Shashlik @ Far East Shopping Centre

This is the first time I ventured into Far East Shopping Centre. Nestled on the 6th floor of this old building is a quaint restaurant that serves Russian cuisine, opened by Hainanese in the 80s. Upon entering this place, you'll feel like you're in a restaurant in Eastern Europe. The old-school decor is very 70s, and with young waiting staff populating most Western restaurants/cafes nowadays, you'll find that the majority middle-aged waiting staff surprising.

 

Anyway, Miss Alto suggested this place for our Christmas lunch, and we went along with Miss Soprano after our last caroling session. Adorned on the walls are plagues and awards received by the restaurant for the good food. Flipping open the menu, I got a slight shock from the prices. They have appetizers, steaks, seafood and desserts. We ordered a few dishes to share.

Before the dishes arrive, the customers are served a piece of bread each with butter. The bread was oh-so-soft, warm from the oven, I was content just with the bread and butter and soup below. 

Borsch soup $10 - Basically a soup with tomatoes, cabbage, onions, potatoes, and meat (beef I think?). That blob of stuff you see is sour cream, which makes the soup taste really good when you stir it in. If you don't like sour cream, the soup is also very yummy without the sour cream. There must be some ingredients that makes the soup so delicious, you just want to keep drinking it. I once had Borsch soup in a restaurant in Poland, though I can't really remember how it tasted...

 

Escargots a la Bourguignonne $28 for a dozen - You can request for half a dozen as well. These escargots may look average from the outside, but the meat inside is the largest I've seen. Firm and chewy, the escargots were fresh, though the garlic and butter taste could be more distinct.

Steak a la Russe $32 - We asked for recommendations for steak, and the waitress said this is one of their signature dishes. Miss Soprano doesn't like to take raw stuff (except for sashimi), so she opted for well-done.  Usually I don't like to take well-done for steaks because it almost always gets very tough and hard to chew. All of us were amazed at how tender this was. No hard-to-chew pieces, everything just glides smoothly down your throat after chewing all the juices out. I love this. It's probably my favourite steak out of all I've tried.



Shashlik (Beef fillet) $32 - Shashlik actually refers to a kind of kebab that was popular in the Soviet Union and central Europe and can be either beef, lamb or pork. We ordered medium done. This came on a sizzling hot plate, the meat was well-marinated and tender. Salad was served on a side plate, and you can choose to cook it on the hot plate.

Fish en Papillotte $28 - This is fish wrapped in paper, or called 纸包鱼 in Chinese. Also what the waitress recommended when we wanted to order a seafood dish instead of all steaks. This was interesting, it came looking like a giant paper curry puff. When you open it, it's actually a generous slab of white fish in sauce cooked in Chinese, perhaps Hainanese style, with tomatoes, onions, very yummy.  

 

Bliny with Brandy Butter Sauce $26 for 2 - We were surprised when a waitress rolled out the wooden trolley with a pan and all the ingredients and started to cook it right in front of us. It's basically crepes cooked with butter and brandy. Being a waitress in this restaurant is not easy - you have to cook in front of customers too! She does it skilfully.

If you like brandy and citrus taste, this dessert is for you. I don't really, so I didn't like this dish.

There were family and friends' gatherings when we were there. Not a full house on Christmas day lunch itself, but I suspect it'll be packed on weekend nights. They do take reservations.


How much was spent per pax: $55 (!!!) per pax.
Would I go back again? On special occasions.... because of the prices!

Address: 545 Orchard Road #06-19 Far East Shopping Centre

Tel: +65 6732 6401

Opening hours: 12noon – 3pm, 6.30pm – 10.30pm

Shots @ Ann Siang Hill

Tucked away on a little street of Ann Siang Hill is a coffee hideout called Shots. Was exploring around the area with Mr. Physics and he recommended that we go to this cafe for a cuppa coffee. I love this kind of cozy little cafes!

 

Very charming and cozy interior with tasteful art pieces hung along the walls, photography magazines on racks for browsing, youngsters playing Monopoly Deal (haha my favourite as well) and chilling out. 

 Besides coffee and desserts they serve main courses like pizza/pasta and sandwiches as well.

Chocolate lava cake $6.50 - Moist on the inside, a decent chocolate cake, though the lava is nowhere to be seen. I'm fussy when it comes to lava cakes, and I still think TCC serves the best one, their Dark Devotion is to die for!! Anyway, the so-called 'lava' in the middle of this cake was just slightly more moist than the other parts of the cake. Every bite we took we were waiting for the chocolate to flow out, when it didn't we thought, ok maybe it's not deep enough, so we kept eating and eating, but there was no chocolate lava at all.

 Cafe Mocha - $5.50

Tiramisu Latte - $6.50  The coffees are very decent, though I am not the most discerning when it comes to coffee.

 

Overall, a nice chill-out place with friends to have a catch-up session, or just to spend a lazy afternoon together. Read a book, play some cards there, no problem at all. Staff are friendly as well.



How much was spent: Around $9 per pax
Would I come back again? Definitely!

Oriole Cafe & Bar

 Had wanted to try this place ever since I saw on LadyIronChef that they had the "best fish and chips" in Singapore. Came here on Saturday night, and ordered the said dish, and satisfied my craving for pasta by ordering the garlic prawn pasta ($16).

Pardon the diluted colours of the photos, light conditions were bad at night, and the photo quality becomes pixelated under low light conditions. Anyway, the pasta was far too hard for my liking. This was slightly spicy, which was good. But the texture of the pasta really made it hard to chew and swallow. If you want garlic prawn pasta, the best bet would still be the one from Coffee Club. 

The fish 'n chips ($13; i think?) was mediocre. I don't know what LIC saw in this, no offence. At best this was not the slightest bit fishy, the meat was firm, amount of flour not too much. But I found it so-so; similar quality could be found somewhere else.

 

The live band started playing at 10pm, and it's good if you have nothing to say to your dinner partner and just enjoy the food and music. But if you're there for a catch up session, be prepared to shout across the table to make yourself heard - the volume of the music does not make for meaningful conversations to be carried out, unless you choose to sit outdoors.

Tried their chocolate mud cake the last time I was here, expecting it to be a lava cake. I could only  blame it on my false expectations, because it was not a lava cake, but a normal chocolate cake. It was a bit dry on the inside, though the chocolate was good.

 

Nevertheless, reading about reviews that raved about this place, I would still probably come back to try again, their brunch and coffee seem like a good choice to start with.

How much was spent: Around $20? I really can't remember :X

Would I go back again? Yes, but I probably won't order the above items again.

96 Somerset Road #01-01 Pan Pacific Serviced Suites

Tel: +65 6238 8348

Chili's Grill & Bar @ Tanglin Mall

The drought of entries has hereby ended with the end of exams, and now there's backlog again! Have been indulging my taste buds these few days. Ended up at Tanglin Mall on Saturday before going to church, wanted to have a small bite before leaving, so we entered Chili's. There're only two branches in Singapore, and we thought since we weren't going to the RWS branch anytime soon, we decided on this.

Chili's offers American and Mexican cuisine. Looking at the menu reminded me of the Mexican feast my friend E whipped up for a bunch of us after coming back from Mexico. Mexican cuisine is colourful and tasteful, and I find it uncommon in Singapore. I love the tiled tabletops of the restaurant.

 

Since we were not that hungry, we only ordered a starter to share. Starters and mains don't come cheap here, as the dish we ordered cost $21.90!

 

Triple Play $21.90 - Combo of three favourite starters, made up of chicken crispers, boneless buffalo wings and Southwestern eggrolls, and some celery sticks. I find myself munching happily away on the celery sticks. I'm not a fan of celery, but the dips make them really delicious. One thing I love about Mexican food is the dips! And E (the friend) definitely makes real yummy dips from scratch. Apart from sour cream, we couldn't tell what the other two dips were though, haha. Nevertheless they were all oh-so-good.

 

First thing we tried was the eggroll. Crisp, fragrant and filled with Mexican goodness of black beans, chicken and actually-I-don't-what. I was too busy chewing away and enjoying the tasty treat. I was nodding away in approval and I think a gentleman from across the aisle saw my satisfied expression and asked the waiter what we were having and he ordered the same too hahaha.

The chicken crispers looked like Long John Silver's chicken pieces from the outside, but not be fooled. There is so much less flour and the chicken so much more tender. I love it too! The buffalo wings though, I don't think I would ever want to eat it again. The sauce is much too sour for my liking. Nonetheless, I would recommend this dish if you're eating with, let's say, 4 people at a table, share the delights and other selections on the menu. 

How much was spent: $15 per pax

Would I come back again? Probably, if not for the location. So many more dishes to try out, but the location is really out of the way :(

Address: 163 Tanglin Road #02-23  Tanglin Mall Singapore

Tel: +65 6733 3317

Megumi Japanese Restaurant @ Sunset Way

After church one evening the sisters and a friend and I went to Sunset Way for dinner, and we chose Megumi! We have already tried Megumi a few times before when it was still at its previous location a few doors down. Recently it relocated to a vacated shop round the corner, refurbished and rented a larger space.

Sashimi Mixed Platter ($28) -We requested for the tuna to be changed to something else since none of us liked it. The waiter recommended sea bream so we took his suggestion. When it came it was still the same old tuna, so we told another waitress about the request. When she came back, the tako (octopus) was gone but the tuna was still there. So we told her again, that the order was wrong... Finally the right plate of sashimi came. Fortunately the service staff were not impatient or anything, I think some places would just give you an impatient or miffed look. Anyway the sashimi was so-so only. Chikuwa Tei sashimi anytime! (Though I can't remember how much was that already!) The sea bream here came half frozen! It was hard and I could still taste ice in it.

Unagi Tofu $7.80 for 2 pieces - Best stuff! Can't find this anywhere else. Pardon the (relatively) lousy photos in this entry - everyone couldn't wait to tuck in and I was too paiseh to hold up the rest! This is basically agetofu (fried tofu) with huge slab of unagi on top.

I had always wanted to try blowfish sashimi ever since I saw it on a Korean movie (ironic) and on Japan Hour where they had blowfish feasts where all the parts of the blowfish are used for something - sashimi, tempura, steamboat etc. That kind of meal would cost you more than SGD100. This fish is a rare delicacy, with the tiger blowfish species being the most "prestigious edible species and most poisonous", and sushi chefs need license to handle this fish because if not handled well, the poisonous parts would not be taken out and would be fatal to consumers.

So when I saw this dish Fugu Mirin Boshi ($10.80) served as appetizer in Megumi I was excited to try it out! The english description stated "puffer fish" and not blowfish. I thought being an appetizer it would be in sashimi-style, but I was told by the waiter that it would be grilled. I thought, oh wells, not many places serve this dish, so might as well just try it out here! So we ordered this. When it came and I tried it, I was sorely disappointed. As you can tell from the photo it did not look appetizing. When I tasted it it tasted like salted fish - no joke. Chewy, salted fish. It came with mayonnaise, which I was rather baffled about - what kind of grilled items came with mayonnaise? Strange. Anyway, please do not order this if you happen to dine there. In the end I had to reluctantly finish it 'cos my dinner partners didn't like it. We somehow have this policy where if you order something and it's not nice, you bear the responsibility of finishing it :( After this when I thought about it I realized that when I ordered this I forgot that it was blowfish and not puffer fish, if there was a difference at all. Maybe that could explain why the puffer fish was not nice.

Yaki Soba ($8.80) - My church friend M saw this being served at the other table and thought it looked good, so we ordered this! It was fragrant, worth the price I should say.

We ordered this the last time we were here too - Chilled Charcoal Udon (Hiyashi Sumi Udon, $10.80)
Though when it arrived it looked and tasted more like soba instead, coupled with the fact that it comes with the quail egg which you usually see served with soba and not udon. But I'm not complaining - this definitely tastes good. 

We wanted to have a maki but couldn't decide, so we asked for recommendations, and this was what we got - UFO Maki ($12.00) Basically it's cooked salmon and crabmeat inside wrapped in sushi rice and coated with fish roe. Not bad - can't really go wrong with cooked salmon and roe unless you don't like salmon.

By this time we were really full - we came to the conclusion that 3 main dishes, or staples, (2 noodles and 1 rice) were too much for four ladies. Next time we will cut down on one staple, (and the puffer fish of course), and maybe order something else smaller. We also had this - Unagi Chawanmushi $7.80 (yes, we like unagi very much) which came in a very nice bowl. They changed their way of presentation, we noticed. Tasted good as well, smooth and silky, just rolls off your tongue, with generous servings of unagi.

No meal is complete without dessert no matter how full you are. Since we had four people with us we decided we could very well handle one single dessert, so we ordered Deep Fried Kuro Goma (Black Sesame) Ice Cream ($6.80). I like fried ice cream! And their goma ice cream is good so this dessert was really yummy. We polished it up despite on the verge of bursting.

