Omakase Burger @ The Grandstand

The wife and I love burgers and when we hear that there's a new place for burgers, we will find some time to go try it.

We heard that "Omakase Burger" that's located at The Grandstand (previous Turf City) has opened so we thought we would give it a try. Since it's located not too far from my in-law's place, we asked them along too!



We were there around 12:15 pm and the place was not as packed as we thought it would be.



The menu that was at the entrance. Yes, it's the higher priced gourmet burgers.
You can click on the photo above to see the full version, or you can visit Omasake's website to see the menu too.



After placing our orders, we got this buzzer that's getting popular everywhere!

It's self service here.
We were told to collect our drinks after we order at the food and drinks collection counter.
You collect your meal at the counter again when the buzzer vibrates.



We had all our meals 'upgraded' to a full meal, i.e. with drinks and fries. Some drinks and fries have different prices, so you top up accordingly.

The coke here comes served in the glass bottles. For those who can taste the difference between canned and bottled version, you will be glad. The less metallic tasting coke. ;-)

They used the double wall insulated glasses. We have quite a few of these glasses at home, so we know it does keeps the drinks cold for a long time. Don' think they are Bodum ones, usually Bodum ones have Bodum brand printed below it. This was some unfamiliar name, but it works. (yes, the geek in me again).

I do hope people don't break the glasses, expensive to replace!



FIL and MIL has the coffee and they say it's quite decent.

A note though: The food takes a long time to arrive, so either you finish your coffee while it's hot, or you probably need to order another one after your meal arrives.



I had the Omakase Chicken Sandwich with Truffle Fries.



It's a piece of fried chicken that was really oily though.

I wonder why the chicken sandwich has to 'wrapper' like the rest of the beef burgers we ordered, so my fingers were really oily after holding up the burger.



Since we had 4 people having lunch, we ordered 4 different kinds of fries.
The truffle fries are good. The fries were hot and crispy, but if there's more truffle oil it would be nicer.

Oh yes, the fries comes served in a Bodum glass.



MIL has the Bacon Cheeseburger with normal french fries.

Normal french fries was normal. :-)
We wondered how the onion rings would be like, we could have ordered that instead.



While we thought the chicken sandwich were not nice, the beef burgers were excellent. You have a bite and you would come back again.

If we order anything with a slice of bacon for MIL, she would be very happy with her food.



FIL had the Omasake Cheeseburger. We ordered it with Sweet Potato Fries.
Oh, these Sweet Potato Fries were excellent. They were sweet and had a nice bite to it. Something that you can munch piece after piece after piece.



There's nothing Omasake about it. LOL....
The ingredients were all described. The special thing is the Omasake sauce it seems. The wife says maybe they should always put a secret different ingredient in it, that would make it more fun.

Dad loved the burger. All the burgers were done a very nice 'medium' doneness.



The wife ordered the Deluxe Cheeseburger with Cheese Fries.

Oh, these cheese fries were so nice. Just like the sweet potato fries, we would keep picking more and more to indulge.



The Deluxe Cheeseburger had grilled onions and mushrooms. The wife ordered it because she loves mushroom. She asked if I wanted to have a bite and I said yes, and ended up with 3 bites!

Compared to my chicken burger, this cheeseburger were so much better. Both of us thought it was really juicy. A bite into it and it's minced meat just crumbles in your mouth. There's no hint of dryness in it. Together with the cheese, tomato slice, onions and mushrooms, it was full of flavour. The few leaves of lettuce gave it a slight crunch as you bite into it.

Oh yes, the buns were really soft and had a nice aroma to it.
Something that we will be back for!




Above, our fried veggies! (potatoes are vegetables right?)
Different style of fried veggies. Our favourite, cheese and sweet potato fries.

Below, our fresh veggies!



MIL says we need veggies, so here's the House Salad, full portion for us to share.
We had it with Sesame Soy which was quite nice.



Oh... when I was picking up the drinks, we realised we should have ordered the fresh orange juice.
I call this the 'Holiday Inn' orange juicer. I see them in Holiday Inns when I travel. You drop oranges on top and it will automatically cut and press the juice out.



The damage. The receipt is to show that you will have to wait some time for your food.
Arrive around 12:15pm, orders taken at 12:21 pm.
Still new, so they will take some time to take your order and you pay for it at 12:27 pm.


Our buzzer vibrated at 12:49 pm.
So it's not a fast food place. It was a 20 minute wait, we were with parents to catch up, so time passes rather quickly. As we were leaving, the place was so packed and we saw a foodie friend from HGW. He said he was told the wait time was around 40 mins.

We might be back to try the Oven Baked Parmesan Chicken that we heard from another friend who says it's good. Hmm, the Omasake Chicken was quite disappointing so should I try that chicken again? The beef burgers were all superb!

We like this new burger place in our neighbourhood.

Omasake Burger
200 Turf Club Road
#01-05 The Grandstand
Singapore 287994

Tel: +65 6763 2698
Hours: 11 am to 10 pm daily

Picotin @ Horse City (Turf Club Road)

This was lunch yesterday at Picotin. We were looking for place to have lunch and did a quick online search. Going through the list of places to eat, we settled for Picotin because:
- it's near both Momo and my home.
- inspired by Momo's version of Beef Bourguignon that's listed on their menu.
- we've never been there before!
- it's one of the chef in black Emmanuel Stroobant's restaurants
- reviews on HGW range from bad to good, so who shall we believe? try it ourselves!

***

getting there

We took a cab there thinking this place was somewhere deep inside Turf City. We were wrong, in only a few minutes, we were there. It's very near to Bukit Timah Road. You can even take a bus and stop along Bukit Timah Road and walk around 8 minutes to 100 Turf Club Road.

***

hot or cold it's up to you

Looking at the photo above and the following photo, can you feel that it's really care free and so different from the usual restaurants? You can opt to sit indoor in air-conditioning if you want. We chose to sit outside because it's brighter and the weather was good that day. Also, it had lots of ceiling fans.

Our serving staff was wonderful. The one serving us was quite knowledgeable as well! We talked about Bourguignon de boeuf and she does know her stuff. She told us there's movies night here too. Haha.. Sorry, not interested at the moment, just interested in the food. :-)

***

horsing around

Since they are situated in Horse City, they are horsing around! Looks at the menu!

Mains in Picotin is Manes. Pizza is Thoroughbreads.

It's a good thing they don't name dishes after horses names! Imagine "Midlife Crisis", "Juwel", "Moonsoon break" in the menu. (By the way, these are real names of horses that compete in the Singapore Turf Club.)

***

bread / pain

We were served two different bread to start to saliva flowing. While nibbling it, we were reminded of Gippsland (Victoria, Australia)! Why? Every now and then, there's this whiff of "country side smell".

Probably it was also because the other diners had blonde or red hair. Most probably expatriate housewives having lunch. We peeked, they were having their usual big bowls of salads.

We saw cute little rabbits next door too! We saw a little blond hair kid playing with rabbits! Both the rabbits and the little girls were adorable :-)

***

snails / escargot

We shared 6 baked snails $15 as a starter to go with the bread. The ones served here were without shells on, so it was rather easy to eat. It also means there won't be any "Pretty Women / Julia Roberts" flying snail scene!

Buttery chewy goodness!

***

beef / boeuf

I knew what I wanted to eat here before arriving. It's a nice coincidence that Bourguignon de boeuf ($28) was listed on the right at the top right corner of the menu. It's like a confirmation that I was meant to eat this here!

Taste wise, it is quite good. (Momo smiled and look at me asked, whose version is nicer? Of course you know my answer if you want to live peacefully ever after.) But she did say her presentation was not as nice as the ones here. So she's taking notes! Save some of the mushroom, carrots when cooking the dish. Cook it separately for nice garnishing.

It was a lovely huge chunk of soft and tender of moo moo meat that has been cooked in Pinot Noir for a few hours. You can easily separate the moo moo meat with your fork and knife. I think the mini carrot touch was nice. I love the real bacon bits on top. The mash was quite all right too.

The little complain I have is that the gravy was a bit too heavy on sodium to me. (Yes, I say that all the time for most places, so if you are salt lovers, it's just nice for you.)

*** 

pork / porc

Momo's Roast Pork Tenderloin ($15). We were told that the pork might be slightly pink and if were are ok with that. We said sure. When it was served, there was nothing to worry about. It was perfectly cooked (to us anyway). There was a nice pink hint on it.

It was not tough as well, so those who wears teeth braces can eat it. Momo's description of it was "tenderly roasted to perfection".

