Well well, we wanted to try something more exotic because was getting a bit bored of eating chinese, western, and jap food. Alaturka serves a sort of combination of turkish and mediterranean cuisine. I had make a reservation in advance, and they saved their best seat for us, which even had a roof that can be open so that we can look at the sky. So rule number one always make reservation before you go. We took a while before we can decide what to order because all of us did not try turkey food before.
The kofte ($13.00) which was grilled lamb with rice and vege. Turkey really can cook their lamb, or at least at Alaturka they do it well. 4.5 out of 5
The Etlipide ($11.50) which was baked bread with chicken. Pretty good, i think its quite similar to Italy pizza, but if you had it as main course, its not really filling. 3.5 out of 5
Adana chicken Kebab ($13.00), it has grilled chicken kebab with rice and vege. 3.5 out of 5
The Iskender Kebab ($15.00) chicken with yogut. Hmm, it has lots of chicken, but then being the most expensive dish among us, it has no rice, so ordered one rice pilaf at $1.50. Not too bad, but considering it with the other dishes, the price a bit higher. 3.5 out of 5
The Kuzupirzola ($14.00) which was lamb chop with rice and vege. Although i do not eat lamb often, but the lamb chop here was good enough for me. Alaturka really do their lamb well service. 4.5 out of 5
All in all, lamb is well done here, the chicken kebabs are also not bad, quite a number of variety of kebab and Ottoman specials they called it. No air-con, but hey come on, for the reasonable price and good food its worth it. If you want something special, Alaturka is the place for you.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Waraku Japanese casual pasta & cafe restaurant at Central. First impression the restaurant was quite nicely decorated, the staff was enthu, mayb too-enthu for my delight. They will say welcome loudly to everyone who came. And sometimes out of nothing they will shout some jap greetings. I mean it is good to be polite, but isn’t this a little over? Besides, it is all right to say greetings in jap but at least yr jap have to sound nice? Some waitress jap does not sound too good to the ear. Think the management should ask diners comments on this
Donald had the Kaminabe Wazen ($19.80), kaminabe sounds like some foul word? haha. Anyway, it has sliced beef & vegetables cook with soup in paper pot, fresh salmon sashimi, and deepfried assortment of vege and prawn, rice The sliced beef and vege in spicy soup, the soup is refreshing to drink, donald (beef lover) say the beef is very nice, so it must be nice. Quite special to put it in paper pot.
The sliced beef and vege in spicy soup, the soup is refreshing to drink, don(beef lover) say the beef is very nice, so it must be nice. Quite special to put it in paper pot. Fried Prawn and vege, looks and taste nice. Onli one miserable prawn, should have give more. I am not really a sashimi eater so cannot judge whether fresh or not. Overall this dish i would give it 4 out of 5
I had the TonkatsuWazen ($15.50) which is pork cutlet set meal i guess. It has pork cutlet (obviously), salad, rice, pickles seaweed with soup noodles. The main character, pork cutlet, cripsy is the word to describe. At some places after eating pork cutlet you will feel the after-effect of being thirsty and stuff like that, but this one wont. The cutlet is also fried jus nice, not too bland and not too salty. Plus my fav healthy servings of vege to go along with it. The seaweed with soup noodles, one big bowl of it, two person to finish it, Noodles taste all right. Tonkatsu set (pork cutlet) gets 3.5 out of 5 because i prefer donald set. As simple as that
Overall the whole restaurant feel, donald say is 3.5, but i think i would give it 4 out of 5, pretty decent price and the food is not too bad, jus that i think the management should improve on the restaurant service, too much shouting around is not music to my ears while i am having my dinner. I had a coupon from them after paying the bill, its gives quite a good discount, BUT, the big but, it is onli limited to 1 coupon per table per bill basis. That means i can use coupon but my friend cant?
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Epicurious is another small eatery along Robertson Quay that I've tried. It's really hard to find! You have to walk all the way to the end, near the bridge. It's facing the river with some seats outside and just 3 tables inside.
I love the ambience. It's very cosy with warm lights around. There are shelves all filled with little knick knacks from the past. There are also photographs of Singapore in the early days.. It was certainly fun looking through everything. So fun that it distracted me from ordering. Luckily I had a companion who was more focused. The items are for sale but they are expensive.. like $6 for a soup spoon..
The only thing which was odd about the place was Jay Chou singing loudly from the kitchen. Luckily we did kinda like Jay so it wasn't bad. But it certainly didn't fit in with the place.
The menu was a little small with few items but apparently they change the items on the menu from time to time so new items will be up for tasting eventually.
I had the Herb Roasted Half Chicken that day. It was served with baked potatoes and mushrooms. The chicken was well marinated and the meat just tastes of the herbs. It was yummy and I'm still thinking of it. Although I hate having to separate meat from bones but I certainly tried hard that night to get my yummy meat. The serving was definitely more than enough for me.
I'd have to agree that $55 for 2 mains and a dessert does seem a little ex but I think it's really worth it! I would definitely be back... to try the Muthu's Flourless Chocolate Cake which was sold out that day :)
Les Bouchons is a quaint little place sitting quietly by the river. When I say little I do mean little as it has about 10 tables only, with 5 outside by the river. At certain times of the day, it might not be such a good idea to dine by the river as the smell can be quite pungent.
Having walked past this place a couple of times, we decided to drop in for a post-xmas dinner. The interior of the place seemed nice at first glance... but if you took a second look you'll see layers of dust on the shelves which are empty. You could even see that there used to be bottles on the shelves and the bottles were taken away recently but not returned.
We were pretty surprised by the small menu of 15 items (in total). There was some trouble picking due to the lack of pictures and detailed descriptions. Soup is not served here. Nope it's not available at all, even if you ask the server.
There was complimentary bread which was a little dry, so it was more disheartening that there wasn't soup to go with it.
Food Ordered: Sirloin Steak with Herbs ($30.80) My companion ordered this medium-rare and it came as she wanted it. The steak was quite big but thin. And despite the "with Herbs" I certainly didn't detect the taste or smell of any in this dish. It was quite a disappointing one. The meat was quite tough and was a little lacking in taste.
Grilled Fillet of Salmon ($30.80) Slightly charred on the outside, this was a pretty large (thick) serving of salmon. I don't know to be happy or sad that it was a large serving since it was just average. The texture was just right. There is little taste. After sprinkling the lemon juice over it, all I could really taste was the lemon. It was really just Grilled Salmon.
Both mains were served with just fries. I loved the fries (the only thing I liked) They were the fat sort and were not oily. They were also free flow. But they already serve a mountain of fries with the mains so unless you think you're going to chill for a long time, I doubt anyone would need another serving of fries.
The service provided wasn't up to par either. Considering that we were the only ones in the restaurant that early evening, they were pretty slow to notice us when we waved. It is a small place you know.
The bill came up to about $85 for two of us. We ordered two mains and a drink. For the quality and the variety I would say that it was too expensive and I wouldn't be back. Looks like I have to look elsewhere for my fat fries.
Benny Se Teo, the only Singaporean to have trained in Jamie Oliver's kitchen "Fifteen", opened this 54-seater restaurant in June 2007. He aimed to help ex-offenders find an alternate path while also delivering good food to the public. With such an interesting story behind this little place, we just had to drop by for a visit.
We found our own seats. It was early afternoon on a weekday and the place was had just two other tables occupied so it was easy for us to find a seat by the window.
This place adopts the self-serve system which means you decide what you want, indicate on the little paper they provide at the tables, bring it to the cashier and pay. You also get your own plain water at a station next to the cashier. That's fine by me since there is no service charge.
Enticed by the option to create your own baked rice, all 3 of us picked Baked Rice for that day. Cheese Baked Rice with Tangy Tomato sauce and Chicken slices ($8.90) The food came pretty quickly but the serving was pretty small (that said, I didn't finish it.). It tasted much like any other Baked Rice... if anything, I'd say the rice was not soft enough.
My companions' baked rice looked more delicious with the cream based sauces.
Eighteen Funky Strawberry - Dessert ($5.80) Four scoops of ice cream served with strawberries and hazel nuts and oreo biscuits... Sounds good isn't it? But it wasn't as good as I had hoped. The ice cream wasn't rich enough and the strawberries were sourish. Well what could I expect for $5.80. It was ok though, I just wouldn't order it again.
After the entire meal, and after drinking 1/2 a glass of water, I noticed that my glass was filthy. Very filthy.
The total came up to about $33.50 for the three of us, which was a little too much for the quantity and quality of food given. I might still go back as the rest of the items on the menu did look interesting though. :) Well if you're a student you can check out the $5.90 set meals which I think are a good deal :)
MmMM This Pasta Fresca has been there for ages and I've only tried it once many years ago. I do remember that it wasn't a terrible experience so decided to try it again just recently.
We were nicely greeted when we stepped in. The dim lighting in this restaurant.. was a little TOO dim. It made it a little hard for me to see actually (I have night blindness) But nonetheless dim is always better than bright places. I liked the country decor with Italian style paintings in the panels. Food Ordered: (please go to the website for descriptions)
Alfredo Fettuccine $14.70 I'm not a fan of cream based sauces so I flinched a little when my companion ordered this but then I don't expect to eat much anyway. It wasn't as thick as I had expected and did go down quite well. My worries about it not being finished were unjustified. The pasta was a teeny bit hard though, resulting in more mouth exercise for us. Quattro Stagioni $16.90 The Pizza of four seasons... quite interesting so I ordered it. With lots of ham and mushrooms on a thin (but not too thin) crust, I liked this pizza! It comes in two sizes and we ordered the smaller one. :) Mousse Al Cioccolato $6.90 MMmMM I am one chocolate lover and for $6.90 I'll go for this over Haagen Daz any day.. it's not fantastic... but it's tastes good enough without being too sweet. The texture is just right too. No marks for presentation though. Tiramisu $7.30 Not quite what I expected but it is a reasonable cake. I wouldn't pay to eat this again though.
