For full review and more photos, please visit http://thumbsforfood.blogspot.sg/2014/07/the-lokal-thumbsforfood.html
The Lokal is a newly opened cafe in June, located on Neil Road. When you step into the Lokal, the whole vibe, music and feeling of the cafe makes one feel like you're in Australia. Even the staff's greeting was "How's it going?" instead of the usual "Hello".
We were there on a weekend afternoon, after brunch hours when they were on their first few weeks of opening. Hence, it wasn't very packed. The kitchen was kind of open concept, where patrons can see the chefs cooking up dishes in the kitchen. There is also a bar top in front of the kitchen where patrons can sit and chat with the friendly chefs at work.
As we were there that day for only drinks and desserts, we did not try their much raved about brunch menu.
Some of my friends chose their bottled drinks, ginger ale and lemmy lemonade ($4 each). They were quite refreshing and suitable for a hot day.
We actually ordered the Banana Bread and Berries Crumble but, was given the Sticky Date Pudding on the house as they took quite sometime to prepare the desserts. Well, it was worth the wait!
The desserts were served hot and we could smell them from our seats as they came out of the oven. First up was sticky date pudding, served with caramel and some ice-cream. I really like hot desserts actually because they warm the tummy and goes really well with ice-cream. Wonder how they do up the sticky date pudding so well!
The Apple and Berries Crumble really had generous serving of berries. It was really quite sour actually and we felt it will be better with more crumble to balance off the sourness of the berries.
Overall, we really enjoyed the desserts there. We would love to come back here again to try out their brunch menus and burgers!

We absolutely adore the interior of Cove Stadium with it's open and spacious interior, coupled with a clean modern industrial look. We could imagine how alluring it is at night especially for sports fans who would like to catch the latest matches with a group of friends.
They have Happy Hour from Mondays to Fridays from opening to 10pm. Besides that, they have other drinks promotion ongoing daily. You can visit their website to find out more about their drinks promotions.
For their Weekday Lunch Deal, you can choose from 2 courses at $18 or 3 courses at $21. We went for the 3 course deal.

For starters, we chose the Salad over the Soup of the Day. The salad consisted of Greens served with some grilled pieces of chicken. We liked that the greens were fresh and the chicken well-marinated.
For mains, if I am not mistaken, you get to choose from some selected dishes. We chose the Bacon Spaghetti in Aglio Olio Style. We felt that the pasta was cooked well and well-flavored. However, our qualm would be that the ingredients were not as generous as we would like.

Desserts wise, we chose the Strawberry Compote. The dessert was good. It wasn't too sweet yet preserving the natural flavour of Strawberry.
Overall, we felt that Cove Stadium's Lunch Deal was really good! Plus, their drinks promotion was really attractive as well. If you are with a large group, you may consider their bucket deals. A bonus to the place is that you can choose the al fresco seats to enjoy the beautiful quayside scenery! The food and drinks here are without any taxes as well. We would love to visit this place at night with a group of friends again!

For full review and more photos, please visit http://thumbsforfood.blogspot.sg/2014/07/cove-stadium-quayside-isle-thumbsforfood.html

Jewel Cafe + Bar is located on Rangoon Road, about 10minutes walk from Farrer Park MRT. I like the spaciousness of the whole cafe; with it's high ceilings and spaced out seatings. The place has a clean cut, modern industrial look with two levels of seating.

We tried their Pan Seared Watermelon Steak which was something really quite unique. It was served with Pineapple Sorbet. First taste of the hot watermelon on its own was really quite strange. Mmm, it is nothing like I had ever tasted. Paired with the sorbet and the flavour was much better. The pairing went surprisingly well. Having said that, I probably will not order this dish next time. It is of an acquired taste and thus, if you're up for something new, do try this dish!

The Ricotta Pancakes tasted really good. Served with caramelised bananas and some strawberries, it was a balance of sweet and sour flavour. A really good dessert to end of the meal!

Nevertheless, Jewel Cafe & Bar offers a spacious place with good coffee to its patrons. I would definitely love to try its much raved about burgers soon!

For full review and more photos, please visit http://thumbsforfood.blogspot.sg/2014/06/jewel-cafe-bar-thumbsforfood.html

Beef lovers have probably heard about Fat Cow, especially for their famed set lunches which include the popular Beef Donburi. Having heard much about it, we decided that we have to make our way down to try it out for ourselves! The plus point about the set lunches are that they are also available on weekends.

Set lunches are served with Salad, Miso Soup and Chawanmushi, as you can see from the photos below. We felt the salad and miso soup was nothing out of the ordinary. The Chawanmushi was actually quite good.
We tried 3 different items on their set lunch menu. The first is the famed Fat Cow Donburi. It consists of char-grilled wagyu beef with onsen egg and thinly grated japanese leek. Everyone agreed that it lives up to its name. The onset egg was really one of the best onsen egg I've tasted because it is so perfectly cooked. The wagyu was almost melt-in-the-mouth with a tinge of charcoal fragrance.

If you love foie gras, you've got to try the Fat foa-gura don. It is glazed foie gras with grilled wagyu beef. They added some pickle to it for a balance of flavours.
For those non-beef lovers, there are also other choices such as Chirashi Don (Mixed sashimi don), Tonkatsu Don as well as Gindara Miso Yaki seen below. The Gindara Miso Yaki is miso marinated cod filet. It is quite fresh and done quite well, preserving the natural fish oils in it. Personally, I feel that the highlight is still their wagyu dons.

Overall, we felt that food was the Fat Cow Donburi was the winning point with service on the slow side as it was pretty crowded on a weekend. The ambience was not bad as tables were partitioned for some privacy. Do get your tables reserved beforehand to avoid disappointments on weekends!

For full reviews and more photos, please visit http://thumbsforfood.blogspot.sg/2014/06/fat-cow-thumbsforfood.html

For full review and more photos, please visit http://thumbsforfood.blogspot.sg/2014/06/sufood-thumbsforfood.html
Sufood is located centrally on the second level of Raffles City. When you step into Sufood, the dining area is of an open concept, where you can see the whole of the restaurant. It is lighted with warm lights, giving a relaxing and comfortable vibe.
For dinner, Sufood offers an 8-course Italian-inspired Vegetarian Menu priced at $25++ per person. You may tell the waiting staff if you would like it to be made vegan or lacto-ovo style depending on how strict your diet is. If you have a smaller appetite, you can order a la carte as well.
Main courses are priced at $12.80 per course, starter or soup at $5.80, salad at $7.80 and dessert/drink at $3.80 per item.
The appetiser is a trio of poached Japanese Yuca root, stack of snowflake greens and cherry tomato jelly. We were told to eat the appetisers from the right to the left, from the lightest flavour to the strongest flavour.
Our favourite salad was the Mushroom Salad which I felt stood out from the three. It consists of mushrooms with some broccoli and garlic. The mushrooms were flavourful and the garlic and sauce accentuated the flavour. But well, if you are really looking for a green salad, maybe you might not want to choose this.
My personal favourite main course would be the Wild Mushroom Charcoal Tagliatelle. Tagliatelle is a thicker version of the linguine. One look at the dish, the first thing that comes across the mind would be Squid Ink Pasta! Well, it really looks like it doesn't it? The dish is surprisingly well flavoured. I think the key to the dish was the homemade dressing that lifted the flavour of the dish. The wild mushroom was lightly sautéed with olive oil and really resembles the texture of the squid.
They have four desserts to choose from. We chose the Osmanthus Flower Jelly which we don't have a photo on it. Basically, it is made from sweet maple syrup jelly infused with osmanthus flower. We felt that the osmanthus flower flavour was not strong and fragrant enough. But, it was definitely a refreshing and light dessert to end the meal.
We also chose the Vanilla Ice cream with Hot Chocolate. Pour the hot chocolate over the vanilla ice-cream and you will get a coat of hardened chocolate on top of the ice cream. I pretty much liked this idea of the dessert. It was a simple dessert but quite fun to see make chocolate patterns on it.
Overall, we had a great meatless dining experience at Sufood! I would recommend skeptics of meatless dining to try out new vegetarian eateries in Singapore that are like Sufood that are breaking out of the stereotypes of how vegetarian food are like.