gastrom's Profile

Decided to have dinner at Astons seeing that the queue was not that long. .Ordered the Salmon Steak with Cajun fries and baked potato for dinner. The Cajun fries were hot and tasty with its seasoning, and baked potato was good too. The salmon was quite tasty but I thought it would be even better if it was a bit more salty. So far, I still find Astons the best at serving good western food at afordable (food court) prices! No additional service charge or GST! The downside is probably the perpetually long queue. …Read More

Had an early dinner at Kungfu Paradise, and there were only 3 tables of diners (including us). We ordered the Popping Lobster Pasta ($12.90), cream sauce spaghetti with chunky lobster and fish roe. The spaghetti was a little undercooked so we informed the server and requested for the kitchen to cook the spaghetti again. So what they did was to heat the cream sauce spaghetti together with the fish roe in an attempt to make the spaghetti "more cooked". So the fish roe turned pink when the same dish was served to us again. The pasta was no longer "popping" as the fish roe doesn't pop much after being heated with the spaghetti. :( Overall the Popping Lobster Pasta tasted quite nice save for the undercooked spaghetti. The cream sauce was good and not overwhelming and the pieces of lobster meat were chunky though a bit too salty. The portion was also kinda small.We also ordered the Triple of Paradise ($16.90) for the trio of chargrilled chicken chop, ribeye steak and sausage that comes with fries and salad. The fries and chicken chop were good. The sausage and steak were OK, not fantastic. The portion of the food, especially the ribeye steak, was very small! (Refer to the last photo for comparison). …Read More

We just wanted to have something lighter and a drink while we spend our time using our laptops at McDonald's. So we ordered one Nuggets Meal to share. The nuggets were quite good when dipped into the curry sauce. But we really still prefer the nuggets from McDonald's many years ago. Felt that the current McDonald's nuggets are a tad too dry. The fries were hot and the texture was nice but really too salty! Will remember to ask for our fries without salt next time. …Read More

Manhattan Fish Market had their "Best Deal in Town Manhattan Fish 'N Chips" promotion at only $3.99 on 29th & 30th March. It was indeed too good a deal to miss that can't be beaten. Seeing the long snaking queue for dining in, I decided to queue for the (shorter) takeaway line instead. It took around 45minutes for me to get my food from the point I placed my order and made payment (not including another 10 minutes in queue before my order was taken). There were 2 pieces of fish and fries served on a paper plate and wrapped up in aluminium foil and come with a salad on the side. By the time I got home, the fish had turned soggy due to condensation. It was such a pity as I think it would taste good if the fish had been served hot so that the batter would still be crunchy. Their thick cut fries were good, and since the fries were below the fish, they were "protected from the wrath of the condensation". Overall a very good deal as it only cost me $4.30 for 2 big pieces of fish, fries and salad, cheaper than what we can get from the fast food outlet! The Fish 'N Chips is good enough to be worth a try even at their regular price!…Read More

We decided to have dinner here for a change. The restaurant was 3/4 packed, but the staff was still attentive and very prompt in their service. The manager saw us sharing the food and immediately presented us with two small plates. Actually the staff has already prepared 2 small plates and left it on our table prior to our food being served. We ordered the Fried Koay Teow ($6.90). It was quite nice with prawns, lots of fish cakes and some cockles. But we both found it a tad too salty for our liking. We also ordered the Lemon Mantis Prawn ($6.90). I like this dish a lot as it's very well fried and has a sweet tangy taste of the lemon sauce and the fragrance of the sesame on top. The Grilled Sotong ($6.90) was served luke-warm. It seems like the sotong has already been grilled and set aside for a long time before it was served to us. It's a pity as we feel that this dish would be very good if the sotong was hot off the grills.We had the regular Jackfruit Juice ($3.50) and Ice Kachang ($2.90) for our drink and dessert. The jackfruit juice was quite diluted and not cold enough, but you can still chew the jackfruit meat when drinking. I suspect they had blended water with the jackfruit. It would taste better if the drink's thicker and blended with ice instead of just water and then adding ice later.The Ice Kachang was quite well-worth the money spent as the serving was big enough for the 2 of us, and they were quite generous with their ingredients. We do not like overly sweet stuff, and the ice-kachang has just the right amount of syrup and condensed milk.Overall, not a cheap dinner and things can be better improved such as serving the sotong hot. Generally very satisified with the service of the staff. Worth a try to get a taste of Penang! …Read More

I really like visiting Four Leaves as I like their mini bread series and their Coco Exotic cake! After dinner at Bedok Point, I walked over to Four Leaves to see if they still have any slices of the Coco Exotic cake left, since the cakes are often sold out by dinner time. I was lucky and they still have one last slice left. I love how this cake has a rich chocolately, hazlenut taste that is not overwhelming. The tinge of sweetness is just right for me, and I really like the texture of the cake that is a mixture of soft chocolate sponge cake, and crunchy wafer layyers between. There's a reason why this cake's always sold out at Four Leaves! :)…Read More

We popped by here for supper after catching a movie at the nearby Cathay Cineleisure. Ordered the Fish & Chips (with fries and coleslaw). Food took quite some time to come. Serving was large. But the fish was hard and very dry. We had a hard time trying to finish the food. It was our first time ordering the fish and chips from Botak Jones, and we are not sure how it would taste like normally, but our first attempt will also definitely be our last. …Read More

Since I was at Toa Payoh and had cravings for sushi, I decided to visit Ichiban Sushi to buy some takeaway sushi home. I bought my favourite lobster salad sushi, salmon sushi and nihotate sushi, and some coronets to share. The sushi was good. :)Coronets were tasty too! Total damage was $14.50. Cashier was very friendly and chatty and rendered good service. Thumbs up! :)…Read More

To me, a visit to Toa Payoh's never complete if I never buy some Koi to end the day with. So, when I am at Toa Payoh again on 17 April, I bought my favourite Bubble Milk Green tea and Grass Jelly Milk Tea home to share. The staff mixed up the labels for the 2 drinks and pasted them wrongly. Felt that the grass jelly this time round was not as smooth and nice as the previous time, but still good enough for me. :)…Read More

I was alone at The Cathay after running some errands, and decided to have lunch at Popeyes, since they have a $4.90 Value Lunch promotion. It was a Wednesday, so the value lunch of the day consisted of 1 pc chicken, 1 pc fish, and 1 regular soft drink. Popeyes was also having a promotion with perx, whereby we can get a small Cajun fries by scanning the QR code on the perx app. Chicken and fish were served crispy and hot. I actually liked the fish more than the chicken! :) Fries, on the other hand, were cold and quite oily. :(Paying $4.90 for the entire lunch was a great value indeed! The staff attending to me was also very helpful and polite! Good job! :) …Read More

Was shopping at Sembawang Shopping Centre and decided to have supper here. Queue was long as usual, and we waited for around 30 minutes before we got a seat. It was another 15-20minutes for the food. Place was clean, and tables cleaned promptly. Ordered a small portion of the popular White Bee Hoon @ $4. 2 of us shared it and it was sufficient for the 2 of us as supper.. Tasty! Also ordered large cups of lime juice and barley. Drinks paid upfront and separately. Overall good dining experience save for the long wait (queue).…Read More

Manhattan Fish Market had the "OOHSOME TWOSOME" promotion, whereby the Small Flame and/or Small Grill was going for One For One for only $19.90! It was too good a deal to miss, so we had our dinner at the Northpoint's outlet. The service here was excellent! Staff were very prompt in filling up our glasses of water, and informed us that we had to wait for half an hour for our food due to the huge crowd who were also mainly there for the promo. We ordered two Small Flame, and the taste was quite good! The only downside was that the fish was kinda cold. Otherwise, overall it was a very good deal! …Read More

Was at Toa Payoh bus interchange and passed by Tiong Bahru Pau and saw a queue inside. Decided to pop in and buy some snacks home. Perhaps I didn't buy the good stuff, i.e. those paus... but I didn't like any of the items that I bought. I bought egg tarts, har gow, siew mai, and some yam pastry. Turned out that nothing was nice. The har gow also did not contain any prawn, but only pork, just like the siew mai. The only different between their har gow and siew mai was the skin. I am not sure if I was given the wrong item, or their har gow really do not contain any prawns! It was my first time purchasing from them, and I was disappointed. Perhaps I really bought the wrong items, and should try out their paus the next time...…Read More

Decided to buy some Koi bubble tea home when I was at Toa Payoh bus interchange. Bought 3 different flavours to try and share. Photo from left to right: Bubble Milk Green tea, Grass Jelly Milk Tea, Yakult Green Tea. All 3 flavours are nice, but I liked the Grass Jelly Milk tea the most. Yakult Green Tea was a little sour. Chose 50% sugar level for all, and the level of sweetness was just right for me. After trying so many bubble teas from the different brands, I still think Koi's the best bubble tea chain around! :) …Read More

Bought a JigoCity discount voucher for set meal for 2, and paid a visit to Thai The Dine-In Restaurant to use up that voucher. Ordered Mango Salad, Crispy Chicken with Lemon Sauce, Sambal Kang Kong and Fish Maw soup from the list of items that we can order from for using the voucher. We ordered an additional Sambal Stingray off the Ala Carte menu. Mango salad was good. Fish Maw soup was tasty but a pity that too much pepper had been added. If the soup was less peppery, it would have been excellent! Crispy chicken was fried till it's too hard and was tasteless and bland on its own if you do not dip the chicken pieces with the given lemon sauce on the side. Sambal Kang Kong was not bad. However, the stingray we ordered was not fresh, and had a very strange weird taste to it. Even the sambal chili was not strong enough to cover up its weird taste. Restaurant was bright and clean. Service could have been a bit more prompt though. …Read More