An impromptus trip to Alexandra Retail Centre (ARC) for lunch because is conveniently two MRT stations away from my workplace. I know is lunch peak hours at 12 noon so everywhere is packed, even for Mcdonald. I need something to fill that hungry stomach so after a few rounds, I settled in for my meal at Fresh Healthy Cafe.

I chose their Turkey Club Mango (The Perfect 10 menu) at $10 nett. The menu display states that my choice is 400+kcal. And that's what I want because planning for a quality run after work. You can choose from panini, wrap or salad. I'm curious about Panini so I chose that. It also comes with a Mango smoothie. But for $10, it is overpriced though the food is nice.

So Panini is some grilled bread. Quite crusty and soft with every bite. Definitely better than normal sandwich set we had elsewhere. The ingredients used are fresh as you can tell by the crunchy sound from the vegetables. There are of course turkey bacon, tomato and cheese (I guess).

And as for their smoothie, I can taste the Mango flesh and is pleasing to the palate because not so sweet. Actually it tastes in between a mango smoothie and sorbet. I feel the ice crusty.

The cafe is small with limited seats for you to dine in. But if you want a takeaway, it is available. And they serve the food up to your table. Okay, though overpriced but if it includes everything like GST and service tax in the price of $10 too, it is definitely worth still. I do recommend all to try 'The Perfect 10' menu and choose Panini. It is nice!

I ordered a Crispy Fish Fillet with Chicken Rice $4.80 (comes with free drink). Chose Black Pepper sauce for the fillet and a Thai Chilli sauce to go with the rice. It looks so pale-looking for the presentation and kind of disappointed because my first thought was, yet another wrong choice.

This time round, I had all the salad, coleslaw first. Just in case the main doesn't taste good. The rice is not fragrance enough, as usual. The Thai chilli sauce is spicy which is very nice to go with the rice. But traditional chilli sauce from chicken rice stall is still better. As for the fish, though is pale-looking but luckily it tastes crispy enough. That teaches me again not to judge from appearance again. And the fish is soft in texture plus not oily. Dip in black pepper sauce, it is quite a unique way to have it together with rice. For once, I give it a thumb up. I finish every bits.

The difference between their Laksa and Laksa Yong Tau Foo will be the latter not having any tau pok. But in order to minimise the damage for a sinful lunch, I opt for Laksa Yong Tau Foo which I select 8 items at $2 plus $0.30 for noodles and $0.30 for Laksa gravy only. This is still quite affordable as compared with those at food centres. Or if you want to have purely Laksa (with noodles and tau pok), it costs only $1.80/$2.00. Usually they will cook all the selected food items plus noodles first and then pour in the gravy. Even so the laksa gravy is quite concentrated and the noodles (yellow noodles) actually absorb the taste and it is very delicious. But you will tend to feel a little bit thirsty after that so do drink water to gush out the unavoidable sodium it has for the overall. The food items do contribute to the saltiness sometimes.

This stall is shared between one that sells goreng pisang and the other that sells only fried kway teow.

So today I had my lunch a plate of fried kway teow and the goreng pisang stall is not open. Not sure of the opening hours.

Ordered a $3 plate (or $3.50) and came very fast. A reasonable portion for me and they have minimal of vegetables, eggs, cockles and fishcakes. I probably should have told them I don't want cockles since I don't take but just slip out of my mind. So there are different sizes of cockles and of course not to waste, I had a few small ones for a virgin try. Don't really like the taste. As for the overall taste, it's good. The taste of kway teow is savoury, sweet and smooth texture. It smells good too when serving up. They probably had a good control of the heat while cooking. What's more important is the colour. The darker the better.

Having tried Canton Paradise many times, the taste never fails me! Canton Paradise is my definite choice for dim sum because of affordable prices and fresh ingredients used in their food.


Sliced Fish Congee
They have a variety of congee to choose from and to try something new, we had sliced fish congee. I suppose their congee is the best. Smooth and is like drinking congee with every mouthful. One thing good is their sliced fish are fresh. Quite a generous serving for the fish.


Egg Noodles in Superior Soya Sauce
I wonder why they sprinkle sesame seeds on top on the noodles but this plate of egg noodles is so savoury that I suggested to my boyfriend that we should have it the Hong Kong style as seen in drama where they serve congee and noodles for breakfast. This combination is awesome. Best part, the noodles are not very oily. It makes you feel fuller towards the end.


Cheongfun with Prawn
The reason why I choose prawn fillings rather than char siew or plain ones is because I can't get enough of their fresh prawn. So fresh and springy. And yes their cheongfun is smooth and you can just slurp in easily. But remember to dip some of the sauce. It further enhances the taste.


Prawn Dumpling aka Ha Gao
You see! I just can't have enough of their food that have prawns. The whole peeled prawn is within the thin skin. You definitely enjoy your every bite. So springy. 4 is just not enough.


Xiao Long Bao
What I look for in Xiao Long Bao mostly is on their skin, the fillings within are good enough and of course the soup inside too. But the thickness of the skin is very important. You won't want to have thick skin that taste hard and no matter how good the fillings within are, the first impression or bite spoil everything. But here, they meet my requirement. Texture is just right. So everything is perfect.

Siew Mai
I don't really like it because it tastes weird. My boyfriend said maybe because of the caviar on top but I think is not. The first bite, it tastes a little sour and I had a hard time swallowing the next bite.


Glutinous Rice with Chicken in Lotus Leaf
I recommend this. Although the chicken within is very minimal but this is definitely one good choice we made. The glutinous rice is so soft that you may have a hard time picking up with your chopsticks. We can't say that it is too watery because it is not. I think it might be the rice they used and the amount of water they used in steaming. But after that, please have more tea for digestion purpose.


Prawn Dumpling Soup
A bad choice because the skin tastes weird. I guess is sour. Like they have put for days. The fillings are good but the skin spoil everything. Definitely will not choose this again. Had one dumpling and that's it.

Overall this meal we spend about $60++ and because I have joined their membership program previously, I have $13 discount from the bill plus if you are an OCBC cardmember, you can get rebates too.