Coffee Club @ Holland Village is located right at the end of Lorong Mambong, the street that is the heart and soul of Holland Village. Having live in Holland when i was young, the street has since undergo many transformations, and i think most of the shops back then are not there anymore.
After reading Coffee Club’s website, i then realized that they had actually opened their first gourmet coffee house in Holland Village in 1991. But to be honest, i didn’t have any memories of Coffee Club back then.
Today Coffee Club has 21 outlets island-wide, and this is actually the first time i’m stepping into Coffee Club. Can you believe it? Well i been to Coffee Bean, Starbucks, but not Coffee Club.
And i have not went to The Coffee Connoisseur (TCC) before either, looks like a visit to TCC is on the cards.
The interior of the Coffee Club at Holland Village is relaxing, and looks great for a chill-out place. Thats exactly the reason that prompted my friend and i here.
There’s also al fresco area for those who like to stay out of the air-condition.
Iced Mocha ($6.90) My friend had the iced mocha, like i mentioned previously in the Cedele post, i’m not a big fan of mocha, i rather spend the money on desserts, but my friend find the mocha to be all right.
Vienna Chocolate Cake ($5) This, is what i’ll spend on my money on when i frequent coffee houses and cafes. Seriously i wont spend 6-7 bucks on a cup of coffee, partly because i don’t drink much coffee also. I love desserts, give me desserts everyday!
The Vienna Chocolate cake by its account, isn’t that great, there’s nothing special about the cake, well except its chocolate.
But to be fair, at 5 bucks a slice, it is really quite worth the money if you often have cravings for cakes, like me.
Total Bill was $14 for one mocha and one cake after the 17% you-know-what. The ambience of Coffee Club at Holland Village branch was excellent for a chill-out place, my friend and i were there chatting for about two hours, and there wasn’t much crowd around.
The menu for their main course looks tempting, in the dollar sense its quite reasonable. But i’m quite skeptical about the quality of the food in coffee houses. We’ll see how it goes then. Maybe when i’m low on budget, i’ll give their mains a try. Until then, chill-out!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
While Frolick has been making waves in Holland Village, Yoguru has been garnering their own horde of fans over at the other side of the island at Kallang Leisure Park.
They have position themselves their yoghurt as the healthy non-fat choice of dessert with no preservatives and addictives added, which I reckon will strike a chord with all the health conscious. Produced fresh right in their store daily, Yoguru’s menu currently only consist of two flavours, Original and YoguBliss – the latter a fruity mix of Dragonfruit & Pomegranate which are famed for their anti-oxidants.
If one is in a dilemma of which flavour to savour, fret not as Yoguru offers a choice of both flavours in one serving – think of it as “Twist” from McDonalds – where one gets to sample and enjoy both flavours at the same time! Texture wise, Yoguru’s yoghurt is rather creamy and smooth, but I reckon Frolick’s version is silkier. Taste wise I always associate Original flavoured yoghurt as sour – somewhere along those produced by Yami Yoghurt – but Yoguru’s version was surprisingly sweet, in fact the Original is sweeter than that of YoguBliss which gave me a pretty mixed feeling.
Price starts from $3.30 for a regular serving of Original to $9.30 for a jumbo take home version of the YoguBliss – toppings are charged separately ($1.20 for 1 choice, $1.80 for 2, and $2.20 for 3 toppings). And for those who think that Yoguru’s location isn’t as convenient, you might be pleased to know they have plans to expand to town – so look out for it!
You can view more photos and other reviews @ His Food Blog.
Cedele by The Bakery Depot was founded by Ms Yeap Cheng Guat in July 1997. After spending many years in the multi-nationals, Ms Yeap decided to put her baking passion to test.
The flagship store in East Coast is the first of many more to come, till date Cedele has 14 outlets island-wide.
Cedele Bakery is known for their wide range of sandwiches, delicious repertoire of bread, and cakes.
There are two outlets in Raffles City (I didn’t know until later), one in basement and another in level 3. A friend and i visited the one at basement of raffles city.
I like their concept of self pick-up for some of the pastries and bread.
For the sandwiches, you get to choose from different type of bread, milk bap, oatbran, country white, wholemeal linseed, and organic wholewheat.
Tuna Salad Sandwich ($6) Savory tuna sandwich with chopped red bell pepper and celery, and finished with a lot of cold fresh lettuce.
My friend chose country white for his bread, but he found it a tad too dry and hard. The fresh lettuces are refreshing and there’s a generous spread of the tuna.
Mocha ($3.50) I’m not really a big fan of mocha, but my friend find it to be all right. And at $3.50, its really cheaper than your Star Bucks and Coffee Bean.
The emphasis for Cedele is more on their bread, sandwiches and pastries. I applause them for their affordable price range for their coffees.
Chocolate Banana Espresso Cake ($6) Melts in your mouth, this is a soft chocolate cake sandwiched with fresh caramelized banana, topped with espresso chocolate frosting, and finished with crunchy walnut strussel, oat strussel.
