Ever since I discover the existence of macarons, I’m hooked. There are some fantastic ones, while some are just very bad; macarons are lovable, how can something so small and petite, taste so, so good!
The most delicious way, to eat a macaron will be: admire her perfect figure, pick it up and smell her fragrance. Never shovel in and swallow the whole thing in one bite. It’s like foreplay, you need to arouse the palates first; you nibble a bit of it, and I finish it up the rest. Macarons, taste the best, when I share it with you.
The very pretty lady in raspberry winks at me as I walk over. Hello, can I buy you a dessert? Do you want chocolate fudge? Or how about some cheesecake? No? You want both? Okay sure, in that case I’ll get you the Raspberry Cheesecake ($7.50).
Rosemary Chantilly with a layer of raspberry jelly, adorns the top part of the cake. There’s cheesecake sandwiched in between, with the chocolate fudge layer completing the dessert. My only grudge? It tasted weird when everything is combined together, raspberry, cheesecake and chocolate fudge just do not works for me. But eaten separately, it’s good.
Having seen the Fondant Choccolat ($8), I happily/naturally assumed that it will be the type that has lava chocolate oozing out. Except, it did not. No chocolate lava. No warm chocolate oozing out from the middle. And oh, the fondant wasn’t heat up too.
Luckily there’s Chantilly. She is pleasant, sweet and makes everyone around happy.
Which one is the mousse and which one is the cream?
Dark chocolate, your love. I know you’ll have like this one. The flourless chocolate sponge increased the density of the chocolate, with the dark chocolate cream in between layers. And I like how they pretty things up with a spot of chocolate on top; simple and chic. Gateaux Chocolat ($6.50)
* * *
After so many times to Canele, I’ve yet to try out all their creations. Maybe some day, definitely one day.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
In life we have dreams; they are our goals to work towards to, one step by one step, and approached it. I’ve always wanted to visit Spain; the country, with its rich culture and vibrant cities appeal to me, and of course, Spanish food.
I simply love the idea of Tapas; the option of having more variety of food in smaller bite sizes, seduces me. Why have two dishes when we can have four? And so our Spanish adventure started with the Plamuk tod ($12), tempura style calamari rings. Limon did a thinner version using less batter which allowed the taste of the squid. But the amazing thing was the strawberry yoghurt dip which came along with the calamari!
Tartar sauce? That’s so last season. Mayonnaise? That’s so passe. Try strawberry yoghurt dip!
Tapas has many similarities with our Chinese Dim sum; it’s the communal way of sharing food. Both encouraged people to try out more varieties, and at the same time shared the food with others. The Patatas bravas ($10) was essentially Spanish fried potatoes.
A little bit of this, plus a little bit of that
No I’m not talking about our saliva! We get to share food and try a bit of everything without getting full, isn’t that a brilliant idea? There’s no beef in the Moo curry ($12), instead there was pork & potato cubes pan-fried, with the red curry sauce being a tad strong.
How come the sausage tasted like brinjar?
It was hilarious when we mistook the eggplant for sausages at first bite, I’m never a fan of the purple plant. The fusion aspect was on display by preparing the Spanish Bibao (sausages) with Thai green curry sauce. Chorizo con curry verde ($14)
Honey, they shrunk the prawns!
I was sceptical when the “king prawns” that they’d mentioned was so tiny, but for what was lacking in size, the prawns more than made up in taste. The “tiny” creature was so prawny and crunchy! With ingredients like olive oil, lemongrass, black pepper, garlic, nameko mushroom; it was a mixture of flavours.
The Gazpacho con vino blanco ($12) was a traditional Spanish cold soup, with the novelty level upped by serving it in a baby coconut husk. The white wine flavour was subtle, but the experience of drinking soup was redefined into drinking coconut!
Paella. This was THE dish besides churros that I was looking forward to. And I had problem pronouncing it the whole night, so I came up with a simple way of remembering it, paella (my own pronunciation: Pie-ya). It was done with a Thai twist; incorporating tom-yum with the Spanish paella, there was plentiful of mixed seafood. It was delicious, every grain of rice tasted so good. Since I did not have paella before, there was no way I could make comparison, but it was good enough for me. And the tom-yum flavour wasn’t even strong (at least to me). Paella de tom yum ($20 for main size).
You like fish?
You will definitely love the Bacalao ($36)! The blue cod fillet was so fresh that it seemed alive on my plate, but I would prefer it to be slightly more pan-fried on the surface. Every piece of flesh was so delicate when our utensils touch it, oh baby, I’m gonna eat you up!
The lomo de cordero ($35) was a perfect sight to behold. There’s something about the Rack of lamb, which always make it so sexy! But somehow the ingredients like rosemary, oregano, mint, white wine, lemongrass sauce did not manage to cover the gamey taste.
Lobster, I love lobster! And I’m not going to share with you. No, get your hands off, it’s mine, it’s all mine! I was freaking excited when the Live lobster krapow ($38) arrived on our table. Every bite of the oven-baked lobster was so good, but there wasn’t enough meat for me! Taking a fork, I tilted the lobster head upside down, and dug at the shell beneath it, and yes, there was more lobster meat there!
On first look, I thought it was panna cotta, the Italian dessert. But it wasn’t. The dessert in picture was a Lemon caramel egg custard flan ($10). The texture was very similar to panna cotta, but I couldn’t quite figure out what was the difference.
And yes, I know chocolate cake has nothing to do with Spanish or Thai, but apparently the pastry chef at Limon does such a good chocolate cake that they decided to put it in the menu. And boy, it was true. The Homemade Chocolate cake ($9) paired with vanilla ice cream was a delight! If you could look at the plain chocolate cake up there, there’s the lava-flowing chocolate on top of the moist chocolate cake. Even though it was a pity there wasn’t any vanilla bean ice cream, but a scoop of cold icy one was enough to bring out the best of the chocolate cake.
I love to share food. But somehow the evil twin in me took over when we had the Crema Catalana con frescas ($10). There are times where you eat something that was so good, yet you couldn’t tell what it was, so you just ate, and ate, and ate. This was what I did, I took a spoonful of the egg based cream, put it in my mouth, and I couldn’t taste what it was. And the second bite became even better. So I simply took up the whole glass, dug, and dug further into, until the whole dessert was finished.
It was a medley of flavours when the Spaniards and the Thais come and play together. This was my first time trying Paella, and I’m glad I tried it! My appreciation to Towie, the owner of Limon, and Nicole for hosting us for the food tasting session.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
I love watching dramas, because they got fairy-tale endings; there are moments where you smile like a fool, or weep together with the scenes, but at the end it will be a happy ending – I like happily-ever-after outcomes.
And there are always food in the show, the characters are only human, they need to eat too! So when I watch dramas, I will always get hungry. This bring us to Korean food, it’s a shame that we can’t put our hands inside the screen and grab that very delicious-looking food. So, we hunt, for Korean food.
We wanted the spicy looking Korean noodles but it was sold out; so we took the next-spicy-looking, kimchi soup set ($5.50) instead. It came with a appetiser with choices of tofu or anchovy, kimchi soup and rice. The kimchi soup was fabulous; spicy yet not to the extent of fiery, with a subtle hint of sweetness – I love it!
Bibimbap ($5) will always my choice when I have Korean food, not that I’ve eaten much, but I like the mixture of everything in one bowl. And I also like it to be in a hot stone bowl so that the rice will be piping hot! The one at Ming Jia was pretty decent, just that it wasn’t hot enough! Still, it was great to mix everything with the spicy-and-slight-sweet chilli!
(1) Ming Jia is very near my place.
(2) Ming Jia is very affordable.
(3) Ming Jia is unpretentious and homely.
(4) Ming jis is helmed by a Korean lady, and Koreans go there too.
(5) Ming Jia will be the place to go when I’m craving for Korean food.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
The world we live in, is complex and beyond our wildest imaginations. Life is a mess, there will always be new problems arising everyday. Life is never fair and you have no control over it. But hey, who says life is ever gonna be easy? Babies cry when they enter this world don’t they? But sweetie, our world is also a beautiful place to live in, close your eyes and hold your breathe for a second; you will appreciate it a lot better.
And in life, nothing beats walking into a bakery with the smell of the freshly baked bread straight from the oven!
But I knew from the moment I stepped inside the bakery that it was a mistake. I wanted to buy everything! It was astonishing to see the number of Milkpan that they baked there - rows and rows of them, and everything smelled so good! The unbelievable softness, the light fragrance, and the creamy custard fillings, oh my god, one milkpan’s really not enough.
There was two types of anpan; I was convinced/psycho to get this one. It vaguely reminded me of the red-bean buns that I often got from the neighbourhood bakery. Nosh and nosh.
The scary thing about the bread here, they’d sold out the moment they are out! We got ten of them, five custard, and five chocolate. And it definitely wasn’t enough.
We preferred the chocolate wassants though; the other one was lacking in flavour, while this one had the subtle sweet chocolate within the bread. And there’s even a new kaya version, but that’s for the next visit!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
My fellow Bukit Batok-ians, this is THE place to go to for char kuay teow and hokkien mee. I often like to ask what local food will you miss the most if you go overseas, and my answer will always be ckt. By and large it’s not a easy choice, not when there are so many nice and delicious local food around; chicken rice, rojak, laksa just to name a few, but yes, I will miss my ckt the most.
From afar, I could smell the aroma, and I’m drawn in, immediately. What is that smell? Sniff, sniff: this, is the smell of my love. Every mouthful was so good, and I wolfed down one plate in a blink of the eye. One plate was definitely not enough, I always order two plates of char kuay teow ($2). And I don’t want to share with you, shoo! go away.
I love the char kuay teow here, for a period of time initially, I was having ckt for almost four-five times a week (two plates each time). But when you have too much good food, you will become sick of it, and so was I, which brought my attention to…
Hokkien mee!
I have the black carrot cake for breakfast, char kuay teow for lunch, and hokkien mee for dinner. Sounds good right? Nah, I usually rotates between the char kuay teow or hokkien mee ($3) for lunch since the stall closes during the afternoon. I know judging from the photo, the ckt looks a lot better than the HM, but believe me, I’ll go to the extent of saying this is the best Hokkien mee, at least in Bukit Batok. He cooks every order by plate, which meant a longer waiting time; but hey, every plate is fricking good! And I like the wetness and moist version of HM, with a lot chilli and two limes squeeze in; I’m a happy man!
And oh, it’s almost lunch time. Uncle, one packet of char kuay teow, and one packet of hokkien mee with extra chilli and lime please!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
There are generally two type of restaurants; either one that has great food, but normal or almost no scenery to boost of; where you will gladly bring along your really-stable-boyfriend, bff, girlfriends whom have all seen you at your worst so dining unglamorously is not an issue. Or the other that serves average food, but has a to-die-for ambience, making it a must-go place for your date.
And Novus Cafe belongs to the latter. Theoretically Novus cafe isn’t a restaurant, it is a cafe. But I’m speaking on the broad assumption that it has great ambience, and serve average simple food.
