Heard so much about this place and last month finally get to arrange dinner with my friend who worked around that area.

I was quite keen to try the highly recommended and popular bone marrow dish but my friend was not keen so i shall save it for my next visit.

Start off the night with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc as it goes well with my seabass which i be having later! Nice and easy to drink which i personally like =)

Since we are not going to order the bone marrow dish, the staff kindly recommended another dish to us which is the Crab Salad $21. This turns out to be good! Quite a generous amount of crab meat together with the salad and i love the dressing! Nice refreshing start for our meal.

As i was recovering from cough, fish was my best choice even though i initially had something else in my mind.

Chilean Seabass $36 - quinoa,baconjam,roastedbeetroot, bacon velouté. Very fresh!! Yum.... It be perfect if it's a bigger portion but overall it's good! My friend had the Duck Leg Confit $36 - 36 hour sous-vide, bacon potatoes, fresh thyme, mustard sauce. It's not bad but both of us really enjoyed the potatoes a bit more than the duck confit.

It was Restaurant Week 2013 and this time i only managed to go for only one restaurant - Garibaldi at Purvis Street. It was a good choice as my friend and i had a great lunch that day.

Ambience was pretty good when i first entered but i thought they can arranged the tables in a better way. Some of us were like facing other diners opposite us!

Now let's go to the food. We started off with bread which was nice and warm. I even had a second piece to go with my soup!

For the starter, both my friend and i tried different items. I chose the Sweet Corn Soup with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Spanner Crab Meat. Very flavorful in the right texture. Thumbs up! My friend had the talian Buffalo Mozzarella Salad with Tomatoes Avocado & Smoked Cavier and my first reaction was how pretty the whole thing looked. It was a great combination of different ingredients and flavors together. Very refreshing!

We also opt for different items for main course. The Slow-Cooked Red Grouper with Green Asparagus & Cauliflower Puree was pleasing to the eye when it arrived at my table. Lovely colors and i felt like i was having a Christmas meal instead of Restaurant Week. This was perfect for me as i love fish and it was very fresh. The accompanying ingredients compliment it very well too.

My friend opt for Pasta dish - Home-Made Thick Noodle "Bigoli" with Bacon, Broccolini, Onion Confit and Shaved Pecorino Cheese. I tried some and it felt a bit undercooked for my personal liking. But after a few more bites, i actually find it quite ok!

After clearing our plates when we were done with the main course, tea and coffee were served to us, followed by dessert - Passion Fruit Meringue Tart with Vanilla Gelato. Nice way to end a great lunch.

Personally i find the price of $40++ worth it for the service, the environment, the quality of food! Definitely will be back again =)

It was a very impromptu decision to come so therefore we didn't make any reservation. Didn't expect the wait to be up to 2 hours but i must say the restaurant staff will make sure you are well taken care of.

First they provide wifi (connection is good), free flow drinks + snacks, board games to keep you entertained while waiting for your table. Should you need the washroom, it's clean and have the japanese style system for the toilet bowl (nice and warm to sit on). A good start already i must say. And when it's about your turn, they will give you the ordering form so once you are seated, food will be served shortly.

Once i was at my table, they gave me a small zip lock bag for my mobile phone and also asked if i need something to tie my hair up! Impressive service =) Thumbs up!

Now it's the hotpot! We opt to have the yuan yang so we chose mushroom and mala for the soup broth. It's nice! Mala is definitely spicier during the initial stage but will get better when you add more soup. I like it when i mix 2 scoop of mushroom + 1/2 scoop of mala, quite nice with a bit of spicy taste to it.

The hotpot ingredients are very fresh which is very important for hotpot. There's one particular dish which is under their specialty - Hai Di Lao flavored beef. Very interesting cause i was told you can cook from start till end and it definitely won't overcook. We tried it and it still taste very good and tender towards the end of dinner.

We over-ordered a bit but still managed to finish it. We spent $72 for the total bill which i find it reasonable for the quality of food, ambience and service.

I was spending some alone time by myself and decided to explore Jalan Riang area a bit as i know that stretch has some makan choices to check out. I was in the mood for Italian that day so i went straight for La Pizzaiola =)

Since i was alone, i try not to be too adventurous and just ordered one item! The Calzone ($16.90) caught my attention cause it's a folded pizza. Imagine my amusement when it arrived as it looks like a big version of the curry puff. Haha!

To me this is like yummy comfort food with simple basic ingredients (tomato, mozzarella, ham, mushrooms, olives) done in a nice way! I was enjoying it and especially when a pretty charming manager was serving me, completes the whole great experience!

What i love about Thai Express is the various locations they have. It's usually quite convenient for me. And my all time favorite is their tom yum soup! It's pretty good for one which has many outlets. It has a good mixture of sour and spicy taste combine together! Very shiok despite making me sweat.

One thing i also like about Thai Express is usually for all my visits, the ingredients are fresh which is very important. The fish slices for that night was good! For $11.30++, it didn't disappoint =)