I am back!

Atma Namaste!

Firstly, I sincerely and deeply apologize for not posting for so long. I was trying to settle down with all the health issues and busy schedule while still needed to get enough rest. Now that I have gradually got used to the ups and downs of my health as another stage of life, I'm ready to entertain you with more cafe visits, restaurants try out, museum exhibitions and other throw backs that I've done.

 

I've also turned into a Vegetarian (Vegan most of the time) since last year for the love for animals, so I will be doing more non-meat reviews. Feedback for the dishes with meat will be from the friend-on-food-duty on that trip.

So boys and girls, cats and dogs, I'm back!  

xoxo

ShabuSAI

Causeway Point at Woodlands has finally finished renovation! Not sure since when it was done but it has become really shopping friendly already, unlike last time when they were still work in progress, even the waitresses were grumpy and I didn't enjoy a simple pasta from Pastamania there. Now it has good air ventilation, cool air-con and spacious walking area..not difficult at all to locate any shop you want, as long as you know which floor it is at.

After my driving lesson at Bukit Batok Driving Centre, my darling dated me to catch up over dinner at Causeway Point. We wanted to dine at Paradise Dynasty but we were sooo hungry we could eat a cow, so we decided to eat steamboat buffet! Japanese Style.

 

The restaurant is quite big for just steamboat and it was almost full house! They have 5 soup bases (which only 2 appeals to us), we chose Terkiyaki and Spicy. The Teriyaki soup base was too sweet for us, so we ended up attacking the Spicy one..actually after 1-2hrs of dipping meat and veg into the spicy base, it started to taste abit odd too..

This is their veg bar, there are different kind of mushrooms, veg, minced meat in bamboo, crab sticks, fish balls...I didn't see clams and seafood though. Opposite this veg bar is sauce bar..they got all kind of japanese sauce, rice and miso soup.

 This is the drink bar and ice cream machine. 

Meats are free flow but you can't grab them yourselves over the counter, you have to tell the waitress to bring specific meat to you. This is chicken slices..soo thin you can almost see the tray, fast cooking and smooth texture.

 Pork facing you, beef slices behind. The first 2 trays of meat were nice and thin, the trays after that not as good..but still edible la..

So that's it, healthy japanese steamboat! We had alooooot of veg, really filled our stomach up so quickly.. It is really a good place for gathering and lovey dovey to knock chopsticks in the pot.

Here are my views:

Ambience 2.5/5
Food 2.5/5 (cook yourself so I don't see there is any skill from chefs needed except for the soup)
Service 2.5/5 (serve yourself at the counter unless you need the meat)
Price Affordable ($14.99++ to 24.99++)
Toilet Availability 0/5 (please use Causeway Point's toilets)

Address:

#05-14.15 Causeway Point 1 Woodlands Square, Singapore, Singapore 738099

Telephone: 6462 1557

Opening hours: Mon - Sun: 11:30 am - 10:00 pm  
 

Check out their facebook fanpage at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shabusai-Singapore/264011333721833

Next, is 4Fingers crispy chicken really that nice that you need to queue for 15 minutes?! Staytuned.

xoxo 

Bangkok Jam

Bangkok! Reminded me of friendly locals, rich culture, good food, warm weather, cheap clothes and nail works..people who went there will love to go back again soon!

And someone dares to open a restaurant called Bangkok Jam! I came across a poster pasted on a pillar of Wheelock Place basement. It only stated the unit number, so I was wondering if it is located in ION or Wheelock Place. I tried my luck at Wheelock and there you have it..

If we entered the restaurant 30 minutes later, we had to queue and starve and drool while watching people drink tom yum...

 New coasters that I almost wanted to bring home..the good guy on my shoulder told me not to..

 The place has black theme, waiters are wearing all black too. At 6-ish pm, the place was almost packed already!

 Colorful menu..love it..

Without hesitating, we ordered Seafood Clear Tom Yum (poh tak talay), Seafood Phad Thai (phad thai talay) and Stir-fried Minced Chicken with Basil (prad kra prow gai). Simple dishes yet traditional and will test the skills of the chef..

While waiting, my migraine was building up by the noise level circulated in the restaurant..it was almost packed (not yet fully packed) but not sure whether it was because of the low ceiling or the interior design that reflected the noises to me..it was no good..I can hear every word from people sitting around the corners, made me abit agitated. So I kept calling the waiters to pour me ice water to calm me down..and you know what? Bangkok Jam bothered to put in apple and strawberry in their ice water! So far I only experienced a piece of lemon or lime but never apple and strawberry..so refreshing..

Another thing I've noticed was the waiters were really patient with us even though they were short handed..great! I love restaurants with polite and patient waiters. They showed the spirit of Bangkok!

While struggling between the torment of noise and the enjoyment of slightly flavored ice water, our food arrived!

