Tim Ho Wan - Not bad but not fantastic either

Given the long queue of Tim Ho Wan, I will never go and try out the food there. However, since I was hanging around Plaza Singapura at nine in the morning, and there is no queue at this place, so I thought that I might as well check it out. So if you want to avoid the queue, go there before ten in the morning.

The staff at the reception is friendly while the others are quite okay in terms of service. The place is pretty cramped, plus the cantonese music blaring in the background, the Hong Kong feel is really strong.

As for the dim sum, they are not bad, but are nowhere comparable to the ones I have in my favourite restaurants—take note that the price is comparable though. The Bo Lo Bun is decent in taste, the sauce used for the char siew tends to be on the sweet side. But there is nothing exceptional about it. The same goes for the Steamed Cake that has a very silky, fluffy texture but the taste is hardly noteworthy. There is just slight sweetness with hints of egg taste. The dim sum with wasabi looks and tastes interesting, but I can hardly detect any wasabi or horseradish in it. The porridge is really a huge meh. It is so bland and has that cooked-in-the-pot-for-too-long taste, like one of those horrible porridges I had in Imperial Treasures and Jade Restaurant.

I don't mind having the Bo Lo Buns and Steamed Cake again, but queuing for them is put of question. And I will not specially go down for them either.

My Thoughts: Still Okay

Nearest car park: Plaza Singapura's car park

Nearest MRT: Dhoby Ghuat

68 Orchard Road #01-29A

Plaza Singapura

Contact No: 62512000

Saboten - Delicious Tonkatsu ... and Salad

If you check out my reviews, you will notice I generally have bad impressions of chain restaurants. There are of course exceptions, like Rakuichi, and Saboten!

What this place gets right are the tonkatsu and the free flow of salad. The tonkatsu is coated with an amazingly crispy yet fine breadcrumbs that does not cut the mouth, unlike lots of CUTlets out there. I highly recommend the tenderloin over the loin meat since as the name has stated, the meat is tender, fresh, flavourful and juicy. The loin meat is a bit too tough and has too much fat. The special sauce has the right balance of flavours and a bit of sourness to kick things up. To make things interesting, many patrons need to grind the sesame seeds before mixing them with the specialty sauce. Needless to say, the aroma of the crushed sesame adds more robustness to the overall taste.

The salad of finely shredded cabbage totally whets the appetite when the tangy sesame sauce or ponzu one, maybe both are added to the cold, crisp, extremely fresh vegetables, served in a cold bowl. Even the rice served here is of high quality type. The grains each has a pearl-like sheen coating it, looking really moist. They are perfectly cooked: no broken grains, smooth texture and quite soft to the bite, but not overly so.

Dessert is yuzu ice cream, which refreshes the palate a lot. Nothing really special, but I am glad that watermelon is not served instead since a lot of Japanese restaurants love to serve watermelon.

Service is okay. They are prompt to responses and are quite friendly.

I became a regular of the place already.

Update: I find the quality of the meat to have somewhat dropped. The rest are still good though.

My Thoughts: My Favourite place for Tonkatsu.

This restaurant had shifted to Millennia Walk.

The Curry Culture - Intensely Flavoured Dishes

Besides the some great finds in Cuppage Plaza, I found out that there is a trove of treasures hidden among the stretch of shophouses outside the place: Cuppage Terrace. And Curry Culture is one of them.

Despite the relatively small area, the interior is quite posh with dark wood furniture and exotic decorations. The service is attentive and friendly. So I immediately feels at ease when in there.

As for the food, I need to rave about the Raita here. The Raita of Curry Culture is the best I ever have, period. The yoghurt used here is full-bodied, rich and thick yet mild and pleasing to the palates, unlike the watery sour ones commonly found in other places. It is almost of the quality of premium greek yoghurt. The raw vegetables like cucumbers and such are fresh and crunchy. A must-order, especially when it helps to quench the hot flavours.

The grilled chicken with cheese is another winner. The meat is imbued with lots of spices, simulating the taste buds when savouring it. The cheese adds texture to the dish and adds an extra dimension to the overall taste. Surprisingly, the light flavour of cheese complements the strong aromas of the spices instead of being muted. So good combination there.

The Briyani is good with lots of flavours, tends towards the spicy side. Though I prefer the one in the restaurant in Holiday Inn, which is drier, thus retaining the excellent bite, flavour and texture typical of basmatic rice.

Glad to find this restaurant, so I have more options to consider when having a craving for North Indian food.

My Thoughts: Lots of Kick!

Nearest car park: Cuppage Plaza's car park

Nearest MRT: Somerset

31 Cuppage Road

Cuppage Terrace

Singapore

Contact No: 62356133

Lady M - Not Bad Cakes, but Bad Management

Frankly speaking, I cannot see what's with the hype on Lady M. The queue there is insane. I only bother to check it out because I went in at a timing where there is no need to queue. But guess what, despite that, the cappaccino didn't come even after waiting for more than thirty minutes. I gave up and cancelled the order for the beverage. Thank goodness that the staff are helpful.

Well, the cakes are interesting. It is not like one can find mille crêpes and cakes made from almond flour everywhere, and Lady M does manage to produce cakes that taste pretty good. The chocolate mille crêpes has excellent texture with the pleasant light cream sandwiched between the ultra thin silky crêpes. There is no rubbery feel that is typical of crêpe. The problem is that the taste is just okay only. Nothing mind-blowing about it that I can rave about. The taste of chocolate is flat and boring, as expected from those generic chocolates. This cake further cements my theory that if the chocolate dessert/cake is not made from premium chocolate in the likes of Valhorlna and such, it is no good. Gâteau aux Marrons is good in the sense the almond flour adds dimension to the taste of the cake, lending in that almost floral aroma of almond. The texture of the cake is moist and slightly crumbly. But this cake is a tad too sweet, and the aroma of chestnut is very muted in the chestnut cream. So much for adding "marron" into its name.

The place also serves mains and appetizers. This confirms another theory of mine: a cafe cannot come out with excellent desserts and cakes. Only top notch restaurants, patisseries and bakeries can achieve that.

The experience of dining at there is so horrible, plus the fact the cakes are not cheap, that my impression of the place was seriously marred. The cakes are not that fantastic that I am willing to go through the ordeal again. It is ridiculous that there is only one staff manning such a big area spanning over two decks. The poor girl is running up and down the stairs, and all over the place to take orders and deliver the ordered items. I felt sorry for her. She managed to keep it up with amicable attitude and smiles. Lady M is lucky to get such staff, but there is no excuse for the organization to scrimp and have only one staff around to take care of dining area.

Even wanting to foot the bill is a pain when I find a long queue at the cashier. I give props to the cashier for his attention to details since I didn't voice out my grievances, but he knew that I was very pissed off, so he immediately apologized for the wait. Got to find out that quite a number of staff were deployed from the Fullerton branch at the last minute. Maybe the experience at the branch at Fullerton will be better?

And one more thing, there is neither number nor receipt for me to inform the cashier in order for him to retrieve my bill. The quick thinking personnel let me single out my table through the computer system so that it is possible for me to foot the bill. To the management: if you do not have enough staff to tend to the place, then please put a number on the table or provide a receipt, instead of trying to look classy.

I have far better cakes at other places. So nope, will not be back there anytime soon.

My Thoughts: Okay

Nearest car park: Orchard Central's car park

Nearest MRT: Somerset

Orchard Central Shopping Mall

181 Orchard Road

Orchard Central #02-07

Contact No: 65093673

Favourite Hawker Fares

I do have my meals in coffee shops. Here are some of my favourites, but take note that I do not especially trudge down to anywhere to try out hawker fares. So they are more of accidental good finds.

And I have a hypothesis about hawker fares: the more run-down the place, the better the food.

Stalls at Blk 327 Hougang Avenue 5 Kimly Coffee Shop
One of the best places to have a hearty breakfast! The famous Bee Hoon stall will feature its incredibly flavourful bee hoon and trademark long queue. It is worth the wait since its bee hoon is one of the best. Srisun Prata, famous for its crispy yet stretchy prata, is also here. And the Lo Mai Gai from the Handmade Bao stall is worth a try too because the glutinous rice is fluffy and moist, and the sesame oil infused makes this dim sum a yummy treat.

美香薄饼

Blk 133 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3

Only opens on weekends. This small, extremely humble-looking stall can have quite a long queue at times. It sells the good, old popian packed with piping hot, fresh shredded radish. There's nothing fanciful about the popian here, but the good balance of taste and the fresh ingredients are more than enough to make it a mouth-watering one. And so far, I have yet find a popian better than the one here.

光沙爹 Guang Satay

Blk 133 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3

The chicken satay will usually be sold out by evening. It is not hard to see why. The satay meat is extremely succulent, fresh, juicy and tender. The coat of honey grazing on the meat makes it even better. The satay sauce tastes kind of weird, but then again, the meat itself is so good that the sauce is absolutely redundant. Not sure why, but this place is no longer in operation.

海涛(香港)烧腊专门店 Hai Toi (Hong Kong) Roast House

Blk 133 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3

I had tried lots of wanton mee, and a lot are very stingy in stuffing sufficient amount of minced meat into the dumplings. I had tried wantons that only have a tiny sliver of meat floss in each! Thus I really appreciate the generous amount of fresh meat stuffed into each wanton of Hai Toi. In addition, the meat texture is smooth, indicating that the stall minces whole meat instead of other stalls that use factory minced meat, which smells stale and has bits of bones and tendons. The noodles here are springy, having a good bite.

曾之面家

A'Posh BizHub Yishun Ave 6

Best minced meat noodles can be found here. The broth is made from cooking the pig bones, thus being clear yet very flavourful. The sauce used is the winner here. It yields very tasty noodles and bee hoon. The sliced meat is tender and smooth. Too bad, this stall had closed already.

Wanton Noodle

Blk 631 Hougang Ave 8

I like the wanton mee here for the same reasons as Hai Toi. The difference is that the wantons here are more tasty while the noodles in Hai Toi have better texture.

Food Drinks Snacks
Yishun Interchange, near Berth 7 (Bus 811)
Who could gave expected a tiny stall in Yishun Interchange sells such sedap mee siam? I have no love for the mee siam with gravy. But the stir-fried mee siam hits all the right notes for me. The mee siam features strong flavours of entire spectrum, with all complementing each other well. But this place is no longer in operation.

Fang Kee Wanton Mee

A'Posh BizHub Yishun Ave 6

The Q texture of the noodles is pretty unrivaled. Though the other two have a slight edge in terms of the taste of the sauce. Like the other two mentioned wanton mee stalls, the wantons here are stuffed with generous helpings of fresh meat. The fried wantons here are very good. Alas, stalls come and go, and this one is one of them.

阿里山椰浆饭 Nasi Lemak
#01-36 Ci Yuan Hawker Centre
What I like about this stall is the incredibly fragrant rice saturated with the goodness of coconut milk while maintaining the fluffy texture without going into the soggy category.

Leo Satay
#01-31 Ci Yuan Hawker Centre
Well-grilled fresh succulent meat makes the satays here delightful treats to indulge in. Even satays in some hotels’ buffets cannot win the satays here.

Dessert
#01-25 Ci Yuan Hawker Centre
Generous use of fresh ingredients is the winning formula here. The chendol here is a must-try.

JB Handmade Pau Chwee Kueh Chee Chong Fun

#01-18 Ci Yuan Hawker Centre

The siew mai here is packed full of fresh pork, can easily be on par with those in the restaurants. Though this stall was taken over by another vendor. Rental fee issue? Just my wild guess.

Teochew Handmade Fishball Noodle

#01-07 Ci Yuan Hawker Centre

Flavourful sauce, decent texture and very good, springy fishballs—this is one of the better fishball noodles I have tried. I like it that two kinds of fishballs are given, one is the normal type while another one has pork and bits of capsicum added. The fried fish biscuit is incredibly tasty and soft in texture, a must try.

Mei Xi Yong Tau Foo

#01-17 Ci Yuan Hawker Centre

Noteworthy is the sheer variety of freshly made unique yong tau foo. While there are run-of-the-mill types, such as vegetables, broccoli and tau foo stuffed with fish paste, the stars are the ones not seen anywhere else. For someone like me, this is the kind of yong tau foo that will impress me. A pity that due to the bad location besides the cleaning bay, this stall had closed down.

Thai Foon Noodles
#01-17 Ci Yuan Hawker Centre
I like the flavourful broth and smooth glass noodles here.

Foodcourt Stalls in Greenwich Village

1 Seletar Road

It is tough for businesses in Greenwich Village to survive due to the unfavourable, not so accessible location among the landed properties in Yio Chu Kang Road area. Many had been squeezed out of the competition and vacated their spaces. So the ones that survived until now are the cream of the crop, namely, in order of sedapness of the food, Western Food, Ban Mian Fish Soup, Yong Tau Foo and Korean Cuisine. The Grilled Chicken is done to perfection, with well-cooked yet tender and moist meat drizzled with flavourful, light sauce. The cheese fries trump over lots of other fries out there. Not all fries are the same, take note. Those fast food restaurant fries are made from GMO potatoes and taste incredibly plain. I never noticed this until I tried the fries here and then went to a famous fast restaurant to eat the fries there. The food court is worth checking out since the stalls left there all worth a try. Or one can go up to second floor to check out Mai Thai and Rakuichi.

Soon Hong Eating House

A'Posh BizHub Yishun Ave 6

The best Teh, not including those at Adam Road Hawker Centre, can be found here. Generous amount of fragrant condensed milk and minimal acidic taste make a very smooth, great, piping hot drink for the morning.

Srisun Indian

Blk 317, Yishun Ave 9

The amazing thin, crispy roti prata, imbued with the aroma of fresh dough, is a delight to tuck. Plus the not-so-hot, flavourful curry, I can say this is my favourite roti prata.

Chef Recipe

Blk 317, Yishun Ave 9

The teriyaki burger here is packed to the brim with wholesome ingredients: omelette, lettuce, tomato, freshly made chicken patty, herbs and specialty sauces. It can easily trumps over burgers from those fast food restaurants. This stall had shifted to another location in Hougang to become a restaurant. So the prices of the food there is at restaurant price also ...

Selera Rasa Nasi Lemak

2 Adam Road

Best nasi lemak can be found here, period. To me, it's more about the rice. The stall can feature a huge array of food for patrons to choose from, but if the rice is bland and does not have the right texture, I am not going to go back. Selera Rasa gets the rice absolutely right: extremely flavourful with each basmati grains being imbued with the strong aroma of coconut, soft and fluffy texture yet retaining dry consistency—a lot of nasi lemak rice with strong flavours tend to be soggy due to too much liquid added. The ikan bilis are of the small size type—takes more effort to prepare as compared to the big ones—thus having the flavour and bite smiliar to those of fried white bait, which is yummy, by the way.

Tamashii Robataya - Comfort food for the Soul

This place is no longer in operation

Actually, I had holding off to try out the food at Tamashii Robataya for quite a while despite taking note of this place a few months ago. For one, I am too busy to do so and if I have the time, I spent it on one of my favourite dining haunts instead since I have been getting wary of wasting my time on mediocre food (and I have been getting picker, will rather cook a quick meal by myself than to trudge down to those chain restaurants)—it makes me angry and yet, I do not have the energy nor time to spend on ranting about it. So when I finally find the time to visit Tamashii Robataya and find out what their food is all about, I am so glad that I did.

While decor of the place is simplistic chic, the glorious display of fresh Japanese produce at the counter is absolutely impressive. Beautiful, bright hues of vibrant orange from the tangerines, attention-grabbing red from the tomatoes, sweet mild green from the honeydew, creamy yellow from the enoki mushrooms, earthy light brown of the onions, crisp green from the various vegetables and more ... it is tempting to order them if the budget allows it. With all those ingredients in front when dining, the experience is turned up a notch. It helps that the menu states the price of the food on display, so I will not be dining in trepidation at how surprising my final bill will turn up to be.

As for the food, I give thumbs-up for them. Since this place is about robatayaki, I got to try it, thus ordering the grilled sweet onions. Hardly any seasoning is added, the onions are lightly and skilfully grilled before being served. The light hints of charred taste adds dimension to the taste but is minimum enough not to impart any of that bitterness typical of burnt food. The onions, being quality produce, truly do not need the seasoning, saved for the optional miso paste, as they are clean and sweet in taste with a dash of the onion's pungent flavour. 

The Kushiyaki set lunch consists of three kinds of skewers, sashimi, chawamushi, tonjiro, mushrooms in butter and dessert, all at an affordable price of $38—this is the most expensive of the set lunches though, I chose this since I am not into generic set lunches of the usual suspects. The skewers of a thin slice of pork wrapped around tomato are sublime: one bite into it, the tangy, sweet juices of the tomato burst out to soak the pork in them. Hardly any seasoning is used, but this skewer is full of flavours due to the wholesome goodness of the juicy tomato and very fresh pork. I also love the smoked duck with zucchini due to the innovative element—how often can one find duck dishes in Japanese cuisine—and the great marriage of the intensely flavoured duck meat and the relatively neutral, clear taste of the zucchini. The mushroom with minced chicken meat is nice with a small dash of salt, and the mushroom is very tender in texture. Though this one pales in comparison to the other two.

The much raved about truffle chawamushi (need $8 top-up) is truly good due to the strong earthy aroma of truffle. This is most probably the best chawamushi I had tried. However, I feel that the combination of egg and truffle is just excellent, but not amazing since the egg does not accentuate the flavour of the truffle. In fact, I was bowled over by the mushrooms in butter instead. The meaty, earthy taste of fresh mushrooms goes in perfect harmony with the sweet-smelling, creamy flavour of the butter. Tuck into this while it is hot for optimized taste.

Even the rice is so good that I finished them all (I usually have difficulty finishing a bowl of rice). The moist, shiny, fluffy, complete grains of rice is packed with fragrant, starchy wholesomeness, even just looking at them can whet the appetite. The sashimi consists of three thick, fresh, succulent slabs of raw fish: one mekajiki and two salmon. The mekajiki is very fresh with no hints of that typical fishy smell and when paired with the wasashi peppered with yuzu, the fish tastes literally sweet! Since I always love the Kyoho grapes due to the hints of taste of wine, I definitely enjoy the Kyoho sorbet here. 

The weak links are the appetizer that is too salty and ordinary, and tonjiru that has lots of ingredients but the flavours do not mesh well together (maybe some with acquired taste may appreciate this). And the chairs do not have solid back for patrons to stuff the bags snugly behind. One of the patrons' bag actually dropped off and gave me a huge shock with its loud thudding sound. The good part about the chairs is that they are wide and comfortable.

Service is good and attentive, especially this friendly male service staff who even takes the effort to pour the soy sauce for me. I got to give the props to the chefs for serving the dishes with the oars, which adds on to my enjoyment of the meals due to the uniqueness, novelty and the sort of personal touch there. This is definitely one of the factors that I will bring others for a meal here. And one last thing that seals the deal for me: the staffs bade farewell and thanked the patrons when leaving.

Not only am I going back again, I am going to bring my friends and family to there.

My Thoughts: Very Nice!

Nearest car park: URA Roadside Parking along North Canal Road or UOB Plaza's car park

Nearest MRT: Raffles Place

12 North Canal Road

#02-01

Singapore

Contact No: 62220316

Cooking Oils, what need to be known

Actually, the type of oil used for cooking is a lot more important than most of us realized. Not only for health reasons, the taste is also affected. So I am going to list out the commonly used cooking oils, with some information on them. I am not going to touch on those information about fat content because it is boring for me to write about them, and my personal belief is that no cooking oil should be demonized just because of the fat content. A bit of fat is still good, as long as it is not trans-fat, why need to obsess over it if one is not going to eat lots of food drenched in oil?

Okay, here we go! In no particular order:

Olive oil - One of healthiest oil available on the market. It is natural and is full of nutrients. The price of this oil is as expected—expensive. And the downside is that this oil cannot really be used for high heat cooking. In fact, try not to use this for cooking if possible since it breaks down easily.

Canola Oil - One of most commonly found oil, whether in supermarkets or in processed food, this oil may be cheap but it sure generates lots of profit for corporations. A firm of rapeseed oil, it is tasteless and has hardly any nutritious benefits. Yet it is popular due to the price, the so-called health benefits (as opposed to those with high saturated fat content) and high smoke point where it can be used for all cooking purposes. The thing is that high percentage, yes, more than 50%, of canola is of GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) variety. This is enough to put me off. To make things worse, the extraction of canola oil requires the use of the toxic hexane.

Soya Bean Oil - This is pretty much another form of canola oil, having almost the same pros of being cheap and has high smoke point, and same cons associated with GMO and hexane. No surprise that fast food restaurants and processed food manufacturers love to use this oil!

Lard - Oh yes, this is so fatty and looks so artery-clogging. But as compared to the previous two, this is natural, good stuff, if the pigs are naturally raised. And use of this makes delicious pastries, thanks to its relatively high smoke point. I rather see lard in the ingredients list than those so-called healthy but hardly natural oils.

Peanut Oil - The good old peanut oil that imparts a nutty flavour to the food. While it may not have an impressive looking chart for fat content, I will choose to use this oil anytime of the day due to its high smoke point, flavour and natural extraction process. Helps that peanuts is not infamous for being associated with GMO crops. The con: this is more expensive than those common oils. And watch out for those products that have soya bean oil added into peanut oil to reduce cost price.

Rice Bran Oil - This oil looks good on the paper since rice is usually non-GMO crop and we all know rice is a healthy source of carbohydrates. Almost every article hails this as the healthy oil due to the huge amount of nutrients in it. And it has high smoke point. However, this oil has very high omega 6 content and none for no omega 3 (need to have a good ratio for consumption of these two), and that is going to cause problems for the health. In addition, unless the oil is stated to be cold-pressed, high probability that it is extracted by hexane.

Grapeseed oil - Another look-good-on-paper oil. Like the Rice Bran Oil, this has very high omega 6 content with nary a drop of omega 3. This is definitely extracted by use of hexane, unless stated to be cold pressed.

Corn Oil - It is obvious that I have no love for this oil since corn is highly associated with GMO (for information purposes, the last and fourth infamous GMO crop is potato. So avoid potatoes from USA unless specified to be non GMO). So what if this is cheap and has high smoke point? I am not going to use this oil if there is a choice. By the way, most of the corn oil is hexane extracted. Hexane ... hmm ... why do I keep seeing this word when I type this post?

Coconut Oil - This oil used to be demonized by many due to its high saturated fat content. Now, many realized that this is good stuff. While more studies are needed to determine the benefits of coconut oil, at least one thing is for sure, virgin coconut oil is extracted from heat and mechanical processes. Take note that conventional ones are extracted from solvent processes (in case you are wondering, hexane is one of them). And this oil has high smoke point.

Butter - I absolutely love using this for light cooking due to its unparallel flavour and aroma. This is absolutely natural and has none of those nasties (saturated fat is not a demon in my eyes, I will always choose full cream milk over low fat one, and my figure does not suffer from it. As I had said, it is about moderation). Not for frying though, and this is really expensive stuff.

Actually, besides high smoking point, another factor to determine the use of the oil is the type of bonds present between the molecules of the oil. May write about on another day.

A great website I had found, which I find to be more informative and accurate.

http://authoritynutrition.com/healthy-cooking-oils/

You can't believe the amount of misleading information on the net, so the one above is one of the few with reliable information.