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)

Full House @ Niu Che Shui, Kelana Jaya

Full House is strictly based on theme "White". The interior of the restaurant is mostly white with splashes of colours and here which makes it extremely attractive to first-timers.

They feature a Mini Cooper in front of their restaurant.

When you walk in to the restaurant the first floor of the restaurant is prettily decorated with pastel colours. So lovely to the eyes.

The menu. So cute!

The view from our table.

We were not feeling particularly hungry. Just ordered some food to sample and share. Appetizer, fried chicken wings. It was well seasoned and crunchy and had us licking our fingers clean.

Pasta carbonara with ham and mushrooms. Delicious and creamy.

Chicken chop. Unlike the regular chicken chop, it was delicious with the sauce and slightly sweet with the raisins. Yummy.

Now, this is a place I do not mind visiting if I have the time. Good food, great pricing and a nice hangout place. You can also order wine too.

Authentic Ramen @ Miharu Sapporo Noodles, Gallery Hotel

I have followed a fellow friend to Gallery Hotel with zero expectations on what we will be having for dinner. This was quite a little while back. Imagine my surprise to find a little Japanese restaurant tucked into the corner of the hotel. The restaurant looked very modest and homey despite being located in the hotel.

The restaurant.


Our table.

The Japanese restaurant is called Miharu Sapporo Noodles. Even though I was quite disappointed with the lack of variety, the restaurant only offers ramen in 3 broth offerings with different toppings with ala carte orders or stir fried vegatables and dumplings or gyoza.

After the food came, I changed my mind. It was one of the most tasty ramen I have ever tasted. The ramen is extremely springy to taste, just the way I like it. The hard boiled egg was to-die-for with its soft egg yolk in the center. The broth is also delicious albeit salty but I like salty. The dumplings were also quite tasty and the stir fried garlic shoots were also okay.

The ramen.


The gyoza.

The stir-fried garlic shoots.

Overall, where else can you get such authentic noodles at such a great economical pricing. Great during these bad times. This place definitely gives Ajisen a run of their money.

After doing some internet search at Singapore street directory, this is what I have found out. "This is the real deal. The only place in town you can get 100 percent authentic Sapporo Ramen. At Miharu, the popular Sapporo Nishiyama brand noodles are specially imported from Japan . Made with well water, these Japanese noodles come frozen and have to be thawed for 3 days, in order to reach the perfect texture. The noodles, wildly popular in Japan , has caused a stir amongst the Japanese community here. Even Singaporeans flock to this little, quaint Japanese eatery to get a taste of this springy and fresh Sapporo Ramen. Food gourmets and connoisseurs have shunned bigger establishments in face of this yummy little joint, for a taste of the real thing. ". Now, no wonder the noodles is so springy.

This place is located at Ground Floor, 1 Nanson Road S(238909), The Gallery Hotel, Robertson Quay, Singapore. Tel: 6849 8686.

Strawberry Moment Dessert Cafe @ Cameron Highlands

Recently, the weather is really hot in Singapore and Malaysia. We have decided to visit Cameron Highlands for a few days to enjoy the cool weather.

During the evenings, the temperature dips as compared to the day time. I reckon the temperature is somewhere between 20 degrees Celcius to 25 degrees Celcius. Wearing a jacket or outerwear is a must.

We have spotted Strawberry Moment Dessert Cafe on our way up and decided to drop by for some hot drinks. They have a wide variety of strawberry-themed cakes and desserts and main courses.

We decided to order their chocolate fondue. Overall, the chocolate fondue was creamy and chocolatey and we enjoyed the chocolate goodness. Even though it was a little strange to have baby tomatoes and cucumber sticks accompanying the fondue, we enjoyed it nonetheless as the chocolate was pretty good.

Their menu.

Chocolate fondue.

The accompanying ingredients consisted of baby tomatoes, cucumber sticks, strawberries, choco-cream sticks and cute multi-pastel colours marshmallows. Nice presentation, don't you think so.

I would not prefer to come here for coffee here though. Somehow or rather, the coffee here may have been made using coffee premixes, I can tell!

Address: 23-24, Jalan Angsana Satu, Brinchang Point, 39100, Cameron Highlands, Pahang.

