Was at a blogger event last night at Essential Brew. The place was cosy and nice. I like the way they did up the upper deck. But for those with smelly feet, you might want to stay on the lower deck. (Cos you need to remove your shoes if you dine at the upper floor.) And ladies in super mini skirt, please avoid too. Or bring a jacket. :)
I forgot to take a look at the menu, was busy taking photos of it but didn't flip it open.
I had the Cajun Dory and I enjoyed it. (Although it was already cold when I ate it.) The fish was still crispy outside and the softness inside is nice. There was no fishy smell and the cajun blended well with the fish. The rice that came with it was something unique. It looked like curry sauce at first but it was sweet. I lovee it so much I cleared off the entire plate! The rice has a sauce over it which tasted like Oolong tea. It gives a refreshing feeling.
The desserts were served complimentary. For my table it was a brownie like cake with ice-cream. It doesn't taste like brownie so I'm calling it chocolate cake. This one I would probably give it a miss as it was not to my liking.
Now that I've got their discount card, I'll most probably be going back when I have time to travel all the way to Holland Village. I want to try their other dishes! The Crispy Lemongrass Chicken and the Honey Mastard Chicken looks nice too.
At first glance, we thought that Marche had changed their name to Vilage, pronounced as vee-lah-jay. The ordering system was the same, food was also the same and everything else looked similar. Vilage was also occupying the same place as Marche at the basement of Heeren. What can we say but good marketing move to open a similar styled restaurant occupying the same premise as your competitor.
We dined at Marche a few times and the experience at Vilage was no difference. We went for our personal favourite... the rosti. Looked and tasted the same. Only later did we realise that about 10 of Vilage's pioneering staff were from Marche. They crossed over together with Marche's former kitchen and operating manager.
Does that explain the similarities in the mascot also?
We had the Baked Cod fish $14.50 and that was all it was on the plate. One piece of baked cod fish. Side dishes were no where in sight. The taste and texture of the fish was nothing to shout about. It was creamy and juicy and tasted like the one we cooked ourselves, except that the fish we cooked was larger in size. :)
Perhaps there is something different in the Vilage with Marche. Most of the portions have shrunked - rosti, pasta, pizza, etc, except the Erdinger Beer. haha.
Our total bill came up to $45 for 2 persons and we were still hungry. Maybe must eat more.
Curry rice hunting lead us to this place touted as one of the best in Singapore. The queue was not too long and we were able to have our first bite in about 10 min.
Like all curry rice, we had to stop the uncle from "messing" up the rice and the dishes with tons and tons of curry, gravy and whatever it was that he poured on it. Perhaps that is how it should be eaten. But that was not to our liking. Despite pulling the brakes on the gravy the plate was still covered with much of it.
The pork chop was medium sized and tasted ok. It was rather soft and it did not feel crisp. Perhaps the gravy softened it. The rest of the other dishes were just about there. Nothing to crave about. We will still stick to our fav stall at Maxwell Road Food Center.
Have you stepped into a cinema feeling a little weird about the positioning of the screen? Today was the first time I felt that way.
As usual, we'd queue up and get our tickets. I had the choice of sitting at the side but further from the screen, or sitting in the middle but nearer to the screen. I thought, hey, no difference right? So I took the seats at the side.
I stepped into Cinema 4 and looked around. The lights were still lit and the place looked clean and fine. No weird smell, nothing. Nice.. Time to sit down and just wait for the show! But wait.. there's something amiss... And that's when I realized that the screen was rather centralized and it was no wider than the middle block of seats. Rather weird I'd say as I noticed that at most cinemas, the screens would usually span almost across the wall. Also, the seats were not positioned in a suitable angle that allowed us to face the screen better.
I guess it's just a little weird. I would say it would have been better if the seats were slanted abit more or the screen was bigger. But other than that, it was comfortable (:
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…
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.
After reading the recent reviews of sushi my craving for some brought me to this new branch at AMK today.
