Min Jiang is a, if I'm not wrong, Sze Chuan restaurant that used to be at Goodwood Park Hotel. With that kind of reputation, I guess everyone has high expectations of that place! Located at Rochester Park, it gives a feeling of exclusivity (though I do wonder how they survive..), with the valet parking, choice of indoor/outdoor seats and old British house settings.
Food at Min Jiang isn't ridiculously expensive, considering their reputation. However, I would say it's a little on the steep side, considering the quality.
Dim Sum is from $4.50 a basket, with 3 pieces. This means $1.50 a piece, which is really expensive.
The Char Siew Bao tasted quite different. It doesn't have the usual sweet taste and it didn't look very appetizing due to the dark-brownish colour of the meat.
Their Steamed Baby Pork Ribs in Black Bean Sauce was sub-standard to me. It was not pork ribs to begin with, it was more like pork-fat ribs. It was rather unsightly.
Then there were other things like this Dumpling in Sweet and Spicy sauce (I can't remember the actual name). It was pretty unique and I liked it because it was spicy. However it was a really oily dish - chilli oil I think.
One of my favourite was the Deep Fried Beancurd Skin Roll with Japanese Seaweed . The beancurd skin was very crispy and the filling was abit like fishcake. I think it contained some prawn-cake thing? I couldn't qutie tell =x
And if you want to try something more, you can try their famous Appetizer Platter that consists of a crispy eel coated with sesame seed, lobster in egg white (in an edible party cup!), crispy diced chicken (a little like popcorn chicken) and a huge piece of scallop coated in sweet and spicy sauce. I thought this was great just that the eel was exceptionally hard, not something I saw before nor really fancy. But it'll still be good if you can't quite decide on what exactly to eat. A starters will never go wrong!
Other dishes I tried includes Black Pepper Beef which was really tender but the meat was a tad too sweet and String Beans which was kind of salty. Would have been good if it was a little spicy though.
A MUST EAT is their Peking Duck ! They have 3 ways of eating it. One is the duck skin dipped in sugar. I've never done this but I realize that the sugar goes exceptionally well with the skin! The only thing is that chewing on the crispy skin was like a mini oil-explosion in your mouth. All the oil absorbed by the skin bursts in your mouth (eww). Tastes good, but unhealthy. Secondly, you can do it the traditional way. Sweet sauce, spring onion and duck wrapped in flour crepe. Another way is similar, just that there's an addition of garlic paste in it. Though the flour crepe was supposed to be "paper thin", it wasn't that thin. But I quite liked it because at least when you chew, you get to taste the full flavour of each component in your mouth.
Last but not least, desserts! The others on the list didn't quite fancy me, so I decided on something more boring – Yang Zhi Gan Lu (with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream). It tasted pretty normal, like what you can get from many other places. The mango base wasn’t that sweet; the pomelo as well. My cousin had Durian Pudding. I think that was awesome! The pudding seemed to be made from lots of durian meat plus a little bit of whatever-it-takes-to-make-the-pudding. With every bite, you can taste the fresh durian meat in it, and you can even see it! Wonderful I must say.. Really really good and fragrant :D
I give the place credit for the wonderful dessert! But truth betold, I don’t think it’s worth revisiting the place. If you wanna explore, do try! But it’s not quite worth the money…
My company's D&D was held in the ballroom at the top storey of the hotel. Just a short distance away from the ballroom is the swimming. Nice rooftop view!
Coming into the ballroom, it was not a very big one but it does come with a small stage. The decoration was simple.
The dinner was served in buffet syle, with food like wild mushroom soup, raisin mushroom rice, teriyaki chicken, smoked salmon, satay, tahu goreng and many others. Some dishes were ok but some were not. A couple of the dishes were either too bland or too salty.
But luckily, their dessert was good. Especially their cheesecakes, which were very nicely made into small round shape. There's also a few types of cheesecakes available which includes oreo cheesecake, New York cheesecake and marble cheesecake. All tasted great!
Other than that, I find their service ok only. The waiters hardly refilled my drinks.
Think their cheesecakes are definitely worth a go.
My friend & I were feeling a little hungry yet could not afford the time for a proper meal therefore we decided to get some food that can be eaten on-the-go.
