For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/dessert-story-northpoint-hougang-mall/

Between the outlets at Northpoint Yishun and Hougang Mall, I’ve tried Milk Pudding; Egg Pudding with Ginger; Peanut Paste; Black sesame paste; walnut paste; add tang yuan to them; Mango Pomelo with sago; Herbal Jelly; yam cake and carrot cake. Can you tell I’m a big fan of Chinese desserts (but don’t ever order the herbal jelly. it sucks, tasted very plasticky and not authentic.)Although Mei Heong Yuan’s desserts are smoother and tastier, if you don’t feel like making a trip down to Chinatown, these desserts found in heartland districts definitely hit the spot. Definitely can eat, and can return to eat more some more, but I thought for such a small bowl, it was quite expensive at $3. $3 can buy you a meal leh.

Service: But an unhappy incident happened to me. I was drinking the walnut paste and it had a slight bitter aftertaste, which it shouldn’t have. So I asked the staff if the dessert had herbal ingredients (because, I learnt some cooking, and I know you can add herbal stuff). The PRC server sneered in my face like I was super ignorant and stupid, like it’s the funniest joke she heard in her life. Seriously, I wanted to give her two slaps. No happy ending for this Dessert Story. But I’ve to add, there are some aunties who are very nice to me here.

For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/beng-hiang-telok-ayer/

Chiobu and I were at the reception counter and an old rude fat man cut our queue, saying, “I’m sitting with Dr. XXX.”

I quickly told the receptionist, “We are here first.”

The receptionist replied brusquely, “He already has a table” and quickly led the fat old man to the table before returning to us. We also already had a table–she had no excuse for letting the old man go first. She should have told the man to wait because we were there first. It made me think that she was impressed by the title of Dr.

The service remained bad throughout. One friend–he’s so funny–was so frightened of the grumpy waitress he asked me not to call her to help us anymore. I said, “But it’s her job!” He complained and complained about the horrible service, like we owe them money, but when the waitress came, he would thank her so sweetly like a little boy who just received candy.

The old skool decor, however, was pretty nostalgic, like in the 80s, with red walls, chinese paintings, wooden lazy Susan. The atmosphere was very convivial and noisy. And there were an amazingly high number of hot men. Yums!There were five of us and we over-ordered: hokkien noodles ($12); spring roll ($8); fish maw soup ($28); oyster egg ($12); steamed garoupa ($56) and for desserts, yam paste ($15). I can understand why people withstand the horrible service to eat. The Hokkien-cuisine food was quite astonishingly good.

The fish maw soup, or shark fin soup without the shark fin, was thick and lipsmacking, so you know the cartilage had dissolved into the soup, giving you collagen. There are two types of spring roll, one is with prawn (hia zhou), the other with minced pork. They were quite simply the best I’ve ever eaten. I didn’t know spring roll can taste so savory. Theoyster egg was different from the hawker centres; this one is completely deep-fried and packed a punch. I never like hokkien mee because they tend to have a plasticky pungent taste but this one–”crackling with lard,” my friend said–didn’t have that ammonia scent and I could tolerate it. My friends loved it.

The only two bad dishes were the steamed garoupa and yam paste. Woah, $56 for a fish!! The broth wasn’t sweet enough and the fish, fresh but not super fresh to justify that kind of price at this kind of restaurant. The yam paste was downright rotten, not smooth, with huge bits of yam in them, and was quite tasteless. Waste of calories.

From the outside of the restaurant, the street was so quiet you’d never imagine how bustling it was inside. Reservations are a must. We spent $150 for 5 people (GST but no service charge). Although you don’t need to be a doctor to eat here, it’s best when you make reservations, say that you’re a doctor. They wouldn’t know anyway and you’d receive better treatment. You can cut queue. Doctors’ $5 is worth more than non-doctors’ $5, you know.

For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/chocolate-origin-changi-village/

Remember when Awfully Chocolate just started and the cakes were sooooo good Imagine that feeling of biting into an Awfully Chocolate cake back in 1998…and then multiply it by 10. That’s how ORGASMIC the halal-certified Chocolate Origin is.

They don’t sell in slices, so you have to buy an entire cake but don’t worry – you can finish it all by yourself in 2 days. I did. Normal cakes have sponge cakes with layers of cream but Chocolate Origin’s cakes are the opposite; they have chocolate mousse with paper-thin layers of sponge. I don’t even know how it is possible to bake such a cake!!

And the taste! Made of Belgium chocolate, there is no other word to describe the dark chocolate cake except for ORGASMIC. It was just the perfect and delicate balance of sweetness and after-taste bitterness. It was sooo very rich and yet at the same time, it was sooo light and soft that you can eat as many pieces as you want without being sick. It is truly the BEST chocolate cake I’ve eaten in years. Kudos!

For more photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/au-jardin-les-amis-botanic-gardens-orchard-tanglin/

Ever since a mediacorp gay actor said that his date brought him here and impressed the pants out of him a few years ago–ok he didn’t say pants–Au Jardin (translation: “at garden”) has been on my wish list. Recently, instead of just serving on weeknights and weekends, Au Jardin opens up weekday afternoon lunches for only $45++.

Directions: If you enter by the Visitor Center, Au Jardin, on a small hill, is just directly in front the Vistor Center but it is obscured by trees. So if you’re heading north, you’re on the right track, baby, you are born this way.

Decor/ Ambience: The setup is a dream. Nestled in lushness, the unassuming and secluded colonial bungalow stands quietly. The full-panaled windows allow natural sunlight to stream into the balcony of the second storey where the patrons dine. The surrounding verdure gives a sense of tranquillity and peace. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong were singing softly. The temperature was set to a comfortable degree. The menu came as a greeting card with a replica of watercolor painting of the colonial mansion. Side stools are available for bags. But the tables aren’t padded, and padded tables are essential for good restaurants. Another point: there were forest ants crawling all over the table–can’t be helped, I guess. But still, this place is pure class and sophistication.Even before the amuse bouche, we always believe that good gratis bread is one of signs of a good restaurant. It was crispy outside, soft and warm inside. Au Jardin started off with the right foot. The amuse bouche was tuna tartare with caviar. The tuna was sliced into almost rice-like bits. An elegant dish but nothing overly exciting.

Starters

Chiobu had smoked duck breast salad, duck rillette mousse, gherkins, confit of tomato, oats and walnut dressing. She remarked that the smoked duck breast, usually tough, was particularly well-done, tender and not overly salty. The oats gave an extra, almost biscuity crunch. The balance of the salad–a mark of judging a salad–was spot-on, sweet, vinegary, salty and earthy. But to Wise Guy (me), there are bad salads and then there are salads. Salads are just salads. Very difficult to wow the eater.

Wise Guy always picks the foie gras dish: fricassee of wild mushrooms, foie gras ravioli and mushroom broth. The mushroom broth itself tasted very Chinese, you know, Chinese mushroom soup. But wow, the ravioli–more like wanton–gave me a surprise. The translucent skin was as thin as gossamer. Bite into it and a sudden burst of foie gras oil and intense vinegar. I wasn’t prepared for the vinegar at all. This was a very smart move byChef Ng Wei Han who has worked for the Les Amis group for about 6 years. I suspect the foie gras wasn’t top quality–remember the lunch isn’t expensive–and so you can taste the iron-ness of it and to cover the iron-ness, Chef Ng used a strong condiment. When the vinegar and foie gras oil dripped into the mushroom soup, the favors interacted, changed and gave the soup a punchline. An intelligent and startling dish. Quite appetizing too.

Mains

Prawn a’la plancha with shell pasta, egg confit, seasonable vegetables with shellfish glaze. Note the trend here I think Chiobu is secretly on a diet! She was picking the low-calorie count food. The plating was gorgeous but when I asked how it was, she replied, “Pasta lor.” There was an overpowering shellfish taste, almost like the SIngaporean hae bee hiam (spicy dried shrimp paste) without the spiciness mixed with some shellfish, making the dish one-dimensional.

I, however, like in life choices, always make the right decisions: roasted striploin & braised beef cheek with roasted potato, sweet corn puree and red wine sauce. I hate potato in general but this potato was amazing, roasted in such a way that brought out the natural sweetness. The braised beef cheek was so tender, and the red-wine sauce that stuck on it was so aromatic and sweet. The striploin was savory and complex, giving each bite a different taste, sometimes sweet, sometimes salty and sometimes peppery.

However, a kvetch–which is the same complaint I have of the entree–is that the meat wasn’t of a better quality. That being said, the set menu only costs $45 and given the top-notch service and ambience and way of cooking, I really don’t think it’s fair for me to complain about the quality.

Dessert

Chocolate Ice Kacang consists of gula melaka ice cream, milk shavings, valrhona dark chocolate mousse, rose petal (bundong) foam, corn and grass jelly. We tried two ways of eating: the first way was to NOT to mix the ingredients up, but dig some of each onto the spoon and eat it. I preferred this way because you can taste each ingredient separately and distinctly and yet they are in a way combining to give new flavors. The second way is to mix everything up, like ice kacang. I didn’t like this way so much because I didn’t know what I was eating and it just became a big mess. Chiobu didn’t like this dessert but I loved it for its innovation and playfulness. The taste could be more refined–I don’t think bundong goes with chocolate–but with some fine-tuning, this could be a hit.

Popcorn parfait. You’d think the yellow parts are popcorn but they are actually passionfruit. The passionfruit gave the dessert a face-scrunching sourness, which Chiobu didn’t like–man, she’s more difficult to please than I am. But I absolutely loved it. The “popcorn” appeared to be two pieces of chalk beneath the passionfruit mousse; they were ice cream and tasted exactly like sweet popcorn you eat at the movies. The foam was corn. Some mint leaves. The contrast of the sour passionfruit and sweet popcorn was palate-cleansing and invigorating. An awesome and brilliant finish to a great meal…

Or were we finished We witnessed someone who had a souffle ($22) and so we ordered it too.

It came with two scoops of almond-vanilla ice cream. I liked everything I ordered so far, but this was a mistake. It looked amazing but the texture was more like a sponge cake, without the airiness of souffle, and the orange liquor was an overkill, making it extremely and unbearably bitter.

Luckily, the end of the meal was sweet to us. The petit four were incredible! The madeleine was hot from the oven, so eggy and delicious, while the chocolate was so rich, going so well with tea.

Service: There were more servers than customers! Water was promptly refilled; bread was offered continuously. Thoughtful, considerate, friendly without being sycophantic. They might have station a server permanently at the balcony because sometimes when we wanted something, we had to wait for a server to come out to the balcony. But still, one of the best service.

Another thing we love about the place is that some time lapsed between courses, so that we knew the kitchen was actually carefully preparing our food. Lunches are meant to be 3 hours long anyway.

We spent $132 for two in total.

At the end of the meal, we were very satisfied with the service, ambience and the value of the meal. Except for the souffle, the food was reasonably well executed and intelligent. My suggestion is pick the right food. Communicate with the servers what you like and ask for recommendations. Be prepared to read another review of Au Jardin; I think I’ll celebrate my birthday here and try the Sunday Brunch. We’d like to thank the director, Philippe Pau, for his hospitality and humor.

For more photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/chatterbox-mandarin-orchard/

We made reservations before heading down since it was stated in the deal. I reached promptly at 5pm and was given a window seat since the place was quite empty. It was pretty nice to watch the world go from the 5th level of Mandarin Orchard, so when you call to make reservations, request for a table by the window. Yandao was late, so they served me my drink and left me alone. While idling my time away, I noticed that I was the only local! The people seated around me are all foreigners – Hong Kongers, Indonesians & Japanese! As much as I tried to eavesdrop on their conversations, I understood none of it. Boring. Anyway, when Yandao arrived, they brought the set out almost immediately! Howinitiative & attentive of the waiting staff. I like.

The deal includes Chatterbox Half Chicken, 2 bowls of rice, 1 seasonal vegetable, 2 drinks (soft drinks or beer), complimentary parking at Mandarin Orchard (for 2 hours only) for $36.52 excluding service charge & GST which sums up to about $42+. Pretty good deal since I heard that 1 plate of Chatterbox Chicken Rice is about $25. Furthermore, the car park charge for 2 hours is about $10.70.

Our Seasonal Vegetable was Dao Gay. Not too bad though I was hoping for 油菜 cos Dao Gay is so cheap. Dao Gay was soaked in sesame oil & was flavourful. There were mushrooms in them& I love mushrooms. They also removed the tails of the Dao Gay so thumbs up for effort they put in!

Both Yandao and I were super disappointed by the chicken because the meat was tough. I was expecting tender, juicy chicken with the price people pay at this place. Chatterbox Chicken has nothing to rave about and I’ve had better chicken at many other places – Soup Restaurant, Boon Tong Kee, 925 Yishun Central and even Far East Shopping Centre. The good thing about this chicken is that it’s thoroughly cooked with no tinge of pinkness in the meat. Yandao can be pretty anal about blood in the food. Even though the chilli sauce had no kick, I liked it because I didn’t leave Chatterbox with garlic breath. I’m super conscious when it comes to eating Chicken Rice chilli because most places use too much garlic. No amount of mints will remove that garlic breath. It’s very embarrassing to let your colleagues or friends know what you had for lunch with your breath. Ack.

The rice was a bit too dry and white for my liking. Chicken rice is meant to be oily and slightly buttery! And the best way to eat chicken rice is mix in black sauce with the yummilicious chicken sesame sauce. This is how chicken rice should always be eaten. Plain dry rice becomes awesome chicken rice after my concoction. You MUST do it too. Drench your rice with the 2 main ingredients and you will be as awesome as me. I mean, your chicken rice will be as awesome as mine.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Despite the good service, I will never return as a paying customer because of the price and standard.