Giraffe Restaurant and Bar @ Istana Park

 This place always catches my attention when I walk down Orchard Road to Dhoby Ghaut. It looks chic, modern and a cool place to hang out at with a bunch of friends, or with your partner. We were deciding a place to celebrate Yogi Bear's birthday last month, and Miss Sunshine did a little research, we were choosing among OverEasy, Helipad, Loof etc but settled on this 'cos none of us had tried it before, and there was 1-for-1 Ladies Night on Tuesday! Reviews online were bad, but we still decided to take the risk.

 You can choose to sit indoors or have al fresco dining, which overlooks the Orchard Road/Dhoby Ghaut stretch and has quite a good view at night. We decided indoors as it was just too humid outside, and thought maybe we could move outside when we're having drinks later after dinner. It's a double story building, and if you're only having drinks, you can choose to sit downstairs where it's an outdoor pub/lounge area which looks quite nice to chill out at as well.

 Miss Sunshine was late, so Yogi Bear, Miss Splendid and I went in first and we were famished so we ordered the Giraffe House Salad with Soft Shell Crab to share first. It's quite nice, though nothing fantastic.

Soft, warm, moist bread on the house. These were good. We wanted to have more but we were paiseh (embarrassed) to ask for a second serving.

We decided all the dishes we wanted to share  before Miss Sunshine arrived but when she arrived, we still asked her to choose a dish, in the end, she still went along with our decisions because she's nice like that. Or maybe we just have the same tastes!


There was 1-for-1 for main courses, so we ordered 4 main courses altogether to share. The first up is White Fish with Thyme ($14++) and something else (I can't remember, sorry!) One of my favourite dishes of the night, partly by virtue of the fact that I like white fish, but also because it's fresh and I like the way it's done and the sauce as well. Everything goes well together.

This one was not so fantastic. Crabfish Pizza with Wasabi Mayonnaise. We liked the crust because it's crispy and fragrant, but other than that, the toppings are nothing to be raved about.

This was unanimously the best dish out of all. Ribeye with Blue Cheese Sauce ($24/$26) (as you can see prices are quite reasonable, especially after 1-for-1!) All 4 of us answered in unison, "Medium rare". It was really tender and the sauce goes very well with the meat as well. Couldn't really taste the blue cheese (don't know whether that's good or bad haha!) but it tasted yummy all the same. Wish I could've more of this. 
 

King Prawn and Chicken Combo ($19/$22) (All prices are estimated given my bad memory) When it came we were slightly disappointed because there was only ONE king prawn. So we cut into 4 small pieces and shared... Maybe because it was such a small piece I couldn't really taste the freshness/sweetness of it. But because I'm such a sucker for seafood, I think it's not bad too! Chicken was well done too. At that point of time, we couldn't understand what was so bad about Giraffe that other reviews complained about their food. It's not that our taste buds are deficient, we can differentiate good and bad food fairly well, tyvm (thank you very much). Maybe they changed chefs?

After the main courses, we ordered more drinks. Before this we ordered fruit juices to go with our dinner. At this point we got confused by their promotion.We thought it was 1-for-1 for EVERYTHING we ordered, but no, it was only 1-for-1 for the first set of 1-for-1 items we order, if you get what I mean. So we thought the fruit juices were 1-for-1, and our 2nd round of drinks would also be 1-for-1, but we were wrong. Anyway, after the big hoo-ha about the confusing promotions they have (so confusing that the management agreed as well and were going to change the promotions already, so there may be different promotions now), Miss Splendid ordered the Snowball Cocktail. What a cute name for an alcoholic drink. Sounds like a name for your pet.

Tasted like yakult, which I liked. Alcohol taste is very slight as well, which I liked even more, haha! The rest ordered martinis, which they said were too bitter.

The portions of the main dishes were quite small, but somehow the 4 of us were still very full after the food. Yet we couldn't let off the desserts, because they looked and sounded so good on the menu, and we were lazy to move out of Giraffe to another place. We were even too lazy to move outdoors, haha!

Prices for cakes are very reasonable, around $6 per slice. They're all airflown from America, which sounds impressive, but throws doubts on the freshness of these cakes.  

Chocolate cake.

 Cheesecake.

Coffee-flavoured.

 We thought too highly of ourselves. In the end we only managed to finish half of each cake, what a waste, because we were simply too full. Despite the bad reviews on service, the service staff that night were attentive and helpful and patient in explaining to us the confusing promotions. Food was good. We'll probably come back again some time or another, especially if there's still 1-for-1. Good place for couples or girls' night out. Guys' night out maybe, haha!