Japanese Food @ Waraku

One of my favourite places to have affordable Japanese food is at Waraku. The food here is generally good, pretty authentic and they have an extensive menu to please your palate ranging from sushi, sashimi, bentos, ramen, udon and stir fried dishes.

Deep fried squid as an appetizer. Good but a little oily.

Raw tuna (minced) over rice with scallions, seaweed and wasabi. I am not a fan of tuna sashimi but I love this classic Japanese dish to bits. Non-oily and extremely satisfying. Too bad I cannot remember the name of this dish now! I have in my mind creating this dish at home with canned tuna in olive oil instead.

Pork slices with kimchi in soup. The dish is heated and comes with lots of vegetables and tofu. You will need 2 persons to finish off this soup dish.

I have visited Waraku which is located at Marina Square, the nearest MRT is City Hall if you taking the public transport.

I have also visited Waraku about 2 weeks prior to this post for dinner and they have a 1-for-1 promotion for their ramen.

Bak Kut Teh @ Ya Hua Rou Gu Cha

One of my favourite local comfort food is the "Bak Kut Teh". "Bak Kut Teh" is in the Hokkien/ Teochew dialect and it literally means "Pork ribs and tea". The history of this dish goes back to the olden days where Chinese immigrants from China worked in Singapore and Malaysia as labourers. With their meagre salary, they could only afford the boil the pork bones/ ribs with herbs or pepper and eat the humble dish with rice. Their meals would be accompanied by hot tea.

Well, some how or rather, the Malaysian version is cooked with herbs and the Singaporean version is cooked with pepper instead.

Now, this dish is loved by all walks of ages who loves a comforting bowl of hot soup with their rice. One of my favourite places to have bak kut teh is definitely at Ya Hua Rou Gu Cha. The pork ribs are cooked in a peppery and garlicky soup. Dunk the fried fritters into the soup and you will be heaven when you eat the fritters.

Ya Hua Rou Gu Cha also serves additional accompanying dishes such as pig's kidney in soup, lean meat in soup, braised beancurd, braised beancurd puffs, preserved vegetables, vegetables and fritters (yu tiao).

Address: 7 Keppel Road, PSA Tanjong Pagar Complex

Red Lacquer Penang Peranakan @ Jurong Point

I met up with a fellow Malaysian friend at Jurong Point and she had excitedly told me about Red Lacquer Restaurant that serves Penang Peranakan food. Authentic Penang food in Singapore, too good to be missed.

After going through the menu, we settled for fish otak otak, fruit rojak, fried kway teow and prawn noodle soup.

The fish otak otak was wrapped in banana leaves and steamed, just like in Penang.


Tastewise, not too great I must say. The steamed fish otak otak was a little too dry, terribly not spicy at all without any kick. It would have been much better if the fish fillet was served separately from the concoction of chilli, spices, egg and coconut milk. Instead, the fish fillet was minced together with the concoction of spices-coconut milk. Other than that, the obligatory daun kodok which is usually added at the bottom of the banana leave package was missing.

The fruit rojak came with the prawn paste and chopped peanuts. Yummy, there were fruits such as green mango, pineapple, pink guava and cucumber slices dressed up with the prawn paste and chopped peanuts. We enjoyed the fruit rojak. Another lady at another table was enjoying her fruit rojak alone with a cup of coffee, looks like a great idea for lunch for me the next time!

The next dish was the prawn noodle soup. The soup was truly enjoyable, bursting with shrimp flavour, I must say. The portion was just a little too small for me. But then again, if you have eaten in Penang, food portions are very small.

The next dish was the fried kuay teow or rice sticks. I would just rate it 3.5 out of 5. It was just good enough to satisfy the food craving of a Malaysian staying in Singapore. The cockles were too small. The Chinese sausages were sliced so thinly that one could not taste the richness of the sausage. Kudos to the big prawns though.

All in all, it was an enjoyable meal. I am sure there are other great dishes in the menu that warrants a second visit, such as the popiah and the duck with preserved vegetable soup. Not forgeting the nasi lemak which looked great in the menu.

Address: Red Lacquer Penang Peranakan
Jurong Point Shopping Centre
#03-96/ 101 Singapore 648331