Helio Cafe

Dinner at Helio Cafe.

Helio Cafe
6 Raffles Boulevard
Marina Square
#03-320
Singapore 039594
www.heliocafe.com

Tel: 6339 9159

Chef Clement has prepared garlic tarragon chicken for me.

again, its wrapped in pastry.....



chef clement cutting open the pastry.....



the chicken revealed....



a closer view...



the chicken is so so good. Its very fragrant especially after clement cuts it open. The fragrant just diffuses into the air....

my 3rd time having chicken at Helio and each time, the chicken is always so tender. Even the breast meat area. The taste is the very natural type, not overpowering yet makes u linger for more.

see wat i mean by its very soft? how often can u finish the chicken till its so clean...



its because its so easy to cut it apart from the bones. Costs $18.90. According to Chef Clement, he has about 5 different flavours for these pastry chicken. My previous visit i tried the rosemary seedless grapes. I'll probably be back to try the other kind. Comparing the rosemary seedless grapes with this garlic tarragon, i prefer this garlic tarragon.

Also, Chef clement is also selling tubs of biscotti for CNY...



thin pieces, very crispy. He was saying he finds those selling outside are generally too sweet. His is not as sweet.

Those dat i've tried outside, i found them to be too hard and too tasteless. haha.. but i find his just nice so i got a tub at $20...



he has 2 flavours for biscotti. One is pistachio and almond (i think.. cant remember which 2 nuts he said). Another is with chocolate chip and another kind of nut. i got the nuts one.. nice!

According to Lea, his pineapple tarts are super good. Melts in the mouth kind. too bad they are sold out already. =(

Soon Peng Duck Rice / Kway Chap

Lunch with Yong Yeow.

Blk 119 aljunied crescent ave 2.

YY went for the Soon Peng Kway Chup and i got him to order more of the stuff to share....



theres duck, egg, beancurd, tau pok and those pig innards. Pretty tasty.

the kueh....

Shi Wei Xian Hong Kong Tim Sum

Lunch with Yong Yeow.

Blk 119 aljunied crescent ave 2.

i couldnt resist going for my chicken steamed rice from Shi Wei Xian Hong Kong Dim Sum again.



Rice with sauces, tender tasty chicken and spring onions. its so satisfying! Only $2.50..Mmmm

Terra

Dinner with Imran and Masni at Terra (Bugis Junction level 1)





the interior of the place...



the menu



i think the main courses at this place all comes with soup of the day and a dessert (which basically is a scoop of ice cream).

their soup of the day is cream of asparagus....



imran ordered the baked penne with beef sauce ($11.90)....



it is really good. Yummilious! All 3 of us liked it.

i had the fish baked rice ($10.90)....



its cream based and the fish is thick and fresh! i liked it!

Masni had the beef bolognese ($10.90)....




the bolognese is nt fantastic though. masni complained it to have too much pepper and imran changed his dish wif her.

but overall, i think terra is a nice place to dine at with reasonable pricing and decent food.

Soon Peng Duck Rice / Kway Chap

Lunch with Peggy.

we had lunch at blk 119 Aljunied crescent.

Peggy had duck rice from Soon Peng Duck Rice..



The duck rice....



actually mum would occassionally pack this duck rice home for me. I've always thot its quite nice but never knew where she packed them from. I like it coz the rice is very tasty. Usually duck rice is white rice and they'll probably pour the sauce over. This duck rice's rice is some brown sauced rice wif traces of the sauce in between.. very nice in my view. The duck is also quite alright.

Shi Wei Xian Hong Kong Tim Sum

Lunch with Peggy.

we had lunch at blk 119 Aljunied crescent ave 2.

I had chicken steamed rice from Shi Wei Xian Hongkong Tim Sum...



the steamed chicken rice i had...



this steamed chicken rice, mum packs it for us for lunch almost every weekend. Its really yummy! the chicken cubes are all either wings or thigh meat! Mmm.. and theres a good serving of either preserved vegetables (mei cai) and haybe hiam. Mmmmm

Ma Maison

After dinner, can tell Kendi was still quite disappointed not having able to try Ma Maison and since loh gong zai and myself didnt order mains at Nan Xiang, we went back to Ma Maison for second round.

ordered the few dishes dat we (dar and myself) thot was nicer for kendi and loh gong zai to try...

the cha soba salad...



very very very nice! kendi liked it also! So far most of my friends who've tried this liked it as well.

The beef stragonov rice....



a delight to even look at (in my view dat is)...



That golden yellow scrambled egg and tasty brown sauce. The rice inside is a fragrant and tasty butter rice ... .. can hear us (me and dar dar) going " MmmmmmMMmmMmMmMmMmMmm "

loh gong zai ordered the hamburger steak....



A closer up view....



i dun dislike their hamburger steak but i dun particularly find it very nice. The rest found it nice.. the burger is pretty soft inside. The potates that came along is very nice though! its those nicer texture potato!

Kendi, like most first timers to Ma Maison, was attracted to the scotch eggs picture on the menu so we ordered it also...



having tried the scotch eggs before, i dun find it special anymore..taste wise its pretty ok but nt fantastic. the sides however were good. The potato salad was good, loh gong zai really liked it and the salad which came wif some japanese sour dressing (I LIKE!) was Mmmm!

dinner came up to around $60 plus. kinda paiseh they had to haf dinner twice coz of me so i paid for dinner

Nan Xiang Steamed Bun Restaurant

Dinner was at Nan Xiang Steamed Bun Restaurant (bugis junction #02-53)...



the interior...



the food we ordered. I ordered this .. hmm.. cant remember the name ... some kueh looking thingy...



from the pictures i was very curious to koe how it tastes.. is it supposed to be sweet or salty or wat.

it was very hard to tear apart....



its pretty tasteless. after one mouth, all 3 of us girls didnt want to touch it again. When loh gong zai arrived, he said " why u all order this.. confirm no taste one " .. haha.. in the end he was the one who finished the whole dish! hahahahhaa.. he even said " yue chi yue you wei dao " LOL!

and of coz, i had to order what we kinda came here for.. their steamed soup bun - $6.80 (sorry ping jie jie, i came to try w/o u!)...



loh gong zai commented that he cannot accept drinking soup with a straw. It somehow defies from his paradigm of sorts so he refused to try it. haha..

soup was very hot. I duno if its my misconception or what, i had expected there to be meat (like xiao long bao) inside... who koes we drank and drank until we tried to open it up and saw.....



no big lumps of meat.. its really just a soup bun. Special in a way... taste was not bad but probably would prefer xiao long bao den this soup bun.

also ordered Baked Mini Cake with cashew nuts ($3.90)...



the crust was very crispy and the sesame was very fragrant!



Dar liked it quite alot.. found it not bad also.

Ordered the drunken chicken (duno if recalled the name wrongly)...



its served cold. I thot its quite nice.

Kendi ordered the pork rib noodles ($8)...



its decent though not special.

Dar ordered the crispy noodles with crab meat and prawns ($9)...



looks very dry but after mixing the sauces, it was pretty good. Quite nice. Loh gong zai likes it also.

Dar paid for the meal. thanks dar!

Lawry's

Dinner was at Lawry's today.



Thanks to Lionel who alerted me about their The More The Merrier promotion they had.

40% for 5 main course and above.
30% for 4 main course and above.
20% for 3 main course and above.

Discount is only valid for main course.

naturally, i tried to rope in at least 5 person to enjoy the 40% discount.

the crowd....



the bread that was served....



a few of them topped up their main course with $17.80 to get a serving of red (or white) wine and dessert....



the spinning bowl salad...







the vegetables does look fresher den my first visit but i still think its merely just thousand island salad. in lionel's words, it'll be called too gimicky.

Alvin ordered the chicken ($36.80)....



(picture taken by Alvin coz plate was too hot to be shifted) it looks abit like some Long John Silver chicken wrap. Taste wise, its got a very chinese taste. The chicken is chicken breast meat. Not worth the price.

Junting had the salmon ($43.80).....



i think the presentation looks a bit.. complicated? haha.. i only had a bite.. to me, its just salmon. lol.. very not worth the money if u ask me.

the rest of us (Sorina, Meina, Aloysius and myself), all went for the prime rib. Served by the chef wif a wagon...



the prime rib...



Sorina's california cut ($54.80)....



She requested for it to be done medium.

the rest of us had the diamond cut ($94.80)..



a really big and thick piece! I think the Lawry's cut should do better. done medium rare. The prime rib was nice!! i like this and its nicer den hogs in my view coz its served warm unlike hog's. but of coz.. with price being a factor of consideration, hogs would win. the au jus went very well with the yorkshire pudding which meina really liked.

the choice of dessert for the set meal included strawberry cheesecake..



tastes ok. Aloysius found it quite nice but i didnt quite like it. Prefer bakerzinn's.

some blueberry pie with ice cream...



also tastes ok to me. Meina found it nicest of the dessert.

i ordered a seperate creme brulee upon recollecting how good it tasted during my previous visit....



however, this time, it didnt wow me at all. While it was decent, it didnt taste robust like the previous time. i was quite disappointed paying $8.50 for an item like this.