Crystal Jade My bread sells a variety of chinese/Hong kong-styled bread as well as other types of pastries and cakes. For me, it's quite standard to get the bo lo bun. Heard that the char siew bo lo bun is good but I don't really like pork, so I had the plain bo lo bun instead. It's still good!
On top of that, we got a chocolate-custard pastry and a pumpkin glutinous cake to share. The pumpkin glutinous cake was nice. Tasted like muah chee, chewy and not too sweet. As for the chocolate-custard pastry, the custard end was nice but the chocolate was abit too thick & overwhelming.
Think I'll go back for other flavours of the glutinous cake. Want to try the black semame one!
Popped by the Siglap area for lunch one afternoon with my colleague and chanced upon Sushi Jiro while scouring the area for Japanese food.
Unpretentiously located along East Coast Road just before Siglap Centre, Sushi Jiro plays neighbour to the more illustrious Perle Noir, which incidentally, is never open for lunch. The decor is simple and you get to dine in private tatami rooms which can probably seat about 2-8 pax.
I've honestly not eaten enough Chawamushi to gauge whether Sushi Jiro's rendition was good, but I did like it for coming across as light on the palate. The addition of orange peel to the rather watery base was a nice touch as it introduced a slightly bitter dimension to the dish.
Wakadori Karaage - The chicken was nice and crispy but tasted like it had too much oil. Every bite brought forth a secretion of juices (oil water), which got me worrying for my health really.
Eihire - This dish piqued my curiosity quite a bit as I've never eaten stingray fins before. Lightly grilled, the fins were interesting but not something I would order again. It seemed rather salty for starters and when eaten with the mayonnaise, the flavours didn't seem to complement, to the extent of being weird.
Tempura Moriawase - Almost a staple regardless of which Japanese restaurant I patronise, the tempura batter was thin and light but a little too bland for my liking. I did like the prawns that came with it though, huge, fresh and sweet. The other stuff were rather average.
California Maki - I can't think of a better word than average to describe the California Maki. Rice was of the right texture but seemed a little too scattered. The only plus point was that it was covered with roe.
I would say that overall the meal was very average but the tatami rooms did make for a more private and enjoyable lunch. However, $58 for 2 pax might seem a little steep especially for the quality and quantity of food. That said, service is good and they have a rather novel system (at least in Singapore) of catching the wait staff's attention, which is to clap your hands.
With the popularity of donut boutiques like The Donut Factory, it is inevitable that people will want to jump on the donut bandwagon for a piece of this ever growing cash pie. Donut Donut is one such outlet and it seems to have been reasonably successful thus far with about 3 outlets spread across the country (the ones i know thus far that is).
Yummy looking Donuts!! ($6 for 6) - First up, i'm not a fan of donuts but this box looked simply delightful! It contained 6 donuts, 2 durian flavored, 1 coffee flavored, 1 dark chocolate flavored and 2 more which i don't know because i never tried them. For what i did try, the durian and coffee flavored one, it was quite nicely done. The dough was soft and decidedly porous with an aromatic taste of buns. The durian was not as strong flavored as i thought but still managed to command recognition. The coffee donut had dark chocolate sprinkled atop and was shaped like a heart. The dough was alike with its durian offering and the coffee mentioned was basically mocha flavored cream passing off as coffee. Decent nonetheless. Good marks for presentation though, i'm looking forward to my next visit to see if there are better offerings.
A quick follow up on this little pastry outlet as promised. For a view of my previous comments, please click here.
If you remember from my previous post, i was quite optimistic about what this little outlet offered and promised to visit it again soon. Well, here it is! I had a go at the more expensive cheese donut and was quite disappointed by it as i found the dough a little hard this time around and i couldn't justify why sprinkling cheese bits on top and having cheese vanilla flavored cream on the inside increases the price of it by another 20 cents from its other offerings. From there, everything went downhill as i tried once again, the mocha flavored donut, dark chocolate coated donut and the white chocolate donut. Somehow, i can sum the whole experience up as dull after a few bites as everything starts to blend into one familiar flavor. I also began to feel the dough isn't aromatic enough and finally, i've decided i probably would not patronize the place further as their offerings remain largely the same throughout with little to no surprises at this point.
I would like to apologize to anyone who did try this place out because in the end, it really isn't very good. In fact, their donuts are only slightly above average and a good way to put it is that it is simply a flashier version of normal coffee shop pastries that is riding on the success of The Donut Factory. Next write up, The Donut Factory.
I've been looking for good mala steamboat since the last on I had elsewhere was not so satisfying. Decided to give this restaurant a try since we see quite a crowd in there. Guess it'll be good. Haha....
The restaurant consists of 2 storeys, with the ground floor being non-airconed outdoor and upper floor airconed. The two floors are connected by a spiral staircase. Most of the food are placed on the ground floor. Therefore if you are sitting upstairs, you'll need to go up and down the spiral staircase. Just got to be more careful then.
Food wise, they serve both cooked food and uncooked ones for the steamboat. Cooked food were good although not a wide variety of them. Their uncooked meats are fresh as they sliced them on the spot but then you got to queue for them.
We ordered an yuan yang guo with herbal soup and mala soup. The herbal soup was good, but the mala one was average. Just not spicy enough for me.
As for the service, hmm...the waiters are friendly but not prompt enough to clear away our used plates. Half way through the dinner, there was even a blackout! Haha
this outlet is the first time I went for any Pepper Lunch. We went there for dinner and first impression wasn't all that great.
Customers especially those as new as us would be confused of the sitting arrangement and ordering system. Perhaps instead of having staffs standing around to answer queries, they could have a notice board or something with instructions. The customers would not have the perpetual "blur" look when they first enter the restaurants.
Food. Not that great. At least it does not give the wow factor but merely some new experiences to a different way of eating. Cooking the food though is interesting, seeing the raw meat on the plate doesn't increase my appetite. Not a balanced meal as they served bean sprouts and very little of other vegetables. Cooking the food also cause a smell to be emitted while we struggle to stir the veges.
On the whole, I wouldn't visit Pepper Lunch often. Perhaps I will visit when I feel like cooking but lazy to buy ingredients
Decided to dine at Swensen's today since one of my friend is muslim & they serve halal food here. I saw that they are having a promotion menu called the 'Viva Pinata Fiesta Feast', so I decided to give it a try. I ordered the Doenut Chicken, which consisted of grilled chicken topped with caramelised onions and it came with sides like brocholli, carrots and mashed potato. It came in a set which includes a soup of the day and fruit juice. Well, it tasted ok, soup and mashed potato were bland though.
Other than that, we ordered the white chocolate blondie, which was served in a sizzling pan, for dessert. A little of it was fine but definitely not too much as it was quite sweet. Maybe because I don't really have a sweet tooth and so won't appreciate it as much. But I like the nutty bites.
Talking about the service, I think it was poor. The waiters were not very friendly and they were pretty slow. It was hophard to get them to refill our empty cups too. The shop's air-con was probably not functioning properly too. We felt rather hot throughout the whole dinner.
Given the service & food, I'll definitely give it a second thought as to whether to go back to dine again.
I used to have only one policy from AIA. Until another agent contacted me and asked me to purchase more policies as my coverage was never enough.
Each new meeting was supposed to be a follow up but I ended up being pressured to buy more. It was until I decided that I did a review and felt that I was over-buying and paying so much for too little coverage.
When I decided to cancel the new policies that weren't covering enough, things got ugly. Although I wasn't threatened directly, the underlying message was clear. I was messing with the wrong agent and manager.
It was a rather distressing time for me as I was to listen to the long tirade of a manager who was clearly forcing me to keep my policies despite the payments were too much and too little coverage.
He wanted to know the name of the 'unethical' agent I had 'hired'. Throughout the phone call, he was calling this agent 'unethical' and 'will suffer retribution' and forcing me to side with him.
I call that too aggressive and I don't like aggressive sellers.
I've watched a few movies at this cinema a few times and I love the legroom as it's not too small so that I can't squeeze to let other patrons passing through.
During my recent screening there, the lights weren't dimmed but abruptly switched off as if someone forgot to install a dimming effect for them. While that isn't the major fault, it felt awkward.
For the seats, they are rather comfortable while the armrest couldn't be kept in between the seats when being pushed up. The sound effects were good.
