Japanese Dining Sun Chijmes

There is a current promotion with Shu Uemura over at Japanese Dining Sun in Chijmes where there are some dishes which are good for you in the beauty sense. I decided to order the burdock chips which is made of some kind of root vegetables and is good for you. They were thinly sliced and reminded me of sweet potato chips. Nice.

And we decided to get our own foie gras appetizer. 1.5 pieces of foie gras was too little for one and 3 were too much was our conclusion. I started to feel a bit "jelat" after biting the 3rd piece. So we concluded 2 would be just nice. I simply love the foie gras over at Japanese Dining Sun, maybe it was because of the sauce which was brushed over it. It didn't have the usual liver taste which I dislike nor the powdery texture. Instead, it felt like butter and simply melted in the mouth. Yummy!

For the main, I ordered the Hokkaido ramen which was still very good. And I actually saw the small piece of Hokkaido butter on top of the noodles. Nice. Richness overload for dinner :p

Basil Chicken Set @ Suntec Food Republic

There are only a few stalls which I patronized when I am at the Food Republic over at Suntec City. The Thunder Tea Rice stall is one of them. I usually order the basil chicken over white rice which will come with egg and soup (soup not included if you order to-go).

I was feeling a bit peckish and also ordered another add-on of tofu and omelette. I didn't realize I could just order the tofu on its own too.

I loved how the basil brought out the taste of chicken and the sauce. The chilis added an oomph to the dish too. A simple and hearty meal.

Garuda Nasi Padang @ VivoCity

We were at VivoCity and was wondering what to eat when it occurred to us there was Garuda Nasi Padang. Being a Friday night, the dinner buffet was not available. Buffet is only available from Monday to Thursday. Actually it was ok to go ala carte since there were only 2 of us and the cost more or less came to what would be if we had the buffet. Only difference was that we didn't get to try lots of dishes. Beef rendang which was not too spicy and yummy. Squid with petai which was nice. The eggplant with chili was not too bad and long beans with tofu. We didn't finish the long beans which was quite ok. Too much food for just 2 of us.

Bergedils or potato patties with minced beef which was so nice.

Also, a side of the chilies (red and green) - awesome. Went very well with the rice.

Canele Raffles City

We were actually searching for an ice cream place at Raffles City and somehow I totally forgot about Ben & Jerry in the basement level. After asking around at Cedele on level 2 (or was it 3) and Coffee Club (it served only vanilla, strawberry and chocolate from Meadow Gold - no wonder I felt the desserts standard had dropped when I had the mudpie a couple of years back), and I was racking my brains about where else to go when it hit me about B&J.

On the way there, we were sidetracked by Canele. So in we went, to Canele for light food - crepes desserts for the others while I had the corn and crab chowder soup.

The chowder was not too bad. The bread were already drizzled with olive oil though I still asked for butter. I just like variation in my food.

My beloved bag taking a rest on marbled ledge around the water feature. Sometimes I felt like I had a bowling ball inside the bag though. It was that round and roomy :p

Pontian Wanton Mee @ FEP

We were at Far East Plaza (FEP) and were thinking where to go for lunch when we stumbled upon Pontian Wanton Mee at a corner in the basement level. It is actually quite an obscure area, then again, most stores inside FEP are located in hard to find places.

It was about 130pm or so and not too crowded, and so we were able to get a table for us and a pram. The tables looked toy-like with its pink and blue paint.

Ordering the food was another challenge. There was a line to order the noodles (size - big or small, followed by the type of sauces - black, ketchup, chili, black with chili, etc), desserts and drinks. Then you need to go to the next line to pick up your drinks. Then you go back to your table and wait for your order number which will be flashed on the electronic board. Quite high-tech, huh?
I ordered the large wanton noodles with black sauce and chili. This was good! I liked it! This was the first time I had Pontian wanton noodles though I had seen them around. Large size just meant more noodles, ingredients for small and large were more or less the same. I loved that they were generous with the veggies. 4 fried wantons (I ate one already before taking the pic, too hungry :p), char siew and greens with QQ noodles and slurp-worthy sauce.

Regular wantons in the soup. Soup was so-so though. The wantons were nice too, but the wantons at Kovan were still better as they had better taste.

We shared a side order of fried wantons which were plenty. Think there were 15 wantons or so in there? We didn't finish it at all.

Cedele @ Wheelock Place

I was not feeling particularly hungry and so had a very light dinner of mushroom soup with bread from Cedele at Wheelock Place.

Maybe we went when it was going to close soon, but the service at Wheelock Place was not that fantastic. They actually kept all the bread board and knives and balsamic vinegar and olive oil, so I had to wait for them to put them out again before I could slice the bread.

The soup was so-so, not as good as previously. Maybe we should just try going there again when it was not closing soon and not too peak period too.

I still prefer the one at Suntec which has since closed down. Raffles City is not too bad either.

Bakerzin April 2009 Promotion - Cupcakes!

I am loving Bakerzin monthly promotion on its desserts. It is so enticing, especially when you keep seeing its ads many times in a month. So I finally succumb to it and bought cupcakes! They came in a robin egg blue box.

Ta-dah! 3 cupcakes but not like in the ad of cup size of A, B, C and D :p I have no idea what they are but 1 is so flat it has to be cup A :p

From left: carrot cupcake with cream cheese icing, chocolate cupcake with chocolate cream, chocolate cupcake with raspberry cream icing.

Of the 3, my fave is the chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing. Rich dark chocolate which is not too sweet. The cupcake is very light and airy and actually crumbles when I bit into it the next day. I did not put in the fridge to store as I do not like cold cupcake and baked goods tend to get very hard and dry in the fridge.

I am disappointed with the carrot cupcake with cream cheese icing. I cannot really taste the cream cheese and the carrot cupcake has too much spices in there for my liking.

The raspberry cream icing is tart and so makes a perfect foil against the rich dark chocolate cupcake. Nice.

Go get your cupcakes in various sizes for $2.50+ each. Promotion is till 30 April.

Lai Lai Taiwanese Restaurant

I am not very sure of the name of the restaurant but I think it is Lai Lai Taiwanese Beef Noodles or something. It is tucked in the middle of Liang Seah Street and is the only Taiwanese restaurant in that stretch of eateries. Liang Seah has quite a number of cuisines available. From Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Taiwanese to the usual hawker fare and dessert shops and steamboat.

We decided to head there for a quick dinner before going back to work again. We chose the set which includes an appetizer and drink in addition to the noodles.
Fried salted chicken which was not that fantastic that night as it was very hard. Maybe it was overcooked or it was old. It was better previously. The fried curry leaves or spinach leaves were tasteless.

Cold tofu with century eggs and floss and bonito flakes and sauce was much better. Tofu was silky smooth and cold and went well with the sauce and condiments. Century egg was good too but I still prefer to have century egg with pickled ginger.

I had the mee sua with shredded chicken. Other topping choices were meat balls and some pork tripe or something.

Plaza Singapore Revamped Kopitiam - Peranakan Food Stall

The food court (kopitiam) is finally opened at Plaza Singapura after going through renovation for the last couple of months. We got there around 7ish pm on a weeknight and it was not that crowded. That should be a warning. Either people still thought the food court was not ready or the food was bad now.

Instead of going to the usual few stalls which I typically frequent - e.g. the ayam panggang or ikan panggang place or the kway chap stall - I decided to try this stall selling peranakan food. I was attracted by the buah keluak.

Boy! Did I ever make a mistake. This was the worst ayam buah keluak dish ever. The gravy was watery and had no taste at all. Just a bit of assam and lots of water. The buah keluak was just half of the seed and it was not good. The chicken was ok, not overcooked.

The set came with soup (also tasteless) and curry vegetables. Only the curry vegetables were not bad with the lemak making it palatable. And the chili was good too. I so didn't finish this meal at all.

Later we popped over to Xin Wang for some snacks to fill our stomachs. What a disappointment.

Lunch at Kopitiam, Swissotel the Stamford

I was in the mood for bak kut teh and so off we went to the Kopitiam over at Swissotel the Stamford for lunch yesterday. Then we decided to just share dishes and ordered the soup, fish and veggies. Our feast for two of us. Most of the dishes on the menu come with rice, making it a pretty substantial meal for one too as the portion is quite big.

Bak Kut Teh with its herbal sweet taste. It was generous with 5 pieces of meat/ribs and quite a lot of the taupoks and cilantro and a bowl of fried dough sticks.

The assam deep fried fish. It was very good, fresh fish deep fried till crispy and assam gravy over it. There were bits of pineapple too.

The fried eggplants with minced meat and black bean sauce over it. It can be a bit salty but with rice, it was fine.