 

We'll always go back to Megumi, somehow. Good place to go for dinner if you're around the area. This restaurant IMO is between middle to middle-high range. We could probably have saved a bit if we hadn't ordered the puffer fish.

How much was spent: Around $35 per pax
Would I go back? : Yup!

Address: Blk 106 Clementi St 12 Sunset Way #01-38 Singapore

Tel: +65 6779 1411

Opening Hours: 11.30-2.30pm, 6pm-10.30pm

Noodle Place Restaurant @ Centrepoint

On Wednesday Drumstick and I went in search of the authentic Hong Kong wanton noodles. (or rather, I dragged her along to hunt for it). Reviews by a certain food blog suggested that it may be at this place, so off we went.

When we reached I suddenly remembered that I had been into this restaurant before, a few years ago. Though I forgot what I had ordered then, my conclusion with my friends that time was that it's unlikely we would come back to this restaurant again because they offered similar fare to Crystal Jade and Imperial Treasure and the latter two were much better.

That food blog rated their char siew as 4/5 so we decided to give it a try too! I'm not much of a fan of char siew until I tried some really good ones at a roadside eatery, before then I used to order wanton mee without char siew at hawker centres, and until recently I also didn't like char siew bao until I got addicted to those by Crystal Jade and Imperial Treasure. So we ordered their char siew with honey sauce ($12+). I found it slightly too tough, could be more tender, though it was well marinated and I liked the taste of honey sweetness and the meat. It was too much for the two of us to finish though, so we had half of this take-away.

We also ordered their signature congee ($11) - There's a lot of ingredients inside; when I asked the waitress what this consisted, she rattled a whole list of ingredients and I interrupted her, "oh okokok we'll have this then". Haha! This had chicken pieces, fish maw, meat ball, egg, prawn, jelly fish, cuttlefish and some other stuff inside. Delicious, I must say. It's a nice surprise to find out what you can find inside.

 

Then comes the wanton noodles (dry; $8)! I had forgotten how the Crystal Jade ones tasted like, so I had no basis for comparison. However, I must say that this was slightly disappointing. The wantons were just too small. I remember having a bowl of wanton mee in Hong Kong, just $2, but the wantons were just made of fresh succulent prawns, so tasty for just SGD2.00!

I don't think I would come back here often, but if you're ever in the area and craving for Chinese food but Crystal Jade and Imperial Treasure (or maybe Paradise Dynasty?) are too far, this may be the place to satisfy your craving. 

How much was spent: $20 per pax
Would I come back again? : Maybe.
Rating: 3/5

Address: 176 Orchard Road
Centrepoint #01-53/56
Singapore 238843
Tel: 67333171

Sangokai Japanese Restaurant @ Upper Thomson Road

On our way home on Tuesday, Pineapple and I stopped by this place to have dinner/supper. I had known about this place when the Straits Times was doing an introduction to new restaurants along Upper Thomson Road, and she, probably through 8 Days, her favourite magazine that she follows religiously.

It was rather empty on a Tuesday night. Save for us, there was only another pair of ladies sitting outside. Looking at their menu, I decided that this is one of those Japanese restaurants whose price range belongs to the "upper middle" range. For Japanese restaurants, there are no low range restaurants. For average range, those affordable ones, they include Watami,  Ichiban Boshi, Suki Sushi and Sakae Sushi. Closely behind is Sakuraya. For upper range, there's Kuriya and the likes of Kaiho Sushi where one meal easily reaches $100 per person. For upper middle range, they lie somewhere in between. I usually classify them if they fulfil the criteria of scoring more than $7/$8 for a serving of salmon sashimi. One meal usually comes up to around $20-$30++ That's just my classification system of a Japanese food lover, haha! 

Anyway, the salmon sashimi ($11) was the cheapest among the sashimi, so we settled on this. The sashimi was decent, but with a price tag like this, I certainly expected more. Perhaps it wasn't the best day to have salmon sashimi that day. You could kinda tell from the not quite distinct fatty lines on the slices that it's not the best/freshest part of the slices.

It was a cool night and we wanted to drink some hot soup, so we decided to have some miso ramen ($10). From the discoloured eggs (a kind of dark yellow instead of the expected bright yellow) I wasn't too pleased but nevertheless I still slurped up the soup hungrily 'cos I was, well, hungry. If you want to eat ramen, a better bet would be those specialised ramen places like Daikokuya or Tampopo. There is no richness in this stock, and they put an excessive amounts of bean sprouts of spring onions.

This one was the best, not just it's best because the rest were lousy, but objectively it was good. This one had the "人気" (popular) stamp beside it on the menu, and since it proved to be good, we decided that it was reliable to follow this label should we go back the next time. Flaming Roll $19.50 -  Toppings of cod roe, Jumbo prawn wrapped inside, with a layer of white fish sashimi. What I liked about this was that they were generous with the precious cod roe, which some restaurants are stingy about. It was certainly very flavourful.

If you can spot the piece of white fish below because it camouflages with the rice:

There are dinner sets available too but we ordered ala carte. This is the menu for their lunch bento sets.

Worth a try if you're around the area, though I wouldn't go back often.  There is 15% off if you pay by cash or NETS.

How much was spent per pax: $20 per pax

Would I go back? Maybe once in a while. 

Rating: 3/5

Address: 203 Upper Thomson Road

Tel: +65 6251 7009

Opening Hours:  Tue–Sun, 12pm–3pm, 6pm–11pm
(Closed on Mon)

Strictly Pancakes @ Prinsep Street

Met up with the ex-hall neighbours for brunch on Deepavali, decided to try out this newly opened pancake place at Prinsep Street. As you can tell from the name, this place sells strictly pancakes. And drinks as well. And sandwiches and some finger food. I came to know of its existence through Yogi Bear, whose BF's friend is the owner, who is also coincidentally Pineapple's friend's sister's friend. I think. Singapore is so small that everyone is a friend of your friend.

Anyway, I love trying out new places! So we met at Dhoby Ghaut at around 11+am, early because I heard it gets full house easily!

 

Looks yummy doesn't it! Read on! 

A very cozy little cafe. We wanted to sit upstairs because I heard there were couches there which sounded more comfy, but they told us it was full there already, so we sat on the first storey instead. Though during our meal, we saw new customers kept entering and walking up the stairs...


I didn't know maple had so much goodness! It's probably still too sweet to be taken on a regular basis though.

Nutella shake - $5. I liked it, 'cos it wasn't too sweet and too "gelad", though there wasn't really any hint of nutella haha! 
 

For the butter, you can have a choice of salted/unsalted butter, garlic and herbs, or rum and raisin. The maple syrup comes in a strange tilted glass.

I heard that the Garlic Butter Prawns ($14) pancake was really good, so we ordered this. Can't say no to prawns in garlic and butter sauce! And you probably can't go wrong with them either! Came with 3 pancakes and 5 prawns. The prawns were really crunchy and the sauce was yummy too!

Chicken A La King ($13) - It comes with some cream sauce that went well with the chicken. The chicken was tender in that it was chewy but then again, it was tough 'cos after chewing it it takes a long time to be chewed into smaller pieces!

Our interest got piqued by the mushrooms and scrambled eggs which are almost always the perfect brunch selection. So we ordered the short stack (2 pancakes) with these two toppings. ($10.50) This one was really worth the money. Not that it wasn't good, but just that it could easily be done.

 For our dessert, we chose the apple and cinnamon pancakes ($10). Caramelized apples in cinnamon sauce and vanilla ice cream. By this time we were already so full by the 8 pancakes we had earlier! Our appetites had clearly shrunk. Somehow the vanilla ice cream was a bit "sticky" but nevertheless good. Tasted a bit different from the usual vanilla ice cream that I eat. This was good. Other choices include really sinful ones like chocolate pancakes with chocolate sauce and peanut butter and whatnot. Would love to try that someday (though not anytime soon haha!) along with the salmon pancake.

5 of us girls shared 3 mains and 1 dessert and we were super full from them. I think it's quite a cool concept. Business seems to be booming during these first few months of opening. It's worth a try, I feel :)

How much was spent: Around $12 per person. 

Would I go back again? Not sure, maybe once in a while.

Address: 44A Prinsep Street Singapore

Tel: +65 6333 4202

Opening Hours

Mon–Thu: 11.30am – 11pm
Fri: 11.30am – 1am
Sat: 9am – 1am
Sun: 9am – 11pm