See my full review & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/11/04/huatings-sg50-6-course-lunch-on-3nov2015/
a good younger friend wanted to buy lunch on 3.11.2015.
i wanted to try the huating 华厅 SG50 6-course lunch (not shy la..haha!) so suggested the place. ^^
i have not been to huating maybe >10yrs? not sure.
used to come here when i was having the ala carte card which gives 50% discounts for 2pax. liked the braised goose especially but that was like for a very short window & never had that since.
so we mostly had braised duck & also the lobster noodles. but like i was telling my friend, lobster noodles now we can have it anywhere, & 2 of the best for me are tunglok signature & xin cuisine. :-)
we had a vegetarian goose starter.
first course was the mushroom fritters & seafood salad.
mushroom fritters were good, crispy batter & tasty mushrooms.
prawns & scallops salad was competent.
overall not a particularly fine starter, but i guess a good restaurant standard, competent.
second course was sweet & sour soup 酸辣汤.
this soup is not my favourite. still i remembered it was a rather tasty soup here eons ago. well, dishes change & tastebuds change too.
i felt it was a bit below par for a huating standard restaurant.
c/w what i had at xin cuisine recently, at least that was fragrant, tasty & chokeful of ingredients as well.
even the colour & look were much better.
i always like sea perch. the taste & texture is like cod. this one sat on an emarld tofu with minced pork sauce.
photo looks ok, and overall the taste of both the sea perch & the minced pork tofu were good too.
it was a good restaurant standard. we both thought that the combination was not the best matching – a quite robust minced pork tofu competing with a sea perch.
c/w min jiang’s steamed sea perch, simple & dignified, somehow huating’s version look a bit like food from past decades.
the lamb rack was ok. meat was tender, sauce was a bit overpowering. there was a bit of gamey taste which the sauce helped mask.
i would say very competent dish. a bit of tacky decorations?
prawn noodles? for me that was really quite below par.
alan’s S$5 “why eat har” prawn noodles beat this hands down.
so would any at tunglok signature & xin cuisine.
even my own big prawn noodles (copy tunglok’s) better than this la….lol,,,^^
dessert was a mango pudding with fruits.
overall, it was a very enjoyable lunch, catching up with my friend about his business & family.
food was pretty good i supposed considering it’s a S$50pax 6-course set with sea perch & lamb, but really far below the expectations i had for a restaurant like huating. so either the restaurant standard has fallen far behind or they are not giving representative dishes for the set (which defeats the purpose of having a promo).

see my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/10/23/doable-lunch-itacho-ion-orchard-on-23oct2015/
had lunch with a friend at itacho ion orchard today on 23.10.2015. ^^
we were there at 1.15pm, hardly any queue & friend already seated at a table when i arrived.
this friend is quite active in charity work. she is receiving some award from the msf minister this evening.
i ordered the chirashi don for myself, S$14.90.
there were 2 amaebi, 2 tamago, 2 salmon,, 2 hotate, 1 hamachi, 1 tai, 1 kajiki, 1 ika & 1 saba. total 13 pieces.
quite decent really at S$14.90. hotate was very good. so was the amaebi. tamago & salmon were pretty good. only the tai was tough. sushi rice was not good. i made better tasting sushi rice.
there were promotion items like the salmon sushi for S$0.40, but 1 person could only order 1 piece.
so i ordered the salmon sushi with mentaiko for $0.60.
my friend had the unajyu oyakodon. it looked ok.
she said it was good.
& she ordered some fatty salmon.
it looked good, but for S$5.10 it was not great.
lunch was S$41.65 for 2pax.
quite doable but nothing great.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/09/02/mediocre-food-tunglok-xihe-grandstand-on-30aug2015/

we go to tunglok often but have never tried tunglok xihe. this evening we decided to try the food at tunglok xihe @ grandstand on 30.8.2015.

there was a 6-course S$68 menu which seemed ok at 50% palate discounts, so we ordered that.

there are ample parking at grandstand & the ambience of the restaurant was pretty good. there were quite a few expat family tables. guess grandstand is quite a go to place for expat.

the tan jia braised sharksfin fishmaw soup turned out to be the best dish for the evening. it was chokeful of ingredients & wife liked it a lot. very good standard, like tunglok signature. i think majestic’s is better though.

the steamed fish was very poor. not sure what fish? menu said 野生鱼wild snakehead? the bill said sea fish. it had soil taste so maybe it was snakehead. it could be garoupa. not sure. anyway it was very poor. our steamed fish (red garoupa from chinatown market) at home would beat this every time & by a big margin.

