Thursday, June 30, 2005

Buffet - Pariss International (First visit)

Went to try Pariss with Dar dar, loh gong zai and Deanie.



We went into Pariss at 8.30 pm. While at the entrance, the server was telling us, their last order ie. the last time we can get any more food is 9.30 pm and they close at 10 pm. Truth be told, its advisable to go over at an earlier time if u really wana enjoy the buffet coz we were kinda rushing through our dinner....



There was supposedly more than 200 items leh!!! How to finish in one hour???

When we were first brought to our table, the server informed us that this fish clip on the table...



.. is an indicator that we should bring along to pass to the chefs for dishes that requires to be cooked so that the dishes will be served to us.

As there are ALOT of food, i'll just try~~ to group them together...




Cold scallops, crayfish, lobsters, spanner crabs, fresh oysters!

The cold scallops was nice in my view... didn't try the crayfish... spanner crab looked special (coz never tried before) but taste was not very nice, very little crab meat... but the oysters were HUGE!!!



Using my finger to give u a gauge of how HUGE it is!

There's also the sashimi...



In the first pic there's salmon, tuna, sword fish, bamboo fish and in the second pic is the squid (my fav.. though not a common liking) and shark.

Dar and Deanie didn't dare to try the shark. Loh gong zai tried and said it tasted like chicken. I duno how to explain the taste. haha!

Then theres the terriyaki...



You can choose ur own and get the chefs to cook it for u. The fish was the nicest, second was probably the chicken. The beef was very hard, not very nice.

Something special was the crocodile soup!



The crocodile meat was very hard! Not very nice. The soup was normal herbal soup.

They also have the cream of corn soup with pastry on top.



The corn soup was just normal corn soup loh~~ But the pastry was VERY NICE!!!

Then these are some of the other dishes which im too lazy to group....



Then for desserts!



There's fruits, some cutey Jappy jelly and ice cream!!

But aside from fruits, i was probably the only one who really had the Jappy jelly, yam pudding and ice cream! haha.. coz i was worried i might get too full for desserts, my first helping was the desserts before any other solid food. haha... The rest of them were too stuffed after the meal for any dessert!

and while having the ice cream, i realised the plate of wasabi sitting beside looked very similar to it...



So we were joking about scooping the wasabi up into some round balls and pass it off as green tea ice cream! confirm lau bak sai ah!! hahaha...

Oh.. i forgot to add that every guests will be given a voucher to redeem a glass of red wine each.


n finally when we were all stuffed, these were the remains on our table...



we were all so stuffed we couldnt walk or stand straight!

How was the food? Honestly, our views were they had lotsa variety, some special stuff but they made the taste very normal. nothing really yummy or so.. but they don't taste bad la...

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Western - Swensens (Chinatown Point)

Ah yee, uncle sq and i went for lunch at Swensens Chinatown Point.



It was some set meal. Comes with soup, drink and dessert. Overall... ok la... not bad loh.... its.. Not not nice.. hur~

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Healthy - Aiwo (Levine's Birthday Celebration)

Today, dar dar and myself met up with Levine to pass her her birthday present coz we didnt manage to attend her birthday celebration last week.

Dar dar was suggesting we go check out this new place at Raffles City called Aiwo.

She even gave me the webby http://www.aiwo.com.sg/ . From the webby, the food did indeed look appetising.


Its located at 2nd level of Raffles City Shopping Centre.




Once seated, we noticed that they had a rather interesting ... erm.. concept for their utensils.



They are placed in a drawer underneath the glass table. Interesting eh?

They had the ala carte menu, the unlimited feast - which u basically get a soup, pita bread, a starter and all you can eat from the conveyor belt.



Another one called Omega Treats which included wat the unlimited feast had with Lemon Charmoula Cod Accompanied with Grilled Veg or Tandoori Glazed Mushrooms With Assorted Florets and dessert with coffee or tea. (aiya.. actually all these info u can get from the webby... haha)

We went for the Unlimited feast. $17+ per person.

We were first served our soup.

Disclaimer: The following is all based on my personal preference. You MAY like the food there.



Ah.. yes, our soup. Tasted abit curry-ish but its not spicy. Beside it was the pita bread.. that looked like nachos... but it was.. soft.

I was the first to try it. and when Levine picked it up..

she went..."what is this?"

Me:"Nacho loh"

I purposely wait till she took a bite before i added on..

Me:" and its soft "

wahahhahaha....



