Boon Tong Kee

I guess this place is no stranger for chicken rice lovers. Although I'm not a chicken rice fan, I do go there for their cantonese dishes, which I think is much better than their chicken. Their chicken is somehow, erm, overrated. BUT the rice is great.

 Al Fresco - quite warm to sit outside, plus I really don't like to eat along the road with the noisy cars driving by..

 Indoor

They have 2nd floor as well. By 6pm, the place is fully packed already, so do go there as early as 5.30pm sharp.

After some argument with the waitress who doubted that I can finish so many dishes, I finally ordered 4 and forced her to shift me to a bigger table. I get agitated easily with waitress who likes to warn me how much I can eat. Unless I ask about the portion.

 Poached chinese spinach with assorted eggs ($10). Basically, spinach cooked with normal eggs, salted eggs and century egg. The gravy is nice to eat with rice, slightly salty because of the salted egg.

 My favorite crispy beancurd ($6). They are served with mayonnaise. The skin is thin and crispy, very slightly salty, the toufu inside is sooooo soft and smooth..

 Their signature boiled chicken ($5). Comes in different amount, this is the smallest, enough for 2 pax.Taste common, I think it's the sauce that helps. Oh, and also their chilli sauce. Spicy and fragrant.

 Fried egg with shrimps ($12). Not alot of shrimps, quite oily. Not impressive.

Really, they have very tasty rice. So it's not really a wasted trip.

BUT..one thing that I dislike about this restaurant is they still sell shark fins soup, and they display shark fins in their shelves with pride.

I can never highlight enough how brutal the process is to get shark fins. If you have no clue about how these fins are achieved, please refer back to my old post - I'm FINished with FINS, too.

Please people, stop eating shark fins soup. It is toxic and it is cruel. We are human with high intelligence, so make the right choice and be humane. Eating shark fins soup is no longer an act of luxury enjoyment, it is an act of ignorance and inhumanity.

Even my cat is FINished with FINS.

So here are my views:
Ambience 2.5/5
Food 2.5/5
Service 2.5/5
Price Affordable
Toilet Availability 1/5

Address:
399 /401 /403 Balestier Road
Singapore 329801

Telephone number:
6254 3937 / 6256 0138

Check out their website at http://www.boontongkee.com.sg/

Old Hong Kong Kitchen

We were supposed to dine at Old Hong Kong Essence at Oasia Hotel but they were renovating, so we went to Old Hong Kong Kitchen instead which is just nearby, hoping that Essence's coupon could be used at Kitchen since they belong to the same group - Old Hong Kong Group.

See! I didn't bluff you! They are supposed to be a group, so the coupon at Old Hong Kong Essence (which is under renovation) should be able to be used in Old Hong Kong Kitchen right?

BUT when I approached Kitchen with the coupon, they pushed to one another to verify, and finally one woman came and pointed out rudely (like I do not know how to read) that the coupon was not for Kitchen so will not be recognized. So everyone, they are, virtually only, a group.

After this minor humiliation, I rather wait for my friends at KFC downstairs with a diet pepsi than to wait inside this restaurant with unfriendly waitresses.

It wasn't full house on a Thursday night. However according to my friend, this place will be packed during weekends..I don't understand why.

This restaurant has buffet steamboat and normal dishes. Steamboat ingredients are normal cheap ingredients like luncheon meat and hotdogs etc..it will be better if you get the coupon from groupon or deal.com, otherwise it will cost around $26 before GST. Not worth it.

So we decided to order normal dishes, and managed to order 4 dishes after slight verbal conflicts again..goodness..even though Hong Kong people can be tactless, they are professional at work. Unlike these people in Old Hong Kong Kitchen. They preferred to gossip with one another than to serve you.

Conpoy and Crab Meat with Egg White. There was totally no layer in this dish..the texture was very clear, egg white was egg white, crab meat was crab meat..I didn't get the "eh?" kind of feeling. Quite salty and the appearance wasn't appealing. Looked like mucus.

 Plain fried Cai Xin. Salty and quite oily. Really plain.

Stewed chicken with spicy sauce. Don't worry, it is not spicy at all, not even a hint. Most meat were chicken breast, the sauce was slightly sweet.

Baked Cod Fish with Fantastic Sauce. I thought this dish could finally wow me but after I put a piece into my mouth, the onlyv words in my mind were "what's so fantastic about this dish??" It was just abit sour, abit sweet, abit smokey...luckily it was cod fish which texture was good enough already so even though it was not fantastic, it was still edible.