prawns was pretty good. both preparation were crispy outside & tender, bouncy inside.

the vegetable was good. as good as the ones we like at tunglok signature orchard parade.
it had wok hae, colour & good taste.

can’t say the rice dish was bad. but it was no comparison to (say) the cheap steamed chicken feet & pork ribs rice at timhowan in hong kong. there was no kick in this preparation – rice not fragrant, meatball just meatball & sauce non descript. at least it was not a bad dish, just non descript.

hashima dessert was pretty good though. quite refreshing & i guess good ingredients.

the bill was higher than i expected. i think S$87 for 2pax. the reason was that the 10% service was charged on the full amount & not after the 50% discount. i queried the staff as this was not the practice of other tunglok outlets. the staff explained that since June2015 they had changed to the current system. i guess it was not as good as having the previous deal. it’s just a matter of what one considered the “real” price but anyway i am ok for the staff to have the 10% service at the “normal” un-discounted price.

i may still come back during weekdays to try the ala carte items & dimsum. for this set i think it was really mediocre & don’t think i will take it again.

A friend cooked an excellent lunch today for 6pax on 19.12.2014.
after that 4 of us went to JEM (jurong east mall) to watch “exodus”. carpark was full so we parked at westgate mall which was linked to JEM at level 2.
after the movie we walked back to westgate mall & had a light dinner at timhowan 添好运 (still full from the excellent lunch). We dutifully ordered the crispy char siew pao.

i must have had one too many of this. had much better crispy char siew pao at canton paradise several times. didn’t like it as much it now. Har gao was good but for me canton paradise’s har gao & imperial treasure teochew’s har gao were better. 马拉糕 was never my thing, even at hong kong timhowan outlet – an enigma to me. tasted like “wa kor kuay”.

teochew dumpling 潮州粉粿 was competent. fu pei quin 腐皮卷 & fried carrot cake were ok. anyhow overall the food was really mediocre, which to me meant a disappointment. dinner was just S$39 but we had very little food for 4pax.
for me, there is no reason to have these average food when i can get better food at canton paradise, imperial treasure & crystal jade for largely the same price.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2014/12/23/average-too-ordinary-dimsum-timhowan-添好运-at-westgate-mall-on-19dec2014/

Burgers not really my kind of food. I take McDonalds very occasionally & once when i was travelling with son at lake tahoe. i guess i am quite ok with them at US$1 a piece for breakfast (lake tahoe in 2007) or if it is S$2.

i have tried gourmet burgers sometimes. guess they are ok but not what i do when there is a choice.

we had this groupon voucher at relish gardens expired 30.11.2014. i called some days before they agree to honour the voucher for dinner on 1.12.2014 as the other days were fully booked. quite sensible for the restaurant. if you want to promote the restaurant why be rigid & negative & upset the customers. unfortunately most restaurants do not think that way, so 1 point to relish.

anyway post promotion on 1.12.2014, restaurant was empty only 2 tables occupied at 8pm.

we ordered the rocket beef burger & char siew burger. beef burger was ok, but honestly both my wife & i thought we each made a tastier burger than this. wife made a nice one recently, & i tried one maybe 1 year ago (the very first time) & both my daughter & her friend liked it. i think it was tastier than this.

wife thought the one at toast much better than this. probably. anyway i not so hot on toast kind of food either.

if anything i would go for the S$11 D-I-Y steak sandwich at nassim hill bakery (after 1 for 1 promotion when they have it).

char siew burger? no char siew here…a sweeter tasting kong bak??? wife said like eating kong bak pau. the braised belly pork was good, but again honestly kong bak pau tasted a lot better, both the braise (not so sweet) & the combination more to my taste.

fries ok la….

they forgot we ordered 1 fry & 1 salad, so they gave us a free mesclun salad. another point to relish(unfortunately no points for food).

nothing to comment this salad. they should do some japanese ponzu sauce. wife wanted mojito. it was not included in the voucher, so we ordered separately.
& wife remembered the deconstructed strawberry cheese cake we had in wild rockets of old, must be like 15years ago?

well this was very good. the biscuit felt like there was caramel in it. there was the cream cheese with hint of strawberries & the cream & strawberries. excellent. think i am going to try this at home.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2014/12/04/ok-food-relish-gardens-on-1dec2014/