Recently, I won a free lunch from my manager, and she suggested we go to Mong Hing Teochew Restaurant at Keypoint that serves nice Teochew cuisine. As it was Chinese New Year period and an impromptu decision to lunch there, we ended up booking a table at the main entrance as it was otherwise full house that day.

As it was still Chinese New Year period, the ala carte menu wasn't available & we had no choice but to take the set lunch for 4 persons. Of course, being CNY, the first dish was the Lo Hei yusheng, which according to my manager, has been modified, as she remembered last time they did it the Teochew style (don't know what is the Teochew style tho' hee) which was less tasty. But this yusheng we had was the usual type we see/ eat and plenty of salmon were given.

The dishes came pretty quickly. Next was the fish maw soup (or was it Shark's Fin soup?) & then the braised goose meat.The Braised Goose Meat was really yummy hence I took a picture of it. I had only eaten goose meat once, at the famous Yung Kee restaurant in Hong Kong, which had totally ruined my impression of goose meat then. However this dish salvaged my bad impression of goose meat! It was so tender & juicy, possibly because the meat were thinly sliced & the gravy was delicious yet not too salty. There was also braised beancurd below the meat. Really well done dish

The subsequent dishes that arrived on our table were the Fried Ee-Fu Mee & Yam Paste with Ginko Nuts. Both were also delicious. But it was a bit of a shocked that we only had 5 dishes in the set lunch & we finished our lunch within 45 minutes!

After taking a long time to attract the waiter's attention to get the bill, I happened to see that the total bill came to almost $190!! Wow that's really not a value-for-money deal for 4 of us, considering that there were only 5 dishes, & we didn't even get to eat the Teochew style steamed fish.... Luckily the food was good & up to standard.

Yes, my friend & I chanced upon this restaurant when we were hunting for a nice place for dinner on a Friday. It is pretty well hidden at basement 2 of Orchard Central, if not for its advertisement poster near the escalator of one of Orchard Central's floors, we wouldn't even know such a restaurant existed.

It was having a promotion for all diners when we visited: 10% discount for ala carte food items & 50% discount for cocktails & mocktails. We had a quick peek at its menu before deciding to step foot into this restaurant as the price looks reasonable with the promotion, & the ambience looks cosy & welcoming.

We ordered 1 pasta & 1 pizza to share, as well as a cocktail for myself & a mocktail for my friend.The complimentary slice of bread was served warm & soft, but I guess I have eaten better bread appetitisers at other Italian restaurants..

My Gnocchi Roma was very tasty, which was Italian-style potato dumpling pasta served with bacon bits. The portion looked small but it was actually quite filling.

When the Hawaiian Pizza came, we still hadn't finished the pasta & so decided to finish it before starting the pizza. So by the time we ate the pizza, it was not very hot & hence the crust was a bit tough already. Otherwise I think this pizza should be pretty alright too. As you can see from the picture, the pizza was quite big, 8 pieces in fact, & we struggled to finish. For the last few pieces, we had to scrape off the crust to lessen the carbo-intake haha. Luckily the crust was thin & not so wasteful.

I also enjoyed my Lychee Mojito ($16++) as much as my friend enjoyed her Lychee Smash ($12++). The only difference between our drinks was that mine was an alcoholic drink whereas hers wasn't. Maybe the alcohol effect worked on me, I forgot to take pic of this nice cocktail!

After we finished the food & couldn't decide if we wanted to stuff ourselves with desserts (which looked really tempting), one of the waitresses served us complimentary slices of cheesecakes! Wow not bad so many freebies hehe. However, both of us didn't really like the cheesecakes, as it was a bit too cheesy. Fortunately only small slices were served to us. We were in the restaurant for over 2 hours & I must say the service staff were all quite friendly & service-oriented, although they were a bit careless (not to us but 1 broke a plate while another knocked into some board). The good thing about coming here to dine was also, it's not crowded or noisy & we could take our time to enjoy our dinner. I would say this was a good dinner choice we made, in the bustling & convenient Orchard area but yet a well-hidden cosy corner! ;)

It was already 8.30pm on a Friday night & I heard from my 2 friends who were already queuing at this relatively new restaurant at 313@Somerset that they had already queued for a while! I wondered why, but upon reaching, I realised it is because the restaurant has limited seating capacity. Luckily by the time I reached the restaurant they were about to be seated.

There was a Standard Charted credit card promotion set available at $15++ which consisted of a soup, salad, spaghetti & drink of my choice. I picked the Tomato Carbonara as it seemed special, given that I have always eaten either creamy or tomato based spaghetti, but never 2 different sauce bases mixed together. The 2 different sauce bases mixed well together! I had wanted to control my diet by not eating too much after 8pm but it was really yummy! Anyhow I tried my best & the spaghetti portion was too big for me such that there was some leftover though I tried my best. The salad was great too, made with wafu sauce (I think). Oh a special note to mention here, is that we were given chopsticks to eat our spaghetti, truly Japanese style.

Nonetheless, I had one grouse for the restaurant. The ventilation was very bad! We were actually seated near an aircon vent but I couldn't really feel the cool air at all. In addition as we were right inside the restaurant, it was pretty hard to get the waiters' attention. Otherwise the dinner here would have been much more pleasant, as I think my dinner was good value-for-money.

My friend suggested having lunch at this Japanese ramen restaurant near her apartment, as it looks good from the long queues that she can often see when she passes by. Fortunately as it was a Saturday noon, there was no queue yet when we arrived. When we went in we realised why it has frequent long queues, because the restaurant is very small! haha

That aside, the menu selection is also pretty limited, just the 3 traditional types of Japanese ramen. We both ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen Special (All Toppings ($14.80++), and selected less oily soup base and normal noodle texture. I also asked for "no spring onions".The noodles still turned out a bit tough, but we liked the soup base as it was neither too salty nor oily. I also loved the egg that was in my ramen. Oiishi! There were also free beansprouts & hard-boiled eggs on the table in case we couldn't get enough of them.

I wouldn't say the ramen here is fantastic, but if I am in the area, and there isn't a long queue, I wouldn't mind going in again.

I love the food & decor of this restaurant! The restaurant is fitted with very classic European interiors, and makes one feel welcome & cosy.

However, our otherwise very pleasant experience here was somewhat ruined by a few of the waiters who attended to us due to their attitude. In addition, most of the service staff are foreigners, mainly from India. So when we ordered our food we had difficulty understanding what they were talking about & vice versa.

Fortunately, the food that we ordered wiped out the negative feelings we had on their service staff. Here's what we had:

1. Classic eggs Florentine ($14++)I ordered this and it was really wonderful! The 2 eggs were served on toasted brioche, wilted spinach, serrano ham and hollandse sauce, with a side salad with house dressing. I really love the way my eggs were done. I was really full & satisfied after finishing this set.

2. Antoinette breakfast ($20++)My friend's set was a very worthwhile meal with so many items. She had trouble finishing all the food & kept asking me to help myself with her food. I did sample tasting of her food & enjoyed eating the sausage the most. But in the end I was the one who finished up her hot chocolate as she thought it was too bitter. Luckily I love dark chocolate! ;)

3. Antoinette (ice cream served with creme Chantilly) $9++Antoinette is actually Earl Grey ice cream with raspberry jelly with milk chocolate shards ($9++). The Earl Grey ice cream flavour was not distinctive enough upon first bite, but as it melted in the mouth, it got stronger. All I can say is, it's divine!

Actually we were already full when we finished our main courses, but decided to stuff ourselves with at least 1 dessert since this place is famous for desserts & pastries, and we were glad we did! I will definitely want to try the other desserts and pastries at Antoinette again next time.