Monday, December 31, 2007

Zhou's Kitchen

We were supposed to be in Disney Naturally today. IF only we have hasten our pace. Yeah, the last empty table was taken by someone before us just because we were 30 seconds behind them. :P We looked through the list of restaurants in Anchorpoint and decided to go to either Jack's Place or Zhou's Kitchen.

When we were at Jack's Place, the place was already full. We were shown the 'New Year's Eve' Menu which was obviously overpriced to ka-tuk people who just want a good dinner on New Year's Eve.

I decided that we are not going to be their carrot. So we went to search for Zhou's Kitchen. We have no idea where this 'Copperdome' in Anchorpoint is. Just when we were about to try our luck outside, we spotted Zhou's Kitchen, outside the shopping centre and next to the bus stop. :P



It's another restaurant under Tung Lok Group. Zhou is the surname of the founder of TLG. Don't you think the logo is kinda creative, combining both the words, 'Zhou' and 'Zhuang' together? :)



I included this photo to record down the fact that we were already full after eating this. :P



Lime with Aloe Vera (7/10)

We wanted Pineapple with Apple which is supposed to 'aid disgestion', something we needed very much! LOL. The waiter came back to us and said that they ran out of those fruits and recommended this (for beautiful skin) instead. :P



My first few sips was good. Thereafter, it became to sourish for me to finish it up. :P


Vegetarian Roll (7/10)



Sauteed Beancurd with Mushroom, Shredded Pork and Leek in Spicy Sauce (8/10)



Nice sauce we have here. :)


Fried Pork Ribs in Fruity Sauce (9/10)



When it was served to us, we were rather skeptical of whether the correct dish was presented to us. I mean this is pork ribs, right? We casually remarked, 'Why are there no bones in this pork ribs dish?'. The waitress replied, 'Oh. maybe it's inside'. She must have thought that we wanted the bones, but we were actually happier that there were none. :P


That was so yummy delicious. The sauce was tangy yet not so sweet. The meat was so tender, it tasted more like chicken. Everything on this was wiped out in a jiffy. :D

Service
The young bespectacled waiter was super friendly. On top of that, he did everything from making recommendations, taking down the orders, serving the food to the billing. Everything with a smile. Every boss's dream employee. :P

Price
$50.80 (We consider this quite reasonably priced, considering the good food and the classy environment). However, the other table with 4 pax only spent a few dollars more than ours (the bills for the two tables were unintentionally swopped). I wonder what they have eaten. :P

Place
Anchorpoint (oppsite Ikea Alexandra)
Copperdome (Although it's considered part of the shopping centre, you have to get out of the building to reach this place). The restaurant is in a building by itself.

Beppu Menkan Japanese Noodle Restaurant

I have warned him that since he is such a fussy eater, he won't like the food in this restaurant. He still insisted on giving it a chance. Ok lor. :P

Chicken Sukiyaki (6/10)



Pork Hot Pot (6/10)




Potato Cake (8/10)



Tofu (8/10)



Chocolate Furtado (10/10)!




The chocolate coating was superb! Yums!

After we are done with our meal, he said, 'We can only come back for the dessert!'


Told you. :P

Service
Poor. Impatient supervisor (I think) who used so much force while clearing the plates that the liquid splashed onto the table that we are going to be seated at. Another waitress was better.

Price
$31.30
Place
Tiong Bahru Plaza
#02-16/17

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Oasis Taiwan Porridge Restaurant

My mum used to tell me how I enjoyed having my meals in this restaurant and how I ate many bowls of porridge even though I was still very young then. It makes me really curious if the dishes are really THAT delicious.

It was until I read that the Taiwan porridge Restaurant is going to close down for developments in Kallang that I thought, 'You mean it's still there?' :P


So I decided to jio my family there to relive the times we had in this restaurant when I was very young (though I can remember nothing more than pink bowls and a dim environment) and the tasty Taiwan porridge we had in Taiwan few weeks back.

Look at how thoughtful they are in the design of the the cup... Thoughtful, but obiang. :P



Taiwan Porridge cooked with sweet potato (8/10)


We were given free flow porridge in one small bucket.



Chye Poh Omelette (8/10)



I ate a lot of the omelette even though I am not a fan of chye poh. :P See how good it is?

Promfet in Black Bean Sauce (8/10)




Frankly speaking, fish was the last thing on my mind to go with a porridge. I think the combi just doesn't go well together. Well, I've changed my opinion. This does go very well with porridge. My mum and I love it.

Braised Beancurd (9/10)


Ahh.. the favourite dish for me and my brother. Surprisingly, this is not the 'signature dish'.



Salted chicken (6/10)




Too saltish for my liking.


Snow balls (forgot the full name) (7/10)

It looked so much better on the menu. :P



Almond Jelly with Longan (9/10)



This is the type of Almond Jelly I like most! When I asked my mother whether she prefer the one I did or this, she actually paused for a good 5 seconds before replying that mine is better because of the stronger almond aroma. LOL. How sweet of her!
I would say I prefer this to mine! :P

Ambience

Surrounded by waters...



The interior. Pretty empty for it's a weekday night.



The view from inside.



We were seated near the windows. See that few rims of lights across the sky? Was pretty amazed to see that on the preview screen after taking the picture because I ain't no professional photographer and I did practically nothing but a point-and-shoot. Kinda cool how the photo turns out yeah? It's as if there were some treasure where the rims of lights meet. hehz!

On a side note, I used my bro's camera (only 5M) for the photos above. Not very used to it.

Service
Ooook lah.


Price
$61.50 for the above. $16+ for just the fish! $4.50 for the bucket of porridge (it's probably $1.50 per pax), $6.50 for the snow ball dessert and $5 for the Almond Jelly. $2 for the salted vegetables (appetiser) and $3 for tea/towel/peanuts.

Place
50 Stadium Boulevard
- a $7 taxi ride from Kallang MRT station during peak hours on a wednesday evening.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas Dinner 2007

I couldn't decide whether to put this in home-cooked-food (since quite a fair-bit of preparation work is required) or here in goodfood-goodmood (since I 'bought' the ready-made food from NTUC).

To save myself from all the thinking, I have decided that to include this post in both. :P Here's the link to my Christmas Dinner.

Merry Christmas, Everyone! :)

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Baystreet 21

I can still remember how disappointed I was 2 years? back when the waitress told us that the restaurant will be closed down for renovation for a year. Time flies, this restaurant has re-opened for 6 months already.

My hub and I have not forgotten about this restaurant, or rather, the food it serves. :) As soon as we touched down at IMM, we began our search for this restaurant. We almost thought that it has changed its name to streetz (happen to be another restaurant of a similar name), but we managed to find the restaurant tucked in one corner of Level 2.

Ah... this piece of paper on the table hasn't changed one bit. :)



My hub said he wanted Assam Fish even before looking at the menu. I guess that dish really set quite an impression on him. All main courses came with a soup, a dessert and a beverage. This was his watercress soup.

Watercress soup (5/10)



We kept pushing this soup to each other. :P

Assam Fish (6/10)



My hub was very dissapointed with the Assam Fish. It didn't have the flavour that he used to like and it wasn't fresh, according to him. The gravy tasted fine to me, but I had to agree that the fish wasn't fresh.

Came the Tom Yam Soup that comes with my main course.

Tom Yam Soup (8/10)



Curry Chicken (9/10)

The curry is superb lor! ^_^b Thick but not chokingly spicy. My hub kept digging into my dish. :P



Look how I drenched my rice with it? Sedaappp!



The chicken was not that tender though. My hub remembers that it was better previously as they had used the whole drumstick. This dish could have been perfect. 1 point off for the chicken. :P

One thing I like about this restaurant is that they allow you to choose your dessert from a wide variety. It's not like they dictate what you have for your dessert, like in most restaurants. We were given the choice of watermelon, beancurd, tapioca cake, marble cake and waterchestnut agar agar. We wanted the agar agar, but they ran out of waterchestnut. :P

Tapioca cake (8/10)


I hardly take tapioca cake, but this one's goood!



Soya Beancurd (9/10)

Smooth and it's the melt-in-your-mouth kinda beancurd. ;)



Ambience
It has 'brighten' up from its previous setting, yet maintained the cosy feel.

Service
Generally good. We feedback the taste of the Assam fish to the waitress. Although she could not comprehend why we didn't like the Assam Fish (she got a 10/10 positive feedback from customers on this dish so far), she said she will take note of it and kept apologising to us (we didn't really expect that).

Price
$30+ for these two very complete meals. Good deal, sia!

Place
IMM Building
#02-28

It seems like my hub won't be returning to this restaurant, at least not so soon. Maybe I should bring my mum here one day. I miss the curry chicken gravy already! >_<

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Roma's Deli

We wanted to avoid the crowd in Bugis. So we headed to Shaw towers with the intention of catching a movie. Seems like they were only screening 3 movies!

My hub spotted an old Buddhist Reverend coming out of an italian restaurant that sells pastas and pizzas. Out of curiosity, he went to have a closer look. Guess what? That's a vegetarian italian restaurant. How very interesting! So, that, became the place we had dinner.

Please pardon me for the blue tinges in the photos that follow. Can't really help it as the lights were rather bluish over there. :P


Mushroom Soup (9/10)



Garlic bread (9/10)



This vegetarian restaurant does not use garlic in their food. So what goes inside this 'garlic' bread? It made it all the more amazing how they can make this garlic bread taste like one. In fact, I would say it tasted even better than the authentic ones that we usually had! It's fragrant and got a light crisp to every bite you make. Almost wanted to skip taking photo of this, but am so glad I didn't, coz I wouldn't have photos to show you guys then! :)

Hot Green Tea (9/10)

I don't usually take photos of beverages, but did so because

1) not many restaurants offer Hot green tea as their beverage. Usually, it's the cold version.
2) the cup's big enough for me. Not the usual mini sized cups that I could have finished after a few sips.
3) of the colourful christmas lightings that were reflected on the drink. hee!



Pizza (3/10)

I have warned my hub against ordering a pizza, but he refused to listen. See lah... he only had a piece of it.



Chicken and Mushroom baked rice (8/10)



Pretty good! The cheese (I suppose they do use diary products?) was not too heavy and the ingredients beneath it were tasty and healthy. This was the first time I had brocolli in my baked rice. :)



Service
Pretty prompt in serving

Ambience
It's cosy and has that christmas feel. There are also nice, big photos of ingredients and food on the walls to whet your appetite before your food arrives. :)

Price
$20+ for two main courses that comes with soup, 'garlic' bread and a beverage.

Place
100 Beach Road
#01-23 Shaw Towers

Master Chef

Anchorpoint reveals its new looks! I wanted so much to have a meal at the 'Disney Naturally', but my hub was too embarrassed to enter that restaurant full of parents and kids. :P So we went to the food court instead.

We ordered the Shredded Pork rice set, which comes with vegetables, soup and rice (of course).

Shredded Pork (8/10)



Vegetables (8/10)



The two dishes were generally not bad. But the rice, a very basic requirement in this set, was such a huge disappointment. The rice was so hard, we have difficulty chewing and swallowing. We are fine with overnight food, but at least they should try to steam it up or something to make it edible?

Price
$6.50 per set

Place
Anchor point
370 Alexandra Road
Basement

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Jewel Box - The Altivo Bar

It's been a year already since we last visited this place. We couldn't get a good view of the Harbourfront Centre last year as we did not make any prior reservations (the thing is, that seat was left empty for the whole night till we left! grr...) Anyway, my hub made a booking way in advance so that he can get me the seat he promised me. The following is just a side view from where we were seated.



Some beef main course



Baked potato that comes with the beef (8/10)



Cod Fish with asparagus (10/10)



Kudos to the chef! It was one of the best fish main course I have taken. Ever. The fish was cooked just right. There were no fishy smell/taste, as it would in some fish meals I had taken.

A lot of effort, I guess, was put into the mushroom sauce for it complements not only the fish, but the asparagus that comes along with this course too. I gobbled up every single thing I called food on the plate within minutes. :P~~~

Ambience

The 'snow' came flying from the roofs at 8pm sharp. It was a spectacular view. Very romantic and dreamy. Perfect for someone like me, who still lives in 'fantasy island'. >.<



It's a pity we were rushing off for a show at the magical kingdom, else we could have spent more time at this 'hot spot'.

Service (1/5)

Seriously, not that good. The waitresses are not very professionally trained. To begin with, some waitresses from China are not very well-versed in English. We had to keep repeating and rephrasing our requests before they understood it or before we gave up. :P The whole procedure of having to buy 'entry tickets' and where to go for the dinner and the show was communicated to us rather poorly.

What's more, we were given inconsistent information. We were told by a waiter that they can reserve the place at Altivo for us while we watch the show at Magical kingdom, but before we left, the waitresses said otherwise. There were some other issues, but it might take a while to explain. :P Generally, we didn't like the service there.

Price
$128+ for two main courses, 1 orange juice and 1 glass of wine. :P Thanks for willingly burning a hole in your pocket, just to let me enjoy the night, hub. Love ya! :D

Place
The Altivo Bar
109 Mount Faber Road
Singapore 099201

Changing Appetites 2

Back to this restaurant in less than 3 weeks! This time, I've got a seat that allows me to do a better snapshot of this signboard. ;)



Don't you feel like slugging around on seats like this, on a lazy afternoon?



Buffalo wings (8/10)



Black Pepper Mushroom Chicken with Rice (8/10)



Arhh... comes the important part of this post. Desserts!!

Heaven in the mouth (10/10)



The name for this dessert can never be more appropriate. Every bite I took was soo... erm... heavenly. :P Even my hub who claimed that he has never liked desserts, took quite a few spoonfuls! I can still taste the Tiramisu and chocolate lingering in my mouth right now! YUMS! ;P~~~ Sorry to make all of you out there salivate, but the only solution I can provide you right now is to go visit this place, quick! heh...

Hub paid $30 plus for this meal.

For details on the place, etc pls refer to the previous post.