My fling with Awfully Chocolate started at East Coast Road and it did not start well. In fact, I hated their original dark chocolate cake. It was way too dry to deserve any credit. I did not understand the hype, see no reason in wasting my calories on a shop which seem too busy with becoming a media darling than to bake a humble chocolate cake. Thus, when it opened another outlet nearer home at Cluny Court, I did not even give it a second look.

Until Awfully Chocolate diversified. At first I was cynical. I remembered how principled they used to sound. How chocolate cake should be purely enjoyed on its own, how it should be rich and non-confusing in taste, how there was no need for variety. Blah. Blah. Blah. However, as more outlets sprout out all over the island, I gave in. Weakness of the mind is my greatest weakness.

AND. This slow poached chocolate with Bailey Cream is GOOD! The chocolate is dense but not too heavy. The taste of cocoa is distinct. The chocolate can be slightly coarse and smoother texture will make this a perfect dessert. But I can live with it. What's more it came with a generous amount of light cream to break the monotony of eating chocolate. Great dessert I must say. Hmm, I wonder if I should give the original cake another try then?

Simply Bread has a special place in my heart. I love the decor, the food and love chilling out at their charming cafe. One only need to smell their freshly baked bread to feel revitalised. I have always been a great fan of their sticky bun and am sure it will up the satisfaction quotient for any day. Indeed, the bun was sweet but not overtly so. The stickness really lives up to the bun's name. We love the generous amount of cinnamon and it went extremely well with a cup of hot tea. Indeed, most tables in Simply Bread has at least an order of their signature sticky bun. We also had their new filled rolls with just bacon and eggs. I was completely sold by the clean and fresh taste of the simple rolls. Simply Bread never fails to deliver! Yay!

3 Inch Sin has been around for quite awhile. After a morning walk at Botanic Gardens, we just dropped by before going home. As I am on this perpetual dieting mode, we ordered the mini cakes to try 3 flavours. 3 Inch Sin - the cakes live up to half the eatery's name as the 3 cakes were really 1 inch each. As for the sin, the cakes were too small to give any. The mini molten cakes were simply too small to have any molten chocolate interior. The way-too-frosty vanilla ice-cream was not sinful either. If I ever return to 3 Inch Sin I may just give the actual size a second chance and the ice-cream a miss!

Ruyi is Tung Lok's take on chinese fast food. I like the white and orange decor. I like the fuss free environment to have a quick and cheap meal. I like the very spicy and numbing hot and spicy soup ($3.90) a lot. I like the liberal use of sichuan peppercorn and vinegar in the thick soup. I like the $1 prawn paste chicken wing promotion. I like the distinct taste of the prawn paste seasoning. I dislike the rather cold ruyi fried noodles ($6.20), it will taste much better if the noodles are fried on spot. I dislike the paper and plastic cutlery. But I like the soup so much that I had it on an evening and went back for lunch again the next day. I will go again soon.

Lao Beijing is another Tung Lok's casual dining outlet. I remembered seeing looooong queues outside its plaza sing outlet when their teatime buffet was featured on TV. They do not take reservations so people will start to queue up waaaaay before the buffet starts. Years later, when the hype completely died down, we simply breezed into the restaurant at 3pm sharp. There are items at the side where we can pick or we can order xiao long bao, noodles, pan fried buns with the wait staff. A pretty good tea buffet system!

I used to like their ala carte xiaolong bao and was kind of expecting the same quality at the buffet. However, the skin seem to get thicker and thicker towards the end of the buffet I still like xlb's broth, it's as yummy as ever!

Their sichuan spicy soup was flavourful and full of sourish and spicy kick! We thoroughly enjoyed the soup.

The cold beancurd skin and jelly fish was also delightfully light and delicious. Most Tung Lok outlets serves crunchy and fresh jellyfish. So cannot go wrong with that.

Finally, we round up our meal with some refeshing almond jelly. While we simply spend about an hour at Lao Beijing but we had our fill!