Au Petit Salut is located just before the Botanical Gardens, perched on a raised plot of land that overlooks Holland Road as it turns towards Orchard. As part of the Dempsey area, Au Petit Salut is a proper French fine dining restaurant, however on weekends they are relaxed enough that you can wear smart casual to eat there. In fact you can even wear casual attire there however you can only eat at the al fresco areas.

The best part about Au Petit Salut are their incredible value for money set lunches. I ordered escargot for starters, it was very tasty with all the garlic herbs. The main was a beef onglet with french cut fries. The onglet was amazingy tender with delicious because of the pan-sear. Finally my dessert was a strawberry shortcake, really icing on the cake for this set meal.

This is definitely a place to come if you want to impress your date yet not blow your wallet!

This place is a quaint little eatery located near the end of Bukit Timah Road, next to Coronation Plaza. The atmosphere gives off this cozy French style which is great for a peaceful and quiet morning's meal. I decided to order the Eggs Royale, which was actually Eggs Benedict but with smoked salmon instead of of ham.

The taste was great but I felt that the the price was just too high for such a small portion. In fact other dishes were also small and costly. The only redeeming point is the taste and service of this place. Perhaps this is a place more catered for affluent people.

Located in the center of the CBD, Honjin is very near to Tanjong pagar mrt, yet when you step inside, you get transported to an old-time Japanese restaurant, with the traditional decor and service staff. There are 2 main sections, the tables with a hotpot system and the conveyor belt section for the sushi.

We came here mainly for the buffet dinner, which has a huge spread of dishes from sashimi to tempura. The portions are good-sized and generally tasty but overall we felt that it was just a bit expensive for the quality of the food. However service was good and the food arrived promptly even though we kept on ordering food non-stop. In summary, it is a pretty decent place for Japanese buffet if you need a change of scenery.

Goto Japanese Restaurant is a kaiseki restaurant set in the heart of Singapore. This small restaurant was set up by Goto Hisao, the owner and chef who was formerly the chef to previous Japanese ambassador in Singapore. I had read about the exquisite quality of their food served here at Goto from the other blogs and so despite the steep price, I decided to at least give it a chance for lunch.

All in all, this was well worth the money for a traditional and exquisite kaiseki lunch. You can definitely feel the attention given for the preparation of the food and how the chef managed to coax the natural flavours out from the seasonal ingredients through light cooking methods. I am now actually tempted to return for the dinner kaiseki set!

Please visit for more pictures: http://dirtystall.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/goto/

In a corner coffeeshop at Tai Thong Crescent sits Zheng Yi Hainanese Beef Noodles, one of the few remaining beef noodle stalls that serve it the Hainanese style. Yummy beef noodles, dry version. The thick gravy is full of rich beefy flavour and taking a big mouthful of the sauce with the noodle is just pure bliss! The beef slices are also very tender although the taste of the sauce overpowers any taste the beef would have.

But it’s okay since the sauce is beef flavoured anyway. It’s topped with peanuts and salted vegetables to add texture and give bursts of extra flavours to the dish. It also comes with a bowl of intense beef soup, cooked from the essence of all the different parts of the cow. It’s rather peppery also with a subtle hint of herbs.