Brotzeit

Hello! (:

Sorry for the lack of posts recently! I was away at camp during the week so I couldn't update this space. Anyhow, I'm taking a break from my Saturday morning class for a term so I can FINALLY sleep in on Saturday morning! (: Whoopee! It felt GREAT waking up at 9am instead of the usual 8am today! Kind of explains why I'm in such a hyper state! =)

I'm going to post about our recent trip to Brotzeit (at 313 Somerset) because the food that we had that day match my sunshiney mood right now (:

This is the entrance to Brotzeit! Can you spot the door which you're supposed to open to get into the restaurant? We were stumped for 2 seconds before we realised that the door's camouflaged! If you go in through this entrance, you'll arrive at the 2nd storey of Brotzeit!

As you can see, the 2nd storey is pretty empty even on a Saturday afternoon so it's definitely a great place to chill out over brunch food and drinks.

Because Jeffrey and I aren't beer guzzlers, we opted for a glass of sprite and another glass of coke ($4 each).

Soon after, we were served with these two rectangular, compartmentalised dishes that contain three different types of sauces for our various dishes. There's mayo, ketchup, chilli sauce, mustard and some other brown paste which I'm not sure of. I actually tried all 5 sauces and they taste relatively okay, nothing too offensive to the taste buds.

We've heard that their french fries ($6.80) are really good so we ordered a plate to share. This bowl of fries is definitely sufficient for 2 to share so don't try to over-order, especially if you're not big eaters! The fries taste slightly like cajun fries but I'm pretty sure it's not covered solely with cajun powder. Whatever it is, the fries were good and they were a great starter to our meal!

This bowl of complimentary salad comes with our two main dishes. As you can see, the bowl is overflowing with greens and I'm pretty sure that this amount of vegetables is sufficient to fulfil the 2servings of veggies per meal guide so people who are trying to adopt a healthy living type of lifestyle can also dine here.

I went for the Ruhrei Lachs ($16.50), which is essentially a brunch set consisting of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, slices of pumpkin bread with thin slices of butter! There was nothing to dislike about this platter of delicious breakfast-y food! I thoroughly enjoyed it (:

Jeffrey opted for the Bockwurst ($16.50), which is made up of two sausages that sit atop a serving of mashed potatoes and stewed cabbage. He commented that the sausages were pretty average, which was quite shocking to me since I thought that the quality of Brotzeit's sausages is supposed to be a cut above the rest. The mashed potatoes were pretty alright but the cabbages didn't really appeal to either of us.

Finally, we chose their famouse Schokokuchen ($12.50), which consists of a chocolate lava cake of sorts and a scoop of vanilla icecream with chocolate flakes. Their chocolate lava cake didn't have thick chocolate sauce that oozed out upon cutting but the chocolate sauce was thick and sufficiently fluid. I certainly didn't regret choosing this dessert!

In all, I think Brotzeit's a great place to dine, especially when it's not crowded because service is prompt and good. I think the waiters and waitresses are extremely attentive: they make it a point to refill your glasses of water when necessary and they try to serve you your food as quickly as possible. We thoroughly enjoyed dining at Brotzeit and we'll definitely go back again in future (:

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Old Brown Shoe

Hello! (:

The weekend flew by so quickly! Sometimes I wish we'd a 4day work week and 3day weekend instead though I'm pretty sure that we'll probably have to sacrifice at least half of our 3day weekend doing work because there's just so much to do, but at least we'll get to do it from the comfort of our homes!

Since my good friend was complaining about her imminent Monday blues, I decided to post an entry on The Old Brown Shoe, which is actually a pub located near Coronation Plaza. I've been to this place a couple of times for their cheap and good fish & chips and I reckon I'll be dropping by more in future whenever I need my fish & chips fix! A word of caution though: if you aren't a fan of rock music, then perhaps you may want to visit this place when the live band isn't playing!

Here are some photos of our food on the night we visited The Old Brown Shoe:

Mushy peas as an extra side ($3). On hindsight, I shouldn't have ordered this because it was pretty tasteless; I actually ordered it to give everyone a little bit of 'vege' in their meals but I guess it didn't really work!

A basket of calamari rings ($10). They were surprisingly good! I felt pretty thankful that we ordered this instead of the wedges! Would most definitely go for this again when we return in future!
Fish & chips wrapped in tracing paper and newspaper ($12.50). Don't be fooled by its seemingly small serving size in this photo; this photo does not capture the actual size of the scrumptuous fish fillet! The fish is tender and soft yet the outer batter is crispy and fried to perfection! =) I loved every mouthful of this dish! The fries are slightly above average too!

Steak & Gunness pie with fries ($12.50). This is the perfect dish for anyone who wishes to have something lighter. The pie was warm and the condiments were well mixed (: The fries were a nice touch!

We were too full to order desserts and I think their selection of desserts is quite limited so we gave that a miss. On the whole, the food was very satisfying and the prices were reasonable. I've bookmarked this place as a 'neighbourhood joint' that I would frequent for quality Western food/ pub grub! (:

Okay that's all for now. Have a great week ahead everyone! =)

Esmirada (Orchard)

Hello!

The air quality has been pretty bad of late! I hope that all of you are still doing well despite the bad weather! My schedule is packed with activities for these two weeks so I may not blog that often but I'll definitely try to post about two entries per week so as to keep this space alive!

Today, I'm going to share my experience at Esmirada (Orchard) with all of you! =) Some of you may know that I am quite a fan of Mediterranean/ Spanish food but Jeffrey's slightly more conservative when it comes to eating (though I must say he's become more adventurous and is usually game for most things that I suggest sans durians) so I was more than thrilled when he suggested having lunch at this place!

I'd often passed by Esmirada and wondered why it looks so dark inside. Fact is, the interior of Esmirada IS pretty dark since the place is illuminated with warm yellow light instead of white, bright light that I prefer. But the dimness of the lights gives the entire restaurant a kind of laid-back and chillax atmosphere.

This is what the interior of the restaurant looks like - very exotic in my opinion. Most diners present that day were seated at tables next to the windows hence there aren't any people in this photo.

We started off by ordering two mocktails. The first is a shirley temple ($8), which tasted pretty normal to me but Jeffrey didn't really like it because he said it tasted like medicine.

The other drink was crushed mint leaves with lime and soda ($8), which was refreshing and cooling (:

For starters, we decided to order the Mezza Platter ($25), which serves two. We settled on this after much pondering because we didn't want a normal salad and we wanted to try a range of mediterranean starters.

The mezza platter ($25): hummus (my personal favourite!), baba ghanouj, feta cheese, sundried tomatoes, marinated artichokes, tzatziki. The grilled vegetables were pretty nice but I THINK I would have liked them a tad more if they were warm.

The mezza platter came with a basket of warm, thick and doughy pita bread, which complemented the hummus extremely well!

We ordered a vegetable skewer ($21) to share becase we didn't want to have to eat a lot of the same type of meat. The individual vegetable pieces were very well grilled but I felt that they could have been slightly more marinated? Perhaps that's why they gave us some sauce to go along with it. Oh the baked potato with sour cream that came with this skewer that isn't featured in this photo was heavenly! Loved it so much that I ate almost the whole thing up!

Our main dish was Paella Espanola ($30), which is essentially seafood paella. If you like your rice to be soft and moist, then you will definitely love Esmirada's paella! I know Gumtoo prefers her rice to be slightly hard so I doubt she'll like this. The chef was extremely generous with the amount of seafood included in this paella dish! It was truly a treat =)

Last but not least, we shared a tiramisu ($10), which was served in a ceramic cup! This was one of the better tiramisus that I've tasted in my life! =) The alcohol-taste in the sponge cake layer was strong enough yet not too overpowering. I'd highly recommend this to all tiramisu-lovers! =)

In all, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Esmirada and I look forward to going back there to try new dishes!

Hang in there everyone! The weekend is almost here! =)

PS Cafe (Paragon)

Hello hello! (:

The weekend's here again! =) It's a really hot day and though I usually love the sun, I can't wait for it to set today so that it'll be slightly cooler.

Anyhow, if you're going to town this weekend, you may wish to pop by PS Cafe at Paragon for some yummy brunch or even have a generous slice of cake for tea! =) I've been to PS Cafe quite a few times but it never fails to charm me with its range and quality of food.

I had never paid much attention to the items written on the chalkboard because the items on their menu is sufficient to keep me entertained but somehow my eyes kept shifting to the chalkboard during my last trip to PS Cafe so I decided to try something new!

I chose to have the Chorizo sausage with scramble eggs, toast and greens ($26) because I was craving for something brunch-y. There was a dollop of sour cream on the scrambled eggs, which I presumed was for the sausage but I smeared it all over my eggs instead and surprisingly, the eggs tasted not bad with sour cream =) Pair the sour cream scrambled eggs with wholegrain bread for a delightful taste of brunch!

Jeffrey chose the more conventional House Bolognaise ($24), which was pretty alright and he ate it all up with quick speed (:

For dessert, we shared the double chocolate cake with one scoop of vanilla icecream ($14.90). Those who have had this before would know that the slice of chocolate cake is HUMONGOUS! It's extremely rich and it's one cake that can make a not-so-hard-core chocolate lover give up after having a quarter or at most half of this slice of cake. Surprisingly, Jeffrey and I managed to polish the ENTIRE piece of cake off though I must say that I did most of the work considering he has a lower tolerance for sweet stuff than me =) Suffice to say, I'd my chocolate fix that day and I didn't have to eat chocolates for the rest of the day.

In short, PS Cafe is THE place to go for quality desserts that come in relatively large portions! =) Would love to go back for their famous puddings again sometime soon!

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

Man Fu Yuan Dim Sum

Hello! (:

I'm feeling slightly more relaxed tonight because I've finished the work that I'd brought home to do! Since I've a little bit of time before I go to bed, I shall post an entry on the delectable dim sum dishes that we had at Man Fu Yuan with my very good friend, Joanne, a few weeks or so ago (:
We decided to return to Man Fu Yuan because we were keen on trying their dimsum! Joanne read rave reviews of some of their dimsum dishes so we made a point to order those 'popular' or 'highly recommended' dishes!

First up, we had the fish rice roll ($6.80), which is cheechongfun with fish stuffing. This was one of the must-try dishes that day and I'm quite glad to say that it didn't fail to disappoint. The skin was just right - not too thin, slightly elastic - and the sauce that came with this dish was nothing short of perfect (:

Fried pork pastry ($4.80), although good, isn't something to rave about.

Panfried radish cake ($4.80), which tasted like Crystal Jade's except that MFY's is slightly less fragrant and flavourful.

Bright yellow sunshiney egg tarts ($4.80) that truly brightened our day because they tasted as good as they looked! Highly recommended for people who love egg tarts or want to have something small and sweet to balance out the savoury taste from other dimsum dishes.

Red bean paste pancakes ($4.80) which were NOT supposed to look like that! We had wanted to have the flat red bean paste 'pizza'-looking pancakes but I guess this is MFY's version of it. It tasted more like ang ku kueh! Definitely not for those who dislike gluttinous-rice-tasting skin.

Coincidentally, Joanne and I love this particular dish - Custard Buns ($10)! I've come to accept that the custard buns that Crystal Jade originally served has become something of the past because every single Chinese restaurant seems to be serving custard buns with salted egg yolk with flowy custard as fillings! Thankfully I'm pretty okay with this supposedly more popular type of custard buns so I've no complains (: The custard buns at MFY are really good! You should try them!

To add some fibre into our diet, we ordered vegetables with mushroom and beancurd ($24). The three ingredients complemented each other well! The portion of this dish was just right for the three of us.

Introducing the highlight of the meal: fried lobster noodle ($30). The noodles tasted like crispy noodles that had been soaked in and softened by the egg-y tasting gravy. Though Jo complained that the sauce was slightly too salty for her liking, I was more than fine with it! I especially loved the fresh lobster that came with the noodles! =) This is really a treat for the senses and you must try this if you are a fan of crispy noodles and/ or lobster!

We were too stuffed to ordered desserts after polishing off all the above-featured dishes! I think MFY has definitely made it to my invisible mental list of "good (Chinese) restaurants" and I would strongly encourage all who are yearning for quality Chinese food to make a trip there! =)

Have a great week ahead! (:

A-Poh Kitchen

I first came to know of A-Poh Kitchen when Gumtoo mentioned that "there is a new Thai restaurant near our shop". Seeing how eager she was to give this "new Thai restaurant" a go, we agreed to accompany her to A-Poh Kitchen on one fine Saturday night for family dinner.

Though this restaurant just opened not too long ago, it seems to be doing well because the entire restaurant was packed when we arrived. Thankfully, Gumtoo had made a reservation so we managed to get seated quite quickly.

To our disappointment, A-Poh Kitchen is not a Thai restaurant; instead, it is something like a neighbourhood mixed tze-char eating place with aircon. We had wanted to eat "pad thai" but we were told that the Thai chef from Thailand hasn't arrived! =( Thankfully, they'd quite a wide range of local, Chinese and Thai dishes so we didn't have much problems choosing the rest of our not-so-Thai-ish our dishes.

After looking at the menu, we decided to take the easy way out that night by choosing one of their few recommended sets. We chose set B, which cost $68.80 and was just enough for the 5 of us who were there that night. These are the following dishes that were included in set B:

Curry fish head - it wasn't too spicy. There was a generous amount of fish so there's enough to go around, especially if not everyone at the table likes curry fish head.

Sambal Kangkong. This was well-received! Unfortunately it was the first dish that was served so it became cold very quickly.

Claypot chicken - this was extremely well done! The chicken pieces were extremely flavourful and it went very well with white rice.

Hotplate tofu - this wasn't too good because the sauce wasn't thick enough (you can tell from the photo that the sauce was slightly too watery). Also, they added cabbage-like vegetables to this dish which kind of ruined the taste of the dish. I'd rather stick to the usual maize and cauliflower.

Fried baby squid - this was pretty alright (: Nothing too spectacular but at least it was better than the hotplate tofu.

Cereal prawn - I LOVE the 'cereal'! Can't stop eating it! The prawns used for this dish was slightly different: instead of the normal de-shelled prawns, they prawns here were coated with batter and deep fried, thus making it taste better!

Because we weren't sure whether the dishes in Set B were sufficient, we decided to place a side order of Pandan Leaf Chicken ($8), which turned out to be pretty decent.

Pandan Leaf Chicken - the unwrapping of the chicken pieces was surprisingly easy! These chicken pieces were snapped up quickly!

We didn't have dessert here because at this restaurant because they ran out of dessert! I guess they weren't expecting business to be so good at the start! Guess we'll have to go back again if we want to try their desserts in future.

On the whole, the meal at A-Poh Kitchen was reasonably pleasing (: For those living in the west (or Clementi in particular), you may wish to pop by A-Poh Kitchen for some cheap and good tzechar food! Hopefully the Thai chef would have arrived by the time you visit so that you can get a taste of more authentic Thai food! (:

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

Yan Palace

I still find it quite amusing that Time possesses such a paradoxical quality. Here I am, on a Tuesday evening, waiting for my little snack to digest so that I can shower and then resume doing some work.

Since I'm supposed to give my brain a short break from work, I decided to write a blog entry bout my family's visit to Yan Palace. Truth be told, I've never heard of this restaurant in my entire life and if not for my sister's recommendation, I would have never known that it existed.

The day we visited Yan Palace must have been an auspicious one because most of the tables in the restaurant were reserved for a Chinese wedding. Nevertheless, the restaurant still accepted other non-wedding guests and we were seated at the remaining tables.
Personally, I feel that the entire look and feel of this restaurant screams "traditional chingchong Chinese"! I guess it looks this way because it has probably been around for quite a long time.

The restaurant was filled with the usual wedding cheer which, no offence, soon became some kind of white noise that my ears grew accustomed to. There wasn't much conversation going on at our table mainly because it was very difficult for us to hear each other.

We did our usual choose-one-dish-per-person routine and then we placed our orders. On the whole, the food at Yan Palace wasn't fantastic but it was comparable to the average or above-average zichar fare.

The fried vegetarian goose ($9), which tasted like fried beancurd skin, was pretty good (: I didn't think a dish with such an animalistic name could taste so normal.

The deep fried crispy chicken ($24) was probably the dish of the night because everyone, including my fussy brother, had a go at it!

I think broccoli with scallops ($33) is fast becoming the favourite family vegetable dish (: The broccoli and scallops were particularly fresh and tasty.

A claypot full of beancurd with mushrooms and minced meat ($24). I thought the combination of the above mentioned ingredients were perfect for this dish. Love how the springy mushrooms complement the soft egg tofu! =)

For dessert, we tried the mango pudding ($3.50), which was average,

the mango pomelo sago ($4.30), which was probably the best dessert that night, and

yam paste with ginko nuts ($3.80), which wasn't up to expectations =(

I think Yan Palace is a good place to dine at if you're looking for an alternative to the usual zichar places. One advantage that Yan Place has over regular zichar stalls is that it is airconditioned so you can dine in some comfort (: Other than that, I would say that the quality of food and service is average.

Alright that's all for now (: We shall press on with the rest of the week!