Overall the cost for the whole dinner would be more than $90 if we didn't have Kitchen's 1-for-1 coupon. Gosh...the service was bad, the food was so-so and there wasn't much of ambiance. If I go there again, the possible reason will be I have too much money to spend and I totally have no idea where to spend them.

So here are my views:
Ambience 1.5/5
Food 2.5/5
Service 1/5
Price Affordable but I can eat the same kind of standard at coffee shop
Toilet Availability 0/5 (please use Novena Square 2's toilets)

Check out their website at http://www.oldhongkong.com.sg/ 

Next, National Museum!

xoxo

C-Jade HK Cafe In

My mom and I are regular customers of Crystal Jade at Toa Payoh, most of our dinners are taken there. Sometimes we have steamboat buffet (especially during rainny days), sometimes we ordered ala carte ('cause we got abit sick of steamboat). Now, we have one more choice: Hong Kong Cafe! We have to try!

Crystal jade restaurants has got many different concepts all over Singapore, mostly Cantonese cuisine. They do have fine dining, korean ginseng and BBQ, Shanghainese, Teochew etc...I do not doubt their standards, the only problem is whether you have big appetite to try out their food.

This time with only 2 (small) mouths, we could only order 2 drinks and 2 dishes.

Chilled Hong Kong milk tea ($3.90). Tasted just like those I had in Hong Kong, thin but yet fragrant. Look, they even bother to use a nice flask and put dry ice in the hole..so delicate..Question: how do you drink that? Answer: pour it into a shooter glass and drink. Something new.

My mom's favorite: Iced red bean with ice cream ($5.90).

Mixed grill with spaghetti (fish fillet, chicken chop, pork chop and hotdog - $16.80). This is like when you have no idea whether you want to eat pork, chicken or fish, this platter has all of them. The pork is slightly tough to chew, but the chicken and fish were good..I love their cauliflower and hot dog :p They are very generous with the spaghetti, I was glad we only ordered 2 dishes..If you frequent other HK cafe in Singapore, you will notice that they always have noodles/rice with egg and hotdog/luncheon meat right? This is part of HK culture..people there do take that for breakfast everyday, it's fast and cheap and you don't need a good chef to cook that.

Steam rice with minced meat and salted egg in wooden pot ($7.80). This is good also, but how come I feel like a beggar..hmm...must be the wooden pot.

Look! They also have this D.I.Y braised rice which you can cook the rice yourself in 20 minutes..very suitable for lovey-dovey couples..haven't tried this one because I was too lazy and too hungry..

Overall, here are my views:
Ambience 3/5
Food 3/5
Service 3/5
Price Reasonable and affordable
Toilet Availability 3/5 (clean and have lots of toilet paper!)

Check out their website: http://www.crystaljade.com/?locale=en_US

xoxo

Bosses (黑社會)

After the nice trip at the world's largest aquarium, I forced my friend to go to Bosses at Vivocity for hi-tea. I always like La Mian with stewed beef (especially it rains nowadays, soupy food becomes a great comfort food to me) and dim sum there. Besides the food, I love the ambience and the scenery that the restaurant provides. Romance.

Basically Bosses' theme of black adds into the opulence, overlooking the harbour, cable cars, cruise ships and skies....and they played christmas carols in the background. The service there was good too, they even bother to add a slice of lime into our coke. No wonder their coke tasted so much better than other places although it still comes out from the can.

 

We had fried fish skin as appetizers. Looks creepy and inhuman but they are soooo crispy and not fishy at all. We finished the whole plate in a mintue while waiting for our dishes.

Nice soft radish cake made of real radish unlike other restaurants that used factory made radish cake.

 Each of their har kao has 2 prawns inside!

Siew mai also have 1 and half prawns!

 

We sipped the soup until the last drop and nothing left for the dim sum. I've tried their porridge before previously and it was delicious too. Too bad there were only the 2 of us, otherewise we would have ordered more to try.

I have tiny bitsy problem with finding the toilet though. There were 2 cubicles embedded in the wall at the back of the restaurant, I got to "poke" the wall to find them. However, their tap is embedded under the mirror, making the toilet area sleek and stylish.

So here are my views:
Ambience 4/5
Food 4/5
Service 4/5
Price Reasonable
Toilet availability 2/5

The address of Bosses is 1 Harbourfront Walk, Vivocity #02-156
Tel: 63769740

Operating Hours
Mon - Thu: 10:00 - 22:00 hrs
Fri - Sat: 10:00 - 22:30 hrs
Sun: 10:00 - 22:00 hrs

Will definitely go back there to try their custard buns.

xoxo