Graze

Hello!

I'm back! (: Had a great trip and am feeling more recharged, just need a few more days to prep myself for the next half of the year! My siblings told me that I missed the flood of the year but it's okay because I don't think I want to be caught in the flood! Thankfully my siblings are bums who sleep till quite late in the morning/ early afternoon so they missed the flood as well! (:

Anyhow, I'd like to blog about Graze's amazing Sunday brunch today so that people who are intending to end the June hols with a bang may consider heading down to Graze at Rochester for some yummy breakfasty food!

This is our first time having brunch at Graze and I was absolutely delighted to see that they've an extensive breakfast AND lunch menu. If you go to Graze at the stroke of noon or just slightly after noon, you can order dishes from BOTH the breakfast and brunch menus! (:

We weren't in the mood for juice that day so we each had a glass of hot chocolate ($8)! (: Unlike other cafes and restaurants, Graze's hot chocolate comes unstirred so we've to stir the contents of the glass on our own. The hot chocolate was light and frothy and it was the perfect drink to start our brunch.

Jeffrey ordered the Cast Iron Pan ($20) and it was filled with warm and delicious food: sauteed mushrooms, bacon, sausages, baked beans, sauteed potatoes, sunshine egg and half a tomato. It's a perfect dish for anyone who wants a hearty and savoury breakfast! (:

As usual, whenever I'm in doubt, I'll go for eggs benedict ($17) with smoked salmon instead of bacon. I like my eggs benedict to come with creamy hollandaise sauce as well as nicely-toasted muffin bases. Graze's eggs benedict isn't out of this world but it's still above average (: Maybe I will be slightly more adventurous and try something else the next time I visit Graze.

Last but not least, we ordered a Trio ($19), comprising of a scoop of vanilla bean icecream, a mango tart as well as warm chocolate lava cake, to share. I was glad we chose to order this instead of sticking to the dessert that we ordered the previous time we were there because I got to sample something new! (: Eating the Trio was probably the most happyfying moment of the entire meal because it was sinfully good! =) Love being pampered by good food, especially desserts!

Close up of the mango tart with flowy custard and vanilla bean ice-cream

Close up of the warm chocolate lava cake

Graze is definitely one of the places that I will return to again in future (: Perhaps we can visit Graze during one of our limmies family outings!

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

L'espresso

Hello! (:

Although I didn't have to do anything exceedingly tedious this week, I'm still thankful that it's Friday because I'm flying off tonight for a much needed holiday! (: (: (: I really hope that I'll be able to catch some shuteye on the plane and that my legs will not swell again! That would be awful! Maybe I should just walk around the plane every hour or so to stimulate blood circulation! Oh well, we'll see how it goes. Long flights, especially long night flights, are a pain for me because I can't sleep on planes ):

Anyhow, I thought I'd post a blog entry about our visit (Jeffrey's first!) to L'espresso at Goodwood Park. This is the second time I'm visiting L'espresso this year and this experience is as splendid as the previous! Thumbs up for consistency in quality of food and service! (: If I'm not wrong, their menu hasn't changed much over the years because I remember going to L'espresso a few years ago and the food on display was similar to what Jeffrey and I had a couple of weeks ago! I really like their classic English high tea buffet spread so I hope they won't alter their menu too much (if they even do so) in the near future.

For $36++/pax, you get to have two different types of hot/ cold drinks listed on the menu as well as free flow of food. We opted for the following drinks:

Hot chocolate. It was warm and milky and Jeffrey liked it! (: I love how the teapot, teacup and saucer have matching designs! (: Very English.

Iced Lemon Tea. Cool and refreshing, and you get to decide how sweet you want it to be because you can pour your own syrup into the drink.

Iced chocolate. Jeffrey was having a rare chocolate-indulgence day so he decided to have the iced chocolate after his hot chocolate! You need to stir this drink so that the chocolate (which is currently at the bottom of the glass in this photo) can be mixed with the rest of the drink.

I chose to have iced tea for my second drink because I needed something cool. The taste of tea is much stronger for this drink compared to iced lemon tea.

One thing I noticed about Jeffrey's buffet routine is that he always starts off with some salad. Salad lovers will like L'espresso because apart from the usual lettuce, they also serve vegetable sticks like the carrot sticks pictured above. I liked their smoked salmon slices and I kept going back for more!

L'espresso is famous for their sandwiches and petite savoury bites. On this plate, there are toasted bread with cheese and some vegetables/ meat, egg sandwich, salmon slices on a slice of bread with caviar topping, tuna tart with salad topping. Every item on this plate tastes fantastic! =)

Other stuff that we tried: Kueh pie tee, ham & cheese sandwich, croissant with mango and shrimps, crepe with ham. If you have a really small appetite, go for the kueh pie tee, it's to die for!

Jeffrey REALLY loves their egg sandwich so he went for more! He also tried their parma ham with rock melon sandwich. I was afraid that he would find the clashing flavours a little jarring so I ate the two little rock melon balls for him.

Warm food platter: toasted bread with ham, potato balls, pasta with spinach and cheese. I think I'm biased towards spinach because I feel that it's good for me hence I thought the pasta dish was pretty good (: Admittedly, I felt that the three ingredients could have been held together by a singular strong taste.

Nevertheless, I went for more pasta and spinach and smoked salmon despite the average taste of the pasta and spinach.

And then it was time for desserts! (: Wheehee! By this time, I was already almost filled to the brim but I simply could NOT resist bread & butter pudding! Whoohoo! It was relatively good apart from the fact that it wasn't warm. The thick vanilla sauce made up for the lack of warmth so the overall taste was satisfactory. I also helped myself to a fruit tart which was slightly above average.

Chocolate platter: chocolate cake, chocolate brownie with blackberry topping, chocolate eclair. I was very impressed with their chocoalte eclair! Loved it! The chocolate cake was pretty good as well.


More desserts: creme brulee, chocolate eclair, chocolate cake. Everything on this plate was AWESOME! (: I will highly recommend these three desserts even to those who feel like you can't eat anymore because they are just SO good! (:

To my surprise, L'espresso serves free flow Haagen Dazs icecream! (: Close friends and family will know that I am a fan of haagen dazs icecream! (: The two flavours available that day were chocolate chip and chocolate with some strange things mixed with it. I was looking forward to having their rich belgian chocolate icecream but unfortunately that didn't materialise. Nevertheless, the chocolate chip icecream made up for it! (:

After all the good food, Jeffrey decided to end his meal on a healthy note by consuming a few slices of watermelon (: There's a wide range of fruits available so fruit lovers can have their fair share of feasting too! (:

Alright that's all for now! I'll post again after I come back from my trip! (: Please take care and enjoy your weekend! Byebye!

La Nonna @Holland Village

Hello (:

The holidays are passing way too quickly! There's still much to do and loads to explore! Just yesterday, Jeffrey and I spent a few hours walking up and down Orchard Road noticing the numerous changes and squeezing with the rest of the town-ers for walking space at certain junctions inside and outside the shopping centres. It was one of the rare weekend days that we chose to have in town and I must say that I kind of like being with the throng of people, probably because we weren't there for long.

Although I liked the bustling weekend energy, I think it is sometimes necessary to retreat to somewhere less busy and less noisy for a pleasant meal that can be taken at a comfortably slow pace. One such place is La Nonna at Holland Village.

There are three Italian restaurants that are situated near each other at the centre of Holland Village and it is possible to miss La Nonna since it's signboard isn't very flashy. I actually think La Nonna's signboard is very simple and classy (: We chose to have lunch here because we have been to the other two Italian restaurants and wanted to give this a go.

As usual, there's complementary bread and breadsticks with olive oil and vinegar. The breadsticks here are crispy and light and I like them very much! (: I'm starting to think that it's unnecessary to order starters at Italian restaurants unless I've a craving for something other than plain bread because we are always given free bread anyway!

For my main course, I decided to order pesto penne ($18). The pesto taste wasn't very strong and the penne pasta was bathed in a generous amount of olive oil so it wasn't too dry. On the whole, I would say that this dish was merely average. Perhaps I will try their signature pasta/ spaghetti dish in future.

The highlight of the meal was probably Jeffrey's La Nonna Pizza ($19). This special pizza has asparagus, black truffle, tomato, parmesan, mozzarella and an egg for toppings! =) How interesting! Seeing the sunshine egg sitting so snuggly in the middle of this pizza made us feel really gleeful! (: The pizza tasted as good as it looks so please order this if you want a pizza with less meat on it.

Last but not least, we ordered a slice of tiramisu ($12) to share. La Nonna's tiramisu is without a doubt better than most tiramisus that I've tasted so far and it's worth all twelve bucks! (: I will definitely have this again if I were to visit in future.

On the whole, I think La Nonna lived up to my expectations in terms of quality of food and ambience. I will probably return to try their set lunches! =) Alright that's all for now! Have a great week ahead!

Triple Three

Hello (:

The past few days were pretty butt-numbing and I'm thankful for a short break before the next round of induction activities. I must admit that I haven't been a very good participant at the series of talks because some of them, though informational, were a little too draggy for my liking. Instead, I started thinking about my favourite things such as going on holidays, being able to have free time to do whatever I like (including nothing) and eating. Coincidentally, my good friend and I were discussing where to go for a meet-up session before school resumes and so far, we've placed 'dessert buffet' as one of our options (:

Since we were on the topic of desserts, I immediately thought of the desserts that I recently had at Meritus Mandarin's Triple Three lunch buffet. The range and quality of desserts served at Triple Three has improved by leaps and bounds since my last visit years ago.

Triple Three is currently having a one-for-one lunch buffet promotion, which ends at the end of June if I'm not wrong. Because of this splendid promotion, the bill came up to about $32/pax, which is extremely worth it because you get to enjoy a wide range of savoury and sweet food from a variety of cuisines.
If you are dining in a big group (i.e. a group with 6 or more people), it is advisable to call and make reservations. Unfortunately, Triple Three does not take reservations for smaller groups (i.e. groups with less than 6 people) so you simply have to go early/ on time (the buffet starts at noon) since seating works on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Frankly, I think the range of food has expanded immensely and we didn't manage to try all the different dishes on display. It doesn't really matter because we were happy and full at the end of the meal! Here are some photos depicting some of the food that we ate:

From left to right in clockwise direction: some squid thing, prawns, fish fillet with tomato sauce, salmon sashimi

A very orange platter: Salmon sashimi, california maki, carrot slices

From left to right in clockwise direction: crab, salmon sashimi, prawns

From left to right in clockwise direction: jellyfish, salmon sashimi, carrot slices, french beans, prawn and mango salad

Prawn tempura! (: There was yasai/ vegetable tempura too but we attacked the prawns instead.

From left to right in clockwise direction: salad tartlet, cauliflower, takoyaki

From left to right in clockwise direction: jellyfish, vegetables, prawns and a tiny slice of I can't remember what

From left to right in clockwise direction: a slice of grilled fish, cabbage, stewed potatoes, fish fillet with tomato sauce, carrot cake, cauliflower

From left to right in clockwise direction: prawns, string beans, beef, a tiny glob of mash potato

From left to right in clockwise direction: yasai tempura, takoyaki, potato wedges, teppanyaki vegetables, teppanyaki fish fillet

Towards the end of lunch, I couldn't resist the urge to order a glass of sprite so I did! It's not included in the buffet so we'd to pay for it! Can't remember how much it costs though.

Anyhow, the savoury food was pretty good on the whole. Personally, I didn't think there was any dish that was spectacularly good but the quantity of choices and quality of food definitely met my expectations and for that, I'm more than glad (:

Time for desserts! Okay to be frank, we don't usually tackle all the savoury dishes before we tackle desserts (at least I don't!). I tend to alternate between savoury and sweet because I think it keeps my appetite going. Also, this allows me to try both savoury and sweet instead of missing out on the sweet if I eat too much savoury food. In short, I'm a glutton and I should stop trying to make the most out of every buffet that I eat! =X

Strawberry icecream

Green tea icecream

Vanilla icecream

Bread & butter pudding (wheeeeee)

Plate of cakes, from left to right in clockwise direction: tiramisu, cheese and apricot cake, chocolate cake, lemon cake, chocolate and cheese cake

There were many different shots of dessert but I only tried one. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was! Sorry! There's a wide selection of fruits too and we took some to eat.

More cakes: chocolate cake, chocolate and cheese cake, tiramisu and kueh!

Just before the buffet ended, I helped myself to more bread pudding and a chocolate eclair.

Bread pudding and some kind of tart (NOT chocolate, tasted more like stickydate)

I would love to go back to Triple Three again just to try the dishes that I didn't get to eat this time round as well as to savour more dessert! Guess I'll leave this up to fate because the next few weeks are going to pass by very quickly and before I know it, I'll be thrust into a flurry of activities till the end of the year! Oh goodness, better enjoy the next few weeks and recharge so that I'll have stamina and energy to last till the end of the year!

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