English Afternoon Tea @ Goodwood Park Hotel

Craving for some scones with tea, and everything sweet and nice? Head on to the English afternoon tea at Goodwood Park Hotel. Each person is entitled to 2 orders of coffee/ tea from the menu. There is an assortment of canapes, open sandwiches, scones, choc fondue and cakes and tarts. And they have foie gras and salmon sashimi too! If I recall correctly, the bill came up to almost 40 dollars per person. Definitely for small eaters looking a small bites and a relaxing afternoon/ evening.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Cantonese-Style Chinese Food @ Manhill Restaurant

Sometimes, you would like to have a no-brainer when it comes to making decisions on where to have dinner. Well, you fall back on your "safe list" of places to eat. Manhill is one of them.

Manhill Restaurant is one of the old-school Chinese restaurants that serves delicious Cantonese fare with lots of "wok hei". Literally translated, "wok hei" means "wok's breath". Cooking food at high heat and temperature seals the flavour of the food whilst lending a very slight smoky effect on the food. The result, yummylicious Chinese food to go with rice.

Everytime, I come here, I will definitely forgo my diet plans. Give me 2 bowls of rice! This time, we have ordered the paper-wrapped chicken. As always, the chicken (as removing the paper of course) is so juicy and succulent, fragrant with hints of ginger, chinese rice wine and scallions.

I have always loved eating the vegetable, chinese mustard stems or in cantonese, they are known as "gai choy". The stems are simply cooked with garlic and the sauce thickened with cornflour.

Manhill is famous for their claypot dishes too. This time, we have ordered the pork liver cooked with spring onions in claypot. The tender liver slices were cooked in a delicious gravy, flavoured with spring onion, garlic, shallots and ginger. The gravy is makes a great accompaniment with white rice. Yums!

For car owners, this is a great place to park your car conveniently near the restaurant. This place is not easily accessible by public transport. This is also a very popular dining place for the Japanese community. Everytime we dine there, we will definitely encounter at least a table of Japanese.

Manhill is located at: 99, Pasir Panjang Rd, Singapore 118517. Tel: +65 6474 6835.

KPO Cafe Bar @ Killiney Road

There is much hype about KPO as it was featured in several magazines and it seems to be appearing to be a very hip place. It was not planned to be visited.

It just happened that we were in the new mall that has opened recently, Orchard Central or better known as OC. KPO was just across the road and we have conveniently trotted and crossed the road to have drinks and finger food. It does look nice from afar, doesn't it?

Since the 1st floor of the cafe bar was mostly occupied (by Caucasians) , we were conveniently told that we should go to the 2nd floor of the cafe. Sure, no problem. Whilst on the way up, you will discover that they have 2 little gardens with greeneries for those that enjoy the fresh air and hot sun in the evening. It looks tempting though!

We settled for sofa seats beside the counter bar as we are lazy pigs. We were not here for beer which was a regret later. Browsing through the menu, which was pretty limited with coffee and probably some appetizers and few mains. Somehow I recall seeing Roti John with Wagyu beef? I settled for coffee and chocolate gelato whilst we shared the breakfast set. What's not to like? Runny sunny side-up eggs, crisp bacon and thick toast. Yums.

The service of the staff here requires some improvements here though. Despite having being seated from more than 15 minutes, we were still not served as we wanted to check out how prompt their service was. The wait staff was busy chatting and fooling around with each other. Finally, the manager (I presume) came over and asked us if we have ordered and he was pretty good. However, I can't say much for his wait staff who was practically chatting in a group right in front of us behind the bar counter. What?

Spaggedies and PS Cafe @ Paragon

I have not had Italian food for quite some time and had been craving for seafood-based spagghetti. What better time to visit Spaggedies as I have not come here for many years either.

I had the Seafood Sizzelinni. I was quite surprised that it came with an abundance of seafood such as crayfish, prawns and mussels. The tomato-based sauce was also very flavourful. It was delicious and I quite enjoyed it.


My friends had the Pasta with Sausage Pesto. According to them, it was great too.

After that we adjourned to PS Cafe for drinks and desserts.

We shared the bread and pita with dips appetizer. It came with 3 types of dips, amongst them was the hummus dip, in which I am not too big a fan of. The sad thing was that they ran out of pita crisps that day =(.

I ordered the banana and toffee pie. It was below my expectation. It was just a simple dessert with a pie crust as the bottom base, topped with banana slices, then layered with dulce de leche (caramalized condensed me) and topped with whipped cream. I have tasted better banofee pies else where. However, I must say that the killer combination of dulce de leche was to-die-for. I love it (limited to the combination of the two only which can be created by anyone =) ).

Scones @ The T Cafe, Cameron Highlands

Prior to my visit to the T Cafe, I have done lots of read-ups about this cafe. I have eagerly anticipated this visit that I have arrived too early and waited one hour for the cafe to open for business. Business starts at 11:00am!



Entering the cafe, I am not particularly impressed with the place. Sure, the place screams vintage and old and quaint. However, the place looks poorly maintained and unkempt.

Looking out of the window.

Since we have already partially taken my breakfast elsewhere, we could only order a strawberry scone and a chicken pie for myself and the late breakfast set for C.

The breakfast set was really just average, with the standard fried eggs, potato cakes 2 slices of bacon and french toast, if I am not mistaken. The 2 slices of bacon were the most miserable looking piece of bacon I have ever seen. Tiny and limp. The only thing that was good was the well flavoured potato cake.

The internet is abuzz with their scones. Admittedly, the strawberry scone was pretty good and moist inside with sizable chunks of strawberries in it. What made me reeled was that it was only served with some whipped cream. What happened to the butter and jam? Goodness gracious.

The chicken pie was well advertised by the restaurant itself. I was expecting a soul comforting chicken pie with gooey and creamy chicken, mushroom and potatoes in it. To my disappointment, the filling was reminiscient of the standard curry puff filling, only thing was that it was so dry, I need to drink water to swallow the pie.

Certainly, I didn't really like this place. Perhaps after reading the good ratings for this place, my expectations were set too high.

However, this place seems to be a great place for family with little children as they have readily available books and board games.

Ipoh Sa Hor Fun @ Thean Chun, Ipoh

Ipoh is famous in Malaysia for having good eats at great prices. Thean Chun is one of those rare places that serves very traditional food at affordable prices. The coffee shop is old with an old-world charm about it what with the marbled tables and wooden chairs.

This place serves the best Sa Hor Fun I have ever tasted having grown-up in Kuala Lumpur. The hor fun (or rice noodles) were very smooth and very fine compared to the versions we have in Kuala Lumpur. Additionally, the soup was made from chicken and prawn stock and was well flavoured. The bowl of hor fun was generously topped with shredded chicken and cooked prawns with chives and fried shallots.

You can increase the yummylicious factor by further ordering a separate plate of steamed chicken and beansprouts to go with your noodles. The steamed chicken was extremely smooth and was drizzled with a delicious sauce. The short and plump beansprouts (courtesy of the mountain water available only in Ipoh town, so it was said) were blanched lightly and retained its crunchiness and served with a light sauce that complimented the beansprouts perfectly.

I wasn't prepared to have dessert but I spotted many tables ordering caramel custard. I was so excited that I promptly waived to the waitress and ordered the custard myself. It was well worth it and the custard has a very smooth and light texture and was not too cloyingly sweet.

There was also another stall selling "chee cheong fun" which is served in at least 3 types of sauces. If I remember correctly, plain, sweet and curry. I only like my "chee cheong fun" sweet. I just wonder if the "hor fun" in the "sa hor fun" is the same as the "fun" in the "chee cheong fun". Both noodles were very fine in texture and very smooth.

Additionally, one can always order the satay in which we did not order. I am truly regretting it now for not taking the opportunity ordering it. What can I say, Ipoh folks are certainly lucky folks to have food cooked traditionally.

Thean Chun is located at:

73, Bandar Bijih Timah

30000 Ipoh

Perak

Best Hakka Beef Balls @ Syed Alwi

I was never a fan a beef balls until I tried the beef balls at this Hakka stall in Syed Alwi Road.

The beef balls are freshly made by the stall holder himself. The beef balls are served in clear soup with a generous topping for chopped Chinese parsley. The beef balls themselves are bouncy and juicy to the bite.

I also love to order my noodles (usually beehoon) separately or "the dry version" which has a topping on minced pork. Even though the minced pork looks plain, the salty minced meat is a great accompaniment to the noodles. The most popular here is "mi kia" in which I do not really fancy. Oh yeah, don't forget their chilli sauce. Spicy and garlicky. Nice!

Other than beef balls, they also serve a mean "yong tau foo". Whilst it may not be the best, it is certainly better than the normal local stalls because they are also made at the stall itself.

This place also serves other Hakka food such as abacus seeds (made from yam and stir fried with minced pork, mushrooms and black fungus) and "soon kueh" (dumplings with shredded turnip and mushrooms) which is pretty good too.

This stall is located at:

The Beef House

217 Syed Alwi Road,

Gar Lok Eating Hse,

9am-6pm (Closed on Friday)