1=SGD 0.0587
Min Jiang is a, if I'm not wrong, Sze Chuan restaurant that used to be at Goodwood Park Hotel. With that kind of reputation, I guess everyone has high expectations of that place! Located at Rochester Park, it gives a feeling of exclusivity (though I do wonder how they survive..), with the valet parking, choice of indoor/outdoor seats and old British house settings.
Food at Min Jiang isn't ridiculously expensive, considering their reputation. However, I would say it's a little on the steep side, considering the quality.
Dim Sum is from $4.50 a basket, with 3 pieces. This means $1.50 a piece, which is really expensive.
The Char Siew Bao tasted quite different. It doesn't have the usual sweet taste and it didn't look very appetizing due to the dark-brownish colour of the meat.
Their Steamed Baby Pork Ribs in Black Bean Sauce was sub-standard to me. It was not pork ribs to begin with, it was more like pork-fat ribs. It was rather unsightly.
Then there were other things like this Dumpling in Sweet and Spicy sauce (I can't remember the actual name). It was pretty unique and I liked it because it was spicy. However it was a really oily dish - chilli oil I think.
One of my favourite was the Deep Fried Beancurd Skin Roll with Japanese Seaweed . The beancurd skin was very crispy and the filling was abit like fishcake. I think it contained some prawn-cake thing? I couldn't qutie tell =x
And if you want to try something more, you can try their famous Appetizer Platter that consists of a crispy eel coated with sesame seed, lobster in egg white (in an edible party cup!), crispy diced chicken (a little like popcorn chicken) and a huge piece of scallop coated in sweet and spicy sauce. I thought this was great just that the eel was exceptionally hard, not something I saw before nor really fancy. But it'll still be good if you can't quite decide on what exactly to eat. A starters will never go wrong!
Other dishes I tried includes Black Pepper Beef which was really tender but the meat was a tad too sweet and String Beans which was kind of salty. Would have been good if it was a little spicy though.
A MUST EAT is their Peking Duck ! They have 3 ways of eating it. One is the duck skin dipped in sugar. I've never done this but I realize that the sugar goes exceptionally well with the skin! The only thing is that chewing on the crispy skin was like a mini oil-explosion in your mouth. All the oil absorbed by the skin bursts in your mouth (eww). Tastes good, but unhealthy. Secondly, you can do it the traditional way. Sweet sauce, spring onion and duck wrapped in flour crepe. Another way is similar, just that there's an addition of garlic paste in it. Though the flour crepe was supposed to be "paper thin", it wasn't that thin. But I quite liked it because at least when you chew, you get to taste the full flavour of each component in your mouth.
Last but not least, desserts! The others on the list didn't quite fancy me, so I decided on something more boring – Yang Zhi Gan Lu (with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream). It tasted pretty normal, like what you can get from many other places. The mango base wasn’t that sweet; the pomelo as well. My cousin had Durian Pudding. I think that was awesome! The pudding seemed to be made from lots of durian meat plus a little bit of whatever-it-takes-to-make-the-pudding. With every bite, you can taste the fresh durian meat in it, and you can even see it! Wonderful I must say.. Really really good and fragrant :D
I give the place credit for the wonderful dessert! But truth betold, I don’t think it’s worth revisiting the place. If you wanna explore, do try! But it’s not quite worth the money…
Some pictures here, taken from somewhere else.
Rating given:
My company's D&D was held in the ballroom at the top storey of the hotel. Just a short distance away from the ballroom is the swimming. Nice rooftop view!
Coming into the ballroom, it was not a very big one but it does come with a small stage. The decoration was simple.
The dinner was served in buffet syle, with food like wild mushroom soup, raisin mushroom rice, teriyaki chicken, smoked salmon, satay, tahu goreng and many others. Some dishes were ok but some were not. A couple of the dishes were either too bland or too salty.
But luckily, their dessert was good. Especially their cheesecakes, which were very nicely made into small round shape. There's also a few types of cheesecakes available which includes oreo cheesecake, New York cheesecake and marble cheesecake. All tasted great!
Other than that, I find their service ok only. The waiters hardly refilled my drinks.
Think their cheesecakes are definitely worth a go.
Rating given:
My friend & I were feeling a little hungry yet could not afford the time for a proper meal therefore we decided to get some food that can be eaten on-the-go.
Crystal Jade My bread sells a variety of chinese/Hong kong-styled bread as well as other types of pastries and cakes. For me, it's quite standard to get the bo lo bun. Heard that the char siew bo lo bun is good but I don't really like pork, so I had the plain bo lo bun instead. It's still good!
On top of that, we got a chocolate-custard pastry and a pumpkin glutinous cake to share. The pumpkin glutinous cake was nice. Tasted like muah chee, chewy and not too sweet. As for the chocolate-custard pastry, the custard end was nice but the chocolate was abit too thick & overwhelming.
Think I'll go back for other flavours of the glutinous cake. Want to try the black semame one!
Rating given:
Popped by the Siglap area for lunch one afternoon with my colleague and chanced upon Sushi Jiro while scouring the area for Japanese food.
Unpretentiously located along East Coast Road just before Siglap Centre, Sushi Jiro plays neighbour to the more illustrious Perle Noir, which incidentally, is never open for lunch. The decor is simple and you get to dine in private tatami rooms which can probably seat about 2-8 pax.
I've honestly not eaten enough Chawamushi to gauge whether Sushi Jiro's rendition was good, but I did like it for coming across as light on the palate. The addition of orange peel to the rather watery base was a nice touch as it introduced a slightly bitter dimension to the dish.
Wakadori Karaage - The chicken was nice and crispy but tasted like it had too much oil. Every bite brought forth a secretion of juices (oil water), which got me worrying for my health really.
Eihire - This dish piqued my curiosity quite a bit as I've never eaten stingray fins before. Lightly grilled, the fins were interesting but not something I would order again. It seemed rather salty for starters and when eaten with the mayonnaise, the flavours didn't seem to complement, to the extent of being weird.
Tempura Moriawase - Almost a staple regardless of which Japanese restaurant I patronise, the tempura batter was thin and light but a little too bland for my liking. I did like the prawns that came with it though, huge, fresh and sweet. The other stuff were rather average.
California Maki - I can't think of a better word than average to describe the California Maki. Rice was of the right texture but seemed a little too scattered. The only plus point was that it was covered with roe.
I would say that overall the meal was very average but the tatami rooms did make for a more private and enjoyable lunch. However, $58 for 2 pax might seem a little steep especially for the quality and quantity of food. That said, service is good and they have a rather novel system (at least in Singapore) of catching the wait staff's attention, which is to clap your hands.
See all my pictures here
Rating given:
With the popularity of donut boutiques like The Donut Factory, it is inevitable that people will want to jump on the donut bandwagon for a piece of this ever growing cash pie. Donut Donut is one such outlet and it seems to have been reasonably successful thus far with about 3 outlets spread across the country (the ones i know thus far that is).
Yummy looking Donuts!! ($6 for 6) - First up, i'm not a fan of donuts but this box looked simply delightful! It contained 6 donuts, 2 durian flavored, 1 coffee flavored, 1 dark chocolate flavored and 2 more which i don't know because i never tried them. For what i did try, the durian and coffee flavored one, it was quite nicely done. The dough was soft and decidedly porous with an aromatic taste of buns. The durian was not as strong flavored as i thought but still managed to command recognition. The coffee donut had dark chocolate sprinkled atop and was shaped like a heart. The dough was alike with its durian offering and the coffee mentioned was basically mocha flavored cream passing off as coffee. Decent nonetheless.
Good marks for presentation though, i'm looking forward to my next visit to see if there are better offerings.
A quick follow up on this little pastry outlet as promised. For a view of my previous comments, please click here.
If you remember from my previous post, i was quite optimistic about what this little outlet offered and promised to visit it again soon. Well, here it is!
I had a go at the more expensive cheese donut and was quite disappointed by it as i found the dough a little hard this time around and i couldn't justify why sprinkling cheese bits on top and having cheese vanilla flavored cream on the inside increases the price of it by another 20 cents from its other offerings. From there, everything went downhill as i tried once again, the mocha flavored donut, dark chocolate coated donut and the white chocolate donut. Somehow, i can sum the whole experience up as dull after a few bites as everything starts to blend into one familiar flavor. I also began to feel the dough isn't aromatic enough and finally, i've decided i probably would not patronize the place further as their offerings remain largely the same throughout with little to no surprises at this point.
