Eat at Taipei @ JCube

A colleague told us about this new Taiwanese eatery when we asked what was nice in JCube. After being tempted by her descriptions, we thought why not go immediately to try it? So off we went in a colleague's MPV to JCube.

For those who is wondering where is JCube, it's the previous Jurong Entertainment Centre that has been demolished and rebuilt. When you get to JCube, Eat at Taipei is located beside the ice skating rink on level 3.


Though the place looks packed, we did not have to wait long to be seated.
We were seated just next to the rink so we got to see people skating while we ate.

When we got seated, we were presented the menu, but were were told quite a few things on the menu is not available yet. It will be available soon. It's a pity we could not try more stuff. It's always more interesting to go out in bigger groups and order more stuff to share (and also split the bill).


One colleague ordered the Oyster Mee Suah. This guy loves oysters and when he saw the above, he was a bit sad. He saw 2 oysters floating above and told us straight away he needs a second lunch. When he put his chopsticks in, he suddenly smiled, he said there were 6 mid size oysters hidden inside! He still wished there were more mee suah though.

I did not take photos of the other dishes that the rest of us ate. Everyone's hungry and I did not want deprive even 5 seconds of their time to fill themselves up. Some of us had the braised pork belly noodles, braised pork rice etc.



This was my Spicy Taiwanese Braised Beef Noodles. ($9.90)

It's not really spicy, probably a light hint only. The beef were not spectacular, but it was still quite nice. It had been braised till it was soft. The daikon too was well braised. The soup does not look thick, but it was flavourful though. It's also not salty, so I could finish all the soup!

Another colleague who had the same too, enjoyed it too and also finished it happily.


This next dish has a very inauspicious name. It's called the Tainan 'Coffin' Toast. ($8.90)
It's a very thick slice of bread that has been fried, the top cut along three sides, part of the bread digged out and filled with seafood in white creamy sauce.

I like the bread but not really what was inside. It's because I personally don't like my bread soggy. But the rest seemed to like it. They love bread soaked with the creamy sauce. The seafood inside were prawns, sotong and fish slices.

Be warned, it can be quite messy! 


This was the Spring Onion Oyster Pancake.

I did not really like it. If you are those who prefer the taiwanese style of 'or chien' with the gooey kind of texture, you will like this. Our colleague who likes the oysters liked it. :-)

We would probably go back again when we could try more things in the menu.

eat at taipei 2 Jurong East Central 1 #03-18, JCube Singapore 609731 Tel: 65 66843032 Hours 12pm – 10pm daily

Jade Garden @ Chevrons Club

The Chevrons. Other than chalets and "eMart" that most people associate it with, do you know there's a nice elegant Chinese Restaurant called Jade Garden located on the 3rd floor?

Jade Garden's opened by a brother and sister team, Chris and Jenny Eng. Jenny has 20 over years of experience in managing restaurant operations and Chris Eng also with 21 years of kitchen experience is the Executive Chef. Together they have come together to come out with a nice team serving good food with good service.



It's not the usual dull Chinese restaurant, Jade Garden joins the club of classy elegant Chiense restaurants. Looks like a place to have business lunches or a cosy family meal. As the restaurant is in the main clubhouse building with a ball room next door, the ceilings here are high and feels airy and welcoming.

They have a no pork and no lard policy here.

Momo and I were here together with Camemberu, hosted by FoodNews, the PR company for Jade Garden. Here's what we ate and what we thought about it:



Deep-Fried Yam Stuffed with Minced Chicken ($3.80 for 3 pieces)
We are used to have the this dish with minced pork, but the minced chicken version was quite good too! I did not know it was not pork until later when I was told.

Fluffy, crispy and light on the outside, and the yam-my sticky and moist texture of the yam with minced chicken filling inside. Can you imagine the crispy sound as you bite into it?




Siew Mai ($4.20 for 4 pieces)

These Siew Mai were also made without pork! The Siew Mais seems to have more prawn bits with some chicken meat. It had the chewy/QQ feel to it, when I like.




Chef Special Combination Platter ($12/pax)
If you like stylist and modern plating of Chinese food, Chef Chris does it beautifully.
This combination platter served was so beautiful. 

One look and we thought that the strip on the plate was balsamic vinegar, but no. It's something more oriental. It's Teriyaki sauce!




The Chilled Crab Salad was the centre of attraction.
It's a refreshing dish to start your meal here. Inside the tomato cavity was chilled crab with some very light dressing. If you like tomatoes, eat it up like I did. If not, I guess you could leave it.




Drunken Chicken.
Momo thinks it's not strong enough for her. She likes her drunken chicken drunken stupor. (I think I married an alcoholic!)

You know 'white chicken' in Singapore has many styles, some have HK hint, some Malaysia hint and some Singapore hint to it. This one taste more Malaysian. (Very hard to describe lah, I think you all know what I mean).

The ginger and scallion sauce and a single wolfberry was used as a garnish. There was jelly fish below too.



Wasabi prawns.
Nicely fried crispy prawns coated with wasabi mayo with a few black sesame seeds.
The mango cubes below gives it a nice slight sweetish and sour taste. Nice combi.