The banana taste is evident in the Chocolate Banana Espresso cake, and the walnut adds a crunchy bite to the cake. But I’m still not quite convince by chocolate banana cakes. Not that the ones here aren’t good, just that chocolate and banana doesn’t really suits my taste bud.
Total Bill was $18.13 for one sandwich, one drink and one cake. Cedele looks promising with its wide range of sandwiches, and cakes. Furthermore, the drinks like mocha and latte isn’t very expensive, price ranging from 2 bucks to 4-5 bucks. I think i will be back to give their sandwiches and pastries another try.
Just for your information, LIC usually does not like to repeat going to a same restaurant or cafe because he’ll rather spend the money trying out new stuff at other places.
But in the case of Cedele, their prices are quite reasonable and affordable, so yeah, look out for Cedele II!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Popped by Tampopo (タンポポ) for dinner one evening since I was in the vicinity. Tampopo, which means dandelion(a kind of flower) in English, shares the same name with a popular culinary movie in Japan in the mid eighties. The movie focuses on Ramen, which incidentally, is what Tampopo is known for.
Located within Liang Court, Tampopo portrays itself as a casual Japanese diner and shares the premises with Tomton, its sister restaurant which specialises in Kurobuta pork.
Shabu Ramen - Billed as THE ramen to try, as featured in the Straits Times, the shabu ramen had a flavourful soup base with a strong hint of pork yet didn't come across as too overwhelming. According to the menu, the soup is made by boiling pork bones for 2 days, which I guess explains its rich flavour. The ramen was springy with lots of bite while the thinly sliced pork was tender and a tad chewy.
Omelette Rice - The omelette rice, or Omurice, was quite well done in my humble opinion (not that I've tried alot though). Moist and fluffy Japanese rice with a few token pieces of chicken wrapped up in a nice thick layer of soft and milky scrambled eggs.
Special Loin - This is Tomton's specialty and I am most inclined to agree. The meat was lightly breaded and very crispy on the outside yet retaining its tenderness and moisture inside. It tasted fresh with not a bit of the oily residue taste that tends to plague deep fried pork cutlets. Really excellent piece of pork but rather small for $17.
Cheese Chiffon - I ordered this dessert because the other chiffons were sold out. And I actually regretted it as it spoilt what would have been a satisfying meal. The chiffon, though light, was practically tasteless and I certainly didn't appreciate sporadic gratings of cheese which did nothing more than allow the chiffon to live up to its name? Maybe it just didn't do it for me.
I liked the food and $55 for 2 pax isn't too expensive a price to pay. There is a wee bit of a ventilation problem there so you might walk out faintly smelling of food. The place can get crowded so going early especially on weekends is recommended.
Lil’ Foot Pâtisserie, an online blog pastisserie selling exclusive gourmet pastry. Most of the pastries there are in limited quantity, but they definitely do not lose out in quality.
We had the chance to sample the Rocky Road Mousse Cake as one of my friend ordered it from Lil’ Foot Pâtisserie for Petrina’s birthday while we were at Peach Garden celebrating.
Crunchy walnuts and chewy marshmallow in every bite awashed with thick creamy chocolate ganache!
Our Rocky Road Mousse cake is the round 7 inch which can serve 8-10 people and it comes at a price of $38. There are even different flavours of marshmallows inside the cake!
Maybe i’m a little behind time, but this is actually the first time that i had a cake which is filled with marshmallows in between, and the result is wow!
Lil’ Foot Pâtisserie doesn’t have many variety of cakes available, but for the lack in choices, the ones that they offer certainly are excellent and is priced reasonably. I’ll be looking to get other cakes from them soon. So stop getting your cakes from boring places you-know-where (i’m not naming the bakeries)
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Peach Garden Chinese Restaurant @ OCBC Centre 33rd Floor is co-owned by Angela Ho and Veronica Tan, former managers of the established Hua Ting restaurant. The pair struck out on their own in 2002, and the rest like they say, were history. Peach Garden is now one of the Chinese restaurants on the radar of corporates.
Located at the 33rd floor, the restaurant offers diners a splendid bird’s eye view of the Singapore River and the city area.
The modern contemporary Chinese decor will make diner feel right at home.
It will be highly recommended for customers to make a reservation before going, as the window seats are usually taken up. One of the waitress greeted us at the main lobby on the ground floor, after checking our reservations, we were guided up to 33rd floor.
Peach Garden is popular for their Cantonese dishes, and dim sum. The selection for dim sum isn’t wide with 23 different types, however for what they lacked in variety, they make it up in quality.
Most of the dim-sum comes in basket of 3 each, but as we got 8 person, they were flexible to allow us order 8 pieces of dim-sum instead. So i’ll be putting the price for all the dim sum here for per piece rather than per basket.
Baked BBQ pork pastry ($1.30) The baked BBQ pork pastry, or more commonly known as char-siew sou, i find it to be quite all right, but the others didn’t like it because they had better ones at Yan ting @ St Regis before.
Baked Mini Egg Tart ($1.30) The baked mini egg tarts were fine, the skin was crispy, and the egg filling is just nice. However at $1.30 each, they are terribly expensive since i had better and bigger egg tarts at much cheaper price before.
Steamed Fresh Prawn Dumpling ($1.60) The steamed fresh prawn dumpling, or more affectionately known as har-gau. The ones at Peach Garden has a wholesome shrimp wrapped within the skin of the dumpling.
But at $1.60 for each har-gau, they are priced slightly higher than your normal ones at other places.
Steamed Siew Mai with Phoenix prawn ($1.60) The rendition of siew mai or pork dumpling is redefined at Peach Garden. Whereas your typical siew mai taste mainly of pork, the ones here has a phoenix prawn, which gives the siew mai a prawnier taste.
Steamed BBQ pork bun ($1.20) I always love to eat steamed BBQ pork buns from chinese dim sum restaurant, well because they are not the same as the ones you get from outside.
The ones in restaurants are usually consist of three parts, i’ll tear off each part and slowly savour the sweet char-siew with the bun.
Fried Carrot cake with X.O sauce ($8) When you read fried carrot cake, please erase off all of whatever memories you had of carrot cake. Now when we are talking about fried carrot cake with X.O sauce here, its not your ordinary black or white char-kway in the hawker centre.
The carrot cake here is slightly crispy on the outside, and very soft on the inside. But i couldn’t taste much of the X.O sauce, and at $8 per small serving, i find it to be quite on the high side.
Steamed yolk cream bun ($1.20) The signature dim-sum of Peach Garden, its delicious steamed yolk cream bun. The beautiful golden yellow custard filling oozes out when i prise it open.
Steamed rice roll with prawn ($4.50) The steamed rice roll with prawn, or your Chee Cheong Fun is served in two versions, one with prawn at $4.50, and the other steamed rice roll with chicken at $4.
The Chee Cheong Fun was quite disappointing here, it didn’t taste as well i thought it will, its quite ordinary to tell the truth.
Boiled porridge with century egg and pork ($3.80) The boiled porridge with century egg and pork is one of the disappointment for the meal at Peach Garden. Too salty, we ordered 4 bowls and almost couldn’t finish it.
Steamed Xiao Long Bao with Conpoy ($1.30) I’m not really a big fan of Xiao Long Bao, i guess the ones here are average, a couple of us didn’t really find it to be good.
Baked Spare Rib with BBQ Sauce ($7 per piece) The signature baked spare rib with BBQ sauce comes at a hefty price, at $7 per piece, you can easily have a plate of spare ribs elsewhere.
But to be fair, the presentation of the spare rib was done nicely, and the rib is bigger than your normal ribs, with the BBQ sauce combining well with spare ribs.
There were difference in portions of the ribs, so depending on your luck, some of us got slightly bigger ribs with more meat, while some got thinner ribs.
Total Bill was $178.20 for 8 person, after a 15% credit card discount. The price comes much cheaper than i had expected so it was a surprise, and if you do not included the $7 spare ribs, it will be roughly $16 for person instead of about $22.
Results were mixed, some like me found it to be quite good, while others find that Peach Garden didn’t match their expectations. I guess everybody has different taste buds, but personally, i find Peach Garden to be quite good, the price may be slightly above average, but given a rationale person taking the menu and not over-ordering, the result is good dim sum at reasonable price.
Service-wise we also encountered mixed results. The waitress were way too fast in serving the dim-sum. As the table was all food bloggers, all of us were busy taking photos of the food, and before we managed to finish taking the photo of one dim sum, the other dim sum was served.
I felt that the waitress should have taken note that we were not ready for the serving of the other dim sum, but sad to say they failed to do so. Also, they missed out our order of Xiao Long Bao and the ribs, and also forgot to bring us our additional order of the har-gau.
But they did slightly make up when they helped us putting the birthday cake (one of us birthday celebration) into a beautiful plate, and they also provide a knife which had remote control to play birthday song music.
All in all, at 33rd floor offering a wonderful view of the city, the quite reasonable pricing of the dim-sum, it offers me an excuse to revisit Peach Garden again. And Peach Garden has two other outlets at Novena and Thomson Plaza!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
” Contemporary Cantonese cuisine, with splendid bird’s eye view of the city “
Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie - A high end dessert cafe under the Les Amis group of restaurants and helmed by Executive Pastry Chef Pang, who was an ex member of the Singapore National Culinary Team.
Located at the picturesque and upmarket Roberston Walk, Canele's flagship outlet is a rather nice place to chill for after dinner desserts or afternoon tea. Takeaways are also available but if you choose to dine in, please be aware that a 10% service charge will be levied.
Nougatine - Filled with Nutella, Salty Caramel, Caramelized Filos, Nougatine Ice Cream, Vanilla Creme Chantilly - For starters, the Nougatine seemed rather interesting with the addition of salty caramel. However, taken as a whole, it reminded me uncannily of peanut butter with its smooth sticky texture and buttery undertones. I liked the caramelized filos, which are essentially paper thin pastry dough coated with a layer of caramel and left to harden. Flaky yet stick to your teeth.
