Double Bay

Good morning! (:

The first thing that flit through my mind this morning when I woke up was - oh no, it's Thursday already! =S The hols are definitely flying by way too quickly for my liking! Today's dedicated to catching up with different friends who mean a lot to me so I'm definitely all ears and ready to soak up updates about their lives!

Since it's the hols, I've been in town more often these days and one of the malls that I've frequented a little more than others is Raffles City Mall. I suspect it has something to do with COMEX being held at Suntec City (a stone's throwaway) from Raffles City Mall that drew us to Raffles City Mall (I didn't go to COMEX but Jeffrey caved & went on Sunday!).

Last week, the both of us ate at Double Bay, an Australian cafe that sits outside Raffles City Mall by the main road, facing Raffles Hotel. I never fail to notice how crowded this restaurant is during dinner time and on weekends so I told Jeffrey that we have to give this place a shot!

 It was relatively quiet that weekday afternoon when we went to visit them for an early lunch! I think their doors were opened just minutes before we arrived! I couldn't help but notice that there were already a few reserved tables such as the one photographed above, and that made me feel like I've gained some support for my hypothesis that people enjoy coming to Double Bay for food (: Soon, the lunch crowd started streaming in and both of us were glad that we came earlier and got our food before the mayhem!

 Jeffrey's hot chocolate ($6.90), which was better than expected!

 I'm weathering a cappuccino ($6.90) craze right now! I make it a point to order this drink everywhere I go if it's available because I think I'm trying to find out which places serve good cappuccinos! This one's pretty good and I like that the cup isn't too small! I realise that the size of my drink matters because I feel that I need substantial amount of warmth to feel satisfied! (If you really love big cups of coffee like me, you should try the ones at Robert Timms or order a BIG cup of coffee from McCafe! They're soothing to the soul!)

 My main that day was linguine with crabmeat ($20.90), which was much sweeter than expected (in a good way). I think this dish is perfect for people who prefer a tinge of sweetness on their pasta. The crabmeat chunks were sufficient though I can't help but feel that the crabmeat was a tad tough. Lovely dish for tomato-sauce lovers as well!

Jeffrey went with the pan roast pattie of wagyu ($22.90), which essentially is their version of wagyu sandwich/ burger! He really liked the presentation of his burger and was extremely pleased that there were onion rings tucked under his bread-tops! Again, the pattie tasted above average and I could tell that he enjoyed his dish! The fries were a tad overcooked but I guess their saltiness kind of made up for it (:

In all, I think this is a wonderful place to go to for lunch because it provides enough room and quiet for catching up and having a good meal. It's a pity that we weren't as hungry as we usually are so we gave dessert a miss. Would love to go back there to have another meal as well as to try their desserts!

Alright that's all for now (: Enjoy the rest of the week!

Forever and always, my superheroloverinelectricdreams.

Ellenborough Market Cafe

Hello everyone! (:

This weekend feels particularly jolly probably because we know and are comforted by the knowledge that we don't have to go to school like we normally do this coming week! (: This means that we can rest a little more and recharge our batteries in preparation for the final stretch of the academic year!

Since it's the start of the hols, it may be a good idea to head out to Swisshotel Merchant Court with your family and friends for some affordable asian fare! Their weekend lunch buffet is wildly popular with Singaporeans and I suspect it's because it is relatively cheap compared to other weekend buffet brunch/ lunches! It costs $38++/pax and you can choose to pay $5 extra per person for freeflow of soft drinks! (: Absolutely love the freeflow softdrinks offer because I can drink my sprite without feeling bad about having to over-pay for it! (:

Here are some photos of the dishes we tried at Ellenborough:

 Appetizers that came from their cold dish/ salad bar.

Other types of appetizers. Jeffrey and I tend to eat different appetizers because he goes for the 'safer' options whereas I try other things like papaya salad (centre bottom of this photo) which was EXTREMELY spicy so unless you're up for that, please avoid taking it!

 Nasi lemak-type rice with chicken and fish.

 Roti John and Fried Bee Hoon (I don't like bee hoon but this was surprisingly okay!)

More fried bee hoon, fish with sauce, omelette and sashimi (which was very popular with diners though it wasn't the freshest I've tasted)

Possibly the most popular dishes: slipper lobster and crab. We didn't eat much of either because it was troublesome to take the flesh out!

 Plateful of Asian desserts! I personally feel that the kueh lapis and the two swiss-roll lookalike cakes were the best of this lot.

There were MANY different types of warm Chinese desserts available and I helped myself to a big bowl of bobochacha! (: Love the colours!

The much sought after durian pengat which I adore! (: I ate two big bowls of this! (: Yum!

There's also icecream for those who prefer something cold for dessert but the icecream is only average.

Last but not least, fruits for healthier people like Jeffrey! (:

If you are going in a big group, I would recommend that you make a reservation because this restaurant tends to be packed on weekends! Ellenborough is family-friendly so expect a lively and chirpy dining atmosphere instead of one where you can sit down and enjoy the quietness of time passing.

Alright that's all for now (: Have a great Sunday and a good week ahead! (:

Happy Teachers' Day! (:

Starting from this year, Teachers' Day will be celebrated on the last Friday before September holidays and no longer on 1st September (except when there's a coincidence) so that means that students and teachers get tomorrow off because of Teachers' Day! (:

Most schools would have celebrated Teachers' Day this morning and the celebration at my school was short, simple and enjoyable (: This is one of the rare days when kids all over Singapore bear greetings/ cards/ gifts and shower their gratitude and appreciation on their teachers in such an open (and sometimes warm) manner (:

I'd like to thank all my kids (you know who you are!) who have made my teaching experience extremely fulfilling. Being able to interact with all of you and being able to learn, share and grow together is really something that I cherish and look forward to each day (: So thank you for all your greetings, notes, presents etc but more importantly, thank you for being who you are and for being in my life (:

Thank you for all that you've given me (: I am deeply touched. Happy Teachers' Day to all teachers! (:

Soup Restaurant

Hello everyone! (:

I decided to do a quick entry on Soup Restaurant, which coincidentally is one of my favourite Chinese restaurants because it almost always never disappoints whenever I visit! (: Jeffrey and I didn't bring our camera today so I relied on my trusty Nokia HP to take the following photos.

I think one of the best moves we made today was to leave the house at 11ish instead of noon, which was part of the initial plan, because we managed to get a table just slightly past noon before the lunch crowd came! It was slightly frightening to see an influx of (hungry) people sourcing for lunch at the basement of Paragon shopping centre!

Interestingly, today was one of the rare days when the cashier cum credit card system at Soup Restaurant failed to work so only cash payment was accepted. This also means that they could not print receipts out and had to handwrite all receipts! For a moment I had a sense of Cambodian-dejavu because that's how the Cambodians do things (at least that's how they did it last year when we visited Cambodia). I didn't keep the receipt with me so I don't know how much each of the following dishes cost but you can take a look at the photos to decide if they tantalize you enough to want to give Soup Restaurant a try:

Big and soft baked peanuts which Jeffrey dislikes so I ended up eating most of them on my own! Think the hunger got to me so I was busy popping them into my mouth while he entertained me!

Hometown tofu - sufficient for two! This crispy on the outside and soft on the inside fried tofu is possibly one of the nicer tofu dishes that I've eaten. The accompanying garnishing and the light sauce which surrounds the tofu helped to make this dish a clear winner!

Samsui Ginger Chicken - another popular dish that many people ordered! I think it's definitely enough for 2-3 (or if you're small eaters, perhaps 4?) to share and I absolutely loved how fragrant the sauce in the middle taste! I didn't eat the chicken slices but I ate all the cucumbers that were drenched in the chicken sauce, yummy! (: Jeffrey LOVES this chicken so I think it's a must-order dish when you visit Soup Restaurant!

We also ordered one of their 'specials', which is spinach with three different types of egg soaked in broth. Frankly, I was keen on this dish because I wasnted to compare it to Crystal Jade's and I concluded that the broth at Crystal Jade tastes more herbal and Jeffrey said that the Crystal Jade's version has more eggs! I guess it really depends on what kind you prefer but both are fine with us, we just wanted to have some veggies!

Yang Zhou Fried Rice. This was the least appetizing dish because there wasn't much flavour or taste in the fried rice! I was thankful that we'd many other dishes with sauces/ broth to help give our fried rice some taste. If you ever order this dish, please don't have too high expectations; it does serve as a good alternative to white rice though!
In short, I was glad that we chose to go to Soup Restaurant today because I rarely eat Chinese food when I'm with Jeffrey (: The occassional visits to Chinese restaurants that serve yummy food makes me want to return from time to time.
Alright I hope that you've had a good Hari Raya break too! (: Take care and have a good week ahead!

Seb's Bistro (Rochester Park Cafe)

Hello everyone! (: 

Am feeling unusually drained today because I did NS yesterday for the first time in my life & now I can empathise (to a very small extent) the tedium of doing guard duty and/ or admin for the entire day! Nevertheless, it was an experience that I am glad I got to partake in and I certainly did learn some things from it (:

Today I shall blog about a lovely cafe that belongs to the restaurants that reside at the Rochester area - Seb's Bistro! (: It's a restaurant that serves French/ Western food and it adopts an open-dining concept, which means that it'll be extremely HOT during the day because there's ONLY alfresco dining! Be prepared to drink up and perspire if you ever decide to dine at Seb's during the day! That's exactly what Jeffrey and I did when we visited it on a weekend afternoon for lunch!

Upon arrival, we were served a bread basket with slices of multigrain bread (if I'm not wrong) and a full container of butter (see bottom left).  The bread wasn't warm but it was soft and fresh enough so we were satiated.

For starters, we decided to go for the confit calamari ($16), which superceded my expectations: not only was it a novel dish (I've never eaten this before!), the squid were fresh and the flavours were subtly blended such that it wasn't too heavy a dish! Loved it! (:

We couldn't help but order a side portion of fries ($6) that day because I had a fries-attack the day before and it wasn't fully resolved so we decided to make sure that I got my share of fries! Personally, I don't like fries that are too fat like the ones served here because there's too much potato in each fry and it is difficult for the salt on the surface to sufficiently flavour the entire fry! Moreover, ingesting fat fries means that I get full faster and can therefore eat fewer fries! haha Bottomline is that you can give these fries a miss if you aren't really into fries or if you think there's another worthier sidedish!

Carbonara ($18). Not the French-iest of dishes but I just felt like having some linguine that day so that's what we had. The texture of the linguine was just right but I felt that there was just way too much cream sauce so the 'gelat' feeling kicked in a tad too early. The trick to finishing this dish is to share this dish with someone else so that you'll not get too sick of its taste! Thankfully Jeffrey helped me finish the last bits of it so I didn't feel like I'm wasting food! (:

Somehow I'm under the impression that duck confit ($28) is THE French dish to order because this dish never fails to be at least satisfactory when we order it at the few French restaurants that we've dined at and true enough, Seb's rendition of the duck confit was no exception! Jeffrey commented that the meat was extremely tender and it slid right off the bone! It was also very well-marinated and the meat tasted divine! (: If you're at a loss as to what to order, please go along with this and you won't be (too) disappointed.

Alright that's all I've to share for today! (: The weather's been great so far and I hope that your Sunday is going well! (:

Will update this space again soon (: Have a great week ahead everyone!

Trattoria Capri

Hello everyone!

The weekend is finally here and I'd like to share about a new Italian restaurant - Capri - that has recently sprung up in my neighbourhood.

It's situated near Peperoni at Binjai and I would say that it's a good alternative to pop into if you can't get a table/ reservation at Peperoni because Capri serves pretty authentic Italian food at reasonable prices as well! (:

We first went to Capri a few weeks ago on the same day that my two Shinee-girlfan-siblings wanted to go to town to get their Shinee concert tickets! We figured that town would be crowded since it was a Friday night so we might as well try to get some grub someplace that's not so crowded before Shinee-ing and that's how we landed up at Capri!

The interior of the restaurant is pretty Italian, with brick walls and warm lighting. Though most of the tables were taken, the restaurant wasn't very noisy and we could carry out quite a good conversation without having to raise our voices or strain our ears. It's definitely a good place to go to for some good catching up!

Because it was our first time there, we decided to let our waitress introduce their daily specials as well as their chef's recommendations to see if any of the mentioned dishes tickled our fancy. In the end we decided to order the Tagliere ($36) for starters, which basically consisted of rocket leaves, parma ham, some sliced cherry tomatoes and mozzerarella cheese! (: I think this was the first time I've actually ordered this dish and I must say that the cheese went quite well with the vegetables and my dinner companions loved the combination of cheese with parma ham! This was definitely a winning dish! (:

We also chose to have the ham & mushroom pizza ($18), which was a safe and boring choice. The most interesting thing about the pizza is its base - it was slightly doughy and it was soft! I prefer my base/ crust to taste like this so this was well received by me (:

Perhaps the 'highlight' of the night was the Linguine Aragosta ($65), which is essentially linguine with lobster in tomato sauce. I was looking forward to eating this dish because I love lobsters and I thought that the combination would be great but unfortunately the sauce was a tad too thin for my liking. I felt that it could have been stronger, thicker and perhaps a little creamier? In any case, it didn't really bother us too much because we gobbled it all up due to sheer hunger! I would like to try their other pastas in future and I hope that they will be slightly more palateable than this one.
In short, I thought that our first visit to this Capri left a good impression and I would certainly love to visit it again in the near future to try other dishes! (: Alright that's all for now - have a great weekend everyone!

P.S. Thanks Matt for the photos (:

Olive Tree

Hello everyone! (:

The weekend is here again! (: I'll be pretty busy this weekend so I thought I'd post a short but photo-filled entry so as to keep this space alive.

Some of you will already know that my past few visits to Olive Tree (at Intercontinental Hotel) left much to be desired but nevertheless, I decided to give them yet another try a couple of weekends ago and fortunately for me, their standards have improved and their weekend international high tea buffet ($38++/ pax) was pretty satisfying! (: I won't be mentioning every single dish that we'd because there are just too many, instead, I'll mention those that are worthy of being noted!

They'd a wide range of starters which included cold salads and other spicier options:

What we loved most about the buffet is their japanese sushi corner! Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to help yourselves to the sashimi; you can only have the entire sushi! I guess it's their way of controlling the amount of sashimi guests can eat? Oh well I do hope that they'll have a sashimi counter in the near future because it's quite silly to waste stomach space on japanese sushi rice!

The stirfry Chinese noodles was very bland and I didn't like it at all but the cod fish was good! (:

I think most people think that 'Laksa' is a uniquely Singaporean dish and hence this dish makes its appearance in most asian/ international buffets here in Singapore. This laksa is pretty good though I think it's not as nice as the one served at One-Ninety:

There was a fried food section which serves things like onion rings and roti prata:

More photos of food that we had that day:

Oh yes this deserves special mention: there is an Indian food section that serves a small but adequate range of curry and yellow rice! (:

Desserts galore:

Okay you may wish to skip the ice kachang because the syrup has absolutely NO taste! It serves to make the shaved ice look more colourful but honestly it failed to make any impact in terms of taste. Avoid at all cost unless you don't mind having unsweetened ice kachang!

Last but not least, this is probably the best drink that I've had in all the buffets that I've been to - thick and sweet teh tarik! (: Loved it so much that I would have drunk two cups if I weren't that full!

In all, I think dining at Olive Tree during the weekend is quite a relaxing experience because there aren't many customers and with the new range of dishes available, I think it's worth a visit! (:

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