Yum Cha Restaurants recently launched their Chinese New Year takeaway menus where you can enjoy Yum Cha delicacies during your reunion dinner within the comforts of your home.
When I saw the plate of Salmon Yu Sheng ($38+ for small; $68+ for large) before me, I was thrilled because I love to 'lo hei'! It's one of the fun parts of Chinese New Year when we shout our wishes and make a mess out of the whole plate.My first 'lo hei' of the year! I'm quite reserved when I do the 'lo hei' with other people I do not know well but with the family, trust me, I'm very expressive and messy.
Taste-wise, I found the Salmon Yu Sheng exceptionally delicious with a slightly sour taste that sat very well with my tastebuds. Apparently, Yum Cha makes their own sauce and the slightly sour taste came from Yum Cha's homemade sour plum sauce. On top of that, the salmon pieces were great complements to the Yu Sheng .The BBQ Suckling Pig ($220+ for whole) was heavenly and was by far my favourite dish of all.
The layer of skin was nice and crispy and interestingly, the meat wasn't as oily as I would have expected. I would say that the taste was also rather addictive and I had to restrain myself from taking another sinful but OH SO GOOD piece.Surprisingly, the Roasted Crispy Chicken ($40+ for Whole) wasn't that great for me.
It was a little tough for my liking but it could also be because the chicken was left in the open for a while and was no longer warm. Maybe I should try this again when it is freshly roasted.The Braised Pig's Trotter with Fatt Choy ($38+ for Half) was so-so for me, largely because I'm not a fan of Fatt Choy but I have to commend that the Pig's Trotter was very tender.
If you enjoy eating Fatt Choy, you will probably like this dish!The last dish we sampled was the Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage in Lotus Leaf ($38+).
This dish stood out for me because of its fragrance and its mild sweetness. I also loved the fact that there was a generous amount of ingredients hidden within the rice. Another dish that I had to restrain myself from over-eating simply because it was so damn addictive.

Hey everyone!
If you're a meat lover and don't mind travelling to the West to satisy your meaty cravings, you might want to read this post to find out more about this Brazilian Churrascaria, an all-you-can-eat grilled meat haven called Carne & Caipirinha.

Carne & Caipirinha (please don't ask me how to pronounce it) is a restaurant located along Sunset Way in Clementi.
I wouldn't say that it was a very convenient location considering that I was a little lost trying to find the restaurant but with Google Maps, you will eventually reach your destination.I was there for a tasting with the lovely folks from Openrice SG.
Despite it being located under a HDB block, this 74-seater Brazilian restaurant which offers a marvelous alfresco dining experience actually looked really posh. In terms of ambience, they are definitely comparable to those atas restaurants in Rochester Park or Dempsey Hill.The restaurant serves food in buffet style so be prepared to be pampered by a wide range of food. The prices for buffet are as follows:
Happy Hour
Mondays to Saturdays: 5.30pm to 7pm
Sundays & Public Holidays: 5pm to 6pm
Adults - $39.90
Children (5 to 12 years old) - $18
Children (under 5 years old) - FREE
Regular
Mondays to Saturdays: 7pm to 11pm
Sundays & Public Holidays: 6pm to 11pm
Adults - $49.90
Children (5 to 12 years old) - $24
Children (under 5 years old) - FREEOne of their must-trys from the buffet line was the traditional Brazilian Feijoada, also known as black bean stew. Definitely tasted better than it looked! I also adore their Cheese Bread and was glad that the cheese wasn't too overpowering in its taste.Saw this on the table and didn't pay much attention to it until I realized that this was actually a 2-sided disc to indicate the pace of your meals.
In Carne & Caipirinha, the passadors (who are chefs as well as meat servers) will move around from table to table with their meat skewers. If your disc is facing the green side with the words 'Yes, Please', the passador will serve a portion of meat right onto your plate. This serving style is known as rodizio which is a popular dining concept in Brazil. So cool!Had the privilege to sample different types of meat such as pork sausage, beef rump, beef hump, lamb leg, chicken thigh and even chicken heart. Oh my god! I was quite scared to try chicken heart at first but well, it didn't taste as bad as I expected. It actually tasted like any other meat except with a more rubbery texture.The restaurant's beef and chicken are directly imported from Brazil and I would say that I actually prefer the chicken rather than the beef served. The chicken meat was really tender while I wasn't used to the texture of the beef although I'm more of a beef lover. I normally detest lamb as well but strangely, I was able to finish my portion of lamb leg without complaining about the taste.

One thing worthy of highlighting was that the meat served were roasted using charcoal fire which helps to retain the meat's rich flavours and also causes it to emit a smoky fragrance. I guessed that's why the meat looked so tantalizing all the time.
I also really love juicy grilled pineapples even though I know that they are really easy to make in reality.When you are done with feasting and want to subtly convey the message that you do not want any additional meat served onto your plate, simply flip the disc to the red one with the words ' No, Thanks'.We also got to try 'The FireBomb' ($10 per serving) which was exceptionally interesting for me because I got to witness its preparation.
Firstly, the chef will toss freshly cooked Carbonara pasta into this huge Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese Wheel.After which, he will pour a flaming cocktail into the Cheese Wheel which will then char the pasta and melt the cheese, resulting in...This plate of yummilicious and extraordinary carbonara pasta!
The blend of cheese, mushrooms and that hint of alcohol within the pasta made the taste very memorable and was definitely the highlight of my night.

(Also reviewed on: http://gilmangirl.livejournal.com/539494.html)

Hey everyone!
Last week, I was invited by Openrice SG for a food tasting at Boruto Singapore, a Japanese sake and tapas bar located along South Bridge Road.Upon stepping into Boruto Singapore, I was marvelled by the rows of Japanese sake barrels that made the bar looked grand and impressive.
Never knew that sake containers could serve as decorative purposes too.We had our tasting on the 1st floor at their tapas bar and initially, I thought that the seats on that level were rather limited.
That was when the staff decided to bring us to the 2nd floor for a tour where there was a sake bar and plenty of seats.In my opinion, Boruto is a great place to chill out with friends if you want some peace and quiet from the crowd.
If you're looking for a place to have a business meeting and you want to impress your clients at the same time, Boruto is definitely worth checking out. In fact, they have comfy rooms like these if you require more privacy.Boruto was previously a bank, as could be seen by the safe boxes that the bar owners had retained in their sake store. Ingenious eh?Time for the feasting!
Our first sampling dish was this photogenic plate of Saga Gyu Tataki ($28.80).
The Japanese beef was seared with saffron and was bursting with flavours. Personally, as much as I adore its taste and soft, chewy texture, I'd have to admit that it gets very salty if you consume more pieces of beef so share this dish if possible and eat moderately!
The flowers on the plate were edible but they were tasteless to me, possibly because the beef was already overpowering in terms of its taste so I couldn't taste anything from the flowers. At $28.80, this dish was admittedly on a pricier side but I supposed you're paying for expensive and quality ingredients.Another cold dish we've tried was the Ahi Tataki ($12.80), which was basically tuna with olives, chilli, Japanese leek and wasabi yuzu.
It was superbly tasty and delicious. For someone who cringes at the taste of wasabi, I actually found the wasabi used very mild and tolerable.Crispy Rice Cracker Tacos ($12.80) were lovely to indulge in even though I had to pop the entire taco into my mouth in a very unglamorous way to avoid dropping the ingredients.
That said, this was a yummilicious treat indeed. Think a crunchy cracker layer topped with chilli salsa and guacamole of such creamy and smooth consistency. I absolutely adore this snack and was tempted to go for more except that there were no more left because my fellow tasters have already finished them. HA HA!My ultimate favourite was the Tori-Take Roll ($15.80).
It was a Chinese inspired dish of crispy chicken stuffed generously with shitake jam (oooh yes, I love shitake mushrooms!) and drizzled with Chinese dark sauce. Being addictive and irresistibly yummy, I loved it so much that I decided to be thickskinned and announced to all that I was going for a second piece.Unfortunately, Uni Pasta V.1.1 ($35.80) wasn't to my liking even though it was an improved version and came with a hefty price tag.
This Japanese pasta was topped with sea urchin roe and Hokkaido white wasabi and I honestly didn't fancy the overwhelmingly strong taste of the sea urchin. It was too much for me so I had to stop after a bite of this.We were also treated to desserts which made us all excited because there's always room for desserts in our stomach.
Warabi Mochi ($8.80) was incredibly soft and was accompanied by a 'melt in your mouth' texture. In fact, the taste was so memorable that I could still remember how it tasted till now. Definitely a must-try, in my opinion!Chocolate Surprise ($12.80) was another dessert that all of us enjoyed, mainly because you cannot go wrong with vanilla ice-cream over a warm and sinful chocolate base.
The generous amount of peanuts gave the dessert an additional crunch too. I had to remind myself not to indulge too much in this.Lastly, we had Truffle Creme Brulee ($8.80) which was pretty interesting, especially when I've never eaten a truffle-flavoured creme brulee before.
This dessert was pretty much a hit or a miss - if you can't stand the taste of truffle, then you wouldn't be able to appreciate this. Fortunately, I enjoy creme brulee and can take truffle so this was okay for me. It would be great if it was less watery though because after a while of sharing, it just looked like some wet, milky mess. Ha ha!

Ended the night with a group photo taken with my fellow food tasters.
Oh yes, it was a cosy gathering of only a few of us and we thank Openrice SG and Boruto Singapore for hosting us!