Foodie: MELT @ Mandarin Oriental

Family went to MELT at Mandarin Oriental to celebrate our birthdays. Mom (21st Feb), sis (12th Feb) and I (4th Feb) are all February babies, 3 consecutive weeks worth of ‘em, so to save our stomachs and figures from obesity we try to celebrate it together.

This year we went to MELT, which is a great restaurant in Mandarin Oriental. This place is exorbitantly pricey during peak periods but the food is excellent as far as buffets go. Digressing, all the restaurants in Oriental are excellent. There’s Morton’s, of course, which needs no introduction. Cherry Garden, the dim sum place, which according to the author of ieatishootipost is the ‘sort of place you bring your future in-laws to when you’re going to break it to them that you’re marrying their daughter’. [There's the weekend dim sum a la carte buffet here at $45+++ per pax that is worth every penny.] There’s also Wasabi Bistro, the Japanese restaurant. The weekend brunch a la carte buffet is $58+++ per pax but is also worth every cent you put down. In short, you can’t really go wrong with any of Oriental’s offerings. It may be a little pricier than some others, but I subscribe to ieatishootipost’s Leslie Tay philosophy of not wasting my calories on yucky food. (Almost) nothing makes me feel grumpier and more dissatisfied than poorly prepared food especially if it’s going to my waistline.

COMING BACK TO MELT, yes… This isn’t the first time we came here, probably the second. We were here one Christmas as well. Because it’s her birthday month Mom had the option of having 15% off or 1 person dining for free (we took the latter option) when using UOB. They also gave us complimentary yummy praline cake, two big slices of it (which we were so full we had to tar-bao).

Now I don’t know about you, but to me the two most important parts of a buffet are the appetizers (read: sashimi and/or cold seafood) and the desserts. Everything else in between is a filler and forgivable if it isn’t up to par. So I always rate my buffets by how good the sashimi and desserts are.

Sashimi here is one of the best you can get on a buffet line. Fresh, not a hint of having been left out too long. Wasabi that kicks you in the nose and makes your eyes water. [No tuna for me, personal choice the same way I don't take sharks fin.]

On to the other cold dishes there are heaps of crayfish, mussels, crab and scallops on ice. These are not too bad but they do taste like they’ve been out there for a while.

The crab claws are well done because all you need to do is fork the meat and it slides out of the claw without any need to wrestle with it at all.

Cheese platter. I love cheese. Almost every kind of cheese. Except maybe blue cheese. It’s always nice to go for buffets with expansive cheese selections to have a taste of stuff you normally only get on European breakfast tables. [If you really love cheese, try the buffet at Fullerton hotel. They have a cheese selection that will leave you dumbfounded.]

Some antipasta from the appetizers section. Behind it are three types of thai salad. Pomelo, papaya and mango. Good stuff. Okay I’ll move on briefly to the mains although I touched little of it.

If you want to eat anything from the mains, go for the Indian cuisine, of which there is a lot of. They also have an entire Chinese section, pasta, western and all your usual suspects in an international buffet, but the Indian food is pretty yummy. I think it tasted better to me the last time we were here. This time I don’t think anything about it has changed, but my tastebuds have tasted the awesomeness of the cuisine while I was Sri Lanka last year, so it wasn’t as yums to me as it was previously. MELT has one of the most expansive buffet selections ever. I don’t have many pictures of it to share because I nibble on the mains and my plate therefore looks fairly pathetic and unphotogenic. So we’ll move on to the desserts.

Now they don’t stinge on their desserts either. Seriously, they offer more than any dedicated dessert shop any day. There’s drawers and plates full of cakes and creams and fondue with not just fruit but cookies on sticks.

And waffles and ice cream and those fun poppin’ chocolate balls that go pop in your mouth.

And more. All these were not even half of what you can get in that section. There’s was an entire drawer full of luxury chocolates as well which we skipped.

And then the servers brought out two slices of this cake! It’s a praline with a crunchy nutty base. [Conrad has this cake too which we ordered some years for birthdays that is really really good.] Two slices because Mom told them there were 3 of us celebrating birthdays. We tarbao-ed them home because we simply couldn’t eat any more.

The service was great. I guess it’s not peak season for students to work there so most of the servers were filipinos and there was an ang moh manager. (Actually I don’t know if Oriental takes in waiting staff who are students, their service has always been impeccable in my memory.) One of the staff charged us wrongly for one of the glasses of wine and they gave it is to us complimentarily after mom notified them of the mistake.