The latter will be the type of places where you will go for your first date, or important occasions; never mind the food’s you-know-what, but it’s a great place to hang out and chill at. Period. Novus’s menu mostly comprises of simple food like pasta/risotto, pizza, and sandwich. But it is the ambience, I love in fall with it the first time I “accidentally” went to the National Museum and saw it. Okay, that’s a lie, I went there with the sole and only purpose to Reece the place for a visit.
Nestled within a Museum, artistic value checked. Nice al fresco dining area, checked. Comfy sofas and nice ambience, checked. Come for dinner and you have a night at the museum. You come to the places like this for your important date, the food doesn’t matter since you are gonna lock eyes with the partner sitting opposite and probably won’t notice what you are putting in your mouth.
I always feel sandwich is a down-sized burger in disguise. Well the similarity is certainly there; fillings stuff between two bread/bun, with the exception that sandwiches ain’t as sexy as their burger counterparts. Who wants sandwiches when you got burgers? Stop pretending to be healthy, and keep the calories chart that you are holding!
“My sandwich” ($16) certainly wasn’t what my-kind-of-sandwich would be like. Beef pastrami, gouda cheese, tomato, dijonnaise, rucola, and sunny side up. And it came with potato chips. How healthy. Anyway, I was wondering how come we can pay 16 bucks for a sandwich and not wimp, while some will scorn at the mere mention of paying the same amount for the burger? Does this means the sandwich was bad? Not at all, like I said, I’m just not that into sandwich.
I fall in love with risotto, and ever since I’d been on the lookout for better ones. So when there’s only four selections under the seemingly-comprehensive-sounding title of pasta & risotto in the menu, I chose the risotto, immediately. I’ll never forget, the sticky-almost-porridge texture, the essence of the ingredient fully absorbed and coated in every grain of the alluring aborio rice. Pesto risotto ($12).
Does that means Novus being the nice-ambience-but-average-food place was bad? Of course not. I’m so gonna come back here again! There are places where you will go for the good food, and there are places where you go to, to immerse yourself in the surroundings. And Novus belongs to the latter.
I’m a sucker for ambience.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Oh man, She’s grabbing all the good stuff; the big pincers, the meatier crab legs, all gone! Everybody behind the woman, stared at her as she made away with the “goods”.
With the crab tong in hand, it was used to hammer the shell. The fellow diners on the same table immediately dispersed, “watch it! The crab gravy is flying everywhere!“
The lady eyed the seafood section, carefully choosing the biggest white fresh oysters on the bed of ice. She proceeded on to squeeze lemon wedges onto each of them, not wasting a single drop. Taking a fork, she slurped down five oysters, in one shot.
Wash your hands clean and crab-free in the lemon water, we are going for the second round!
The team of eight sat down at the table to discuss their plans, like true elite commando fashion; they attacked the crabs in the precise and deadly manner that they were known for.
“Mommy, I want that slice of very delicious-looking, oreo cheesecake!” The small girl told her mother, even though their stomachs are bursting from all the crabs.
* * *
(1) The commentaries were some of the conversation that I’ve overheard, and observed during the buffet, and I thought it would be interesting to write about this.
(2) I don’t like to eat crabs; I’m too lazy to dirty my hands shelling the crustaceans. And if I do, the chili crab will be my favourite; I love the thick, spicy chili gravy. And there’s the best company in the form of the deep fried mantou; I always poked a hole in the middle of the fried bun and poured lots of gravy inside. Then the soaking of the whole bun within the goodness of the gravy, they are oh, so-good! And I kept a bowl of chili gravy filled throughout the buffet, dipping everything in it.
(3) The crab buffet at Ellenborough market cafe is only available for dinner at $46 per head, and will last for two weeks, starting from the 25th June. Singaporeans, love (read: love), their crabs, I went during the first day of the promotion and it was full house, on a weekday dinner! So if you are heading down, please remember to make reservations in advance. And my appreciation to Sok Hoon, the marketing communication manger for the invitation to the food tasting session.
(4) Just some more information about the buffet: There’s chefs-on-the-spot cooking crab risotto, frying mee goreng, and wrapping crab popiahs, the seafood area which has sashimi, prawns and seafood, the usual western/Asian cuisine selections, the omnipresent chocolate fondue, with a pretty decent choices of desserts ranging from cheesecake, to shooters, and their famous Durian Pengat. And I love having some Chinese desserts like tou suan with you tiao too!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
I have sinned. I have a confession to make: since the start-of-don’t-know-when, I found myself deeply enthralled by her, I just couldn’t stop thinking about our past encounters - all the more needless to say, to take my eyes off her. I’m head over heels, so deeply in love, with..
Desserts!
As sinful as they are, I couldn’t stop myself; every time after we are done, I rested on my back and sworn not to get involved with you again. But it happened again, and again, and again. Our messy affair, the love-hate relationship, oh dear.
You speak torta alla gianduia? No? How about crème brulee, panna cotta, charlotte aux poires, or mille-feuille aux fraises? Come on, I’m sure we have a common language.
I don’t know about you, but I always, always have problems passing by a patisserie without trying to splurge my monthly allowance there. The beautiful shop-front attracted and suck me in like a magnet; I couldn’t bear to leave without saying hello to those pretty and delicate desserts!
And remember the time when something terrible happened? One slice of mousse will wash those tears away. It can even heal all your scars! When you are with your loved one, even a spoon of the simplest cheesecake would do wonders, creating memories for eternity.
You know that thing when you see a cutie and she smiles; your heart skipped a beat and your legs go wobbling like a jelly? Well that’s what feels like whenever I see a dessert.
I’m a dessert-holic.
* * *
The carrot cake came across as rather dry, like I’ve mentioned before; I’m not a good judge of carrot cake since I’ve not tried Queen cedele’s, yet. What’s there not to like about a slice of really good strawberry cheesecake? Big, bright red strawberries sitting prettily on top of creamy thick cheesecakes! And my weakness, chocolate cake. Heat it up and you got the molten texture, paired with a scoop of chilled icy cold ice cream, ding, the elevator reached level heaven.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
I will have never imagine myself shelving out thirty bucks at a coffee shop.
But that’s what I did, for a piece of Kurobuta pork ($28), at Big D Grill. Oh man, I don’t know what to say, but I did that. I always have a thing for you, all the more I couldn’t miss it when so many people had praised you to the sky; now that I’ve you, I’m not so sure.
You were great that night, I couldn’t help gaping at your assets; they were huge. I carefully took a small nibble to start our foreplay, I moved downwards and craved for more, I took bigger bites; it was good, but the thing was, I’m not sure whether that justified the high price I’m paying for.
I’m sorry, but I’m a visual creature. I love sitting in nice, pretty ambience, sipping my drink and enjoying the food. I’m a sucker I know. But somehow, you lacked the “wow” factor that I so desired, maybe the lack of ambience was the reason.
We opted for the crabmeat linguine ($10.90) for our second main. It was hot, it was red, spicy, fiery hot. The crabmeat was overflowed generously; spicy crabmeat and linguine, I would prefer it to be slightly wetter though.
And for the only dessert available, the bonet ($4). I was half expecting chocolate lava to ooze out in the middle, but it wasn’t Instead, you got a very good chocolate pudding, served cold.
* * *
Now I’m not saying the kurobuta pork wasn’t worth the money, or for any of that matter, I’m not against stalls in coffee shop selling restaurant food, on the contrary I thought it’s good to have more options. But somehow I guess I still can’t fix my mentality to accept paying thirty bucks at a coffee shop. If, I had this at a restaurant, I’m sure it will be pretty much worth the money.
And frankly speaking, I really can’t see people shelving out thirty to forty bucks for premium meat, at a coffee shop, at least not yet. It’s only the crazy folks like us who will really pay top money for food, but I will definitely go back to try some of the other cheaper items on the menu.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
ONIM. Since we have TGIF to show our appreciation that the weekend is here, I thought it will only be appropriate to have ONIM as well, Oh no it’s Monday! I know, I know, it’s the day of the week that you dreaded the most, what they called Monday blues. To soften the blow, let’s make the Monday blues go away, by having some sweets!
I love (read: head over heels with) nutella. It ought to be the most amazing creation this world ought to offer. Never mind the bizarre increase in price (a 375g bottle used to cost $3.90, but it’s $4.90 now at fairprice), I still need my nutella fix regularly.
Toast, which is under the Marmalade pantry, has got some of the best cupcakes, and by that I didn’t meant that they were fanciful. Hell no, they are anything but pretty. There’s no frosting, no beautiful decorations on top, but just a messy spread of the cream. But it’s good. It’s damn good!
The nutella cupcake, which was basically chocolate cupcake with nutella frosting, was so nutella-ish! I did find the cupcake to be slightly dry, I guess the nutella’s the cause for it, since the other cupcakes were not as dry.
The carrot cake came highly recommended by the staff. At the slightest mention of the two words, carrot cake, it’s bound to have the question asked back in return, “Is it better than Cedele (read: Sir-deli)?”
I’m sorry, but I have not tried Cedele’s legendary carrot cake yet! I’m a simple person with a simple taste bud, and anything with thick & generous cream cheese frosting works for me.
How about some cheesecakes to make you happy? Add in some blueberry, I offered. From my vague memories, the cheesecake was light and airy, the blueberry toppings were sweet and combined well with the light cheesecake. But the base wasn’t the crunchy type that I’ve in mind. My dear, have some blueberry cheesecake to chase your blues away!
This, was THE cupcake, Limonata. Whimsical name, and that’s it. The lemon tart limon graze cake, let’s just call it the lemon cupcake, was one of the best cupcake I’ve, the lemon taste was infused and spread throughout the whole tiny cake, it was moist, and fluffy. I love it!
There might be an identical crisis since the William looks rather similar to the Limonata. Note the colour of the base, the latter is lemon cupcake, while the former is a chocolate cake filled with William pear & topped with a delicious layer of the butter crème frosting. There’s bits of william pears within the cupcake, and I’m a sucker for the sweet butter crème frosting, but still, I preferred the Limonata, and the rose.
You winked at me when I entered the shop. I was deeply captivated by our first encounter; I couldn’t stop looking at you, and for a moment you’ve stolen my breath away. Without taking my eyes off you, I told the assistant, the “lemon meringue tart.”
You tasted as good as you looked, the curvy golden brown wisp, blond is beautiful; the delightful lemon, with the crispy tart, and the sour-sweet meringue, now I know what they meant when they say, love at first sight.
* * *
The desserts served at Toast are all part of the Marmalade Pantry’s offer, but at a slightly cheaper price. A hidden gem, that’s how I will describe toast. I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t noticed Toast while you are shopping at Takashimaya, since I also wasn’t familiar with it until a friend brought me there. This post is a compilation of my three visits.
I hope by now, you are already feeling happier, at the sight of all the lovely creations. Desserts always make us cheerful, have some sweets my dear, they will chase your monday blues, far far away.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
1=SGD 0.0587
Ever since I discover the existence of macarons, I’m hooked. There are some fantastic ones, while some are just very bad; macarons are lovable, how can something so small and petite, taste so, so good!