Jupiter - A most aesthetically pleasing slice of cake which was bought off the display shelf. Extremely rich and topped with a thin cylindrical shell of chocolate, Jupiter boasted caramel and a layer of wafer in between the spongy cake. Did I mention the dark glistening chocolate that engulfed the entire cake? Overall a very nice but sinful dessert.
Black Forest 2007 - I cannot comprehend the rationale behind inserting a year into the name of a cake. But that's besides the point. The point is, as pretty and minute a piece as the black forest cake may be, it certainly wasn't outstanding, not even close. The berries were soaked in Kirsch but the amount of cream was too much for me to stomach. And it certainly didn't help that the cake did come across as a little too dense and moist.
Berry Black & Bushman Brew - Interesting names for the teas but unfortunately rather overpriced for the mediocre quality. And its all because Canele doesn't serve ice water.
With the prices Canele is charging, I can see why its a high end dessert outfit. I appreciate the creativity and quality behind the desserts but certainly not the prices nor the tiny portions.
I was the first to review about Cotton On in Yebber and the first outlet was in Wisma. I had loved it then and was very excited when I saw them having an outlet in Parkway.
I went the week they opened and also the following week.
The first time I went the place was rather messy and I forgave them since they had just opened.
But it was still pretty messy the second time and I was rather upset. Also the prices of the items seem higher now. I guess it's because more people are buying. That aside I still love their long tops.
There are two major gripes I have about this outlet. One is that the lighting is much too dim to see some colours properly.
The second is that the customer service people are too busy chatting to each other and they don't tend to the customers very much. This is part of the reason why the place becomes messy as the customers ransack to look for the right size.
MMmmM I guess I will still pop by if I'm in the area but I wouldn't go there specially to buy. :P
The newly renovated basement of Plaza Singapura has seen many new tenants providing all sorts of quirky and creative food. Bratwurst Shop is one of the original stores which has been there for quite a long period of time.
Just in case you have no idea, Bratwurst is a sausage composed of pork, beef and/or veal and the name is from Germany.
For the sausages, you get to choose from different toppings, the original, bacon & cheese, mushroom& cheese are some of the popular ones.
After choosing the toppings, you’ll get to choose the type of bratwurst that you fancy, swiss cheese pork, spicy beef & pork, black pepper pork, italian pork, mild beef & pork are all available.
There are also a wide range of sandwiches available at pretty decent prices.
I remember the old Bratwurst shop was located on the other side of the basement, nearer to the escalator outside Carrefour, but they have since shift to this corner which provides them with a larger seating area.
The theme for Bratwurst shop is apparently red, with their furnitures and shop signboard in bright red.
Swiss cheese pork, original with mustard & sauerkraut ($4.95) I had the original with mustard & sauerkraut for my choice of topping, and the swiss cheese pork for the main.
The sausage was really huge, i must say its quite value for money as one will fill you up if you finish it together with the bun. However i disliked the sauerkraut as i find it to be too salty and sour, and does not compliments the taste of the sausage.
And just in case you are wondering, sauerkraut is finely sliced cabbage fermented by various lactic acid.
Tuna Sandwich ($5.50) On first sight the tuna sandwich certainly does not looks appealing, the bread looks dry, and the tuna well doesn’t looks attractive to me.
But my friend say the tuna sandwich actually taste not bad, and at $5.50 i guess you can’t really complain.
Total bill was $10.45 for two, we didn’t order any drinks because we went to Carrefour to buy mineral water beforehand. Well, we were on a budget, had waffles at Gelare before coming here, and besides mineral water is healthier!
Drop by Bratwurst shop for a hassle-free, quick bite if you are in Plaza Singapura, and do not want to spend too much money on a meal before going to the theaters!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
I had this plan for my "other" home. After much discussion when this plan was introduced, we decided to sign up since the mobile phones, telephone lines and internet were all under Singnet anyway.
We did save a lot in the long run... but...
Setting up triggered a lot of problems and we were without our phone lines and internet for 2 weeks. The MIO box gave quite a bit of problems. The repairman had to come 3-4 times and we had the box changed twice. We live in a private estate and were told that things will be fine in our particular estate. After the initial hiccups we were finally able to use the phone lines and the internet.
BTW you have to purchase a different kind of phone to be used with the MIO system.
Once we started to use it, we noticed that at times the phone doesn't detect the incoming call. Everything is working (when the repairman came to test it) but it just doesn't ring every single time we call. It would miss a couple of times. And there would be quite a bit of static on the line, which disrupts the call.
It could possibly be a line connection thing but Singtel should also be responsible for checking our lines when we had them install the system. I guess this one might take some time to settle.
FYI, Maxonline cannot be installed in my estate, according to their customer service rep.
1=SGD 0.0587
Coffee Club @ Holland Village is located right at the end of Lorong Mambong, the street that is the heart and soul of Holland Village. Having live in Holland when i was young, the street has since undergo many transformations, and i think most of the shops back then are not there anymore.
After reading Coffee Club’s website, i then realized that they had actually opened their first gourmet coffee house in Holland Village in 1991. But to be honest, i didn’t have any memories of Coffee Club back then.
Today Coffee Club has 21 outlets island-wide, and this is actually the first time i’m stepping into Coffee Club. Can you believe it? Well i been to Coffee Bean, Starbucks, but not Coffee Club.
And i have not went to The Coffee Connoisseur (TCC) before either, looks like a visit to TCC is on the cards.
The interior of the Coffee Club at Holland Village is relaxing, and looks great for a chill-out place. Thats exactly the reason that prompted my friend and i here.
There’s also al fresco area for those who like to stay out of the air-condition.
Iced Mocha ($6.90)
My friend had the iced mocha, like i mentioned previously in the Cedele post, i’m not a big fan of mocha, i rather spend the money on desserts, but my friend find the mocha to be all right.
Vienna Chocolate Cake ($5)
This, is what i’ll spend on my money on when i frequent coffee houses and cafes. Seriously i wont spend 6-7 bucks on a cup of coffee, partly because i don’t drink much coffee also. I love desserts, give me desserts everyday!
The Vienna Chocolate cake by its account, isn’t that great, there’s nothing special about the cake, well except its chocolate.
But to be fair, at 5 bucks a slice, it is really quite worth the money if you often have cravings for cakes, like me.
Total Bill was $14 for one mocha and one cake after the 17% you-know-what. The ambience of Coffee Club at Holland Village branch was excellent for a chill-out place, my friend and i were there chatting for about two hours, and there wasn’t much crowd around.
The menu for their main course looks tempting, in the dollar sense its quite reasonable. But i’m quite skeptical about the quality of the food in coffee houses. We’ll see how it goes then. Maybe when i’m low on budget, i’ll give their mains a try. Until then, chill-out!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
” Chill, chill, chill-out! “
Rating given:
While Frolick has been making waves in Holland Village, Yoguru has been garnering their own horde of fans over at the other side of the island at Kallang Leisure Park.
They have position themselves their yoghurt as the healthy non-fat choice of dessert with no preservatives and addictives added, which I reckon will strike a chord with all the health conscious. Produced fresh right in their store daily, Yoguru’s menu currently only consist of two flavours, Original and YoguBliss – the latter a fruity mix of Dragonfruit & Pomegranate which are famed for their anti-oxidants.
If one is in a dilemma of which flavour to savour, fret not as Yoguru offers a choice of both flavours in one serving – think of it as “Twist” from McDonalds – where one gets to sample and enjoy both flavours at the same time! Texture wise, Yoguru’s yoghurt is rather creamy and smooth, but I reckon Frolick’s version is silkier. Taste wise I always associate Original flavoured yoghurt as sour – somewhere along those produced by Yami Yoghurt – but Yoguru’s version was surprisingly sweet, in fact the Original is sweeter than that of YoguBliss which gave me a pretty mixed feeling.
Price starts from $3.30 for a regular serving of Original to $9.30 for a jumbo take home version of the YoguBliss – toppings are charged separately ($1.20 for 1 choice, $1.80 for 2, and $2.20 for 3 toppings). And for those who think that Yoguru’s location isn’t as convenient, you might be pleased to know they have plans to expand to town – so look out for it!
You can view more photos and other reviews @ His Food Blog.
Rating given:
Cedele by The Bakery Depot was founded by Ms Yeap Cheng Guat in July 1997. After spending many years in the multi-nationals, Ms Yeap decided to put her baking passion to test.
The flagship store in East Coast is the first of many more to come, till date Cedele has 14 outlets island-wide.
Cedele Bakery is known for their wide range of sandwiches, delicious repertoire of bread, and cakes.
There are two outlets in Raffles City (I didn’t know until later), one in basement and another in level 3. A friend and i visited the one at basement of raffles city.
I like their concept of self pick-up for some of the pastries and bread.
For the sandwiches, you get to choose from different type of bread, milk bap, oatbran, country white, wholemeal linseed, and organic wholewheat.
Tuna Salad Sandwich ($6)
Savory tuna sandwich with chopped red bell pepper and celery, and finished with a lot of cold fresh lettuce.
My friend chose country white for his bread, but he found it a tad too dry and hard. The fresh lettuces are refreshing and there’s a generous spread of the tuna.
Mocha ($3.50)
I’m not really a big fan of mocha, but my friend find it to be all right. And at $3.50, its really cheaper than your Star Bucks and Coffee Bean.
The emphasis for Cedele is more on their bread, sandwiches and pastries. I applause them for their affordable price range for their coffees.
Chocolate Banana Espresso Cake ($6)
Melts in your mouth, this is a soft chocolate cake sandwiched with fresh caramelized banana, topped with espresso chocolate frosting, and finished with crunchy walnut strussel, oat strussel.