She gave me a very sian and seh look after that. The sauces to go with it, one was tomato paste and the one one tasted abit like the sweet sauce u get from chee cheong fan! haha...

and then was our starter.. or so called side dish...



The shrimp from the starter was like the tastiest thing i had for the night. Den the green green ball u see, its actually barley balls. Looks like rice right? No, its barley! Pretty tasteless. Duno why its green in colour and has bits of chilli in it.. but still pretty tasteless to me.

Den we began attacking the converyor belt....



The items all LOOKED very appetising and sounded appetising. They SOUND appetising... they have names like .... Asian Barbeque Chicken, Ginger and duno wat fish, Shrimp and crab bolognese, Chicken Satay, etc etc.

Let's just say they were not to our likings. They were not horrible of coz. Just... erm.. a nice word to use is.. HEALTHY. And also pretty indian-ish.

My favourite has gotta be this skewer of Apple, Mushroom, Green Pepper (you can see it on the last pic). But i only eat the apple and mushroom and i dun finish up the rest. The fish was... can eat loh... The chicken satay and asian barbeque chicken was.. too hard for my liking.

We were tempted to order their mains which was some seafood platter thingy but decided not to. Sekali same no taste waste money!

But since dar dar had this voucher for 1 for 1 dessert, we ordered the dessert..



Even their brownie and muffins were healthy kind? Very HEALTHY LOH. Not very sweet... n its weird to mix brownie with sorbert?

But overall, its an experience mah. Just dat we are.. not the healthy type.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Dim Sum - Yum Cha (First visit)

Went for dinner with dar dar and andy zai at Yum Cha.

while eating, i saw someone familar...



The guy standing. I recognise him from my poly and a friend of Joanne. I called Joanne only to realise Yum Cha is his family business. I've seen him a couple of times previously. I passed the fone to him.

Later, he recommended us a couple more items on top of what we ordered, gave us discounts and free dessert.



These were wat we ordered. Overall the dim sums were not bad. An average of $4 per dish. The service was also good. The aunty server kept coming over to change our plates for us and also fill up our drinks (n no, its not because we know Tantong).

Then these desserts were complimentary from him.



The honeydew sago was not bad. But dar and myself don't really like Honeydew. The honeydew sago was served with the dried ice effect.. wow.. so cool.

The red bean paste with banana waffle was really nice.

We noticed something special on the table. You know how restaurant tables usually would have this stand with a list of recommended items? On the base of this stand, there were buttons.



U can click on each button to order, to add water, to bill, etc. Wow.. very advanced huh!

Tan Tong also told us they intend to go into HK steamboat soon. Probably will go back and try it.



This is the restaurant's interior.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Spanish - Ocho (First visit)

Met up with Vreniz for dinner at Chijmes

Vreniz and myself arranged to meet up at Chijmes because Vreniz has this card dat offers 1 for 1 at several of the dining places at Chijmes and we both love love love the ambience at Chijmes since our previous visit there.

We're planning on utilising her card to try out the places.

Today we chose Ocho, a spanish place.



We met up around 5.30 pm which is actually pretty early for dinner.

The people were actually just setting up the chairs when we got there.



They were covering the chairs with red cloths.

Vreniz also had vouchers to get $10 off drinks so we ordered one mango juice and one fresh summer.



Fresh summer is very refreshing and not very sweet with a twist of sour. It contains apple and i-cant-remember-what. Haha....

and for food, we ordered 4 items since it was 1 for 1 and the items were all in very small portions.



The pics may make the dishes look BIG but seriously, the portioning seemed pretty pathetic to us. The creamy shrimps was nice but it was such a small piece. there was only about 4-5 meatballs in the meatballs and the softshell crab was just.. ok. The cod fish was an incredibly small piece. After dividing it was just a mouthful. We felt like we were eating starters which barely filled our stomachs.

With the 1 for 1 card, our whole meal cost around $36 which is actually not cheap. Its a place where i probably won't be back again but its worth a try if you just want the experience. Service was not bad though.


As we were finishing our meal, it started to seem like its about to rain... and the poor servers who were covering the chairs wif the red cloths earlier were all busy trying to remove the covers.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Fine Dining - Broth (My birthday treat from lil bee)

I went over to pick up dar dar and Jo-ann at Mandarin hotel and headed over to Duxton Hill together. Little bee wanted to treat me for my bday at Broth, the restaurant he's working in.




He's raved to me many times about how nice AND EXPENSIVE the food at his restaurant is. haha.. finally getting to try it for myself!

We were first served the bread...



and our orders were taken under their recommendations.

For starters....



We had baby spinach and goose liver.

The baby spinach looked quite special. It was a layer of leaves and a layer of mushroom. Very uniquely designed. Overall the taste was ok.

As for the goose liver, it tasted very special and yummy on first bite. Its very cripsy on the outside (most probably pan fried). its not powdery. In fact, it tastes a little bit fatty? i duno if im describing it correctly. Its nice but u cant eat too much of it or u'll feel really sick of it.

We were also offered glasses of wine and rosay (i hope i spelt rosay correctly).


and many other drinks...



Btw, they last pic is the sugar. Haha.. i liked the way their sugar cubes looked. =P


For the mains, we had...



The beef, the mahi mahi (fish) and kangaroo!

The beef was nice!! It was my favourite main dish though it wasnt totally special.

We didnt really like the mahi mahi coz we found the fish abit too tough. But the sauce was very nice.

And the kangaroo meat... this little bee upon serving us asked us if we found it cruel to eat kangaroo meat and that kinda... got us abit off the mood for the kangaroo meat! miu~* The kangaroo meat tastes a little like beef but its slightly more chewy. N for some reasons, indeed because kangaroo meat was unusual, i visualising a kangaroo in my mind. hahaha....

Lastly for our dessert....



We ordered the 3 more popular items upon their recommendations.

The first one is the chocolate moose. The cup shaped tart tasted a little like digestive biscuits and the middle part had a very sour sauce. It was Jo-ann's favourite out of the 3 desserts.

The second one is the sticky date pudding. MY FAVOURITE! My expression tells it all when i sampled it. Jo-ann and dar dar could see my face light up immediately after i tried it. The top is sour cream and the cake is covered with butterscotch. My god... that combination is a killer. i felt flutters in my heart and sparkles all around. I'm flying~ hahahhahaha! It was DAT GOOD!!! Little bee was saying that the next time we play mj at his place he'll try to ta bao for me! haha

The last pic is the highly recommended apple tart with ice cream. It tastes special unlike the other apple tarts we've tried before. went very well with the ice cream. According to the guys, you can never go wrong with the apple tart. haha....

Steamboat - Juju (My birthday with Sonia and Rachel)

Rachel and Sonia were giving me a birthday treat at Ju Ju.



Its located right beside Tao. In fact, they are under the same management.

This is Juju's set meal menu.



This is the starters.



I find the egg tofu on the left and the seasoned i-duno-wat-its-called pretty common. But the egg was quite special. Its half boiled and u're supposed to break it into half and pour the sauce. Not bad, quite special.

For the mains, Sonia and i ordered the beef for our mains while Rachel ordered the ocean platter.



The ocean platter looks good right? The boat makes it look even more appetising yeah? Honestly our beef was nice as well but of coz the ocean platter has much more variety.

The special part of Juju's steamboat is that each person gets a pot of steamboat.



You get to cook your own pot.

The dumpling platter was actually just 2 wantan dat was added in the set tray.

As for choice of side dish, rachel and sonia chose rice while i had the soba.

n then theres the ice plum vinegar.



Its actually a very very small cup (think shooter). I find it quite nice. Not too sweet. In fact, very cold and sour. I like it.

As for desserts....



I chose the purple rice with sweetened yam. The purple rice is our typical orh chock bee dessert and the sweetened yam is our typical orh nee... the combination was great! Its not very sweet - just nice. Love it!

The centre one is the vanilla ice cream which rachel chose. It comes with a few pieces of purple coloured sweet potato but i didnt try it.

The last one is Pearl Harbour chose by Sonia. Its something like... honeydew sago but the coconut milk has mango added to it. We found it a little bit too sweet.

The servers at Juju were also all very polite and provided really good service. I believe the management taught them well.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Dim Sum - Swee Choon (First visit)

Shi xiong and i went over to Jalan Besar, the dim sum place he's been wanting to bring me.



Swee Choon Dim Sum located along Jalan Besar road.

We sat along the air conditioned area.

The tea they serve are using the small porcelain cups.



These were our orders...




Variety wise, they definitely lose out to Wan Tou Shek @ Geylang but taste wise i would say they are on par. Their beancurd skin prawn roll is very nice!

and there's one more dish we ordered...



haha! wat does this remind u of? It was placed exactly like this when it was served to us! hahahaha!!!