Thanks to the great folks at Faber Peak Singapore, I won $100 Faber Peak dining voucher in their recent Facebook Valentine's Day contest!

A brief background - Located at the top of the hill at Mount Faber, the premise was given a complete make over and transformed into a bright and colorful F&B joint. Spuds & Aprons (what a unique name!) brands itself as a fun and playful F&B joint serving up yummy east and west dishes. My wife and I patronized this lovely place on 21st February 2015 (3rd day of the CNY). Upon stepping into Spuds & Aprons, we were warmly greeted by their service staff and bought to our reserved seats promptly. To make eating a comforting affair, you can opt to chill out at the air-conditioned Dining Room or relax at the alfresco Garden. Whatever you choose, both locations offer breath taking view of Sentosa and the alluring city.We opted for the a seat by the side in the alfresco garden as we like the gentle breeze and the open environment. We made the right choice with dinner in the late evening as we managed to catch the beautiful sunset from the comfort of our seats. Our neighbour diners were caught busy snapping photographs using their smartphone from their seats too!Perhaps the best feature of Spuds & Aprons is the scenic view of the cable cars. Lights from the surrounding buildings and cable cars in the sky made the view even more picturesque. If you come to this place on a Saturday in the evening, you get to enjoy a bonus i.e. 8pm firework displays at Universal Studios Singapore. It was spectacular and awesome to watch the fireworks during CNY !!!So much for the ambience, let's get started with the food and drinks!

For the starters, at the recommendation of the friendly service staff (Wingo), we ordered the Chilli Crab in a Tux. This dish was so appertizing! We did not realize that we finished it so quickly! The chef prepared hot chilli crab and stuffed it in potato skins. It was really delicious and if this is your first visit, I would recommend that you should try this dish.For the main dishes, again at the recommendations of Wingo, we ordered Oven-roasted mustard marinated chicken and Crispy Pork Belly. The chicken was massaged and roasted till golden brown and served with homemade gravy and mashed spuds. The pork belly was soaked in a hot tub and slowly cooked until fork tender. It was perfectly crispy and yet tender. It was served with homemade pineapple pickle and roasted spuds.For the desserts, we were undecided between two recommended choices i.e. Chempedak Bread and Jar of Happiness Ice cream. Finally, we left it in the good hands of Wingo who insisted that we should try something different. We ordered the Chempedak Bread & Butter Pudding. It was a croissant with creamy custard and chempedak (hot) served with Haagen Dazs Vanilla ice cream (cold). We ended the night with a nice and sweet comfort food.For the drinks, we ordered the non-alcoholic mocktail and smoothies. My wife tried their famous Spuds & Aprons' Sodas With Nata D' Coco Jello  and wild berries. I tried their Minty Mango Madness. The soda was refreshing and fruity! My smoothies was a fushion of mango mix, mango sorbet, yogurt and mint syrup. We enjoyed ourselves very much by sipping the drinks slowly while enjoying the beautiful sunset!Special thanks to Ms Jaslyn Toh who helped us with the prize collection, reservation, excellent customer service, recommendations and "best view" seating arrangement! In addition, special thanks to Mr Wingo for his friendliness, hospitality, excellent customer service and food and drinks recommendations at Spuds & Aprons.

http://www.faberpeaksingapore.com/eat-drink-shop/spuds-and-aprons

Please call (+65) 6377 9688 or email: guestrelations@mountfaber.com.sg to check on restaurants' availability and to make a reservation.

Thank you OpenRice for inviting me for the food tasting session at Seasons Bistro.

On the same day of visit, I posted all the dishes tasted in my OpenSnap account.

Results of the most popular dish at Seasons Bistro based on the most number of "Likes" are as below as of 25th January 2015.

5th Position - Bana Cobb's Salad (32 Likes)
I like the presentation - looks appertizing! The ingredients are cajun spiced chicken, eggs, bacon, olives, corn, watercress, tomatoes, avocado, blue cheese and read vine vinaigrette.4th Position - Seasons Cheese Burger (33 Likes)
Huge serving and comes with fries and salad. The ingredients are homemade 200gm USA beef patty, stripy jack cheese, brioche bun, caramelized onions, bacon, mushrooms, homemade ketchup and mustard with fries. Too bad, I don't take beef but the fries and salad with the homemade ketchup sauce is nice.3rd Position - SFC Seasons Fried Chicken (38 Likes)
Not to be associated with KFC, this is SFC. Quite reasonable fried chicken and the homemade ketchup sauce is awesome. The ingredients are fried chicken, succotash and deviled ranch dressing and homemade ketchup.2nd Position - Lamb Chop (39 Likes)
Nice presentation and the baked chessy potatoe is a good compliment to the main dish. The meat is tender and the cook makes the lamb chop just nice. Champion! - Maple Pumpkin Cheese Cake (40 Likes)
The dessert is the winner with the most number of likes! Not surprising as the presentation is simply awesome and being a comfort food, it definitely helps to win some votes! The maple pumpkin cheese cake has a unique taste and it is served with cranberry cream with fresh blackberries and strawberries!Overall, Seasons Bistro is a nice and quite place with cool ambience to chill out with your family or friends after a hard day work. It is located near the Somerset MRT Station and the restaurant is within walking distance from the train station.

Special thanks to Reka and Adeline for organizing the food tasting event. Special thanks to Seasons Bistro for the fantastic food!

It's Christmas Eve!

So we decided to try the famous Chinese restaurant (Ju Chun Yuan) which serves good authentic Fuzhou cuisine and dim sum.The restaurant is located in Far East Square building, level 1. For those who are driving, you can park your vehicle in Far East Square. The restaurant looks like a Chinese temple. Walk straight in and you will find the place crowded with people enjoying their cuisine.We saw the banner promoting dim sum buffet lunch at $19.80+ per adult for weekday. So, we decided to go for it and gave us a chance to try the different types of dim sum.

There are six dim sum categories as below:
1. Steamed
2. Baked & Fried
3. Vegetables
4. Noodle/Congee
5. Specialty
6. Dessert

As it is a buffet, we limited ourselves to a few baked and fried dim sum so that we can try each dim sum from other categories. Please try to order a few dim sum at a time. If not, you will be too full to try the rest.

Below is my recommendation.

1. Steamed
a. Beancurd roll with pork and abalone sauce - NICE, MUST order
b. Steamed pork and shrimp dumpling - NICE, CAN order
c. Steamed salted egg custard bun - NICE, CAN order2. Baked & Fried
a. Deep fried beancurb skin rill with shrimp - NICE, CAN order
b. Deep fried prawns dumpling with mayonnaise -NICE, CAN order4. Noodle/Congee
a. Century egg and pork congee - NICE, MUST order5. Specialty
a. Sliced chicken in spicy sauce - NICE, MUST order
b. Deep fried pork ribs with Juchunyuan sauce - NICE, CAN order (Note: big portion)
c. Chilled pork shank with garlic - NOT NICE, can skip
d. Sliced pork belly with spicy sauce - NICE, MUST order6. Dessert 
a. Chilled Almond Pudding - NICE, MUST order
b. Osmanthus with Wolfberry Cake - NICE, CAN order
c. Aloe & Lemongrass Jelly - NOT NICE, can skip
d. Chilled Durian & fresh cream in pancake - NICE, MUST order
e. Chilled Sago with Mango and Pomelo - NICE, MUST orderOverall, I enjoyed the dim sum here much better than some of the other Chinese restaurants. Go for the items in "Specialty" category as the items are unique and more pricey and it is worth to try it. You must definitely try their signature dessert i.e. durian pancake! The durian is sweet and bitter and I love it so much!

I paid S$46 for two adults. If we were to order the dim sum individually, the bill would have been S$123!!!. Hence, it is really quite worth it to try their dim sum buffet. Please note that this restaurant does not impose Service Charge for dining. This is another good advantage.

The title of this review may be misleading  !

This is actually the Thai restaurant run by the popular Singapore TV host and Celebrity Pornsak Prajakwit. So, we decided to venture into the "Sexy Thai Food"!

We didn't make any reservation and walked in directly to their Star Vista's outlet. As it was a weekday during lunch break, it wasn't crowded. We managed to get a seat quickly.

The entrance is extremely colorful and delightful and there is a mock up statue of Pornsak at the entrance to welcome us to his restaurant.Unlike other Thai restaurants in Singapore, the indoor is decorated with colorful graffitti and Thai decoration, giving a cheerful look.As there is only two of us, we ordered two simple famous Thai food.

Pratunam Fish Cake
The fish cakes go well with white rice. The prawn cake is delicious and one serving is good for two adults. Good balance and combination of fresh prawns, pepper and bread crumbs. You must dip the prawn cake in the "Pad Thai" i.e. a reddish looking sweet taste sauce. Such sauces are common in Thai street hawker in Bangkok.Innocent Tom Yum Fish Soup
I am unsure why they named it as innocent. It is definitely not innocent! Though this is the "clear" tom yum version, it is really hot and spicy!!! There are many different types of tom yum soup available here. You can take your time to pick the type you enjoy. The fish slice were fresh and sweet. Overall, we had a enjoyable lunch with interesting and colorful art work on the wall and nice ambience. The customer services were also above average. The cooking is really commendable and yummy! I will plan another visit soon!

Kob Khun Krap 

The Star Vista at Buona Vista offers a large number of eateries and restaurants. The addition of Gan Yakitori Japanese Restaurant on the 2nd floor increases the wide range of dining options which is good for foodie like me.

I did my research before I organized a department lunch at Gan Yakitori. According to The Star Vista website which introduces this restaurant as one of their tenants, Gan Yakitori uses bincho charcoal for great taste. Bincho charcoal is the most suitable fuel for grilled dishes and all their yakitori are carefully grilled to perfection by their Japanese chef. Gan Yakitori also uses 100% Japanese rice and their special chicken soup is painstakingly boiled for over 8 hours with loadful of ingredients and it is "MSG free".

Satisfied with the research, we organized an early Christmas lunch at Gan Yakitori today with 9 of my colleagues.We arrived at the restaurant at 12noon and the Japanese Manager led us to a long dining table reserved for 10 pax. The waitress provided us with clean napkins to wash our our hands while we were looking at the set lunch menu.

Unaiju Teishoku (Charcoal Eel Set)
Most of us ordered the unagi set lunch. The original price for the set lunch was $19+. They are having a special promotion (30% discount) and offering it at $13+. It was a good deal as we know good quality unagi is quite pricey. For those who do not know unagi, it is a savory and slightly sweet freshwater eel. The two pieces of unagi fillet were placed on top of the yellow colored  "egg noodles" and the Japanese rice at the bottom. The first bite of the unagi was unbelievable. The Japanese Chef did a great job by grilling the unagi to the right texture, infusing with sauce and reducing the the excess fat making it really delicious. My colleagues shared the same sentiments and they finished all their unagi. I believe the Japanese chef was highly trained to grill the unagi in order to achieve this perfect taste.

Buta Don Teishoku (Pork & Onion with Egg Yolk Rice Set)
This set lunch costs $12.80. The egg yolk was nested nicely in the middle of the pork and onion rice set bowl. Only one colleague ordered this set and his verdict was not bad. The pork was just nice for him and and the sauce was not too sweet.Mizutaki Nabe Teishoku (Chicken and Vegetables with Soup Hot Pot Set)
This set lunch costs $14.80. The presentation was not bad and it looks like steamboat served in a hot pot. Similarly, although only one colleague ordered this set, she likes it for the simplicity (tender chicken meat, vegetables and tofu cooked in the hot pot) and served well with a bowl of fragrant Japanese rice.Overall, it is a good place for a simple lunch with friends, relatives or colleagues. Their popular set lunch range from $12.80 to $14.80 and usually it includes a bowl of soup and small salad. Drinks are not included and you can order Iced or Hot Green Tea at $1per cup (complimentary refill). All prices are subjected to 10% Service Charge and 7% GST.