My friends & I were craving for the famous Toa Payoh Central rojak which always has long queue at this basement food court at Toa Payoh Hub, and chanced upon this cosy little cafe in a corner of the food court.

The cafe allows customers to bring in food from other stalls in the foodcourt. Nice Seeing that it was pretty spacious with just a few occupied tables, we decided to sit there with our plate of rojak and their other lunch orders, while I ordered Dory Sambal (complimentary soup of the day & a glass of fruit punch) from With A Pinch of Salt. My Dory Sambal set, which comes with a soup of the day and a glass of fruit punch, cost $8.90. I think it is value-for-money in a cosy and thoughtfully furbished corner of the food court. There are even some cosy sofa seats for customers to rest on.

One word of caution to those who may not be able to take much spice, beware if you want to order this Dory Sambal, it is SPICY! After eating half of the dory I could feel my tongue "burning" haha. But generally the food is yummy.

One of my favourite local dishes is the Rojak, and I am glad that there is a stall that serves great rojak in my neighbourhood.

Previously Hojiak Rojak was located at Blk 846 Yishun Ring Road coffee shop, but it has moved to Blk 848 coffee shop now, or should I say it has expanded to Blk 848 hehe. The friendly stall owner is now at Blk 848, but I think the original stall at Blk 846 is still under her management.

What my mum and me love about the Rojak here is that the lady boss is very generous with her peanut topping, the youtiao is very crispy and overall she is not stingy with her servings.Even if we order takeaway and do not eat it immediately, the Rojak does not turn soggy, like my packet that you see from the picture above. It's also quite spicy so if you can't take too much spice, don't forget to tell her to just put a bit of chilli instead.

They have black and white version of the Rojak, but I always like my Rojak with prawn paste sauce (black). Yummy! It lives up to its name indeed!

NB: "Ho Jiak" is "Delicious" in Hokkien

I didn't even know this restaurant existed, if not for my friend who made a lunch reservation for 2 without telling me. It was money well spent & I'm grateful that she introduced this wonderful restaurant to me!

Chef Daniel's Kitchen is located at the rooftop of Illuma (level 7), collectively known as "Tornado" with other restaurants there. It presents east-meets-west fusion cuisine & its set lunches (include soup of the day & dessert) are very affordably priced at $10.50 (deluxe set lunch) or $16.50 (executive set lunch). This restaurant is quite popular so it's safer to call to make a reservation before you head down, to avoid disappointment. The restaurant decor is pretty modern & upmarket. Who can believe that its prices are so "commoner"? haha. The restaurant staff are pretty attentive & service-oriented too.

Both of us ordered the Deluxe Set lunch. My main course was Grilled Teriyaki Chicken while hers was Panfried Dory Fillet. As the set does not include drinks, you have a choice to top up $2 for any glass of soft drink or add your own beverage. She ordered a Sprite while I decided to heed the waiter's recommendation & try out the Premier Lychee Red Tea ($5.50) which falls under the Gourmet Chinese Tea category.

My Lychee Red Tea was very fragrant & I could even smell the lychee! The tea was filtered thru' the white porcelain cup & taken out of the glass once done. Interesting presentation! I was allowed to have maximum 3 glasses of the tea but I could only manage 2 glasses in the end. The Clam Chowder soup is also great, especially for those who really enjoy savouring the clam bits, as there was really a lot until I found it hard to avoid eating it lol. Free flow of bread was also served with the soup but we only took 1 slice each, as it wasn't well toasted or chewy. The teriyaki sauce on the Grilled Teriyaki Chicken was really yummy, & I finished every bit of it, together with the house salad. I tried a bit of the Pan-fried Dory Fillet but thought the ratatouille sauce was too sour for my liking, although the dory fillet was very fresh & tender.I was quite full already before the dessert was served & actually forgot we still had 1 last course. However the sight of the dessert really tempted me to quickly take a bite haha. The cake was very well done, not too sweet but still had the sweet mango taste. Even those yellow sago bits were delicious too.I would definitely want to visit this restaurant again to try out the other set lunches available. It's really a place worth recommending to all my friends & family. ^^

The restaurant was pretty empty on a Saturday lunchtime, and there were plenty of seats available.

The side dishes came first and it looked pretty standard, nothing too sophisticated, just the usual kimchi, cucumber, potato, black beans. Sadly it is non-refillable... shouldn't they follow the traditional Korean restaurants & do the same? Shortly our Korean rice wine ($25+) came - in traditional wine bowl with ladle & 3 small bowls for drinking the wine. Cool! This is "traditional" haha. We drank the 1st sip (unshaken) and the alcohol taste was pretty strong. However subsequent bowls we had tried to stir the wine & it was very sweet! ^^Soon, our main attraction of the lunch arrived - the KFC! We ordered a Chicken Combo Set (Small) ($20+) where 3 pcs of each flavour were served - (A) Original Fried Chicken, (B) Garlic Chicken & (C) Sweet & Spicy Chicken. All of us felt that the original fried chicken was the best as it was the most crispy. The sweet & spicy chicken was very sticky, maybe because we ate it last & it was not hot anymore.Finally our Army Stew ($35+) arrived. It was filled with many ingredients - spam, noodles, mushroom and lots of vegetables/ kimchi. The soup base was pretty spicy too, shiok! I think this is comparable to the authentic Army Stew one can find in Korea. We were so full & satisfied after the whole stew was finished. Lastly we were served a bottle of Yakult each when the waiter saw that we had finished our food. Probably for easier digestion? This was really a good Korean lunch, though a bit expensive!

It's best to visit during lunch as the prices for dinner are marked up by at least $5+ per dish and many lunch items aren't available during dinner, plus it's very crowded at night.

I've always heard rave reviews about Manna Restaurant located along Telok Ayer Street but never had the chance to check it out, till I attended a course nearby that day.

When we entered the restaurant, its interior design made me feel like I had entered an old Chinese restaurant, but somehow I feel cosy in there heehee. Here's snapshots of what we ordered:The dishes were all pretty authentic. I especially loved the Spicy Stir-fried Chicken ($18++)! It was stir-fried with chicken slices and rice cake and kimchi, & the spice reminded me of Korea! You must try this if you visit this restaurant.

We ordered a small Assorted Pancakes dish ($20++) & I thought of the one I had for my first dinner in Seoul in Mar. But a pity that when it turned cold it didn't taste as nice anymore... & wonder why was it more expensive than the Spicy Stir-fried Chicken? tsktsk

Thankfully my friend was daring enough to try out the Bean Paste Stew ($15++) as I know that not everyone can take the smell of this stew. Fortunately she enjoyed it & thought that it tasted just like the Chinese bean paste. But 1 bad thing is there wasn't a lot of stew for the price we paid, the pot was pretty shallow.

We also liked the 6 different types of side dishes served, but were too full to ask for refill haha. In fact we could only eat about 1/3 of the Stir-fried Chicken & I asked to takeaway the remainder home, which was finished up by my family pretty quickly.