Veggie Cottage is a 100% vegan eatery located right behind The Verge shopping mall, along Dalhousie Lane. Vegan food doesn't seem like the sort of food that I normally would try as I never thought mock meat was a close substitute of real meat. By a strong recommendation by a friend, we decided to head to this cozy little place for dinner! I definitely fell in love with this place. Recently opened in mid-2013, this place is still quite unknown to most people and still rather quiet. The interior design of this place is European-styled with mini paintings hanging from plain white walls. There were also the menu items handwritten on a few blackboards, adding a sense of personal touch to the place. The furniture were all-white, giving it a clean feel. It's as if I stepped into a person's living room... I felt really comfortable and fuzzy on the inside! There is also a children's drawing corner to keep kids busy while the adults indulge in their after-meal chatter. The whole construction of the place is really thoughtful. Their signature dish is the Spaghetti Bolognese ($6.50), which I thought sounds like something I would normally order... did I already mention this is a vegan place? It's amazing how they created this dish without adding meat at all, and yet achieve an extraordinary dimension in the sauce by using merely soy, mushroom, onions and tomatoes! The sauce is savoury, less tangy and does well to complement the al dente pasta. That being said, the texture of the pasta itself is just perfect albeit it being slightly on the bland side. I'm impressed and have already forgotten about the existence of meat in my life. For first-timers at Veggie Cottage, try this. A main dish turned side-dish in accordance to a special request - Sweet & Sour Tofu [Rice Set] ($6.50). This would be better with some rice because the sauce is overly tangy and sweet for me. Immersed in the thick gooey tomato sauce are carrot slices, bell pepper slices, mushrooms and tofu. I would order something else though.Out of my love for caffeine and soy, I was thrilled to see this on the menu: Soy Chocolate Latte ($4.50). It was really smooth and the temperature was lukewarm but not scalding hot, making both my stomach and my tastebuds really happy. The soy taste could have been a little more obvious though, and perhaps they could allow customers to choose the proportions like bubble tea shops (ie. 30% latte, 70% soy) or something similar.

The service is here is really thoughtful, and the lady at the counter/taking orders was friendly and patient with us That being said, there was no service charge/GST. The prices were really low for their much-better quality relative to those restaurants in shopping malls. One of those hidden gems that I wished lesser people would know of (so that I can always have empty tables when I return or in case they marked up prices in future), but I think Veggie Cottage deserves so much more attention and hype!

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A slowly rising Taiwanese dessert shop, Bing Bian is not one to be looked down upon. Only two outlets (Millenia Walk/ Peace Centre) available across Singapore, this humbly growing franchise places their emphasis on quality food and service.

For Bing Bian's Yu Yuan's series, they have the Soya Ice Set, Peanut Ice Set, Sesame Ice Set, Green Tea Ice Set, Taro Ice Set and Red Bean Ice Set. For me, I find the Taro Ice Set ($4.90) most appealing so I ordered that for myself I was far more impressed by Bing Bian's Yu Yuan dessert than any other place because:

1. Styrofoam packaging that really kept my dessert completely icy even though I took such a long time to finish it - about 30 minutes. It didn't even melt much at the end!
2. Very generous ingredients and mix! There are red beans, taro balls, sweet potato balls, aiyu jelly and a lot of taro-flavoured ice.
3. The taro balls and sweet potato balls are really strong in their flavours and very chewy. I love it a lot! Even though I was having flu at that time, I could taste the flavours quite distinctly.

I don't really like red beans, but well that's my own personal preference. The red beans were kind of hard, as if they were half-frozen. Oh well, it's not called Bing Bian (冰变 - ice change) for nothing.

The lady manning the shop also greatly encouraged my friend and I to try their Fruit series, and we chose a safe choice - Mango Ice Set ($4.90).This bowl comprises fresh and generous mango cubes and thick puree, as well as mango bubbles that pop in your mouth! Those mango bubbles remind me of bubble wrap but imagine bursting them in your mouth! So satisfying and refreshing! Almond flakes add another dimension and bite to the dessert. Highly recommended to try it out.

I want to commend the lady and the guy manning the shop for their excellent service: they didn't pressure me to order straight away upon entering the shop, nor did they rush my friend and I to get out even though they were about to close and even reassure us it is ok to stay as long as we wanted! The lady was also great help in introducing the desserts. Great passion at work! Excellent service as such always seal the deal for me when deciding if I should make a return visit.

A quiet dessert place hidden away from the main city area, I have the selfish urge to keep this gem a secret lest it gets flooded with people!

