KFC @ West Mall

You might have seen the advertisement on TV. The KFC Egg Tart.
Advertising does influence and subliminally tell you, you want to have it, doesn't it?
We succumbed when 2 friends asked if we would want to have dinner at KFC.

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This was the 2 egg tarts that we had last week night.

How does it taste? Not bad, not bad at all!
It was warm, eggy, and the slightly burnt top makes it smell really good.
Can't believe it is KFC doesn't it?



Just yesterday, I saw my colleague eating egg tarts for breakfast, and I jokingly commented, KFC's?
She said yes and she said, do you know it is nicer if you leave it overnight in the fridge and eat it cold the next day? Ooo.. do you?

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But for the chicken, I think the KFC drumsticks are getting smaller and smaller!
Both the crispy and original is getting small. Sigh...

I think for KFC, it's best to go to an outlet that has long queue, it's so that you get freshly fried chicken! We remembered we had the most horrible cold chicken the other day when we ordered KFC delivery.

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The spicy drumlets. Oh, these stuff are wicked. It's so spicy it numbs your tongue and lips!
There are two kinds, get the fiery ones to get a taste of wickedness. LOL

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If you have been eating this, do you think it's now more peppery than tasty?

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One of my favourite drinks! Good old ice cold Pepsi.




Oh yes, I think to get value when eating KFC, you got to bring the 'coupons'!
Are you a KFC coupon person as well?

We did not have ours, but thanks to our friends who had loads of it with them, we had the above for I think $12 + $2 for the egg tarts. ;-)

Go India @ VivoCity

This was lunch last Sunday afternoon. We have always wanted to try the food in this place.
With the open concept kitchen in front of the shop, showing off their Naan and Tandooris, it does tempt you. We have been tempted for almost a year! We usually only walk past here after lunch.

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When we got seated, we were assumed we wanted to try out the buffet. I guess that's the best way to try out the food here.

The buffet display was right at the entrance. What a way to tempt you. The moment you enter you can smell and see the food. Some of the different dishes on my first round of eating.

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This was Momo's plate. She and our cousin was testing out the food first, telling us what they think we will like and probably would not like.

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The chaat (I think that's its name) seems to be the most popular item on the buffet table.
You have to assemble this dish. Some crunchy dough like balls, you top it up with chopped tomatoes, onions, potatoes, etc and cover it with various sauces.

The other Indian customers are stacking loads of this on their plate. My example is only two balls. It taste rather nice!

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The buffet comes with free flow serving of Naans. The plain naan seemed to come out rather quickly.

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But when it comes to the garlic naan, (it was tastier) but it took a longer and more requests before it gets to your table. ;-p

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The food that I personally like is their tandoori chicken. The smell was really good, and the meat firm and tasty.

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The 5 of us eating also thought the mutton here was really nice. It does not have the gamey smell of mutton. It was rather appetizing too. It was great with the Naans or the basmati rice served.

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Oh the sweet sweet stuff! The Garam Gulab Jamun. Momo and my cousin could not take it. It was too sweet for them.

But I like it! I think their version was sweet but not the sickeningly sweet as some other places.

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There are lots of other mushy vegetables and lentils, but they do not come out pretty on photos. They were not bad though.

We ended our meal with servings of ice cream and fruits.




The restaurant seem to be popular. When we see lots of Indians eating here and looks like they enjoy it, you can probably assumed they like the food here.

The buffet lunch was $20++ per person. One of the cheaper buffets around. Not a huge range of variety, but it's more than enough variety to fill you up.


Go India
1 Harbourfront Walk
01-152/155 VivoCity,
Singapore 098585
Tel: 6376 9644

Volunteers Food @ YOG

As YOG Volunteers we get free food when we are working. You would probably have read about the food that one volunteer ate. Hmm dog food? I personally don't think so.

Depending on where you are based, you get your food differently.  I was based in some tent that did not have many volunteers, so there was no catered food. We were just given food vouchers. (Koufu or Kopitiam). That's the easiest logistic wise.

