I always have trouble deciding what I want to get at the soya bean chain, Mr Bean. Outlets have been popping up everywhere recently, especially at MRT stations (they're two outlets at Raffles Xchange oO), and I'm ever often tempted to go inside and grab a snack.

As I have mentioned many times before, I love pancakes. And it's great that they come in so many forms, from hotcakes, min jiang kueh to okonomiyaki.

Mr Bean sells yet another pancake I love Here's a tip: Prey hard that you get these Japanese pancakes fresh off the stove, and make sure you gobble them up right away. It's worth the time to patronize stalls with long queues (eg. SMU) and hence a high turnover to ensure that you get warm ones!

Out of their seven (now eight) pancake flavors, the red bean one's my favorite. This springy pancake, encasing a not-overly-sweet azuki bean filling, is easily one of my favorite snacks. The cheese and blueberry ones are good too- the former has a triangle of soft Cowhead cream cheese inside while the latter is filled with blueberry jam (yay!).

Don't bother trying the peanut and chocolate ones though. The peanut one is stuffed with dry chopped peanuts while the "chocolate" filling is made from *gasp* melted chocolate rice. Wouldn't it be nice if they sold a pancake filled with Jollibean's addictively creamy peanut spread? Haha that'll surely reduce Jollibean's (round) ban jian kueh sales.

The egg mayo pancake was surprisingly good too! The egg to mayo ratio was just right and a generous dash of pepper provided a nice kick to round it off. In the month of May, the egg mayo pancake could be purchased with a cup of soya chocolate or coffee as a discounted set at $2.80 (U.P. $3.30). I didn't expect much from the soya chocolate as I doubt that good-quality chocolate was used. But this turned not out be a chocolate drink with the milk portion replaced by soya milk, but a steaming hot cup of soya milk with chocolate undertones (i.e. chocolate-flavored soya milk). Just the perfect thing to start the day! Hope Mr Bean will introduce the soya chocolate on the menu again!

Sometimes after a long day of research work, I'll drop by the nearby Mr Bean outlet at NUH for an energy boost. My usual drink at Mr Bean will be the Pearly Bandung Soya Milk ($2): isoflavone-packed soya milk livened up by the addition of rose syrup, coupled with bouncy, chewy pearls. The rose flavor is less strong than that of bandung as it is mixed with soya milk and not water, so those who like the rose syrup drink but find it too sweet may like this.

This year, Mr Bean has been launching seasonal drinks monthly. The previous few, like the Icy Chocolate, Icy Mango and Strawberry Banana were fine. In my opinion, one should stay away from the Icy Rum and Raisin though (no alcohol for obvious reasons, contains Da Vinci Gourmet syrup instead which is used for coffee drinks). It's expensive at $3.80 a cup, and tastes just average. I hate the shriveled-up raisins inside too.

And not to forget... Soya ice-cream (: I'm always hoping for a super tall cone of it! ($1.30 for cone, $1.50 for cup but you get more ice-cream) Haven't tried it before? You might not take to the distinctive, uh, soya milk taste of this ice-cream at first. But give it another chance, and you'll find yourself getting accustomed to the flavor. By your third try, you should have become a convert (Not to worry, I still like normal ice-cream made from cow's milk though!)

Despite being low-fat, Mr Beans's soy aice-cream is still creamy like normal soft-serve. For those who count calories, a 100g serving contains 136 calories. There's also green tea flavored soy ice-cream available at certain outlets like Tampines 1. The matcha flavor is rather mild but I still like it anyway, more than the original flavor.

Service here is good too! The staff often greet customers before serving them (; Oh, and NUH staff get a discount!

My mom and I were wandering along North Bridge Road looking for a good place for lunch when we stumbled upon Ansari Briyani Restaurant.

The friendly lady in the shop explained that the biryani here is distinctive as it is prepared Dubai-style. Upon enquiry about the specifics of what a Dubai-style biryani is like, I was told that the meat and the rice were prepared separately before being baked together with spices. Wait...isn't this just a description of what dum biryani is- cooking the meat, rice and spices together in a pot? Oh well, I'll leave it to my tastebuds to suss it out.

Zoom into the picture of the chicken biryani and you'll be able to see how long those rice grains are. Yup, that's real basmati rice, not the nasty fake basmati you get in nasi briyani, the wannabe cousin of biryani. The word dum is actually redundant here, but Mr Biryani had to give himself a first name to distinguish himself from nasi briyani.

To my satisfaction, the biryani (briyani?) rice here was prepared beautifully. The grains were well-flavored, with a light and fluffy texture. And oh!- another thing that I like about Ansari's briyani rice is that it's prepared with just enough ghee so that it's not dry, while being not at all oily.

Smeared with a tasty and spicy paste, the chicken meat was moist and tender. It could have been more flavorful though. Note that the achar provided is oily and rather spicy, so those who cannot take much spice (like me) should steer clear of it. Vinegared pickles would have helped to alleviate the pespiration that was dripping down my forehead.

The only letdown in this meal was the dhalca, which was redolent of *gasps* the offensive odour of gamey mutton. I picked out the veggies instead and left the curry untouched, while my mom didn't dare to take any of it.

While Madam Kwan's has kept its exact opening date under wraps, it failed to keep curious foodies from flooding the restaurant last Sunday. Despite the torrential crowds at peak hours, I was whisked into the restaurant in no time at 5pm- hooray!

With fluffy and well-separated grains, the light yet aromatic coconut rice was one of the best I've had- better than Grandma's and the now-defunct Wok & Barrel's! Its accompaniments were less spectacular, however. Not that there was anything wrong with the sambal ikan billis or crunchy, piquant achar- it's just that they weren't particularly memorable.

I'm being picky here, but the the curry chicken- though succulent- wasn't quite fall off the bone tender. And one probably expects a more generous portion of chicken with a $13.90+ plate of nasi lemak, no?

While I have not visited Madam Kwan's in KL, I felt that their nasi lemak was somewhat overrated. To think that I actually contemplated making a trip to the capital to satisfy my coconut rice cravings! Nevertheless, given the quality of the food and its relatively inexpensive pricing (considering the restaurant's prime location), I will return to Madam Kwan's if I happen to be at Vivocity- once the crowds die down, that is.

I settled for a steaming hot cup of teh tarik ($3.50+) as the chendol was sold out. Let me know if you try their signature dessert and nasi bojari- I certainly had a hard time deciding between nasi lemak and the latter!

Cedele's Classic Hot Cross Buns are available all year round, but when Easter is around the corner, several other flavors come on offer. I liked the Classic Hot Cross Bun for its firm bite and for the dried fruits embedded in it. Chocolate addicts might prefer the chocolate version, which is studded with dark chocolate chips and walnut bits!I don't particularly fancy their D24 durian ice cream though. I like my durian ice cream to be punchy in flavor and this was somewhat too mild for me.