Seah Street Deli

Hello everyone (:

Apologies for not updating this space as much as I wish to. We've been surprisingly busy tying up things in school and thus haven't had the chance to explore many new places but we are trying! (: Hopefully having a little more time away from school translates into more time for us to try food at new places... we'll see how things go (:

If there's one place I must recommend before the month of November ends, it's Seah Street Deli!

Seah Street Deli is one of the casual restaurants located at the basement of Raffles Hotel (:

The atmosphere is relaxed and there really is no need to dress up when you dine at Seah Street Deli! What I love most about this place is that the staff are very friendly and you feel that you are being well taken care of throughout your meal.

Seah Street Deli claims to serve authentic New York food and it sure lives up to what it says it will do! Their menu reminded me a little of Barracks except that this menu is printed on slightly harder cardboard paper and doesn't have that many pages. Nevertheless, the range of food is more than sufficient and if you are a lover of Western/ New York food, you'll be spoilt for choice!

I'll start by introducing to you the single most important thing you MUST try at Seah Street Deli - their (milk) shakes! (: This is a photo of their Malt Shake ($10) and I have to honestly say that it is possibly the best shake I've tasted! (This is as good as or even better than Once Upon a Milkshake!) I know you must be thinking that $10 is an awfully lot of money to pay for milkshake but trust me, once you have tried it, you'll agree that the quality justifies the price. I'd love to go back to try more of their milkshakes!

Jeffrey ordered the Lincoln Tunnel ($32), which is actually a beef burger/ sandwich with fries. You get to choose how well you want your beef patty to be cooked and Jeffrey's was cooked exactly the way he wanted to he was very happy to have it (: I loved his fries which were neither too salty nor oily! I am starting to think that one cannot go very wrong with 'house dishes' or 'recommended dishes'.. will continue to test my little theory.

Since I am not a fan of meat, I decided to go for the Grilled salmon with vegetables and potato wedges ($32). I wanted to try the Fish & Chips but was afraid that there would be too much chips on the table so I chose the salmon instead. It was one of the most well-marinated slab of salmon I've ever eaten and the meat was pink and tender. The sauce that came with it wasn't overpowering and I thought they were extremely generous with the vegetables! Was pleased with my dish on the whole! (:

We were too stuffed from eating these huge dishes so we didn't order any desserts but we'll definitely do so the next time we visit Seah Street Deli! (: Do drop by if you're around the area! If you wish to get a milkshake to go, you can always go to the little shop outside Seah Street Deli to order your takeaway drink! How convenient! (: I'll definitely be back soon! (:

Alright that's all for now, hope that all of you are doing well and that you'll have a great weekend!

Cherry Garden

Hello everyone (:

I'm feeling jollier than usual today because I finally removed the stitches that were in my mouth for the past week! (: I'd gone for wisdom tooth extraction surgery last Sunday and have been eating soupy/ soft food for the past week so I was overjoyed when the dentist said that all is fine (: (: (: Actually, I had expected to be on a porridge diet for the entire week but it turns out that I only needed to do that on the first day because I could chew on my right side (the side without the extracted tooth) from the second day onwards so this means that I could have a variety of soupy/ soft food! Phew. I get bored with eating the same thing very easily so am just thankful that I didn't have to eat porridge for the entire week. Now that all's well, I can go back to chewing on both sides and eating less soupy/ soft stuff (:

Today I shall blog about Cherry Garden's dimsum buffet ($48++/pax) and it was quite special because it was one of the last buffets I'd before going for my extraction! I had never heard of Cherry Garden even though I've been to Mandarin Oriental quite a few times partly because I'm not a big fan of Chinese food. Thanks to Jeffrey, we decided to give this place a go because he said he did some research & reviews of this restaurant were good.

I think the people who did the decor for Cherry Garden really tried their best to keep to the Chinese garden theme and this is evident from the entire outlook of the restaurant (:

Default Chinese tea and some nuts for starters.

Generally, you won't go wrong if you order dishes with the Oriental hotel fan logo next to them (: Obviously I can't remember all that we've eaten so pardon me if I forget what some of the dishes are. Oh the good thing about Cherry Garden is that they'll adjust the serving sizes/ portions based on the no. of diners at the table so you don't have to worry about not being able to finish a particular dish.

 Steamed chicken

 This is MUST order: mango shrimp spring roll - we'd TWO servings of this because it was just TOO good!

 Xiao Long Baos which Jeffrey said were VERY good so we ordered this dish twice too!

 Har gaos - yum (:

 Tofu!

 Roasted pork

 Spicy asparagus with bamboo shoots and maize - I liked this! (:

 Ee-fu Noodles - Love it!

Deconstructed panfried carrot cake!

Oh this was some exotic seafood thing that the waitress encouraged us to try but we both didn't like it!

 Forgot the name of this dish but I loved it!

 Soup! There are many to choose from - we chose something that was nonspicy so Jeffrey could drink.

Their 3 signature desserts - lovely way to end the meal.

I would definitely want to go back to Cherry Garden again! The dimsums were fantastic and the staff were very attentive and friendly (: Thanks Jeffrey for introducing this place to us! (:

Alright it's back to school this coming week. Hope that everyone'll have a great week ahead! (:

Pariss Buffet & Banquet Restaurant

Hello everyone!

School's officially out for most kids in my school so this weekend marks the beginning of the school hols for many of them (: I really do hope that they'll take some time to REST and not just busy themselves with school-related things the entire holiday because they really need to rejuvenate before the new academic year begins.

We'd our annual staff dinner yesterday and I'm pretty glad that there was sufficient food to go around this year! =) The catered food that we'd was surprisingly decent and the desserts weren't too bad as well (: I think everyone had their fair share of food yesterday and we left the airport hotel feeling quite happy.

If you're hunting for free-flow, relatively decent quality food at an affordable price, I would suggest going to Pariss at Marina Square. Okay frankly I would only place Pariss above Sakura (which, by the way, is one restaurant that I'm sure I'll NEVER return to) but if you are hungry and don't mind having decent fare, then Pariss is the place to go for instant food.

Adult weekend buffet lunch costs $33.80++/pax, which I think isn't too expensive considering there is freeflow food AND DRINKS. Most buffet places that I go to do not serve free flow soft drinks and juices so I thought this was quite a nice touch (: I had countless rounds of mountain dew (they didn't have sprite) and I loved its fizziness.

Alright here are some photos of dishes that you can get off the display counters:

One thing about the dishes served at Pariss is that they tend to be overly-flavoured which means that people who prefer their food to taste a little more refined may actually detest eating the dishes served at Pariss. Personally, I did feel that there were some dishes that were too overdone, which was a pity, but the rest were generally okay.

Oh if you're a fan of curry crab, please be prepared to hover about the curry crab area because the crabs always vanish so quickly! All Jeffrey and I wanted was to try a little bit of crab but we didn't get a chance to see even a tiny crab leg because they've been taken by other more eager diners. In the end we just settled for a fried man tou without the curry crab sauce because even that was scooped up by others.

Apart from getting food off the counters, you can also order from their ala-carte menu. I would say that these dishes taste pretty similar to those on display so there really isn't much discrepancy between quality so it doesn't really make a differnece if you take from the counter or order from the menu - it's only a matter of choice and preference for certain dishes. Some dishes that you can order off their menu are:

On the whole, this re-visit to Pariss was quite a disappointment because it made me realise that my memory of this place as being quite a recommendable place has changed. I think this may be because my tastebuds have changed, the quality of food has suffered or perhaps it's because my previous visit (4 years ago) was marked by a special occassion. Whatever it is, I don't think I'll be going back to Pariss any time soon but I still think it's not too bad a choice for non-fussy eaters (:

Alright that's all for now.. have a great long weekend! (: