I was looking through my photos folder in my lappy and I saw this big breakfast that Dear had prepared for me a few months back.
Very nice leh! And of ‘cos taste extra nice because no need to cook myself 
Happy Birthday to ME! 
Took leave from work because work should be the last thing in my mind today. Hmm…yah, I agree that birthdays are no big deal but I chose not to be bothered with things that doesn’t make me feel good and could potentially spoil my day.
So being that it’s my day, I went for a relaxing facial and massage in the morning. Talking about facials, I used to go once a month before I have Dawn. But now, If I want to go for a facial, I will need to apply leave from work! So I ended up going for facial like once every 2-3 months. Eww! No wonder the glow on my face is slowly diminishing. Plus the fact that my age is adding up every year. 
Dear bought me to this chinese restaruant at Tiong Bahru and I totally forgot what’s the name of the eating place. But the butter crab is superb! Though there’s no gravy (which is a pity because gravy goes nice with man tou!), but I have no complains. And I don’t mind going back to this restaurant again, just to have the butter crab ↓. Heh.
Besides the crab, we ordered the Oat Prawns ↓ and the champaign pork rib. And these are enough to fill us without taking any rice.
I had a very peaceful & enjoyable dinner, because there’s seldom opportunities to enjoy a feast without having to feed Dawn, and doing disciplinary work on Dawn’s table manners. And looking at the mountain of shells ↓ infront of my plate, I know I had a satisfied meal. Thanks Dear!
I am talking about myself, not Dawn.
Love those pretty cakes, delicious desserts and tasty sweets…I just can’t resist them. No wonder the weighing machine had been protesting at me..
The tiramisu from Spizza, very delicious, exceeded my expectation as I didn’t expect a pizza place to have such nice tiramisu.
Tiramisu from Nectarie. This is what I call a true tiramisu..the alcohol taste ran down my throat..shiok!
Parfait of dark & white….Wonderful! Slurp!
I remembered that I came to know about this restaurant at Tanglin Shopping Centre because of Dear. He brought me there last year, and I fell in love with the atmosphere and food there.
Just last month, we decided to have lunch with Jimmy & Novene at this restaurant, but when we reached Tanglin Shopping Centre, it was closed! They had stopped serving lunch over at this branch and we had to go to the other branch which is at Liang Court.
It seems alittle crowded when we reached, and we were told that they can only serve set lunches and very few ala cart dishes can be ordered. I was a little disappointed because I wanted to have the pork belly noodles but it was not in the set menu.
I ordered the Okinawan Noodle set, which came with a bowl of noodles with pork, a bowl of rice and a peanut beancurd. The noodles were not as good as the pork belly noodles I had before, and it was not well-cooked when it was first served to me. When we alerted the waiter, he was quite apologetic and went to exchange another one for me. The rice was yummy yummy! No other words to describe :p And what was worth mentioning, in my opinion, was the peanut beancurd. It was so soft, and it had this very unique taste. Very nice!
↑ Okinawan Noodle Set
Dear had his favourite Champloo, which is bitter gourd cooked with pork. It’s a signature dish in Okinawa.
↑ Champloo Set
The most important dish one must have when they patronised this restaurant is the stewed pork belly. Each slice is cut into that perfect size; the thickness is just nice to let you have that “shiok” feeling when biting onto it…heavenly!
↑ Stewed Pork Belly .. though the single vege display made it looks so funny… -.-;
↑ (From Left) Nirai Kanai All in One Set & Pork Belly Set ordered by Novene & Jimmy.
And how could we forget about having some Asahi with the meal? Even though it’s not the perfect ideal meal which I expected to have in Nirai Kanai, but the beer and the companionship made it good enough.
↑ Bucket of Asahi!
I had been to Tampopo a few times already. It used to be at the basement of Liang Court. This is the 1st time I visited Tampopo at its new location. They had shifted to the 1st floor of Liang Court. The new restaurant is bigger and somewhat looks better designed than before.
I didn’t know that Tampopo is also the name of a movie. A Japanese comedy!
The entrance of Tampopo.
Dear ordered the Black Pig Shabu Shabu Ramen and I ordered the Kyushu Ramen. The meat in the Shabu Shabu Ramen was delicious! As for the Kyushu Ramen, the cha siew was soft and when I bit it, the meat melted in my mouth. Shiok!
Shabu Shabu Ramen on the left and Kyushu Ramen on the right.
What I like best is the egg inside the ramen. The egg is hard on the outside, but the yolk is very semi-cooked. If you eat it once it’s served (when it’s hot), the egg is super nice! If you eat this kind of egg for the 1st time, you will start to wonder how they are able to make such eggs. Heh.. I am not a cook, so if anyone knows how to do this, kindly share?
If you want extra cha siew or eggs, you can order them as side dishes too.
Tampopo
177 River Valley Road
#01-23/24
Liang Court Shopping Centre
Tel : 63383186
Photos of food….and more food
Went to Jang SHou Korean BBQ for lunch on Sat. We reached the restaurant at around 1:45pm and it was not very crowded. After we placed our order, they started to serve us a whole lot of side dishes. Felt like I was eating like those in 大长今. If they serve the side dishes in those very royal kind of plates, I would have felt that I am the Korean king :p
The side dishes include the kimchi, and the side dishes are refillable. When our meat arrived, the staff cooked them for us. Service not bad!
The meat were delicious! Though some parts were not marinated well, where it was too salty, but overall the meat were just so good! The soup was hot hot hot! But I soon got used to them and I think they tasted very good!
The bill adds up to about $170 for 4 adults. Very expensive! But at least the service and the delicious food made it worth the money.
RAIN visited the restaurant when he was here in Jan 2007.
Side dishes!
Delicious meat!
Spicy Soup and my own bowl of onions!
And Happy Dawn!
Sunday (8 June 08) was “Duan Wu Jie”. Though I am someone who doesn’t really know how to cook (too blessed with a mother who cooks for me, so have not master the art of cooking YET), but I always wanted to learn how to wrap the rice dumpling (”Ba Zhang” in Hokkien). Its a skill which not many youngsters nowadays know.
Duan Wu Jie (is 端午节，not 粽子节！！) came about because of a hero. You can read the story here.
I had a chance to learn from Dear’s family on how to wrap Ba Zhang on Saturday! It was fun learning and seeing my little improvement from an almost shapeless Ba Zhang to something which finally looks like Ba Zhang! Besides Dear’s mother, Dear’s sister is also very skillful can! Her Ba Zhangs are all in very nice shapes!
These are the 2 Ba Zhangs for my breakfast. The right one is wrapped by me..with obvious tell-tale signs.
The bottom tip is not pointed enough, means, I did not shape the Ba Zhang enough when wrapping it. The 2nd picture shows that the leaves are quite loose…which also means that my grip was not very good when wrapping it. Heeee..
Very delicious Bah Zhangs! :p
I found this step-by-step guide on how to wrap the dumpling, a nice guide!
The gang met up for the June Birthdays gathering again! Hmm, come to think about it, I had not post the pictures for the May Birthday outing yet! :p
This time, we gathered at Ricciotti, an Italian Restaurant at China Square Central.
It’s quiet on a Saturday evening. Besides the 16 of us, there was only another family inside the restaurant. We ordered 3 pizzas as our “starters”, and we each ordered our own pasta as our main. I didn’t manage to take pictures of the pizzas because I was trying to wake Dawn up from her nap.
Their snacks in the menu do not seem to be valued for money. It’s like $10 over dollars, but the quantity is little. As such, Dear decided to order pizzas as starters instead; at least they are something that can fill the hungry stomach.
In my opinion, the pizzas were not something which I will go “wow” about. It’s thin crust pizza, but it’s not as crispy as what I had in Spizza. The fillings were too little to my liking and it felt as if I was biting onto the crust immediately. I still prefer Spizza’s pizza, they are much better!
Next, we had our pasta. I wanted to order a cream-based pasta as I seldom eat a tomato-based pasta. Based on the description stated on the menu, I ordered the only pasta which was described as “cream sauce”. To my horror, this was what it looked like when it was served :
My supposedly cream sauce pasta had become tomato-based pasta! After a check with the waiter, he said that it was “tomato cream sauce”. -.-; They cannot put it down on the menu meh? It’s so misleading can?
Knowing my preference over cream sauce pasta, Dear exchanged his carbonara pasta with me. The carbonara pasta was normal, nothing too great or too sucky to comment about.
The crab meat pasta looked not bad!
Jimmy had the baked Eggplant..not my kind of food, but I think he had a good meal.
Before we left this restaurant for drinks at another place, I saw these cakes and I think they do look tasty. Not sure how they taste like, maybe we will try them another day!
Ricciotti
3 Pickering Street
#01-36/37
Nakin Row
China Square Central
Tel : 64388040
P/S : It’s crowded on weekday lunch, make a reservation if you want to come in groups of 4 and above.
A somewhat overdue post. Aiya! It always happened to me. Too Busy! I still have a few very overdue posts!
Dear and me finally have a chance to visit this Dim Sum place - 揾到食 at Sims Avenue. It’s somewhere near Geylang and the nearest MRT station is Aljunied. Dear had been to this place a few times already and I had been here once. This is my second visit!
We had the Sugarcane drink and they served all their drinks in those big containers, rather than cups or glasses. It seems like all these drinks were pre-prepared, stored in these containers and left to chill in their freezer.
We ordered 9 dishes, the fried dumpling, cha siew baos, siew mai, har gao, etc etc.
Verdict?
The fried dumplings were very nice. Crispy and it was hot when served to us. The filling of each dumpling was just nice, not overflowing, but just enough to feel that it is not empty.
We love the yam balls too! They were served hot, and the cha siew inside the yam balls tasted very good. At first I thought the yam ball was going to be big and filled with a lot of yam, but I was totally wrong. Too much yam will make the snack sucky and 揾到食 had ensured that the yam is of the right quantity.
The Cha Siew Chee Cheong Fun were somewhat different from what we used to have before in other stalls. The sauce was tasty and it gave me a feeling that it’s the improvised kind of chee cheong fun. I still prefer the traditional kind though. But I must confessed that the sauce and the chee cheong fun seem to mix very well and they gave a good taste.
The cha siew baos were great! The filling was sufficient, but I do find the puff alittle thick. I prefer those bao with very thin layer on the outside and lots of filling inside. :p
I love the har gao! The prawns were so fresh that I still must eat the last one even though I was very full already. As for the siew mai, I have no comments about them as they tasted very normal to me. Nothing to “wow” or complain about.
The pork ribs were very good! Both dear and me like the pork ribs very much! The taste is… erm, hard to describe, but they are so fragrant and the meat had absorbed the sauce in the process of steaming. They used alot of garlic and probably it was the reason why they smell so nice.
The chicken feet was a disappointment. We prefer those where the meat is easily detached from the bones. The meat was alittle too hard to our liking and I will not order this again for my next visit.
The lotus rice is so-so. Even though each mouthful of rice had some taste in them, but I am not quite satisfied with them. There’s a whole chunk of meat and one whole mushroom inside the rice, so its quite worth for the money. But I will also not order these for my next visit, it’s my personal preference lah.
Overall experience was nice. The food which we ordered was too much and we were both very full. :p
Here’s the address for this place and when you crave for some Dim Sum, try them next time!
揾到食
126 Sims Ave
Singapore 387449
I went to Amoy Market for lunch with my colleague today. There are alot of yummy food in Amoy Market, but it is also a place where it’s crowded during lunch time and need to wait around for tables.
Tried the chicken curry mee today. There was a queue for this stall, but the aunties and uncle were quite fast in preparing our food. When I was queuing, I realised that this stall was up on Channel U before.
Da-dah! Here’s my chicken curry mee!
It’s not too bad. The spiciness was just right for me. The mee was chewy, the soup was nice. However, some of the chicken were not as tender (some are alittle hard) and the curry taste is not strong enough. I still prefer the chicken curry mee from Hong Lim Market! :p
After lunch, one of the colleague who joined us yesterday, bought a box of strawberries for us. And the strawberries were so big that everyone of us were fascinated about them. They are very sweet too!
Strawberry with a comparison of a fifty-cents coin.
