For full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2014/09/late-lunch-at-eighteen-chefs-nex.html

I've heard about this casual diner for a while and was keen to try but it always has a long queue during meal times. My opportunity came when I was on leave and had an appointment to fix my hair at Nex.I arrived at around 3.50pm, there was no queue but the eatery was <80% occupied. Many were youngsters and students, perhaps due to the ongoing student price promo.This place adopts a self-service model where patrons check the menu and fill out an order chit by themselves and proceed to the cashier to make payment. Dishes will be served to the table when ready. Cutlery and condiments are available beside the cashier for patrons to help themselves.I ordered their special 'Design Your Own Dish' Pasta in Broth. Patrons can follow a 4 steps process to choose their own soup base, pasta type, main ingredients and optional top up for extra ingredients. There is also a Be Your Own Chef menu for patrons to customize their own baked rice or baked pasta.My order was a Tom Yum Soup Fusilli w/ Seafood & additional Salmon cubes for $17.30. I topped up $3.30 to make it into a Combo meal with drink (Ice Lemon tea or Soft drink) and ice cream. You can top up more to get Soup of the day and garlic bread to go with the main course.

After several minutes wait, I was served with a huge bowl of piping hot soupy pasta with generous amount of ingredients. The main ingredients consists of fresh prawns, squids and mussels with some veggies like broccoli, cauliflower and carrot in the soup. The seafood were very fresh and succulent. And, the additional pan fried salmon cubes were nicely done as well. The tom yum soup was very rich, tangy and really spicy...delish!The Homemade Ice Lemon tea was pretty good, and the small serving of Vanilla ice cream was ok, nothing really special.All in all, I quite like my dining experience at the Eighteen Chefs, food is good with huge serving and prices are down to earth. They do not charge for service and GST, so all prices are NETT. I can see why the eatery is popular with the younger crowd. I would gladly return again during off peak hours to try other dishes.

For full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2014/09/bedok-local-delicacies-bedok-chwee-kueh.html

After shopping at Bedok Mall for some travel essentials and a pair of walking shoes for my Swiss trip, I headed over to Bedok Interchange Hawker to tabao my fave chwee kueh and soon kueh for family.

Fatt Soon Kueh is right beside Bedok Chwee Kueh. I always patronize both stalls at the same time. They sell soon kueh, gu cai kueh, png kueh and ang gu kueh, all priced at $2.30 for 3pcs or 80 cents each.Check out the myriad of delicious ingredients packed within their thin and translucent skinned kuehs! I'll let the pictures do the talking.

For full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2014/09/dinner-at-crystal-jade-steamboat.html

I recently attended a food tasting session, organized by Pinstripes and Crystal Jade, with my friend Wendy. Crystal Jade has recently revamped their menu from casual Cantonese dining to a new hybrid concept that includes a All-You-Can-Eat Steamboat Buffet plus Ala Carte Cantonese delights. We will be sampling steamboat buffet with two recommended soup base and selected all time favorites from the Ala Carte menu.The customized Steamboat table that has a built-in induction cooker. The digital temperature control is located by the side of the table, that means no more having to adjust temperature with greasy buttons...cool!The brand new Ala Carte menu still contains quite a bit of offering from the former Crystal Jade Kitchen's extensive menu. Popular Cantonese Roast Meats and Dim Sum items are retained, along with a range of popular HK style dishes.A glimpse of the price points of their affordable Steamboat buffet that includes a wholesome spread of more than 35 ingredients, free flow beverages and soft-serve ice cream.We did a quick recce around the buffet counters and found a good spread of ingredients including fresh mussels, mushrooms and assorted vegetables. A few kinds of carbos like instant noodles, beehoon, steam rice and porridge.Fresh meats includes thinly sliced shabu pork, chicken and beef and two kinds of marinated minced meat paste (chicken & pork) for making meatballs in the soup. The meat slices are stored in the fridge where patrons can make unlimited orders thru the waiting staffs.The condiments station, has a myriad of more than 10 types of sauces including Crystal Jade's Homemade special sauce, Sambal belachan, Sesame sauce etc. and fresh scallions and coriander to add flavor to the sauces.Crystal Jade's QQ rice that is a blend of quality Thai jasmine rice and glutinous rice with a springy texture. A special Scallion oil is available for pairing with the QQ rice.Drinks and Dessert stations, with assortment of soft drinks, coffee & tea and soft-serve ice cream (3 flavors) with two choice of toppings. We were served with two kinds of soup base, the most popular Japanese style Pork Bone soup and the new HK style Curry soup. Four other soup choices available are Tomato soup, Miso soup, Superior soup, and Spicy Mala soup. Patrons can select two kinds of soup bases per pot. We munched on some snacks available at the buffet counter while we waited for the soup to heat up. Crispy Fish Skin, Fried Chicken Skin and Fried Mushroom Stems, they were pretty addictive to eat.Apart from Steamboat, we were also served a Roasted Combination Platter $25.80++ and a couple of Dim Sum items for sampling. We had Roast Duck, Honey BBQ Pork (Char Siew) and Roast Pork Belly, served with Plum sauce and Mustard sauce. Needless to say, the roasted items were prepared with quality ingredients and high standard execution. The roast duck meat was plump, tender and moist with a slightly crispy skin, the roast pork belly has nice crackling skin and the char siew was sweet and juicy. Recommended.