When two other volunteers and I had a day out to one of the venues, we wanted to try the 'famous meal'. On our way to the 'workforce lunch tent', we saw the food being pushed in. The smell was very good!

This was our meal. We queued up at the 'buffet line'. A very simple 3 dish meal. Corn rice, fried fish fillet, teriyaki chicken and french beans.



Corn rice - we asked for 'less rice' because we saw they gave so much to the person in front.


Fried fish fillet - the usual fried fish fillet.  I was given 3 pieces, a bit too much. The other colleague had 2 pieces. It's not over fried as you can see by the colour.


Terriyaki chicken - smell and look better than it tasted. We call it the 'healthier option with less sodium' version. Did the Health Promo Board had a part to play? LOL.

The french beans - served in a semi starchy gravy. It was still crunchy but like any other food cooked with more water than oil, it does not 'look' so nice.



We concluded it was OK lah. The food was a bit bland because they had to cater to all the entire workforce. You probably would have know that half the people in Singapore loves bland food, half loves salty food. (You can poll it amongst your colleague or friends). So they picked the middle.

Oh yes, there were free flow of soft drinks. We realised the drinks were all from the same company,  you can guess which company right? If not, visit http://www.singapore2010.sg and scroll all the way down to look for Olympic Partner Worldwide. LOL

I wonder if they provided it free or at a reduced price.


(Posted on a personal capacity and also a tax payer and not as a YOG Volunteer)

Just Acia @ Marina Square

This was lunch today with a fellow YOG Volunteer. I am one of the 20,000 volunteers for the inaugural Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games. I can't tell you what we do. Shh..  Our team consists of mainly working adults and a few tertiary students.  Some are seconded from the 'govt ministries', a few tertiary students and the rest of us, working adults who took our annual leave to serve.

I guess we are all get along very well, as we are the 'real' (not forced) volunteers, we don't have much complaints too because we knew what we were going into. We actually enjoy it! We got to know many new friends too! They are actually very nice people!

(No one knows my online identity though haha)

When it was lunch time, another fellow volunteer and I decided to walk around Marina Square to grab some lunch. He's is a teacher and when we saw Just Acia, he said it's many students hang out place. They have really good deals. So off we went.

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'Cher A' had the Black Pepper Beef Set.
What I saw on the menu was interesting. It said that it is a special set, so you can't choose the 'doneness'. It was default to medium done. Well, they tell you before hand, so no problem!

I did not ask 'cher' how it was, but he seemed to like it, and finished all of it, except the fries.
It comes with unlimited ice cream and drinks.

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I ordered the Beef Bulgogi Set.  I had to wait a while for Beef Bulgogi to arrive. When I was going to ask about my order, the server beat me to it and came over to tell me, the kitchen did not like what they prepared (in other words, a bit chao tar) and is cooking it over again, so can you wait a while more. LOL

They are quite frank eh? But customers like frank discussions right? Not some fluff up excuses that you can immediately spot.




The set came with rice, miso soup, small pickle, unlimited servings of ice cream from the self-serve freezer and unlimited soft drinks / tea / coffee from the self service machines.

I would not say the food is super delicious. I prefer Bulgogi from other places. ;-)
But it's ok for the price.  I had my fill of ice cream though. LOL



We ordered the beef selections, so it was the $10+ for the set meal. But there are meals that starts from $5.90.  Their clientele are mostly office workers and students who wants affordable food in expensive areas. ;-)

Our meal plus taxes came up to around $28 I think. 'Cher A' insisted on paying for my meal. I told you the volunteers are all very nice people right? He did not want to accept my money for my portion.


Just Acia
6 Raffles Boulevard
Marina Square #02-05 (along the linkbridge)
Singapore 039594

Crystal Jade Kitchen @ Holland Village

This was dinner at Crystal Jade Kitchen. We had wanted to eat the spicy cold chicken at Crystal Jade La Mian, but there was a wait for around 45 minutes. We were too hungry to wait so we decided to have dinner at Crystal Jade Kitchen instead.

When we got seated, we saw that there are some Set Meals available in the menu. It looked like a rather good deal, so we took set B. ($45.80++)

Set B consisted of:

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The Simmered Chinese Spinach with Silver Fish & Golden Mushroom in superior stock.
We all thought it was lovely. The vegetable are young so it was really tender and nice. The stock was rich yet light so you keep wanting to drink the soup!

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The Steamed Beancurd with Scallops with Black Bean Sauce.
When it was served, we thought it looked so pretty and appetizing. The Black Bean Sauce was so fragrant. The scallops on top looks a like an extension of the beancurd! I like the Black Bean Sauce!

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The reason we picked Set B, was because there's a steamed fish. The other sets had either deep fried fish or stewed fish.

This steamed garoupa was good. However, we found one side of the fish to be very tender, but the other was a little tougher flesh. Hmmm one side of it was overcooked?

But we still cleaned it up anyway.

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Rice was additional, not included in the price of the set. ;-P
We had 3 rice.



The total price was around $60+ with the pickles, drinks and taxes.
It was a lovely meal nevertheless. We seldom get disappointed eating here.


Crystal Jade Kitchen
2 Lorong Mambong
Holland Village
Singapore 277671

Tel: 6469 0300

7th Storey Hainan Cafe @ IMM

This was dinner at 7th Storey Hainan Cafe. If you are wondering, it's related to the 7th Storey Restaurant at Marina Barage, it is. The branch at IMM is the 'Hainan Cafe' of the group.

The following were what we ordered from the "Hainan Specialties" in their menu.

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Soy Chicken Rice. ($4.90)  Our aunt and uncle had one serving each. They seemed to enjoy it. It does look tasty eh?

We requested that we did not want the breast portion of the meat, they told us it will be $1 extra, so we paid $5.90 for each serving.

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I had their Chicken Curry with Rice ($4.90)
The curry had thick coconut milk. If you like your curry with lots of 'santan', you will like it. I like my curry thick  with lots of coconut milk. ;-)



They know that curry lovers will wallop the curry up with lots of rice, so the rice portion they served was huge! It's not the small bowl of rice, it has the same bowl size as the curry. Carbo overload!

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Momo ordered the Mutton Soup. ($5.90)
I 'upgraded' her order to set ($7.90 instead) so that it includes a bowl of rice and hainan chup chye.

I never like mutton soup as it 'smells' to me. But Momo loved it, she finished every drop of soup!
Momo said the mutton soup here was nice. Hmmm....




The Hainan Chup Chye. If you wonder what's different between this and other variations of chup chye.
For the Hainanese version, you will find fried pig skin on it.
(the piece of skin is above the carrot in this photo)




7th Storey Hainan Cafe
IMM Building
2 Jurong East Street 21
#01-K09
Singapore 609601

Coffee Club @ Raffles Place

It's been a long long time since I sat down and ate breakfast slowly! On weekday mornings, I am always rushing out to work. I am one of those who will waste precious time pressing the snooze button a few times. Before you know it, you are late and you got to rush to work!

On Saturdays, if there's nothing on, I usually sleep in till 12 noon! It's the only day in the week I can sleep in! On Sundays, it's church and we try to be there at around 8:45am. ;-)

This is one of my rare breakfast posts!

Of all places, I had breakfast right in the middle of the financial district. I had breakfast with my sis. Sis and I don't work in this area, but we came here for breakfast on National Day!

We flip through their menu and decide to order from the Breakfast menu.

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The Mushroom Bruschetta. $6.80
Grilled mushroom topped with Italian taleggio cheese on toasted ciabatta. It was also served with scrambled eggs.

A rather nice breakfast. Kinda filling if you don't usually eat so much for breakfast. The ciabatta was a bit too toasted so it was very 'crunchy'. But it was ok when you let the yummy runny scrambled egg soak through. 



It came with a complimentary coffee (or tea).

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I had the Spanish Chorizo Omelette $7.50.
I have thinking of chorizos recently! So when I saw this in the menu, I ordered it. I should have taken  a photo of the chorizo, roasted capsicum and cheddar inside the omelette. I would have preferred more chorizos in it!

I wonder how many eggs was in my omelette! But it was hearty breakfast.



It came with a choice of tea or coffee, and I opted for the English Breakfast Tea.




p/s Talking about Chorizos, I realised that Twisties now has a new flavour! Chicken Chorizo and Smokey Sausage. That's for Twisties/Chorizos fans. ;-P

We had recently joined their Club Royalty, and just got the members card after like 2 months of waiting. It came with some "welcome vouchers". But too bad, it's a public holiday and they don't accept it. :-(


Coffee Club @ Raffles Place
Tel: 6532 6273
Hours: Open daily, from 8am - 10pm

Tomi Sushi @ Parco Marina Bay

Momo and I had dinner last Friday at Tomi Sushi. I had some volunteer duties around the Marina Bay area and met up with Momo for dinner.

Wondering where to eat, we walked around and ended up at Parco Marina Bay. Somehow we ended up at Tomi Sushi. It's another of the Japanese chains that has invaded Singapore. From Niigata prefecture and has been around since 1954.

No specials meals for dinner though. If you want more 'economical set meals', come during lunch.

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We ordered from the usual menu. I had the Gindara Set. ($28) I was tempted by the sashimi and grilled cod fish. The sashimi was good. A bit too decorated though. But it does look really pretty and photogenic. ;-)

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The cod fish was not too bad. I like the sauce. It also had some crumbly egg something on the side which was quite nice too.

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The set also came with Chawan mushi and the very delightful (and salty) miso soup and rice.
According to their website, they only use rice that comes from Niigata. The salt they use comes from the Sea of Japan. Does that explains the (a little too salty) but delightful miso soup?

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Momo had the Yosenabe ($15). I tasted some of the soup, it's a bit mild. The healthy kind of soup that many ladies will like. Pretty and healthy looking kind of dish ;-p

Momo had it with a bowl of Niigata Rice. ($3)

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Momo was here before and she remembered someone ordered the Wakatori Karrage ($15) the last time and she wanted to try it. We placed an order and a big portion came.

I did not particularly enjoyed it. Well that's because I find it a bit mild and ordinary. I am a fan of the "Ajisen super salted" kind of karaage. If you hate the Ajisen style, you would most probably like this instead. LOL

It's nicely fried and crispy. You can taste hints of Japanese wine in it and definitely not heavily salted. The OK to feed children kind. ;-)




It's a pleasant place. It was not very crowded and the people eating there was also not very noisy (that night).

Tomi Sushi @ Parco Marina Bay
9 Raffles Boulevard
#P3-04 Millenia Walk
Singapore 039596

Tel: 6333 4633

45 cents meal with superb view @ 1 Altitude, Rooftop of UOB Centre

I don't usually post the 'little bits of things' I eat. But this is fun and it's just nice for Singapore 45th National Day.

I snacked at the highest bar in the world at the tallest building in Singapore.
You can have a 360 degree view of Singapore.

Here's the view of the huge flags on Singapore's tallest public housing.

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1 Altitude is quite a nice place. They even have trees on the roof top!
It was really windy and yet sunny. The temperature at around 9:30am was good. It rained earlier and it was really cool.

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Only for today (I think), there's the magic numbers 4 and 5 menu. LOL!!

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Here I was, with my sis, having our 45 cents drinks.
1 cup of coke and 1 cup of orange juice.

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We also had the 45 cents muffins!
Choc chip and pandan flavour muffins.
(they should have made red and white muffins!! hehe)

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I got up here because of a contest by Time Out Magazine Singapore. I won a pair of tickets to come up here on National Day.

Thanks! Time Out for picking me!
If you like to know what to do in Singapore, you should subscribe to the magazine like I do!


Oh, you get more real food on normal days at the restaurant and bar up here.
You can get more info at http://www.facebook.com/1Altitude

Crabs and Fried Bee Hoon @ Home

When one of her niece says she wants to eat crabs, our aunt will always say OK! 
You should see the face of her 11 year old niece. Smiling ear to ear!

