Happy Joy Restaurant

Xiao Long Bao (7/10)




Ee-Fu Mian (8/10)




Siew Mai (8/10)


This siew mai contains really fresh and tasty prawns!

Price
20+ for the above and 2 lime juice

Place
Blk 166 #04-3531
Bukit Merah Central

Hang Heung 老婆饼

My hub bought 老婆饼 for his 老婆 (me) to snack on. How sweet! And how timely! I was famished because I had a quick and early dinner today.



He boasted, "This is imported from HK one ah. Only selling at Taka Atrium now."

The next moment, I spotted this.



"They have a cake shop in Singapore lor!" My lor + exclamation mark seemed to have shaken his confidence a little.

"Issit?" he asked sheepishly.

As I was typing this, I think he's right! :P I mean which cake shop would locate itself in the high floors of an office building? :P

Anyways, The 'wife cake' was a little warm when I took it and that's always a plus point for me. The crust was good! I am sure you can tell from the following photo ... :)

老婆饼 (8/10)



I can't say the same for the fillings though. A little too bland for me.

Price
$8 for 6 pieces

Place
Orchard Road
Takashimaya Atrium

New Template

I've changed the template to a cooler and brighter look, while retaining the shades of blue.

I have also changed the photo on the top as the previous version went out of alignment in the new template. Not to worry, this photo will not be permanent... I will get something really nice and appetising up once I have the time. Meanwhile, my favourite ripper and fries rules! ^-^

I guess it would be a long long time before I changed my template again. The change messed up the alignment not only for my photo, but the content of my posts as well. I spent a few hours just to get everything in place! :P I guess for an IT dummy like me, I betta religiously stick the type-attach-post routine, rather than attempting to do something butt-itchying.

On a separate note, Nuffnang has started to run ads on my blog. The first is a Nike Women's Ad!

I wonder if this is a 'reminder' for me to start my exercise routine again? :P

It's actually quite fun to create my own sports outfit in this website! :P Reminds me of my childhood days when I experiment different 'clothes' on my paper dolls... This, is my ideal figure outfit.

Greenwood Fish Market & Bistro

I have heard / read all the good comments about Greenwood Fish & Chips. Without a car, I knew that It's hard to convince my hubby (or even myself) to go to this secluded restaurant in Bukit Timah with me. So I exchanged my credit card points for a S$20 voucher at this place. :P So in a way, we were 'compelled' to use this voucher before it expires in February. >_<

We were greeted by fresh fishes (reminds me of the layout in Perth F&C restaurants) before entering the dining area.



We were asked for the type of fish (Sole filet, Barranmundi ,Snapper, etc.) we preferred and the way it is going to be cooked (Pan-seared / Fish & Chips style, etc). We chose Barramundi, Fish & Chips style (which we came here for) and the crumbed version over the battered one.

Bread (7/10)

Looks like a slice of cake to me. :P



Broccoli Soup (8/10)

The colour of the soup appears nothing like a Broccoli Soup (I was expecting something more greenish... :P) Nevertheless, it was rich, creamy and nice.



Fish & Chips - Barramundi, Crumbed (10/10)



Glenn Ong once commented that the best fish & chips (in his opinion) in Singapore is at Greenwood.

I have to agree with him on this one.

There was really nothing to pick on about this dish. The vegetables were nice and fresh. The fries was hot and crispy and it didn't turn soggy even after some time. We wondered how they managed to do that.

The fish. It was crispy on the outside (something that most of us have taken for granted). I guess the difference was that the fish meat remained moist and tender after all the deep frying. Check this out.



I daresay (IMO) that it's even better than the fish & chips in Cicerellos, which is famed to be the best in Perth!

Service
Friendly and prompt

Ambience







Price
$47 (before using my $20 discount voucher)

Place
34 Greenwood Avenue
(Enter by Hill Crest)

We spotted 3 Porsches during our 5 minute walk out to the main road. :P

Bao Zai

It was always sold out by the time I reached there. If not for my hub who was there with his friends on a Saturday afternoon, I probably wouldn't have the chance to taste the much raved-about made-on-the-spot Bao...

Char Siew Bao (8/10) Dou Sha Bao (7/10)






Not too bad, but it's either over-rated or reheated bao just don't taste that fantastic. I will probably give it second chance and eat it fresh on the spot. Someday. :P

Place
ABC Brickworks Food Centre
#01-135

Yes Asian Cafe

I wanted to go to the porridge steamboat buffet recommended by Jaime, but we were bogged down with many bags of grocery after shopping at NTUC. We decided to dine at this place, so that we don't have to walk far before hopping on to a taxi.

Baked Potato (8/10)

It's baked potato on the bottom half, mashed potato with ham and cheese? at the top. The mashed potato was fantastic! My only grouse is that it is not piping hot, as I thought all baked potato should be... It just doesn't taste as good to have it in a less-than-average temperature.



Shanghai Pork and chicken chop with rice (7/10)

The gravy was not bad. The pork chop was a tad too overcooked and thus, pretty hard to chew. Overall, this main course was served quite cold, which is again, a minus point.



Service
Prompt

Price
$21.80 for two sets of the above, 1 baked potato and 2 drinks.

Place
AMK Hub
$01-40

Crystal Jade Kitchen

Pork Ball Congee (9/10)
Smooth congee, crispy 'you tiao', tender pork balls.



Sauteed Hor Fun with Prawns (7/10)



Fried Wanton with sweet sauce (8/10)
Crispy!



Soya Beancurd with mixed fruits (5/10)
Soya beancurd is neither sweet nor smooth.



Service
Prompt

Price
$43.67 (Before $30 discount voucher)

Place
470 Toa Payoh Lorong 6,
#01-70, HDB Hub

Lion City Frog Porridge

Frog Porridge

We walked from Lorong 27A to Lorong 9. For a fussy eater like my hub to walk such a long distance means that this frog porridge must be really good. I cannot imagine myself putting this type of food into my mouth, so it will only be pictures and no reviews.

Just when my hub was eating all the 'good stuff', I was having this. haiz... what a huge contrast.

Bo Zai Mian (3/10)

Place

Lorong 9

Geylang Road

Aerins

Southern Grilled Chicken Sandwich (7/10)




Service
Quite bad in terms of waiting time. There were people who were there before and after us, by say, 10-15 minutes. All of us were served at the same time! My hub said the chef went PS. >_<"

Price
$11.50 for just this sandwich meal (excluding ++)

Place
Raffles City Shopping Centre
B1-11

Crystal Jade Dining In

Good view...




It was fun 'fighting' with my hub over the last peanut (we were very hungry!) Hee! It ended up on the table. No peanuts for any of us. :P


Beijing Roast Duck - Skin and wrap (7/10)


The waitress cut out the skin for us and wrapped it with some vegetables. I find it quite sinful because of there were a lot of fats underneath the skin. It tasted not bad, though, especially when dapped into the sweet sauce.


Beijing Roast Duck - Meat (7/10)


We have the option of either eating the meat of the roast duck as it is, or to cook it further by adding another $10. We chose to have it cooked in black pepper sauce. My hub liked it but I wasn't too impressed.

Crackers that came along with the roast duck


Braised Seasonal Vegetables with Crab Roe (6/10)



I ordered this because I thought it's quite a refreshing combination, something that I've not tried before. It was pretty different from what I expect, or rather, what was shown on the menu. Quite a disappointment.

Service
Pretty prompt and attentive. But maybe far too attentive. I don't really like it when they kept coming to our table to refill the water. It has interrupted our conversation quite a few times.

Price
$75 (but we had a $30 voucher)

Place
Vivocity #01-112

Kee Ling Garden Steamboat BBQ

It's a buffet style kinda steamboat.

Soup base (8/10)

The ingredients are pretty standard, so the ratings are for the soup base.

You get to choose from Chicken, Tonic Chicken and Tom Yam for the soup base. My hub asked me which soup base I would like to have, but I already knew that he wanted the Tonic Chicken, so I went along with him and told the man that we wanted that.

Tonic soup are usually not my cup of 'soup'. Surprisingly, I can make do with this one. Sure, it had the bitter tonic taste that I dislike, but the 'chicken' flavour in the soup seemed to conceal the bitterness. Well, a little. As more ingredients were added to the soup, it got more and more addictive.

I believe that a lot of msg was added to the soup because hours after the meal, I still feel thirsty. :P

Price

$12 for adults and $6 for kids. For a eat-all-you-can, I thought this was quite reasonably priced.

Place

Blk 722 AMK Ave 6 (The same coffeeshop as Tip Top Curry Puff)

I still prefer steamboat at Parkway Parade :P

Erich's Wuerstelstand

We've been wanting to buy food from this Austrian guy since we got to know him from the media (and that's many years ago!). Like many others, we were more intrigued by the man, rather than the food. :P



Combo set - includes Chicken, Regular pork and spicy pork (8/10)



The different sausages, although each with its own distinctive taste, are equally delicious. I've always liked sausages but due to health reasons, I try not to take too much of these processed meat. Being able to try so many different types of sausages at one go was pure indulgence.

Price
$3 (hmm.. that's rather ex considering it's only a few pieces of sausages. I don't even want to compare it with the hotdog bun meal at ikea... :P )

Place
3 Trengganu Street
Chinatown

Hong Kong Chit Chat Cafe

Seafood Fried Nissin Noodles (8/10)



I like it so much, I gobbled the noodles up within 5 mins. :P My hub find it so-so only.

Ice Cream - Milk Tea (5/10)



They claimed that they only have 3 left for the day. I thought it's a must try. Looks like the traditional chocolate flavour is still the safer bet.

Ice Cream - Chocolate (8/10)



Still not rich enough to be considered my favourite.

Price
$18 nett for 2 meals which includes the fried noodles, an ice cream and a glass of orange juice each.

Place
267 New Bridge Road

Blogging less...

Geez.. this is not an easy decision to make, but I need to focus on something important for a few months.

During this period, I will still be blogging and putting up photos like before, but it may not be as frequent. The content will also be substantially reduced to mere ratings and brief descriptions to save time.

Thank you to all my readers out there for your support all these while. :) Do come back for more photos / reviews and pardon me if I am not able to respond to your comments as promptly as I would like to.

Have a great weekend!

Grains 稻香馆

This restaurant is reputated to serve healthy and nutritious food without compromising on the quality. I thought it would be a good idea to bring my mother to this restaurant, since she is getting more health conscious now. Indeed, it is.

This restaurant is divided into the two parts by a public walkway. When we arrived, many seats were still available so we managed to get one whole corner to ourselves, without exposing ourselves (and our food) to the people who walked by. :P

Home-made Barley (6/10)



Nutritional ABC Soup - consists of huaishan, carrot, corn and spare ribs (8/10)

This soup was pretty light, yet addictive. Throughout the meal, we kept helping ourselves to the soup, one bowl after another!



Spinach Tofu with Shimeiji Mushroom and scallops (9/10)



I love the mushrooms that were briefly fried (me thinks) before it was drenched in this savoury sauce. The soft, smooth tofu was nice too.

Grains fried rice (9/10)

This is their signature dish, I suppose. What's special about this fried rice is, instead of the usual white rice, they are using the more nutritional brown rice counterparts. I usually frown at the thought of brown rice because the ones I had before were coarse and rather hard to chew on. However, I am glad that I gave this dish a chance. The brown rice was nothing like I have imagined it to be. It was soft and not oily. Together with the scallops, wolfberries and other ingredients, it made a very tasty and filling staple for our meal. Tasty as it is, I still prefer my fried rice at Thai Lemongrass. :P



Spinach in chicken stock and wolfberries (8/10)



Light but nice!

Service

The waitresses were very friendly, attentive and prompt, but my mother and I were interrupted quite a few times because the waitress came over to check what else we need and to clear the plates. That, imo, was rather irritating.

Before we left, they passed us a 'feedback' form which had no fields like 'ways to improve'. Besides asking you to choose among an unhappy, neutral and happy face, all other things were to their favour. Like, who has the best service, what we like about their service, words of encouragement. I wanted to comment that they shouldn't check on the customers so often, but found absolutely no place to write.

To top things off, the waitress said this as she passed the form to me. "If you write well, you will get vouchers from us" Sounds so conditional. :P

Price
$53+ after 10% OCBC discount

Place
The Central
#02-72