Ban Tong Seafood Restaurant - Clementi Ave 5

This place was where we used to visit for some zi char food when the stall was still located in a coffee shop in Ghim Moh. It shifted away and we never knew where it went.

It was quite a coincidence when my uncle stopped for coffee at the coffee shop in Clementi Ave 5 (beside the Police Station) and recognise the zhi char lady. Around the same time, I got an email from the owner it had moved after it found them self on one of my previous blog post.

So, it looks like it's time to go back there for dinner. We has since gone back a few times and this was the most recent photos.

Here was what we ate:



Flat Chicken! They had the whole chicken de-boned, meat taken out and replaced with fish paste!

It's fish paste with chicken skin deep fried and served flattened. It looks like it requires quite a bit of work! How was the taste? We kind of like it! You imagine it to be roast/fried chicken and when you bite it, it's fish!




We ordered two big servings of soup. Here's the lotus root and pork rib soup.
Decent but slightly salty soup.




Our obligatory veggie dish. Kind of like the veggies of the day.
Simple and good, and it provided us our fibre.




The nyonya style curry fish head. The sauce was tasty and the fish was fresh.
Perfect for walloping up with hot rice!




This was the dish that we missed! Their cereal crayfish. (Mai Pian Hay Po).
Chunks of crayfish yanked out of the shell and deep fried and topped and mixed with cereal.

The perfect dish for lazy folks like us, the best way to eat crayfish! It is also so good! Beats prawns anytime!




The ladies at home love yam ring. The outer yam ring was light and fluffy. The inner part of the ring was moist but too oily too. Nice crunch on the outside and soft yam texture inside.

Oh yes, we love to pick on the 'treasures' inside. I like the fried cashews!
Their prices are quite reasonable and portions big too.

It gets a bit busy on weekends, so you got to wait a while, but week nights are OK if you need to meet up with friends or relatives for a zhi-char makan.


Ban Tong Seafood Restaurant
(At the coffeeshop beside the Clementi Police Station)
Blk 378 Clementi Ave 5
#01-334
Singapore 120378

Reservations: Ah Hioh at 9047 9428
(We realise if you want to make reservations, call before 6PM, when they get busy, they have no time to pick up the phone!)

Paradise Seafood @ Senja-Cashew Community Centre

This was a family dinner in celebration of a member's birthday.

Our relatives invited us for dinner and it was quite a nice dinner at the newly opened Paradise Seafood @ Senja-Cashew Community Centre.

We were just there to enjoy the food and company. ;-) So I did not take notes of the name of the dishes, pardon me.



This sambal-ish sotong dish was quite delicious. It was done just nice, it was not rubbery but just nice and the sauce and the okra, brinjals and tomato with it makes it quite addictive especially with fragrant white rice.




Since it's a birthday, we had some birthday noodles. The dish was nicely executed, noodles were nice, not overcooked.

Due to some logistical issue, instead of the noodles, we remembered something else. The noodles were taken to the side to be portioned and served to us. Somehow, someone miscounted the people on the table and 1 person did not get served. Hmmm... It was then a mess when they wanted to collect back a few bowls to re-portion it. Oh well... But everyone on the table volunteered to share theirs anyway, so it was kind of solved.




This was the black chicken soup. The soup had this nice colour and it was tasty. It must had been boiled long enough too.



The soup was portioned at the side for us as well and the ingredients served to us on a plate.

Oh, another service lapse. We knew they just opened probably a week or so when we went there, so teething problems was expected. What happened? They got our orders wrong. We ordered black chicken soup, but we were served watercress soup. As the soup was served without ingredients, we only knew it was wrong when we tasted it. We told them and they were apologetic and took back the soup.

A few minutes later, a lady came to tell us the black chicken soup was sold out and if we would like watercress soup.  Our aunt sense something fishy. You know aunties have this sixth sense. She said are you sure? We placed our orders quite early. We all probably knew it can't be the kitchen's fault, this chain has been quite organise. We knew it's probably the person who took the order, which is you know who, the lady talking to us. Since it's sold out, we said no, we won't have the soup.

Guess what? Another lady came out from the kitchen and said they have our black chicken soup ready. Oh man, the lady was pawned by her colleague. LOL. We wanted to laugh, but held our laughter. See, aunties sixth sense is accurate right?

Anyway, the delicious and fragrant black chicken soup saved the day, we tried to forget about the incident and continue to enjoy our food.




These prawn balls were very good too. Deep fried whole prawns coated with (I think it was) delicious salted yolk sauce. Really good, it was really good.




This was an interesting dish. It's one of their tofu creation, but all of us nicknamed it the chinese tofu goreng. Fried tofu, with fried crispy 'you tiao' over tangy thai salad and sauce.




This was our only vegetable dish. Claypot xiao bai cai with inoki mushrooms and other mushrooms. Our family are veggies people, so we loved the taste of it.




We had a fish dish too. It's braised in soy sauce and it was quite OK.




Oh, they serve live oyster here too. We remember it being reasonably priced and the birthday girl wanted to have it. So it was ordered. Oyster anyone? ;-)



I think everyone in the restaurant ordered this dish. Creamy butter crabs. It's on the big banner outside the restaurant, advertising their signature dish. Nice! The sauce was creamy and buttery. It was a change to the usual black pepper or chilli crabs. We all think they used quite of mayo in the sauce. It's kinda addictive.

Overall, we had a good meal, except for the service staff that was still quite new having served up some boo boos. They would have brushed up their service now since it's 2 or 3 weeks after.

Another reason we tried the place is because we got a flyer in our mailbox a few times before we visited and when you present the flyer, you get a discount. 



Paradise Seafood
Senja-Cashew Community Centre 
101 Bukit Panjang Road
Singapore 679910

Pizzeria Mozza @ The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands

I am a bit slow these few weeks because I am busy with house renovation and marriage preparation. This meal was eaten in mid February. :-)

To celebrate Momo's dearest parent's wedding anniversary, we made a special trip to Pizzeria Mozza for a very special meal. Yup, the pizza place by Mario Batali.

Since Momo could not get a booking for the 'actual day', so we went on a Sunday night.



It was pizza night! A very delicious pizza night too!
Here's the story....




Make a guess, what's in the brown paper bag?

Also served with the brown paper bag was an envelope that contained our cutlery and serviette. How interesting!




The complimentary bites before dinner. They were bread sticks in the shape Arnott's pizza shapes. Just much much bigger and tastier too!




It had herbs, cheese and salt crystals. They were quite addictive!

Birra Moretti

On the drinks list, the beer listed are mostly from Brewerks.
The only beer from Italy would be this. Birra Moretti. $15.

Nancy's Chopped Salad

We read that we should try Nancy's Chopped Salad ($19), so we ordered it to share.
(Nancy Silverton is one of the co-owner of Pizzeria Mozza and an acclaimed baker)

Don't you like the colour of the salad? We loved it. The taste was unique too, it's an oregano based dressing. If you want the recipe, I realise it's published on the LA Times website here. I am going to make it one of these days at home!

Wings Diavola

We saw on the menu, Wings Diavola (Devil Wings) $18 and was tempted. It's 3 chicken wings, so it's probably very expensive chicken wings! They were very well marinated and salty. If you like food a little salty like us, you will love it.

Lasagne al forno

On the menu was a Piatto del giorno (dish of the day). The dish for domenica (Sunday) was Lasagne al forno. ($28) It's suppose to be their signature dish too!

Oh, look at the lasagne. What as different from the usual lasagne is that the pasta pieces were green! I think it's spinach pasta.  Again, a little more salty for Singapore tongues, but very incredibly tasty nonetheless.

I remember I used to eat lasagne every week because it was the weekly menu at my 'halls' in Melbourne. They were good, but it was meant to fill hungry growing students.

The version here was 'light', you can eat it and won't get 'jelak'!  Can you imagine the taste of the bolognese sauce between the pasta sheet from the photo above? *evil smirk*

Prosciutto Pizza

We ordered two pizzas to share and here's the Proscuitto di Parma, rucola, tomato and mozzarella ($29)

Look at the pizza. Very unique! Thick blistered crust on the side of the pizza, and the middle,  thin crusts. It's like having chewy sides and crispy middle. Unique, it's a bit like when we were kids and we made pizzas at home, they were not uniformed! But these are experts, and the way they make it, it taste good!

Taste wise, nice! proscuitto and rockets I think is a nice combi.

Fennel Sausage Pizza

The second pizza we had: Fennel sausage, panna, red onion and scallions ($27)

It looks 'grassy' doesn't it? But the scallions or what we in Singapore call "Spring Onions", tasted rather nice on it. If you are not a spring onions person, don't order it, it's not your type of food. For those who love the slight pungent smell of it, go for it!

When you order the pizzas, the service staff tells you that it might take up to 45 mins for the pizzas to be ready. So when you visit, quickly settle on your pizza orders first.

Why are the pizzas here so special? I read that they use a special strain of yeast from California and they import their flour from US too.

Gelato Pie

For desserts, we had the Banana Gelato Pie: Hot fudge and candied hazelnuts. $16. We were told this is one of the very popular desserts by the service staff. Banana gelato, it's quite fragrance, but also a hint of essence (or shall I say a little fake) kind of smell instead of real bananas. Not very sure what they used, but it was yummy!

I am suddenly missing the Italian gelatos I had in Rome! I was downing 2 gelatos a day for 3 days there!

Crostata

Our service staff said this is one of their new desserts. Every now and then, they will add something to the menu. The server said this happens to be one of her new favourites. Dried Fig Crostata, Vanilla Panna Cotta and Saba $16

It's a fig crostata (Italian baked dessert tart). Sticky sticky fig paste on fragrant tart. See the dots in the vanilla panna cotta, nice dots from real vanilla pods! It had a nice hint of real vanilla fragrance. That dark liquid is Saba (artisan balsamic vinegar). Try it! A note though, it's too rich for 1 person to finish it. My view is that it is best to share with 3 or 4 persons.

Total bill for our meal with the usual 17% taxes ($29.56) was $196.56


Pizzeria Mozza
The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands
#B1-42-46
10 Bayfront Avenue
Singapore 018956

Tel: +65 6688 8522 (direct line to Pizzeria Mozza)