Last Sunday evening, our aunt bought crabs from the local wet market and cooked it for us.
She fed the 10 of us with 2 different kinds of crabs dishes with fried bee hoon.

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Steamed Crabs with Tang Hoon. A different recipe this time and it's nice!



Tang Hoon really soaks up all the juices and essence of the crabs.
Oh it's so yummy!

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Here's the chilli crabs!
If you are afraid to cook this at home because you dare not kill crabs, don't worry. Just ask your local fish monger to kill it and chop it up for you! It's usually FOC. Just cook it as soon as you get it home!
(Prima Taste cooking sauce if you are wondering.)
 



We had two big plates of it too!

We were just at Food Republic at Wisma Atria the other day and aunt said there was one tourist who was shocked that her order of two small crabs came up to nearly $70. (there is a reason why locals don't order crabs there. Locals just go to certain places to have crabs. Or cook them at home.)

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We had our crabs with fried bee hoon. Our family are great bee hoon eaters!
The spicy version for the adults.



The non spicy version for the little kids. ;-)



Thanks aunt for cooking for us!

Lu Gang Xiao Zhen (Asian Kitchen) @ ION Orchard

We were at ION Orchard and were hunting for food. Do you notice, sometimes it's the nose that leads you to what you want to eat! We were going down the escalator and the smell from someone's hot grill order from Watami hit us! So we walked towards Watami. But we were at Sushi Tei the day before and also had Japanese food the day before that!

So we walked past Watami and we saw the word Guitar Duck at the next shop! Huh? Guitar? We took a second look and decided to try it. It's a Taiwanese food shop called "Lu Gang Xiao Zhen". (another of the Asian Kitchen outfits) It sells the various Taiwanese street foods, but with a comfortable sitting area. We noticed that food was served rather quickly too!

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We grew up eating Mee Suah, so we love anything Mee Suah!
(The Mee Suah we grew up eating did not have the oyster in it!)

Their Taiwan Granny Oyster Mee Suah ($8.90) is a little salty but that's how Mee Suah is suppose to be.
At home we have our Mee Suah uncut ie super long to symbolize longevity, but their Mee Suah is 'short'. Hmm.. probably for easy eating? Sis said the Mee Suah here is ok lah.

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The following is the Tang Hoon Paradize ($7.70)
Also a little salty, but it was nice too. Lots of ingredients in it.
Perfect for those who likes their food a little salty (like Momo!)

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This was the Duck-in-a-Roll. ($6.90)
Sis and Momo seem to love it. I think it's ok lah. So, I think this is more of a ladies' dish.

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Presenting the Guitar Duck! Hey, it does not resemble a guitar at all. We had the small version and the original flavour. ($10.70)

The side that had no bones was really easy to eat. The side that had bones, you need to tackle it a bit.

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I had the Eggy Bowl of Rice. ($5.90) It was served in a tiny bamboo container. Very pretty looking but if only the size of it was larger.



If you were like me wondering where is the egg? It's hidden below!

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Just like any other Taiwan eating places in Singapore, the portions are a little petite.
So we ordered a few more things to try.

We have heard of Chou Tofu (smelly beancurd). But it was the first time we saw Xiang Tofu (fragrant beancurd). So out of curiosity, we ordered it.

It's just crispy skin, soft inside beancurd with some dipping sauce on the side. Not spectacular, but since it's easy to pop in the mouth, you would keep eating it.

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For desserts, we ordered two things to share.
The Mango Sago. The mango is a bit too ripe for my liking.

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I can't remember the name of the next dessert. But it's glutinous rice with lotus paste wrapped in lotus leaf.
While most of the food came very very quickly, this took a really long time to be served. It was steaming hot, so it was probably only prepared when we ordered it.




Yes, it's petite too! But it was nice tasting though.
The ladies loves it. So I shall say it's another ladies dessert. :-p




Lu Gang Xiao Zhen (Asian Kitchen) @ ION Orchard
2 Orchard Turn
#B3-22 ION Orchard
Singapore 238801

Tel: +65 6509 1128