Amazonia is an indoor children's playground where there are giant slides, mosh pits filled with balls, mini golf course etc to cater for the little ones to play and enjoy. In its premises there is also a bistro, which serves a mix of Western and local food. This is where parents can sit and have their meal while their kids.I went for their food tasting and here's what we tried:Apple Juice ($5): Very ordinary, and quite expensive for this glass.Caesar Avocado Salad ($13.80): A lot of ingredients here, including grilled juicy chicken breast, sliced avocado, hard boiled egg, cherry tomato and bacon bits. It was not bad overall, and tasted fresh.Chef's Nasi Goreng ($12.70): The plate that we were served was for doubled up in portion for tasting purposes. This came with a lot of ingredients too, such as a drumstick, fried egg, two sticks of Chicken satay, keropok and some achar. The drumstick was delicious with tender meat, while the satay was marinated and cooked very well!Sweet and Spicy Garlic Tiger Prawn ($15.20): Two prawns were served with steamed rice and cooked vegetables. Unfortunately I felt the prawns didn't taste that fresh. The meat was quite soft and mushy...Chocolate Fondant Cake ($7.50): As a dessert lover, I enjoyed this. It's like a lava cake because the slightly molten chocolate filling flowed out (though quite slowly) upon cutting the cake. The chocolate was rich, but the scoop of ice cream melted really fast.

Overall, decent food here, though I wouldn't choose to dine here given the other food options within Great World City.

For the full review and more photos, head over to http://toroamtheworld.blogspot.com/2016/01/food-review-bao-today-dim-sum-high-tea.html

Their high tea buffet is done 'tapas style' and has no menu because the dishes served rotates on a regular basis. There are more than 40 varieties and it's served ala carte where the friendly service crew will bring out the food for you. This high tea buffet is only available at their branch in Rendezous Hotel. There is ample space and there are some booth seats too decorated in Oriental style. For non-buffet patrons, you may order from their normal ala carte menu at the counter, with the following menu above the cashier counter. Free flow Iced Peach Tea and Ice Lemon Tea is included for the buffet.

Recommended dishes:Siew Mai: Plump with sufficient meatPork Chop: Tasty and flavourfulNyonya Style Steamed Fish: Very freshChives and Prawn Dumpling: Sufficient fillingsChar Siew Bao: Meaty and flavourful. Buns are fluffyZha Jiang Mian: Tasty, even with the noodles aloneMushroom Dumpling: Love the mushrooms inside. But skin a bit thickScallop Dumpling: Fresh prawns and scallop!Liushabao: BEST DISH. Salted egg yolk custard was flowy, not too sweet or buttery. Buns were light and had a tinge of pandan

Average dishes:
Wanton in Spicy Chilli Sauce
Har Gow
Yu Piao/Jellyfish thingy
Chee Cheong Fun
Pork and Prawn Dumpling
Red Bean and Banana Pancake

All in all I enjoyed the food here, as most of them hit the mark for me. Some dishes may be replaced every now and then based on customer feedback and the demand for them. Of course, new ones will be added. There were actually a few more dishes that was available that day but we were too full to try them!

The service crew were friendly and patient with us too, and gave us recommendations for strategic eating haha! What I like about this buffet is that you don't need to order in quantities of a basket, but down to a single piece! For example if you want to try more Siew Mai, you need not order a basket that has 3 or 4 in it, but can simply request for one if you're too full.

And another great thing about this buffet is its wallet-friendly prices! Going on a weekday afternoon will not cost you more than $20 (after taxes), and the most expensive period on weekend nights is less than $27! Quality dim sum at affordable prices - what's not to love?

For the full review or more photos, head over to http://toroamtheworld.blogspot.com/2015/05/food-review-dgood-cafe.html or http://toroamtheworld.blogspot.com/2016/01/food-review-dgood-cafe-revisit.htmlD'Good Cafe is located in Holland Village, just 2 minutes away from the MRT, and has been a popular cafe since its opening 3 years ago.Eggs Benedict ($13.50): A standard fare of two poached eggs nestled on brioche and bacon and drizzled with homemade Hollandaise sauce. It comes with a side salad too. The eggs were runny and overall this was alright.Ham and Cheese French Toast ($9): The french toast had a filling of honey-baked ham and cheese, some French berry jam and served with some fruits at the side. Overall the taste was not bad. The bread was quite soft too. But the portion was way too small and the bread too puny.Bacon Carbonara Pasta ($15): This was tasty, with pork bacon and linguine tossed in mixed herb cream sauce. It's creamy enough, but after a while it did get a bit jelat.

Seafood Pasta ($17.50): Linguine with prawns, squid rings and mussels tossed in mixed herb tomato sauce. My friend thought there could be a bit more ingredients especially given the steeper price paid. But otherwise it was flavourful.Fresh Sea Prawn Aglio Olio ($16): Their prawns are fresh, and the Aglio Olio was fragrant and done al dente.Creamy Grand Marnier Fruit Deluxe Deutsch Skillet Pancake ($12): A few months ago, D'Good started serving Deutsch Skillet Pancakes, and this is a Christmas special flavour. The oven-baked pancakes is finished off with creamy Grand Marnier sauce and studded with fresh dragonfruit, kiwi, blueberries and strawberries. The pancakes tasted more custard-y and eggy, unlike the light and fluffy kind, which is a nice change from the usual offerings of other cafes.

Some hits and misses, but worth a try once. Go during off-peak hours otherwise it'll be quite noisy and crowded.

For the full review and more photos, head over to http://toroamtheworld.blogspot.com/food-review-yum-cha-restaurant.htmlYum Cha Restaurant has launched their CNY menu, and it doubles up as a takeaway/delivery menu too! I was privileged to try their takeaway menu items last week, where the food was delivered to a condominium function room. Here's what we had!BBQ Suckling Pig: This was the centrepiece of the table. A huge suckling pig was layed out, all sliced and cut out into many even pieces. The meat was really, really tender and fragrant, while the skin was crispy. It was a little cold by the time we ate it but I guess it's because it's been left out for a while and we were busy snapping pictures. But considering that it's takeaway, this dish was pretty good!Braised Pig's Trotter with Fatt Choy: The meat was also very tender and it fell off the bone easily. The Fatt Choy (black moss) was yummy. The gravy was a little salty though.Roasted Crispy Chicken: I enjoyed this dish because the chicken meat was flavourful, tender and succulent.Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage in Lotus Leaf: The fried rice was not bad, though lacking in wok hei possibly because it's takeaway. The Chinese sausage, also known as lap chiong, gave the dish more flavour, though it could have been cut in bigger pieces.Salmon Yu Sheng: If you're worried about consuming salmon sashimi, rest assured as the fish is sourced from Norway and it's definitely AVA-approved. The Yu Sheng was quite nice, and one noteworthy thing perhaps, is that they make their own sourplum sauce.I think a lot of thought has been put into making sure that the takeaway food stays warm, presentable and tasty. They use this huge bag (below) where there's some warmer inside that keeps the food warm. This technology is called 'cook tek', and makes the food stay warm for 2 hours.Other dishes (both takeaway and dine-in) include Braised Abalone with Dried Oysters and Fatt Choy, Roasted Crispy Pork Belly and more. Their CNY menus and takeaway menus will be available from tomorrow, 15 January to 22 February 2016. And here's a promotion! A 20% early bird discount for takeaway Yu Sheng if you order before 7 February. For in-house dining promotions, receive a limited edition Yum Cha red packet with a minimum spending of $100, while stocks last.

For the full review and more photos, head over to http://toroamtheworld.blogspot.com/2016/01/food-review-eight-treasures-vegetarian.html

Last week I had my first vegetarian dining experience, with an 8-course meal to boot! Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant is a family business that sells purely vegetarian food, and they've been running for 9 years now at a three-storey shophouse in Chinatown.As part of the OpenRice tasting, we were treated to their Chinese New Year 8-course set menu for 8-10pax, which cost $368+.Sharks' Fin with White Fungus and Wolfberries: First up was this soup, which was a good take on the actual sharks' fin soup, and much much more eco-friendly! The sharks' fin is the white strands in the above picture, and is made of konnyaku jelly, which withstands heat better than agar. The white fungus has a QQ texture and there were enoki mushrooms inside.

 

Fruit Salad Veg. Chicken: The chicken is made of potato while the skin is actually beancurd skin. To cater to the vegans, the mayonnaise is made without using eggs.Thai Style Veg. Cod Fish: The fish is served looking like a cod fish. It is made of wheat and soybean, and the texture is made to feel like you're chewing on fish meat! The Thai sauce is also made in house, and it was just nice to give you a little kick of the spiciness.Veg. Abalone Mushroom and Tou Pau with Seasonal Greens: The presentation was quite nice, with the broccoli at the outer rim and abalone slices layering on top of the mushrooms. Once again the abalone is made of konnyaku, and the mushrooms were really juicy and had that earthiness taste.Cereal Veg. Prawn: This is my favourite dish out of the many good ones! The prawns are also made of konnyaku, and the texture was ON POINT! If I was blindfolded and unaware that this is vegetarian, I'd have thought I was eating the real prawns. The batter wasn't too greasy, but I'd have preferred it a bit thinner.

 

Fragrant Yam Ring: It was a good dish overall. There were mock chicken meat in it and it was very tasty too!Braised Yee Fu Noodles: A common dish served at wedding dinners, I like this dish because it was delicious, with the noodles having the wok hei and stir-fried with lots of veggies!Honey Sauce Veg. Pork: Zenna, the boss's daughter who was hosting us, very generously let us try this signature dish even though it's not part of the CNY set menu. Firstly, the appearance of the dish can already win you over. It looks just like the actual pork belly, and you can see the distinct layers! Secondly, the taste was equally good too! The konnyaku jelly used to make the 'meat' was soft, yet retaining some bite to mimick the actual pork meat. Highly recommended!Rainbow Yu Sheng Veg.: This was supposed to be the first dish but we decided to leave it till the end. This was pretty much the same as the normal ones you can find out there, just that the 'salmon' is also made of konnyaku jelly! It looks just like salmon sashimi (though it's cut more rectangularly) and tastes as slimy and chewy too! Now you don't have to worry about whether the fish is fit for consumption, given the recent spate of freshwater fish incidents.Fruity Mango Pudding: I thought this mango pudding was a bit sweet. Other than that it's an appropriate dessert - something light and refreshing after so many dishes. (:

Overall, Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant is the place to try tasty vegetarian dishes that will impress even the non-vegetarians! It changed my impression of vegetarian food. They use a lot of soy beans, konnyaku jelly in their food which are healthier too, and don't use egg, onions or garlic. For those of you who are interested to visit them during the upcoming CNY period, they are open every day and reservations are strongly encouraged!

Thank you Zenna for being a wonderful and friendly host and OpenRice for the tasting!