach and a smile on the face do makes patrons feel more welcome.
All set meats include a soup, choice of a main course and a scoop of ice-cream for dessert.
Fish & Chips ($11.90)
Starting the bang at Terra Cafe was the ever-present in every restaurant, fish & chips. I would say the fish is decent, not lest for the price of a dish at a cafe, but there do exist better fish & chips at around the same price you know?
Pasta Lasagna ($11.90)
Grilled Pork Chop ($13.90)
The pork chop was all right i guess, pork-items are slowly becoming more popular nowadays (except for the muslims). Last time it used to be quite little pork-related items available in restaurants, but now u can surely find quite a number of them around in restaurants. Kudos! More variety offer only means good things for foodie.
Grilled Lamb Chop ($13.90)
The lamb chop served here looks good on the outside, but then on the inside too much fats. A case of more fats than meat never wins you over, unless you are a fat-lover : )
Ice-cream
Single scoop ice-cream for each of us, coffee, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate.
All in all, Terra Cafe offers reasonable food at affordable pricing. The food might not be excellent, but for the value i suppose they are still acceptable. Total Bill was $80.50 for five of us, but then trying it once, i am not sure whether i will be back again since the food there are all ordinary nothing special. Frankly speaking, in the sort of price range Terra Cafe offers, there are better alternatives such as Miss Clarity.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
" I am your superman, and you are my wonderwoman "
My family's hunt for good Teochew food continues with a visit to Swa Garden located along MacPherson road. It is a small reclusive restaurant with no outstanding signage or features. Frilly white curtains from yesteryear don the eatery and shelter diners from the prying eyes of passersby. The interior is sparsely furnished, with tiled walls and foam block ceilings. Although the set menus looked reasonable and interesting, we decided to go ala carte. Ordered the Braised goose, Four Treasures Beancurd, Sea Cucumber with Fish Maw, Ha Zhor (Prawn roll), Stir Fried Kailan and Orh Nee.
The dishes came fast and furious, almost simultaneously. The braised goose was a little too soft for my liking and was nowhere as good as the ones from Guan Hin, Hung Kang or Huat Kee. However the portions are quite substantial, which propels it to the top of the food portions category. Stir fried Kailan was pretty normal. The Ha Zhor was pretty good. Crispy and compact. However the dipping sauce was sweet sauce and not the traditional plum sauce.
I only had a bite of the Fish Maw and found it quite decent, but nothing too outstanding unlike the one I had at Beng Hiang. The Four Treasures beancurd is slightly better than the homemade beancurd I had at Guan Hin. Though made in the same way(I presume so cause both had rough textures), Swa Garden's offering was slightly more robust in texture and flavour. However, having said that, I am still of the opinion that it was not impressive.
Swa Garden's Orh Nee is a little different from the Orh Nees that I have eaten. Firstly, it comes submerged under a layer of syrup. Secondly, it is more watery than the others that I've tried, which isn't a bad thing really. It makes the paste smoother and it just glides down your throat. However, I did find it a little too watery for my liking. My dad liked it though.
$78 for 4 pax isn't really too expensive, but it stops short of being cheap. Not exactly an impressive dinner, but an enjoyable one nevertheless. The set menu for 4 does offer some really good bargains and I'll definitely be back to try it.
I've heard that the steamboat place at Marina Bay will be replaced soon. That means no more steamboat. But no fret! There's always Yuki Yaki!
My first visit to Yuki Yaki gave me the impression that this was very similar to those outdoor steamboat places at Marina Bay. However, what's better is that they are air-conditioned, you have more comfortable seats (though I won't say it's that suitable for big groups), your cooked food are within an arm's length away. Choose from 3 different kinds of soup base for your steamboat - Tom Yam, Chicken and.. one more I forgot.
Also, they have pork, chicken and beef for you to choose from, each done in about 4 different seasonings. Other than that, they have the basic ingredients that you put into your soup during steamboat. Crab stick, sausages, fishball etc. For people who would like to have noodles/ rice to go with your food, it's also provided. Should you need any garnishing such as spring onions, or condiments such as soya sauce/ chilli etc, it's all provided too. Plus, the buffet also includes drinks and limited variety of sushi.
I must say that the sushi was bad. Probably left out too long, it was pretty dry and hard. As for the meat, it wasn't seasoned very well. As everything was pretty much do-it-yourself, there wasn't much service to talk about.
For students who are really big eaters, I would think that this place is worth going. For me, I paid the student price of $16.90 if I'm not wrong. And for adults it's $21.90 . (I think the prices are around here but I can't remember if this is the right price..) This is the lunch buffet. The " " means there's GST too. Didn't quite like the idea of that because there really wasn't much service to begin with. From the day I'm not a student anymore, I will stop considering eating here.
If you like buffet, you could give this place a try. But I personally feel it's just all right, nothing really fantastic...
Japanese Dining Sun at Chijmes, went there last night with zh, tay, karen to celebrate zh birthday. At chijmes, from the outside u cant tell how the restaurants looked like, but once we stepped into Dining sun, they had very nice decor, the kitchen is a open-concept where u can see the chef cook. I made a reservation specially requesting good seats, in the end got a seat in the corner that was uncomfortable with the spot light. O well
I had Salmon Steak ($16.80), the dish is done quite nicely, but then i had tried better ones elsewhere. 3 out of 5. I also had the garlic rice ($5.50) to go along, its nice, quite similar to fried rice but nicer. 4.5 out of 5
Zh had the Unagi Kabayaki ($15.50) which is eel, i had a taste of it and it tasted great, at least better than my salmon. But then i think if u just ordered the eel, u wont be full. 4 out of 5.
Karen had Amaebi & Zuwaigani Don ($19.50) which is actually sweet prawn & pacifice snow crab. The appearance tell it all, need i say more? 4 out of 5
Tay had the Yakiniku Kameneshi ($14.80) which is stir-fried beef topped with raw egg, and another dish called Tontoro Yaki ($12.80) which is pork. We found the stir-fried beef quite delicious, it is fried beef and egg on top of rice. The Tontoro Yaki (pork) is also very nice, the meat is quite tender, and is very diff from the normal pork we eat.
Desserts!! The fame tofu cheesecake ($5) of Dining sun. Its very nice, a must try if you go dining sun. Pity its too small. No words to describe, just try it. 5 out of 5
Uji Macha Min Parfait ($6.50) or rather green tea ice cream. Lol. At the price i find it a bit ex, you can always get better one at a cheaper price at island creamy or the daily scoop. 3 out of 5
Thats the end of all the dishes folks! The total bill comes up to $132.75 for 4 person. I think its quite reasonable consider the fact that it is fine dining in a posh restaurant. But i find the fact that they charge us 10% service charge when there is really not much service provided. I got a lousy seat, a bit hard to get the waitress attention, takes a while for the bill to come.
BUT hold on a sec, you MUST go and try Dining sun at least once. Except for my poor seats, the food is great, the decor is pretty, and the price is reasonable. Go on, try it tomorrow or the next weekend.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
Hmm.. Don’t know what to eat, so after walking around for a while, we saw siam kitchen was having a eat-all-you-can lunch buffet for $14.90, 14 dishes to choose from, add $1.99 for your free-flow of iced lemon tea. Mr tay was keen to try and besides nothing much to choose from, so here we go.
The menu is basically what is available in the “buffet”, actually i dun really think it is a “buffet”. Definition of buffet, courtesy from wikipedia: A buffet is a meal-serving system where patrons serve themselves. It is a popular method of feeding large numbers of people with minimal staff. So you have it, we certainly didn’t serve ourselve by getting the food from the usual-buffet-style, instead we choose from the menu the 14 dishes. The first round they gave us all to test-test, so after that we can ordered what we like for our “second round”. This supposely is not to waste food.
Well well, the 14 dishes but hold on a sec, i think they onli serve us 13. O well, they must have somehow missed out one dish. The food was so-so, serving was for two person because the restaurant was afraid we “wasted”food, they say we can always ordered in the second round if we liked the food.
Lets see, the dishes that i notably still remember; the lemongrass chicken wing was okay i guess, as for the spicy thai vegetable pickles i found it rather refreshing. Omelette with onion was fine but they came in two small slices. Kangkong with chili was not hot at all, pineapple fried rice does not have any pineapple but still taste quite nice all the same.