All in all I think it was a pretty good visit. I wanted to give it a 3.5... but since there aren't any half-stars... For the relatively good service and great smiles, so 4 it shall be.
This tiny Italian restaurant, hidden behind a bus-stop and set within a rather rundown place, was pretty tricky to find. With the tinted glass doors and windows, if you didn't take notice of the signboards, you'll never that that's a restaurant.
Finalmente only opened recently, couple months ago. The place was nice and simple. However, the people running the place seemed abit cold tonight. Perhaps its due to the high volume of us, a group of 12, chatting and laughing non-stop when we stepped in. Before that, it was very peaceful and quiet.
The menu was printed on an A4 paper on double side. Perhaps they're still revamping it so keeping it simple for now. There wasn't that many choices of food, just mainly, Salads, Pizzas, Pastas, Sandwiches and Focaccia Breads.
The 12 of us ordered total of 10 pizzas to share. Out of the 9 flavors, I tried only 4 as the rest either were gone even before I managed to see it, or contains pork.
All the pizzas were thin and baked to perfection. The thin base makes it light to eat. Once can finish the entire pizza if you're not watching your weight. As the pizzas all comes on the same type of base, I'll just talk about the flavors for each.
Napoli Pizza $8 - Tomatoes, Anchovies, Capers and Black Olives
This was my least favorite out of the 4. The Anchovies was overpowering and too saltish for me (and everyone who tried it).
5 Cheese $12 - Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Gorgonzola, Emmenthal, Fontina, Parmesan
This was my favourite! Love the cheese! Unlike the normal cheese you find on the regular pizzas from elsewhere. The aroma makes one drool and want to grab a piece. These cheese were nicely spread and baked to the right texture. It was so good that we had to order another one! This will be the one that I'll return for more!
Calzone Gourmet $25 - Close pizza filled with Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Ham and Ricotta Cheese, Mushroom and Boiled Egg
Ouch! I just realised that there's ham in this one! But I don't remember tasting any. Perhaps cos I took the corner which only few slices of mushroom were found. This is more like a huge curry puff instead of a pizza. The crust was light and crispy, and the mushrooms were nice. One thing interesting about this is the egg in the center. It's half cooked and so the yolk will spill out when you cut into it. But the mixed was heavenly.
Bosco $27.50 - Mix cheese, Porcini Mushroom, Grill eggplant, Parmesan shave, drizzled with Truffle Oil
I can't really remember the taste of this pizza. So I guess there's nothing quite nice about it. But if you like eggplant, you should give this one a try.
Overall, this place serves pretty nice pizzas. If you're a fan of pizzas, do go give this place a try. Maybe you'll enjoy it more than me. :)
Oh couple more things! They don't serve ice water. When you order ice water, they'll serve you bottled mineral water. So you might want to just order can drinks or wine instead. There's also no service charge nor GST.
Long heard of this famous ice-cream shop but did not have a chance to patronise it. So after finishing our dinner at Greenwood, we head straight to serene centre which was nearby. When we reached the place it was full house, so we waited a while for our seats. Single scoop comes at $2.50 each, while double scoop is $4.00. There is also the 500ml tub at $8.00
We 3 person order double scoop each and share, so each of us can taste 6 flavours instead of 2. Smart right? There are other flavours like black sesame, soursop, and some others which i can’t remember. But we dun have the courage to try them, so we ordered the more popular ones.
One by one, the top two is teh tareh (coffee) and nutella, bottom left is burn cameral and the popular cookies & cream, bottom right is reversO (chocolate) and horlick (see picture from my blog). We judge the popularity by seeing which one finish first. Make a guess? Cookies & cream and nutella tied for first, followed by cameral, ho, coffee and reverO (chocolate). My personal fav is nutella, never tried before. The reversO was too strong in flavour, as in after eating it when we eat the other flavours we cant taste anything. So we leave it for the last. lol
All in all, Island creamery is quite valued for money, there is a similar ice-cream shop called daily scoop at sunset way which offers double scoop for $5. Head there when u have a chance. 4.5 out of 5
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Three of us went to Greenwood. its behind NJC. Quite hard to go if you do not drive.
The external part of the restaurant does not really have the appeal, like the name implies, Greenwood fish market. It is literally a fish market where u can buy their fish, prawn, oyster. But the interior part is diff (see picture) the lights are dim jus nice and its rather small, so make your reservations before going.
Greenwood is quite famous for their fish & chips, many types of diff fish like snapper, sole filet, salmon, barramundi, tusk fish, yellow fin tuna, nz pink snapper and so on. They also had diff style of cooking the fish like pan-seared, baked, steamed, char-chilled, battered or crumbed. Cool huh? haha. So we had quite a dilemma in choosing what fish we wanted. Above picture is battered snapper($19.95) based on recommendation from the enthu staff. Had a hard time understanding the differences between battered and crumbed. Anyway, battered snapper is good and crispy, but have to finish it fast because its not so nice when it get cold unlike the crumbed sole filet. Both fish & chips come with a healthy side serving of chips and vegies. The chips are good, but the vegies are even better. We have no idea what they do to the vegies, but it’s really good and you want to have more. 4.5 out of 5
Next up is crumbed sole filet ($19.95) also on recommendation. By the way, although both chips are diff fish, but i can’t really tell the diff. lol. From what the staff say, you can tell crumbed from battered because crumbed is fried with bread crumb flour. O well, its quite good also, but i think snapper is a tiny bit better than the sole filet. 4 out of 5
Pasta spag soft shell crab with chili crab sauce ($19.95), unlike the pasta at pastamania, The one here is really pasta. Haha. Soft crab is nice, but too small ! O well. 4 out of 5
Overall good place for fresh fish and seafood, highly recommended just that it is hard to access if you are not driving. We did not have any desserts there because we had already decided to head to Island Creamery for ice cream !
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
When we reach at 6.30pm, the place was not full, BUT they are all reserved! And the seats available are the outdoor dining area. Wait man, don’t start blaming me that i did not make a reservation. I tried. I called at 4 but no one answer the phone. So we had to make do with the outdoor area, and o boy, it was raining cats and dogs. The waitress even had to carry an umbrella to bring the dishes over.
There are many methods of cooking the lobster, my fav is salad lobster of couse, you can also steam it with soya souce, minced garlic, or stir-fried with ginger & spring onion, braised with superior broth, stired-fried with cheese & butter, and baked with cheese & bacon. Honestly i never had the luxury of trying all types of cooking methods, just had steamed one, deep-fried, and salad lobsters before. And i prefer salad lobster. BUt the baked with cheese & bacon do sounds interesting, mayb i will try that if i got the chance next time. We had the Australian lobster which was $120 for 1KG
Salad lobster is simple Super-licious. Only one word can describe it, Heavenly. The salad lobster had lots of fruits, the thick salad cream and mixed fruit plus the lobster meat, makes it irresistable man! 5 out of 5
Next up, the Singapore famous black pepper crab! Its Sri-Lanka king crab they called it. We had two 1.2KG crab, both crabs in pepper. Hmm the black pepper crab are too not bad, but there are better one out there, that is No Signboard Restaurant! 3.5 out of 5
Mee Goreng! Jumbo is famous for their Mee Goreng i think, its very nice i assure you. Must try if go Jumbo, but at $8 for small serving, its a tad too expensive. Pity the price, if not it will be perfect score. 4.5 out of 5
Crispy Baby Squid. Crispy it is, and a little over burned. I am still feeling thirsty now that i reached home after eating it. Not my cup of squid, at $8 its not really worth your while unless you are a fan of fried squids, i rather spend the $8 on another plate of Mee Goreng. 1.5 out of 5
Thats all folks, i will come to the price now because its a bit complicated. Our lobster which flown specially from Australia for us to savour cost $96, i estimate it to be around 800g, but because we got a special coupon, we got 50% off! Horray! It only cost us $48 for one Lobster, cheap yep? The crab is $33 per Kg, We had two, and it comes up to about $75.90. And the crispy baby squid and Mee Goreng like i say earlier is $8 per plate. So our total bill adds up to $192.10 before discount. We had the 50% for lobster, and another 10% off because we had the Jumbo rewards card
The service, eh is a case of over-enthusiastic against a group of slow diners who want to finish every scrap of food on the plate. I have totally nothing against their service, the waitress keep on changing plates for us, this is good because the crab have lots of shell. But when we haven really finish our lobster and mee goreng, they already want to clear the plates as well. Hello? we want value for money, every scrap of food is important to us. LOL. Besides that i don’t really have or can complaints because they do not have service charge. Except for the calling in of reservation.
All in all, Jumbo is not bad la, its a famous seafood restaurant in Singapore with so many branches. However, we still unanimously agree that No Sign Board Restaurant is a tad higher level than Jumbo for its crab, no complaints about the lobster. I heard the East Coast headquarter produce the best food among its outlets, but we had to go to indoor stadium because the 50% coupon for lobster is not able to use in East coast branch. You can’t get the best of both worlds i guess.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
1=SGD 0.0587
Well well, we wanted to try something more exotic because was getting a bit bored of eating chinese, western, and jap food. Alaturka serves a sort of combination of turkish and mediterranean cuisine. I had make a reservation in advance, and they saved their best seat for us, which even had a roof that can be open so that we can look at the sky. So rule number one always make reservation before you go. We took a while before we can decide what to order because all of us did not try turkey food before.
The kofte ($13.00) which was grilled lamb with rice and vege. Turkey really can cook their lamb, or at least at Alaturka they do it well. 4.5 out of 5
The Etlipide ($11.50) which was baked bread with chicken. Pretty good, i think its quite similar to Italy pizza, but if you had it as main course, its not really filling. 3.5 out of 5
Adana chicken Kebab ($13.00), it has grilled chicken kebab with rice and vege. 3.5 out of 5
The Iskender Kebab ($15.00) chicken with yogut. Hmm, it has lots of chicken, but then being the most expensive dish among us, it has no rice, so ordered one rice pilaf at $1.50. Not too bad, but considering it with the other dishes, the price a bit higher. 3.5 out of 5
The Kuzupirzola ($14.00) which was lamb chop with rice and vege. Although i do not eat lamb often, but the lamb chop here was good enough for me. Alaturka really do their lamb well service. 4.5 out of 5
All in all, lamb is well done here, the chicken kebabs are also not bad, quite a number of variety of kebab and Ottoman specials they called it. No air-con, but hey come on, for the reasonable price and good food its worth it. If you want something special, Alaturka is the place for you.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Rating given:
Waraku Japanese casual pasta & cafe restaurant at Central. First impression the restaurant was quite nicely decorated, the staff was enthu, mayb too-enthu for my delight. They will say welcome loudly to everyone who came. And sometimes out of nothing they will shout some jap greetings. I mean it is good to be polite, but isn’t this a little over? Besides, it is all right to say greetings in jap but at least yr jap have to sound nice? Some waitress jap does not sound too good to the ear. Think the management should ask diners comments on this
Donald had the Kaminabe Wazen ($19.80), kaminabe sounds like some foul word? haha. Anyway, it has sliced beef & vegetables cook with soup in paper pot, fresh salmon sashimi, and deepfried assortment of vege and prawn, rice The sliced beef and vege in spicy soup, the soup is refreshing to drink, donald (beef lover) say the beef is very nice, so it must be nice. Quite special to put it in paper pot.
The sliced beef and vege in spicy soup, the soup is refreshing to drink, don(beef lover) say the beef is very nice, so it must be nice. Quite special to put it in paper pot. Fried Prawn and vege, looks and taste nice. Onli one miserable prawn, should have give more. I am not really a sashimi eater so cannot judge whether fresh or not. Overall this dish i would give it 4 out of 5
I had the TonkatsuWazen ($15.50) which is pork cutlet set meal i guess. It has pork cutlet (obviously), salad, rice, pickles seaweed with soup noodles. The main character, pork cutlet, cripsy is the word to describe. At some places after eating pork cutlet you will feel the after-effect of being thirsty and stuff like that, but this one wont. The cutlet is also fried jus nice, not too bland and not too salty. Plus my fav healthy servings of vege to go along with it. The seaweed with soup noodles, one big bowl of it, two person to finish it, Noodles taste all right. Tonkatsu set (pork cutlet) gets 3.5 out of 5 because i prefer donald set. As simple as that
Overall the whole restaurant feel, donald say is 3.5, but i think i would give it 4 out of 5, pretty decent price and the food is not too bad, jus that i think the management should improve on the restaurant service, too much shouting around is not music to my ears while i am having my dinner. I had a coupon from them after paying the bill, its gives quite a good discount, BUT, the big but, it is onli limited to 1 coupon per table per bill basis. That means i can use coupon but my friend cant?
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Rating given:
Epicurious is another small eatery along Robertson Quay that I've tried. It's really hard to find! You have to walk all the way to the end, near the bridge. It's facing the river with some seats outside and just 3 tables inside.
I love the ambience. It's very cosy with warm lights around. There are shelves all filled with little knick knacks from the past. There are also photographs of Singapore in the early days.. It was certainly fun looking through everything. So fun that it distracted me from ordering. Luckily I had a companion who was more focused. The items are for sale but they are expensive.. like $6 for a soup spoon..
The only thing which was odd about the place was Jay Chou singing loudly from the kitchen. Luckily we did kinda like Jay so it wasn't bad. But it certainly didn't fit in with the place.
The menu was a little small with few items but apparently they change the items on the menu from time to time so new items will be up for tasting eventually.
I had the Herb Roasted Half Chicken that day. It was served with baked potatoes and mushrooms. The chicken was well marinated and the meat just tastes of the herbs. It was yummy and I'm still thinking of it. Although I hate having to separate meat from bones but I certainly tried hard that night to get my yummy meat. The serving was definitely more than enough for me.
I'd have to agree that $55 for 2 mains and a dessert does seem a little ex but I think it's really worth it! I would definitely be back... to try the Muthu's Flourless Chocolate Cake which was sold out that day :)
Click here for more pics
Rating given:
Les Bouchons is a quaint little place sitting quietly by the river. When I say little I do mean little as it has about 10 tables only, with 5 outside by the river. At certain times of the day, it might not be such a good idea to dine by the river as the smell can be quite pungent.
Having walked past this place a couple of times, we decided to drop in for a post-xmas dinner. The interior of the place seemed nice at first glance... but if you took a second look you'll see layers of dust on the shelves which are empty. You could even see that there used to be bottles on the shelves and the bottles were taken away recently but not returned.
We were pretty surprised by the small menu of 15 items (in total). There was some trouble picking due to the lack of pictures and detailed descriptions. Soup is not served here. Nope it's not available at all, even if you ask the server.
There was complimentary bread which was a little dry, so it was more disheartening that there wasn't soup to go with it.
Food Ordered:
Sirloin Steak with Herbs ($30.80)
My companion ordered this medium-rare and it came as she wanted it. The steak was quite big but thin. And despite the "with Herbs" I certainly didn't detect the taste or smell of any in this dish. It was quite a disappointing one. The meat was quite tough and was a little lacking in taste.
Grilled Fillet of Salmon ($30.80)
Slightly charred on the outside, this was a pretty large (thick) serving of salmon. I don't know to be happy or sad that it was a large serving since it was just average. The texture was just right. There is little taste. After sprinkling the lemon juice over it, all I could really taste was the lemon. It was really just Grilled Salmon.
Both mains were served with just fries. I loved the fries (the only thing I liked) They were the fat sort and were not oily. They were also free flow. But they already serve a mountain of fries with the mains so unless you think you're going to chill for a long time, I doubt anyone would need another serving of fries.
The service provided wasn't up to par either. Considering that we were the only ones in the restaurant that early evening, they were pretty slow to notice us when we waved. It is a small place you know.
The bill came up to about $85 for two of us. We ordered two mains and a drink. For the quality and the variety I would say that it was too expensive and I wouldn't be back. Looks like I have to look elsewhere for my fat fries.
Rating given:
Benny Se Teo, the only Singaporean to have trained in Jamie Oliver's kitchen "Fifteen", opened this 54-seater restaurant in June 2007. He aimed to help ex-offenders find an alternate path while also delivering good food to the public. With such an interesting story behind this little place, we just had to drop by for a visit.
We found our own seats. It was early afternoon on a weekday and the place was had just two other tables occupied so it was easy for us to find a seat by the window.
This place adopts the self-serve system which means you decide what you want, indicate on the little paper they provide at the tables, bring it to the cashier and pay. You also get your own plain water at a station next to the cashier. That's fine by me since there is no service charge.
Enticed by the option to create your own baked rice, all 3 of us picked Baked Rice for that day.
Cheese Baked Rice with Tangy Tomato sauce and Chicken slices ($8.90)
The food came pretty quickly but the serving was pretty small (that said, I didn't finish it.). It tasted much like any other Baked Rice... if anything, I'd say the rice was not soft enough.
My companions' baked rice looked more delicious with the cream based sauces.
Eighteen Funky Strawberry - Dessert ($5.80)
Four scoops of ice cream served with strawberries and hazel nuts and oreo biscuits... Sounds good isn't it? But it wasn't as good as I had hoped. The ice cream wasn't rich enough and the strawberries were sourish. Well what could I expect for $5.80. It was ok though, I just wouldn't order it again.
After the entire meal, and after drinking 1/2 a glass of water, I noticed that my glass was filthy. Very filthy.
The total came up to about $33.50 for the three of us, which was a little too much for the quantity and quality of food given. I might still go back as the rest of the items on the menu did look interesting though. :) Well if you're a student you can check out the $5.90 set meals which I think are a good deal :)
Rating given:
MmMM This Pasta Fresca has been there for ages and I've only tried it once many years ago. I do remember that it wasn't a terrible experience so decided to try it again just recently.
We were nicely greeted when we stepped in. The dim lighting in this restaurant.. was a little TOO dim. It made it a little hard for me to see actually (I have night blindness) But nonetheless dim is always better than bright places. I liked the country decor with Italian style paintings in the panels.
Food Ordered:
(please go to the website for descriptions)
Alfredo Fettuccine $14.70
I'm not a fan of cream based sauces so I flinched a little when my companion ordered this but then I don't expect to eat much anyway. It wasn't as thick as I had expected and did go down quite well. My worries about it not being finished were unjustified. The pasta was a teeny bit hard though, resulting in more mouth exercise for us.
Quattro Stagioni $16.90
The Pizza of four seasons... quite interesting so I ordered it. With lots of ham and mushrooms on a thin (but not too thin) crust, I liked this pizza! It comes in two sizes and we ordered the smaller one. :)
Mousse Al Cioccolato $6.90
MMmMM I am one chocolate lover and for $6.90 I'll go for this over Haagen Daz any day.. it's not fantastic... but it's tastes good enough without being too sweet. The texture is just right too. No marks for presentation though.
Tiramisu $7.30
Not quite what I expected but it is a reasonable cake. I wouldn't pay to eat this again though.
All in all I think it was a pretty good visit. I wanted to give it a 3.5... but since there aren't any half-stars... For the relatively good service and great smiles, so 4 it shall be.
Rating given:
Hidden treasure. Super Pizzas.
This tiny Italian restaurant, hidden behind a bus-stop and set within a rather rundown place, was pretty tricky to find. With the tinted glass doors and windows, if you didn't take notice of the signboards, you'll never that that's a restaurant.
Finalmente only opened recently, couple months ago. The place was nice and simple. However, the people running the place seemed abit cold tonight. Perhaps its due to the high volume of us, a group of 12, chatting and laughing non-stop when we stepped in. Before that, it was very peaceful and quiet.
The menu was printed on an A4 paper on double side. Perhaps they're still revamping it so keeping it simple for now. There wasn't that many choices of food, just mainly, Salads, Pizzas, Pastas, Sandwiches and Focaccia Breads.
The 12 of us ordered total of 10 pizzas to share. Out of the 9 flavors, I tried only 4 as the rest either were gone even before I managed to see it, or contains pork.
All the pizzas were thin and baked to perfection. The thin base makes it light to eat. Once can finish the entire pizza if you're not watching your weight. As the pizzas all comes on the same type of base, I'll just talk about the flavors for each.
Napoli Pizza $8 - Tomatoes, Anchovies, Capers and Black Olives
This was my least favorite out of the 4. The Anchovies was overpowering and too saltish for me (and everyone who tried it).
5 Cheese $12 - Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Gorgonzola, Emmenthal, Fontina, Parmesan
This was my favourite! Love the cheese! Unlike the normal cheese you find on the regular pizzas from elsewhere. The aroma makes one drool and want to grab a piece. These cheese were nicely spread and baked to the right texture. It was so good that we had to order another one! This will be the one that I'll return for more!
Calzone Gourmet $25 - Close pizza filled with Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Ham and Ricotta Cheese, Mushroom and Boiled Egg
Ouch! I just realised that there's ham in this one! But I don't remember tasting any. Perhaps cos I took the corner which only few slices of mushroom were found. This is more like a huge curry puff instead of a pizza. The crust was light and crispy, and the mushrooms were nice. One thing interesting about this is the egg in the center. It's half cooked and so the yolk will spill out when you cut into it. But the mixed was heavenly.
Bosco $27.50 - Mix cheese, Porcini Mushroom, Grill eggplant, Parmesan shave, drizzled with Truffle Oil
I can't really remember the taste of this pizza. So I guess there's nothing quite nice about it. But if you like eggplant, you should give this one a try.
Overall, this place serves pretty nice pizzas. If you're a fan of pizzas, do go give this place a try. Maybe you'll enjoy it more than me. :)
Oh couple more things! They don't serve ice water. When you order ice water, they'll serve you bottled mineral water. So you might want to just order can drinks or wine instead. There's also no service charge nor GST.
Rating given:
Long heard of this famous ice-cream shop but did not have a chance to patronise it. So after finishing our dinner at Greenwood, we head straight to serene centre which was nearby. When we reached the place it was full house, so we waited a while for our seats. Single scoop comes at $2.50 each, while double scoop is $4.00. There is also the 500ml tub at $8.00
We 3 person order double scoop each and share, so each of us can taste 6 flavours instead of 2. Smart right? There are other flavours like black sesame, soursop, and some others which i can’t remember. But we dun have the courage to try them, so we ordered the more popular ones.
One by one, the top two is teh tareh (coffee) and nutella, bottom left is burn cameral and the popular cookies & cream, bottom right is reversO (chocolate) and horlick (see picture from my blog). We judge the popularity by seeing which one finish first. Make a guess? Cookies & cream and nutella tied for first, followed by cameral, ho, coffee and reverO (chocolate). My personal fav is nutella, never tried before. The reversO was too strong in flavour, as in after eating it when we eat the other flavours we cant taste anything. So we leave it for the last. lol
All in all, Island creamery is quite valued for money, there is a similar ice-cream shop called daily scoop at sunset way which offers double scoop for $5. Head there when u have a chance. 4.5 out of 5
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Rating given:
Three of us went to Greenwood. its behind NJC. Quite hard to go if you do not drive.
The external part of the restaurant does not really have the appeal, like the name implies, Greenwood fish market. It is literally a fish market where u can buy their fish, prawn, oyster. But the interior part is diff (see picture) the lights are dim jus nice and its rather small, so make your reservations before going.
Greenwood is quite famous for their fish & chips, many types of diff fish like snapper, sole filet, salmon, barramundi, tusk fish, yellow fin tuna, nz pink snapper and so on. They also had diff style of cooking the fish like pan-seared, baked, steamed, char-chilled, battered or crumbed. Cool huh? haha. So we had quite a dilemma in choosing what fish we wanted. Above picture is battered snapper($19.95) based on recommendation from the enthu staff. Had a hard time understanding the differences between battered and crumbed. Anyway, battered snapper is good and crispy, but have to finish it fast because its not so nice when it get cold unlike the crumbed sole filet. Both fish & chips come with a healthy side serving of chips and vegies. The chips are good, but the vegies are even better. We have no idea what they do to the vegies, but it’s really good and you want to have more. 4.5 out of 5
Next up is crumbed sole filet ($19.95) also on recommendation. By the way, although both chips are diff fish, but i can’t really tell the diff. lol. From what the staff say, you can tell crumbed from battered because crumbed is fried with bread crumb flour. O well, its quite good also, but i think snapper is a tiny bit better than the sole filet. 4 out of 5
Pasta spag soft shell crab with chili crab sauce ($19.95), unlike the pasta at pastamania, The one here is really pasta. Haha. Soft crab is nice, but too small ! O well. 4 out of 5
Overall good place for fresh fish and seafood, highly recommended just that it is hard to access if you are not driving. We did not have any desserts there because we had already decided to head to Island Creamery for ice cream !
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Rating given:
When we reach at 6.30pm, the place was not full, BUT they are all reserved! And the seats available are the outdoor dining area. Wait man, don’t start blaming me that i did not make a reservation. I tried. I called at 4 but no one answer the phone. So we had to make do with the outdoor area, and o boy, it was raining cats and dogs. The waitress even had to carry an umbrella to bring the dishes over.
There are many methods of cooking the lobster, my fav is salad lobster of couse, you can also steam it with soya souce, minced garlic, or stir-fried with ginger & spring onion, braised with superior broth, stired-fried with cheese & butter, and baked with cheese & bacon. Honestly i never had the luxury of trying all types of cooking methods, just had steamed one, deep-fried, and salad lobsters before. And i prefer salad lobster. BUt the baked with cheese & bacon do sounds interesting, mayb i will try that if i got the chance next time. We had the Australian lobster which was $120 for 1KG
Salad lobster is simple Super-licious. Only one word can describe it, Heavenly. The salad lobster had lots of fruits, the thick salad cream and mixed fruit plus the lobster meat, makes it irresistable man! 5 out of 5
Next up, the Singapore famous black pepper crab! Its Sri-Lanka king crab they called it. We had two 1.2KG crab, both crabs in pepper. Hmm the black pepper crab are too not bad, but there are better one out there, that is No Signboard Restaurant! 3.5 out of 5
Mee Goreng! Jumbo is famous for their Mee Goreng i think, its very nice i assure you. Must try if go Jumbo, but at $8 for small serving, its a tad too expensive. Pity the price, if not it will be perfect score. 4.5 out of 5
Crispy Baby Squid. Crispy it is, and a little over burned. I am still feeling thirsty now that i reached home after eating it. Not my cup of squid, at $8 its not really worth your while unless you are a fan of fried squids, i rather spend the $8 on another plate of Mee Goreng. 1.5 out of 5
Thats all folks, i will come to the price now because its a bit complicated. Our lobster which flown specially from Australia for us to savour cost $96, i estimate it to be around 800g, but because we got a special coupon, we got 50% off! Horray! It only cost us $48 for one Lobster, cheap yep? The crab is $33 per Kg, We had two, and it comes up to about $75.90. And the crispy baby squid and Mee Goreng like i say earlier is $8 per plate. So our total bill adds up to $192.10 before discount. We had the 50% for lobster, and another 10% off because we had the Jumbo rewards card
The service, eh is a case of over-enthusiastic against a group of slow diners who want to finish every scrap of food on the plate. I have totally nothing against their service, the waitress keep on changing plates for us, this is good because the crab have lots of shell. But when we haven really finish our lobster and mee goreng, they already want to clear the plates as well. Hello? we want value for money, every scrap of food is important to us. LOL. Besides that i don’t really have or can complaints because they do not have service charge. Except for the calling in of reservation.
All in all, Jumbo is not bad la, its a famous seafood restaurant in Singapore with so many branches. However, we still unanimously agree that No Sign Board Restaurant is a tad higher level than Jumbo for its crab, no complaints about the lobster. I heard the East Coast headquarter produce the best food among its outlets, but we had to go to indoor stadium because the 50% coupon for lobster is not able to use in East coast branch. You can’t get the best of both worlds i guess.
You are always welcome to visit Ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my geniune feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or bias. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
Rating given: