See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/09/12/nice-lunch-reddot-brewhouse-dempsey-on-9sep2015/
reddot brewhouse @ dempsey offers good value set lunch in a nice ambience & also free parking.

i had a few lunches there previously including the one here. 3 of us went there for lunch again on 9.9.2015. ^^

the 2-course set lunch + drink had gone up to S$20 from S$18 previously (S$24 for 3-course from S$22 previously).

i had the reddot salad – great salad! & a good helping. 1 friend had the smoked salmon salad. very good too.

& he had the seafood marinara spaghetti. it was good too & a good lunch choice at this price.

i wanted to try the salmon. it came with truffle cold capellini, very sweet vine tomatoes & mesclun. cold capellini was very nice & fragrant. the salmon was excellent!

the special for main course today was pan-fried seabass. my friend said it was great and the plating was quite impressive too.

very pleasant place to have a relaxing lunch with old friends.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/09/12/interesting-8-course-chinese-dinner-mitzo-on-5sep2015/

there is a ongoing UOB credit card 1-for-1 promotion at mitzo.i came here for a lohei dinner in mar2015. it was an ok, in fact better than expected, experience.

as mentioned then, mitzo is also apparently positioned as an inventive cocktail bar, serving some cocktails from a teapot.

so we decided to try out the S$108pax (S$54pax after 50% discounts) 8-course signature set menu on 5.9.2015.

we were in luck this evening. F1 is round the corner & they were rolling out some new F1 cocktail, and for this evening, we stumbled onto a free F1 complimentary cocktail promotion. it tasted pretty good actually, not too sweet. i think it was rum & some citrus & other concoction.

the dimsum trio was fine food. taste was pretty good, if not awesome.
radish puff was a very good pastry, and tasty. the breaded prawn roll was a little heavy, & average. the crispy glutinous pumpkin in custard was good.

the mitzo special char siew was good, but a tad too salty. it is not the standard of the chargrilled pork neck 炭烧猪项肉 at imperial treasure nanbei we had recently.

the lobster bisque with poached scallop was a bit of a fusion oddity. it looked gluey like a chinese sweet sour soup. but the taste was superb! & with so much cut scallops & lobster pieces! this was the best dish this evening. ^^

the deep-fried prawns with creamy lemon sauce was good, very competent. a good crisp outside, tender & tasty inside. its a regular dish like any wasabi prawns or salted egg prawns with a different dressing, ok but not awesome.

the oven baked chilean seabass with lemon grass was good standard. not among the better chilean seabass i had, including oonboard SIA!

the pan-fried lamb chop with enoki mushrooms was very tender, except it tasted by geyland lor 9 horfun kind of chinese very tenderised kind of tender. so i was just ok with the dish not not really my thing.

the other very tasty best dish of the evening was the braised thick beehoon soup, with prawns, scallops & cod. i really enjoyed this. finish all the carbs. shiok!!

the dessert was not really my type. avocado cream with ice cream…i took just a little. i always like sesame dumpling. still this time i did not finish it. well, this not a set i would want to take too often. if the consideration were just money vs ingredients, this was certainly a very good deal!

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/08/13/great-sg50-5-course-dinner-oso-on-11aug2015/
organised a belated birthday for a close friend at oso on 11.8.2015. ^^

we took the SG50 5-course dinner menu. we had 7pax.

we were served some rye bread & focaccia with olive oil & balsamic. quite ok.

first was a cured salmon with caviar & some shaved fennel. it was nice. not exceptional but a great starter.

we had cream of cauliflower soup. soup was smooth, quite tasty, a bit thick. pretty ok but no better than my own cream of cauliflower.

pasta was also average. good pasta certainly, but quite ordinary, no stand out.

we had 4 orders of veal cheeks & 3 orders of fish. dory not my choice fish. i tried some from my friend. it was pretty ok. i guess good for a dory fillet.

the braised veal cheek with beetroot – stracotto was excellent though. tender, totally consistent & not very beefy, quite gentle & quite excellent bite, not the sinewy stewed meat type. i would say one of the best braised meat.

& the crotata – choc lava tart was marvellous.croatata – choc lava tart it’s like any good choc lava cake, with the tart giving it very good combination of texture.

the restaurant was told that it was a birthday celebration, so they provided a tiramisu cake for the birthday, a good gesture practiced by most good restaurants.

however, when i called to reconfirm the reservation on the day, the person who answered told me he reserved a nice quiet corner for us. but in fact we had 7pax seated on a table 6 with 1 chair at the end & next to the kitchen with a lot of traffic. that would have been quite fine if the restaurant was full but it was just 50% occupied, so i think that was not quite the level of service for a good restaurant.

anyway we had a great evening. food was good, especially the braised veal cheeks & the choc lava tart. the cured salmon was pretty good as well. dinner was S$50pax for 5-course. we were all quite happy with the meal & ambience.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/08/05/shiok-as-before-2pax-dinner-tunglok-signature-on-4aug2015/
had not been to tunglok at orchard parade for a while. last was in sep2014. was deciding where to eat out for dinner. we had japanese recently at kuriya dining, and tomorrow i am cooking 12pax dinner at home which is mostly western/italian.

so we went to tunglok signature at orchard parade hotel for dinner this evening on 4.8.2015.

for me, the food never dissappoint, just as shiok as ever. don’t think other diners share my views though. the place had just few tables, quite empty.

we ordered the garlic pork 蒜泥白肉. it was good. i liked it & would order it again, but honestly it was not better than my own garlic pork 蒜泥白肉 though the style was quite different. i like mine more in terms of the flavours & tenderness of my belly pork but this here was good & looked very nice too.

we had the lie tong 例汤. it was really good! ^^ my helper made very good lie tong 例汤 at home quite often, so this had to be really good to impress us. they had old cucumber & dried cuttlefish & softbones soup base. it was really tasty!

we ate up the 3 large pieces of pork softbones before remembering to take photo.

the steamed razor clams with tanhoon was really good too. this was as good as the ones we often had previously at ah yat grandstand & very less frequently at jumbo at dempsey.

top restaurant standards & very much better than the ones we had at the daipaidongs 大排档 in hong kong.

we ordered the garoupa fillet with brocoli & lily bulbs 百合. this was excellent too. wok hae was very good. the garoupa fillet & vegetables – brocoli & lily bulbs 百合- were very well done. i can definitely do this dish at home, maybe i will start with a vegetarian one for my niece’s coming brthday.

i was looking forward to the lobster noodles. it was still good, but a far cry from the lobster noodles we had here previously, or at any good restaurants eg xin restaurant. just look at the old photos of the “real” loster noodles. that’s how it should look like!

& i always like the dessert 雪中情怀. it did not dissappoint. really excellent, the combination of fresh coconut, mango, grapefruit, vanilla & coconut ice cream was super! i take this everytime!^^

with 50% for 2pax amex palate discounts the food came to S$100nett for 2pax & we got free parking as well.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/07/17/satisfaction-guaranteed-teochew-muay-ye-shanghai-on-16jul2015/
when i was queueing for shi le yuan 实叻圆糜 the other day, the guy in front of me said ye shanghai was cheaper & had a larger spread, and he only came to shi le yuan because ye shanghai was closed that day.

so i came with my sis & b-i-l to try out ye shanghai on 16.7.2015. it’s not bad!^^ we came at 1030am so no queue, but also not all dishes were ready.

we ordered total 10 dishes. it came to only S$20.60. so the man was right, a bit cheaper than shi le yuan, more variety of dishes just as good but not really better. maybe the veg dishes were better here.

there was no ngoh soon (small treadfin) & mullet 乌鱼 they only served those in the evening. we ordered the “kee her” fish. i thought it was very good actually taken with tau jeon, good proxy to mullet 乌鱼.

the big intestines was good very well cleaned, nice texture, slightly milder lor 鲁 taste, i quite like it.  the kong bak belly pork too. nice big intestines.

veg here very nice. the brinjal was every tasty. pig’s skin was very good. just like the ng ah sio one we had recently at rangoon road, no fat, all collagen.

salted fish minced pork 咸鱼饼 was very good too. somewhat different from shi le yuan but equally good.

only dish not great was the steamed egg. not much taste, maybe that was to be expected of a steamed egg with nothing in it.

peanuts nothing to talk about.

spinach was very good, tasty!

tau kee was the usual.

cabbage was very good, very sweet & tasty. we had a second order.

so after the 10 dishes, sis went to order 2 more, cabbage for S$1.and pomfret for S$4. pomfret was good too. i didn’t mind it but maybe i prefer the kee her more.

so we had 10 dishes (top & above) for S$20.60. then greedy added 2 more dishes so total S$25.60 including 3 porridge. really good meal & totally satisfying with or w/o the additional 2 dishes.