As for the rest of the dishes, you have to try it for yrself as i can’t remember, or rather i only have a bite of them. Although the food i did not enjoy, but the service in the restaurant was good, the staff was quite attentive and they re-filled our free flow ice lemon tea very fast, we had about 7-8 glass i think.
Conclusion of meal, thai food is not for me, or rather i am not for thai food.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
Ema’s Diner located at Greenwood Avenue, is formally known as 8 on Greenwood. Opened by the Halia group at the stretch of restaurants along Greenwood. Greenwood is being spoken at the same breath as Dempsey, Holland Village, Rochester Park as the hidden and hot spot to go.
All these used-to be forgotten little outposts of Singapore have been transformed into mini lifestyle destinations of their own. The location of the restaurant is no longer a issue, so long there is the “hot” and “in” place to go, well-travelled food enthusiants living in all corners of Singapore will be willing to travel to other corners as well.
Maybe not known to all, Greenwood Avenue was created by Les Amis group, one of Singapore dining giant. Out of close to 13 restaurants there, 5 belongs to Les Amis Group;
The Grill at Hillcrest
Sebastien’s Bistrot
Peperoni Pizzeria
Raku Japanese Restaurant
L’estaminet Bar
Anyway, thats for the background information on Greenwood, but Les Amis is really good, first they find a hidden street, this is follow up with opening several separate restaurants with different themes, to complement not to compete with each other. And poof! Greenwood Avenue is born.
Initially we wanted to try out Sebastien’s Bistrot, but it was kind of late when we reached the area, so we went for quick lunch at Ema’s Diner. The first impression of the restaurant was its sort of kiddy? There was those stuff-toys cushion on the seats at one of the tables outside.
The menu was an one-pager, it certaintly did not impress me as it seems unprofessional, like a child-drawn menu. Even though Ema did not offer much variety, but i thought the least they could do was separate out the one-page menu into several page and make it look more appropriate like a menu.
We proceed on to browse through the menu since we had already entered the place, a rough count shows that it was about 25-30 seater restaurant. Not much diners around, mayb it was the timing that we went.
Ema’s Burger ($14.90)
Home-made beef patty, melted cheese, picked vege, bacon & hickory smoked bbq sauce, accompanied by fries. This was pretty decent i guess. You won’t really go wrong ordering this from the short list of food available.
Braised Lamb Shank ($15.90)
With carrot, turnip, celery & mashed potato. The inquisitive side finally got me into trouble. There are safe options to order, but no, my mind tell me not to, and instead Braised lamb shank is served onto my table. Not really good, i didn’t finish the dish if thats what you want to know.
French fries ($3.50)
We made a mistake of ordering french fries for starters because while ordering Ema’s burger, we missed out that it came with fries, otherwise, the fries were okay, and the servings were quite generous too
Total damage came to $43.78 for two person. Also had one mango ice blend ($5.50). The food there wasn’t that bad i guess, mayb its just a case of ordering the wrong stuff, for the price range i though it is still consider reasonable given the fact that it is located beside much high-end restaurants, and the rent at Greenwood isn’t really what you will mention as cheap.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
“ It can’t be smooth-sailing all the way, sometimes you will encounter bad dining experience ”
Went with Maz for food-hunting, started at Wheelock place, den to wisma, and finally Taka. Can’t decide wad to eat, finally chose Breeks because it was late and we were hungry. The restaurant has the usual things u would find in a normal western one, so nothing special.
For side dish, we ordered the Breeks! Buffalo Wing, its actually chicken wing dipped in sweet and spicy sauce. There is 6 wings, which comes at $4.90. I quite like the wings, but maz found it too sweet. O well. It came with quite a healthy servings of vegies, i like. 4 out of 5
Maz had fish & chips for his main course because he wanted to try the waffle fries that came with it. Overall, the chips is ordinary, nothing special, there are better chips out there. 2.5 out of 5
I had grilled chicken chop on hotplates for my main course. The chop was quite nice, with the special sauce that was diff from the normal chicken-chop-sauce. BUT, wads with the servings that came with it? Burned potatos, carrots does not really taste nice. I wld prefer mashed potatos or give me coleslaw vegies anyday. 3 out of 5
All in all, the food was average, service was average (they don’t refill iced water fast enough), price was average. So if other places are too crowded, check out Breeks at Taka, note: it also has other branches.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
" I am your superman, and you are my wonderwoman "
After a relatively good experience from my previous visit to Pu Tien, I headed back down with my parents for dinner on a busy Sunday evening. Needless to say, parking was a major headache, even to the extent of hazardous with the throngs of foreign workers recklessly heading towards Mustafa.
Salted Pig Trotter with Pepper - We tried Pu Tien's rendition of the pig's trotters for the first time and left rather disappointed. True, the skin was crispy and lightly salted to bring out the balance of flavours. But it was more of soggy crispy rather than crackling crispy and most of it was just fats and minimal meat, which made swallowing a rather difficult task because of the preconceived notions of unhealthiness.
Stir Fried Kailan with Beancurd Skin - This dish was supposed to have more kailan than beancurd skin, but strangely enough, it was vice versa. The beancurd skin was a huge blob and practically covered out whatever small portions of the kailan that was given. And eating too much soft beancurd skin is a sure fire recipe for getting woozy really fast. A rather lacklustre but decently palatable dish overall.
Deep Fried Chicken with Garlic - This time round, the Deep Fried Chicken with Garlic was merely normal. The skin was as crispy as I remembered it to be but the meat came across as a little dry. Also, it tasted rather bland even with the fried garlic atop.
Homemade Beancurd - Undoubtedly the best dish of the evening, the homemade beancurd was soft yet firm and had a nice savoury after taste. I wouldn't go so far as to call it out of this world, but its really a gem. I must say that even my parents were quite impressed with this dish and thats coming from 2 very fussy eaters.
Hing Wa Fried Bee Hoon - As with my previous visit, I didn't find this dish the least bit impressive. The bee hoon was very fine but a little too dry and bland for my liking.
Dinner for 3 stood at about $51, which is in line with my idea of a reasonable dinner given the quality of food. But do not expect top notch food for the price. Its merely comfort food done up with a little more finesse.
Central @ Clarke Quay, one of the place with many japanese restaurants around. At first we wanted to try Ma Maison, but in the end we end up in Kyomomoyama for some unknown reason. hahaha! Hmm.. Kyomomoyama, how the heck do you pronouce it? I think its Kyo-mo-mo-ya-ma : )
When we went in at about 1130am, there was not much people around, so we manage to get the window seats by the river. The interior was quite well decorated, pleasant and neat looking. The menu is quite extensive with a wide range of sashimi, sushi, and japanese food. And their set lunches are quite reasonable, prices ranging from the cheapest at $12 to $30.
Saba set: Grilled Mackerel ($15)
Served with appetizer, pickles, steamed egg, rice, miso soup and dessert.
Set lunch special eel set B ($18)
Kyomomoyama is offering this special eel set lunch with four different sets available. My set consist of green salad, special eel roll wrapped with japanese radish, steamed custard egg with eel, grilled eel (above), pickles, rice, soy bean soup, & dessert. At $18 i though the price was pretty decent. The eel was nice, as in you don’t feel the eel-ily taste, in fact i felt it was rather delicious.
Unagichatsuke ($28.80)
Grilled eel served with seaweed tea. The grilled eel here was the same as the eel i had for my eel set, just that there is two piece of eel here (more expensive).
Sake Teriyaki ($12.80)
Side order we had sake teriyaki - which was grilled salmon
Overall, our bill was $113.45 for 4 person. The price is quite reasonable i guess, that is if you stick to the set lunches, if you start to order the side dishes, this is wad happen to us. hahaha! But one thing is by the time we leave about 1pm, the place is not really full, as compared to the other restaurants beside Kyomomoyama, the rest are almost full. For a sunday a restaurant not full is not really a good sign. The lady boss was quite friendly, she came out to chat with the customers, when she was at the next table to us, we pay up and fled. lol! Somehow, the lack of a theme for Kyomomoyama i don’t know works to or work against them. For restaurants like Waraku, they have causal japanese dining, Wakashiya is famous for its curry udon, Ma Maison is its european-japanese fusion of western food, Marutama everyone knows it for its ramen. What do you think?
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
" Food and me always go together well "
Rating given:
Went to Vil''age (pronounced "V-Lah-J") for dinner with my friends some time back. Upon entering the restaurant, we were given a bar-code ticket which was being used to scan for any food or drinks purchase.
This idea of using a bar-code can be good or bad; good because we can pay upon leaving for what we actually selected from the freshly produced products available at the many market stalls, giving us the freedom at eating in a peaceful mind, and bad because we will end up losing control, because it is simply very easy to just scan your card without thinking of the price.
I ordered a pork chop with potato mash which comes at 8.80. I found the price to be rather reasonable although the servings are rather small and not filling. One of my friend ordered steak which has salad with it. The steak is so small that it is not bigger than my palm, i kid u not.
My other friends ordered sausages, pizza which turn out to be quite decent, but of course it came with a price.
Overall, Világe provides a new eating experience, dining in Vila'ge is like sitting in an old European Village outdoors and eating direct from the Farm fresh market stalls on a Saturday market. The environment and atmosphere is pretty good, but if only they provide a bigger serving. "
" ladyironchef.wordpress "
Rating given:
When you are at Vivocity and did not feel like going to foodcourt, but at the same time also want to give the posh-yet-expensive restaurants a miss, Terra Cafe might just work for you. Although the food there might not be comparable to good restaurants, but the price certainly will give most cafes or restaurant a run for their money, especially so with their set meals available whole day.
Terra Cafe have different set meals available, and of course all this are the difference in the price. Decor-wise, simple and plain, but then do you really expect more for the interior when the set menus are at this price? Service-wise, i do not really appreciate the waiter’s attitude, he wasn’t very interested in taking orders. A friendlier approach and a smile on the face do makes patrons feel more welcome.
All set meats include a soup, choice of a main course and a scoop of ice-cream for dessert.
Fish & Chips ($11.90)
Starting the bang at Terra Cafe was the ever-present in every restaurant, fish & chips. I would say the fish is decent, not lest for the price of a dish at a cafe, but there do exist better fish & chips at around the same price you know?
Pasta Lasagna ($11.90)
Grilled Pork Chop ($13.90)
The pork chop was all right i guess, pork-items are slowly becoming more popular nowadays (except for the muslims). Last time it used to be quite little pork-related items available in restaurants, but now u can surely find quite a number of them around in restaurants. Kudos! More variety offer only means good things for foodie.
Grilled Lamb Chop ($13.90)
The lamb chop served here looks good on the outside, but then on the inside too much fats. A case of more fats than meat never wins you over, unless you are a fat-lover : )
Ice-cream
Single scoop ice-cream for each of us, coffee, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate.
All in all, Terra Cafe offers reasonable food at affordable pricing. The food might not be excellent, but for the value i suppose they are still acceptable. Total Bill was $80.50 for five of us, but then trying it once, i am not sure whether i will be back again since the food there are all ordinary nothing special. Frankly speaking, in the sort of price range Terra Cafe offers, there are better alternatives such as Miss Clarity.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
" I am your superman, and you are my wonderwoman "
Rating given:
My family's hunt for good Teochew food continues with a visit to Swa Garden located along MacPherson road. It is a small reclusive restaurant with no outstanding signage or features. Frilly white curtains from yesteryear don the eatery and shelter diners from the prying eyes of passersby. The interior is sparsely furnished, with tiled walls and foam block ceilings. Although the set menus looked reasonable and interesting, we decided to go ala carte. Ordered the Braised goose, Four Treasures Beancurd, Sea Cucumber with Fish Maw, Ha Zhor (Prawn roll), Stir Fried Kailan and Orh Nee.
The dishes came fast and furious, almost simultaneously. The braised goose was a little too soft for my liking and was nowhere as good as the ones from Guan Hin, Hung Kang or Huat Kee. However the portions are quite substantial, which propels it to the top of the food portions category. Stir fried Kailan was pretty normal. The Ha Zhor was pretty good. Crispy and compact. However the dipping sauce was sweet sauce and not the traditional plum sauce.
I only had a bite of the Fish Maw and found it quite decent, but nothing too outstanding unlike the one I had at Beng Hiang. The Four Treasures beancurd is slightly better than the homemade beancurd I had at Guan Hin. Though made in the same way(I presume so cause both had rough textures), Swa Garden's offering was slightly more robust in texture and flavour. However, having said that, I am still of the opinion that it was not impressive.
Swa Garden's Orh Nee is a little different from the Orh Nees that I have eaten. Firstly, it comes submerged under a layer of syrup. Secondly, it is more watery than the others that I've tried, which isn't a bad thing really. It makes the paste smoother and it just glides down your throat. However, I did find it a little too watery for my liking. My dad liked it though.
$78 for 4 pax isn't really too expensive, but it stops short of being cheap. Not exactly an impressive dinner, but an enjoyable one nevertheless. The set menu for 4 does offer some really good bargains and I'll definitely be back to try it.
See all my pictures here
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I've heard that the steamboat place at Marina Bay will be replaced soon. That means no more steamboat. But no fret! There's always Yuki Yaki!
My first visit to Yuki Yaki gave me the impression that this was very similar to those outdoor steamboat places at Marina Bay. However, what's better is that they are air-conditioned, you have more comfortable seats (though I won't say it's that suitable for big groups), your cooked food are within an arm's length away. Choose from 3 different kinds of soup base for your steamboat - Tom Yam, Chicken and.. one more I forgot.
Also, they have pork, chicken and beef for you to choose from, each done in about 4 different seasonings. Other than that, they have the basic ingredients that you put into your soup during steamboat. Crab stick, sausages, fishball etc. For people who would like to have noodles/ rice to go with your food, it's also provided. Should you need any garnishing such as spring onions, or condiments such as soya sauce/ chilli etc, it's all provided too. Plus, the buffet also includes drinks and limited variety of sushi.
I must say that the sushi was bad. Probably left out too long, it was pretty dry and hard. As for the meat, it wasn't seasoned very well. As everything was pretty much do-it-yourself, there wasn't much service to talk about.
For students who are really big eaters, I would think that this place is worth going. For me, I paid the student price of $16.90 if I'm not wrong. And for adults it's $21.90 . (I think the prices are around here but I can't remember if this is the right price..) This is the lunch buffet. The " " means there's GST too. Didn't quite like the idea of that because there really wasn't much service to begin with. From the day I'm not a student anymore, I will stop considering eating here.
If you like buffet, you could give this place a try. But I personally feel it's just all right, nothing really fantastic...
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Japanese Dining Sun at Chijmes, went there last night with zh, tay, karen to celebrate zh birthday. At chijmes, from the outside u cant tell how the restaurants looked like, but once we stepped into Dining sun, they had very nice decor, the kitchen is a open-concept where u can see the chef cook. I made a reservation specially requesting good seats, in the end got a seat in the corner that was uncomfortable with the spot light. O well
I had Salmon Steak ($16.80), the dish is done quite nicely, but then i had tried better ones elsewhere. 3 out of 5. I also had the garlic rice ($5.50) to go along, its nice, quite similar to fried rice but nicer. 4.5 out of 5
Zh had the Unagi Kabayaki ($15.50) which is eel, i had a taste of it and it tasted great, at least better than my salmon. But then i think if u just ordered the eel, u wont be full. 4 out of 5.
Karen had Amaebi & Zuwaigani Don ($19.50) which is actually sweet prawn & pacifice snow crab. The appearance tell it all, need i say more? 4 out of 5
Tay had the Yakiniku Kameneshi ($14.80) which is stir-fried beef topped with raw egg, and another dish called Tontoro Yaki ($12.80) which is pork. We found the stir-fried beef quite delicious, it is fried beef and egg on top of rice. The Tontoro Yaki (pork) is also very nice, the meat is quite tender, and is very diff from the normal pork we eat.
Desserts!! The fame tofu cheesecake ($5) of Dining sun. Its very nice, a must try if you go dining sun. Pity its too small. No words to describe, just try it. 5 out of 5
Uji Macha Min Parfait ($6.50) or rather green tea ice cream. Lol. At the price i find it a bit ex, you can always get better one at a cheaper price at island creamy or the daily scoop. 3 out of 5
Thats the end of all the dishes folks! The total bill comes up to $132.75 for 4 person. I think its quite reasonable consider the fact that it is fine dining in a posh restaurant. But i find the fact that they charge us 10% service charge when there is really not much service provided. I got a lousy seat, a bit hard to get the waitress attention, takes a while for the bill to come.
BUT hold on a sec, you MUST go and try Dining sun at least once. Except for my poor seats, the food is great, the decor is pretty, and the price is reasonable. Go on, try it tomorrow or the next weekend.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
" I love food and food love me "
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Hmm.. Don’t know what to eat, so after walking around for a while, we saw siam kitchen was having a eat-all-you-can lunch buffet for $14.90, 14 dishes to choose from, add $1.99 for your free-flow of iced lemon tea. Mr tay was keen to try and besides nothing much to choose from, so here we go.
The menu is basically what is available in the “buffet”, actually i dun really think it is a “buffet”. Definition of buffet, courtesy from wikipedia: A buffet is a meal-serving system where patrons serve themselves. It is a popular method of feeding large numbers of people with minimal staff. So you have it, we certainly didn’t serve ourselve by getting the food from the usual-buffet-style, instead we choose from the menu the 14 dishes. The first round they gave us all to test-test, so after that we can ordered what we like for our “second round”. This supposely is not to waste food.
Well well, the 14 dishes but hold on a sec, i think they onli serve us 13. O well, they must have somehow missed out one dish. The food was so-so, serving was for two person because the restaurant was afraid we “wasted”food, they say we can always ordered in the second round if we liked the food.
Lets see, the dishes that i notably still remember; the lemongrass chicken wing was okay i guess, as for the spicy thai vegetable pickles i found it rather refreshing. Omelette with onion was fine but they came in two small slices. Kangkong with chili was not hot at all, pineapple fried rice does not have any pineapple but still taste quite nice all the same.
As for the rest of the dishes, you have to try it for yrself as i can’t remember, or rather i only have a bite of them. Although the food i did not enjoy, but the service in the restaurant was good, the staff was quite attentive and they re-filled our free flow ice lemon tea very fast, we had about 7-8 glass i think.
Conclusion of meal, thai food is not for me, or rather i am not for thai food.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
" I am your beloved's, and my beloved's is mine "
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Ema’s Diner located at Greenwood Avenue, is formally known as 8 on Greenwood. Opened by the Halia group at the stretch of restaurants along Greenwood. Greenwood is being spoken at the same breath as Dempsey, Holland Village, Rochester Park as the hidden and hot spot to go.
All these used-to be forgotten little outposts of Singapore have been transformed into mini lifestyle destinations of their own. The location of the restaurant is no longer a issue, so long there is the “hot” and “in” place to go, well-travelled food enthusiants living in all corners of Singapore will be willing to travel to other corners as well.
Maybe not known to all, Greenwood Avenue was created by Les Amis group, one of Singapore dining giant. Out of close to 13 restaurants there, 5 belongs to Les Amis Group;
The Grill at Hillcrest
Sebastien’s Bistrot
Peperoni Pizzeria
Raku Japanese Restaurant
L’estaminet Bar
Anyway, thats for the background information on Greenwood, but Les Amis is really good, first they find a hidden street, this is follow up with opening several separate restaurants with different themes, to complement not to compete with each other. And poof! Greenwood Avenue is born.
Initially we wanted to try out Sebastien’s Bistrot, but it was kind of late when we reached the area, so we went for quick lunch at Ema’s Diner. The first impression of the restaurant was its sort of kiddy? There was those stuff-toys cushion on the seats at one of the tables outside.
The menu was an one-pager, it certaintly did not impress me as it seems unprofessional, like a child-drawn menu. Even though Ema did not offer much variety, but i thought the least they could do was separate out the one-page menu into several page and make it look more appropriate like a menu.
We proceed on to browse through the menu since we had already entered the place, a rough count shows that it was about 25-30 seater restaurant. Not much diners around, mayb it was the timing that we went.
