Shanghai Eater (真知味上海小吃)

The Shanghai Eater (真知味上海小吃), located at Jalan Leban, is actually opened by a middle-aged Taiwanese couple. It is a homely, simple food outlet which opens everyday except for 1st day of lunar new year. But need to check their opening hours before heading there as operating hour may vary from their usual hours.

Why Shanghainese food? The lady boss said that, Taiwan is like a cosmopolitan city for Chinese food, due to the influence from migrants from different parts of China.

The shop is small compared to the restaurants found along this stretch of shop house. So look out for this sign board.

Side dishes - beancurd strips in sesame oil and crunchy seaweed. (Note: cost of side dish included in bill. I think is $2 or $3 per dish).

上海炒年糕 (Shanghainese Fried Rice Cakes)

The white slices of chewy rice cakes tastes like Korean Teobokki. It is fried with pork, mushroom and cabbage. The dish was overpowered by its saltiness so remember to ask them not to add too much salt. As such, I find that it lacks its distinctive taste. I always find that China food are too generous with salt used.

馄饨汤 (Dumpling Soup)

Can't remember if there were 6 or 8 pieces. These dumplings are wrapped like a 元宝. The dumplings are not too bad. The seaweed soup tastes quite good. In fact better than the dumplings.

韭菜煎饼 (Pan-fried Chives Cake)
The best dish of all that we ordered. Each plate comes with 3 pieces. The filling is a mixture of chives with vermicelli. Quite special and it does very well with their special sauce dip.

葱油饼 (Pan-fried onion pancake)
This one is also quite good if you like onion pancakes. Besides the green onions, it seems that it is pan-fried using onion oil as the onion fragrance is quite strong.

Total damage : About $30.

Homemade Italian

Found this outlet 'Homemade Italian' by chance after a gym session at Raffles Place California Fitness.

Address: 50 Market Street, Golden Shoe Carpark #01-32,
Meixin Foodcourt Stall 10
(It is just across Republic Plaza)
Tel : 65358223



It serves main courses such as Poccini Chicken, Pan Fried Garlic Fish, Beef Lagsana, Meatballs etc at $7.90, pizza with 2 toppings at $5.90 and pasta (seafood, carbonara, aglio olio) from $5.90 to $7.90.



I tried the garlic fish and love it! The serving portion is quite generous and it comes with garden salad.



However, if you are cautious about garlic taste in your mouth for the next 12 hours, then you might not want to finish the entire garlic sauce. :)

~ Edited on 8 Oct ~

For some people, Raffles Place is probably the last place you wanna be during the rush lunch hour, people use tissue paper packs to 'chope' seats! Like that also can ah.

Despite the long queue, the chef still managed to whip up a delicious breaded chicken dish for me, after a wait of approx 10 mins. The serving portion is really big for the price of only $7.90. Very good value :)

It is a piece of deep fried chicken breast meat covered with bread crumbs, with cheese and ham strips on top. Also comes with a generous serving of garden salad.

Swensen's Topless Five

Who can resist ice creams that are so tasty? I love Swensen's ice-cream, especially those creamy flavours such as Vanilla, Butterscotch, Rum & Raisin.

I just realised that it is much more worthwhile to order a topless 5 cos it is 5 scoops for $7.50, unlike if you get a single scoop for $3.60.

But to be fair, topless 5 scoops are smaller but it does not matter to me cos I just want variety!!

In my ice cream bowl - O' Fashion Vanilla, Banana Split, Sticky Chewy Chocolate, Chocolate Peanut Buttercup, Yummy Raisin.

Romano Ristorante

Sembawang Hill area is another cosy little town in the private estate area of Seletar/Sembawang. The downside is that it isn't very accessible unless you have your own private transport.

This time round, I checked out the Italian Restaurant - Romano Ristorante. It reads Italian Casual Dining on the orange cheery signboard.

10 Jalan Leban Singapore 577551

Tel: 6453 3778

Operating Hours:

Mon closed

Lunch 11.00 am - 3.00 pm (Tue - Fri)

Dinner 6 - 10.30 pm (Tue - Fri)

11 am - 10.30 pm (Sat, Sun, PH)

I ordered my almost all time fav - Carbonara Linguine. Although I had hoped that it would come with an egg yolk, I soon forgot about the disappointment of not having the yolk cos the cream sauce was quite impressive. If you are a 'milk person', you'll like this. Surprisingly, my other half who doesn't like milk says that the cream sauce taste great! :)

He ordered the Chicken Milanese. This is a colourful dish with very tender chicken breast meat wrapped in a layer of fried egg. It came with some potato cubes that were slightly fried and charred. It has a small serving of spaghetti in tomato sauce.

I think it is one of the chef's recommendation dish.

Total damage : $32.

There were couple of other diners in the restaurant, who had ordered Tiramisu. The dessert looks quite yummy. Shall KIV this for my next visit :)