New Station Snack Bar is located at the top floor of Far East and not difficult to locate, it's one of the food places along the entire food stretch. (I wanted to try Susan Chan but it has a perpetually long queue)

This place has got really delicious and proportionally affordable prices. For a budget food hunter like me, I'll happily surrender my money for food of this quality. I ate at this place for two consecutive days, how's that? And I'll go back to this place next week again to try some of the other things on the menu because both meals have been more-than-satisfying.I tried their Sweet & Sour Chicken Rice, a generic dish found in quite a few hawker centres and therefore would be able to help discern if the restaurant is of good quality. Their Sweet & Sour Chicken Rice is so good that I actually ordered another bowl of rice. The sauce is very thick and more sweet than it is sour, and drenched the rice adequately. I am more impressed with the chicken - it was piping hot when served and it was super crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

I often order this "safe" dish at hawker centres (Redhill Food Market and also ABC Brickworks Market) and cannot finish it at all because their chicken would be sodden with the lackluster sauce and becomes repulsive.

But here at New Station Snack Bar, I was so impressed by how they managed to keep it so fresh and delicious. I polished off the whole plate and was still raring for more, but worried for my waistline so I stopped there. Oh well, there's always a next time. On a side note, I find that the ratio between the chicken/sauce and the rice could be better balanced - I finished everything nicely only with a top-up of another bowl of rice. Supposedly it should have cost $0.80, but the super friendly auntie only charged me $0.30! She cleverly won over my heart and my stomach completely. The 'next time' I dropped by here was the next day! My colleague recommended their specialty dish, the Salted Egg Pork Ribs. Strangely, they are two ingredients (salted egg & pork ribs) that does not appeal to me and I would not order them on my own accord. But since it is their specialty dish and I was already quite impressed with their Sweet & Sour Chicken Rice, I decided to give this a go.

When I heard the name of this dish, I thought the salted egg would appear as... eggs. But it is actually the sauce that the pork ribs are drenched in. The salted egg yolk taste is only subtle but sufficient, and amazingly, complements the pork ribs quite well. The pork ribs replicate the impressive crispy-exterior-tender-interior sort of texture that the chicken had. Really enjoyed this dish a lot, although I still prefer my Sweet & Sour Chicken Rice Again, I finished the entire plate!

There are also a lot of things on their menu, but I would strongly recommend to try their dishes with rice. Because I'm a rice-bucket and thinks that their rice dishes look more attractive.

A tip for you if you intend to go - this place is almost always crowded to the brim during peak hours, so go as in pairs or fours to get a seat quicker. You might have to share a table with others (happened to me on both occasions) but trust me you'll be too absorbed in the food to realize that!

My friend introduced me to this yong tau foo place at Lucky Plaza, and oh my, I never looked back at other yong tau foo anymore. My Favourite Café is hidden at the top floor of Lucky Plaza next to Jollibee, and enjoys quite a fair share of patrons especially during lunch hours. You will need to queue for about 10 minutes before you get a space, but it sure is worth a wait. Look at how everyone is digging in like mad. Yummy yummy Huge selection of things to put in your bowl: you can choose 5 items and one noodle type for only $3.50! I love the mushrooms - so huge and juicy and I can't get enough of it! I wanted to just grab like 3 mushrooms but that would be a little obsessive and a lack of variety. So.. I shall do that the next time ;DAfter you finish choosing what you want, there are five noodle types that you can choose: mee, mee kia, mee pok, etc. Usually I just buy the mee pok It's super nice. Trust me. When I'm looking at this picture, I can taste the godliness of this bowl of yong tau foo. Especially the juicy mushrooms and the meatballs. The more I look at this picture... the more I'm making plans to go grab this next week again. There's the sauces provided but I don't really like/need them, so I just left it alone after trying a bit of each. The soup itself is flavourful enough, so I think there's no need for the extra sauces. It might get a little squeezy because you have to share tables with strangers, but anyway you'll be busy stuffing yourself with the food to be uncomfortable with that!

Tip: Go in pairs to get a seat faster.

Tom's Palette is still my favourite ice-cream palour after trying other ice-cream shops like Udders and Daily Scoop! It's definitely cheaper than the rest ($3.40 for a small cup of two flavours and if you have a student card from Poly/Uni you get 10% off the whole receipt). They have gotten much more adventurous than before, trying strange flavours like Candy Crush and Lavender!

The Misses: Candy Crush was really disgusting, I must say. Please try the flavours that you intend to order before you order it in a full cup. I tried a little bit of Candy Crush and nearly turned diabetic on the spot. Mystery flavour was butter(scotch?) and also made me shrivel a little inside. Literal expression: :S The Salted Eggyolk was also a little lackluster today.

The Usual Favourites: Granny's Favourite, Black Sesame, Vanilla Creme, Yuzu, Blueberry Cheesecake. (Black Sesame + Vanilla Creme - a good combi to mix)

Go ahead and try the flavours before ordering them! Have fun, I did!

As usual, excellent service with a smile despite the crowd.