Halia at Raffles Hotel

Hello! (:

It's finally the weekend again! (: The past few days have been filled with doing bits and bobs and I'm just glad that I can take a short breather this weekend to recharge for yet another busy week next week!

I realised that it's terribly difficult to make a high tea reservation at those renowned high tea places (e.g. The Tea Lounge at The Regent Hotel) if I don't make the reservation way in advance. Thankfully, I don't have a strong preference for dining anywhere these days.. I just wish to try some place new (and preferably serves average to fantastic food). We'll see where I can possibly go to this weekend! (:

Joanne and I went to Halia at Raffles Hotel last weekend for an early dinner and we mostly tried their signature dishes, which I must say didn't superseded my expectations! (: Unfortunately I had a late lunch that day so I wasn't very hungry so I didn't get to try their desserts.. perhaps next time! (:

We started off with the Potato fries, truffle aioli & piquant mayo ($8), which essentially is truffle fries and it was fab (: I am inclined to believe that truffle fries usually taste good unless they are too oily or if the fries are over-fried. Definitely a safe dish to order and munch on while waiting for your other dishes to arrive. 

We also tried their famous Celeriac "lasagna" - Mushoom, thyme, baby spinach, lemon, madeira cream ($12), which was a pretty heavy starter due to the creamy mushroom sauce so it's best to share this if you intend to order it. I think this is definitely a must-order if you want to try a different kind of starter (: I liked it and I'm quite sure mushroom fans will too! 

Finally, we had the Halia Chilli Crab - Spaghettini, spring onion, egg ($25), and I think most people come to Halia to try this dish! (: They weren't kidding when they said that we would be given generous portions of crab meat because that's exactly what we got! (: It's not too spicy and it's good "local" dish for all to savour. I reckon I'll order this again when I go back to Halia in the near future! (: 

You can visit this website to view their menu! (: I am pleasantly surprised that the prices are relatively affordable, which I think is a huge plus point! Also, the staff are very friendly, polite and attentive so there's really nothing not to like about this place. I'll definitely be back again! (:

Happy weekend everyone! (:

Angus House

Hello! (:

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend and I decided to visit Angus House because we wanted to try something new. Tucked in a corner on the 4th level of Takashimaya Shopping Centre, it is hard to notice but I took note of it when I last visited their toy department at Takashimaya and made a mental note to try it.

Angus House was pretty packed when we went so we were thankful that we got a window seat (: I love sitting by the window as I can look out while eating and chatting.. (: The service is prompt and the staff are polite so there's nothing to not like about Angus House's setting and atmosphere (:  Food wise, it didn't disappoint either but if you don't really fancy fusion-type food then perhaps you won't like this place.

We decided to get a set lunch each! You need to top up a little for certain set lunches whereas others come as a set on its own already. For instance, my spaghetti set costs ($30) whereas the rib eye steak set costs ($62.50; the steak itself costs $55.50 and we had to top up $7 to make it a set).

Each set comes with

a shallow bowl of soup of the day (ours was mushroom soup which I liked (: It wasn't too thick nor too watery and the taste was average),

freshly baked bread roll with butter, (oh this was SO good! The bread bun was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside! It really was delightful having this (: )

and a full plate of salad with Japanese dressing! (:

Frankly I was pretty full by this point in time already because I hadn't expected so many starter dishes, so I think if you, like me, have a huge appetite, then this set lunch might be perfect for you cos it filled me right up!

Here are the photos of our main courses:

The rib-eye steak, which was juicy and had nice sauce accompanying it,

and my scallops and salmon pasta with miso sauce! (: I like that the sauce wasn't too strong so the the entire dish remained quite 'light' and easy to eat.

Finally, we each had a slice of their famous tiramisu, which is also a part of the lunch set, so we really were well-fed and well-stuffed! Heh.Their tiramisu was good but I still prefer Da Paolo's! Am hunting around for other tiramisu that might not disappoint since I'm on a tiramisu craze at the moment =|

Heh alright that's all for now. Have a great weekend! (:

Sofra Turkish Cafe and Restaurant

 Hello! (:

This shall be a really short and quick post because I need to log off and catch some rest before heading to school early in the morning tomorrow. It's marking season so I'll be out of action for a bit till I'm done with my marking! However, I have to fulfil my personal commitment to keeping this space alive so I'm going to post something before scooting off! (:

Sometime last week, we decided to take a short break from marking and head to Sofra for dinner! It was one of those rainy evenings and all we were looking forward to having some warm food to cheer us up! (: The real reason why we ended up at Sofra was that we had wanted to check a particular shop at Shaw Towers out so Sofra seemed like the most natural choice for dinner. Truth be told, this is yet another place that I've always heard of in my late teens and early twenties but somehow I have never eaten there. I guess it is good that I finally managed to try the food at Sofra and it didn't disappoint (: 

We ordered a glass of Tricajus ($5.20, featured on the left) and a glass of Sofra Mocktail ($5.20) and they both tasted pretty refreshing. I think it's important to choose drinks that are relatively light and not too thick or heavy because I feel that Turkish food generally has pretty strong flavours.

We shared a huge Salad Plate ($16.50) with Turkish Bread ($2.90) and it was actually very filling! (: I'm partial towards hummus so that was my favourite item on the plate. I still prefer Original Sin's starter platter but I guess this has different items and taste and on the whole, it was good (:

He has the Shish Lamb Kebab ($17.50), which was pretty okay. I think he expected the meat to be more tender but it wasn't tough and it was pretty well marinated so I guess on the whole it was an average dish. My favourite item on this dish is the rice-looking orange grains, which tasted somewhat like fat cous cous and cold risotto.. haha I think I just like to have carbo =P

I had the Sofra Fish ($16.90), which was a fillet cooked in tomato sauce in a tin foil! (: The fish was tender but the sauce was pretty bland.. I would have preferred it to be slightly saltier but I guess it's okay. There was more turkish bread so I happily dipped them into the sauce and ate them all up (:

Finally, I tried some authentic turkish desserts! (: The stuffed fig ($5.40, top) tasted much like a date and it was stuffed with a walnut each! The baklava ($5.90) was a puff pastry that was drizzled with exceptionally sweet sauce, which was a tad too sweet for my liking. Funny how I can take the thickest and richest chocolate but I don't really appreciate this kind of saccharine sweetness. Heh. It was a good experience though and I don't regret it one bit (: 

Yup that's all for now! (: Time to get some sleep so that I can mark on tomorrow after invigilating! (: Goodnight! (: 

LP + Tetsu

Hello!

This is way overdue and till now I can't believe I forgot to blog about my virgin trip to LP + Tetsu during the September holidays! Oh my. Well I guess it's better late than never but I must confess that I can't exactly remember what we ate nor can I remember how much we paid so I'm just going to give a very general recap of what I thought of our lunch at LP+Tetsu and then paste some photos we took that day! (: Alright here goes!

Like some of the restaurants on my 'to eat' list, LP+Tetsu offers relatively 'affordable' lunch sets that serve fine-dining type food. I used 'affordable' because it really is still expensive in my opinion but I guess it would have been more pricey if we had dined there during dinner so comparatively, it is more 'affordable'. Apart from wanting to check this place out, we wanted to reward ourselves for surviving Term 3 so splurging on lunch seemed like (and I still think it is) a perfectly justified thing to do (: 

There weren't many people on the day we went for lunch so I could just snap photos of the tables next to ours. What we love about the table setting, apart from the cool cutlery is our not-so-friendly-table-companion, aka a fighting fish! Every table has a tall glass with a fighting fish in it! I am not sure if you can see the fish in the photos above but you can try to spot it. It's the first time I've been to a restaurant with a fighting fish as 'table display' so needless to say, I was pretty much amused. The fish at our table looked quite tame and I guess it must be bored out of its wits because it only has such a limited space to move about. Eeks, poor fish.

Our complimentary bread which was crispy on the outside and soft and warm on the inside (: I love bread that have this texture (: Would have this with cold hard butter any time!

Okay this was a complimentary amuse bouche and it contained some meat with pepper ice-cream! The pepper ice-cream had a distinct taste and contrary to my expectations, it actually tasted pretty good! (: I doubt I'll ever eat more than a tiny blob of it so the serving size was just perfect. I didn't touch the meat at all so I've no idea what it is but according to Matty, the two went well together (: 

This was our starter - it was basically fish with diced vegetables. Frankly I thought that the presentation was really pretty but the dish was just so-so to me.  I didn't like the fact that the fish looked raw (it was actually smoked) and somehow the different components of the dish complement each other to give that interesting burst of flavour that I was anticipating, so this dish was quite disappointing in my opinion.  

My main course - cod - was much much better (: I actually liked how tender the fish meat was and the sauce (which tasted slightly like lobster bisque but thankfully was not) went well with the fish meat (:  So thankful this turned out okay or I would definitely be disappointed!

Matty chose to have sous vide chicken and he enjoyed his main course a lot (: Frankly, when I first saw this, it reminded me of the Chinese roast pork and it was hard for me to imagine that chicken could look like that too.

Interestingly, we both decided to have the same dessert - some chocolatey dessert that had a very interesting presentation and tasted rich and good! (: I think all desserts should be like this - filling, rich and sinful (:

Oh we ended our meal with these two juicy 'tartlets'. If I'm not wrong, the one on the left is sour apple and the one on the right is orange citrus. You have to hold each tartlet by the base and then pop the entire thing into your mouth. Upon reaching your tongue, the membrane that is holding the top part will tear and all the wonderfully refreshing liquid will ooze out! (: It was fascinating eating this and I thoroughly enjoyed the refreshing taste it left in my mouth (: Would definitely love to have this again in future!

Alright that's all for now (: Am looking forward to the year end holiday so that I can go for more set lunches and try new food! (: Time to get back to work! Have a great rest of the week! (: