Friday, March 23

Skinny Pizza

Hello!

It's finally Friday! (: Many things seem to have taken place this week and I'm really looking forward to taking a break from going to school everyday this weekend! (: Am going to post a few photos of my recent trip to Skinny Pizza. We actually didn't eat much there because we had afternoon tea so I guess this was more like a light dinner/ early supper.

I think it's funny how I go to Skinny Pizza to eat everything else other than their pizzas! I guess I really prefer pizzas with a more chewy crust compared to thin and crispy or worse, crackly! Somehow crackly pizzas taste like biscuit to me and I don't know how to appreciate them.

Alright here's what we had that day:

Red Pepper & Tomato Soup ($6). This was surprisingly creamy and smooth! We both liked that it wasn't too sour - in fact it was slightly sweet - and that it was pretty thick so it's definitely something that I can forsee myself ordering again.


 Green Salad ($9). This was pretty plain but I guess it works if you, like me, just want to fulfil your daily requirement of greens!


The dish that took the limelight was obviously the King Prawn Linguine ($25), which I daresay is one of my favourite dishes to have at Skinny Pizza. It's SO flavourful and filling, you wouldn't be able to eat anything else for hours after this (that is if you manage to polish the entire plate of on your own!). Definitely a must-order if you're feeling like you need something satisfying!


There's Funorama @ACJC tomorrow and we're thinking of dropping by but we're keeping our options open for now (: I realise I'm the kind of person who loves to have my weekends absolutely free of appointments so that I can have the flexibility to do whatever I want, whenever I want! (:

Have a great weekend everyone! (:

Monday, March 19

Brasserie Les Saveurs

Hello!

It's the night before school reopens and I can already sense the impending busy-ness wheezing into my life! Apart from having to go to school for the first two day of hols, I think the rest of March hols was pretty decent (: I wish I could do nothing during hols and truly relish the freedom and joy of doing nothing but frankly, March hols this year wasn't too bad for me (: Managed to meet up with friends and went out quite a fair bit so I guess I've no right to complain! =P

As a way of kickstarting a week of meet-ups over good food, Matty and I went to Brasserie Les Seveurs at St. Regis for their non-champagne high tea! It costs $56++/pax, which I feel is way overpriced for the portions of food served (more on that later). If you are a champagne fan, you may choose to upgrade your high tea set to the $66++/pax so that you enjoy a flute of champagne!


We were seated next to the window, which was great because there was natural light shining in (: The bad thing about our seat though was that we were 2 tables away from the dance floor, where people actually dance on as part of their high tea experience, which means that the jazz music was also pretty loud! If I ever return to Brasserie Les Saveurs, I will definitely request for a table further away from the stage/ dance floor!

For first-timers to Brasserie Les Saveurs like myself, here are four key things to know about their high tea:
  1. It is NOT a buffet.
  2. It is a '3-course' high tea.
  3. The dishes are extremely rich in flavour (so you may get gelat quite quickly).
  4. The portions are small.

We each chose our tea of the afternoon from a relatively small selection of TWG teas.

Then we were served with our first course:


A three-tiered high tea stand with clotted cream & jam (on the 1st tier), 4 scones - 2 plain, 2 raisin (on the 2nd tier) and 6 mini sandwiches - 2 cucumber, 2 egg, 2 smoked salmon (on the 3rd tier). The scones and sandwiches were pretty good and we wish they were refillable but sadly that is not the case. 

We then had to choose one dish each from a short list of 'mains':
Matty chose to have the foie gras creme brulee, which he commented was way too rich for his liking! It had an interesting taste at the start but the taste gets more overpowering the more you savour it so it wasn't too enjoyable near the end =S Unless you are a huge fan of foie gras, I wouldn't encourage you to order this.


I chose to have the salmon quiche which frankly looked more like a tiny eggtart to me! It had a semi-quiche, semi-eggtart taste and I didn't really enjoy it.


Our third and final course is dessert and both of us were hoping that the desserts would be mindblowingly fantastic so that they can make up for the average starters and mains but unfortunately, the desserts left us wondering why we even wanted to venture to this restaurant for high tea =(


Out of 8 desserts, we could only choose to have 2 each and we strategically chose to have 4 different desserts: some coconut-infused cake, some kind of mousse, chocolate cake and some deconstructed berry thing. Whoops sorry for the lack of proper description but I honestly wasn't sufficiently motivated to commit the names of the different desserts to my memory! Oh welly.


In short, I felt disappointed that the food at Brasserie Les Saveurs was not great partly because I had expected more based on the rave reviews that I have read. Well at least the ambience was pretty nice and we had a good chat so not all is lost! (:

Alright that's all for tonight (: Time for bed! Goodnight!

Sunday, March 11

The Courtyard

Hello!

I've been trying out a new routine which involves having a heavy breakfast/ brunch so that I can go for Saturday high-tea and I must say that I'm starting to like it! (: Rather than fuss about with the Saturday lunch crowd, it feels better to just eat at home in the late morning and enjoy a sumptuous round of high tea with people who matter (: The high tea crowd tends to be less boisterous so we don't have to shout to hear what each other has to say and I also feel that the pace is much slower and hence we tend to feel more relaxed (:








A couple of weeks ago, Matty and I decided to visit The Courtyard at the Fullerton Hotel because it serves English high tea! (: I've always preferred English high tea to other types of high tea and have been on a lookout for good English high tea places. So far, the only two good English high tea places that I would strongly recommend would be Goodwood Park's L'espresso and Regent Hotel's Tea Lounge! The former serves buffet-style high tea whereas the latter serves a three-tiered (refillable) high tea tray with other buffet-style dishes at the display area.

The Courtyard's high tea serving is more like Tea Lounge's - it's refillable but non-buffet style, which sounds quite contradicting because if it's refillable, isn't it somewhat 'buffet-style'? I guess the only difference is that with non-buffet style, you have a much limited selection to choose from but if the selection is good and suits your fancy, you don't lose out a lot in that sense (:
The afternoon high tea at The Courtyard costs $42++/pax and it comes with unlimited flow of coffee/ tea and refillable finger food (:
I chose to have the English breakfast whereas Matty chose to have some exotic tea blend as well as a cup of cappuccino. The cappuccino was surprisingly good so do give it a try! (:




After waiting for quite a long while, we finally got our three-tiered tea set! (: (: (:


The top and bottom layers were laid with sweet stuff whereas all the savoury goodness were in the middle tier.

In general, we felt that their savoury dishes were MUCH better compared to their sweet cakes/ pastries because we had many many more rounds of savoury food compared to desserts, which is quite unusual for a dessert monster like myself!

Of course, no high tea would be complete without scones with clotted cream and jam! (: We were served two types of scones: plain and raisin and I generally have no preference as both tasted fine. I seldom notice jam paste but this one caught my attention due to its gellatinous body! It felt as if I was eating melted jelly or something! haha Despite its weird texture, it tasted alright with the scones so I was happy (:


At the end of 2hours, I was ready to throw in the towel to call it quits! Except that I had to have my sprite fix but there wasn't sprite so I ordered the most expensive glass of pepsi ($12) I've ever had in my life! It was so pricey that I felt bad about it for the entire day so I didn't sprite for my next meal =S haha Okay lesson learnt: do NOT order soft drinks at The Courtyard! =P

Alright that's all for now! I hope that your weekend went well (: Absolutely loved mine!

Saturday, March 10

Pizzeria Mozza

Hello everyone! (:

The March Holidays are finally here! (: Time to catch up on sleep. meet up with friends and get ready for the madness that is term 2!

Just last week, my best friend Jo and I went to Pizzeria Mozza for dinner! This meet-up was long overdue as we have been too swamped to meet each other since the start of the year! We chose Pizzeria Mozza because I've been hearing good reviews about it (including Jo's) and I have personally not been there so we thought, why not?

Pizzeria Mozza was completely packed on a Friday evening so making reservations is a must. Jo actually called one month in advance to book a table for us! haha Talk about being kiasu! But that ensured that we got a table in a very noisy and crowded restaurant so I guess calling early does help!

Here are some of the dishes we had that day! All photos are taken by Jo using Jo's iPhone:

Their famous tricolore salad ($17) which had those amazingly crunchy purple vege that we haven't tasted anywhere else before! The salad was cheesier than I had expected - thanks to the powdered mozzarella - but other than that, it was a perfect start to our meal! (: Everyone should try this!

Because Jo said that their pizzas were not huge, we decided to order TWO pizzas instead of one and another dish and that turned out to be a mistake because though their pizzas were not humongous, there were filling so we couldn't finish both pizzas! Next time, I will know to order only ONE pizza and another side/ small main dish so that we won't feel bad wasting so much food! The two pizzas that we had were

The Guanciale Pizza ($25) - which is bacon and spinach pizza with a sunshine egg in the middle


and the Funghi Pizza ($30), which was overladen with mushrooms and was incredibly salty!

I think bacon lovers would like the Guanciale Pizza because there were bacon bits sprinkled all over the top! The egg was a nice touch because partly because it brought back memories of the kinds of pizza we had overseas in Paris and London! Although I enjoyed the Funghi Pizza tremendously, I do also think that it is way too salty for the average individual and unless you have very high tolerance for salty food, I wouldn't encourage you to order it! This dish left me so thirsty that I'd to order an additional glass of sprite ($6) on top of my refreshing Acqua Limonata ($10) and Jo's Pineapple Soda ($8)! (sorry we forgot to take photos of our drinks) 

Last but not least, we had the Budino ($16) for dessert! (: It's pudding a layer of seasalt caramel and a huge dollop of cream on top! I truly am a sucker for seasalt caramel so this dessert hit the spot for me! (:

Alright that is all for today! Have a great weekend everyone! (:

Monday, March 5

Delicious

Hello everyone! (:

It has been a pretty chilly day thanks to the heavy showers which lasted a few hours this morning! Lunch with friends was nice today because we were reminiscing about our lecturers during uni days! haha It was fun (: Can't wait till Thursday!

Anyhow, if you are in town, do drop by the spanking new building called Scotts Square and check out Delicious! (: I first knew about it from Mrs Tan, who kindly bought cakes from Delicious for my family. The cakes were very good so I told myself that I must head down to the restaurant/ cafe to try their mains and I am glad I got the chance to do so not too long ago! (:




I think the interior decoration and general layout of Delicious is more than pleasant - it gives a pseudo-garden-at-home feel and the tables are well placed so you won't feel that it is too cramped. I especially love the colour combination (predominantly blue and brown) because they go so beautifully together!

SInce it was our first time there, we decided to have a spread so we ordered one starter, one side, one main dish, one dessert and one beverage so that we could cover the different courses! Here are some photos of what we had that day:

Thai Beef Salad ($12) - extremely refreshing, vegetables were fresh and crunchy, the sauce tasted very authentic-thai and there were huge chunks of beef! Definitely a great start to any meal! Beef and veggie lovers can consider this as a main course as the serving portion is quite big!


Shoestring Fries ($7) - Not the best fries I've had but good enough to satisfy my craving ! (: I think I'm a fries addict but I just try not to eat too much fries because the trouble with fries is that they make my tummy queasy after eating! So yes I shall eat in moderation (:

Cheese Burger ($15) - a very hearty and filling dish! Apparently the patty is not the processed type because the beef seems 'loose' so I guess they might have made it on their own? The salad and (more!) fries were good too! Definitely a good dish to have especially when you are hungry!


While waiting for our dishes to arrive, we also had a cup of cappuccino ($7) each. Initially, I thought that $7 for a cup of coffee was pretty pricey but the quality of coffee was average/ slightly above average and there was more volume compared to other normal cafe cups so I guess the price is about right.



Last but not least, here are two photos of my lovely bread and butter pudding with vanilla sauce! (: The bread and butter pudding was denser than usual and this means that you will get full faster! Since I'm a dessert monster and not-so-secret bread&butter pudding fan, this dish was pretty alright for me but I wouldn't urge you to order this if you don't like bread or if you have a small appetite.

On the whole, I liked the dishes that we ordered and I would like to go back to Delicious again in the near future to try other dishes! (: Hope that your Monday went well and that you will have a great week ahead! (:

Friday, March 2

The Marmalade Pantry @Stables

Hello! (:

About a week ago, my family decided to make a trip to the relatively new Marmalade Pantry outlet at Fairways Drive for one of my sister's farewell dinner! (: I suggested the Marmalade Pantry not only because its fit her only criterion of not being Korean food, it also has pretty decent Western food and superb desserts!


We made a reservation for dinner on Saturday because we had expected the restaurant to be fully packed but surprisingly it was not so. There were still a few empty tables around the lowly lit restaurant. I am guessing that people may not really want to go out of their way to eat at The Marmalade Pantry @Stables because there really isn't much to do before/ after your meal. Not to mention it is quite inaccessible if you don't drive! Anyhow, we were thankful to have gotten a nice table at the corner of the restaurant so that we could eat and chitchat.

Before you go on reading, I must first forewarn you that the photo quality this time round is quite bad due to the low lighting so please pardon the photos!

 For drinks, we tried Iced Chocolate ($9) which was average as well as

a cup of cappuccino ($6.50), which was delightful to have on a cool evening!

We shared a generous plate of crab caesar salad ($22) which my friends highly recommend every time Marmalade Pantry is mentioned for starters and we found it pretty palateable (: I think adding crab meat to caesar salad is something quite different and it gives the salad more 'bite'.

Our mains were generally good but there was no outstandingly spectacular dish that night. Here are the dishes which we ordered:

Oriental Grilled King Salmon with Soba ($26) - this is a fusion dish which was pretty okay if you eat the two items on the plate separately. I think  warmer carbo-dish might be a better complement.


Truffle Field Mushroom Risotto ($22) - THIS is comfort food (: If you want something warm and hearty, you should definitely order this dish and it will cheer you and your tummy up right away! The risotto is fragrant and the mushrooms are extremely succulent! Love it!

Carbonara ($24) - Marmalade Pantry is of the rare places that serves Carbonara with poached egg! I don't think I would like this dish very much because I don't like runny yolk (but I make an exception for eggs benedict! ha!). But two people ordered this and they both finished their pasta so I guess it was good! (:


Another great dish for someone who's very hungry - Roast Vegetables Strozzapreti ($22) - which actually is a type of hard pasta/ macaroni with asparagus, broccoli and pumpkin cubes! I loved it!


Finally, we had the Basque Chicken with Brown Rice ($26), which was slightly above average.
Thankfully, none of us were too full to skip dessert so we ordered three to share! (: It was probably the best three dishes we chose that night because the desserts alone were worth the trip into Fairways Drive! (:

We had the Granny Smith and Stem Ginger Pudding ($13), which was okay. I was expecting the ginger taste to be much stronger but I guess I wouldn't be able to eat much of it if the ginger taste were too strong so it is just as well that it was only lightly flavoured (:


The Chocolate Nemesis ($14) won hands down! It is possibly one of the densest and msot chocolatey cake that we've tried! We loved it and we will definitely order this again when we get back! (:

Lastly, we had a slice of sea salt caramel cheesecake ($8), which was also greatly appreciated by all around the table! The saltiness definitely added an oomph to the entire cake! I think this is one of my preferred cheesecakes as well.

In all, we had a great meal at The Marmalade Pantry @Stables and we will definitely go back there again in the near future!

Alright that's all for now (: Have a great weekend everyone!