Shrimp Dumpling $4.60++, has chunky fresh prawns wrapped in translucent skin. Prawns were crunchy and succulent, delish.Siew Mai $4.20++, with well marinated minced pork and topped with a whole prawn and a dollop of crab roe. Another nicely done dim sum item.Deep fried Yam Puff w/ Minced Meat $4.00++, light and crispy birdnest-like crust with smooth fragrant yam paste beneath and savory minced pork filling. Very tasty albeit a little messy to eat though.Pan-fried Fish Cake w/ Radish $4.00++, an old-school dim sum in HK that is now difficult to find. Fresh fish paste with shredded radish sandwiched between crispy fried wanton skin. It'll be perfect if served with some creamy mayo dip.Our soup is finally coming to a boil, we quickly added in the raw ingredients to cook. I had a taste of the lighter pork bone soup first, and found it to be sweet and flavorful, with or without the ingredients. It was really good and I had 3 servings of it before moving on to the curry soup.The curry soup has a heavier taste and was a tad greasy, I felt a bit jerlak after having only 2 small servings. I personally prefer the pork bone soup to this one.At the end of dinner, I was feeling rather full but still gotten myself one serving of the soft-serve ice cream to complete the meal. Soft-serve is a type of ice cream that is softer than regular ice cream, as a result of air being introduced during the freezing process. It was light, velvety smooth and not too sweet...yummy.We had a great time sampling the new menu items from Crystal Jade. The Steamboat Buffet is good value for money, with unlimited serving of shabu meat, beverages and dessert. We would've prefer them to include fresh prawns to the spread though, but for the price they are charging, one wouldn't feel short changed. I would recommend it to my family and friends.

For full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2014/09/dinner-at-le-chasseur.html

Yay for another impromptu dinner with evil sistas. The excuse for meeting up this time is distribution of homemade mooncakes by our talented baker sista. 

The venue of choice is the zichar stall with a French-like name, Le Chasseur, located at the industrial park area beside Eunos bus interchange.They occupied almost half of the Food Center premise, cordoned off with their own big round tables and chairs. Weekday evenings are pretty quite here, we get to choose where we like to sit. The staffs took order for drinks first while we ponder over the menu items on the self service order chit.We all had the cooling Grass Jelly drink $2.50+, served in a tall cup topped with refreshing wolfberries. This was loaded with smooth wobbly jelly and not too sweet, recommended!

We finally placed order for 8 dishes for 5pax to share. All dishes are served one portion only, except for their signature claypot rice which comes in small or large portion. Portion is small so we can order many dishes to try.

First up, Fried Chicken Wings $6.50+. Crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside, very well executed comfort food. We ordered another serving after wiping out the first one.Sambal Kangkong $5.60+, nice and crisp kangkong with extra belachan chili served by the side for easy customization of spiciness. Very good too.Ngor Hiang $5.00+, another wonderfully executed home style dish. The flavorful minced pork rolls comes with bits of carrot, chestnuts and other vegetables. One roll is not enough for us, so we had seconds.Oyster omelette $9.00+, this one tasted pretty normal, nothing to shout about.Assam Pedas Fish $38.50+, choice of fish head or whole fish, we picked the latter. The portion was quite huge, and the fish has fierce looking eyes. The assam sauce was thick but I feel it is not tangy enough, it needs to be more sour to have kick.Crispy Pork Knuckle $30.00+, extremely huge serving of deep fried knuckle, pre-cut for easy consumption. The crackling skin was the highlight of the dish, the meat however is quite tough due to the deep frying. Overall, passable dish, and good value for money for the large portion.Claypot Chicken Rice (Large) $21.00+, Le Chasseur's signature dish that is a must order at every table. We could already smell the enticing aroma when it arrives at the table. The staff mixes the rice with some oil and dark sauce just before they served it onto our table.The dish lived up to its reputation of a signature dish, it is utterly fragrant with smoky aroma and packed with generous serving of tender chicken meat, tasty lup cheong, mushroom and bits of savory salted fish. Two thumbs up!After a hearty meal, we had a single portion of the Black Fungus Soup $3.70+ for dessert. We didn't realize it was a dessert till it was served at the end. It was a sweet soup with 'caramelized' softer than usual black fungus slices, and some wolfberries. Pretty good and unique dish, we were pleasantly surprised.We thoroughly enjoyed our dinner at Le Chasseur, food quality is quite impressive and prices are pocket friendly even though they charge GST. Service is prompt and efficient as well. We would definitely recommend this place to all easterners!

For full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2014/08/sumire-yakitori-house-bugis-junction.html

We are back to having impromptu dinners again after a rather long break. The venue of choice, Sumire 笑 Yakitori House at Bugis Junction. This restaurant is the Tokyo brand's first oversea venture outside of its 15 outlets in Japan. Sumire is a casual Japanese style beer house serving grilled skewer items as its main specialty.Upon stepping into the restaurant, you'll be greeted with loud "Irashaimase!" from the entire crew in the restaurant, a usual practice in Japan that is trending in Jap eateries in SG. There is an open concept kitchen where the chefs prepare their customers orders under the scrutiny of the public eye.
We didn't notice this at first but realized later that the kitchen hood that they are using are very good at what it does, the entire restaurant and its patrons didn't reek of BBQ smell at all.The eatery adopts the new iPad ordering system like many modern restaurants in SG. The friendly staffs will explain the ordering process in detail for all new visitors.Once seated, a complimentary bowl of Cabbage Shiodare was served. Fresh raw cabbage leaves drizzled with Japanese salt dressing are a good way to cleanse the palates in between rich tasting dishes, as explained by the staffs. The salt dressing was really delish.Placing orders was a breeze after we got the hang of how the menu lists works. We ended up ordering 17 dishes in total...kinda ambitious for 4pax!
Yuzu Salmon & Avocado salad $3.90++, fresh salmon and avocado cubes served with yuzu ponzu dressing. Nice and refreshing.Choco Balls $2.90++, braised quail eggs in Jap soy sauce. The tiny eggs were nicely cooked with soft creamy center, but we all find the soy sauce a tad too salty for our liking.Sashimi Santen Mori $17.90++, 3 kinds of fresh seafood served with a slice of lemon. Its extremely fresh and juicy, we liked.Tsukune (chicken meatballs) for Ladies $4.90++ per stick, served with Teriyaki-Mayo sauce and Melted Cheese. The Ladies version are made up of 3 bite-sized morsels for easier consumption, whereas Man's version has got two larger balls (sotong ball sized) which have a more satisfying bite for the guys.The chicken meatball itself tastes pretty much like those sold at takeaway kiosk like ToriQ, quite ordinary but the generous topping of teriyaki sauce and creamy mayo makes up for the lack in taste, overall quite ok.
Grilled Tori Kawa (chicken skin) $2.20++, one of my fave chicken parts, a rare find in SG. This was very well executed, the slightly charred edges was crispy and non charred part was tender and springy, coupled with the savory teriyaki sauce...perfection!

 

Daikon Tower $7.90++, Sumire's rendition of the popular oden dish is very interesting, with chunky slices of daikon stacked into a tall tower and dashi broth with several slices of chikuwa and some konjac at the base, topped with bonito flakes. The broth was light yet flavorful, and ingredients were yummy too. Definitely recommended.Bakudan Korokke $7.90++, Sumire's signature dish, a huge croquette ball with a whole soft boiled egg wrapped in the center. Once sliced open, the creamy yolk oozes out from within.This dish looks special but taste so so, the potato was quite dry and bland, we were not very impressed. I wouldn't order this again.
Goma Tebaage (sesame chicken wings) $7.90++ and Crispy Gyoza w/ Yuzu dip $5.90++. We liked the chicken wings, very tasty and skin has a slight crisp, pretty addictive to eat. The gyoza on the other hand was forgettable.Yari Ika Teriyaki $8.90++, grilled sotong with teriyaki sauce. For the price tag, we got quite a big serving of grilled squid which was delicious too, great value for money!Ebi Mentai Mayo $4.90++ per piece. Prawns were fresh, not the best ebi mentai I've eaten but pretty darn good for its price tag. I would order this again.Tamago Oroshi Ponzu $6.90++, this dish was perhaps the only dish that we felt is not worth ordering. The egg was overcooked and didn't taste sweet which we feel is not right.We managed to wiped out all the 17 dishes we ordered. Food quality was mostly hits rather than misses, with pocket friendly prices to boot. For the amount of dishes we had, we each paid only $38 including ++. Service staffs are friendly, helpful and responsive. We love dining at this cozy eatery and will definitely return again for more value for money Japanese fare. Do make reservations in advance cos many people had already found out about this gem, the restaurant was running a roaring business serving a full house crowd even on a weekday evening!