Kiat Lim Vegetarian Food (Ang Mo Kio Central)

Looking for restaurant-standard vegetarian food (zichar), yet unwilling to burn a hole in your pocket?  Check out Kiat Lim Vegetarian stall located at Blk 728, Ang Mo Kio Ave. 6, Coffee City Coffeeshop.  Tel: 9693.2138.

During peak days ie. 1st and 15th day of every lunar month, expect the queue to be long (perhaps waiting up to 30 minutes) and claypot dishes will not be available.  Those are dishes that take longer to cook.  But then, there are a lot more dishes which you can try out.

Claypot Bee Hoon （沙煲米粉） comes with lots of ingredients (cabbage, yam, snow pea, cauliflower, carrot, capsicum, black fungus, fried bean curd and mock eat) and costs only $4!!

This is one of my all-time favourite - Hotplate Bean Curd (铁板豆腐).  The sizzling hotplate come with 7 square pieces of bean curd and loads of vegetables again.  The sweet and spicy black sauce makes the delicious looking dish even more appetising.  Costs $7.

One of the chef's special dish - Butter Fried Frog Legs (奶油田鸡）, is indeed good.  The battered abalone mushroom were deep-fried before frying in butter gravy.  I'm not too certain about the green leaves - which could be curry leaves, added to the fragrance.  The very slight spiciness from the chilli padi makes it even more outstanding.  Costs $8.

In all, I think there are at least 100 dishes available form their menu.  Will take a while for me to experiment them all.  But next on my list shall be cereal prawn, sambal fish, yi mian and mee goreng!  Stay tune for more updates!

Soft Shell Crab Tsukemen @ Ajisen

Ajisen has recently launched Tsukemen, a type of Japanese noodle similar to ramen but the noodles are served dry with the ingradients (in this case, with soft shell crab).  There is a separate bowl of soup, which we are supposed to dip the noodles.  The soup is made from seafood/pork broth which appeared to be a little salty and oily.  For those who prefers their soup to be less salty, just add in some white-coloured soup.

The noodles were a little dry but tasted alright after dipping into the soup.  However, the soft shell crab was not as crispy than I'd like it to be.  The crab sticks were fresh and juicy, the most satisfying ones I've ever tried.

The ala carte item costs $12.  Topping up to $15.80 would give you 1 drink and 1 side-dish such as fried tofu or fried chicken or fried prawn etc.  Besides soft shell crab tsukemen, on the menu is also cha shu tsukemen which costs $1 less.

Sandwich Obsession @ Coffee Club

Coffee Club is having a sandwich promotion now.  Selected sandwiches comes with a complimentary smoothie (regular price: $6.90).

I had a Norwegian Catch which comes in layers of warm smoked salmon, sliced eggs and toasted tomato.  It comes with a serving of french fries.  This sandwich-smoothie combo costs $15.90. 

The food finally arrived after a 30-min wait. The Holland Village outlet was terribly short-handed with only 2 service staff.  One of service staff was also the barista.  At one point, the cafe ran short of culteries and cups for take-away drinks.  My colleagues sitting at the cushioned seats were being asked (politely by the service staff) to give way so that they could get cups stored under the seats for our take-away drinks.  Under such stress, it was unevitable that the barista made a mistake for one of my colleagues' drinks, but she had to turn down the offer for a change because we had already exceeded our lunch time....

Korean Grilled Cuttlefish at Chinatown

If you've been to Seoul and tried the street food in Myeong-dong, you'd probably have seen a roadside stall selling buttered cuttlefish.  To my pleasant surprise, there is a stall outside People's Park Complex selling this delicious Korean streetfood.

In case you're not familiar or confused with the building names at Chinatown, People's Park Complex (PPC) is the building next to OG departmental store and accessible from Chinatown MRT exit.  Occassionally, there are some buskers performing outside this MRT station.

The flattened cuttlefish was first cooked in the machine on the left side for about 2 minutes. Thereafter, the cooked cuttlefish was cut using the orange-coloured machine on the right side. For this $5 portion, you get one and a half piece of cuttlefish.

Tada!  Fresh, juicy and chewy cuttlefish that is almost as good as what you can get in Korea! 

