It's been long since I stepped into Marche. Sad that the 2 other outlets are no longer in business and this one at Vivo gets packed almost everytime I was there. Good thing we were there on a Monday and was still early for dinner crowd. Managed to get in without queuing.
The place was smaller than we expected, and it looks very cramp with all the decorations and furnishing inside. But it does gives the traditional market-like feel but yet still homely.
Food we ordered...
SweetBread - aka Filled Crossed Bun at $1.50 This is something which I never thought of buying while at Marche in the past. But thanks to bf, now I'll make sure I buy one whenever I'm there. I like the fluffy texture of the bun and the skin (outer layer) of the bun has a sweet taste to it. Makes the bun very enjoyable to eat. But the fillings is very little, filled only 1/8 of the bun. But still I won't mind paying $1.50 for it. Of cos, if they stuff in my fillings, it'll make it just perfect.
Vegetables small plate at $4.90 I loveee mushrooms. And this "buffet" style vegetables stall has great mushrooms. It's tasty and fragrant. We mixed the mushrooms with baby potatoes. Quite nice too. Will want to try the rest of the vegetables the next time.
Crepe Mushroom at $10.90 This one is my most most favorite! Thin crepe freshly made upon order. The fillings is generous and the mixed of vegetables, cheese, sauce and mushrooms is simply delicious! Just thinking of it now makes me drool for more!
Chanced upon this modernly decorated shop while browsing around Marina Square over the weekend. The concept is somewhat similar to inQbox which has been around for awhile already. But Cactus Farm gives me a better impressions. The products on display are very neatly arranged and the entire shop gives a comfortable feel for their customers. The lighting of the shop plays quite an important part too.
The products on display are mostly from indie designers from Singapore. I noticed they do have products imported from overseas. There's this one that caught our attention at the entrance. It's a pair of square slippers. Looks quite interesting. Will sure to draw attention when worn around town. It cost about $40 if I didn't remember wrongly.
A quick check at their website and the rental is only from $8/day. Sounds pretty cheap, but that's only if your products are attractive and good to draw buyers.
If you're an indie designer, you might want to go check out Cactus Farm and look for their G.O.D or B.A.D! They also has got a M.A.D too! Interesting designations for the team. :)
Just opened at basement of Plaza Singapura on August 1st. This is the place to go for quick takeaway meals. They offer curry rice and curry udon sets where you can choose to have the curry mild or spicy. They also sell bento set which includes potato salad, vegetable sald, rice, fukujinzuke (japanese pickles) and takuan (japanese radish).
Mum bought 2 sets for dinner last night. Seafood Croquette Curry Udon Set ($5.90) and Ebi Unagi Bento Set ($8.90).
We had the sets an hour later when we reached home. The food was not too cold for consumption yet. It was still a little warm when we ate the food.
Mum's first verdict after tasting the rice in her bento set "Not nice!" The rice didn't have the usual stickiness of japanese rice and was tasteless. Not even taste of the usual rice fragrant. But the ebi and unagi was still acceptable. Though we felt that the unagi was a tad too small. The salads that came with the bento set was not bad. Nothing to wow about.
The Curry Udon was still alright for me. I don't recall tasting any japanese curry recently and have forgotten how it should taste like. But this one has quite a strong smell which I don't really enjoy. The seafood croquette was quite sad. There was only a small piece of prawn in it. I remembered the lady told me its a mixed of seafood. But I couldn't taste any.
Overall I feel that the food was not up to standard. Perhaps they're still new in such creations. Hope they'll improve as they gain more experience. Will probably give it another try few months later.
I love making my own popiahs! My grandma used to host Popiah party for us. As we grow up, everyone is too busy with work and stuff, we've not have any popiah party for long time. Now I've found the place to go for our next family dinner! Village Wok serves DIY Popiah Set! How cool is that? The set comes with all the necessary condiments, ingredients and the power chili. Love it! The popiah skin was neither too thin nor thick, just nice to wrap up all the yummy ingredients without having to worry that the skin will give way when bitten into.
Dishes ordered include the Village Smoked Chicken with BBQ Pork, Deep Fried Crystal Prawns in Light Wasabi Sauce, XO Crispy Tofu, Brinjal in BXO Sauce, Vegetarian Ee Mee and Pulat Hitam with Coconut Gelato ice-cream.
The Smoked Chicken served with their special ginger dip was quite tasty. Personally would prefer the meat to be softer thou. But still passable.
Wasabi prawns is deep fried and topped with very light wasabi sauce. As a fan of wasabi, this would attract me more if the sauce was more powerpack. This dish is best eaten while its still hot. The outer fried layer become slightly tough when I had my second piece when the dish has cooled off.
XO Crispy Tofu was good. Homemade tofu was soft and the XO sauce served on the side adds flavor to it. Simple yet tasty.
Fried Brinjal with Crispy Squid is not a vegetable which most would enjoy. But the ones at Village Wok managed to convince my friend to give it a go. He quite enjoyed it and even had quite a few pieces. Their special BXO sauce gives this purple vegetable a new life. The sauce was sweet and the crispy squid topping gives it a crunchy texture.
The Vegetarian Ee Mee was nice. There was plentiful of golden mushrooms which give the dish more texture when chewing the noodles. Sauce was not too thick nor saltish. Just nice to my liking.
The lunch ended with a refreshing glass of pulut hitam (black glutinous rice) with gelato coconut ice-cream. It gave a beautiful closure to the meal. Will surely order this when I return.
I was told that they've a special dish - Cold Crab with Special Vinaigrette Sauce. We'd wanted to try it, but this is a by-reservation-only dish. Must remember to place my order the next time I go. It looks pretty good. And Village Wok creates and uses only their own in-house brand of sauces and dips.
Went dinner with my friends at Hachi Tei Japanese Cuisine 2 weeks ago. My friend had been raving for many years. It was till that very night that I (finally) dine there.
Hachi Tei was once featured on Sunday Times some years ago, I think I read about it but never tried them out. Previously Hachi Tei was situated at #B1-27 China Square Food Centre until China Square Food Centre owner, Wah Khiaw Developments transformed it into an office block. So it moved to the current new location in May 2008.
The new place gives me a very homely and cozy feel, the Japanese songs playing in the background further enhance the atmosphere. I'm not sure why, when I dine at Hachi Tei, I just don't feel that I'm dining in Singapore, I feel that I'm dining in Taiwan. I'm not sure why I have that feeling. I think must be the super friendliness of the lady boss Cherine as she really do communicate with her customers.
We ordered Chirashi Don ($12.00), my friend always order Chirashi Don whenever he visits Hachi Tei. He told me that once I tried it, I would not order other items anymore.... Teriyaki Chicken Don ($7.00). I didn't ask whether it's nice... but I do find the serving pretty small. Sashimi Set ($15.00) I always love sashimi, that's why I ordered sashimi set. I loved the 'shiok shiok' feeling of dipping sashimi in the sauce with lots of wasabi and little soy sauce. By the way, the sashimi are really fresh!!
Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable dinner. Nice atmosphere, yummy food, no GST and service charge, reasonable cheap prices. I'm surely going back again. By the way, my friend treated me that night. Hahahaha.....
I am quite sad to say that even as a Singaporean, the first plane that I seat on was not a Singapore Airlines plane. Recently, I finally had the chance to sit on one. Hee….. Once step into the plane, it is pretty much like stepping into any other airlines plane, clean and tidy. Along the way, there will be friendly and smiling air steward or stewardess to guide and help you to get to your seat. After which, they would start serving hot towels to everyone as well. If I did not manage to get a copy of Straits Time before I board the plane, I would ask for a copy. Sad to say once in a while, the air stewardess would forget about it.
While on the plane, they did their best to keep us comfortable, and try to keep up with all our requests. Their service was really good when it comes to serving drinks and meals. This is definitely their plus point here. When it comes to their food, well it seems that they only changed their menu every two months, so in the end, I got to every dish in the menu over and over again. *Mental note: To request for special meals when booking tickets next time*
Next come to their entertainment system. Sad to say I am not very impressed with the system as it tends to fail me a few times or required a few times of reset. It is also a bit slow in reaction as well. At least they do change the movies every month so at least I got new movies to watch. It would be much better if they give better quality earphones. Once the system at the seat I was seating was defective, so they gave me a US$50 voucher to use for the KrisShop. Hee…. Too bad it can be only used on the plane.
All in all, I quite liked the service onboard the plane as they would make customers as comfortable as possible.
Never ate Botak Jones before. And my first experience is a long drive to the Toa Payoh branch. There was a long queue but some chit chatting make time flies quickly.
Ordered Black Pepper Chicken - SIN$8.00; Cajun Chicken - SIN$7.50 and Chili Dawg - SIN$11.50.
I ate Cajun Chicken and I think its great, the fries are tasty.
Going back again, should be.. haha..
better display parking coupons, I kena a $10 fine for overshot timing.
Was there to watch Red Cliff over the weekend because it's the only GV cinema with good seats. Had not been there for several years.
The first experience is that it has limited space at the ticket booth and popcorn area. Worst still the ticket booth and popcorn selling area are joined together. Even I booked my tickets online, I still have to Q a long time, worst still, Q-ed at the wrong Q because of the misleading sign.
There is only miserable 3 counters. It's hard to find where is the entrance for the cinema..
Talking about the screening hall, was in hall 5, the leg space is small and Red Cliff is 150 mins, the air-con was kinda off midway through the show, it's so stuffy for 3/4 of the show..Sigh!
This Chi Zhar stall is very ulu lah! Hidden right at the corner of the estate, it's not easy to spot! There are many other coffee shops and eateries around that area, and every one of them were packed to the rim this evening. Hoping I got to the right place, finally I found this tiny stall hidden at the back of this quiet coffee shop.
It was Mum's birthday and we decided to give this place a try. Am glad that Mum enjoyed it, but I got "bitten" by the crab! My upper right lips hurts. Ok, nuff of whining, so what's good about this place?
We ordered "3 Glass Chicken", Claypot Seafood Tofu, Stout Pork Ribs, "Hei Zhou" (prawn roll like dish) and the highly recommended Jin Sha Xie (Golden Sand Crab) and fried Man Tou. Total bill came up to $108. All the dishes were the biggest portion one. (But it wasn't THAT big after all.)
The "3 Glass Chicken" was too dry and the meat was too tough. But the outside of the chicken was rather tasty.
Claypot Seafood Tofu was not bad. There were tofu, cuttlefish, sliced fish, vegetables and carrots. The sauce was not too thick nor diluted. Just nice to go with plain rice.
I didn't eat the pork ribs so I don't know how it tastes.
"Hei Zhou" was pretty good. Fried to the right texture and its crispy and flavorful.
Star of the night was the Golden Sand Crab. Dad picked up one bigger and one medium size crabs. The crab was not the freshiest, as there wasn't any sweetness to the meat. But there was plenty of meat in the crabs. The best part was the sauce! As described by Reiko and Lucardia, the sauce is very well prepared. It was creamy, milky and spicy! Great with man tou and I couldn't stop dipping my crab meat in the sauce before every mouthful. The entire plate was cleared (almost spotless) at the end of dinner! Will go back just for the crab when I'm around the area.
Happened to be on the 4th floor of The Cathay yesterday. And happened to see a familiar sign at the corner. It was Astons Specialties! They've just opened this new outlet on Friday, 4 July 2008.
Am very happy to see that they had keep the price and no service charge policy at this new outlet although its in town. The place is very clean and simple. No fancy decor. Just monochromatic pictures on the walls, and simple and comfy tables and chairs neatly aligned. There is also outdoor sittings which wasn't set-up yet when I was there. (It's only day 2 of their operations!) There's also the familiar chalkboard with the day's special written on it.
Feeling hungry at 4pm, as I didn't eat anything since that morning, I ordered the Prime Ribeye X'tra Cut with fries and pasta salad ($16.50), and a glass of ice lemon tea ($1.80).
The fries was crispy and nice. Just like those I had at Astons Express. I love them! And the pasta salad was fresh and the pasta was cooked just right. The prime ribeye was cooked to the right medium-rare and the meat was tender, chewy and juicy. I cleared the entire plate (which was relatively huge) on my own!
If you're craving for good and reasonably priced steak in town, why not go to The Cathay for Astons Specialties?
1=SGD 0.0587
It's been long since I stepped into Marche. Sad that the 2 other outlets are no longer in business and this one at Vivo gets packed almost everytime I was there. Good thing we were there on a Monday and was still early for dinner crowd. Managed to get in without queuing.
The place was smaller than we expected, and it looks very cramp with all the decorations and furnishing inside. But it does gives the traditional market-like feel but yet still homely.
Food we ordered...
SweetBread - aka Filled Crossed Bun at $1.50
This is something which I never thought of buying while at Marche in the past. But thanks to bf, now I'll make sure I buy one whenever I'm there. I like the fluffy texture of the bun and the skin (outer layer) of the bun has a sweet taste to it. Makes the bun very enjoyable to eat. But the fillings is very little, filled only 1/8 of the bun. But still I won't mind paying $1.50 for it. Of cos, if they stuff in my fillings, it'll make it just perfect.
Vegetables small plate at $4.90
I loveee mushrooms. And this "buffet" style vegetables stall has great mushrooms. It's tasty and fragrant. We mixed the mushrooms with baby potatoes. Quite nice too. Will want to try the rest of the vegetables the next time.
Crepe Mushroom at $10.90
This one is my most most favorite! Thin crepe freshly made upon order. The fillings is generous and the mixed of vegetables, cheese, sauce and mushrooms is simply delicious! Just thinking of it now makes me drool for more!
*SLURPS!*
Rating given:
Chanced upon this modernly decorated shop while browsing around Marina Square over the weekend. The concept is somewhat similar to inQbox which has been around for awhile already. But Cactus Farm gives me a better impressions. The products on display are very neatly arranged and the entire shop gives a comfortable feel for their customers. The lighting of the shop plays quite an important part too.
The products on display are mostly from indie designers from Singapore. I noticed they do have products imported from overseas. There's this one that caught our attention at the entrance. It's a pair of square slippers. Looks quite interesting. Will sure to draw attention when worn around town. It cost about $40 if I didn't remember wrongly.
A quick check at their website and the rental is only from $8/day. Sounds pretty cheap, but that's only if your products are attractive and good to draw buyers.
If you're an indie designer, you might want to go check out Cactus Farm and look for their G.O.D or B.A.D! They also has got a M.A.D too! Interesting designations for the team. :)
Rating given:
"Curry so Good"
Just opened at basement of Plaza Singapura on August 1st. This is the place to go for quick takeaway meals. They offer curry rice and curry udon sets where you can choose to have the curry mild or spicy. They also sell bento set which includes potato salad, vegetable sald, rice, fukujinzuke (japanese pickles) and takuan (japanese radish).
Mum bought 2 sets for dinner last night. Seafood Croquette Curry Udon Set ($5.90) and Ebi Unagi Bento Set ($8.90).
We had the sets an hour later when we reached home. The food was not too cold for consumption yet. It was still a little warm when we ate the food.
Mum's first verdict after tasting the rice in her bento set "Not nice!" The rice didn't have the usual stickiness of japanese rice and was tasteless. Not even taste of the usual rice fragrant. But the ebi and unagi was still acceptable. Though we felt that the unagi was a tad too small. The salads that came with the bento set was not bad. Nothing to wow about.
The Curry Udon was still alright for me. I don't recall tasting any japanese curry recently and have forgotten how it should taste like. But this one has quite a strong smell which I don't really enjoy. The seafood croquette was quite sad. There was only a small piece of prawn in it. I remembered the lady told me its a mixed of seafood. But I couldn't taste any.
Overall I feel that the food was not up to standard. Perhaps they're still new in such creations. Hope they'll improve as they gain more experience. Will probably give it another try few months later.
Rating given:
DIY Popiah anyone?
I love making my own popiahs! My grandma used to host Popiah party for us. As we grow up, everyone is too busy with work and stuff, we've not have any popiah party for long time. Now I've found the place to go for our next family dinner! Village Wok serves DIY Popiah Set! How cool is that? The set comes with all the necessary condiments, ingredients and the power chili. Love it! The popiah skin was neither too thin nor thick, just nice to wrap up all the yummy ingredients without having to worry that the skin will give way when bitten into.
Dishes ordered include the Village Smoked Chicken with BBQ Pork, Deep Fried Crystal Prawns in Light Wasabi Sauce, XO Crispy Tofu, Brinjal in BXO Sauce, Vegetarian Ee Mee and Pulat Hitam with Coconut Gelato ice-cream.
The Smoked Chicken served with their special ginger dip was quite tasty. Personally would prefer the meat to be softer thou. But still passable.
Wasabi prawns is deep fried and topped with very light wasabi sauce. As a fan of wasabi, this would attract me more if the sauce was more powerpack. This dish is best eaten while its still hot. The outer fried layer become slightly tough when I had my second piece when the dish has cooled off.
XO Crispy Tofu was good. Homemade tofu was soft and the XO sauce served on the side adds flavor to it. Simple yet tasty.
Fried Brinjal with Crispy Squid is not a vegetable which most would enjoy. But the ones at Village Wok managed to convince my friend to give it a go. He quite enjoyed it and even had quite a few pieces. Their special BXO sauce gives this purple vegetable a new life. The sauce was sweet and the crispy squid topping gives it a crunchy texture.
The Vegetarian Ee Mee was nice. There was plentiful of golden mushrooms which give the dish more texture when chewing the noodles. Sauce was not too thick nor saltish. Just nice to my liking.
The lunch ended with a refreshing glass of pulut hitam (black glutinous rice) with gelato coconut ice-cream. It gave a beautiful closure to the meal. Will surely order this when I return.
I was told that they've a special dish - Cold Crab with Special Vinaigrette Sauce. We'd wanted to try it, but this is a by-reservation-only dish. Must remember to place my order the next time I go. It looks pretty good. And Village Wok creates and uses only their own in-house brand of sauces and dips.
Rating given:
Went dinner with my friends at Hachi Tei Japanese Cuisine 2 weeks ago. My friend had been raving for many years. It was till that very night that I (finally) dine there.
Hachi Tei was once featured on Sunday Times some years ago, I think I read about it but never tried them out. Previously Hachi Tei was situated at #B1-27 China Square Food Centre until China Square Food Centre owner, Wah Khiaw Developments transformed it into an office block. So it moved to the current new location in May 2008.
The new place gives me a very homely and cozy feel, the Japanese songs playing in the background further enhance the atmosphere. I'm not sure why, when I dine at Hachi Tei, I just don't feel that I'm dining in Singapore, I feel that I'm dining in Taiwan. I'm not sure why I have that feeling. I think must be the super friendliness of the lady boss Cherine as she really do communicate with her customers.
We ordered Chirashi Don ($12.00), my friend always order Chirashi Don whenever he visits Hachi Tei. He told me that once I tried it, I would not order other items anymore.... Teriyaki Chicken Don ($7.00). I didn't ask whether it's nice... but I do find the serving pretty small. Sashimi Set ($15.00) I always love sashimi, that's why I ordered sashimi set. I loved the 'shiok shiok' feeling of dipping sashimi in the sauce with lots of wasabi and little soy sauce. By the way, the sashimi are really fresh!!
Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable dinner. Nice atmosphere, yummy food, no GST and service charge, reasonable cheap prices. I'm surely going back again. By the way, my friend treated me that night. Hahahaha.....
Rating given:
I am quite sad to say that even as a Singaporean, the first plane that I seat on was not a Singapore Airlines plane. Recently, I finally had the chance to sit on one. Hee….. Once step into the plane, it is pretty much like stepping into any other airlines plane, clean and tidy. Along the way, there will be friendly and smiling air steward or stewardess to guide and help you to get to your seat. After which, they would start serving hot towels to everyone as well. If I did not manage to get a copy of Straits Time before I board the plane, I would ask for a copy. Sad to say once in a while, the air stewardess would forget about it.
While on the plane, they did their best to keep us comfortable, and try to keep up with all our requests. Their service was really good when it comes to serving drinks and meals. This is definitely their plus point here. When it comes to their food, well it seems that they only changed their menu every two months, so in the end, I got to every dish in the menu over and over again. *Mental note: To request for special meals when booking tickets next time*
Next come to their entertainment system. Sad to say I am not very impressed with the system as it tends to fail me a few times or required a few times of reset. It is also a bit slow in reaction as well. At least they do change the movies every month so at least I got new movies to watch. It would be much better if they give better quality earphones. Once the system at the seat I was seating was defective, so they gave me a US$50 voucher to use for the KrisShop. Hee…. Too bad it can be only used on the plane.
All in all, I quite liked the service onboard the plane as they would make customers as comfortable as possible.
Rating given:
Never ate Botak Jones before. And my first experience is a long drive to the Toa Payoh branch. There was a long queue but some chit chatting make time flies quickly.
Ordered Black Pepper Chicken - SIN$8.00; Cajun Chicken - SIN$7.50 and Chili Dawg - SIN$11.50.
I ate Cajun Chicken and I think its great, the fries are tasty.
Going back again, should be.. haha..
better display parking coupons, I kena a $10 fine for overshot timing.
Rating given:
Was there to watch Red Cliff over the weekend because it's the only GV cinema with good seats. Had not been there for several years.
The first experience is that it has limited space at the ticket booth and popcorn area. Worst still the ticket booth and popcorn selling area are joined together. Even I booked my tickets online, I still have to Q a long time, worst still, Q-ed at the wrong Q because of the misleading sign.
There is only miserable 3 counters. It's hard to find where is the entrance for the cinema..
Talking about the screening hall, was in hall 5, the leg space is small and Red Cliff is 150 mins, the air-con was kinda off midway through the show, it's so stuffy for 3/4 of the show..Sigh!
Rating given:
This Chi Zhar stall is very ulu lah! Hidden right at the corner of the estate, it's not easy to spot! There are many other coffee shops and eateries around that area, and every one of them were packed to the rim this evening. Hoping I got to the right place, finally I found this tiny stall hidden at the back of this quiet coffee shop.
It was Mum's birthday and we decided to give this place a try. Am glad that Mum enjoyed it, but I got "bitten" by the crab! My upper right lips hurts. Ok, nuff of whining, so what's good about this place?
We ordered "3 Glass Chicken", Claypot Seafood Tofu, Stout Pork Ribs, "Hei Zhou" (prawn roll like dish) and the highly recommended Jin Sha Xie (Golden Sand Crab) and fried Man Tou. Total bill came up to $108. All the dishes were the biggest portion one. (But it wasn't THAT big after all.)
The "3 Glass Chicken" was too dry and the meat was too tough. But the outside of the chicken was rather tasty.
Claypot Seafood Tofu was not bad. There were tofu, cuttlefish, sliced fish, vegetables and carrots. The sauce was not too thick nor diluted. Just nice to go with plain rice.
I didn't eat the pork ribs so I don't know how it tastes.
"Hei Zhou" was pretty good. Fried to the right texture and its crispy and flavorful.
Star of the night was the Golden Sand Crab. Dad picked up one bigger and one medium size crabs. The crab was not the freshiest, as there wasn't any sweetness to the meat. But there was plenty of meat in the crabs. The best part was the sauce! As described by Reiko and Lucardia, the sauce is very well prepared. It was creamy, milky and spicy! Great with man tou and I couldn't stop dipping my crab meat in the sauce before every mouthful. The entire plate was cleared (almost spotless) at the end of dinner! Will go back just for the crab when I'm around the area.
Rating given:
Happened to be on the 4th floor of The Cathay yesterday. And happened to see a familiar sign at the corner. It was Astons Specialties! They've just opened this new outlet on Friday, 4 July 2008.
Am very happy to see that they had keep the price and no service charge policy at this new outlet although its in town. The place is very clean and simple. No fancy decor. Just monochromatic pictures on the walls, and simple and comfy tables and chairs neatly aligned. There is also outdoor sittings which wasn't set-up yet when I was there. (It's only day 2 of their operations!) There's also the familiar chalkboard with the day's special written on it.
Feeling hungry at 4pm, as I didn't eat anything since that morning, I ordered the Prime Ribeye X'tra Cut with fries and pasta salad ($16.50), and a glass of ice lemon tea ($1.80).
The fries was crispy and nice. Just like those I had at Astons Express. I love them! And the pasta salad was fresh and the pasta was cooked just right. The prime ribeye was cooked to the right medium-rare and the meat was tender, chewy and juicy. I cleared the entire plate (which was relatively huge) on my own!
If you're craving for good and reasonably priced steak in town, why not go to The Cathay for Astons Specialties?
Rating given: