Ever heard the saying that all good things are cheap? No? Well, it certainly seems to ring true for this bowl of Laksa. Hidden in a small coffee shop along Jalan Besar, it's such an unassuming coffee shop that you wouldn't think that there is a hidden Laksa treasure here. The place is quite hot like most typical coffee shop but for good food, just gotta bear with it! The Laksa was prepared by this sweet lady manning the pot. She was meticulously soaking and draining the noodles several time with the Laksa broth before finally scooping a final bowl of the soup into the bowl to serve. I think she's cooking the raw noodles with the heat of the Laksa broth and by doing so she instills more flavour than you would get if you cook the noodles with hot water. This is one of the few places they still use Charcoal to cook their Laksa. Don't stand too near, it's really hot! Food cooked the traditional method always seem better for whatever reason. Perhaps we appreciate the extra efforts it take. There is a long queue when we got there. At $2 a bowl, it's such a steal! How many place can you get a bowl of piping hot delicious Laksa (with cockles!) at $2!! It may not be a huge bowl but enough to fill you up! The Laksa looks so sedap! And the unique thing is you only need a spoon to eat it because they have cut the noodles into bite size so there's no need for chopsticks. Good idea right? And look at that generous handful of cockles. Mix the chili in and you've got a wonderful bowl of Laksa! The soup is spicy, thick and you can taste all the bits of hebi (dried shrimps) in it! The coconut taste is not too strong which is nice! A little bit oily but man, I was slurping up every last mouthful of it. The noodles were cooked well, slightly al dante, and soaks up all that spicy goodness of that broth. Shiok! Here's another shot where you can see that the noodles have been snipped to bite size portion. Rejoice lazy people rejoice!

Came to MAD for a team lunch and from the moment you walk in, you will see a display of furniture, books and other items that will make you think you've walked into a modern furniture stall instead! Very nice concept as it made me curious to venture in further. Check out the interior. They use a very pleasing color scheme of soft blue, vibrant red and black. I really do feel like I'm in a modern arts display area! It did worry me that this place would fare better in the decor than the food but will find out when the food arrives. There are more private seating areas along the side of the restaurant. I like the whole curtain decoration which makes it look like one of those private areas at opera houses and the red wall gives it a very sexy feel. Like a setting for one of those secret rendezvous meeting between lovers at a ritzy opera. Hehe! The iconic symbol of MAD is the Chinese Opera face as seen on their napkin. I guess the juxtaposition of a traditional image like the Chinese Opera in a modern layout is to show the concept of mixing the contemporary and the old school style. More images of the Chinese Opera face on coasters but in vibrant pops of color! I really love this kind of Andy Warhol design. Our first dish is the Deep-Fried Liu Sha Bao ($4.80). Now the Liu Sha Bao I've usually had are the steamed and soft variety. This deep fried version has a harder crust but the inside has the usual oozy salted egg yolk. Honestly, I still prefer the steamed version but after a few bites, it does grow on you. Think of it as deep fried man tou dipped in salted egg yolk. Next dish is the Black Angus Siew Mai ($6.20) and unfortunately I do not fancy this dish much. The beef is quite tough and didn't carry much flavour. My idea of black angus beef was it to be tender soft and juicy, but alas the siew mai turned out quite dry. From this cross section, you can see how "compact" the beef is and how dry it is. I had to dip it generously in chili sauce to get some extra flavour to it. Now comes my main dish - the Josper-grilled Wagyu Beef Claypot Rice ($26). This wonderful claypot creation comes with one damn sexy hot spring egg and is drizzled with aromatic truffle dressing. I cannot tell you how exquisite this decadent dish is. It's so good I had to bold the name. Tender slices of Wagyu feed cooked to medium rare perfection, the large onsen egg, the smell of truffle oil... I was in food heaven. Crack the egg and mix it with the rice and tender beef, then just dig in. It was silky, savory and I love every morsel of it. The beef was really good (I wish there were more slices!) and that egg gives me a Japanese feel as people in Japan likes to mix raw eggs to coat their rice to be sticky. Believe me, you will be scrapping the bottom of the claypot as this is super good! To end the meal, I had one of their signature cocktails - The Strawberry Shortcake ($14). This drink is mildly sweet, only a slight bite of alcohol and comes with a shortbread biscuit. The color is very pretty and girl. I find it refreshing and a good beverage to have on a hot sunny day!

The menu could be a hit and miss so I would say go for their wagyu beef series!

Koh Grill & Sushi Bar has been getting a lot of hype (especially from bloggers) recently so I decided try it out myself for lunch. It was an impromptu decision and I was quite worried that I would have to queue really long, but surprisingly I got in about less than 10 mins of waiting. I had to take the counter seat, but hey, I'm there for the food so can't complain. However, you will have to expect a long wait for the food. It's not exactly very fast service, but the staff were efficient in topping up tea and were polite. Here's the view from the counter seat. The man in this picture seems to be the one mainly dealing with the sushi, sashimi and maki orders. No wonder it takes a long time for food to come with only one shifu (master) at the deck. This spot is also a temptation zone - look at all those delectable raw fish! Drools!Our first dish was a plate of Salmon Sashimi ($8) and it was divine! These thick succulent slices of salmon with gorgeous marbling are super meaty and fresh! It practically melted in my mouth. A very good start to the meal and you'll be fighting for that last slice on the plate. I think this is called the Sake Aburi ($4.20) and it's basically torched or seared Salmon topped with small fish roes. This is really addictive! The salmon has a good fatty quality to it so the meat just melts in your mouth with an almost smooth buttery taste. The fish roe gives it that pop of saltiness and texture (as they literally will pop in your mouth) and I would definitely recommend this dish if you're heading here. We had 2 makis for lunch. This one is the Crappy Maki ($18). Yes that really is the name, I'm not trying to be funny. Hehe! It's crispy soft-shell crab and seaweed wrapped with seared swordfish belly. I like this dish as the crunchy crab plays off nicely with the soft oily swordfish, however it does slightly overwhelm the taste of the swordfish as it is a pretty light flavour fish. The swordfish itself is really fresh and delicious when eaten by itself. It's hard to bite this in half as all the ingredients will start to fall apart so take it all in one bite people! You get the full melody of all the ingredients. Now the main star of the show - The Shiok Maki ($16.80). I love the name because it's so Singapore-esque. There are 2 types of Shiok Maki - Generation 1 and Generation 2. I think Gen 1 uses eel whereas Gen 2 uses prawns. But since most of the reviews I've read recommended the Gen 1, that's what I ordered. When it first arrived, I stared at it in awe because look at all that gooey oozing cheese! And those sexy scorched marks. I'm a bigggg sucker for melted cheese like this. The inside of the maki consists of charcoal grilled eel wrapped with lightly roasted salmon and covered with that cheese. I believe I tasted mentaiko as well which makes everything taste 10x better! Okay, I know some people complain that the taste of the cheese overwhelms the taste of the eel and salmon. Partially, I do agree. Because the cheese is quite strong, you can lose the salmon and eel flavour especially for those portion that has more cheese on it.

But hey, if you're a melted cheese fan like me, you'll overlook that. I savoured and enjoyed every bite and was sopping up the bits of "stray" cheese with the remaining rice.

But the downside is we had to wait nearly an hour for the Shiok Maki! That's pretty crazy considering if you are rushing for time! So go if you have time to spare and make a reservation in advance. Conveniently located at the level of Wisma Food Court, it's a good place to drop by for a bite after shopping!

I'm a big fan of Korean food so when my friend recommended the Sarang Korean Bistro at Orchard Central, I decided to give it a go. The thing about Korean food is that it's better to eat in a big group so you can order many dishes to share. Do note that Sarang has a open air area and an indoor area. We got the indoor area and the ventilation wasn't too good so expect to come out smelling like food. We tried the Sticky Chewy Rice Cake ($7) which is basically Korean rice cake stewed in a special sweet and spicy sauce. Now I'm not a big fan of rice cake (too filling for me) but I do like the sauce of this dish. I ended up eating more of the veggies that were stewed together in the sauce with the rice cakes. The rice cake itself was quite dense and chewy, and soaks up the flavour of the sauce well. Still, go for all the yummy bits in the sauce. This is the Wine Marinated Pork Belly ($22) which is quite pricy for a few slices of meat but the pork belly is one of the more 'premium' parts of the pig so that's okay. The pork belly has a nice subtle wine flavour infused into it. You can taste it but it's not overwhelming and quite unique. Plus because of the wine, I feel it isn't as cloying as it normally would've tasted with all the fats. The down point of this dish is that the pork is quite dry and even though they had strips of fat cooked with the lean meat, it was still quite tough to chew on. The kimchi and mash potato sides were very nice! Silky mash potato, paired with spicy bites of fermented cabbage is good enough to eat it as its own. The Army Stew ($32) may look big but I would reckon it's enough for 2 hungry people. If you're ordering many other sides, I may suggest to skip this as it can be very filling. There are luncheon meat, sausages, mushrooms, and veggies all thrown inside and stewed in a slightly spicy broth. Very delicious! I would love to eat this with a group of friends on a cold rainy day. The broth is slightly sweet, slightly spicy and tastes quite wholesome. I prefer the luncheon meat to the sausages though. I think they have pepper sausage in there which I didn't like too much as it clashes with the flavours. Do note that if you want noodles in it, you have to top up another $2.
And how can I have a Korean dinner without Kimchi pancake ($8)! I must order this dish at every Korean restaurant as I use this as a benchmark on how good the restaurant is. I must say this pancake didn't disappoint (but not the best I've tried) as I can really taste the kimchi flavours in it (some pancakes taste more of the flour than the kimchi). I wish they were more generous with the seafood topping though. It would've helped bring out the sweetness of the kimchi and balance out the overall taste of the dish.

I do want to make a mention about the service. It could most definitely be improved. We had to keep reminding the waitress about our food as they kept forgetting about our orders. And we only got the side dishes at the end of the meal. The side dishes should be the FIRST items out as an appetizer so that was quite disappointing. Not to mention it was quite difficult to get their attention for things like refill of water or even to serve us our rice. Hence, although the food is not bad, I may think twice about returning here.

Ever since I've heard news that Jamie Oliver was going to open his restaurant in Singapore, I've been waiting and waiting to try his dishes! For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, he's a very popular British chef who likes to cook rustic dishes and I believe Italian dishes are his forte as his mentor is an Italian chef. The online reservation for this place is booked solid for the next few months, so I had to try my luck at a walk in for space.I really like the ambience of the place. Loads of wooden furnishing and low lighting gives it a very cosy and comfortable feel. Although there is a bar area, it doesn't have that cold (sometimes cheap feel) that bars can give. At the back of the restaurant are floor to ceiling glass panels which gives you a view of the lovely sea view as you dine. My first dish was the Crispy Stuffed Risotto Balls ($11.50). What sounds better than deep fried cheese balls right? I think there's bits of mushroom and chopped herbs in there too. However, the risotto balls itself sadly tasted quite bland. The crust is perfectly crunchy but the cheese flavour was very mild. You have to dip it in the tomato sauce that accompanied this dish in order to get a stronger aroma. Although this dish has a very pretty plating, I would probably order another starters to try next time. But the inside of the risotto ball is sooooo attractive. Look at all that melty gooey cheese. This is really delicious and a big thumbs up for me! It's the Jool's Favourite Sicilian Tuna Fusilli ($14.00)! Jool is the name of Jamie's wife and the story behind this dish (told to me by the very friendly waiter) is that when his wife was pregnant, this was the dish she craved the most and he couldn't help but added it to his menu. It's so simple but so delicious! The crunchy bread crumbs added a very nice texture to the dish and the generous chunks of salty tuna tossed with the Fusilli in a tangy tomato-y tuna based sauce was heavenly! Briney, savoury and satisfying down to the last bite. Can't end a meal without desserts right? Honestly, when this dessert arrived, I was very skeptical because I hated cherries. Cherries have that bittery sour medicinal taste to me but this was one of the recommended desserts so I had to try it. The Sour Cherry Bakewell ($9.50) blew me away! I was pleasantly surprise at how mild the acrid cherry taste is and instead it lends a nice tang to the sweet almond filling. A drizzle of clementine rippled sour cream over it gives it a lovely refreshing lift. Definitely recommended to try! Lastly (yes we ordered 2 desserts, don't judge us!), the super adorable looking Brioche Con Gelato ($9.50). Now I've watched Jamie Oliver's cooking show many times and I've seen him create a Brioche dessert in one of the shows, so I knew I had to order this to try. The yellow one is Lemon marmellata & the pink one is strawberry & lemon ice cream. Lovely cold ice cream sandwiched between warm brioche buns. It's quite nice, but I must note that the buns have a slight burnt aftertaste (although I didn't see any burnt marks) which sadly puts me off the flavour a little. The ice cream by itself is lovely but they melt fast so this is not a dessert to eat slowly unless you want to end with with a messy board. But the presentation is an A+ for me.

Overall, a very satisfying meal and I will definitely be visiting again to try the other dishes. Hopefully I won't need to queue too long!