The most delicious way, to eat a macaron will be: admire her perfect figure, pick it up and smell her fragrance. Never shovel in and swallow the whole thing in one bite. It’s like foreplay, you need to arouse the palates first; you nibble a bit of it, and I finish it up the rest. Macarons, taste the best, when I share it with you.
The very pretty lady in raspberry winks at me as I walk over. Hello, can I buy you a dessert? Do you want chocolate fudge? Or how about some cheesecake? No? You want both? Okay sure, in that case I’ll get you the Raspberry Cheesecake ($7.50).
Rosemary Chantilly with a layer of raspberry jelly, adorns the top part of the cake. There’s cheesecake sandwiched in between, with the chocolate fudge layer completing the dessert. My only grudge? It tasted weird when everything is combined together, raspberry, cheesecake and chocolate fudge just do not works for me. But eaten separately, it’s good.
Having seen the Fondant Choccolat ($8), I happily/naturally assumed that it will be the type that has lava chocolate oozing out. Except, it did not. No chocolate lava. No warm chocolate oozing out from the middle. And oh, the fondant wasn’t heat up too.
Luckily there’s Chantilly. She is pleasant, sweet and makes everyone around happy.
Which one is the mousse and which one is the cream?
Dark chocolate, your love. I know you’ll have like this one. The flourless chocolate sponge increased the density of the chocolate, with the dark chocolate cream in between layers. And I like how they pretty things up with a spot of chocolate on top; simple and chic. Gateaux Chocolat ($6.50)
* * *
After so many times to Canele, I’ve yet to try out all their creations. Maybe some day, definitely one day.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Rating given:
In life we have dreams; they are our goals to work towards to, one step by one step, and approached it. I’ve always wanted to visit Spain; the country, with its rich culture and vibrant cities appeal to me, and of course, Spanish food.
I simply love the idea of Tapas; the option of having more variety of food in smaller bite sizes, seduces me. Why have two dishes when we can have four? And so our Spanish adventure started with the Plamuk tod ($12), tempura style calamari rings. Limon did a thinner version using less batter which allowed the taste of the squid. But the amazing thing was the strawberry yoghurt dip which came along with the calamari!
Tartar sauce? That’s so last season. Mayonnaise? That’s so passe. Try strawberry yoghurt dip!
Tapas has many similarities with our Chinese Dim sum; it’s the communal way of sharing food. Both encouraged people to try out more varieties, and at the same time shared the food with others. The Patatas bravas ($10) was essentially Spanish fried potatoes.
A little bit of this, plus a little bit of that
No I’m not talking about our saliva! We get to share food and try a bit of everything without getting full, isn’t that a brilliant idea? There’s no beef in the Moo curry ($12), instead there was pork & potato cubes pan-fried, with the red curry sauce being a tad strong.
How come the sausage tasted like brinjar?
It was hilarious when we mistook the eggplant for sausages at first bite, I’m never a fan of the purple plant. The fusion aspect was on display by preparing the Spanish Bibao (sausages) with Thai green curry sauce. Chorizo con curry verde ($14)
Honey, they shrunk the prawns!
I was sceptical when the “king prawns” that they’d mentioned was so tiny, but for what was lacking in size, the prawns more than made up in taste. The “tiny” creature was so prawny and crunchy! With ingredients like olive oil, lemongrass, black pepper, garlic, nameko mushroom; it was a mixture of flavours.
The Gazpacho con vino blanco ($12) was a traditional Spanish cold soup, with the novelty level upped by serving it in a baby coconut husk. The white wine flavour was subtle, but the experience of drinking soup was redefined into drinking coconut!
Paella. This was THE dish besides churros that I was looking forward to. And I had problem pronouncing it the whole night, so I came up with a simple way of remembering it, paella (my own pronunciation: Pie-ya). It was done with a Thai twist; incorporating tom-yum with the Spanish paella, there was plentiful of mixed seafood. It was delicious, every grain of rice tasted so good. Since I did not have paella before, there was no way I could make comparison, but it was good enough for me. And the tom-yum flavour wasn’t even strong (at least to me). Paella de tom yum ($20 for main size).
You like fish?
You will definitely love the Bacalao ($36)! The blue cod fillet was so fresh that it seemed alive on my plate, but I would prefer it to be slightly more pan-fried on the surface. Every piece of flesh was so delicate when our utensils touch it, oh baby, I’m gonna eat you up!
The lomo de cordero ($35) was a perfect sight to behold. There’s something about the Rack of lamb, which always make it so sexy! But somehow the ingredients like rosemary, oregano, mint, white wine, lemongrass sauce did not manage to cover the gamey taste.
Lobster, I love lobster! And I’m not going to share with you. No, get your hands off, it’s mine, it’s all mine! I was freaking excited when the Live lobster krapow ($38) arrived on our table. Every bite of the oven-baked lobster was so good, but there wasn’t enough meat for me! Taking a fork, I tilted the lobster head upside down, and dug at the shell beneath it, and yes, there was more lobster meat there!
On first look, I thought it was panna cotta, the Italian dessert. But it wasn’t. The dessert in picture was a Lemon caramel egg custard flan ($10). The texture was very similar to panna cotta, but I couldn’t quite figure out what was the difference.
And yes, I know chocolate cake has nothing to do with Spanish or Thai, but apparently the pastry chef at Limon does such a good chocolate cake that they decided to put it in the menu. And boy, it was true. The Homemade Chocolate cake ($9) paired with vanilla ice cream was a delight! If you could look at the plain chocolate cake up there, there’s the lava-flowing chocolate on top of the moist chocolate cake. Even though it was a pity there wasn’t any vanilla bean ice cream, but a scoop of cold icy one was enough to bring out the best of the chocolate cake.
I love to share food. But somehow the evil twin in me took over when we had the Crema Catalana con frescas ($10). There are times where you eat something that was so good, yet you couldn’t tell what it was, so you just ate, and ate, and ate. This was what I did, I took a spoonful of the egg based cream, put it in my mouth, and I couldn’t taste what it was. And the second bite became even better. So I simply took up the whole glass, dug, and dug further into, until the whole dessert was finished.
It was a medley of flavours when the Spaniards and the Thais come and play together. This was my first time trying Paella, and I’m glad I tried it! My appreciation to Towie, the owner of Limon, and Nicole for hosting us for the food tasting session.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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I love watching dramas, because they got fairy-tale endings; there are moments where you smile like a fool, or weep together with the scenes, but at the end it will be a happy ending – I like happily-ever-after outcomes.
And there are always food in the show, the characters are only human, they need to eat too! So when I watch dramas, I will always get hungry. This bring us to Korean food, it’s a shame that we can’t put our hands inside the screen and grab that very delicious-looking food. So, we hunt, for Korean food.
We wanted the spicy looking Korean noodles but it was sold out; so we took the next-spicy-looking, kimchi soup set ($5.50) instead. It came with a appetiser with choices of tofu or anchovy, kimchi soup and rice. The kimchi soup was fabulous; spicy yet not to the extent of fiery, with a subtle hint of sweetness – I love it!
Bibimbap ($5) will always my choice when I have Korean food, not that I’ve eaten much, but I like the mixture of everything in one bowl. And I also like it to be in a hot stone bowl so that the rice will be piping hot! The one at Ming Jia was pretty decent, just that it wasn’t hot enough! Still, it was great to mix everything with the spicy-and-slight-sweet chilli!
(1) Ming Jia is very near my place.
(2) Ming Jia is very affordable.
(3) Ming Jia is unpretentious and homely.
(4) Ming jis is helmed by a Korean lady, and Koreans go there too.
(5) Ming Jia will be the place to go when I’m craving for Korean food.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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The world we live in, is complex and beyond our wildest imaginations. Life is a mess, there will always be new problems arising everyday. Life is never fair and you have no control over it. But hey, who says life is ever gonna be easy? Babies cry when they enter this world don’t they? But sweetie, our world is also a beautiful place to live in, close your eyes and hold your breathe for a second; you will appreciate it a lot better.
And in life, nothing beats walking into a bakery with the smell of the freshly baked bread straight from the oven!
But I knew from the moment I stepped inside the bakery that it was a mistake. I wanted to buy everything! It was astonishing to see the number of Milkpan that they baked there - rows and rows of them, and everything smelled so good! The unbelievable softness, the light fragrance, and the creamy custard fillings, oh my god, one milkpan’s really not enough.
There was two types of anpan; I was convinced/psycho to get this one. It vaguely reminded me of the red-bean buns that I often got from the neighbourhood bakery. Nosh and nosh.
The scary thing about the bread here, they’d sold out the moment they are out! We got ten of them, five custard, and five chocolate. And it definitely wasn’t enough.
We preferred the chocolate wassants though; the other one was lacking in flavour, while this one had the subtle sweet chocolate within the bread. And there’s even a new kaya version, but that’s for the next visit!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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My fellow Bukit Batok-ians, this is THE place to go to for char kuay teow and hokkien mee. I often like to ask what local food will you miss the most if you go overseas, and my answer will always be ckt. By and large it’s not a easy choice, not when there are so many nice and delicious local food around; chicken rice, rojak, laksa just to name a few, but yes, I will miss my ckt the most.
From afar, I could smell the aroma, and I’m drawn in, immediately. What is that smell? Sniff, sniff: this, is the smell of my love. Every mouthful was so good, and I wolfed down one plate in a blink of the eye. One plate was definitely not enough, I always order two plates of char kuay teow ($2). And I don’t want to share with you, shoo! go away.
I love the char kuay teow here, for a period of time initially, I was having ckt for almost four-five times a week (two plates each time). But when you have too much good food, you will become sick of it, and so was I, which brought my attention to…
Hokkien mee!
I have the black carrot cake for breakfast, char kuay teow for lunch, and hokkien mee for dinner. Sounds good right? Nah, I usually rotates between the char kuay teow or hokkien mee ($3) for lunch since the stall closes during the afternoon. I know judging from the photo, the ckt looks a lot better than the HM, but believe me, I’ll go to the extent of saying this is the best Hokkien mee, at least in Bukit Batok. He cooks every order by plate, which meant a longer waiting time; but hey, every plate is fricking good! And I like the wetness and moist version of HM, with a lot chilli and two limes squeeze in; I’m a happy man!
And oh, it’s almost lunch time. Uncle, one packet of char kuay teow, and one packet of hokkien mee with extra chilli and lime please!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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There are generally two type of restaurants; either one that has great food, but normal or almost no scenery to boost of; where you will gladly bring along your really-stable-boyfriend, bff, girlfriends whom have all seen you at your worst so dining unglamorously is not an issue. Or the other that serves average food, but has a to-die-for ambience, making it a must-go place for your date.
And Novus Cafe belongs to the latter. Theoretically Novus cafe isn’t a restaurant, it is a cafe. But I’m speaking on the broad assumption that it has great ambience, and serve average simple food.
The latter will be the type of places where you will go for your first date, or important occasions; never mind the food’s you-know-what, but it’s a great place to hang out and chill at. Period. Novus’s menu mostly comprises of simple food like pasta/risotto, pizza, and sandwich. But it is the ambience, I love in fall with it the first time I “accidentally” went to the National Museum and saw it. Okay, that’s a lie, I went there with the sole and only purpose to Reece the place for a visit.
Nestled within a Museum, artistic value checked. Nice al fresco dining area, checked. Comfy sofas and nice ambience, checked. Come for dinner and you have a night at the museum. You come to the places like this for your important date, the food doesn’t matter since you are gonna lock eyes with the partner sitting opposite and probably won’t notice what you are putting in your mouth.
I always feel sandwich is a down-sized burger in disguise. Well the similarity is certainly there; fillings stuff between two bread/bun, with the exception that sandwiches ain’t as sexy as their burger counterparts. Who wants sandwiches when you got burgers? Stop pretending to be healthy, and keep the calories chart that you are holding!
“My sandwich” ($16) certainly wasn’t what my-kind-of-sandwich would be like. Beef pastrami, gouda cheese, tomato, dijonnaise, rucola, and sunny side up. And it came with potato chips. How healthy. Anyway, I was wondering how come we can pay 16 bucks for a sandwich and not wimp, while some will scorn at the mere mention of paying the same amount for the burger? Does this means the sandwich was bad? Not at all, like I said, I’m just not that into sandwich.
I fall in love with risotto, and ever since I’d been on the lookout for better ones. So when there’s only four selections under the seemingly-comprehensive-sounding title of pasta & risotto in the menu, I chose the risotto, immediately. I’ll never forget, the sticky-almost-porridge texture, the essence of the ingredient fully absorbed and coated in every grain of the alluring aborio rice. Pesto risotto ($12).
Does that means Novus being the nice-ambience-but-average-food place was bad? Of course not. I’m so gonna come back here again! There are places where you will go for the good food, and there are places where you go to, to immerse yourself in the surroundings. And Novus belongs to the latter.
I’m a sucker for ambience.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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Oh man, She’s grabbing all the good stuff; the big pincers, the meatier crab legs, all gone! Everybody behind the woman, stared at her as she made away with the “goods”.
With the crab tong in hand, it was used to hammer the shell. The fellow diners on the same table immediately dispersed, “watch it! The crab gravy is flying everywhere!“
The lady eyed the seafood section, carefully choosing the biggest white fresh oysters on the bed of ice. She proceeded on to squeeze lemon wedges onto each of them, not wasting a single drop. Taking a fork, she slurped down five oysters, in one shot.
Wash your hands clean and crab-free in the lemon water, we are going for the second round!
The team of eight sat down at the table to discuss their plans, like true elite commando fashion; they attacked the crabs in the precise and deadly manner that they were known for.
“Mommy, I want that slice of very delicious-looking, oreo cheesecake!” The small girl told her mother, even though their stomachs are bursting from all the crabs.
* * *
(1) The commentaries were some of the conversation that I’ve overheard, and observed during the buffet, and I thought it would be interesting to write about this.
(2) I don’t like to eat crabs; I’m too lazy to dirty my hands shelling the crustaceans. And if I do, the chili crab will be my favourite; I love the thick, spicy chili gravy. And there’s the best company in the form of the deep fried mantou; I always poked a hole in the middle of the fried bun and poured lots of gravy inside. Then the soaking of the whole bun within the goodness of the gravy, they are oh, so-good! And I kept a bowl of chili gravy filled throughout the buffet, dipping everything in it.
(3) The crab buffet at Ellenborough market cafe is only available for dinner at $46 per head, and will last for two weeks, starting from the 25th June. Singaporeans, love (read: love), their crabs, I went during the first day of the promotion and it was full house, on a weekday dinner! So if you are heading down, please remember to make reservations in advance. And my appreciation to Sok Hoon, the marketing communication manger for the invitation to the food tasting session.
(4) Just some more information about the buffet: There’s chefs-on-the-spot cooking crab risotto, frying mee goreng, and wrapping crab popiahs, the seafood area which has sashimi, prawns and seafood, the usual western/Asian cuisine selections, the omnipresent chocolate fondue, with a pretty decent choices of desserts ranging from cheesecake, to shooters, and their famous Durian Pengat. And I love having some Chinese desserts like tou suan with you tiao too!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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Dear diary,
I have sinned. I have a confession to make: since the start-of-don’t-know-when, I found myself deeply enthralled by her, I just couldn’t stop thinking about our past encounters - all the more needless to say, to take my eyes off her. I’m head over heels, so deeply in love, with..
Desserts!
As sinful as they are, I couldn’t stop myself; every time after we are done, I rested on my back and sworn not to get involved with you again. But it happened again, and again, and again. Our messy affair, the love-hate relationship, oh dear.
You speak torta alla gianduia? No? How about crème brulee, panna cotta, charlotte aux poires, or mille-feuille aux fraises? Come on, I’m sure we have a common language.
I don’t know about you, but I always, always have problems passing by a patisserie without trying to splurge my monthly allowance there. The beautiful shop-front attracted and suck me in like a magnet; I couldn’t bear to leave without saying hello to those pretty and delicate desserts!
And remember the time when something terrible happened? One slice of mousse will wash those tears away. It can even heal all your scars! When you are with your loved one, even a spoon of the simplest cheesecake would do wonders, creating memories for eternity.
You know that thing when you see a cutie and she smiles; your heart skipped a beat and your legs go wobbling like a jelly? Well that’s what feels like whenever I see a dessert.
I’m a dessert-holic.
* * *
The carrot cake came across as rather dry, like I’ve mentioned before; I’m not a good judge of carrot cake since I’ve not tried Queen cedele’s, yet. What’s there not to like about a slice of really good strawberry cheesecake? Big, bright red strawberries sitting prettily on top of creamy thick cheesecakes! And my weakness, chocolate cake. Heat it up and you got the molten texture, paired with a scoop of chilled icy cold ice cream, ding, the elevator reached level heaven.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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I will have never imagine myself shelving out thirty bucks at a coffee shop.
But that’s what I did, for a piece of Kurobuta pork ($28), at Big D Grill. Oh man, I don’t know what to say, but I did that. I always have a thing for you, all the more I couldn’t miss it when so many people had praised you to the sky; now that I’ve you, I’m not so sure.
You were great that night, I couldn’t help gaping at your assets; they were huge. I carefully took a small nibble to start our foreplay, I moved downwards and craved for more, I took bigger bites; it was good, but the thing was, I’m not sure whether that justified the high price I’m paying for.
I’m sorry, but I’m a visual creature. I love sitting in nice, pretty ambience, sipping my drink and enjoying the food. I’m a sucker I know. But somehow, you lacked the “wow” factor that I so desired, maybe the lack of ambience was the reason.
We opted for the crabmeat linguine ($10.90) for our second main. It was hot, it was red, spicy, fiery hot. The crabmeat was overflowed generously; spicy crabmeat and linguine, I would prefer it to be slightly wetter though.
And for the only dessert available, the bonet ($4). I was half expecting chocolate lava to ooze out in the middle, but it wasn’t Instead, you got a very good chocolate pudding, served cold.
* * *
Now I’m not saying the kurobuta pork wasn’t worth the money, or for any of that matter, I’m not against stalls in coffee shop selling restaurant food, on the contrary I thought it’s good to have more options. But somehow I guess I still can’t fix my mentality to accept paying thirty bucks at a coffee shop. If, I had this at a restaurant, I’m sure it will be pretty much worth the money.
And frankly speaking, I really can’t see people shelving out thirty to forty bucks for premium meat, at a coffee shop, at least not yet. It’s only the crazy folks like us who will really pay top money for food, but I will definitely go back to try some of the other cheaper items on the menu.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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ONIM. Since we have TGIF to show our appreciation that the weekend is here, I thought it will only be appropriate to have ONIM as well, Oh no it’s Monday! I know, I know, it’s the day of the week that you dreaded the most, what they called Monday blues. To soften the blow, let’s make the Monday blues go away, by having some sweets!
I love (read: head over heels with) nutella. It ought to be the most amazing creation this world ought to offer. Never mind the bizarre increase in price (a 375g bottle used to cost $3.90, but it’s $4.90 now at fairprice), I still need my nutella fix regularly.
Toast, which is under the Marmalade pantry, has got some of the best cupcakes, and by that I didn’t meant that they were fanciful. Hell no, they are anything but pretty. There’s no frosting, no beautiful decorations on top, but just a messy spread of the cream. But it’s good. It’s damn good!
The nutella cupcake, which was basically chocolate cupcake with nutella frosting, was so nutella-ish! I did find the cupcake to be slightly dry, I guess the nutella’s the cause for it, since the other cupcakes were not as dry.
The carrot cake came highly recommended by the staff. At the slightest mention of the two words, carrot cake, it’s bound to have the question asked back in return, “Is it better than Cedele (read: Sir-deli)?”
I’m sorry, but I have not tried Cedele’s legendary carrot cake yet! I’m a simple person with a simple taste bud, and anything with thick & generous cream cheese frosting works for me.
How about some cheesecakes to make you happy? Add in some blueberry, I offered. From my vague memories, the cheesecake was light and airy, the blueberry toppings were sweet and combined well with the light cheesecake. But the base wasn’t the crunchy type that I’ve in mind. My dear, have some blueberry cheesecake to chase your blues away!
This, was THE cupcake, Limonata. Whimsical name, and that’s it. The lemon tart limon graze cake, let’s just call it the lemon cupcake, was one of the best cupcake I’ve, the lemon taste was infused and spread throughout the whole tiny cake, it was moist, and fluffy. I love it!
There might be an identical crisis since the William looks rather similar to the Limonata. Note the colour of the base, the latter is lemon cupcake, while the former is a chocolate cake filled with William pear & topped with a delicious layer of the butter crème frosting. There’s bits of william pears within the cupcake, and I’m a sucker for the sweet butter crème frosting, but still, I preferred the Limonata, and the rose.
You winked at me when I entered the shop. I was deeply captivated by our first encounter; I couldn’t stop looking at you, and for a moment you’ve stolen my breath away. Without taking my eyes off you, I told the assistant, the “lemon meringue tart.”
You tasted as good as you looked, the curvy golden brown wisp, blond is beautiful; the delightful lemon, with the crispy tart, and the sour-sweet meringue, now I know what they meant when they say, love at first sight.
* * *
The desserts served at Toast are all part of the Marmalade Pantry’s offer, but at a slightly cheaper price. A hidden gem, that’s how I will describe toast. I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t noticed Toast while you are shopping at Takashimaya, since I also wasn’t familiar with it until a friend brought me there. This post is a compilation of my three visits.
I hope by now, you are already feeling happier, at the sight of all the lovely creations. Desserts always make us cheerful, have some sweets my dear, they will chase your monday blues, far far away.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
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