Its pretty difficult to find shops, selling the traditional snacks, pastries, cookies and biscuits nowadays. However, this shop that i am going to review today, certainly has injected some form of traditional flavoured into my senses.
The items sold in this shop includes the commonly seen tar sah pia (both sweet and salty), pong pia, malt candy biscuit, walnut biscuits, almond cookies, pineapple tarts, egg tarts and even peanut candy (soft, hard and crispy version). Looking at their wide range of goodies, it is not difficult to imagine how i could drawn to them and buy a couple of cookies to try them out.
Theres simply too many items for me to try out all at once, thus i only tried out the few more popular items, such as the mini tar sah pia, the pong pia, the egg tart as well as the pineapple tarts.
If i were to rank them, the first place will definitely have to be the pong pia. Although the filling of pong pia is malt candy, it does not taste sweet at all. Not only that, the filling was extremely fragrant and nice. I was pretty surprise when i tasted it at first. Later then i realize, the sesame seeds in the filling must have played a part in the fragrance.
The second place will be the mini tar sah pia, the salty version kind. Well, guess the mini version looks rather cute and tasted not too bad either. The first bite onto the tar sah pia tasted pretty spicy. Yes, you have seen it correctly, spicy. Although the spicy is not too strong but its enough to taste it. Its filling also has some sesame added into it, making it tasted more fragrant.
As for the egg tart and pineapple tarts, i find them rather so-so. I found the egg tart crust too thick for my liking. As for the pineapple tarts, i find its filling lack of some significant pineapple taste.
As for the service wise, the pretty friendly staff is willing to explain each item and it ingredients used to one carefully. However, do expect to wait for a little while during its peak period as there is only one staff in the outlet.
Overall, i believe these biscuits are still worth to give them a try.
I ate breakfast at night. Well, guess you must be very curious why did i have to eat breakfast only at night. haha. Yes, i did ate my breakfast at night and no, its not a typo error. This is because, delifrance now serves an all day breakfast.
They have a quite a few varieties of breakfast set to choose from. Upon looking through the menu a couple of time, we decided to order just the soup of the day and the all day breakfast set.
Basically, the soup of the day was corn soup. And true enough, there were couple of corn bits in the soup, but never did i realize that there alot more corn lying at the bottom of the soup. It was a pretty nice flavoured soup but somehow the corn bits tasted a bit hard.
Nevertheless, we hoped that the breakfast set would be much better. We were pretty alarmed when the breakfast set was placed before our eyes, as the food happen to be abit too much to our expectation. Basically this breakfast set consists of two pieces of rolled ham, two pieces of chicken sausage, baked beans, muffins and sunny side up eggs.
I simply loved their muffins, as these muffins were toasted to achieve the crispy outer layer and soft inner layer effect. (perhaps their bakery background has played a significant part in this). As for the rest of the ingredients, i find them abit too oily to my liking. But, taste wise, there can be considered as not too bad.
Overall, their food was pretty good but as for their service, they are definitely not attentive enough. One very good example will be that i have to raise my hand more than three times, just to have someone filled up my glass of iced water.
Have you ever been to a cafe that has more than 10 staffs in the shop and ready to serve and attend your needs anytime. Well, i literally enter into one of them. This cafe seems abit crowded when i stepped into them on a saturday noon. Thou crowded, i was being led to my seats pretty fast.
The menus as well as the iced water came pretty fast too. Well, guess the large number of staffs indeed bring up the efficiency of the service here. :)
Upon deciding the item to order from the beautifully printed menu, i decided to call upon one of the staffs. However, before i can raise up my hands to ask for assistance, one of the staffs had immediately came over. Till now, i am still wondering, just how could their staffs read my mind. Well, perhaps 'attentive' is a more appropriate word to describe them.
As for the food, have ordered the 'flower blossom'. Bascially this creation, consists of six different flavour scope of ice cream, fresh fruits, wafer basket and with some chocolate and passionfruit sauce. I simply loved the flexibility that one get in ordering each creation.
Take for example, for the case of flower blossom, i am allowed to choose each ice cream flavour on my own. Some of the flavours which i choose include the mango and passionfruit, strawberry, cookies and cream, macadamia, etc. Personally, i loved the macadamia nut ice cream the best, with a strong macadamia smell and together with the chopped macadamia nut, its simply the best combination of ice cream.
Overall, this dining experience was a pretty good and enjoyable one. Staffs were pretty attentive to each of their customers needs. One of them even ask us hows our food. The other kept refilling my plain water when it has become less than half a cup. These small little actions has definitely make my dining experience much more enjoyable....
Ok, the one for one credit card promotion, is indeed appealing. And, that is why it can make me go all the way to toa payoh and try out their cod fish and abalone set meal. Haha.
Bascially the entire set meal consist of six different small dishes. Although each dish serving is rather small and does not include any rice or noodles kind of carbo food, it still manage to be quite fulfiling towards the end of the course.
The first dish of this set meal includes the shark bone soup. This milky colour soup has a rather strong fishie smell, thus it might be good to add in some pepper or vinegar to neutralize the taste. Taste wise, its pretty good and with the added scallop and fish maw (i think), makes the entire soup taste sweet.
Next that came up is the banana, cod fish and duck combo set. Ok, theres basically three different types of food in the dish, typically the sweet and sour cod fish, the duck slices (cold in taste) as well as the banana and prawn roll.
The banana and prawn roll tasted simply marvellous, imagine the just two very simple ingredient -- banana and prawn, they managed to make it tasted heavenly. And with the added thousand island sauce and the sesame taste on the crepe skin, it will made one to crave for more. But too bad, theres only one roll per person share.
Next coming up is the abalone with seafood stick. Just one single stick per person and it consist of some abalone, mushroom, sea cumcumber and prawn. Their abalone was pretty well cooked with a texture of chewiness and softness.
The ABC sauce chicken was the next dish. The nicely cooked chicken will definitely make one to crave for more. Imagine the skin that can be made comparable with those of bejing duck, a very cripiness skin can be found. Not forgetting the meat tastes juicy and tender.
Next came the carrot cake dish. Ok, i know carrot cake is a pretty normal kind of food. But, somehow they managed to make it tasted like 'chao guay tiao'. Amazing issnt it?
Lastly, not forgetting the double boiled coconut dessert. For this, i was rather disappointed to think that i can only see one small slice of coconut in the dessert. With the additional scoop of ice cream, i find this dessert abit too sweet for my liking.
As for their service wise, their staffs in the outlet were rather friendly and sometimes were 'over' helpful. Imagine, they keep refilling your cup of tea after you seep one mouthful? Haha, this is actually what happen literally at my table.
And not forgetting that during the half time of my eating phase (completion of my third dish), i have to wait for more than 20 minutes before my next dish come up. The first few dishes came quite promptly, but the interval between the third and fourth dish seems abit too long. Well, guess this issnt very good for a customer to wait for that long. However, they manage to mend this with the rest of their dishes coming quite promptly again.
Back and now with more food and food and food to share just with all of you. :P
As we all know, monther's day is coming real soon (yes, mother's day will be here in 2 weeks time). Have you decided where to bring your special mother out for a nice meal? If you have no particular place in mind or you are on a tight budget constraint, i do have a place to recommend.
And this place is non other than the Crystal jade one and only hongkong cafe in singapore and the rest of the world. As we all know, the craze of hongkong cafe is getting hotter nowadays, and one will really need to have some skills (in terms of cooking) as well as some creativity (in terms of specialty).
Personally, i do find that this cafe indeed has both of the criteria. Beside the normal hongkong specialty stuffs like 'maggie mee'and toast bread, this cafe offers something extra with a not bad taste too. ;)
Have already been there more than once, and will recommend just free dishes that you (my friend) should really go and try them out.
1. The crispy beancurd (with some pork floss and spicy sauce) Ok, basically thats the name that i remember from the menu, but some how the pork floss got loss (haha). Basically is just some beancurb with 'chai por'. But, the taste is really fanastic, with slight spicy taste surrounding the crispy coating of the bean curb, the chef somehow managed to make it so nicely crispy on the outer layer and super silky small in the inner portion. Thumbs up!
2. Baked cauliflowers with cheeseeeee
Well, this is really my first time ordering vegetables in a cafe, but this preety creative way of creating this dish makes me want to order them anyway. :) With melted cheese and some cheese powder sprinked on top of this cauliflowers, it make the whole dish so much nicer and cheesier. On the other hand, i do find the cheese abit too dilut, would definitely be better if the cheese is thicker.
3. Shark Fins in 'bowl'
Ok, i was very surprised to find some sharkfins in a hongkong cafe. And, even surprise to find it costing less than 5 bucks. While wondering if this could be some plot, i decided to order them out. Ok, as you all might have guessed, this 'sharkfin' is not really authentic, using some mushrooms and chicken shreds to replace the 'shark fin'. The whole product do looks authentic and even taste really like the real stuff, just that the ingredient is slightly different. Great for people who do not eat sharks?
4. Pork chop rice
Using fried rice plus nicely baked pork chop, this dish is simply good (minus the tasteless fried rice and the small size pork chop). Everything is good.
5. Dessert time, their red bean with homemade bean curb
They have many many interesting desserts available, and if i have the luxury, i would definitely loved to taste all of them. Tried this particular dessert, and realize that red bean can actually taste so good when combined with bean curb. Loved their not so sweet bean curb and the strong soya smell (which keep lingering in my mouth).