I would like to apologize to anyone who did try this place out because in the end, it really isn't very good. In fact, their donuts are only slightly above average and a good way to put it is that it is simply a flashier version of normal coffee shop pastries that is riding on the success of The Donut Factory. Next write up, The Donut Factory.
Rating given:
I've been looking for good mala steamboat since the last on I had elsewhere was not so satisfying. Decided to give this restaurant a try since we see quite a crowd in there. Guess it'll be good. Haha....
The restaurant consists of 2 storeys, with the ground floor being non-airconed outdoor and upper floor airconed. The two floors are connected by a spiral staircase. Most of the food are placed on the ground floor. Therefore if you are sitting upstairs, you'll need to go up and down the spiral staircase. Just got to be more careful then.
Food wise, they serve both cooked food and uncooked ones for the steamboat. Cooked food were good although not a wide variety of them. Their uncooked meats are fresh as they sliced them on the spot but then you got to queue for them.
We ordered an yuan yang guo with herbal soup and mala soup. The herbal soup was good, but the mala one was average. Just not spicy enough for me.
As for the service, hmm...the waiters are friendly but not prompt enough to clear away our used plates. Half way through the dinner, there was even a blackout! Haha
Think this place deserve a 3.5 star bah.
Rating given:
this outlet is the first time I went for any Pepper Lunch. We went there for dinner and first impression wasn't all that great.
Customers especially those as new as us would be confused of the sitting arrangement and ordering system. Perhaps instead of having staffs standing around to answer queries, they could have a notice board or something with instructions. The customers would not have the perpetual "blur" look when they first enter the restaurants.
Food. Not that great. At least it does not give the wow factor but merely some new experiences to a different way of eating. Cooking the food though is interesting, seeing the raw meat on the plate doesn't increase my appetite. Not a balanced meal as they served bean sprouts and very little of other vegetables. Cooking the food also cause a smell to be emitted while we struggle to stir the veges.
On the whole, I wouldn't visit Pepper Lunch often. Perhaps I will visit when I feel like cooking but lazy to buy ingredients
Rating given:
Decided to dine at Swensen's today since one of my friend is muslim & they serve halal food here. I saw that they are having a promotion menu called the 'Viva Pinata Fiesta Feast', so I decided to give it a try. I ordered the Doenut Chicken, which consisted of grilled chicken topped with caramelised onions and it came with sides like brocholli, carrots and mashed potato. It came in a set which includes a soup of the day and fruit juice. Well, it tasted ok, soup and mashed potato were bland though.
Other than that, we ordered the white chocolate blondie, which was served in a sizzling pan, for dessert. A little of it was fine but definitely not too much as it was quite sweet. Maybe because I don't really have a sweet tooth and so won't appreciate it as much. But I like the nutty bites.
Talking about the service, I think it was poor. The waiters were not very friendly and they were pretty slow. It was hophard to get them to refill our empty cups too. The shop's air-con was probably not functioning properly too. We felt rather hot throughout the whole dinner.
Given the service & food, I'll definitely give it a second thought as to whether to go back to dine again.
Rating given:
I used to have only one policy from AIA. Until another agent contacted me and asked me to purchase more policies as my coverage was never enough.
Each new meeting was supposed to be a follow up but I ended up being pressured to buy more. It was until I decided that I did a review and felt that I was over-buying and paying so much for too little coverage.
When I decided to cancel the new policies that weren't covering enough, things got ugly. Although I wasn't threatened directly, the underlying message was clear. I was messing with the wrong agent and manager.
It was a rather distressing time for me as I was to listen to the long tirade of a manager who was clearly forcing me to keep my policies despite the payments were too much and too little coverage.
He wanted to know the name of the 'unethical' agent I had 'hired'. Throughout the phone call, he was calling this agent 'unethical' and 'will suffer retribution' and forcing me to side with him.
I call that too aggressive and I don't like aggressive sellers.
Rating given:
I've watched a few movies at this cinema a few times and I love the legroom as it's not too small so that I can't squeeze to let other patrons passing through.
During my recent screening there, the lights weren't dimmed but abruptly switched off as if someone forgot to install a dimming effect for them. While that isn't the major fault, it felt awkward.
For the seats, they are rather comfortable while the armrest couldn't be kept in between the seats when being pushed up. The sound effects were good.
Overall, this was a good place to watch movies.
Rating given: