Honeymoon Dessert @ VivoCity

Two of our colleagues went over to Vivocity to shop during lunch time and came back with desserts for all of us!

They were so kind not to eat there, but buy them back so that we could have it as well!
Here are two takeaway containers of the dessert that my colleague and I who share an office had:

* Mango Pomelo and Sago Sweet Soup *

The pomelo was packed separately in a smaller container. The takeaway container was in a good portion size.




It was nice. The mango as you can see is a bit over ripe. (Is this the usual HK style to have it a bit ripe? I had something similar in HK a few months back and it's also over riped mangoes)

The texture is nice and smooth. It's rather creamy but with the sago, pomelo and mango chunk size, it was quite a delight to put in your mouth.

* I can't remember what this is called *

It's been some time and I forgot what this was called!



All I remembered that it was cold and nice bite with the little tadpoles in it.
I think the white pieces were tofu!



Honeymoon Dessert
1 Harbourfront Walk
#01-93 VivoCity
Singapore 098585

Tel: 6376 8027

600 calories or less meal: Laksania Express @ Vivocity

This was an invited food tasting session courtesy of the Singapore Health Promotion Board. 

Here's Destination No. 2:
Laksania Express at VivoCity.

If you ask me have I heard of Laksania? I have not until this invited food tasting by HPB. The other 3 food bloggers who was with me, le keju, lembu lapar and 1/2 blog makan also thought they were quite good.



I just did an online search on Laksania and realise it's part of the Secret Recipe 'empire'.
I also read that they help people who are usually shun by most people an opportunity to work. They hire mentally ill from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) to work in their central kitchen.



So many kinds of laksa they have here. Did I just see Laksa Chicken Rice on the menu?
I wonder how the Myanmar Laksa taste too!




Anyway, those are not the lower calorie (less than 600 calories) meals that we were suppose to taste.
We were there to taste the Special Laksa ($4.20)

We were met by Ms Josephine Tan from Laksania. She's such a chirpy happy lady! We asked her how they did it? They did not skimp on the dried shrimps or other spices needed to prepare the gravy. They have been doing research and experimented with different kinds of coconut milk alternatives. Evaporated milk and other alternatives did not go well with many taste buds during taste tests. In the end they settled on UHT Milk. We did not ask how many percentage of fat content in the milk they used or brand. :-)

The noodles used were also different. The rice noodles had 10% of brown rice content. Healthier choice. 



We were surprised when we saw the laksa. It's quite a big bowl! The soup spoon's there for a purpose. ;-)

Can it really be only 600 calories? I asked the Health Promotion Board folks, how can I be sure it is 600 calories? They said, HPB collaborates with them and helps them count the calories.

Do you know a normal bowl of laksa this size usually has about 900 calories?
By shaving off 300 calories, it's like a 5 km run?



The above was the 'sampling size' bowl of laksa we had. HPB nutritionists' counting on the go! We were to take meals from 5 places. By giving smaller servings, we can keep to our 1800(F)/2200(M) calories requirements.

We were there for taste test, so we asked for the normal version of the same laksa. The original version with coconut milk was thicker and the laksa gravy was creamier. But comparing the two, the healthier alternative is quite promising.

I really liked the bowl of laksa. I rather eat this than other healthier alternatives. I get more satisfaction from these calories. Cockles lovers take note, this lower calorie version has no cockles ;-)


Laksania Express
VivoCity Basement 2 Kopitiam
1 Harbourfront Walk
#02-117
Singapore 098585


Note: The healthier version I was told is currently only available at the Vivocity branch.

600 calories or less meal: Swensen's

This was an invited food tasting session courtesy of the Singapore Health Promotion Board.


Has the Health Promotion Board folks been counting my calorie intake? They probably are. What makes me think so, you might be asking. Well.....

I got an email recently to join the Health Promotion Board Corporate Communication folks and 2 of their nutritionists for a food tour to 5 different eating places. They are on a mission to educate me, (and probably all you readers too) that lower calorie food can taste good too! I did a short post here few days ago.

Here's our quests for 600 or less calorie meals.

Here's Destination No. 1:

Earle Swensen's at VivoCity.



Swensen's has introduce this low calorie dish that is healthy and yet tasty.
This is their Grilled Cod Fish with Wild Rice set. ($25.90 with a choice of freshly brewed coffee or tea)

They had mixed the white rice with black glutinous rice (pulut hitam). (At home we mix white rice with brown rice, but I had never tried white rice with black glutinous rice before. This combination does taste good.)

The whole dish had a very clean clear look. It does look plain, but what they have done is to make the clear broth very tasty. So this dish tasted rather delicious.



The cod had been grilled so less oil was used. Cod's already an oily fish.
Can you believe the dish above together a cup of coffee or tea was about 600 calories only?

Most guys need about 2200 calories a day and ladies 1800 calories. So 600 is just about nice for 1 out of the 3 meals you eat a day. For the guys, if you divide 2200 by 3, you get 733. So that entitles you to try the following low calorie ice cream!



One scoop of ice cream is usually about 300 calories. Swensen's has come out with a slightly lower calorie ice cream that still tasted ok! The above are the 200 calories ice cream. I personally liked the chocolate better than the vanilla or strawberry. ;-)

The 200 calories a scoop ice cream only comes in 3 flavours, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.

*** Christmas Commercial Break ***

The Swensen's folks decided to let us try their Christmas Log cake.
The HPB nutritionists were around! Oh Oh.. How? Can we try it?



The HPB Corp Comm folks are the nicest folks around. They agreed but stressed that we must emphasize that this is not part of the low calorie diet. This is a special treat for Christmas ok?

The log cake is called the Chendol Jubilee.
Calories unknown, but price that I saw on the way out on the fridge counter was $52.45 with GST.



Frozen chendol and palm sugar. What an indulgence. It was good!

Since all of us was in the company of the HPB folks, we behaved and showed some restraint. Most of us did not touch the fresh cream layer that surrounded the cake. *laugh at us if you want*


The Grilled Cod Fish with Wild Rice is available for Dine In only at all Swensen's till 31 December 2010. This set does not includes the Buffet Salad Bar.


Earle Swensen's
VivoCity
1 Harbourfront Walk
#02-117
Singapore 098585

Tel: 6272 3306
Hours: 10.30 am to 10.30 pm

Crystal Jade Dining In @ VivoCity

It has been a long long time since we ate at CJ Dining In. Our aunt said we should revisit the place. She calls it the place that I treated her with double chopsticks. haha. But when we got there, we realised that they have done away with the double chopsticks.

There's always an excuse or occasion to eat in Singapore. Today's 'excuse' was a 'pre-birthday dinner' dinner. We were going to treat uncle to a birthday dinner the next day, but uncle and aunty said, they will treat us the day before first. Sounds complicated?

Anyway, there were 6 of us and we had the following dishes.

*** Crispy Roast Pork Belly ***

Babitarians (i.e. people who love pork) will love this. The cut of meat served was just nice that night! It's not too fatty, just fatty enough so it does not taste 'dry'. It's served with yellow mustard. The 'electric shock' that you get from the mustard makes it enjoyable. A piece of layered crispy pork that's lightly salted with mustard that sends a gentle shock through the nostrils was like a little pleasure. $9

*** Sauteed Beef with Mushrooms ***

The basket of sauteed beef and mushroom was quite nice too. The beef was tender but I love the mushrooms more. I am a mushroom person. The mushrooms have sucked up all the beef essence and seasoning, so it was nicer to eat the mushrooms?  $27

*** Bean Curd with assorted mushrooms and spinach ***

The service staff came to us halfway through our meal and said the portions of the home made toufu is running out. Aunt and the lady muttered something in Cantonese and "tada", this was what came out. All of us liked it. Their tofu was great and the spinach was the young spinach so it was really tender and tasted very nice. $18

*** Steamed Chicken ***

Somehow we all really liked this steamed chicken. The difference from the usual 'white chicken' is that this was served hot. It came out steaming hot. I can't really capture the steam, but it being hot was a nice change. We were told these are 'Gui Fei Ji'. Chicken with very little fat and firm meat. What is "Gui Fei Ji"?

I can't remember how it was ordered but on the receipt it says: S.Chkn/Mar.conpoy(H). How do you decipher that? $16

*** Seafood E-Fu noodles ***

The E-fu noodles that we used a 'shou mian' (birthday noodles). Lots of seafood on it. E-Fu noodles always taste good doesn't it? $19

*** Special Fried Rice with Conpoy Scallops ***

The fried rice was nice, but I personally preferred the 'noodle carbo' compared to the 'rice carbo'. We realised every thing was very scallopy! But the scallops always happen to end up in the same person's bowl, which is our cousins! $18

*** Green Wrasse 2 Way ***

This was an interesting dish. The fish - green wrasse was cooked in two ways.
Half the fish was stir fried with vegetables. It's taste good and really fragrant but it was a little too salty.



The other half was deep fried and this version is nicer! The fish was $50.

*** Red Bean Pudding ***

We were quite full with all the food, but we still ordered some dessert to share. The red bean pudding was ok lah. Not very spectacular. $3.60

*** Mango Cream with Sago and Pomelo ***

The mango cream was nicer than the red bean pudding. $9

*** Crispy Green Tea Glutinous Dumpling ***

I think this was the most interesting of the 3 desserts we shared. I thought it was just the same glutinous balls but when you took a bite, you realize it is green, then you realize the filling starts pouring out!

This dessert took a super long time to be served though. We nearly gave up waiting! $3.60



This place is quite popular so we got to wait a while before we got a place. We were quite fortunate to be seated on a table facing Sentosa Island, so the view was quite pleasant with all the bright lights from Resorts World. As it was a Friday night, we got to see the Universal Studios Fireworks too. The fireworks usually go off at 9.30pm. ;-)


Wishing our uncle a very very Blessed Birthday.


Crystal Jade Dining In
1 Harbourfront Walk
#01-112 VivoCity
Singapore 098585

Tel: +65 6278 5626

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.

***

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.

***

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.

***

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!

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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.

***

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.

***

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

Brotzeit - German Bier Bar & Restaurant @ VivoCity

Our friends (CK and Kenny) from KL came for a visit recently and we met them for lunch. We decided to meet at Vivocity because they will be traveling back to KL via coaches in HarbourFront Centre later in the afternoon. Meeting here would be much more convenient logistic wise.

CK & K had eaten earlier (in fact, they have been eating non stop since they came to Singapore) so they shared a Currywurst. ($17.50) That's German pork and curry sausage with chili-curry sauce and potato wedges. It smells really really good.

You know the dish is coming because you can smell the whiff of curry in the air.
(in fact, I think many people ordered it because we keep smelling it!)

***

Momo and I shared a Würstelplatte. ($32.50) This was one of the many platters for two. The reason we had this was because we wanted to try the different sausages available!

There were spicy chicken sausages, Nürnberger pork bratwurst, mini pork-beef cheese sausages, weisswurst sausage and garlic sausage. It was also served with sauerkraut and mustard. Their version of sauerkraut surprisingly is a version I would eat! It's not as sour as most places and it tasted rather pleasant.

***

I am not a beer drinker, but our visitors were. I can't remember what was this beer they ordered. ;-p
Many people come here just to have beer. It's after all called a Bier Bar!

***

We were joined later by LadyIronChef and Camemberu.

While the rest were chatting, I had the toughest game of Scrabble ever with CK! Oh man, this guy was damn good. I was later told he plays scrabble online with sometimes 8 or 9 people simultaneously!  You guessed it, I lost!

If you are wondering, we played it on the iPad and used iPhones as the tile deck.
If you got an iPad and iPhones around, download it!

After CK, Kenny and LadyIronChef left, I had a 3 person game with Camemberu and Momo. It's addictive!

***

Camemberu and Momo got a little hungry after a while, and they decided to order more food.
They ordered the Riesenschnitzel ($45).

It's really a big huge gigantic breaded escalope of pork served on a wooden board. It comes with 2 choices of side dishes. That's the usual size fork for your comparison.

Haha, I was tempted and joined in to eat as well. Not bad! How can you resist schnitzels.
These schnitzels special sets are only available on Sundays.

(When I was studying for pre-U long long ago in Melbourne, 3 out of 5 days, I had schnitzels for lunch!! I shudder now thinking I could eat them so often then!)

***

The sides, this was the Kleiner Salat (Mixed Salad).

***

The Kartoffelhappen (potato wedges).
These wedges tasted really good!






Brotzeit - German Bier Bar & Restaurant
VivoCity
1 HarbourFront Walk#01-149/151
Singapore 098585

Tel: 6272 8815
Hours: 12 pm - 12 am on weekdays. 12 pm - 1 am on weekends and eve of PH and PH. 
Web: http://www.brotzeit1516.com

Awfully Chocolate @ VivoCity (again!)

It's another post on Awfully Chocolate. :-p

After buying our chocolate cake and chocolate truffles, we walked out of the shop. We ate the truffles immediately and after tasting their chocolate, we thought we just had to try their 'hei' premium dark chocolate ice cream before we leave the mall!

So we walked in and bought their a single scoop of their 'hei' ice cream. $3.80.
It comes in an American Style Chinese Takeaway box!




It's nice. It's really nice! Try it and you will know!
(I might be bias because I am a sucker of all things chocolate and ice cream haha)




If you want to take a look at the cake we had, here it is. Slightly dark/romantic at the Italian Restaurant we were in. :-)


The Chocolate Banana cake ($28.20) that we bought and brought to the restaurant for dinner.
The two ladies shared a birthday cake. They only had 2 candles because they say the are forever 20! (ya right... you can easily double it. LOL)




Do you feel like licking the cake?
The cake is rich, yet does not very heavy when you eat it.
It's sweet enough but not overpowering.




The cake has two layers of fresh mash bananas in between.

I realise not everyone goes banana over bananas. If you don't like bananas try their chocolate only cake. Their banana is the slightly 'overripe' kind.

(I am one weirdo who likes to eat slightly unripe bananas! But the cake is still very good and I still ate 2 slices of it. )




Awfully Chocolate
1 HarbourFront Walk
01-156 VivoCity
Singapore 098585

Tel: 6410 9725

Awfully Chocolate @ VivoCity

We were at VivoCity because Aunt wanted to get a birthday cake for her sister and herself. (both sister's birthday are close to each other). She said she has been ruminating of Awfully Chocolate cake for the last few days! Boy that must be awfully torturous!

When we got there, I thought I was in the wrong shop! The Awfully Chocolate outlets that I have been to are totally bare. It was always only 1 person attending the shop and they have nothing on display. Just a blank white shop!  You tell them what cake you want and they will get the cake for you from their storage area. You pay then leave.




So I got a little surprised because this outlet at VivoCity had a seating area! (it's just a really small sitting place with only I think  just 2 tables).

They were also selling other mouthwatering treats for chocolate lovers!

Our cousin saw the Dark Chocolate Truffles and asked her mum if she could have some. The mum was in a really happy mood, so she obliged her daughter.




Our cousin proudly displaying her truffles.
Oh, the sticker on top says: "born in Singapore, made by hand".  How cute!




The hand cut truffles were sold by weight. It's SGD13 per 100g.

Here's a peep into the bag for you!




After looking at it, we ate it immediately!

But our cousin thought of jie jie at home. She said, leave two of them for jie jie!
So I brought it back for sis who was happy to see chocolates!

This was the same dark chocolate truffle, photographed at home with nice lighting.
The cocoa powder is a little bitter when you put it in your mouth. (Which is the nice part!)
After that, let it slowly deliquesce on your warm tongue. Aaahh.....

 


Awfully Chocolate
1 HarbourFront Walk
01-156 VivoCity
Singapore 098585

Tel: 6410 9725