Conviently located in Orchard Gateway is outback steakhouse. We arrived at 9pm on a weekday and the dining room was pretty much empty. The staff were still very cheerful and friendly.Based on their menu, it seems to have pretty much the same stuff you would find at any Outback in other countries.

Outback Steakhouse is a steakhouse concept with more than 1,000 locations spanning 22 countries. Established in Tampa, Florida in 1988, each restaurant is a friendly, casual and relaxing place embodying the spirit of the Australian Outback with bold flavorful food.Outback takes great pride in serving the freshest, highest-quality food. I remember having some good memories with their grilled seafood, steak and blooming onions!The dining area is mainly made up of booths.1. Typhoon Bloom $14.90++For an appetizer, you cannot go wrong with the Typhoon Bloom for all onion ring lovers. It is no blooming onion, and to be honest. It looks like alot less effort went into this compared to a blooming onion. It is a hand-cut, fresh onion, dusted with Outback's own secret seasonings, stacked high and cooked until golden. The sauce provided in the center is their spicy signature bloom sauce. It's kind of tangy and I liked the creaminess of the sauce. I felt like the onion was fried abit too much and hence it was slightly on the dry side but other than that. It met my expectation of massive fried onion!

2. Sirlion and Baby Back Ribs $39.90++This is a 6oz. siganture USDA sirloin paire with half a rack of smoked baby back ribs served with aussie thick cut fries. It is an okay portion for just one pax. But the juiciness of the steak justifies the pricing.Ths ribs were also tender and though it didn't quite fall of the bones. It was tender enough for me to consider whether or not it was completely fresh, or fresh-frozen. Either ways, for $40++ you are getting a decent dinner.

3. Toowomba Chicken $24.90++Sauteed shrimp and buttom mushrooms, tossed in a tomato cream sauce and served over grilled chicken. The shrimp and the mushrooms were delicious. I wish I could've asked a top up of a side of shrimp for this! The vegetables were steamed and had the right texture. 

I felt that the chicken was on the dry side and I didn't quite enjoy it. The tomato cream sauce, helped make the dry chicken slightly more bearable.

Established since 1992, East Ocean Teochew Restaurant is well known in Singapore and the region for serving the best in Teochew cuisine and dim sum. In 2012, they moved to Takashimaya shopping centre and as pioneers in the art of Chinese cuisine, they constantly innovate by introducing new products such as cute looking dim sum, aimed at children.You can consider East Ocean if you want something more than just your traditional dim sum. As I had some friends visiting  from out of town, I decided to give them a try.On thursday at 12pm, the dining area was maybe 30% full. They were groups of business people and you could tell they were important discussions over the dim sum, as they barely touched their food!So here's the cute dim sum menu I was talking about. Nothing that really stood out to me. I was hoping for cute looking siew mai, har gau or even char siew pau maybe?

1. Pan Fried Carrot Cake $5++So first up was the pan fried carrot cake, one my my favourites. The texture was great, charred on the exterior to give it a crisp bite and yet soft and warm in the certain. You could clearly see the shreds of carrot inside with small pork cubes. It was flavourful and actually met my expectation.

2. Steamed Spare Ribs $4.80++The spare ribs didn't have much bones with them, so it was very easy to eat. The meat was very well seasoned and flavourful. My foreign really enjoyed this. Hidden underneath the layer of meat, are yam cubes. The yam was steamed till it was all mushy but yet soaked up the essences of the spare ribs!

3. Lion Fish $6++So we got these cute fish shaped, fried prawn balls. My friends and I all agreed, it was just for looks. We would pick har gau any day over these. 

4. Little Big Foot $6++When this was served, my American friends went, "Wow". I think the chefs did great by innovatively placing almond flakes on the back of "Big Foot". They were so cute, it took awhile before everyone on the table was done snapping photos.Inside the thick, and chewy pastry was sweet barbecued pork. I was expecting more of a char siew soh, so this was a surprise. The almond flakes were well with the pork I must say.

5. Ha Kau $6++, Chicken Feet $4.80++, Siew Mai $5++I decided to also get a range of traditional dim sum, to help bench mark East Ocean vs the familiar restaurants I've been to. Surprisingly, the taste was just "meh". Nothing to rave about.

6. Steamed Custard Bun $5++ *highly recommended*Definitely the highlight of my meal! Check out the liquid gold, flowing out of this very hot, steamed bun. The sweetness of the liu sha was perfect and the texture of the bun was soft and fluffy. 

7. Steamed Shrimp Rice Roll $5.80++The shrimp was sizeable and crunchy. The sauce had a right mix of sweet and saltiness. The shimmering rice roll was very soft and delightfully tasty.

8. Crispy Roasted Pork Belly $15++ *highly recommended*My friends who never tried this before were crazy over this dish. It was only when I told them it was $15++ that they realized, they had to savour this dish slowly. Good stuff doesn't always come cheap, but pricey stuff doesn't always mean good. But this is by far the best dish we had at East Ocean. The skin was so crispy, and the meat was juicy and tender. Strangely though, it was served with wasabi mayo.

Service throughout the meal was great, as the staff was constantly refilling, our pot of tea and asking if we needed any help ordering. They were also attentive to our every action and cleared our plates thrice throughout our meal. We ended up spending close to $90 for the 3 of us, and we did have our fill, but I felt that the quality of the dim sum could be better. It's sad to say that I know of several other chain dim sum restaurants that surpasses the standard here at East Ocean for several of their dishes.

My suggestion, skip the kiddy menu. Yes it looks cute, but it's not worth the price or the calories. 

This is my second visit to coastes and instead of going there during mid day. I learnt my lesson and decided to go there during dinner when the sun has set and you can enjoy the outdoor ambience.

1. Fish and chips $22 

The portion of the fish and chips is really just for one. The fish seems big but it's really not. I was a bit upset with their portion of fries. I've had a side of fries before and they were way more generous with the fries then.

But with the sea view and sounds, the taste of the food is improved some what.

The fish meat was tasteless and the exterior wasn't crispy but rather mushy. It was very upsetting with my first cut into the fish fillet. Don't waste your money with this dish. Their pasts were better.


2. Big bad wolf pizza $24

This is big enough to share amongst 2. The bacon was very fatty and wasn't crispy but still added a lot of flavour into the pizza. They were pretty creative in this dish and in every slice you get all the ingredients. I enjoy thin crust and I liked this however it could've been in the oven for a short while more.

3. Coastes wings $10

$10 for 3 whole wings is probably the most expensive wings I've ever bought but it's cooked hawker style. BBQed with lime wasn't what I was expecting but the wings were juicy and sweet with the barbecue sauce. 

All in all, an okay place for food. Definitely expect to pay more. Hits and misses but I think their pastas is what I will go for if I ever visit again.

Located just above the check in counters is this rather huge Soup Restaurant. Their deco at different outlets seems to vary slightly with this outlet going for more of an "open" concept. Each table seems to have their own "private" space, without having individual rooms. On a saturday brunch time at 11am, the restaurant was pretty empty.Here is the spread of food we had for 6 adults and 2 children. It was alot of food, with alot of variety. 

1. Samsui Ginger Chicken (Large) $33.90++Soup Kitchen is famed for their samsui ginger chicken. All the slices were juicy and tender and the texture of the meat was very smooth. Together with the ginger, the taste of the chicken is more pronounced. It is to be eaten with the vegetables provided, but I just enjoy eating it on it's own. 

2. Sweet & Sour Pork with Pineapple $12.90++Their sweet and sour pork has a very nice hard exterior, probably from being fried before cooked in the sauce. The pineapples seems to be the ones you get from the can, which was slightly depressing. But the pork was just still superb.

3. Penang Fried Mee Sua (Small) $11.90++The greatest surprise was this dish. The wok hei was very significant in every mouthful and everyone agreed this was probably the best dish on the table. A pretty decent meal, with good service from the start to the finihs. 

Located in Forum is Benjamin Browns. It's quite a small little hipster cafe that is becoming famous for their milkshakes. I've heard of snaking queues on weekends and weekday dinners for their milkshakes.I decided to skip the peak hours and visit on a weekday lunch to see what the hype was all about!They have quite a wide variety of main course ranging from escargots to steak, to fish tacos.They also have dessert offerings like waffles and cakes.Their cakes stood real tall and looked so good I had to try one!And of course, here's their over the top milkshake menu! I highly recommend sharing each milkshake between at least 2 pax. 1. Sea salt caramel chocolate cake $8.90++Right our order was taken they served us our cake. I was expecting them to ask if the cake should be served later after the mains. But I started to realize it's because the kitchen is overwhelmed with meticulously making the milkshakes that they can't cope. After we were done with the cake we waited another 20 minutes before we got our milkshake and 5 seconds after we got our milkshake our main came. So our cotton candy was melting along with the milkshake.Nonethless, this cake is very good. It is to be shared amongst 2 and the layers of icing can be too sweet if eaten alone without the cake. The cake itself is quite dense, almost like a brownie and I felt it was tremendously well baked cake. 

2. Old school vanilla milkshake $16++
When our milkshake came, it was overwhelming. Looking at this tall, "thrown together", random old school snakes that you could probably get from a mama shop with less than a $1 and with cotton candy. When I asked the staff what colour is the cotton candy today, she replied, it depends on which bag they open. So I'm guessing the cotton candy isn't made on the spot. Check out the marshmallows, gem biscuits, love letter, kueh piring (the green big round flaky biscuit which was durian flavoured) and the cotton candy!I definitely see why the kitchen was so held up, imagine having to "paint" the sides of this cup with nutella and sprinkle all these colourful rainbow dots and making sure they stick to the sides of the cup!!After we spent maybe 10 minutes deconstructing our milkshake, we finally got to drink and it tasted like any other vanilla milkshake I have ever drank. So yes, this is highly instagrammable and highly hyped about. But this is also one I would say it's pretty and though it doesn't tasted bad $16++ is a heavy price for prettiness.

3. Sizzling Beef Chunks $25++

 

A chef's recommendation was the sizzling beef chunks 250gm of awesome juicy meat is what it advertised on a sizzling pan. Sadly though, yes the beef was juicy but it was so tough!Yes it smelt good, but I think the zucchini tasted better than the beef. It was a disappointment. During our entire meal it was difficult to try and get the attention of the staff to refill our glasses of water, you are paying 10% for service charge, but I'm sure if there was a jar of iced water within sight, I would've got up and gotten my fill!

The milkshakes, yes they are pretty. Would I go again? No. 
The cakes, yes they are so good! Would I go again? YES! DEFINITELY
The steak, NO.. just NO!