Stir-fried Minced Chicken with Basil ($11.90)

This looks sooooo goood right? It was good indeed..the price is slightly steep for bah chor (minced meat) rice if you must compare the ingredients but it is really a skill to be able to bring out the taste of long beans, basil and chicken, unlike other common stir fried food which has no layers of taste. Made me feel that my rice wasn't enough to enjoy the chicken..

 Seafood Clear Tom Yum ($7.90)

Arghh...this Tom Yum...the bowl was small and it was designed with slanted top..so it was not very friendly for lovey dovey who want to share the soup..design of the bowl aside, the Tom Yum was not really clear as you can see from the picture..haha..my "clear standard" is like Thai Express kind of clear..it was not sour or hot enough, just mild with Tom Yum flavour..and the squid tasted muddy..no idea what was wrong..

Seafood Phad Thai ($11.90)

Their Phad Thai passed our standards..not too sweet and really reminded us of Bangkok..Alightly greasy but still alright. You can give it a try. 

Overall, I appreciated the waiters' effort to keep up with the demands, although they made some mistake and added the next table's extra rice into my bill. I will patronize the place again during non-peak hour when there is lesser noise.

Here are my views:

Ambience 2.5/5
Food 3/5
Service 3/5
Price Affordable
Toilet Availability 0/5 (please use Wheelock Place's toilets)

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

Next, River Safari soft opening!

xoxo 

Paradise Inn

I once worked at City Hall for almost 5 years and Funan had been one of our lunch places, occasionally Paradise Inn for birthdays and farewells. This time I went there to eat with my sister (an ex-colleague whom I'm close to and everybody says we look alike!) for our mini lunar new year celebration. We love the fish head there and have been drooling to eat it again.

As usual, this place is always packed with office workers during lunch hours. Sometimes it can be really noisy with all the business talkings and the service can be quite slow.

We ordered vegetable, meat, fish and definitely, as Cantonese, we must have soup (we are soup critics too..hehe..).  Then we will chat away with our food, sister almost choked on a fish bone while we chat. Luckily she has fish eating experience of level 21, so a fish bone does not cause any harm at all..

 Black Chicken with Ginseng Soup, good for women! The soup is really tasty..but don't know why we need to drink a lot of water after drinking the soup..

 Sauteed french beans with dried shrimps and preserved turnip. Good to eat with rice, slightly oily though..never mind, once a while only!

 Crisp fried shrimp paste chicken (wings). Great with rice too!

Steamed 'Song' fish. Used to be with homemade garlic chilli, which was alot more delicious. Now they use ginger paste, we are really not used to it. I think we will only eat it again with the garlic chilli paste.

Overall here are my views:

Ambience 2.5/5
Food 3/5
Service 3/5 (depends if it's peak hour)
Price Slightly steep
Toilet Availability 0/5 (please use Funan toilets)

Check out their website at http://www.paradisegroup.com.sg/ for their weekday $1 special. They have membership too.

xoxo

Coco Ichibanya

Japanese Curry Rice again!!

This time it was not on purpose too. We were loitering at 313 Somerset basement looking for cheap food to eat (well, not cheap after all once you see the prices below) and then we saw Coco Ichibanya at one quiet corner of the basement. The big plates of curry rice displayed in their shelf were waving at us..since there were seats and the noise level was tolerable, we headed in to try..

The place was quite pleasant - clean, good air ventilation, bright..

Sometimes I find Japanese are too detailed and slightly complicated in their food..or in fact, almost in everything.. Here we thought we can just point at the menu and the food will come, but no..we must:

first choose the curry dish we want, 

then choose quantity of rice (with a price. you can also reduce your rice amount that comes with reduction of price too), 

then you choose the spicy level (the max. is level 5, but technically it has 7 levels. First 2 levels are for children and level 0 for standard respectively. *roll eyes* level 0?!), 

then choose to have extra toppings or not (with a price of course) 

We chose Thin-sliced Boiled Beef Curry with additional sausages (for yours sincerely) and Beef Omelet Curry, both at spice level 2 - Hot. The service was really fast, made me worried abit and started imagine that all the food were actually cooked in the morning and they were reheated using microwave..just my thoughts..maybe Japanese has invented some machines that can pressure cook them in just 1 minute.

 

 Thin-sliced Boiled Beef Curry ($12.50 + $1 sausages)

Beef Omelet Curry ($14)

I find the sausages were very short (size does matter to me), tasted not that bad..but there were room for improvement. The Omelet curry was a so-so..it was like when you put a spoon of omelet curry rice into your mouth, you will just think, "hmm...ok this is egg, this is rice..oh, here is the beef.." somehow I couldn't taste the harmonization of the ingredients..I don't feel the must to eat them together. Same goes to the Thin-sliced boiled beef curry..

Well the plus points are the environment was alright but soft-talkers and easily-migraine people like me..there was funny jazz played in the background in medium volume - which was good. The other customers behaved themselves by not laughing or shouting loudly, the kids were tamed too..I was just lucky.

Here are my views:

Ambience 2.5/5
Food 2.5/5
Service 2.5/5
Price Slightly steep
Toilet Availability 0/5 (please use 313 Somerset's toilets)

Operating Hours

Mon - Fri: 10:00 - 22:00
Sat - Sun & PH: 10:00 - 23:00

Next: Paradise Inn! Stay tuned!

xoxo

Monster Curry

Was loitering at ION orchard and did not have any idea what to eat at all until I saw this logo with comical dragon that has 7 heads at ION basement.. so cute!! Orange color somemore ^^  I always like dragons and I believe they existed..but I prefer them to have wings..hehe..Anyway that's out of the point.

 

All heads are smiling and look so "steady", like they know they have good curry..

 The name also sounds promising..so I told myself I have to try.

The way they work is you have to order and pay first outside before they bring you to your table. I was seated in a "cubicle", the partition was quite high. I like the privacy and won't be affected by the noises other tables make. Old already, noises give me migraine..I prefer to have peaceful meal.

Like traditional Japanese restaurants, they displayed the dishes vertically at the counter..do you know that these displayed dishes are not made from real food? Do check out in youtube on how these are made. The plate so big right! Real or not?! 

So I ordered Mountain Monster Curry that has my favorite sausages, and pork katsu (fried pork), pork shabu shabu (pork thin slices) and chicken karaage (fried chicken cubes) at $24.

They have spice level of 1 to 5. I ordered 3 (hot) to "test water"..let's see..

My order finally arrived and the plate was indeed huge!! How to finish??!!

  You see my hand compared to the plate! I bet the plate is bigger than my butt!

You see the red sauce in the curry? They are the spice in the curry..hot! I don't think I will spend another $24 to take the spice level 5..

Really cannot finish the plate although we had 2 pax, so in the end we packed the remains..

Overall here's my view:

Ambience 2.5/5
Food 3/5
Service 3/5
Price Slightly steep
Toilet Availability 0/5 (please use the 5 stars ION toilets)

I will I may go back if I win lottery..ahahaha..it is quite a luxury..

If you are Japanese curry fan, do give it a try. 

Check out their website at http://www.monstercurry.com.sg/ for other outlets.

I will post another curry rice place next!

xoxo

Tonkichi

It's Tonkichi day! 

Do you like Japan curry and always feel that either the rice is too little or you just can't get enough of the curry? Go to Tonkichi to satisfy your curry crave!

Tonkichi day mostly happens on 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month where they have 10% discount for non-members and 25% discount for members. If it is your birthday month, there is an additional 10% off on top of the discount.

The next best thing of Tonkichi is:

Free flow of rice and cabbage!!  Nice right?

And if you ordered curry, you can refill your curry once. Miso soup also refillable!

So why not make a reservation and have a sumptuous japanese cuisine there right? Generous amount of rice, veg, curry, soup..and their Saporro beer sometimes have promotion too..

We frequent the Orchard Central branch where it is located at a quiet and slightly cool space behind the lifts.

This restaurant does not need its own background music..it is located in such a high ceiling space, the only music you can hear is the Orchard Central shopping mall background music. Makes it a perfect place for couples and small gatherings.

Then we ordered our usual food:

 

Chicken Katsu Curry ($24.90). The curry is homemade!

 They are so generous with the chicken and rice...feels like home..

 

Saba Shio Set ($24.90). The cutting on the Saba looks quite creepy right?!..gives me goosebumps..but it tasted really good....together with steamed egg and salmon sashimi as sides.

 Love to mash the steam egg into my rice..I know I'm not a pro but I really love to eat it that way..

The salmon melted in my mouth...hmmmmmm..

Everything seems so homely with the free flow of rice and refillable curry and soup...really love to laze in the restaurant and eat until full full..we came out rubbing tummy..no need supper already!

It's my pleasure to share my views on Tonkichi:

Ambience 4/5
Food 4/5
Service 4/5
Price Slightly steep but worth it!
Toilet Availability 0/5 (please use the very clean Orchard Central toilets)

Address:

181 Orchard Road, #07-06
Orchard Central
Singapore 238896

Tel: 62387976
Fax: 62387312

Operation Hours: 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm (closed)
11.00 am to 3.00 pm (Last Order: 2.30 pm) 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm (Last Order: 10.00 pm)

Check out their website..http://www.pokkafood.com.sg/ I was surprised that they belong to Pokka group.

Hope you will try their food..but remember to starve yourself first to make your trip worthwhile..hehe..

Time to watch my favourite Cesar Millan!!

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