Ema’s Burger ($14.90)
Home-made beef patty, melted cheese, picked vege, bacon & hickory smoked bbq sauce, accompanied by fries. This was pretty decent i guess. You won’t really go wrong ordering this from the short list of food available.
Braised Lamb Shank ($15.90)
With carrot, turnip, celery & mashed potato. The inquisitive side finally got me into trouble. There are safe options to order, but no, my mind tell me not to, and instead Braised lamb shank is served onto my table. Not really good, i didn’t finish the dish if thats what you want to know.
French fries ($3.50)
We made a mistake of ordering french fries for starters because while ordering Ema’s burger, we missed out that it came with fries, otherwise, the fries were okay, and the servings were quite generous too
Total damage came to $43.78 for two person. Also had one mango ice blend ($5.50). The food there wasn’t that bad i guess, mayb its just a case of ordering the wrong stuff, for the price range i though it is still consider reasonable given the fact that it is located beside much high-end restaurants, and the rent at Greenwood isn’t really what you will mention as cheap.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
“ It can’t be smooth-sailing all the way, sometimes you will encounter bad dining experience ”
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Went with Maz for food-hunting, started at Wheelock place, den to wisma, and finally Taka. Can’t decide wad to eat, finally chose Breeks because it was late and we were hungry. The restaurant has the usual things u would find in a normal western one, so nothing special.
For side dish, we ordered the Breeks! Buffalo Wing, its actually chicken wing dipped in sweet and spicy sauce. There is 6 wings, which comes at $4.90. I quite like the wings, but maz found it too sweet. O well. It came with quite a healthy servings of vegies, i like. 4 out of 5
Maz had fish & chips for his main course because he wanted to try the waffle fries that came with it. Overall, the chips is ordinary, nothing special, there are better chips out there. 2.5 out of 5
I had grilled chicken chop on hotplates for my main course. The chop was quite nice, with the special sauce that was diff from the normal chicken-chop-sauce. BUT, wads with the servings that came with it? Burned potatos, carrots does not really taste nice. I wld prefer mashed potatos or give me coleslaw vegies anyday. 3 out of 5
All in all, the food was average, service was average (they don’t refill iced water fast enough), price was average. So if other places are too crowded, check out Breeks at Taka, note: it also has other branches.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. 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 : )
" I am your superman, and you are my wonderwoman "
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After a relatively good experience from my previous visit to Pu Tien, I headed back down with my parents for dinner on a busy Sunday evening. Needless to say, parking was a major headache, even to the extent of hazardous with the throngs of foreign workers recklessly heading towards Mustafa.
Salted Pig Trotter with Pepper - We tried Pu Tien's rendition of the pig's trotters for the first time and left rather disappointed. True, the skin was crispy and lightly salted to bring out the balance of flavours. But it was more of soggy crispy rather than crackling crispy and most of it was just fats and minimal meat, which made swallowing a rather difficult task because of the preconceived notions of unhealthiness.
Stir Fried Kailan with Beancurd Skin - This dish was supposed to have more kailan than beancurd skin, but strangely enough, it was vice versa. The beancurd skin was a huge blob and practically covered out whatever small portions of the kailan that was given. And eating too much soft beancurd skin is a sure fire recipe for getting woozy really fast. A rather lacklustre but decently palatable dish overall.
Deep Fried Chicken with Garlic - This time round, the Deep Fried Chicken with Garlic was merely normal. The skin was as crispy as I remembered it to be but the meat came across as a little dry. Also, it tasted rather bland even with the fried garlic atop.
Homemade Beancurd - Undoubtedly the best dish of the evening, the homemade beancurd was soft yet firm and had a nice savoury after taste. I wouldn't go so far as to call it out of this world, but its really a gem. I must say that even my parents were quite impressed with this dish and thats coming from 2 very fussy eaters.
Hing Wa Fried Bee Hoon - As with my previous visit, I didn't find this dish the least bit impressive. The bee hoon was very fine but a little too dry and bland for my liking.
Dinner for 3 stood at about $51, which is in line with my idea of a reasonable dinner given the quality of food. But do not expect top notch food for the price. Its merely comfort food done up with a little more finesse.
See all my pictures here
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