Astons Express

Astons Express
Blk 19 Ghim Moh Road
Wang Wei Li Coffeeshop
Tel: 6466 2325

Had craving for western food for lunch a few days ago and decided to check out Astons Express.  A few other people were already in the queue before me and I overheard their orders - mostly for the grilled items.  I thought that perhaps a better way to "cut-queue" would be to order something that isn't grilled so that the chef can prepare my food concurrently.  Sounds good?

Decided to order Crispy Fried Fish as the main coure and for the 2 side orders, I decided to go for hot side dishes - onion rings and french fries.  Sinful, isn't it?  All the deep-fried and unhealthy stuff.  Sigh...

For $6.50, I felt that it was really value-for-money.  The one big slab of fish was longer than the plate.  No complaints for the fish fillet, it was good enough for $6.50.  However, the fries was nothing to shout about.  Though it looked like it was sprinkled with seasoning, it tasted rather bland.  The onion rings were just passable too... BK onion rings probably tasted better.  But anyhow, how much can you expect from this price.  =)

Dian Xiao Er (店小二)

#B2-02 Ang Mo Kio Hub
Tel: (65)6484 2268
Mon - Fri:  11.30am - 4.30 pm, 5.30pm - 10.00pm;
Weekend and Public Holiday 11.30am - 10.00pm

Where do you go if you have craving for steamed chicken with garlic dip?  - The Soup Restaurant?  Where do you go if you have craving for roasted duck in herbs? - Dian Xiao Er has to be among your choice of restaurants.

Check out this Duck Roasted in Ten Wonder Herbs (十全烤鸭).  The crispy roasted skin with its tender meat infused in the 10 herbs sauce.  If you're health concious, you can remove the thin layer of fats beneath the skin.  Otherwise, the duck is quite good.  Apparently, the duck has been marinated in the shop's special 10 herbs before being roasted.  The herbs are supposed to help revitalize one's body.

If you love hotpot tofu with generous amount of egg sizzling in the scorchy hot pan, you gotta check this out.  I am guessing... perhaps 3 or 4 eggs have been used?  The layer of egg is just so thick and delicious.  Of cos, the highlight of this dish is still the tofu, which was smooth and silky.  Garnished with minced pork and spring onion, it was a flavourable dish to go with plain white rice.

For under S$40, you get the above 2 dishes with 2 bowls of rice + chinese tea and tidbits (roasted peanuts).

Hansang Korean Family Restaurant‎

Hansang Korean Family Restaurant
10 Sinaran Drive, #03-33 Square 2
Tel: 6397 6752‎

Known as Little Seoul, Square 2 gives the most complete Korean shopping experience at the 3rd level with 2 Korean restaurants (Hansang and Seoul Yummy), Korean rice cake shop, Korean Supermart, Korean hair salon etc.

Hansang Korean restaurant is the more expensive restaurant between the 2.  Seoul Yummy operates much more casually and the food is cheaper.  Whereas at Hansang, you're served with 10 side-dishes, authentic silver chopsticks and spoon.  You get to choose to seat at the BBQ or non-BBQ section inside the restaurant.

BBQ set meal for 2 persons starts from $65 before taxes and you get the following...

This is a starter dish, individual portions served.  Depending on availability, the cold tofu may sometimes be replaced with a scoop of potato salad.  Portions are dividually equally so if 3 persons are sharing a 2-pax set meal, 1 person may need to forgo the starter.

Next is the pa-jeon dish.  Again, it is 1 set person.  Each set comprises of 1 piece of fish fillet pa-jeon and 1 piece of seafood pa-jeon.  There is also an individual serving of soy sauce for the pa-jeon.  The seafood pa-jeon was much delicious than the fish fillet pa-jeon.

Next dish that was served was the glass noodle dish.  The noodles are fried with carrot strips, green veggie and mushroom; and garnished with egg and seaweed.  This dish was rather flavourful, especially the noodles. Highly recommended if you're ordering ala carte.
 

There was also a small pot of rice, korean rice with a piece of carrot, pumpkin and sweet potato and a red date.  With the added ingredients, the light taste of sweetness came through the rice.

 

I must say that the stew dishes at Hansang is really good. Besides the bean paste soup, kimchi chigae is also highly recommended. The soup stew is thick and you can tell that they have cooked the stew dish for hours. The kimchi flavour has deeply penetrated into the veggie, tofu and noodles.

This is the highlight of the day - BBQ pork.  For the 2-pax set meal, a choice of pork or chicken is available.  For pork BBQ, there are 3 types of pork available and we had opted for collar meat and ribs.

For ala carte BBQ dish, a minimum of 2 portions is required and each portion costs at least $25.  Hence, I figured out that it is more worth-while to opt for the set meal.  For $15 more, we get to try out a selection of other dishes including pa-jeon, chigae and rice noodle. 

For the set meal, coffee/tea and fruits are also served at the end of the meal. But if the above is too much for 2 persons to stomach, it is perfectly find to share the 2-pax set meal among 3 persons.

But great food comes with price, be prepared to pay at least $76.50 for a meal for 2 if you're going for the dinner set meal.

Related Posts:
Bq Korea (click)
Hyang To Gol at Amara Hotel (click)
Odaeyang (click)

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Just Buns

If you happen to be at 313@Somerset and looking for something to snack, do consider these soft cinnamon buns from Just Buns (located at B3-49), next to Prima Deli stall.  The ones you see below are Cheese & Almond bun and Oreo bun.

The buns ($1.50 each) are freshly baked and are really soft and fragrant.  Fret not the strong cinnamon smell, the cinnamon taste in these buns are light and just right.  Just check out the cream cheese topped with almond and chocolate fudge topped with crushed oreo, they are simply irresistable!!

There are also other interesting flavours such as Just Durian, Just Chempedak, Just Banana etc, which I will return to try them one of these days.

 

East Ocean Teochew Restaurant

1 Scotts Road #02-18 Shaw Centre

Tel: +65 6235 9088

Opening hours

Mon–Fri: 11.30am – 3pm, 6pm – 11pm
Sat, Sun & PH: 10.30am – 3pm, 6pm – 11pm

Note: The restaurant has moved to Ngee Ann City, #05-08/09.  Contact number remains unchanged.

Had brunch at East Ocean Teochew Restaurant which serves dim-sum during lunch.  Although this is a Teochew restaurant, it serves hong kong dim sum and you see waitresses carrying trays of dim-sum and shouting out what they have o their trays. 

But, the waitresses spoke in cantonese.  Hmmm... this is kinda unfriendly to those who do not understand the cantonese language.  When I asked for the dim-sum menu, the waitress answered that they serve all dim-sum today, just listen out. =(  So, what happens to customers who do not know what the waitresses are "promoting"?

蛋煎肠粉 (Pan-fried Cheong Fun with Egg) - It felt like flattened cheong fun dipped in egg (just like when cooking bombay toast) before it was pan-fried.  Light soy sauce was served together with this dish.  The eggs tend to soak up the soy sauce, so I thought it would be better if the soy sauce is served in a separate sauce plate.

Steamed Carrot Cake - the rice cake was soft and filled with lots of radish and dried shrimps.  Definitely something which we can't find at hawker centres.  Light soy sauce is added to the carrot cake when served.

The century egg porridge isn't too impressive.  Would say that the quality is just average.  Can give it a miss if porridge isn't a miss for you...

Char Siew Chee Cheong Fun comes with generous serving of char siew, as you can see.  What's unique is that - it is served with green veggie. Otherwise, this dish is also quite average...nothing to shout about.

奶皇流沙包 (Custard bun) - This is a must have! Beware of the golden yellow hot milky custard, else you might scald your tongue. However, the bun tastes best when eaten while it is hot! 

At the end of the meal, wash it down with a cup of thick chinese tea. It is so thick that it tastes bitter... yucks!

Total damage for 2 persons was less than $40.... a little steep for about 5 dishes.

 

 

Related Posts:

126 Eating House (click)

Leong Sang Hong Kong Pastries (click)



Everything with Fries (HV)

40 Lorong Mambong
Singapore 277695
Tel: 64633741
Sun, Tue to Thur: 12nn to 11pm
Fri & Sat: 12nn to 1am
Close on Mondays

Everything with Fries .... of course, it means that all main course comes with a serving of fries.  What's the difference from fast food restaurants then?  Well, the main difference is that you get a choice of seasonings for your fries.  The seasoning choices include curry, salt & vinegar, sour cream & onion, garlic & herbs or you like it as it is, choice original flavour.

The outlet at Holland Village is the chain's 2nd outlet, the 1st being at Joo Chiat.  The ambience is very modern... with white being its main colour theme.

My drink - Butterscotch milk shake.  Being a milk-lover, how can I resist not having a milk shake.  But that means I will not be able to finish my food cos this glass of milk shake can easily take up 50% of my "intake capacity".  I wonder how many scoops of butterscotch ice cream was used to make this milk shake... can't imagine how many calories that translates too... but I can't be bothered with it cos the milk shake was good!

Chose Tandoori Chicken Sandwich as my main course. Wanted to order its salmon main course but was told that they were not serving salmon that day *sob*. Chose sour cream and onion for the fries.

Love the thousand island sauce that was drenched onto the tandoori chicken sandwich. The bread was slightly toasted and was really soft. The tandoori chicken was also tender and juicy. Highly recommend that if you prefer something not too heavy.

However, the sour cream & onion was somewhat ordinary... instead I like the curry flavour most, followed by salt & vinegar, sour cream & onion and then garlic & herbs.

Thanks to the special promo from ieatishootipost website, we got each a free cupcake. The cupcakes are somewhat different from cupcakes you see at regular cake shops. These cupcakes comes with a generous butter cream topping. It comes with peanut butter, strawberry and coconut flavours. The strawberry cupcake really stood out because of its fresh strawberry bits. The cupcake itself is dense but not too rich. Can I say... it was al dente.

 

Total damage was less than $20/pax for a lunch meal with main course and drinks... certainly worth returning to experiment other dishes, esp the NZ salmon strongly recommended by others who have been there.

Hokkaido Milk Ice Cream (MOS Burger)

Latest dessert added to MOS Burger's menu.  Besides green tea, there is also mango and chocolate flavour. The green tea flavour ice cream comes with red bean.  Personally, I've like it to be a little milkier.  But generally, the ice cream isn't too bad.  $2.95 per cup (ala carte) or get 20c off if purchased with a meal.

Ginza Bairin (ION)

Ginza Bairin (Japanese website: http://www.ginzabairin.com/)

2 Orchard Turn

#B4-39/40 ION Orchard

Tel: +65 6509 8101

Everyone has got their plate of tonkatsu (deep-fried breaded pork cutlet) and they look really yummy.  The outlet, which originate from Tokyo Ginza, has a strong japanese ambience, from its simple wooden chairs to its deco.

It operates with a fast-food concept ie.  queue up to place order for your food, place the number stand on your table and the waiter will serve the food when ready.  During dinner time, the restaurant, which is not small, is packed.  So, the best thing you could do is, get 1 person to find a seat in the restaurant while the other queue up to place food order.

However, I gotten give the delicious tonkatsu a miss this time round as I wasn't feeling too hungry for the pork fillet.  Instead, I ordered a potato salad and a croquette.

I always love japanese potato salad and this one looks simply "pretty" and yummy.  Loves the pieces of potatoes and carrot bits.

The brown sauce at the background was meant for the croquette.  Except that the croquette was a little too oily and a little costly ($2.50), I have no other complaints about it.

I shall be back again for its tonkatsu another time.  Together with a cup of cold green tea, the meal costs $9.90.

Paddle Pop Ice Cream

These days, people are spoilt for high-end ice cream choices - Ben & Jerry's, Hagen Daaz, Swensen's etc... I can't even remember when was the last time I had a Paddle Pop Ice Cream.  When I was young, one of my fav was the Paddle Pop Rainbow stick. 

The old-school cup version sure brought back memories of those good-old-days.  60c for this tiny cup.  At this instance, you might think that 60c is a little too much for this little cup which comes with dual flavour - vanilla and chocolate.  But think again - it costs $3 for a small hagen daaz cup, 5x the price of paddle pop!!

Swensen's @ Compass Point - Fish & Chips and Pasta

The queue outside Swensen's at Compass Point is ridiculusly long on weekends.  Nevertheless, it is all worth it when the all-time favourite Fish and Chips was served.  The waiting time for food was just about 10mins, which I consider relatively reasonable, since the queuing time to get a seat was easily 20 to 30mins.

The fish & chips was served slightly later than the pasta.  The 2 pieces of golden-brown deep-fried fish fillet were served with crispy thick U.S. fries and a small bowl of coleslaw.  The tartar sauce, although it was just a dip, brought out the tastiness of the fish.  As for the fries, what would it be without tomato ketchup?

Salmon and Mushroom Pasta - Recommended for those prefers not-so-creamy sauce.  The amount of sauce was also just enough for the pasta.  The dish was served with quite a fair amount of slightly-cooked salmon.  If you prefer cooked salmon, toss it with the warm pasta for a while.  However, since Swensen's is not an Italian restaurant, I did not have too high an expectation on the pasta dishes.  And, as such, I think the standard was better than what I would expect.

For a meal with just 2 dishes, without ice-creams and deserts, the damage was slightly less than $35.

Pineapple Tarts from Cedele

Decided to get pineapple tarts from Cedele this year in the name of healthy living.  CNY is the time to indulge in sinful cookies and goodies.  Any food that can make the indulgence less sinful is welcomed.

Priced at $18.80 per tub with approx. 36 pieces of pineapple tarts, each piece of pineapple tart costs abt $0.50.  Each piece for maybe half mouthful... isn't cheap.  But consider that the tarts do taste yummy (ie. buttery and not too sweet according to my standard) and a little for healthy (trans fat free, organic unrefined sugar), I think it is worth trying.  And better still for me because I managed to combine my purchase with my friend to make up 10 tubs of goodies, I got a 10% discount! Yay!

Other highly recommended CNY cookies include coffee cereal cookies, earl grey cookies and chocolate chip macademia cookies.

Swensen's Singapore - Breaded Chicken Meuniere

With the 1-for-1 lunch treat promotion, it does make sense to lunch at Swensen's, provided there is an outlet near enough for the 1-hour lunch rush. Just by paying for a couple of bucks more, you get to enjoy quality western food, with a relatively reasonable serving portion and most importantly, there's aircon!!  The crazily hot weather recently is really driving me nuts.

I've also realised that Swensen's has expanded their menu quite a fair bit, adding more Asian variety such as nasi goreng, crayfish bee hoon etc.  The pictures on the menu almost tempted me to give them a try.  But... I managed to resist the temptation and decided to go for the good'ol Breaded Chicken Meuniere.  Besides the huge chicken fillet, there's also a generous portion of fries and a small bowl of coleslaw.

The breaded batter was deep-fried to golden brown, crispy but slightly oily.  Chicken meat (not breast meat) was quite juicy and tender. =)  Being a chunky fries lover, I only have compliments for Swensen's fries, which goes great with tomato ketchup.

Shimbashi Soba

Shimbashi Soba at Paragon
290 Orchard Road
#B1-41 Paragon, Singapore 238859
Tel: 6735-9882 Fax: 6735-9883
Business Hours: 11:30 am to 10:00 pm

If you've ever been to the food paradise basement level at Paragon, I'm sure you'd not miss the crowd outside a Japanese restaurant (Shimbashi Soba) watching how the chef makes the soba from scratch... right from the machine sifting the soba (or is it buck wheat) flour, to kneading the dough, to cutting the noodles that are as uniform as you imagine.  Every strand of noodle is cut to precision, same thickness and length.

The thought of eating the freshly made soba got the better of me...it was also because that buck wheat was supposedly a healthier choice compared to other forms of noodle.  I decided to part with $20 bucks to try out this soup soba with tempura, which I requested for all ebi.  The menu came with an assortment of tempura.  I was pleased that there was no additional charge for the change since some where in the menu mentioned that the chef had specially selected a particular type of prawn for the soba.

My soba set came after 15mins later.  Waiting time was considered reasonable since it was a weekend dinner time.

With the hype about how good the soba taste and for the price I was paying, I did have come expectation.  It had imagined it to be as good compared to one which I tried in Japan.  To my great disappointment, both the soba and tempura did not meet my expectation...  Firstly, the soup wasn't pipping hot and the soba lacked the chewiness.  The tempura prawn was a little soft and did not seem to be as fresh as it should be.  The tempura coating wasn't that crispy as well....Unfortunately, I wasn't impressed at all.  It was quite a disappointment considering all the rave reviews around....or perhaps I should give the cold soba a try the next time.