Swensens (Bedok)

Swensens can be seen in a lot of shopping malls. It started out selling only ice cream and over the years it began selling hearty foods, ice cream cake and beverages which is the Swensens that we now know.

Came to Swensens with Mandeep, ZQ and Eugenia cause of their Weekday Lunch Treats where you get a free side, sundae or drink for any main dish.

Mozzarella Cheese Sticks. Chunks of rich golden fried Mozzarella cheese sticks. I would have never even bother looking at it if it weren't for Mandeep. She convinced me that the mozzarella stick was good. So I decided to try it and boy was I glad I did, cause it was so yummy.

Perfectly deep fried, crunchy on the outside with the long string of cheese just oozing out. 

Curry Chicken Baked Rice ($13.90). Spicy chunks of curry chicken baked with savory rice. Not as herb-y as Pizza Hut's version. Curry was mildly spicy with bitter crackers, tender potatoes and chunks of chicken.

The Rock Sundae. This delightful treat brings you 3 signature ice cream flavors - Hazelnut, Cookies 'N' Cream and Rocky Road garnished with marshmallow sauce, hot caramel, cocoa pops and wafers from Italy. For me, I changed the flavors of the ice cream to Salted Gula Melaka, Butterscotch and Dark Chocolate. Butterscotch was so good. Could taste vanilla, caramel and goodness. Dark chocolate was quite bitter but tolerable. Salted Gula melaka tasted more like pandan and couldn't really taste the salt. Presentation wise, I like how they add dry ice to the plate so that it has the steam effect when it arrives.

Rate:
Mozzarella Cheese Sticks: 8/10 ☺

Curry Chicken Baked Rice: 6.5/10 ☺
The Rock Sundae: 7/10 ☺

J Café – Singapore’s Local Delights

Went to J Cafe with Hazel, Raihah, JY, Elton and Eugenia for dinner.

J Cafe is one of JUMBO Group's dinning concept. Here they offer not only local food but western as well.

The front view of the restaurant.

There were lots of fishes in the pond swimming here and there.

We went in to the cafe and got a table. Above you can see there are three buttons. One of which you can press to call the waiter over.

Ice Teh ($2)- Ice milk tea. It was thick and quite sweet. A little less sweet and it would've been perfect.

Hazel and I ordered Carbonara ($9.80)- egg, cheese, bacon, black pepper, mushroom, cream and spaghetti. The carbonara was good like Hazel said. Well seasoned, slightly creamy and not too thick. Bacon was a little chewy with a slight smoky taste, pasta was al dente and the mushroom was earthy.

Eugenia ordered Hainanese Chicken Rice ($7.80)- chicken, cucumber, pickled vegetables, soup, rice, chilli, black sauce and some green stuff. Didn't try it but Eugenia said it was okay and that the chili was super spicy. I tried the chili sauce too and I totally agree with her.

Raihah ordered Ice Kacang ($3.50) with extra syrup- shaved ice, assorted syrup, corn and cubes of black jelly.

At J Cafe, I really like the relaxed atmosphere with the cool breeze. You also have a view of people playing golf while having your meal and if you're an NSRCC member, you get a 10% discount.

Rate:

Ice Teh: 6/10 ☺
Carbonara: 7.5/10 ☺

Shabu Sai (Suntec City)

Went to Shabu Sai for lunch with Zq.

Shabu Sai is a Japanese hotpot buffet ($14.99++) where you will have a pot with 2 different soups from 7 choices(Seaweed, Sukiyaki, Spicy, Seafood Paitan, Spicy Beef Miso, Tonkotsu Shouyu and Monthly Special Soup) meats(pork, chicken and beef), seafood(additional charges apply) and others. For free flow of drinks and soft serve it will be an additional $1.99++. However there is a time limit of 70 minutes for lunch.

Here they teach how to enjoy either a shabu shabu or sukiyaki the right way.

I chose the Tom Yam Miso which was the monthly special soup and Zq chose Tonkotsu(pork bone broth). The Tom Tam Miso spiciness was mild which is good for people who cant handle the heat. The Tonkotsu was okay I guess, a little flavorful. For our meat we had 2 of everything. The picture above shows the beef.

Chicken

Pork

Ingredients to make your own sauce. For my sauce, I added every spicy ingredient available and it was so damm good One look and Zq could feel the heat of it even without trying.

Udon, soba, vegetables etc..  There were many items available to choose from. The display had a very Japanese feel to it. Especially the wooden board with the name written in Japanese and English.

Somehow hotpot always seem so comforting. I wouldn't mind going for more hotpot adventures again.

Rate:

Food: 7/10 ☺
Service: 7/10 ☺
Value: 7/10 ☺

Sushi Tei (Tampines)

Was hungry after school so I had dinner outside. Went with Hazel and Eugene to Sushi Tei. When we were there, there was a long queue and we waited quite a while before we managed to get a seat. The good thing was that one of the service staff came out and asked the guest how many people will be dining there.

We finally managed to get a table. We sat at our table and the waiter asked us what we would like to drink. All three of us had hot green tea which was complementary.

I ordered Salmon Ikura Oyako Don ($18.80)- salmon & salmon roe on sushi rice. Ikura is my favourite! Balls of yummy, salty, fishy goodness that burst in your mouth. They were very generous with the amount of salmon roe. It was a little too much for me but I still enjoyed it. Salmon was cold, fresh and had a good texture but Hazel said that the salmon was a little tasteless.

We shared Kaisen Nabe ($28.80)- traditional sumo hot pot with seafood and assorted vegetables [scallop, salmon, prawn]. We had three options to choose from for our soup- miso, shoyu and 1 more which I forgot. We got the miso soup. It didn't taste like miso, more like instant noodle soup(?) Inside the soup there was enoki, udon, beansprout, carrot, prawn, scallop, cabbage, glass noodle(?) and leeks. Salmon and himachi(?) was given on another plate. To me the whole pot tasted a little like me eating beehoon soup. The vegetables took a long time before it finally soften up.

For me, I prefer my Salmon Ikura Don more than this. I wouldn't mind coming back if there's no queue.

Rate:

Salmon Ikura Oyako Don: 8.5/10 ☺
Kaisen Nabe : 5.5/10 ☺

Hong Kong Sheng Kee Dessert (Bedok)

Went to Hong Kong Sheng Kee Dessert with Zq for dinner.

You would never have never thought that a place called Hong Kong Sheng Kee Dessert would sell food other than dessert. They sells Hong Kong style dessert, snack, rice and noodles.

I ordered the Braised Pork Rib Rice ($6.90). The pork rib was tender and flavorful. The vegetables were just blanched without any seasoning so it tasted plain. The chili given was good. Crunchy and spicy.

I also enhanced my meal (+$1.90) for a Pumpkin Cake and Raspberry Lemongrass Jelly. The warm pumpkin cake tasted like yam cake except a little more fruity(?). The jelly had the lemongrass essence and was served chilled.

Zq and I ordered the Yolky Custard Pau ($2.90). The molten lava filling inside this fluffy pastry is a yummy combination of savoury salted egg yolk and sweet custard. Definitely lip-smacking! I always order this when I come to Hong Kong Sheng Kee Dessert. It's really good and so picture worthy. I really love the salted egg yolk flavor combined with custard. Whoever invented this must have been a genius.

They charge 7% for GST and 1% for service charge.

Rate:

Braised Pork Rib Rice: 7/10 ☺
Pumpkin Cake and Raspberry Lemongrass Jelly: 7/10 ☺
Yolky Custard Pau: 9/10 ☺

Cafe Pal

Recently I'm crazy over Thai Milk Tea so when I heard about the reviews of Cafe Pal, I knew I had to try it.

Cafe Pal specializes in casual Thai cuisine and most people talk about their Thai Milk Tea when they dine there.

Thai Milk Tea ($3)- Quite milky but not too sweet Thai milk tea with not so intense flavor. Edmund had with Aloe Vera extra $0.50 which didn't really go well together. On a side note, the takeaway bottle looks nice.

Rate:

Thai Milk Tea: 6.5/10 ☺

The Soup Spoon Union (Raffles City)

So very busy even though it's just the beginning of the year. But I did still had time to go to py's concert- Musical Delights XXXVIII.

The concert was not bad. It was quite cool that they had an organ player (my first time hearing one in real life). Ger and I liked the second half of the concert more as they played pieces which we played before! At the end, SPSB played two encores and one more piece to announce the graduating members which was quite a good idea. 

Now on to the food part. Before we went for py's concert, Jx, Cy, Ger, Marcus and I went to The Soup Spoon Union where it's a combination of The Soup Spoon, The Handburger and Soup Broth Asia Noodle Bar all in one place.

You take the menu at the entrance, get your own table before heading to the cashier to order and make payment.

Here's some of the content inside the menu. Asian noodles, burgers and western soup.

I ordered Stuffed Portobello ($14.80)- Oven-baked portobello mushroom stuffed with spinach, walnuts, parmesan cheese and beancurd, topped with breadcrumbs served with handmade tomato herb sauce on a bed of coral lettuce and a tomato on a toasted spinach with parmesan cheese bun.

The cross section of my Stuffed Portobello. From the bottom- bun, coral lettuce, sliced tomatoes, portobello mushroom, a weird 'patty' made of spinach, beancurd etc and tomato herb sauce. I had no idea what that green thingy was until I look at the description of the burger. The "patty' as I call it was mild in taste probably because of the beancurd and wasn't crispy even though there were bread crumbs. The mushroom was cooked well but would taste better if it was seasoned. Tomato herb sauce was good, it help made it easier to consume the burger.

Cy ordered THB Original ($11.80)- Grilled 150g of 100% NZ grass fed prime beef, sweet onion jam, cheddar cheese, handmade barbeque sauce on a bed of coral lettuce and a tomato on a toasted caramelized onion bun. The sweet onion jam was nice, it tasted like onions but also tasted like chocolate to me. Cy really like the burger. She also upgrade her meal(+$3.90) to get the mushroom soup. The mushroom soup was generous with the amount of mushroom in it. Every scoop would be filled with mushroom. However the soup itself was not flavorful which was quite disappointing. But Marcus and Cy were fine with. Only Ger and I were not.

Marcus and Jx ordered Pulled Pork ($10.80)- Slow-cooked fork tender pulled pork slathered with handmade barbeque sauce topped with crunchy mayoless slaw on a bed of coral lettuce on a toasted rustic bun. The pork was tender but the pork tasted like an Indian dish to me. Jx said that it tasted Chinese while Marcus was fine with it. Jx didn't really like the burger while Marcus said it was acceptable.

Ger ordered Chicken Caesar ($11.80)- Baked chicken thigh wrapped with bacon, fresh mozzarella, sauteed basil pesto mushroom, handmade ceasar dressing on a bed of romaine lettuce and a tomato on a toasted sundried tomato with olive bun. The chicken thigh was bigger then we expected. I like the chicken, it was well seasoned and not overcooked. To me it was the best burger that I tasted that day. If I come here the next time, Chicken Ceasar is what I'll order.

Rate:

Stuffed Portobello: 5/10 ☺
THB Original: 7/10 ☺
Pulled Pork: 6/10 ☺
Chicken Caesar: 8/10 ☺