We were at Tiong Bahru Plaza during X'mas. Not keen to have turkey again, we went to this chinese restaurant on level 2, in a corner. A few reputable chinese restaurants used to occupy this space but one by one, they left.

There was a signage indicating the promotion of $19.80 per pax for a set meal. However, the waitress said this is not available since this is X'mas and there is a christmas menu. However, I looked at the "christmas menu" - it was not much different at all but it cost $36 - which was the claimed original price of the set meal before the promotion!

I hesitated only slightly. She got impatient and later came back to say if I want the promotional set meal, it was still available, but warned that it would be a small portion.

We ordered 3 set meals, as there were 3 persons. We were contemplating if we should order more side dishes - esp the Mao zedong's braised meat and Sao Bin but again the waitress sounded impatient, so we didn't order more.

The meals came fast. However, the portions were small indeed. For eg, the vegetable dish is about half of a $6 zi char dish. So wondering if this is for 1 person (and we should get one 1 each), we asked. They got confused. One waitress said, yes, so we should expect two more of the same dish. Later, a more senior waitress came by to say, 3 person's portions were cooked together. Sigh. We made do and eat them.

As for the dishes' taste, I think they were okay. Not fantastic, and probably not representative of the old beijing (shouldn't the food be salty?).

The signature dish - roast peking duck - was quite nice, but it is far below Ming Jiang's Peking Duck. Well, don't expect too much.

The double-boiled nourishing soup was pork rib soup. It was light, but there was plenty of small pieces of pork rib, not bad at all.

On the whole, the food was slightly delightful. Portions are miserable. Service is below par.

It's a rip off. If we had ordered the individual dishes, It's probably cheaper given the portions. Not going back soon.

Total cost: $78.

A friend told me the egg tart at KFC is superb. I was quite surprised that a fast food can churn out something so good. Hence, I ordered it one fine day along with the Crispy Fried Chicken. Okay, firstly the fried chicken - I feel that the standard has dropped over the years. I could no longer taste the original KFC taste any more!

As for the egg tart, it's also done in the crispy way. Hence, rather oily and it peels off easily. I am not sure, but it doesn't seem to go fantastically well with the KFC. Maybe I prefer the egg tart the usual traditional way.

I was at Park Mall shopping for furniture when I chanced upon this hidden on the 4th floor. Hungry, we just stepped in. After all, the name is so familiar, named after the famous mongolian warrior Hu Bi Lei. They had well advertised few years back. We wanted to try for novelty.

Type of food: They have a widespread - from mongolian, to japanese cuisine, seafood cuisine, chinese cuisine.

Ambience: I call it classical chinese. Read: a little old outdated. However, there is a central kitchen with glass panel where they cook for you the mongolian food. You choose the meat (eg pork, chicken, mutton), and some vege, and they fry it on a hotplate.

There are chinese nationals eating and talking loudly, seemingly having just knocked off from work.

Taste: there is nothing really special. The mongolian meat is a little salty. I don't remember the taste now - which speaks volumes. The japanese and seafood cuisine helped me fill my stomach. The rice is cold. The seafood is still okay, with large bright prawns.

Cost: Not cheap. $30++

Overall experience: Not a delightful experience. I didn't even feel the atmosphere of a mongolian restaurant at all. How should it be? Ahh, that's the problem, they couldn't even convey this. Much is missing. It's like a normal buffet which is in this case not well done.

Kinda of boring and feel it's a waste of money.

i got a little hungry at the Buona Vista MRT station and needed a snack. Having checked out the soya bean drink so often, I decided to venture into trying the bean snacks at Mr Bean. After all, they are the bean specialist, right?

They have small packets of beans in the display counter. At $2 each, it looks good for me and my mom. She picked the BBQ one over the spicy one. Taste: The beans are quite small, and lightly sprinkled with salt - which is fine. However, I couldn't taste much of the bean at all. She ate some, passed to me, I ate some, passed back to her.

Okay, we finished half and the other half is still lying around in my snack box at home. Verdict: can do without. As a after thought - maybe it goes well with the soya bean drink (which we didn't buy)?

Having heard a friend mentioned that it's nice and there is free flow ice cream and drink, I decided to check it out. This branch at Dhoby Ghaut MRT has a unique layout, being split into 3 section along the direction of the pedestrian lane. I thought that I could explore other eateries and walked along it, but saw it's Just Acia again. However, despite the large spread, it's quite crowded with youngsters.

The dinner is simple and the dishes are actually quite healthy. Not salty to the extent, I feel it's a little plain. However, for my mom, it's good. She complained later that it doesn't feel full.

They have a wide selection of hot drinks and cold drinks. The queue is however for the ice-cream. The girls just queued up for many rounds of it. There were 6 to 8 tubs of different flavour - from choc, vanilla, coffee, banana, etc - and almost all were finished within the hour I had my dinner. The hot fav seems to be choc, though I prefer the coffee.

Simple and okay for me. Falls into "let's move on to my tasks" category.