Good service accompanying a satisfying meal, which is just about all you could want for a happy tummy and a happy mind.

MELT is definitely on my memorable-buffets-list, but it comes in somewhere after Oscar’s (Conrad) and The Line (Shangri-La) and before Town (Fullerton) for international buffets. This is not even including the Chinese and Jap buffets.

(I love food too much and should shut up now.)

Sometimes I think I should just blog about food because it makes me happy.

Kay off now.

Review: Triple Three at Meritus Mandarin

The exams have finally exhausted themselves and disappeared from my life (for a whole good year). No more exams till next November! Now that I’ve slept enough and have stopped being a total zombie, I finally have the energy to be excited for the new season ahead (next up: internship!).

So my family had an early Christmas dine-out this year. Traditionally we go for a buffet at a nice hotel every year. We have our favourites – Oscar’s at Conrad, Melt: The World Cafe at Mandarin Oriental, The Line at Shangri-La… but this year Sis booked somewhere we hadn’t been to yet.

We’ve been to Pine Court at Meritus a number of times for birthdays and such (they have excellent dim sum!), but this was our first time trying Triple Three. A couple of hours before we were going to go there, I went to check out the reviews on Hungrygowhere (of course)… and boy were they disappointing! Complaints of bad service and subpar food abounded.

Never underestimate the power of the Internet because Hungrygowhere was the first site that popped up on Google search, and if I had discovered it any earlier, we would’ve canceled our reservation and headed for somewhere else.

Unfortunately, because it was only a couple of hours to dinnertime, Sis and I did try calling up some other hotel restaurants but they were either fully booked or too expensive. (Melt was going for 98++ per pax that night!) So we decided to just stick to Triple Three and test it out for ourselves.

I went with low expectations and a hungry stomach. When we got there, I was pleasantly surprised that I did not encounter any of the bad service reputedly featured on the Hungrygowhere reviews. The extremely smiley and welcoming manager ushered us in, made small talk with us and mentored his staff closely. Sure there were some inexperienced waitresses. We had one from China with very bad English but she tried. Jason had a dirty fork and we got that changed, we asked for warm water but got room temperature water, but these were minimal and nothing to make a hoo-ha about. So my conclusion on the service front: It was nothing much to complain about! Acceptable enough and they were polite and brisk with clearing the tables.

Now we move on to the food.
Of course, I am slightly biased and tend to judge buffets based on how well they do my favourite foods. Aka, seafood (sashimi sashimi sashmi, and other things) and dessert.

For a buffet, they actually don’t leave the sashimi out on a platter for you to take on your own. They have a chef (if you can call him a chef) there to slice the various types of sashimi when you want it (so it means you can’t take as much as you want and you will feel paiseh to go back for seconds because the guy has already seen you before, very smart).

The chef is quite stingy with the pieces, he normally gives about 3 or 4 little slices each and I asked for more because well, I love sashimi. As you can probably tell from his cuts, he’s not very good at this slicing this. I’m not sure whether to give him the benefit of doubt that his knife isn’t sharp enough or that he’s really just not very deft with it, but they were quite badly sliced in general.

Sashimi verdict? Okay lor. Not great. Not bad. Wasabi was the kind that knocks you out and cures your sinuses so I liked it.

Moving on to the crayfish.

This was not bad, but that cheese/cream/calories sauce thing they drowned the meat in was a bit much. Some people like it I guess, I liked it too, but would’ve liked it more if there had been a little less of that cream.

Turkey and roast beef. Okay the thing about Christmas right… what is Christmas without turkey? Turkey was actually the key deciding factor in choosing buffets (because my sister wants turkey).

The turkey and roast beef were nicely done. Turkey was tender. Bad point: no stuffing. Where’s my turkey stuffing? Roast beef was on the medium rare side which I liked.

This is also sliced on the spot for you. Surprise surprise, by the same guy who cuts your sashimi.

Roast duck. The concept of this buffet is they have a lot of stations where people have to prepare things ‘on the spot’ for you. The duck was not bad but I just feel like, I don’t really pay 70 dollars to come to a buffet to eat duck.

Or prawn mee either. Though I must say I liked this prawn mee. It was nice.

They also had very bad chawanmushi.

It was bad, and didn’t taste anything like any chawanmushi I’ve had in my life so I don’t really know how to describe it.

Some of the other stations they had were a stir-fry station, where they had juicy mushrooms and bean sprouts, fish and beef cubes. These were not bad I’d have to say. And they also had an Indian food corner that I must’ve completely ignored.

So my verdict on the mains overall:
Variety – okay.
Quality – okay, some inconsistent. Nothing stood out.

But sometimes if the food isn’t fantastic, dessert makes up for it. But not here.

Always remember that sometimes they look better than they taste.

Of the 3 little cups here. One was mango, which was the only nice one. Strawberry was dull. The last we couldn’t even identify but it definitely didn’t taste good.

Green tea log cake, or they should’ve called it green tea buttercream with a bit of cake. Unidentifiable soury brown cake in the background.. I have no idea what it was supposed to be but it tasted like it had gone bad. The thing is, it probably hasn’t, but whatever they were trying at, it failed (might have been an attempt at some sort of yogurt cake). Even the cute little chocolate thing tasted bad. How can?

Dessert verdict:
Completely fail. Except for the lime ice-cream, because it’s citrus. But of course they don’t make the ice-cream in-house so that doesn’t really count.

So would I recommend this place?
If you’re a dessert queen… definitely not. But overall the food is not bad (not good, remember, just not bad) and apart from the chawanmushi being the only major turnoff, sorry, I forgot the soba, don’t eat that either, the food is actually quite edible. But if you’re going to pay $68++ for a Christmas buffet, I’d suggest topping up another $10 and going to Oscar’s at Conrad instead. Impeccable food and service there. But if you a a DBS cardholder and want to go for the 1-for-1 promotion (that ends at the end of the year, Mon-Thur only, must book because every night is full), then I guess it’s worth a shot?

Anyway looking forward to more Christmas gatherings now. Have one almost every day till the end of the year! Happy holidays everyone. Enjoy the remainder of December and look forward to an amazing 2011.

More Dutch adventures… expensive Asian food and other yummy things.

Done with my first exam in Switzerland. My head hurts so much from the lack of academic stimulation over the past few months… I say academic and not intellectual stimulation, because there is a big chasm between two. Intellectual stimulation is enjoyable. Academic is largely regurgitation, even here. 3 more papers to go, one this Friday and 2 more in the last week of June after I come back from Barcelona (yes I’m off to Barca next Monday, envy me).

Okay… I have to drop the word ‘design’ from this entry because it’s finally about my favourite topic and the main staple of this blog before I came to Switzerland… FOOD glorious FOOD.

I finally caved in to my need to eat REAL Chinese food after 4 months (fried rice and eating instant noodles doesn’t count). So Walts and I scouted out some good Chinese food while we were in Rotterdam.

The Netherlands in general has loads of food of many diverse origins because of it’s colonial history. Loads of Indonesian, Thai, and of course, Chinese food everywhere.

Walts was buying a Crumpler camera bag so we asked the guy where we could get some authentic Chinese food, cause we’d been away from home for months and really wanted The Real Deal. He directed us a couple of streets down to the Chinatown-ish area where there were loads of Asian eateries… and his recommended place, which was famous among the local Dutch and Chinese populations alike: De Lange Muur.

It was really like a Hong Kong 餐厅; very very busy, Canto speaking staff, very loud conversations and a lot of Chinese people… Which I didn’t really mind, for once. We did hesitate quite a bit before going in though, because Asian food in Europe is RIDICULOUSLY expensive even with the good exchange rate at the moment. (When you have to fork out 12 euros for a plate of kang kong, you definitely do a double take.)

But our Chinese taste buds won the argument, and after wandering down the street and realizing prices weren’t going to get any cheaper, we decided that if we were going to blow a lot of money eating Asian food, we were better off spending it on the good stuff.

Walts examining the menu cause Liz can’t read it. They automatically gave us the Chinese text menu because we were Asian. The Dutchies get a picture book version with pictures of the various dishes and descriptions in Dutch. Lol.

Har Gao! Siew Mai! I  miss dim sum DEARLY. I already told Jem Oh that when I return to Singapore I demand another dim sum & durian outing to Geylang ASAP. I think one of it was €3.80 and the other €4.20. And the money I had with me was changed at around 1.85, so go figure how much in SGD that cost.

Walt and I going trigger happy and getting weird stares. That stupid boy started nose bleeding as we were queuing up to get a seat. Then when we started eating he started bleeding even more. There was so much blood everywhere I think only the sheer fact of what food was in front of me stopped me from losing my appetite. I don’t know why all these things always happen to him when I’m eating with him. I still vividly remember the day he fainted in front of me after dinner at Plaza Sing sometime in December 2009.

Beef kuay teow. Not the way we do it in Singapore, but this was still omgood. The ‘chup’ was very nice. Plus all the chili (the kind that’s drowning in chili oil). Heaven. This was €10. Ha. Yes. Take that. For beef kuay teow! But it’s not as ridiculous as the €15 laksa we saw in Amsterdam a few days later.

Soooo.. the food was so awesomely satisfying, that even though we were spending an average of SGD$20 on food we could get at a third of the price back home, we went back there again the next evening.

Mixed veggies. This cost €13.50, I kid you not. But the portion was gianormous! In fact the portion of all the food there was gianormous. And this came with a big pot of rice that Walts had to finish most of because we also ordered duck chao mian.

I think this was €11 or €12.

And xiao long bao. €4.80.

Their portions are HUGE. Only the Chinese can finish this much food. It was funny to observe how all the Chinese patrons really wolfed everything down or at least tar pao-ed their leftovers, and all the Dutchies would be stuck at their tables having eaten less than half of the food, then throw everything else away. Walts and I had to painfully watch copious amounts of glorious Chinese food being swept off the table by waiters.

Second night’s bill was higher than the first. And I was stuffed up to my nostrils. But boy was it a very happy two evenings of indulgences. Much better than the Thai restaurant we ended up in on our first night in Amsterdam, where Walts ordered Thai Green Curry that was 99% coconut milk. And the €5 tom yam soup that I shared with him that was about the size of two Chinese tea cups. Pfft.

There are really a lot of Chinese in Amsterdam. It was funny to see all these:

Chinese road sign.

Chinese temple.

Chinese shop selling all sorts of rice cookers.

And this area is just on the next street from the Red Light District, which wasn’t all that interesting the day we went. (Our hostel, which is a Christian hostel, was funnily in between these two streets.) Someone told me that the prostitutes on display were as hot as models, but that day I only saw a few girls on display and they were either flabby or saggy, so no further comments about the Red Light District if any of you want to ask me ‘So How Was Amsterdam’s Famous RLD??’. And if you want to ask me whether I smoked pot, the obvious answer is: No.

Anyway I digress. Going back to food, Walts and I of course also had to try the famous Vlaamse Frites… supposedly the Dutchies eat it with heaps of mayo, but I don’t like mayo. So we tried this one with their definition of ‘curry sauce’.

Let’s just say it didn’t taste anything like our definition of curry sauce. And it was super salty.

From another stall in Amsterdam. This one was supposed ‘sambal olek’. The guy warned us when we ordered it that was ‘very spicy’. We gamely grinned and told him we could handle it and asked for more. He originally only gave me a tiny dollop the size of a 50 cent coin. There was nothing I have yet tried in Europe that can compare to the way we Singaporeans eat spice.

Our verdict? Salty. I’m quite convinced the Dutch like everything salty. And it was barely spicy and only very vaguely ‘sambal olek’. But the fries were nice. These are about the cheapest eats you can get off the streets, averaging €2 onwards.

I also had a really good muffin. €2.50 from a sandwich place. One thing I must say about the Dutch is that they make DAMN GOOD sandwiches. Which makes Lizzy happy because Lizzy likes sandwiches. And it also made her very depressed the first day she re-entered Switzerland and tried to buy sandwiches off the supermarket shelf, which were pathetic slices of bread with miserable single slices of cheese or ham for more than 4CHF.

But oh well. Muffins.

Om nom nom.

Chocolate mint muffin the day I went on my bike tour.

Went back there with Walts some days later and this is a cherry chocolate one. :] :]

And finally, on my last day in Amsterdam I tried something from Burger Meester. I first read about it on GoAmsterdam while researching before my trip but never really thought about making a point to find the place. But it turned out that they had a few branches and there was one on the way to the Dutch Resistance Museum and opposite the Artis Zoo. (I was heading for the Museum, not the Zoo, though I would like to go there if I get to go back to Amsterdam.)

So after my 4 hours in the not-particularly-large museum (which I thoroughly enjoyed. One of the perks of traveling alone is that I can spend as long as I want gazing at museum exhibits.), I decided to try this famed burger. I ordered a mini duck burger for €3.50.

And boy was it made for messy eating! The bun was so soft it was breaking apart because of all the meat juices and sauces. The sauce, cheese and meat was spilling out all over because the fillings were bigger than the bun. But it was a really enjoyable little burger while it lasted. The duck was lightly seared and slightly undercooked, which I liked anyhow since I’m a medium-rare sort. Yums.

And that’s almost the end of this little Dutch holiday series, probably one more entry to wrap up my day spent in the Red Cross Museum in Geneva and to talk about all the stuff I got on this trip. This was really the most ‘holiday’ trip for me so far. No rushing around cheonging museums and trying to get 1000 done in one day like we did in Italy. Very relaxing, very enjoyable, and I spent most of my money enjoying food, museums, buying books and postcards.

Think I’m finally settling into the Ways of Chill as they do it here. Europeans really know how to relax and enjoy life. My first couple of months in Switzerland I was permanently restless and edgy because a workaholic like me really couldn’t understand the concept of having NOTHING to do. But I’m finally starting to learn how to relax. :] Shall enjoy the remaining months of it before it’s back to crazy-can’t-stop-working Singapore again.

Okay. Time to study for one more paper on Friday. Then off to Barcelona on Monday!

Cafe Oliv

Yes, more food. I’m off to Switzerland in 9 days and the boyfriend sees fit to stuff me on behalf of my Mom (who’s away on work in China at the moment) with everything I won’t be able to eat for 6 months.

Cafe Oliv
ADDRESS: 220 East Coast Road Tel: +65 6344 3114
OPENING HOURS: Daily 11.30am – 11.00pm

Hungrygowhere reviews here!

Okay, so we came here because it was a Monday night, and we had originally wanted to go to Casa Do Churrasco Brazil but FORTUNATELY they’re closed on Mondays. (One stuffed Lizzy being served right up. We had Wan Dou Sek the night before.)

I know you guys are probably bored about reading about food and wondering why the heck I eat so much (not scared grow fat meh?), but yeah I’m sure once I hit Switzerland I’ll have other things to blog about, since there isn’t much to eat in Europe except, I expect, cheese and chocolate. And gelato. :]

But we’ll get to that when it comes.
In the meantime…

On to the food!

Cafe Oliv offers lunch and dinner set promotions which are really value for money. Dinner sets are only $16.90++ that includes soup+drink+entree+dessert. There are some more expensive sets that are also very decent.

We ordered one set and an additional set of sausage and rosti.

The mushroom soup. NOT canned soup, which is already a promising start. Quite a hearty bit of shrooms in this one.

Beef stew with (some sort of) rice, part of the set menu. The rice is really, really fragrant. Jason said he’d never seen me eat so much rice before.
Actually he finished the first plate of rice and we ordered an additional one (at $1) on top of it. The rice is really appetizing, 很开胃！And the beef stew is hearty and well worth the crazily cheap $16.90 set. Wait till we get to dessert.

Rosti with sausages. This was an a-la-carte item that was around $15 to $16. Rosti is fried with bacon bits IN it. Tasty stuff. Decent sausages. Sour cream could be better though.

DEEEESSSERTT. The most important part of my meal. They only have 3 desserts here but they are ALL. SO. GOOD. You can choose from a mudpie, a brownie served with ice-cream as pictured above, or creme brulee. Ordered on its own each item is only $5.90, the brownie is $6.90. Mudpie not pictured here but it is cheaper and comparable, and perhaps I think even nicer than the one from Coffee Club!

But I decided to have brownie that day. It’s served WARMED, really warm, with vanilla ice-cream dribbling off it’s warm fluffy head to complete any meal with a little bit of heavenly comfort. GOOD. STUFF.

Service wasn’t great though. The lady boss whom I usually see around wasn’t there and the two waitresses were from China – there was definitely a bit of a communication issue but overall the food at Oliv has been and continues to be an enjoyable and satisfying meal. For the price you pay, you are reallllllly getting some really great food.

Post-dinner faces:

As you can tell, I was really quite stuffed. Lol.

If you’re wondering where the bluish light that’s being cast on us (and the food) is coming from, it’s from the TV hanging on the wall opposite our table that was showing New Police Story on Channel 5 which had both of us quite distracted for a large part of dinner.

Highly recommended dinner place which won’t hurt your pocket terribly and is a good place to bring friends or a date. Come visit the East! Lol.

Wan Dou Sek

Jason and I hit Geylang yesterday for some dim sum at Wan Dou Sek.

First went there with the ASFV boys (Lide, Jeremy and WL) for dim sum & durian after we wrapped filming and had the yummiest chee cheong fun evarrr. But unlike Jeremy we have no Mini Cooper so we cabbed there and back from my place. (Not exactly the most convenient or nicest neighbourhood to be wandering around, that area.)

Wan Dou Sek
Address: 126 Sims Ave Singapore 387449 (between Geylang Lor 15 and 17)
Opening Hours: 24 hours daily

Loads of reviews of this famous place available online including ieatishootipost.

Beverage-wise, I really loveeee the stuff here. We ordered chin chow and plum juice. All their drinks are served in this plastic bowl that hurts the environment so so much, why do they do it? But yea. $1.50 for a generous serving of chin chow that’s enough to fill 10 cups (or more) of chin chow water from Canteen A.

And the plum juice was the right amount of suan-ness (sour) to hit the right spot. Mmmmm.

We had EIGHT dishes of dim sum between the two of us. Think Jason is starting to order like my Mom. Scary.

Fried yam cake. This one, very good.

Prawn wrapped in very fried tau kee. Oily but terrifically crispy on the outside, prawns really juicy on the inside. Their serving staff recommended this. Have to admit that it’s good though I’m not a fan of these.

Unimpressive har gao. Prawns are okay, same prawns after all right? But not as juicy as a har gao should be.

THE STAR of all Wan Dou Sek in my books. The chee cheong fun!!!! *_* (Yes sparkly eyes.)
We loved it so much we ordered it twice. Prawns the first round and char siew the second.
There’s something about the sauce. It’s this magical sauce that tastes like… Well the closest thing I can describe it to taste as is pork floss. Bizarre I know. But it is very, very, fantastic.

Glutinous rice wrapped in somesortof leaf. Has generous portion of meat and mushroom inside but rice was dry, I no like.

Siew mai. I’m a big siew mai consumer. It’s one of my favourite dim sum dishes of all time and I must have it/try it everywhere I go that has siew mai. I see this siew mai no up. It’s not bad, it’s just unimpressive.
One of my favourite readily available siew mai is still from Tiong Bahru Pau. Which I love. My favourite cha siew pau is also from Tiong Bahru Pau. I grew up eating, living, breathing, smelling Tiong Bahru Pau.

But I digress again.
Let’s carry on.

Okay, I ate about 10% of this and I’m sure Jason knew that when he ordered it. (He just wanted it all for himself. =x) Steamed pork ribs. Not my cuppa tea.

Overall. Dim sum here is not bad, maybe we didn’t order more of the right stuff. Would return here for more of that awesome chee cheong fun and generally not bad dim sum.

The BEST ban mian ever.

Okay today I must really wax lyrical about one of my favourite food. Especially since I’m flying off to Switzerland in 2 weeks and will have NONE OF MY FAVOURITE FOOD for 6 months, I’ve been going around eating loads of my favourite stuff.

I’m a self-confessed ban mian addict. People who eat with me in food courts often enough (especially church friends) will know that I almost always eat ban mian.

Yes the Qiu Lian and Formosa chains available in most food courts these days are actually quite decent, with the worst ban mian award being a tie between the one at Canteen A (NTU) and Canteen 14 (NTU). I’d say Can A’s wins. Don’t eat either, is my suggestion.

BUT.

THIS ban mian (which I have enthusiastically dragged many people to try) is well and truly, the very, very, very, best.

MY FRIENDS. Do not be put off by its unassuming demeanor. It. Is. AWESOME.
(I was here around 3pm so there weren’t that many people.)
In fact it is so awesome, I need to eat it at least once every week. (Can you sense the epic withdrawal I’m going to suffer that’s fast approaching?)

These few weeks I’ve been into E-mian (brown noodles below).

Normally I’m a U-mian person, because most places tend to have clumpy and starchy ban mian. So eventually I became a U-mian person. And I seldom order E-mian anywhere else because they don’t cook the E-mian long enough and it tends to be somewhat hard or rubbery when eating.

But the E-mian here is just perfect. And oh, all the other mians too. Not starchy at all, just the right ‘QQ’ texture. (Yes I know and I resent that QQ isn’t a word, but there’s no better way to describe it.) And the soup is heavenly. Most important thing after noodle texture in a bowl of ban mian is SOUP! And the soup is so good. Especially doused with chili. :] :]

If you look at the picture you’ll see that this is actually a bowl of fish E-mian (fish is the white meat at the top). BUT. They are ridiculously and heavenly generous with their liao (ingredients). When you order fish ban mian the very friendly stall owner will ask if you want meat with it. So you get a HEAP of fish along with a HEAP of minced pork when you order fish ban mian. (With a heap of noodles, veggies, some shrooms, egg… perfectly hearty.)

You can tell that I really resent those ban mian stalls (ie. Canteen A) that count out 3 – 5 miserably thin slices of fish and pick them up stingily with the tongs when you order fish ban mian. Always feel super cheated and annoyed when that happens. (Add to the fact that the noodle is starchy and undercooked and the soup sucks and the meat bits tend to be just floating blobs of fat.)

Okay. Totally forgot to mention where this gem is.

Qiu Rong ban mian is hidden in the basement of Roxy Square II (next to Mercure Hotel), opposite Parkway Parade. Basement 2. I have no idea what the address is but there’s another rather popular steamboat place there in the basement as well.

They also offer red wine chicken mee sua (one of my mom’s favourite) and some comforting Chinese soups (depends on when you go).

If you are a ban mian person. This is the mecca of ban mian. Srsly. ))))

Out of the pan.

Just because we happened to be there for lunch.

Mushroom crepe.

Tandoori fish crepe.

Out of the Pan is that restaurant in Raffles City around the fountain in the basement. I frequent the place very occasionally. But the crepes are not bad and the food comes fast.

Momoya

Momoya Japanese Restaurant
ADDRESS: 16 Jalan Pari Burong, Picardy Garden (somewhere further down from Sempang) Tel: 62453303
OPENING HOURS: Mon–Fri 11.30am – 2.30pm Sat–Sun 11.30am – 3.30pm Daily 6pm – 10.30pm

View the Hungrygowhere reviews here.
(Yes hungrygowhere is my de facto food review site. If I’m going to pay that much money for food, I like to see what other people sa)

The short review:
Only two items met my standard: the sashimi and the chawanmushi.
To be fair I’m a picky eater and spoiled tastebuds.
Also affected by fact that I was at Hibiki a week earlier.
Number of dishes 3 times that of Hibiki but standard not that imho. Prices aren’t that far apart, with that said I would rather go to Hibiki.
Momoya is still quite popular, but the standard just doesn’t cut it for me.
Very average, and some really tasted like foodcourt standard.
Probably won’t go back unless large group of friends want to go there for buffet or something.

Another disclaimer, the comments below may be a little harsh. The food wasn’t terrible by any means, it just wasn’t anything to rave about. So what’s below is just, with honesty, what came to mind at first taste.

If you want to pay $40 for a Jap buffet with a large variety of very satisfying food – Kushinbo is far more worth it. (Just went there last weekend with Mom and Jason, no pictures from there because it was a rare day I didn’t bring out my cam AND I was too busy enjoying my dinner anyway.) For $39.0++ dinner at Kushinbo you get as good sashimi, large variety of EVERYTHING, a large array of desserts and virtually any drink you could possibly want to accompany your meal. And they have meal promos for various times of the day including a $24.90++ eat-all-you-can after 9PM.

Okay, but enough about that. Here’s the dig on Momoya:

Some duck thing. Salty.

First round of sashimi. Fortunately good, slightly better or at least comparable with Hibiki’s.

Sis enjoying chawan.

Tempura. Batter too thick.

Soft shell crab roll. Soggy soft shell crab. Seaweed that I had to grit between my teeth and yank just to tear.

More sashimi… yum.

Beef. Tastes like foodcourt Jap food. Unimpressed.

Soft shell crab sushi. Okay la. Nothing much to say.

Katsu. Let’s not even talk about the taste. It already looks like overfried foodcourt Jap food.

Fried fishy bits. Okay but nothing to rave about.

Some unimpressive fish.

Soba wasn’t cold enough, texture not smooth enough…

Worst agadeshi tofu I’ve eaten. The skin peels off the entire thing like a goopey gel skin that you can’t chew. You have to either peel off the entire skin or swallow the entire gooey skin.

Garlic rice, not too bad but who comes to a Jap buffet to eat garlic rice.

Tastes like Sakae sushi. No other comment.

2nd round of chawanmushi cause it was one of the few things we were satisfied with.

Mushrooms were dry and not very tasty. Nothing like Hibiki’s.

Very fried and oily calamari…

Chicken teriyaki. Spoiled by Hibiki’s far nicer one.

Okay zi-lian photo time.

Decor behind us.

The sister washing down the meal with tea.

Have just gone through the above with her and we are generally both in agreement.

Don’t know if I should be apologizing for the fact that we have well-tested tastebuds.

But for that price and variety, please go to Kushinbo instead.

Hibiki @ Cuppage.

Hibiki
ADDRESS: 21 Cuppage Road Cuppage Terrace/ TEL: 6736 0326
OPENING HOURS: Mon-Thu,Sun 11:30am-2:30pm, 6pm-10pm; Fri-Sat 11:30am-2:30pm, 6pm-11pm

Check out the Hungrygowhere reviews.

Jason and I came here for Christmas dinner.

The short review:
Great sashimi (very important),
REALLY mouthwatering sumiyaki (refer to photos below),
Buffet has really few items, but the items are of good standard,
Spoilt my tastebuds so much that when I went to Momoya (more on that in another post!) a week later, I found everything there very average.
Would definitely go back again.
Oh yea, sit outside and go in the evening, nice ambience.

Soft shell crab roll. Soft shell crab good, rice good, seaweed a bit limp and tough. Prefer the crisper, easier to bite type.

SASHIMI. Okay I apologize, you are going to see lots of pics of this because we ordered it lots of times.
Salmon, good, fresh. Tuna, also goooooood. But I always feel guilty eating tuna.

Tempura, prawns are fresh but batter so-so only. I like it when the batter melts in your mouth after dipping but this one is a bit… harder.

Okay only… still prefer the one from Waraku. But definitely better than the one I had at Momya. It was so bad. The skin peeled off like a sticky gooey gel.

The start of the sumiyaki collection! Teriyaki chicken. Slow grilled and very deliciously juicy and generous portions.

THE MUSHROOMS. WERE. HEAVENLY. Lightly sprinkled with salt, retains all the juicy goodness. SO GOOD.

Unagi…so-so only. Next to it is the bacon-wrapped asparagus:

SO sinful. But so good. And I normally don’t eat bacon.

More sashimi…

AND more sashimi… it always comes out in a different plate, so cute hor.

The only dessert on the a-la-carte buffet list. Yuzu lemon jelly. It is gooooood. Helps you digest everything. Its lemony and 开胃 enough to make a satisfying end to a good meal of sumiyaki and sashimi.

Told you ambience was quite nice.

Okay that’s it. Next post – NYE’s dinner with the family at Momoya that was kinda disappointing.

Timbre Mobile

One quiet evening, the boyfriend and I headed to Timbre Mobile… currently situated at ECP at the old golf driving range in between Marine Cove and Big Splash.

Timbre Mobile
ADDRESS: 920 East Coast Parkway, Parkland Golf, Singapore 449875.
OPENING HOURS: Open on Tuesday to Sunday 6pm onwards except Sundays open from 6pm-10.30pm. Closed on Mondays. Call 96565711 (after 5pm, only for Timbre Mobile).

The place was generally empty.

We’re happier than we look. I think that’s our stoned, chill-out face. It’s the kind of face you tend to get when you’ve been together (albeit on and off here and there) for three years and you’ve settled into being comfortable burping / sitting improperly / eating uncouthly around each other.

Quite unlike the other couple who was at Timbre Mobile.

Jason said he knew the guy, but the guy didn’t acknowledge him. So officially we don’t know them okay?

They were 5 days from their 1 month anniversary (according to his song dedication)…

Yes I was shooting over my boyfriend’s shoulder.

And Pam and Icantrememberhisname were playing that night… There were so few people that all 3 of our requests were sung – even though they couldn’t sing most of our first choices.

And oh the set-up is pretty cool. The tables and chairs are lightweight processed chipped wood, and the table top is actually just a sheet of black acrylic. The entire Timbre Mobile set-up apparently fits into 4 shipping containers for ease of transport when they move to another park in a few months.

The bar.

I think this is the VIP chill-out box.

You can find out more about Timbre Mobile at their website.

I’m sure the place gets livelier over the weekend.

The seats do get a lil’ bit uncomfortable though, so make sure you come in comfortable clothes.