All these for slightly under $30 with the Feed at Raffles card or Citibank card. Citibank currently has a 50% off promotion (min 2 diners) or something like that. Check its website for details :)

Beo Crescent Curry Rice

I am quite a deprived child growing up as I hardly ever have hawker food. I only know the basic dishes such as prata, wanton mee and porridge as these were what I had from the coffee shop when I was still at a single digit age :p. I hardly ever get to go to the food center for meals. It would be a rare treat as we usually eat at home or at restaurants. Slowly I began to sample and learn more about the other dishes like hokkien mee, char kway teow, chicken rice, minced meat mee pok, fish ball noodles, laksa, yong tau foo.

I love yong tau foo but I hardly ever had it since it was so hard to order it for to go then. Plastic containers were not common and usually we brought our own container when ordering porridge to go.

In secondary school, I discovered beef noodles as that was my friend's favorite dish when we were at the then Scotts Picnic Foodcourt (though my godma would like to say she introduced the dish to me when I was a kid - Bugis Street beef noodles - but if it was a 1 or 2 time affair, I doubt I would remember ;p). I also got to know nasi briyani from Islamic Restaurant along North Bridge Road as my cousin always bought those home.

So I was pretty psyched when I was invited to go along with friends to have "awesome" curry rice for lunch at Beo Crescent. This would be the 3rd place I tried curry rice - the first two being at Tiong Bahru Market and Food Republic Wisma Scissors Rice. And I only first tried that a few years back. It is still not my staple food for hawker fare.

There was a long line of people queuing to buy food when we got there around 1130am on a Friday (Good Friday holiday). Look at the gorgeous curry drenching the rice. Fried prawns, sunny-side up egg with runny yolk, cabbage and pork.

Verdict: Absolutely lip-smacking delicious. It was a very generous portion with lots of rice that I could not finish it at all.

Fried pork chop which was so so so yummy to share. Actually I did not taste any meat at all, it seemed to be totally fried flour :p I can still remember the taste of this. I wish I live nearer to Beo Crescent.

Squid in assam gravy which was fantastic on rice. The squid was not too chewy or rubbery and it had egg in it? Don't remember what it was called, the gelatinous thing stuffed inside. There were 2 squids for 4 of us to share.

I have no idea where the stall is but it is at a coffee shop next to a food center at Beo Crescent which is near Havelock Road or Tiong Bahru Plaza.

I wanna go there and eat again!!! Maybe it can be a once a month affair :)

Brotzeit Vivocity

I was still in the mood for more German food after Werner's Oven, so we popped over to Brotzeit at Vivocity for beer, pork knuckle and sausages and sauerkraut. The pork knuckle was so crispy on the outside that it was a bit hard, and the meat was not juicy tender at all. Then again, I am not sure what a good pork knuckle should taste like. The portion is smaller than at Brotzeit but it was more than enough for 2 persons to share. It came with potato salad which was ok. I think I would prefer mashed potatoes.

We also ordered a side of cheese sausages which were good. Then again, you could hardly go wrong with sausages :)

EL Private Sale 2009

The EL Private Sale came and went. Instead of 1 day, it was held over 2 days for different people (staff, VIPs and F&Fs). Somehow I was not that excited or keen on makeup anymore. In fact there were less tickets given out too, and I only got mine quite late. So it was a different feel since it was not a big group of us girls going in and going ga-ga at the items available.

Again, it seemed like I hardly buy makeup now :p or at least not from MAC. It was the most crowded section and I didn't really bother to check out what was available. I focused on Bobbi Brown and Origins. But no body care for me this year! Quite an amazing feat :p

My loot - lots from Estee Lauder and Bobbi Brown. And a fragrance set from Tommy Hilfiger Dreaming. All these for $300. More than my damage for last year but probably less than the previous 2 years :p

From Estee Lauder and Origins - I wanted the mascara as I don't believe in paying more than $20 for something you need to throw away after 3 months. The blusher will be a gift for my mom as she was looking for a blusher previously. I just realized the green eyeshadow (Camouflage) I bought was already included in a eye palette set which I have. Darn.

I have been eyeing this set when it was released to be sold exclusively at Takashimaya. It is a very good set as it includes a 4pc mini brush set, makeup case, and the palette contains 2 blushers, 6 eyeshadows (3 eyeshadow duos) and 3 lip color, plus the mirror. Now I am so glad I didn't buy this at full retail price.

My Bobbi Brown buys. I was doing CP for a friend and decided to grab some for myself. I was also eyeing the lipgloss trio when it was released last year but again, I didn't want to pay so much at full retail price since I only like the pouch more than the lip colors. Lol. And again, I realize I already have one of the lipgloss. I also bought the pink raspberry lipgloss which was released together with the pink raspberry face palette. I am undecided about the face palette as I probably only like the blush. The velvet plum eye palette was a lovely set.

The Bobbi Brown Palette System Holder was a last minute buy. I am also undecided if I want to keep it. I only want the blush brush and mascara since I rarely use eyeshadow brushes. The pouch is a nice pink quartz and roomy enough to store many things. But I have so many pouches already and so this is really not needed. Sigh.

I only bought this fragrance set because of the price. Hahahahaha. It is too good a deal to miss. Plus I like the silver clutch though it was more like a pouch as it has 3 zippered compartments inside. So the 50ml Dreaming fragrance, body lotion and pouch for only $35. I do like Dreaming with its tuberose, freesia and hibiscus. My one and only MAC purchase - Antique Green pigment. And DKNY Delicious shower gel.

Bottega Veneta Accessories FW08

This is a better picture of the mini wallet which I got last December. It is pretty true to color. Another new addition to my humble BV family is the zipped coin/card purse in Baltic. It is a gorgeous bluish-grey with 2 dividers inside, which makes it perfect to use as a small wallet or cardcase.

With 3 compartments, you could put in bills, coins and cards in it and take it out when you are using a small evening bag.

For me, right now I am using it as a card case storing all the various discount cards which I have :p

Tonkichi @ Isetan Scotts

It has been a while since we last went to Tonkichi. We were dead tired after a whole afternoon of shopping. While it was fun to hit the stores, it was also draining. It sapped the energy - walking up and down Orchard Road. Far East Plaza, DFS, Takashimaya, Paragon, back to DFS and then dinner.

We decided to share the Tonkichi Twin Set which can feed 2. The set consisted of pork loin, fillet, prawns and vegetables. It came with rice, cabbage, miso soup, pickles, appetizer and dessert.

I loved the seasame seeds where we ground them. The aromatic scent made the food tasted better. We also ordered a side order of curry to go with the deep fried food and rice. So good.

Werner's Oven

We had another company lunch again and this time, it was at Werner's Oven over at Upper East Coast Road. Growing up in the east, I know of Werner's Oven and have probably passed by it or had some of its baked goods when it was just a bakery opposite Parkway Parade. Then the next time I hear of it again, it was already at the Siglap area (I didn't know it was at Simpang Bedok before that). However, for its food, I have only been there once many years ago and that was only for brownie and it was not very good so I never went there again. Not even for its bread. We ordered lots of food to share. The pretzels, warm and soft with sprinkles of salt on it. This was so good. I would love some honey mustard to go with it, like how I used to have it in Canada.

The sugar flaky pastry in the pretzel shape was utterly delicious. Maybe I just have a sweet tooth :p

Hot cross buns which were not a daily offering on the menu. They were wonderful too.

Clam chowder with buttered roll. Nice and chockful of cubed potatoes and clams and carrots.

Mushroom soup with lots of mushroom slices in a creamy thick soup. Very good.

Oxtail soup - clear beefy broth with tender oxtail meat. I liked it. All the soups were made fresh on the premises.

Fried camembert with cranberries.

The gooey cheese oozing out. Very nice but definitely meant for sharing. The cranberries were a good contrast to the cheese.

Oxtail stew which was very good. The meat just fell off the bone. I had so much bread, just cos I liked the sauce.

Vegetarian pasta for our vegetarian colleague. It looked good. I didn't try it though.

Mashed potatoes which was awesome - rich and creamy. Sauerkrat which was great with the sausages.

2 different types of sausages which were nice. I couldn't really tell the difference :p

The sausage platter for 2 persons. More than enough for 4 meat eaters since we had so many other dishes to share.

The highlight - pork knuckle. Only remembered to take picture after we dug in. The pork knuckle was deep fried or grilled till crisp. The skin crackled and was so sinfully nice. The meat was not too dry though it did not melt off the bone. But it was still good.

Location:
Werner's Oven

6 Upper East Coast Road

Tel: 6442 3897