caitowkway

The earlier lunch at Au Petit Salut must have added more than a few kilos to our weight.
After trying to walk out the lunch @ Takashimaya for less than half hour, we were exhausted and looking around for a place to rest our weary feet.

Jams came into mind and we proceed to the café with much speed & zeal.
Ms Quick-Eye found a table for 6 pax in the almost full-house café at the entrance corner (phew!) and we gladly sank into the cushioned seats.

We went to place our orders at the cashier separately.
Upon returning, there’s were 5 similar cups on our tables. We all ordered the same Southern Mint Tea!! I always enjoyed a cup of Peppermint tea. But I loved this Southern mint tea as it wasn't infused with green tea and thus the minty flavour was stronger and more "refreshing". At the first slip, my sense were filled with the lingering mint fragrance. A very comforting and lovely cup of tea indeed!

If I wasn't so full, I would have ordered a warm scone to go along with it! It would perfect the teatime for me!! I enjoyed the tea so much that I bought a pack home to savour at leisure!

2011-12-31

SGD 3.50

Actually, I just wanted a Ham & Cheese Bread for breakfast.
But when I saw the baker dishing out a fresh tray of Double Cheese Bread, I was easily persuaded to get one too... Both bread were delectable as they were nice & warm.

Double Cheese was a simple bread with just cheese & sugar. It was enjoyable as the the warm cheese was still soft and kind of melt in your mouth. Was there really a double portion of cheese? I couldn’t really tell as the cheese flavour wasn't very strong. Overall, it was nice, though I found the sugar unnecessary.

Ham & Cheese was slightly nicer as there's ham inside (I'm a true-blue carnivore!!). As the bread was warm - the aroma of both the ham & cheese would burst forth in your mouth at first bite. Lovely!!

The bread were fresh & yummy, but at $3.20 for 2 pieces - they were definitely overpriced.

SGD 3.20

I spied on an opposite fruit stall while queuing for my breakfast at Amoy this morning. They offered the lovely dragon fruit + soursop fruit juice too!! Wonderful! After buying my soon kuehs, I walked across and ordered a cup.

Alas.. the same purplish colour juice tasted a vast difference from the one offered at Juices Corner (pls refer to my earlier review)... The juice was very, very diluted. "Did they add water to it?" The suspicious thoughts kept niggling me. It couldn't be the ice as I saw the lady filling only half the cup with ice. The entire fruit juice was very bland. I couldn't even taste the soursop. In fact, it tasted more like a drink made from concentrated syrup..

Had a hard time finishing it.
Even now as I typed, the juice was still 3/4 left undrunk...

2011-12-07

SGD 2.00

There's always a queue at #01-30 Amoy Hawker Centre in the morning. Not a very long queue, usually just 3 - 4 pax. But it seems to be a never ending queue, as 1 or 2 hungry souls will keep joining the moving queue. Like a typical Singaporean, I joined in the queue this morning too, not knowing what to expect...

Their signboard showed a small variety of handmade kuehs: pumpkin ($3), yam ($3), soon kueh ($0.70), glutinous rice ($1) and chee cheong fun ($1). I decided to try out the soon kuehs and bought 3.At first look, the soon kuehs seems pretty normal. But once I had taken a bite, ooohh.. I was pleasantly surprised!!

The skin was a thin springy layer of tapioca flour. Turnip, carrot and mushroom made up the well seasoned fillings inside. The turnip was very crunchy.. I could hear my every satisfying bite! I liked the fact that they did not chop the mushroom into too tiny pieces. Instead, the sliced mushroon were of just the right size. I could still taste/chew on the mushroom (more flavour oozing out..) with each bite. Just lovely!!Even though they were no longer warm when I ate them, the soon kuehs were still very appetizing & delicious!

2011-12-07

SGD 0.70

Where should I start?? Han Kee fish beehoon had been my comfort food for the longest time!! The soup was light and clear. I especially loved the Chinese parsley and fried garlic/onions added, which definitely helped to highlight the already naturally sweet and flavourful fish broth. Vegetables were aplenty - high approval points given! The main star - the thick slices of Batam fish were fresh and tender. Han Kee was generous with their fish helping too.. you could not even see the pile of beehoon hidden under the massive fish slices.

YUMMY!! I could eat this everyday!

2011-12-06

SGD 4.00

Something caught my eyes when I passed by Hans on the way home yesterday.

"Oooh.. pineapple tarts! So fast.. they are pushing sales for Chinese New Year goodies before X'mas is even here!" I thought.The amiable cashier lady told me that the tarts were new items and that they had a nice pineapple aroma and were very, VERY tasty. The tarts did look pretty decent. Being a pineapple tarts junkie, I just drank in her words like a thirsty camel and ended up buying a pack home to try.

What a letdown when we tried the tarts back home... The crust, though not thick, was quite tough. It's not crispy either. There's quite a substantial amount of pineapple filling in each tart, but the filling was not fragrant. Even when I popped a whole tart into my mouth, there wasn't any pineapple fragrance oozing out. The filling did not have a tinge of the pineapple's natural sourish flavour too. It was sweet instead. Too sweet, in fact. And the sweetness was not of the fruit's natural sweetness, but rather, seems to derive from syrup.

Overall, the tarts were disappointing...

I just had to somehow get the awesome semi-retired home baker mum to fire up her oven again for the festive goodies!

2011-12-05

When trying out a new fruit stall, my standard order would be a cup of orange & carrot juice. As I'm already familiar with the taste, I will be able to gauge the quality & freshness of the juice better.

As such, this morning, I tried out the orange & carrot juice from Amoy's Happy Fresh Juice.It was a disappointing cup, despite the bright cheery orange colour.

At the first instant sip, I could already detect something missing. Took a second BIG sip.. it just reconfirmed my suspicions. "Where's the orange!?!" The juice was overpowered by the carrot's sweetness. I couldn't locate any slight sourish citrus taste. The seller couldn't have given me the wrong drink as she happily announced "orange carrot juice" when passing the cup to me. I suspected the seller might have just dumped in a very small portion of orange when preparing this drink. The drink was packed with tons of ice too, making it diluted.

Disappointing...

2011-12-06

SGD 2.50

Mum wanted a cup of kopi C (without sugar) to go along with her dinner (she unfortunately, ordered the same mediocre chicken chop dinner as me).

The queue was pretty long - a sign of good beverages served? I waited for about 8 mins before I managed to place the order. The coffee lady was quite friendly and soon, a cup of hot coffee was placed in front of me.

The tiny cute cup of coffee costed $0.90. Mum took a sip and commented that the coffee was nice and fragrant. It was quite thick and she enjoyed her caffeine fix very much!

2011-12-03

SGD 0.90

Finally, it's time for DINNER!!!!!

Having not eaten any food for the earlier part of the day, I quickened my pace to the nearby Koufu for dinner. A hungry man made his (food) decisions quickly. The first stall I saw was the Western Delight. No queue. Great! Checked out the options available. I decided to order a chicken chop with mushroom sauce.

The chicken was quite tender, though it's a pretty thin slice of meat (or was it because I was too hungry?! ) Unfortunately, it wasn't well seasoned, and thus, its taste relied heavily on the cannot-really-make-it mushroom sauce. Other than a few thin slices of canned button mushroom, I couldn't taste any mushroom essence in the sauce. It tasted more like thicken oyster / soya sauce - which wasn't too bad, just that.. it wasn't mushroom sauce. The chicken skin was grilled to a crispy layer - which was nice. The coleslaw was normal, but at least the vegs were still crunchy, and thus likely to be fresh. Fries were hot and crispy.

At $5.50, the price was pretty reasonable. But the food was pretty norm - nothing to shout about.

2011-12-03

SGD 5.50

Wanted something light for dinner, but not sure what to eat..

After roaming around aimlessly @ Holland Village for a couple of minutes, I was leaning more towards cooking a pack of instant noodles to pacify my growling stomach. Then I saw Subway tucked in the usual quiet corner. Hmm.. I haven't had a sub sandwich for quite sometime. Checked the queue: only 1 pax. Good! I would have sandwich for dinner then! I decided to go for my all time favourite: the 6" Cold Cut Trio on Honey Oat Bread, toasted with cheese. I threw in all the vegs, except for pickles and jalapenos (I'm not really into sourish stuff). For sauce, I chose Honey Mustard.

The vegs were pretty fresh. I loved the extra onions dumped on top (upon request). Together with the ham & melted cheese, the sandwich was enjoyable and I finished it up quite quickly.

It's definitely a much healthier choice than my otherwise instant noodles!

2011-12-04

SGD 4.50

By the time I was available for lunch, it's long past the regular lunch hours. Most of the nice food around the office would have been sold out by now.. Thus I decided to make do with a quick soupy meal instead.

Bought a regular Tokyo Chicken Stew from the Soup Spoon. It came along with a little bread bun, which I suspected to be focaccia, as it has a nice herbs aroma. The bread was warm when served, which made me very happy!! The soup was still pipping hot when I returned back in office (yes, I da-bao AGAIN...). I could almost burn my tongue if I'm not careful. But that's the way I loved my soup to be.. pipping hot!! So I was very pleased with the temperature.

The soup was crowded with lots of chunky ingredients: chicken, shitake mushroom, straw mushroom, celery, carrot, some raddish/lotus like vegs, etc. The chicken was nice and tender. It crumbled in my mouth at first bite. Oishii!!! The soup was light and sweet (with the ingredients' flavour). Nice fragrance & very appetizing.

The regular size soup cost $7. A bit expensive for me, but at least it was an enjoyable meal!

2011-12-05

SGD 7.00

I just found out that it's not a bad idea to have a pipping hot curry puff for breakfast. I bought a potato and chicken curry puff from Amoy's Famous Crispy Curry Puff this morning. It was pipping hot when served, which was nice! The crust was different from the other curry puffs I had eaten before - it was more like the Teochew flaky yam mooncake crust. I took a bite and YUM!!! The curry potato flavour immediately oozed out and filled my entire mouth. The potato filling has a rich curry flavour (but not too spicy). I finally knew why this little pastry was named the CURRY puff! The crust was super crispy, yet being flaky type - it melted in my mouth almost instantly too. Just lovely!!

My only complain was... where's the chicken?? I couldn't find nor taste any chicken inside the potato filling. Quite disappointed, being a true blood canivore.. At $1 each, the puff served as a cheap and fulfilling source of my morning energy!!
I'll definitely go back to try out their other flavours, such as black pepper chicken, yam, etc.

2011-12-05

SGD 1.00

It's been some time since I had dim sum.

Walked past Crystal Jade on the way home, and decided on a whim to da-bao some hargow (prawn dumplings) and siew mai back. While placing my orders at the takeaway counter, the lovely char-siew soh (BBQ Pork Pastries) beckoned brightly from the display counters.. All right, I'll buy a couple back too!

The food was still pipping hot when I reached home. Wonderful!! We tucked into the food eagerly. The dim sums from Crystal Jade sure did not disappoint. Each piece were tightly packed with delectable prawns, minced pork, mushroom. They were firm, yet not tough. Lovely to chew on, and flavourful to savour. The char-siew soh were a joy to munch on too. Crispy exterior with well seasoned, juicy char-siew fillings inside. Hmmm.... hoo-sek!! 好吃!!

I could keep popping these addictive pieces into my mouth!! Just lovely!!

SGD 13.40

It's a Friday night and mum's on kitchen strike!!

I detoured and went to my backyard's HV market to da-bao dinner.
I was mentally geared towards rice for dinner, as I needed lots of carbo to sustain my tummy till my next proper meal (dinner) tomorrow. Looking around the hawker centre, I decided to get sweet & sour fish fillet rice.

It turned out to be a terrible mistake... The fish was re-fried, thus it was crispy. And that's the only good thing about this dish. The sauce was the SALTIEST sweet & sour sauce I've tasted. It was overly sweet too. I needed to mix with a lot of rice in order stuff the fish down my throat. The rice (which I was seldom particular about when it's da-bao rice) was not fragrant at all. It's quite hard and a chore to chew on. The whole packet of rice & fish was just awful!! The only thing that was okay was the egg. It's... normal.

In the end, I ate only half the packet of rice. Definitely not worth a second try. I bloated my stomach with half a can of Mug Beer instead. Hopefully I won't get too hungry before dinner tomorrow...

Better go & ransack my fridge now...

2011-12-02

SGD 4.00

Ms Flexi Bone wanted something value for money for lunch today.

After checking out the different stalls at Bugis Junction foodcourt, she concluded that spending $5.50 for a plate of half BBQ chicken with rice would seem to secure the best deal. Thus she happily paid and joined the waiting queue (she's 2nd in line, btw) for her food. And she waited. and waited.. and waited... and waited....

After 15mins or so, she finally got her food and returned to our table.

"What's this?! Some royal petit chicken? You waited so long for this tiny piece?" I asked in bewilderment. The half chicken was really small. It couldn't even fill up 1/3 of the plate.Still, Ms Flexi Bone remained cool about her choice. She started tucking into her food and after cleaning up half the plate, she declared it was good. The chicken was well seasoned and the skin was roasted to a nice crisp. She loved that it had a slightly "char-tah" (burnt) taste, and yet the meat wasn't really burnt. It was quite juicy and tender, in fact. Together with the chilli sauce and lime, it was a perfect match. Her only complain (other than the loooong wait) was that the coleslaw was too little. You could finish it all in just 1 mouthful.

2011-12-01

SGD 5.50