How much was spent: Around $35 per pax 
Would I come back? Probably. Just to eat the rib eye and enjoy the ambience!

Address: Istana Park
Orchard Road
Singapore 238823

Tel: +65 6334 4653

Jones the Grocer @ Mandarin Gallery

Since I have received a request from a friend to post more entries on this food blog (happiness!), I am encouraged to be more diligent in the updating.

Remember the time I went with the sister to have brunch at Imperial Treasure? Well, after shopping and walking around at Orchard Road, we got really tired and wanted to sit down and have tea or desserts. We decided on Jones the Grocer since both of us haven't tried that before, and for a moment we couldn't really think of any other places so we settled on this.

I came to know of this place by working on another cafe in the same building (some of you might know), and I always wanted to try it out someday, but knowing it's really pricey, I never really got around to trying it. It's a gourmet food retailer, selling cheeses, gourmet pastas and so on - gosh, one bottle of pasta sauce costs $19!!! That's crazy. For me, at least.

Anyway, it was not that crowded when we reached there around 4 plus 5pm. We were still full from lunch and we ordered small bites to share.

 

The wide variety of cheeses in the glass case behind there reminds me of times in Europe and Scandinavia

I saw "tapas" on the menu and decided to order it since I didn't have the chance to try it when I was in Spain (yes how silly right I know). It listed a whole chunk of food and I thought since tapas refers to a wide variety of appetizers or snacks, the entire chunk would be included in the $12. Who was I kidding? This is definitely a higher-end-than-usual restaurant for me. The waiter then explained that each row of words was a separate dish, haha! So we chose the smoked salmon with avocado one. 

Reading food reviews from other blogs, it seems like this place is known for their over-priced and under-portioned dishes (LadyIronChef), and my! When our dish came, I raised my eyebrows. 

Tapas $12 - Smoked Salmon with Avocado and Crème Fraîche on Foccacia

  
As good as it tasted - the avocado and sour cream was a good combination with the smoked salmon - I don't really think it's worth the money. I can simply buy the ingredients from NTUC and make it myself! Normally I don't really fancy smoked salmon unless they're soaked in mayonnaise and sometimes they can be really fishy, but this combination was refreshing.

 Mudslide Mocha - Not bad.

They also have main courses like Confit Chicken ($27) and Jones Open Wagyu Beef Burger ($27) if you're going there for lunch or dinner.



How much was spent: Around $12 per pax
Would I go back? Maybe only...



Address: 333A Orchard Road #04-21/23 Mandarin Gallery 

Tel: +65 6836 6372

Chikuwa Tei @ Mohamed Sultan Road

My friends, sister and I have always loved what used to be a tiny establishment at Far East Plaza called Wasabi Tei. We were absolutely devastated when we heard that it was going to close down a few months back (or has it been a year?!) The sister first introduced this place to me, I remember vividly what we ordered - Mixed sashimi platter (from then onwards an item on our must-eat), unagi set, chawanmushi, and californian roll. It came up to around $52 for 2 persons, and we were so full and so satisfied. My first time trying fresh scallop then, the freshest, sweetest scallop ever, and still unrivaled till today.  Wasabi Tei was particularly known for their 45-min queue (you can't even leave your name as with those big restaurants, just gotta queue from the 1st minute to the 45th minute), grouchy, grumpy chef (also known as the "Nazi chef" and his wife, thick slabs of freshest sashimi you can ever find at really affordable prices, and cramped restaurant space that sits 16 people. 

So yesterday I had lunch here with the Smooch couple (by virtue of their names combined together, not because they kept smooching in front of me, haha!) after Sreny came up with this brilliant suggestion. I had always neglected this new restaurant although I wanted so much to try when I first knew it was resurrected at Mohamed Sultan Road, simply because it was not located in Orchard Road or City Hall shopping centres where it is easily accessible. I guess it's good in a way as well, because when we arrived on the Saturday afternoon, there was no queue at all!

Gone are the queues - reservations can even be made now, gone is the grouchy and intimidating chef  replaced by a much friendlier Chef Peter who even walks out of his sushi counter to serve you and says thank you and bye-bye when you leave and who also happens to look exactly like the Nazi chef. It's weird. He seems to have totally changed. We even spotted him interacting with a family with a kid. We were really amused. The new restaurant is also so much more comfortable now, more spacious, with nicer plates used. 

Complimentary appetizer - We missed the hijiki seaweed that is usually served, what came was the lotus root thingie, a bit sweet, a bit salty. We prefer the hijiki seaweed with the tofu thingie.

The long-awaited Sashimi Moriawase ($35) that had us anticipating, yearning, longing. There were fewer varieties this time round, perhaps because it included flounder this time, which is an uncommon inclusion on his platter. It used to be amaebi (sweet prawn) and sometimes hotate (scallop). Quality is definitely still the same, thickness as well. I put a slab of sake (salmon) into my mouth, the texture is oh-so-good, the taste sweet, yet salty, playing on my senses, leaves me wanting for more, many more. The flounder and swordfish were very good as well. Nothing to say for tuna because I really don't fancy it.

If you like sashimi and your friend(s) doesn't or vice versa, you can order their Chirashi Don ($25) for yourself which is a very popular and good choice as well. It's highly recommended because the sashimi they give is also of the same quality as you see above, unlike in some other restaurant.

 If you are not one for raw food, go for the cooked food which are very yummy as well. This is another must-try - Codfish Hot Pot ($24). The soup is sweet and nice, filled with veggies and golden mushrooms, and the fish is very fresh and not fishy at all.

Another favourite dish is the Grilled Unagi Set ($21; comes with miso soup, rice, pickles and watermelon). At Wasabi Tei, I thought I would never be able to find another restaurant with the same size of unagi grilled to this goodness at around $17 that comes in a set any more. Although the quality is still the same, the prices are slightly too high for my liking now. This is also a must-try, nevertheless.

Chawanmushi ($5) - Delicious, with pieces of mushrooms, prawn, chicken and clear noodles inside.

The Zaru Soba ($7) was not up to expectations though. We're not sure of the preparation process, but we suspected it has been left in the fridge for too long, or if not, they served it too early after taking it out from the fridge, because the noodles were simply too hard.

Spent much more than we expected, because at the old place I usually spend around $25 per person. This time it certainly burnt another hole in my pocket! My third time having Japanese food this week, haha! Can never get sick of it, though I think next week I shall not have any. As much as I would like to go back here regularly, I think I'll probably come back here only on special occasions :)


How much was spent: $37 per person.
Would I go back? Oh yes definitely.


Address: 9 Mohamed Sultan #01-01 

Tel: +65 6738 9395

Tenza Izakaya @ Sunset Way

Once in a while I would go to Sunset Way for dinner after church, and we'll pass by this Japanese restaurant along the way to another Japanese restaurant called Megumi. Megumi is recommended more often by other food blogs but not this, I've rarely seen this featured somewhere else. Pineapple saw this on 8 Days and asked if I wanted to try this out, and I said yes! I never say no to Japanese restaurants yeah. This is a fairly new restaurant which started its operations in May/June this year.

According to Wikipedia, an Izakaya (居酒屋) is a Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food to accompany the drinks. In Japan, these are popular places for casual and after-work drinking or chilling out. This Izakaya has an extensive range of sake but it is my loss as I do not really drink.


The complimentary appetizer came soon after we placed our orders. This is cabbage with miso sauce given, which we are to squeeze the lemon into the sauce. Interesting taste, but not addictive.

Mekajiki - Swordfish Sashimi $15. I read on a blog that really recommended their swordfish so we decided to give it a try. It was fresh, yes, within expectations given the slightly higher price than other restaurants like Watami or Sakuraya, but nothing out of the world. Other said restaurants can offer the same quality at a lower price, I reckon.

Grilled Beef Tongue 牛タン $8 - This was special enough. Pineapple ordered this as she said she has always wanted to try this. It was tender, tasty and chewy. Texture is good. Pop it into your mouth piece after piece, nompnompnomp...

They also have a wide variety of yakitori 焼き鳥 (litereally means grilled chicken on skewers but has come to collectively include other foodstuffs) items. Middle: Foie gras $10; Right: Beef with asparagus $3.60

Unagi $7.80 (I think). Nice, though I think there was a sauce overload.

Mentaiko Chazuke - Rice in Tea-Broth with Spicy Cod Roe. I wanted to order cold soba or udon, but thought I should try something new, so we ordered this. I would just say it's worth a try, but it's unremarkable.

After all those I thought I wasn't really satisfied, so I decided to order chicken wings. Bad choice.

Grilled chicken wings $2.50 Pineapple says only the skin is coated with miso, which explains why only the skin is salty but not the meat inside. And I thought they didn't marinate it nicely.

As you can see it was badly charred. Hawker centre chicken wings over this anytime.

For desserts I decided on our behalf to have their home-made goma (black sesame) ice cream. But it was out of stock! So we asked for yuzu instead. Out of stock! So in the end we had matcha (green tea) flavour. It came half-melted. I liked this version though, it was slightly milkier than the usual ones you eat at places like Azabu Sabo or MOF, which are slightly more bitter and tea-like.

This is a nice place to chill out though. I like restaurants at Sunset Way, this one had al fresco dining and we chose to sit outside. Service staff also had pleasant attitudes.



How much was spent: $27 for myself 
Would I go back? Not sure, probably not.

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

Tel: +65 6773 0093

Taste Paradise @ Ion Orchard

Looking at various food reviews that had raved about the dim sum at Taste Paradise, I know I just gotta check it out. Therefore I suggested to have the sister's birthday celebration here by having Sunday brunch yesterday! Remember to make your reservations - we made reservations for 11am and they required us to vacate by 12.30pm... We were all right with it though.

 The interior - paintings of emperors from the Qing Dynasty.

Table set-up -

 Embossed menu design -

Complimentary appetizer - my family liked this, because I think the teochews like to eat sze chuan cai. This one was coated with chili oil and sesame oil and maybe some other secret ingredients that we cannot decipher.

Porridge was so-so only, disappointing coming from a Chinese restaurant that's going to give Crystal Jade and Imperial Treasure a run for their money. They only have two types - century egg and lean meat, and fish porridge. We had a bowl of each. If you like to eat porridge, you're better off at CJ or IT. Their silky texture is oh-so-good. This one was coffee-shop standard, though the fish in the fish porridge was in bigger pieces and much fresher, unlike coffee-shops' which are rather fishy at times.

Prawn and Mango Roll - 3 for $4.80 When you order they'll actually ask if you want to increase the number of pieces to the number of pax at the table, but we declined, 'cos we like to share, and diverse the risk first before ordering a second serving, haha! When I cut this into two, I suppose I gave the part with the prawn to the sister, so my part only had mango and tons of mayonnaise drooling out. It was yummy, though I thought there was simply too much mayo in it (coming from a person who loves mayo, it says something), and not enough prawns!!

BBQ Honey Sauce Pork Bun - 3 for $3.90. Next time I will remember to order the char siew sou that was a hot favourite among the rest. This one was good too, the pork pieces are larger than anywhere else (hahaha) and sweeter as well.

Xiao Long Bao with Foie Gras - The receipt says 4 for $7.80, but there was only 3 when it came! 0.0 Okay I think we kinda got cheated.... Never mind! Anyway, when I first tasted this I felt that it wasn't any different from the usual XLB that we eat. There was no hint of the heavenly foie gras. 

However, when next you take a bite of the normal Xiao Long Bao (4 for $3.80), you can taste the difference. The above is definitely tastier. But only the normal had soup oozing out, not the foie gras one. 

This is something new to us - Steamed Cod Fish Balls (3 for $4.20). I love the crystal skin! 

 

How it looks like inside - What cod fish balls! There was only one little meagre piece of cod fish inside... It was filled with vegetables and mushrooms. It was still yummy though...

 

I think you can never go wrong with siew mai and har kao.

 Steamed Custard Bun - 3 for $4.20). A highly raved-about item as well, though it's not really to my liking. The custard just screams sinful - lots of butter and egg yolk, I can almost feel my cholesterol levels rising as I gingerly took each bite. It was my first time trying this (yeah sua ku right heehee) but I think once is enough!

Prawn wrapped in Beancurd Skin - 3 for $4.80. The father couldn't wait to tuck in. 

 This is something new as well - Century Egg with Wasabi Mayonnaise (3 for $4.20). I've never come across this combination before, so it was novel to us, and loving century egg and mayonnaise, I've gotta try this one! It comes chilled (therefore should be ordered first), the century egg and ginger slices are refreshing to the tastebuds, and the wasabi mayonnaise shields the taste a bit if you don't like century eggs. I like it! The sisters thought it was weird though, but I'll definitely order it again if I go there!

Pan-Fried Pumpkin Pastry - 3 for $3.20. I don't really fancy this, but the parents liked it.

 XO Carrot Cake - $7.80 No hint of XO. Not bad, but I don't think I'll order it another time!

Their desserts came with billowing dry ice. We had avocado cream with walnut ice cream (which tasted more like coffee ice cream) and Mango with coconut ice cream. We wanted to change the latter ice cream to mango ice cream but it couldn't be done, but it turned out that the coconut ice cream went quite well with the mango sago.

 Service staff was aplenty, though they were shuffling here and there and we had a hard time catching their attention sometimes. It's a good place for family outings/gatherings I feel. There were many families around when we went there for brunch, and it's not as noisy as in other Chinese restaurants.


How much spent: $25-$28 per pax 
Would I go back again? Yes!

Address: 2 Orchard Turn
#04-07 ION Orchard
Tel: +65 6509 9660