The next dish, a soup was served in this huge big UFO like platter. It was the Braised Shark's Fin with Crabmeat & Dried Scallop in Pumpkin Soup ($18/pax; $45 [small], $68 [medium], $90 [large]) The centre is rather deep, so you get quite a bit of it.



If you do take Sharks Fin, this dish will be interesting to you. Instead of gooey starch that's the usual method of preparation, Chef Chris serves it in a light pumpkin soup! It has the gooey feel, but not as starchy. This east meets west rendition comes out rather well.

I like the pumpkin soup! I wonder for anti-shark people, they can prepare it without the shark for you to try! It's lovely!




Braised Sliced Abalone, Dried Scallop and Vegetables in Tan Jia Sauce ($18/pax)
This dish was interesting too. Abalone that's braised just nice and topped with Tan Jia Sauce. What sauce, I imagine you asking in your head?

Tan Jia is supposedly invented in the time of the ancient emperors. It uses the essence of duck, old hens and dried scallops as its base. Interesting eh?




Cod Fish Baked with Miso and Sauteed Edamame ($14/pax)
We really liked the cod fish baked with miso as it was really soft and tasty. It crumbles into soft sections as you cut through it with your knife. It's cod fish well prepared!

When the food was served, I thought the red thing was minced tuna.
No, it's watermelon that had a hollow cavity, filled with mayo.




Fresh Crab Claw with Japanese Somen ($12/pax)
If you want to wow your guests, order this dish for everyone. It was really tasty and Momo still thinks about this dish and says we should go back and try this again.

It's steamed egg white with ginger, a nice succulent crab claw with silky smooth somen (thin noodles made from wheat flour). The base of the plate is steamed egg that's a similar to chawanmushi but softer. The noodles are nice and the broth that covers it was so addictive.

It no one's around, I would have picked the bowl and poured all the broth into my spoon and not waste a bit of it!





Combination Dessert Platter ($12)
Before we were served this, we saw a table ordering it. We then saw other tables asking the serving staff what the name of the dish? Before you know it, we saw the few tables around us all having it!

You can share if you want, but we know everyone has a hidden stomach somewhere that can fill in desserts. Order one each if your budget allows.



In the 3 shotglass: Mango Pudding, Cold Lemongrass Jelly with Sherbet and Pumpkin Sago with Vanilla Ice Cream. Mixture of sweets with sourish hints.

We tasted the ala carte items above. If you want something planned out for you, set lunches are available from $38++/pax for 6 courses. An Executive Set Lunch for 4 pax is available at $88++ for 6 courses.



Jade Garden
48 Boon Lay Way
The Chevrons
#03-06
Singapore 609961

Tel: + 65 6862 4931

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.

***

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.

***

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!

***

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

Wan Chai Hong Kong Tea Room

On warm nights, you just want to spend your time in shopping centres and have dinner there too.
This was dinner a few nights ago at Wan Chai Hong Kong Tea Room at IMM.


Are you a chicken wing fan? If you are, you might want to try their chicken wings here. The next time you walk pass this store while shopping at IMM, you would notice that most tables order this. The every popular Prawn Paste Chicken (in 3s for $5.50).

This was one very addictive fried chicken!





This was the Wan Chai Special Fried Rice $6.50
Ham slices and asparagus slices.
It comes with a bowl of the daily soup which is very heart (and tummy) warming ;-P




The Spare Ribs with Black Beans rice. $6.20
Not too bad. Comes with their complimentary soup too.




The Minced Pork & Salted Fish $6.20
They might be a bit too generous with the salted fish on the day we ordered it. Unless you likes things very salty, order something else. Comes with a bowl of soup too!




The Teriyaki Beef with Onion and Mushroom. $6.80
The beef was tender and the did I tell you before that I love onions?
Oh yes, also with a bowl of soup. ;-P




The place seems to be very popular. The queue is long but it moves rather quickly. Most people just "sit, eat and go" here. After their quick dinner, it's time to walk around window shopping and enjoying the air-con. The mum/aunties will go grocery shopping at Giant!


Wan Chai Hong Kong Tea Room
2 Jurong East Street 21
#03-51 IMM
Singapore 609601

Tel: 6561 8801

Crystal Jade Dining Place @ IMM

You know us! If there's an occasion to celebrate we will!
This is our Mother's Day lunch treat for our aunt.

We went to IMM, because Aunt said Uncle likes IMM because of the free parking! Parking fees at other places now is horrendous!

We went a bit late at around 1 pm for lunch. By 1 pm on Mother's Day, so many items on the dim sum menu was sold out! Even the BBQ Combination ($27) we had, they ran out of BBQ Pork. So they asked if we could replace it with Roast Chicken instead.

We love nibbling on BBQ Meats. Don't you?




We also had the usual Har Gow and Siu Mai, which we found was not very nice today. The kitchen must be extremely busy I think, not the usual standard of their dim sum dishes today.

Even for the ever popular BBQ Pork Rice Roll ($4.20) we were told will take 20 mins. We said ok, we can eat other things first. (Aha! Now we know where the BBQ Pork went to!)





But we all liked this. The Fried Carrot cake with XO Sauce.  ($6)
Spicy and salty, having one piece is never enough!




We saw on the menu something we did not usually order. Vermicelli with Sliced Duck and Vegetables. ($21). It was very tasty and the vermicelli is not too soft, so there's this bite to it.

Was the duck slices from the Beijing Duck meat that they carved? It was nice.
We should have ordered the bigger portion. ;-p




The Spinach Beancurd with Conpoy and Mushroom. ($14)
Great with rice!





The next dish was even better with rice. This huge pot of Braised Seafood.
All of aunt's favourite stuff is inside! Large pieces of sea cucumber, Mushrooms, Fish Maw, rehydrated Fish Stomach etc.

This was probably the most worth it dish. $32 for all the nice goodies inside.




Wishing all Mums a very Blessed Mother's Day!



Crystal Jade Dining Place
2 Jurong East Street 21
#01-101 IMM Building
Singapore 609601

Tel: 6567 8010

Ajisen @ IMM

1. I was hungry and happened to stand in front of Ajisen.
2. When I think of Ajisen, I think of their 'Pai Ku' (pork ribs)! (Am I weird?)
3. And when I thought of 'Pai Ku',  my legs took control and walked in!


I saw that it is still in the menu and I ordered it!  This is my 'Pai Ku Ramen'. $11
I know it is deep fried and does not look very healthy, but I just like it!
(I think it used to be better?)




This is the Tonpei Yaki $4.80
Sliced pork with egg and shredded cabbage. Very yummy too!




Are you also a pai ku fan?



Ajisen @ IMM
2 Jurong East St 21
#01-113 IMM Building
Singapore 609601

Tel: 6564 5610

Penang Place @ International Business Park

Our dear sis and bro-in-law's back and they will be Singapore for only 3 days. I was on the phone with her in UK last week and she said, local food if possible for all the makans we are going.

This was the first meal they had in Singapore. It was an evening flight and by the time they are out of the airport, it was peak hour. (yes, the dreaded 6.30 jam!) We got home at 7:30 (usually it would be only half an hour) and they quickly took a shower and we are off to meet the other relatives for dinner.

Aunty chose Penang Place because it's nearby and the food's nice too.


It's a buffet and these are some selected few photos of the food we ate. (actually it's what I ate. haha)

Satay, Low Bak, Nasi Lemak with all the various condiments.



Everyone likes the Penang Char Kuey Teow here. This is one of the 'no pork no lard' place, so they don't use lard and yet it still taste really good.

If you are wondering if I arranged the ingredients to make it looks a lot, no I did not. It is as it is. It does have lots of prawns etc...



A few other pickings from the buffet line. Some sambal, fried spring rolls and I think it was sweet and sour fish.



Penang Hokkien Mee. I asked for very little noodles as I was already stuffed from eating other stuff.



Penang Assam Laksa.



There's also fruit rojak that you can mix yourself.
I had two bowls of Chendol and also some Nyonya kuehs. Don't they look so colorful? :-)



If you look at their website here, you can see they have lots of dishes. It says they serve 30 of them daily.

Sis and Bro in law was satisfied :-)
It seems we only come here when we have people visiting!



Penang Place
6 International Business Park (off Boon Lay Way)
#01-05 Atrium
Singapore 609918

Hours: Lunch: 11.30am to 2.00pm, Dinner: 6.30pm to 9.00pm, Closed on Sunday
Web: http://www.penangplace.com/


You can click on the Labels below if you want to see my previous visit here.

Burger King @ IMM

This was last night's dinner. Sis and I rushed to IMM from our home because we needed to get something before the shops closes.

We got up the cab and cab driver asked which way, as usual we say to the driver: "You know best, you choose the route". Most cab drivers will go another way, and when this driver took another route, sis and I look at each other, (as if we go could communicate via the eye,) thinking this is another of those bring you round the island scammer. But we were so so wrong!

The driver's route through Bukit Batok is actually one dollar cheaper than the usual route! When sis and I got down, we said, we thought it's going to be a longer route, but this driver is one who really knows the route around. We were so wrong in judging people so early.

We were hungry and did not have much time, so we ate at Burger King. I think we said Hungry Jack's. (Hungry Jack's the name they used for BK in Australia.) It's been a long time since we had BK because BK's student's food while studying long long ago. Our minds seems to have been wired to avoid it since we came back from Aust.

I saw that there's a new burger. Spicy Tendercrisp. Sounds delicious so I ordered it.
Pardon the chilli sauce on the tray liner, do you all do that too? lol..



The burger...



The bun looks like a peach right? With the line in the middle!



After taking a few bites, I thought I should photographed it. lol
It's juicy right? (or juice plus oil haha)



Sis wanted the Whopper. But when I ordered it they said Whopper's run out! "Wah. Can run out one ah?" So I ordered the Whopper Jr for her instead.



Why do burgers look better on photos than they really taste? LOL...



Have a great weekend!