Overall, its really a worth to try it out place and very suitable for family and friends to have gatherings there too. Not forgetting, they have some kind of promotion every different day. Thus, if you happen to drop by on monday, then you get to purchase a red bean ice at a much lower price. Pretty worth, i can say.
P/S: will upload the pictures real soon, stay tuned. :)
The items sold in this shop includes the commonly seen tar sah pia (both sweet and salty), pong pia, malt candy biscuit, walnut biscuits, almond cookies, pineapple tarts, egg tarts and even peanut candy (soft, hard and crispy version). Looking at their wide range of goodies, it is not difficult to imagine how i could drawn to them and buy a couple of cookies to try them out.
Theres simply too many items for me to try out all at once, thus i only tried out the few more popular items, such as the mini tar sah pia, the pong pia, the egg tart as well as the pineapple tarts.
If i were to rank them, the first place will definitely have to be the pong pia. Although the filling of pong pia is malt candy, it does not taste sweet at all. Not only that, the filling was extremely fragrant and nice. I was pretty surprise when i tasted it at first. Later then i realize, the sesame seeds in the filling must have played a part in the fragrance.
The second place will be the mini tar sah pia, the salty version kind. Well, guess the mini version looks rather cute and tasted not too bad either. The first bite onto the tar sah pia tasted pretty spicy. Yes, you have seen it correctly, spicy. Although the spicy is not too strong but its enough to taste it. Its filling also has some sesame added into it, making it tasted more fragrant.
As for the egg tart and pineapple tarts, i find them rather so-so. I found the egg tart crust too thick for my liking. As for the pineapple tarts, i find its filling lack of some significant pineapple taste.
As for the service wise, the pretty friendly staff is willing to explain each item and it ingredients used to one carefully. However, do expect to wait for a little while during its peak period as there is only one staff in the outlet.
Overall, i believe these biscuits are still worth to give them a try.
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They have a quite a few varieties of breakfast set to choose from. Upon looking through the menu a couple of time, we decided to order just the soup of the day and the all day breakfast set.
Basically, the soup of the day was corn soup. And true enough, there were couple of corn bits in the soup, but never did i realize that there alot more corn lying at the bottom of the soup. It was a pretty nice flavoured soup but somehow the corn bits tasted a bit hard.
Nevertheless, we hoped that the breakfast set would be much better. We were pretty alarmed when the breakfast set was placed before our eyes, as the food happen to be abit too much to our expectation. Basically this breakfast set consists of two pieces of rolled ham, two pieces of chicken sausage, baked beans, muffins and sunny side up eggs.
I simply loved their muffins, as these muffins were toasted to achieve the crispy outer layer and soft inner layer effect. (perhaps their bakery background has played a significant part in this). As for the rest of the ingredients, i find them abit too oily to my liking. But, taste wise, there can be considered as not too bad.
Overall, their food was pretty good but as for their service, they are definitely not attentive enough. One very good example will be that i have to raise my hand more than three times, just to have someone filled up my glass of iced water.
Polarbear said:
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!Hmm... I never really find their food good!
12 May 2008 at 1:26 am
The menus as well as the iced water came pretty fast too. Well, guess the large number of staffs indeed bring up the efficiency of the service here. :)
Upon deciding the item to order from the beautifully printed menu, i decided to call upon one of the staffs. However, before i can raise up my hands to ask for assistance, one of the staffs had immediately came over. Till now, i am still wondering, just how could their staffs read my mind. Well, perhaps 'attentive' is a more appropriate word to describe them.
As for the food, have ordered the 'flower blossom'. Bascially this creation, consists of six different flavour scope of ice cream, fresh fruits, wafer basket and with some chocolate and passionfruit sauce. I simply loved the flexibility that one get in ordering each creation.
Take for example, for the case of flower blossom, i am allowed to choose each ice cream flavour on my own. Some of the flavours which i choose include the mango and passionfruit, strawberry, cookies and cream, macadamia, etc. Personally, i loved the macadamia nut ice cream the best, with a strong macadamia smell and together with the chopped macadamia nut, its simply the best combination of ice cream.
Overall, this dining experience was a pretty good and enjoyable one. Staffs were pretty attentive to each of their customers needs. One of them even ask us hows our food. The other kept refilling my plain water when it has become less than half a cup. These small little actions has definitely make my dining experience much more enjoyable....
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
Bascially the entire set meal consist of six different small dishes. Although each dish serving is rather small and does not include any rice or noodles kind of carbo food, it still manage to be quite fulfiling towards the end of the course.
The first dish of this set meal includes the shark bone soup. This milky colour soup has a rather strong fishie smell, thus it might be good to add in some pepper or vinegar to neutralize the taste. Taste wise, its pretty good and with the added scallop and fish maw (i think), makes the entire soup taste sweet.
Next that came up is the banana, cod fish and duck combo set. Ok, theres basically three different types of food in the dish, typically the sweet and sour cod fish, the duck slices (cold in taste) as well as the banana and prawn roll.
The banana and prawn roll tasted simply marvellous, imagine the just two very simple ingredient -- banana and prawn, they managed to make it tasted heavenly. And with the added thousand island sauce and the sesame taste on the crepe skin, it will made one to crave for more. But too bad, theres only one roll per person share.
Next coming up is the abalone with seafood stick. Just one single stick per person and it consist of some abalone, mushroom, sea cumcumber and prawn. Their abalone was pretty well cooked with a texture of chewiness and softness.
The ABC sauce chicken was the next dish. The nicely cooked chicken will definitely make one to crave for more. Imagine the skin that can be made comparable with those of bejing duck, a very cripiness skin can be found. Not forgetting the meat tastes juicy and tender.
Next came the carrot cake dish. Ok, i know carrot cake is a pretty normal kind of food. But, somehow they managed to make it tasted like 'chao guay tiao'. Amazing issnt it?
Lastly, not forgetting the double boiled coconut dessert. For this, i was rather disappointed to think that i can only see one small slice of coconut in the dessert. With the additional scoop of ice cream, i find this dessert abit too sweet for my liking.
As for their service wise, their staffs in the outlet were rather friendly and sometimes were 'over' helpful. Imagine, they keep refilling your cup of tea after you seep one mouthful? Haha, this is actually what happen literally at my table.
And not forgetting that during the half time of my eating phase (completion of my third dish), i have to wait for more than 20 minutes before my next dish come up. The first few dishes came quite promptly, but the interval between the third and fourth dish seems abit too long. Well, guess this issnt very good for a customer to wait for that long. However, they manage to mend this with the rest of their dishes coming quite promptly again.
Polarbear said: Great Sage said:
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!Hmm... sounds good. May I know which credit card promo is that?
04 May 2008 at 12:23 pm
its in under uob credit card promo... rather worth to try ;)
04 May 2008 at 12:26 pm
As we all know, monther's day is coming real soon (yes, mother's day will be here in 2 weeks time). Have you decided where to bring your special mother out for a nice meal? If you have no particular place in mind or you are on a tight budget constraint, i do have a place to recommend.
And this place is non other than the Crystal jade one and only hongkong cafe in singapore and the rest of the world. As we all know, the craze of hongkong cafe is getting hotter nowadays, and one will really need to have some skills (in terms of cooking) as well as some creativity (in terms of specialty).
Personally, i do find that this cafe indeed has both of the criteria. Beside the normal hongkong specialty stuffs like 'maggie mee'and toast bread, this cafe offers something extra with a not bad taste too. ;)
Have already been there more than once, and will recommend just free dishes that you (my friend) should really go and try them out.
1. The crispy beancurd (with some pork floss and spicy sauce) Ok, basically thats the name that i remember from the menu, but some how the pork floss got loss (haha). Basically is just some beancurb with 'chai por'. But, the taste is really fanastic, with slight spicy taste surrounding the crispy coating of the bean curb, the chef somehow managed to make it so nicely crispy on the outer layer and super silky small in the inner portion. Thumbs up!
2. Baked cauliflowers with cheeseeeee
Well, this is really my first time ordering vegetables in a cafe, but this preety creative way of creating this dish makes me want to order them anyway. :) With melted cheese and some cheese powder sprinked on top of this cauliflowers, it make the whole dish so much nicer and cheesier. On the other hand, i do find the cheese abit too dilut, would definitely be better if the cheese is thicker.
3. Shark Fins in 'bowl'
Ok, i was very surprised to find some sharkfins in a hongkong cafe. And, even surprise to find it costing less than 5 bucks. While wondering if this could be some plot, i decided to order them out. Ok, as you all might have guessed, this 'sharkfin' is not really authentic, using some mushrooms and chicken shreds to replace the 'shark fin'. The whole product do looks authentic and even taste really like the real stuff, just that the ingredient is slightly different. Great for people who do not eat sharks?
4. Pork chop rice
Using fried rice plus nicely baked pork chop, this dish is simply good (minus the tasteless fried rice and the small size pork chop). Everything is good.
5. Dessert time, their red bean with homemade bean curb
They have many many interesting desserts available, and if i have the luxury, i would definitely loved to taste all of them. Tried this particular dessert, and realize that red bean can actually taste so good when combined with bean curb. Loved their not so sweet bean curb and the strong soya smell (which keep lingering in my mouth).
Overall, its really a worth to try it out place and very suitable for family and friends to have gatherings there too. Not forgetting, they have some kind of promotion every different day. Thus, if you happen to drop by on monday, then you get to purchase a red bean ice at a much lower price. Pretty worth, i can say.
P/S: will upload the pictures real soon, stay tuned. :)
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