I was at Far East Plaza and decided to revisit the Burger Bar for lunch. I have being to Burger Bar many times and noticed that the crew was not the usual one which I saw. She was a young lady serving me at the counter and a masculine man working inside the kitchen, facing the hot grilled plate.

This time I ordered Brioche Bun with lam and choices of vegetables were shredded lettuce, tomato slice and pickles and a mug of French fries. The total cost is $10.

While waiting for my lunch to be served, I watched around the environment . I noticed for every 30 minutes, there is an expectation of customers to order burger. This shows the turnover rate was moderate.

I noticed that there is an ice cream and cookies fridge. I don’t know what ice cream as there do not see any customers eating the ice cream. However, the customers will pick up a bottle of canned drink such as Coke, mineral water. The drink costs $2.

At last my burger arrived. The French Fries were long, with a length of 5 cm and thickness of 1 cm. The fries were not fried till dry. There were some flesh and potato meat to bite. When the fries dipped with Heinz chilli sauce, the taste was perfect.

The burger wonderfully looked pretty. The bun was fair and yet soft. Fair as it was not overbaked but only the bottom part of the bun. When opened to see the ingredient, the lamb, the meat portion has thickness of 1 cm. It is minced lamb with onion. When eating lamb, one can never run away the smell of lamb. The meat was soft and juicy. I am not a red meat eater yet I considered the burger was well done. The only to get rid of the smell is to spread chilli sauce on the burger.

The vegetable was generous with large portion especially the pickle. This time, I could taste the sour pickle taste. That was what I want to neutralize the heavy meat portion.

I took my time to enjoy my meal as I was not in the rush to head to any way. I took about 30 minutes to enjoy the meal.

I attended a seminar talk cum with dinner at Ritz Carlton, Millenia Walk . The dishes served were :
1)Canepes : Smoked Duck and Spinach Tart
2)Confit Salmon with Pearl Vine Tomato, Ocean Trout Roe, Micro Mixed Herbs & Korean Chilli Sauce
3)Clam Chowder with Poached Prawns
4)Baked Miso Cod and Tea Smoked Chicken
5)Duo of Royal Caraibe Dome and Ginger Flower Panna Cotta

The canapés were exciting with smoked duck with mango. It has red meat to neutralize with fruit. The spinach tart were solid yet easy to bite to fill the stomach before the late meal was served.

The appetizer was interesting. I had soft salmon with roe as topping. Then the tomato served as salad. The chilli sauce was yet a decoration the plate.

The soup was the clam chowder with prawns. It was a creamy soup yet not creamy. The prawn was sliced to half so it was easy to bite.

The cod was soft and juicy. However, the chicken was tough. I was given breast meat which I found it dried.

The dessert had two parts. It started with a chocolate dome. The chocolate was bitter. I believed dark chocolate was served and the arch was the white chocolate. The mini cup was the milky jelly. It tasted like the almond jelly with raspberry served as topping. I enjoyed the dessert.
The waitress were very active and experienced in meeting the needs of the diners. Service was good.

I was Plaza Singapura and sampled the Chinese New Year cookie at Bengawan Solo.

When I approached the staff for assistance, the staff just pointed me the boxes of sampled cookies. She did not offer to open the boxes or gave recommendations of their best selling cookies or any new flavouring. I had to help myself and wondered which to try.

I tried the Almond Nut, cranberry cookie, Indonesia kueh bangkit and shrimp roll. The almond nut was dry and can feel the big but not ground to the finest. The cranberry cookie was hard. The Indonesia Kueh bangkit was not rich in coconut texture. The only compliment was the shrimp roll which was soft and crispy. It was not oily.

I wondered if the poor customer service had affected my sampling appetite at this store. Furthermore, the staff did not assist me or introduced me of their products. She was busy playing with her mobile phone. I was disappointed with the visit.

The Starbuck has launched its Chinese New Year cookies and I decided to sample their cookies. There are 3 types of cookies, namely Kumquat cookie, sesame pineapple cookie and pumpkin seed and kumquat cookie. Each cookie comes in different colour packaging, red, orange and burgundy red. Each box comes with 10 cookies. The slightly expensive cookie is the sesame pineapple cookie costs at $16.80 while the other 2 cookies cost $15.80. On average basis, each cookie costs $1.60.

The sampling cookies are not displayed on the store but they can be sampled upon request. I approached the crew . The crew was very polite. Not only that, the crew was generous to offer me the full size cookies.

In the store, I could only taste 2 flavours. They were sesame pineapple cookie and kumquat cookie. Both cookie has the size of $1 coin and thick of 1 cm. The sesame pineapple was coated with black and white sesame seed outside and wrapped with pineapple filling. The pineapple filling was still young and did not add must colouring. The pineapple cookie did not have must flour coating so I was consuming sesame seeds and pineapple filling. As I bite the cookie, the sesame seed crust was still crispy. This combination of pineapple cookie was unique.

The next flavor which I had tried was the kumquat cookie. It was the original shortbread cookie but it has citrus peel. As I bite the cookie, I tasted the rich tangerine. The cookie was not too rich in butter flavor.

Surprisingly, when I asked for the last flavour which was the pumpkin seed and kumquat cookie, the crew was not able to offer me as they did not have the sample in the store. I decided to move to other outlet and ask, still there was no store. I have left my contact with one of the branch manager store and hope I could try the last flavour.

Between the 2 cookies, I gave both flavour equal ranking. I like the 2 cookies.

I was curious what TCC offered at the Store and went into the store to take a look. I was surprised that TCC do sell Pineapple Tarts. The tarts are unique. The crew was generous in the portion. I was offered a full piece rather than crumble one.

The tart has an unique design. It shows the picture of lovely terry bear and it is not to butterly and yet crispy. The pineapple is not too sweet nor big portion. The size of the tart is similar to size of fishball, round in shape, instead of flat.

TCC is selling the tart at $18.80 during the valid period. It comes in 2 boxes. Each box contains 10 tarts of individual packing. The crew was courteous and patient to explain the details of TCC tart. The restaurant was quiet and well lighted.