Indochine at the Ancient Civilisations Museum (Boat Quay)

My fav 3 Indochine outlets are this one (ambience), the one at Club St (food), and the one at Wisma Atria (convenience).

This place is really pretty place at night, all lighted up. Romantic ambience, but as with all things in life, it doesn't come for free. You pay a pretty high premium for it, in fact. $25 for a plate of pad thai, $18 for a platter of Vietnamese net spring rolls, $22 for a dish of vegetables stir fried with mushrooms/seafood. And it was barely enough for 2! But all in all, no one comes to Indochine expecting a cheap meal...you come knowing you'll be paying for the consistenly above average food, nice ambience, and excellent service. Only for occasions, I suppose.

Holland Village XO Fish Head Beehoon

Late dinner at 930pm and business was really good. Thankfully, though, the wait wasn't too long. Service was, as always, cordial at best, but like all Singaporeans, we sucked it up for the above average food.

I love san lou hor fun (sliced fish with thick kway teow, tossed in superior light soy sauce, sesame oil and idunnowhatelse), and their version always hits the spot cuz its heavyhanded on the light soy sauce. I love savoury food ;)

We also got a har cheong gai to share. The chicken was well coated with prawn paste, but I still prefer the version at the Alexandra Village branch of HK Street Chun Kee.

This was L's fish head bee hoon with XO- its supposedly tastier than the fish meat version (see below), cuz the bones 'impart' more flavour to the soup, but i'm usually just too lazy to have to suck and remove all the bones...:S



This is my Fish meat beehoon without XO. I wanted to see if it would be as tasty without the XO. The verdict? There is a pretty discernible difference between the XO and sans-XO versions. I personally prefer the former because its as savoury and tasty, and besides, the XO taste can get abit too strong sometimes.

I always say its a good sign when the hawker eats his own food at mealtimes. The famous owner of the stall was happily tucking into a big bowl of fish head beehoon at 1030pm, attesting to how good the food is (or he thinks it is).

Their fish head beehoon is a safe bet when im at holland village and dont feel like having the usual crystal jade/ amici/ walas fare. It's not the best (imo), but its good enough to make me return for more.

Tomoe London

Grilled Unagi

Grilled Aubergine with Miso

Croquette

Assorted Sashimi

Grilled Razor Clam

King Prawn Tempura

Fried Beancurd with Udon

Sushi Nigiri and Sushi Rolls

More Sushi Rolls

Eel and Avocado Roll

Home-Made Tofu

Dragon Roll

Sake Sorbet

Tomoe London was recommended by my Japanese hairdresser. Thankfully, the restaurant this time did not disappoint. However, it failed to shine as well. The sushi and sashimi slices were fresh and pretty good, with not too much rice in it. The other dishes were not bad as well, but none succeeded in really impressing me. My favourite sushi roll was the spicy tuna! I love tuna:) The fatty tuna nigiri was pretty good as well. Only miss of the day was the Sake Sorbet, which was gained unanimous disapproval from everyone. For a dessert, we were expecting something sweet but instead it tasted just like its name, Sake. It tasted like frozen Sake to be honest. The prices were a little bit pricey for a small restaurant like this and they seemed to have a weird penchant for unagi in their dishes. I thought the dragon roll would have prawn tempura in it, but turned out to be unagi instead. I don't like unagi:S So next one on my list of Japanese restaurants to try would be Cafe Japan.

The Beauty of Food and Eating

To quote a famous chef i saw on TV last night...

"The great thing about food is that its indulgence and necessity all rolled into one."

Couldn't agree more! A life without all of life's yummy treats would be oh-so-boring don't you think? And finding someone to share that joy of eating and tasting new cuisines with you...it's an added bonus :)

Kam Tong Restaurant London

Roast Duck

Siew Yoke

Deep Fried Squid with Salt and Pepper

Mixed Curry Vegetables

Having heard rave reviews from my friend Joseph as well as reading online reviews, I decided to check out this restaurant at Bayswater. After hearing that this place had roast duck that was better than that of Four Seasons, I was pretty sceptical about it. How right I was. :(

Being a huge fan of roast duck, I can devour a whole bird and 2 cups of rice in one sitting. :) However, this roast duck sorely lacked the taste to whet my appetite to such an extent. For a chinese restaurant, the dishes seemed to sorely lack in sodium. Amazing eh?

The roast duck seemed to be lacking any taste of sort. It was neither salty nor sweet (as per Four Seasons/Gold Mine). The only thing that they had in common was the same fattiness. The gravy had the same look and appearance as the the other restaurants, but it was extremely plain to say the least. I was really disappointed with my roast duck dinner tonight, and I actually contemplated buying back some of the real stuff from Four Seasons, but alas I was too full.

The only saving grace was the Siew Yoke though. It was crispy and salty, definitely providing a good contrast to the tasteless roast duck that I just had. For £8.50, the portion served for the deep fried squid was very small and as per Kam Tong style, it lacked salt as well. Lastly, the mixed vegetable curry is a very westernised version of the dish I'm used to back home (sayur lodeh) and please do not order it!:)

By the way, I gotta sort out my bad habit of starting to eat before taking pictures. An eager beaver does not make a good foodie.:P

Paradise on Earth Steamboat

Sorry for the lack of posts recently- I've been busy with work and life, and Siew Mai's been busy with his final exams. His last paper is on Friday, so I suppose more posts will come after that! :)

Steamboat is one of my favourite foods, never mind that its time consuming cuz you have to wait for the food to cook, or that you're paying good money to basically cook your own food. I like how its tummy-warming and filling, and that you usually have it with a group of friends/family (ie bonding time!). I guess it also helps that i love drinking soup!

Look past the slightly cheesy name of this place, and you'll be rewarded with a more-than-decent steamboat option. Its an ala-carte buffet, so items are fresh (meats and fish are sliced on the spot for you).

There are 4 or 5 stock bases including chicken stock, fish head and scallop broth, tom yum soup and mala soup. As ome member of our party doesnt take spicy stuff, we opted for the first 2 soup bases. Both were satisfactorily tasty and didnt leave any msg aftertaste :)

One thing i like about this place is that they have stuff like fried yam, pumpkin, fish glue, and even fried rice. Very few other steamboat buffet places have such options- i love dunking a piece of crispy fried yam in the soup and watching it soak in and absorb the tastiness of the soup till the yam is nice and soft and oh-so-tasty, knowing that its gonna end up in my mouth and belly :)))

Also worthy of mention is their fried rice, which comes free flow with the buffet. Again, you order it off the menu, and I could actually watch the chefs frying it up in the kitchen. No chance of it being pre-fried and placed in a warmer, waiting to be scooped out for unsuspecting customers. I like that there's sufficient wok hei in the dish though it isnt exactly chockful of ingredients. But at least each grain of rice is coated with sufficient egg and is fried to a beautiful golden colour. Tbh, I would even pay for this fried rice if they decided to take it off the ala-carte buffet menu!

Paradise on Earth is located at 200 Tanjong Katong Road, near the HK Street Chun Kee Restaurant. The ala-carte buffet costs 19.90sgd nett, but do note that this excludes drinks!

Domino's

Texas BBQ

Domino's Premiere

I know I've blogged about Domino's before but I gotta re-do it again. Heh. There's nothing better than a Domino's pizza for a busy student during his exams:) I wish they have it in Singapore -__-