It was served with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, french beans and the medallion looking thing on top was something that tasted like stuffing from roast turkey.




It's a nice place to have lunch. It's really carefree and there's not much crowd. (on a weekday at least).
If you worry about the heat, sit indoors with the air conditioning. If you want to take photo of food, bear with the heat and sit outside.

We paid $81.25 in total with service charge and GST.


Picotin
100 Turf Club Road
Singapore 287992

Tel: 6877 1191

Curry Gardenn @ Turf City

Colleagues and I went to Turf City for lunch. After following one colleague to settle some matters there, we thought of lunch and remembered the Indian food place opened by the IT Guy that we have not ate for a long long time.

Ya, the Curry Gardenn, spelt with double N.



We started by having a Tiger.
No, just icy cold lime juice in a Tiger mug. The menu says it is Indian Lime Juice. But it taste like the usual lime juice to us. Simple and refreshing.



We did not fell like having the Curry Fish Head which was the stuff we used to eat here. Don't know why? Maybe the 4 guys have PMS? LOL..

We had Nasi Briyani. One colleague said they might have improved on their rice. It tasted better this time.



We had a Rohan Gosh, (red mutton or mutton stewish curry).
Of all the meat stuff we ordered, this was so tender and delicious. Just a subtle hint of mutton. I usually don't like mutton. It's just a little small for 4 guys. ;-p



We had the Chicken Masala Special. Not too bad.



We had two vegetable dishes.
The first is Spinach. 4 guys pretending they are Popeye so eating Popeye's veggie.



This is Bendi Masala (Ladies Finger). I love this kind of gooey curry vegetable dishes.
What are we thinking? First Strong Man Veg, then Ladies Fingers. (Don't laugh!)



Half way through our meal, it poured! So when we finished our meal, it was still raining.
So to kill time, we ordered the light and crispy Roti Tissue.

Don't you love roti tissue? Crispy thin prata with sugar and condensed milk.
Notice my colleague? He was holding a piece of tissue paper! Ya, because I was taking photo of Roti Tissue. Roll your eyes.. Go ahead....




Nice place to have nice Indian food and not too expensive as well. This place is quite packed too.

Curry Gardenn
200 Turf Club Rd,
01-58
Singapore 287994

Tel: 63144640, Mobile : 96942093
Hours: 8:00 am - 8.30 pm
Web: www.currygardenn.com

Curry Gardenn @ Turf City

On Tuesday this week, we realized so many of our colleagues were on leave. 'Wire' our colleague noticed something else, all the anti-Indian food colleagues are all on leave! That leaves us, all the Indian food lovers a chance to hunt for some delicious Indian food.

So, he suggested that we should all go try this Indian food place at Turf City. It was only 4 of us, so we hailed a cab to Turf City.

We ate at Curry Gardenn (yes, double n). This place is actually opened by an IT guy! Yes, the boss Mr Udaya Kumar is a .Net programmer! But he leave the running of the business to his brother Ravi.



While we sat down and waited for our food, papa dams were served. If you are wondering, it's free flow. ;-)



The masala chicken that we had. It's also their signature dish. Delicious.



The spinach. Take your veg guys.



And the chick peas. This is quite yummy!



With our beautiful super long grain rice! The portion of rice is a bit small, so you might need seconds.



The main reason we are here. For the fish head! Curry Gardenn's signature dish.

The fish head is cooked without coconut milk, so it might taste a bit different from the usual fish head. No MSG added too. The fish head is only cooked when you order it, so you got to wait. Our wait was around 20 mins wait. By the time it came, we already finished whatever is shown above. LOL

The fish head comes bubbling hot in the claypot. See the steam! If you notice, you can see the curry bubbling too. :-)



It's a whole fish head. The curry is on the sweetish side. Today's fish had some slight fishy smell though. Wire said it is usually better on other days.

But is sure was tasty though. We finish every single bit of it. Even the gravy was not spared. LOL...




While we were eating our food, the next table had 4 angmoh kids eating Roti Tisu. It was so huge and tempting that when we finished our food, we ordered one to try too. We enjoyed it as much as the kids did too.

That's Ravi at the cash register. ;-)



Another satisfying Indian lunch. All of the above, rice at 6 portions, plus 4 drinks cost $46.
Think the fish head is $16.


Curry Gardenn
200 Turf Club Road
#01-58 Turf City
Singapore 287994