The banana taste is evident in the Chocolate Banana Espresso cake, and the walnut adds a crunchy bite to the cake. But I’m still not quite convince by chocolate banana cakes. Not that the ones here aren’t good, just that chocolate and banana doesn’t really suits my taste bud.
Total Bill was $18.13 for one sandwich, one drink and one cake. Cedele looks promising with its wide range of sandwiches, and cakes. Furthermore, the drinks like mocha and latte isn’t very expensive, price ranging from 2 bucks to 4-5 bucks. I think i will be back to give their sandwiches and pastries another try.
Just for your information, LIC usually does not like to repeat going to a same restaurant or cafe because he’ll rather spend the money trying out new stuff at other places.
But in the case of Cedele, their prices are quite reasonable and affordable, so yeah, look out for Cedele II!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
” The Bread bakery cafe “
Rating given:
Popped by Tampopo (タンポポ) for dinner one evening since I was in the vicinity. Tampopo, which means dandelion(a kind of flower) in English, shares the same name with a popular culinary movie in Japan in the mid eighties. The movie focuses on Ramen, which incidentally, is what Tampopo is known for.
Located within Liang Court, Tampopo portrays itself as a casual Japanese diner and shares the premises with Tomton, its sister restaurant which specialises in Kurobuta pork.
Shabu Ramen - Billed as THE ramen to try, as featured in the Straits Times, the shabu ramen had a flavourful soup base with a strong hint of pork yet didn't come across as too overwhelming. According to the menu, the soup is made by boiling pork bones for 2 days, which I guess explains its rich flavour. The ramen was springy with lots of bite while the thinly sliced pork was tender and a tad chewy.
Omelette Rice - The omelette rice, or Omurice, was quite well done in my humble opinion (not that I've tried alot though). Moist and fluffy Japanese rice with a few token pieces of chicken wrapped up in a nice thick layer of soft and milky scrambled eggs.
Special Loin - This is Tomton's specialty and I am most inclined to agree. The meat was lightly breaded and very crispy on the outside yet retaining its tenderness and moisture inside. It tasted fresh with not a bit of the oily residue taste that tends to plague deep fried pork cutlets. Really excellent piece of pork but rather small for $17.
Cheese Chiffon - I ordered this dessert because the other chiffons were sold out. And I actually regretted it as it spoilt what would have been a satisfying meal. The chiffon, though light, was practically tasteless and I certainly didn't appreciate sporadic gratings of cheese which did nothing more than allow the chiffon to live up to its name? Maybe it just didn't do it for me.
I liked the food and $55 for 2 pax isn't too expensive a price to pay. There is a wee bit of a ventilation problem there so you might walk out faintly smelling of food. The place can get crowded so going early especially on weekends is recommended.
See all my pictures here.
Rating given:
Lil’ Foot Pâtisserie, an online blog pastisserie selling exclusive gourmet pastry. Most of the pastries there are in limited quantity, but they definitely do not lose out in quality.
We had the chance to sample the Rocky Road Mousse Cake as one of my friend ordered it from Lil’ Foot Pâtisserie for Petrina’s birthday while we were at Peach Garden celebrating.
Crunchy walnuts and chewy marshmallow in every bite awashed with thick creamy chocolate ganache!
Our Rocky Road Mousse cake is the round 7 inch which can serve 8-10 people and it comes at a price of $38. There are even different flavours of marshmallows inside the cake!
Maybe i’m a little behind time, but this is actually the first time that i had a cake which is filled with marshmallows in between, and the result is wow!
Lil’ Foot Pâtisserie doesn’t have many variety of cakes available, but for the lack in choices, the ones that they offer certainly are excellent and is priced reasonably. I’ll be looking to get other cakes from them soon. So stop getting your cakes from boring places you-know-where (i’m not naming the bakeries)
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
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Peach Garden Chinese Restaurant @ OCBC Centre 33rd Floor is co-owned by Angela Ho and Veronica Tan, former managers of the established Hua Ting restaurant. The pair struck out on their own in 2002, and the rest like they say, were history. Peach Garden is now one of the Chinese restaurants on the radar of corporates.
Located at the 33rd floor, the restaurant offers diners a splendid bird’s eye view of the Singapore River and the city area.
The modern contemporary Chinese decor will make diner feel right at home.
It will be highly recommended for customers to make a reservation before going, as the window seats are usually taken up. One of the waitress greeted us at the main lobby on the ground floor, after checking our reservations, we were guided up to 33rd floor.
Peach Garden is popular for their Cantonese dishes, and dim sum. The selection for dim sum isn’t wide with 23 different types, however for what they lacked in variety, they make it up in quality.
Most of the dim-sum comes in basket of 3 each, but as we got 8 person, they were flexible to allow us order 8 pieces of dim-sum instead. So i’ll be putting the price for all the dim sum here for per piece rather than per basket.
Baked BBQ pork pastry ($1.30)
The baked BBQ pork pastry, or more commonly known as char-siew sou, i find it to be quite all right, but the others didn’t like it because they had better ones at Yan ting @ St Regis before.
Baked Mini Egg Tart ($1.30)
The baked mini egg tarts were fine, the skin was crispy, and the egg filling is just nice. However at $1.30 each, they are terribly expensive since i had better and bigger egg tarts at much cheaper price before.
Steamed Fresh Prawn Dumpling ($1.60)
The steamed fresh prawn dumpling, or more affectionately known as har-gau. The ones at Peach Garden has a wholesome shrimp wrapped within the skin of the dumpling.
But at $1.60 for each har-gau, they are priced slightly higher than your normal ones at other places.
Steamed Siew Mai with Phoenix prawn ($1.60)
The rendition of siew mai or pork dumpling is redefined at Peach Garden. Whereas your typical siew mai taste mainly of pork, the ones here has a phoenix prawn, which gives the siew mai a prawnier taste.
Steamed BBQ pork bun ($1.20)
I always love to eat steamed BBQ pork buns from chinese dim sum restaurant, well because they are not the same as the ones you get from outside.
The ones in restaurants are usually consist of three parts, i’ll tear off each part and slowly savour the sweet char-siew with the bun.
Fried Carrot cake with X.O sauce ($8)
When you read fried carrot cake, please erase off all of whatever memories you had of carrot cake. Now when we are talking about fried carrot cake with X.O sauce here, its not your ordinary black or white char-kway in the hawker centre.
The carrot cake here is slightly crispy on the outside, and very soft on the inside. But i couldn’t taste much of the X.O sauce, and at $8 per small serving, i find it to be quite on the high side.
Steamed yolk cream bun ($1.20)
The signature dim-sum of Peach Garden, its delicious steamed yolk cream bun. The beautiful golden yellow custard filling oozes out when i prise it open.
Steamed rice roll with prawn ($4.50)
The steamed rice roll with prawn, or your Chee Cheong Fun is served in two versions, one with prawn at $4.50, and the other steamed rice roll with chicken at $4.
The Chee Cheong Fun was quite disappointing here, it didn’t taste as well i thought it will, its quite ordinary to tell the truth.
Boiled porridge with century egg and pork ($3.80)
The boiled porridge with century egg and pork is one of the disappointment for the meal at Peach Garden. Too salty, we ordered 4 bowls and almost couldn’t finish it.
Steamed Xiao Long Bao with Conpoy ($1.30)
I’m not really a big fan of Xiao Long Bao, i guess the ones here are average, a couple of us didn’t really find it to be good.
Baked Spare Rib with BBQ Sauce ($7 per piece)
The signature baked spare rib with BBQ sauce comes at a hefty price, at $7 per piece, you can easily have a plate of spare ribs elsewhere.
But to be fair, the presentation of the spare rib was done nicely, and the rib is bigger than your normal ribs, with the BBQ sauce combining well with spare ribs.
There were difference in portions of the ribs, so depending on your luck, some of us got slightly bigger ribs with more meat, while some got thinner ribs.
Total Bill was $178.20 for 8 person, after a 15% credit card discount. The price comes much cheaper than i had expected so it was a surprise, and if you do not included the $7 spare ribs, it will be roughly $16 for person instead of about $22.
Results were mixed, some like me found it to be quite good, while others find that Peach Garden didn’t match their expectations. I guess everybody has different taste buds, but personally, i find Peach Garden to be quite good, the price may be slightly above average, but given a rationale person taking the menu and not over-ordering, the result is good dim sum at reasonable price.
Service-wise we also encountered mixed results. The waitress were way too fast in serving the dim-sum. As the table was all food bloggers, all of us were busy taking photos of the food, and before we managed to finish taking the photo of one dim sum, the other dim sum was served.
I felt that the waitress should have taken note that we were not ready for the serving of the other dim sum, but sad to say they failed to do so. Also, they missed out our order of Xiao Long Bao and the ribs, and also forgot to bring us our additional order of the har-gau.
But they did slightly make up when they helped us putting the birthday cake (one of us birthday celebration) into a beautiful plate, and they also provide a knife which had remote control to play birthday song music.
All in all, at 33rd floor offering a wonderful view of the city, the quite reasonable pricing of the dim-sum, it offers me an excuse to revisit Peach Garden again. And Peach Garden has two other outlets at Novena and Thomson Plaza!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
” Contemporary Cantonese cuisine, with splendid bird’s eye view of the city “
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Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie - A high end dessert cafe under the Les Amis group of restaurants and helmed by Executive Pastry Chef Pang, who was an ex member of the Singapore National Culinary Team.
Located at the picturesque and upmarket Roberston Walk, Canele's flagship outlet is a rather nice place to chill for after dinner desserts or afternoon tea. Takeaways are also available but if you choose to dine in, please be aware that a 10% service charge will be levied.
Nougatine - Filled with Nutella, Salty Caramel, Caramelized Filos, Nougatine Ice Cream, Vanilla Creme Chantilly - For starters, the Nougatine seemed rather interesting with the addition of salty caramel. However, taken as a whole, it reminded me uncannily of peanut butter with its smooth sticky texture and buttery undertones. I liked the caramelized filos, which are essentially paper thin pastry dough coated with a layer of caramel and left to harden. Flaky yet stick to your teeth.
Jupiter - A most aesthetically pleasing slice of cake which was bought off the display shelf. Extremely rich and topped with a thin cylindrical shell of chocolate, Jupiter boasted caramel and a layer of wafer in between the spongy cake. Did I mention the dark glistening chocolate that engulfed the entire cake? Overall a very nice but sinful dessert.
Black Forest 2007 - I cannot comprehend the rationale behind inserting a year into the name of a cake. But that's besides the point. The point is, as pretty and minute a piece as the black forest cake may be, it certainly wasn't outstanding, not even close. The berries were soaked in Kirsch but the amount of cream was too much for me to stomach. And it certainly didn't help that the cake did come across as a little too dense and moist.
Berry Black & Bushman Brew - Interesting names for the teas but unfortunately rather overpriced for the mediocre quality. And its all because Canele doesn't serve ice water.
With the prices Canele is charging, I can see why its a high end dessert outfit. I appreciate the creativity and quality behind the desserts but certainly not the prices nor the tiny portions.
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I was the first to review about Cotton On in Yebber and the first outlet was in Wisma. I had loved it then and was very excited when I saw them having an outlet in Parkway.
I went the week they opened and also the following week.
The first time I went the place was rather messy and I forgave them since they had just opened.
But it was still pretty messy the second time and I was rather upset. Also the prices of the items seem higher now. I guess it's because more people are buying. That aside I still love their long tops.
There are two major gripes I have about this outlet. One is that the lighting is much too dim to see some colours properly.
The second is that the customer service people are too busy chatting to each other and they don't tend to the customers very much. This is part of the reason why the place becomes messy as the customers ransack to look for the right size.
MMmmM I guess I will still pop by if I'm in the area but I wouldn't go there specially to buy. :P
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The newly renovated basement of Plaza Singapura has seen many new tenants providing all sorts of quirky and creative food. Bratwurst Shop is one of the original stores which has been there for quite a long period of time.
Just in case you have no idea, Bratwurst is a sausage composed of pork, beef and/or veal and the name is from Germany.
For the sausages, you get to choose from different toppings, the original, bacon & cheese, mushroom& cheese are some of the popular ones.
After choosing the toppings, you’ll get to choose the type of bratwurst that you fancy, swiss cheese pork, spicy beef & pork, black pepper pork, italian pork, mild beef & pork are all available.
There are also a wide range of sandwiches available at pretty decent prices.
I remember the old Bratwurst shop was located on the other side of the basement, nearer to the escalator outside Carrefour, but they have since shift to this corner which provides them with a larger seating area.
The theme for Bratwurst shop is apparently red, with their furnitures and shop signboard in bright red.
Swiss cheese pork, original with mustard & sauerkraut ($4.95)
I had the original with mustard & sauerkraut for my choice of topping, and the swiss cheese pork for the main.
The sausage was really huge, i must say its quite value for money as one will fill you up if you finish it together with the bun. However i disliked the sauerkraut as i find it to be too salty and sour, and does not compliments the taste of the sausage.
And just in case you are wondering, sauerkraut is finely sliced cabbage fermented by various lactic acid.
Tuna Sandwich ($5.50)
On first sight the tuna sandwich certainly does not looks appealing, the bread looks dry, and the tuna well doesn’t looks attractive to me.
But my friend say the tuna sandwich actually taste not bad, and at $5.50 i guess you can’t really complain.
Total bill was $10.45 for two, we didn’t order any drinks because we went to Carrefour to buy mineral water beforehand. Well, we were on a budget, had waffles at Gelare before coming here, and besides mineral water is healthier!
Drop by Bratwurst shop for a hassle-free, quick bite if you are in Plaza Singapura, and do not want to spend too much money on a meal before going to the theaters!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
” Not your normal small sausages “
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I had this plan for my "other" home. After much discussion when this plan was introduced, we decided to sign up since the mobile phones, telephone lines and internet were all under Singnet anyway.
We did save a lot in the long run... but...
Setting up triggered a lot of problems and we were without our phone lines and internet for 2 weeks. The MIO box gave quite a bit of problems. The repairman had to come 3-4 times and we had the box changed twice. We live in a private estate and were told that things will be fine in our particular estate. After the initial hiccups we were finally able to use the phone lines and the internet.
BTW you have to purchase a different kind of phone to be used with the MIO system.
Once we started to use it, we noticed that at times the phone doesn't detect the incoming call. Everything is working (when the repairman came to test it) but it just doesn't ring every single time we call. It would miss a couple of times. And there would be quite a bit of static on the line, which disrupts the call.
It could possibly be a line connection thing but Singtel should also be responsible for checking our lines when we had them install the system. I guess this one might take some time to settle.
FYI, Maxonline cannot be installed in my estate, according to their customer service rep.
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