To me, sushi are all about the same. The element that separates the good and the average ones is the freshness and the rice grain used for the sushi. And Suki Sushi is just an average and at times below average kind of sushi.
But for the price of 99cents, who cares if the rice used is top notch or not. As long as the salmon and tako is fresh and edible, I'm good.
Decor of the place is simple and Jap like. If I didn't see wrongly, all the seats are around the belt. This is good cos everyone will be able to help themselves to the cheap sushi on the belt. The kitchen is right in the center of the belt and there's a little table on the same level as the belt, slightly above the dining table. This is where they'll place the food you ordered through the waiters. Great idea as this allow the waiters to concentrate on taking orders and clearing the plastic covers from the table. Serving is done by the kitchen helpers.
Am giving it a 4/5 cos of the value for money color plates at 99cents. Will surely go back for more. Maybe a Yebber Suki Sushi outing one day? Haha!
My friend recommended us to this place since we have no idea where to eat.
This cafe is well hidden and it is in between two small cafes as well. The cafe is small, very small. The tables are spilled out onto the walkway as well. There was a small queue going on. Seem like the place is really popular!
We were shown to our table fast. Simple table and chair, nothing fanciful about. The menu is simple with no pics. The got set meals which consist of Soup, Main (Pasta), Dessert and Drink. Set dinner cost $15.20 nett.
The mains mainly consist of pasta dishes, about 20 to choose form but no pics. In the end I ordered Teriyaki Chicken Meatball Pasta. It was ok, do quite like the meatball though.
The soup, drink as normal and the dessert nothing to wow about.
The service is a bit slow as I think only 1 manager and 2 waiters doing the serving, cleaning and ushering at the same time. Everything have to wait, even to top out water. When we asked for our desserts, only 2 came out and waited for the 3rd one, then to realised that they actually forgotten about it.
I start to wonder y so many ppl started to queue up as the food is passable, and to say that the place is quite ulu as well.
Well in the end I concluded that it is cheap and the portions are quite big. There is no service charge or GST which can be quite a big draw as well.
Along this stretch of road there is a number of Zhong Qing steamboat places, considered quite cheap as well and always attracted a crowd. This place charges each person $13.80. Cash payment only.
So my friend decided to make our dinner there and make a reservation. The place is divided into 2 floors, 1st floor no air con and 2nd floor air con and for bigger groups as well.
They have an interesting concept there. Once they show you to the table, they will ask you what soup base you want and you can start to collect you plates, spoons, food etc. In the end, with everything ready, then we found out that there are no chopsticks. After checking with them, we found out that we need to pay at the counter in exchange for dispoable chopsticks. Haa.... Interesting right?
They have a wide variety of food and quite a lot as well, from vege to seafood to meat etc. Their seafood are quite fresh too, from crabs to all the shells. The meat came thinly sliced which I like it for steamboat.
Their soup base are ok, I think it is the type that used maggi cubes to get the flavour.
For drinks, this places charges separately. Heard from my friend, there is another one along the stretch that one price person include drinks as well.
Service one still ok. One incident happen as we are sitting next to a small little staircase, the waitress was carrying a pot of hot soup going to a table and fell flat on the staircase, the hot soup did get to us, however the staff there did not even check if we are ok a not. So much for customer service then.
Ask me if I am going back again? Hmm... I think I will give the rest of the places along the same stretch a try before deciding.
Joined in the fun for the 1st Eat Out by Yebbers at Eden. It was fun to see the people behind the usernames. Hee.... Fun and friendly people. It is also one of the time that I actually ate from 8 plus to midnight, so it ended as a dinner/supper session. Haa...
The resturant was along Club street, well have to look out for the signage if not will miss the place.
The place is small but cosy, with simple decoration.
The boss, Clement is very friendly going ard making small talks with people at the same time making sure that the food are ready to be served on time.
Now to the food:
Starters:
Tomato based seafood soup: It is a thick tomato based seafood. The seadfood inside was fresh as well. I enjoyed it.
Endives with Mushroom and bacon canapes: I stongly recommend this starter. It was great! The mushroom was grilled (or pan fried) to prefection, and yet able to retain its juices within. Together with the bacon canapes, they formed a prefect match! Simply wonderful!
Main:
Rosemerry rose petal garlic lamb / beef: Hmm... did not managed to taste the rose petal, but the beef that I have was tender.
Lemon garlic Mahi Mahi: I believed that this dish was changed to snow fish. Even thought there is a hint of lemon and garlic taste but then it did not managed to fully cover the fishy smell. Overall a pleasant dish.
Seedless grape chicken: This one came in a pastry form where we have to break open the hard pastry for it. It was like digging for treasure. Hee... Once opened, can smell the faint smell of the grape. The only sad thing about this dish is the chicken is a bit too dry for my liking. If not, this will be a wonderful dish as well.
Balsemic Strawberry Beef: This dish is another winner! I loved it. The taste of the strawberry went into the beef which was a prefect match as well. The beef was tender and juicy! The strawberry a bit on the sour side. Hee....
Black sesame mushroom pasta: Once they placed this dish in front of me, I could smell the cheese. With is handmade pasta (I believed), it is unique but too unique for my taste.
Desserts:
Wine tea floral fruit jello: Got two of it, one is made with extra from hibicus and the other I forgot alr. Hee.... Both are good! Not really too sweet and taste really well!
Balsume mosse cake: Light on taste, with a hint of cheese in it.
Got 2 more desserts, which I forgot their names, one is another cheesecake.
Overall, the whole meal is fine, but maybe my expectations are a bit too high from reading the reviews above or manybe they are too busy trying to get all the dishes out on time that it might affect the quailty of the food that day.
However, I will be back to try their other dishes especially their desserts that Clement had recommended.
Thks to the organisers for this party and Clement for the great host, explaining every dish to us.
1=SGD 0.0587
Was at a blogger event last night at Essential Brew. The place was cosy and nice. I like the way they did up the upper deck. But for those with smelly feet, you might want to stay on the lower deck. (Cos you need to remove your shoes if you dine at the upper floor.) And ladies in super mini skirt, please avoid too. Or bring a jacket. :)
I forgot to take a look at the menu, was busy taking photos of it but didn't flip it open.
I had the Cajun Dory and I enjoyed it. (Although it was already cold when I ate it.) The fish was still crispy outside and the softness inside is nice. There was no fishy smell and the cajun blended well with the fish. The rice that came with it was something unique. It looked like curry sauce at first but it was sweet. I lovee it so much I cleared off the entire plate! The rice has a sauce over it which tasted like Oolong tea. It gives a refreshing feeling.
The desserts were served complimentary. For my table it was a brownie like cake with ice-cream. It doesn't taste like brownie so I'm calling it chocolate cake. This one I would probably give it a miss as it was not to my liking.
Now that I've got their discount card, I'll most probably be going back when I have time to travel all the way to Holland Village. I want to try their other dishes! The Crispy Lemongrass Chicken and the Honey Mastard Chicken looks nice too.
Anyone want to go give this place a try? ;)
Rating given:
At first glance, we thought that Marche had changed their name to Vilage, pronounced as vee-lah-jay. The ordering system was the same, food was also the same and everything else looked similar. Vilage was also occupying the same place as Marche at the basement of Heeren. What can we say but good marketing move to open a similar styled restaurant occupying the same premise as your competitor.
We dined at Marche a few times and the experience at Vilage was no difference. We went for our personal favourite... the rosti. Looked and tasted the same. Only later did we realise that about 10 of Vilage's pioneering staff were from Marche. They crossed over together with Marche's former kitchen and operating manager.
Does that explain the similarities in the mascot also?
We had the Baked Cod fish $14.50 and that was all it was on the plate. One piece of baked cod fish. Side dishes were no where in sight. The taste and texture of the fish was nothing to shout about. It was creamy and juicy and tasted like the one we cooked ourselves, except that the fish we cooked was larger in size. :)
Perhaps there is something different in the Vilage with Marche. Most of the portions have shrunked - rosti, pasta, pizza, etc, except the Erdinger Beer. haha.
Our total bill came up to $45 for 2 persons and we were still hungry. Maybe must eat more.
Rating given:
Curry rice hunting lead us to this place touted as one of the best in Singapore. The queue was not too long and we were able to have our first bite in about 10 min.
Like all curry rice, we had to stop the uncle from "messing" up the rice and the dishes with tons and tons of curry, gravy and whatever it was that he poured on it. Perhaps that is how it should be eaten. But that was not to our liking. Despite pulling the brakes on the gravy the plate was still covered with much of it.
The pork chop was medium sized and tasted ok. It was rather soft and it did not feel crisp. Perhaps the gravy softened it. The rest of the other dishes were just about there. Nothing to crave about. We will still stick to our fav stall at Maxwell Road Food Center.
Rating given:
Have you stepped into a cinema feeling a little weird about the positioning of the screen? Today was the first time I felt that way.
As usual, we'd queue up and get our tickets. I had the choice of sitting at the side but further from the screen, or sitting in the middle but nearer to the screen. I thought, hey, no difference right? So I took the seats at the side.
I stepped into Cinema 4 and looked around. The lights were still lit and the place looked clean and fine. No weird smell, nothing. Nice.. Time to sit down and just wait for the show! But wait.. there's something amiss... And that's when I realized that the screen was rather centralized and it was no wider than the middle block of seats. Rather weird I'd say as I noticed that at most cinemas, the screens would usually span almost across the wall. Also, the seats were not positioned in a suitable angle that allowed us to face the screen better.
I guess it's just a little weird. I would say it would have been better if the seats were slanted abit more or the screen was bigger. But other than that, it was comfortable (:
Rating given:
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:
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:
After reading the recent reviews of sushi my craving for some brought me to this new branch at AMK today.
To me, sushi are all about the same. The element that separates the good and the average ones is the freshness and the rice grain used for the sushi. And Suki Sushi is just an average and at times below average kind of sushi.
But for the price of 99cents, who cares if the rice used is top notch or not. As long as the salmon and tako is fresh and edible, I'm good.
Decor of the place is simple and Jap like. If I didn't see wrongly, all the seats are around the belt. This is good cos everyone will be able to help themselves to the cheap sushi on the belt. The kitchen is right in the center of the belt and there's a little table on the same level as the belt, slightly above the dining table. This is where they'll place the food you ordered through the waiters. Great idea as this allow the waiters to concentrate on taking orders and clearing the plastic covers from the table. Serving is done by the kitchen helpers.
Am giving it a 4/5 cos of the value for money color plates at 99cents. Will surely go back for more. Maybe a Yebber Suki Sushi outing one day? Haha!
Rating given:
My friend recommended us to this place since we have no idea where to eat.
This cafe is well hidden and it is in between two small cafes as well. The cafe is small, very small. The tables are spilled out onto the walkway as well. There was a small queue going on. Seem like the place is really popular!
We were shown to our table fast. Simple table and chair, nothing fanciful about. The menu is simple with no pics. The got set meals which consist of Soup, Main (Pasta), Dessert and Drink. Set dinner cost $15.20 nett.
The mains mainly consist of pasta dishes, about 20 to choose form but no pics. In the end I ordered Teriyaki Chicken Meatball Pasta. It was ok, do quite like the meatball though.
The soup, drink as normal and the dessert nothing to wow about.
The service is a bit slow as I think only 1 manager and 2 waiters doing the serving, cleaning and ushering at the same time. Everything have to wait, even to top out water. When we asked for our desserts, only 2 came out and waited for the 3rd one, then to realised that they actually forgotten about it.
I start to wonder y so many ppl started to queue up as the food is passable, and to say that the place is quite ulu as well.
Well in the end I concluded that it is cheap and the portions are quite big. There is no service charge or GST which can be quite a big draw as well.
Rating given:
Along this stretch of road there is a number of Zhong Qing steamboat places, considered quite cheap as well and always attracted a crowd. This place charges each person $13.80. Cash payment only.
So my friend decided to make our dinner there and make a reservation. The place is divided into 2 floors, 1st floor no air con and 2nd floor air con and for bigger groups as well.
They have an interesting concept there. Once they show you to the table, they will ask you what soup base you want and you can start to collect you plates, spoons, food etc. In the end, with everything ready, then we found out that there are no chopsticks. After checking with them, we found out that we need to pay at the counter in exchange for dispoable chopsticks. Haa.... Interesting right?
They have a wide variety of food and quite a lot as well, from vege to seafood to meat etc. Their seafood are quite fresh too, from crabs to all the shells. The meat came thinly sliced which I like it for steamboat.
Their soup base are ok, I think it is the type that used maggi cubes to get the flavour.
For drinks, this places charges separately. Heard from my friend, there is another one along the stretch that one price person include drinks as well.
Service one still ok. One incident happen as we are sitting next to a small little staircase, the waitress was carrying a pot of hot soup going to a table and fell flat on the staircase, the hot soup did get to us, however the staff there did not even check if we are ok a not. So much for customer service then.
Ask me if I am going back again? Hmm... I think I will give the rest of the places along the same stretch a try before deciding.
Rating given:
Joined in the fun for the 1st Eat Out by Yebbers at Eden. It was fun to see the people behind the usernames. Hee.... Fun and friendly people. It is also one of the time that I actually ate from 8 plus to midnight, so it ended as a dinner/supper session. Haa...
The resturant was along Club street, well have to look out for the signage if not will miss the place.
The place is small but cosy, with simple decoration.
The boss, Clement is very friendly going ard making small talks with people at the same time making sure that the food are ready to be served on time.
Now to the food:
Starters:
Tomato based seafood soup: It is a thick tomato based seafood. The seadfood inside was fresh as well. I enjoyed it.
Endives with Mushroom and bacon canapes: I stongly recommend this starter. It was great! The mushroom was grilled (or pan fried) to prefection, and yet able to retain its juices within. Together with the bacon canapes, they formed a prefect match! Simply wonderful!
Main:
Rosemerry rose petal garlic lamb / beef: Hmm... did not managed to taste the rose petal, but the beef that I have was tender.
Lemon garlic Mahi Mahi: I believed that this dish was changed to snow fish. Even thought there is a hint of lemon and garlic taste but then it did not managed to fully cover the fishy smell. Overall a pleasant dish.
Seedless grape chicken: This one came in a pastry form where we have to break open the hard pastry for it. It was like digging for treasure. Hee... Once opened, can smell the faint smell of the grape. The only sad thing about this dish is the chicken is a bit too dry for my liking. If not, this will be a wonderful dish as well.
Balsemic Strawberry Beef: This dish is another winner! I loved it. The taste of the strawberry went into the beef which was a prefect match as well. The beef was tender and juicy! The strawberry a bit on the sour side. Hee....
Black sesame mushroom pasta: Once they placed this dish in front of me, I could smell the cheese. With is handmade pasta (I believed), it is unique but too unique for my taste.
Desserts:
Wine tea floral fruit jello: Got two of it, one is made with extra from hibicus and the other I forgot alr. Hee.... Both are good! Not really too sweet and taste really well!
Balsume mosse cake: Light on taste, with a hint of cheese in it.
Got 2 more desserts, which I forgot their names, one is another cheesecake.
Overall, the whole meal is fine, but maybe my expectations are a bit too high from reading the reviews above or manybe they are too busy trying to get all the dishes out on time that it might affect the quailty of the food that day.
However, I will be back to try their other dishes especially their desserts that Clement had recommended.
Thks to the organisers for this party and Clement for the great host, explaining every dish to us.
Rating given: