Arkadas Cafe @ Fusionopolis

My colleagues and I felt bored eating at our regular lunch place and someone suggested something more exotic. Someone suggested trying out Turkish food at Fusionopolis. We thought why not? So we took the Circle Line train to Fusionopolis station.

We were glad we came early just before 12 noon. It was because to our surprise, this Turkish food cafe was so popular. There was about two big groups of people, probably some research group from A*Star having their lunch.  The other tables were also quite occupied. (This place is not very big by the way.)


One colleague who had been to Turkey ordered this Turkish Tea $2 to start her meal.
I did not try it, so I did not know how it taste. I should have ordered one too!


We shared a Houmus with Pita Bread ($6.50)
The houmus made was nice, in fact, as we ate it, we seemed to enjoy it even more. We wiped it clean! (We noticed the spelling was houmus, probably the Turkish spelling of hummus.)


The pita bread that comes with it was not what we usually expect when we see pita bread.
It was a thick roll of bread instead of flat pita we usually see. It was served warm too. Somehow it went so well with the houmus. We literally keep pinching bits of it to scoop up the houmus.


As usual, we have a colleague who will flip and flip the menu deciding what to eat. The menu was only a thick piece of paper folded in two, so there was not much to flip anyway. (I am sure you have colleagues like this or this might be you!)


So he finally decided to have the Set Lunch. There was two sets and he went for Set A ($10).

Set A consists of Doner Chicken Kebab & Butter Rice, Green Salad and Soup of the Day.
It was Mushroom soup that day, which our picky colleague smiled when he tasted it.


The kebab did look quite appetizing and smell very good too. The portion of meat was good too. If you are expecting more greens, well the above was what you will get. It comes with a good portion of rice too.


I ordered something called the Musakka ($10) because it had such an exotic name.
The description of this dish on the menu was Minced beef tossed with green capsicum and tomatoes.

It was a bit like baked rice. Minced beef at the bottom, then aubergines over the minced beef and there was big red chillies (which I think was their capsicum, though it's red instead of green) and tomatoes topped with cheese.

As I have not tasted it before, I could not imagine the taste. It's something that you will grow to like if you are an aubergine person. I know this is not what KopiKosongGirl will eat.


My order comes with either rice or bread. I chose the rice. (like the one in the set meal).
The rice was fluffy and it tasted quite nice. I actually ate the rice on its own. If only the bowl of rice was bigger. I had the Musakka on its own ;-)



The two other colleagues ordered the same thing.
Both of them had the Adana Kebab ($14) which was a mix of lamb and beef.

The two orders came at separate timing. We initially wondered if they missed out one order. Then we realised that one smell better and the kebab looking more juicier than the other. The first one looked dryer and the other one looked both juicier and oilier. We were speculating the two chefs each had their own version of the same dish.

Both of them had their meat with rice too. (instead of bread).



We decided to try their dessert as well. This was the cream caramel ($4).
It was a cold dessert, but we think the one we had the caramel might have been a bit burnt. It had a slight bitter taste of burnt caramel. We still finished it all though because it was a nice cold dessert.


The food's different from our usual meals. The set meal seems like a good deal. There seems to be a crowd too. Not sure if it's like that all the time, it does seem to be popular. We will probably be back to try the other dishes. I liked their version of Pita bread and houmus.

On the menu, it says presented by Chef Mustafa and Chef Ismail. A quick check online shows that Chef Mustafa Gungar worked 22 years in Singapore's Turkish embassy as the personal chef to eight ambassadors.

Arkadas Cafe 1 Fusionopolis Way Connexis Tower #03-02 Singapore 138632 Tel: +65 6466 9918 Web: http://www.arkadascafe.sg

Penang Place Restaurant @ Connexis, Fusionopolis

Colleagues and I were discussing about what to have for lunch and someone mentioned Penang Place. A colleague who passed Fusionopolis on the way home daily said it has opened. I also remember seeing a flyer at my in laws place a few days before saying it has moved there.

We all decided to go and hop into colleague's MPV. We went on a Tuesday and realise it's their 2nd day of operations at Fusionopolis! There was so many people there! I guess it's because there's an opening special at $20.90++



First glance when we walked down Basement 1. It looked like their former branch at International Business Park! The familiar green neon lights!




Get to Connexis and head down to the basement 1 beside the Food Court. That's where it's now located.

We were particularly hungry that day and the food here looked so good. So here's a bombardment of photos for today's post!




The dish that they are famous for! No pork or lard in their Penang CKT, but it still taste fabulous!
They cook in moderate portions / batches and load it on the buffet serving tray. It keeps running out. You know how typical Singapore eaters are. They replenish it quite quickly though. When folks see the person carrying the fresh CKT out, they all make their way to the buffet table!

I love it because there's so much cockles! Everyone on our table of 6 enjoyed it!  All of us took more than 1 serving I think! I had 3! It had the wonderful wok hei smell and it's still hot! A must try here!





Their beef rendang is also a must try. The piece that I took thankfully was not hard, but rather tender. A tad salty though, but it tasted wonderful. I would have taken more pieces but I know there's so much things to eat, so I better save my stomach to try other stuff!




Their curry chicken here is another favourite. Another item that seems to run out very fast at the buffet table! (But quickly replenished) Dip the thick curry in the sliced baguette and it's heavenly!




I think this was sweet and sour prawns. Nice unique sweetish and a tad sour taste and it's quite appetizing. It's with black sauce, so it's a bit more on the sweet side.




The fried spring rolls were only so so, but we later found out why everyone of us took it! It's because there's a scissors by the side!

Why? When we were queuing up, we noticed the person in front of us cutting the spring roles with the scissors. All of us wanted to play 'masak masak'. We all wanted to act like hawkers selling the fried popiah! We all wanted to cut the popiah with the scissors! We all had a good laugh talking about it. That's one fun part of buffet lines right? We can role play!




The Hokkien noodles! The taste was OK to most of us. Again, on the sweetish side. I guess it's the Penang style.



I don't really like yellow noodles, so I requested for only bee hoon.  We did notice, we thought it was only OK, but after a few mouths, our tongue seem to like it and most of us finished up the soup although we said it was sweet!




The fruit rojak is still there. It has been a popular DIY at Penang Place since their International Business Park days!

Another dish that we can all pretend to play 'masak masak'. If you are observant, you notice people actually enjoy mixing things up! Some look so 'pro', while others looked really silly!




The crispy fried chicken was another hot item! Another item that disappears rather quickly!
So keep a look out if you are a fried chicken fan. For the fried chicken I think previously when it was at International Business Park, it was nicer.




Fried Ngo Hiong. Since they don't serve pork here, these are made from chicken meat chunks.
Quite nice!




One colleague's plate. Looks like he is going the healthy path!




This is a must try when you are here. The Penang Laksa!

I realise many people skip the 'hae kor' when they ask for Penang Laksa at the manned noodles counter. The hae kor is what makes it Penang Laksa!

There's not as much shredded mackerel, but the gravy was great! I wonder if it was because when I queued for it, the gravy container was running out and about to be replenished.




The soup really has a good 'kick'! It was sourish and yet spicy and sweet. I literally felt light headed after drinking the laksa gravy! It's very addictive. I almost finish up all the gravy! I love the smell of bunga kantan (torch ginger bud / ginger flower) that's inside. It made the dish so fragrant!

But it's not for everyone, one colleague saw some of us take it and we were saying it was so spicy etc. She got scared! Another colleague had a wet dripping sweaty head right after the first mouth! It's one of those who take spicy food and break into sweat!

One really shiok food here!




The bubor chacha here's colourful!
The perfect dessert to cool down after a fiery penang laksa dish!




Here's something that caught our eyes! No, they are not chicken nuggets!



It's Cempedak Goreng! Fried Cempedak. For those who can take the smell, eat it, it's so yummy!
After deep frying, the flesh was so soft and smooth inside. The outer crust was so crunchy and crispy. It was delicious! I have not had this for ages!

Don't eat too much of it! It's supposedly very heaty!



I always like their 'kuih muih' here. It's so colourful and taste great! I got this habit of eating everything with the delicious kaya that they have!




We realise now at Fusionopolis, their desserts selection seems to have expanded!
They have a fridge that you can self service and it's full of cut fruits, Guilin Gao and Mango Pudding!




One of my favourite and I always make myself a bowl when I am here. Chendol!

It was such a full meal. Most of us did not managed to try every item. Eg, the 'Kiam Hoo" soup. We were hungry, but our stomach can't fill everything in! We were bursting! Sigh age has caught up, we used to be able to eat much more and still feel hungry!



Penang Place Restaurant
1 Fusionopolis Way,
Connexis #B1-20/24
Singapore 138632

Tel: 6467 7003 / 6467 7008
Web: www.penangplace.com

Shin Nichi Japanese Restaurant @ Fusionopolis

It was a colleague's birthday and it's currently a very busy time at work, so we went somewhere near to celebrate his birthday. He suggested two places and this happened to be one of it.

The last time we came here was in August 2009! It's about a year ago! This place is still surviving.
But it recently appeared in the newspaper (replicated here at CNA's forum) saying this place is still a ghost town. It is! But on the day we ate here, it has a decent crowd. We saw there were offers, but the offers were only valid for dinner and weekends ;-(

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I can't remember who ate what, I did not manage to take photo of everyone's lunch, so here are some selected shots.

The Corn Ramen.

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This looks like spicy chicken ramen.

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The ramen was a set and it came with a dessert, this was some dessicated coconut mochi.

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And it also had sushi as sides as well.

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I had the Beef Set. It was all right. I think I prefer Korean style rather than Japanese style.
I think I have been eating too much Korean recently! haha

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The shared items, we had a cute caterpillar sushi.

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And also a soft shell crab salad. I think the salad's kinda nice!
I like the salad more than the caterpillar above! :-)




Food here OK lah. After reading the newspaper article, maybe we should 'support' them a bit. Maybe when they are less stress about getting customers, food will be even better. 


Shin Nichi Japanese Restaurant @ Fusionopolis
1 Fusionopolis Way
#02-20/21 Symbiosis
Singapore 138632

Tel: 6466 3511

Shin Nichi Japanese Restaurant @ Fusionopolis

Every now and then, colleagues and I get bored with canteen food. Someone suggested go somewhere else to eat and everyone readily agreed. :-)

Our legs brought us to Fusionopolis. We walked down to the basement food court and all of us decided, no. The food reminds us of food at our canteen. *yawn*

So we went upstairs instead. We have not been here for sometime and we noticed a new Japanese eatery. So we walked in.



The service staff seated us rather quickly and we placed our order. We were taking a long time to order because we did not know what to eat. We were like waiting for the food to call our name, order us, order us. LOL...

We finally ordered and we also had a bowl of Edamame to share. Warm soya bean and salt always taste so good eh?



Ms JSFR had the Sushi Set. You can see that there's 9 pieces of sushi. She said it was not bad.



If you are wondering what comes with the set, there's this side dish. Carrots, lotus root and mushroom stew. It's quite nice. (this photo belongs to my set below, its the same side dish as the one above) It also comes with a slice of watermelon.



Wire ordered his usual stuff. We could already guess what he was ordering.
The Sansai Udon. He always have it with udon.



Old Cat and Puk had the Char Siew Ramen.
They saw the menu stating its full of collagen and its good for skin. LOL..
Old Cat opted to make is ramen into a set. So he had a dessert and 3 pieces of sushi added. (he later said he should not have opted for the $3 upgrade. ;-p )



I had the Saba Set. I realise I have been having Saba fish when I eat at Japanese places. Hmm why ah?

The set comes with rice and the side dish shown above and a watermelon. ;-)



If you are wondering about the pricing, we realise there's no GST.
There's a 10% service tax added to the following prices. Char Siew Ramen $12.80, Edamame $3.50, Sansai Udon $9, Saba Set $12.80, Sushi Set $13.80.


Shin Nichi Japanese Restaurant @ Fusionopolis
1 Fusionopolis Way
#02-20/21 Symbiosis
Singapore 138632

Tel: 6466 3511

Koryo (Korean) Restaurant @ Fusionopolis

Colleagues and I were wondering what to have for lunch. We wanted to have Indian food, because two lunch buddies who don't really fancy Indian food's on leave.

We thought there's a new Khansama that's opened in Fusionopolis, but we seem to have made a mistake, so we ended up having Korean food instead.

Fusionopolis is so empty! On our way there, all the employees with their A*Star cards seems to be walking out of the building. We are the only people going in! LOL




Anyway, we ordered our food and the Korean side dishes came out.
Here's the peanuts in sweetish soy sauce. It's quite delicious.



The cabbage kimchi.



The cucumber kimchi. I like the crunchiness of it.



The bean sprouts. We had refills of all the above. We finished them up before our mains came!



"Old Cat" and the former "Ms Preggy" had the Beef Soup.
They said the soup's tasty, just a tiny bit spicy, beef's ok, but the vege inside is not nice. LOL..



The rice in stainless steel bowls that came with it.



Dpuk had the Spicy Chicken Bap. Quite fragrant too.



Wire and myself, we had the Beef Bap. The beef's not too bad. I like it with the kimchi side dishes.

We find the rice floating on the soupy base quite 'interesting'. ;-)



Wire wanted something spicy and fiery. So we decided to share a piping hot bowl of kimchi soup. It's sour and spicy. Nice..... Really nice....



Not only that, there's lots of the 3-layer pork like this inside too....



When we finished everything, they gave us this sweet soup thingy. We were all wondering what it is. Dpuk mentioned that is looks like water that you get after rinsing rice. haha...

We came back and did an online search. He's almost correct. This is ShikHye, a sweet rice drink. This is the simplest version. You can do an online search and find more elaborate versions of it.



A not too bad discovery. Everything above with taxes added in was $75.33. So split it amongst the 5 of us, it was $15 each.

Think they only opened this month.

Koryo (Korean) Restaurant
1 Fusionopolis Way
#02-10
Singapore 138632

Tel: 6469 1079
Hours: 11 am - 9 pm