Ding Tai Feng

Lunch with Oliver at Din Tai Fung...



there was a long long queue.

when we got into din tai fung, i was rather impressed when one of the servers came up to me and offered a laundry bag like basket to place my bag....



impressive!

oliver had a zha jiang mian....



i tried a bit, was not bad.

the vegetable dumpling...



filled with vegetables, not bad, very thin skin.

the xiao long bao....



nice.

and also had the crab meat xiao long bao...



i like... had a fair portion of crab meat.

La Mei Zi

dinner with fishy, leoie and smelly at Novena's La Mei Zi...



la mei zi...



$15 per person.

we chose 3 different soup base...



we had ginseng chicken, fish and tom yam.

was lazy to take many pics but i'd say they had good variety. but a must take is their meat balls........



la mei zi has the BEST-EST meat balls EVER! i quote smelly.. " their meat balls are so good.. i can eat.. and eat.. and eat.. ". its just different from usual meat balls... very tasty!

Baikohken

we did lunch at Baikohken... fishy is mighty tempted to go back for the char siew rice but decided to give their ramen a try. she went for the shio ramen, half size...



the soup wasnt very tasty. was ok but not wowing.. we saw how the other tables seemed to have tastier soup, probably miso or shoyu ramen. we're gonna go for that next time!

as for me, the same old same old....



hehe....... yummilious!

Royal Copenhagen

I brought Joey & I-Shan over to the Royal Copenhagen.

their strawberry infused iced water...



for starters, we had a salmon platter...



the inner ring was potato topped with smoked salmon and the outer ring was pickles wrapped with smoked salmon. the inner ring was nice! ishan and myself didnt quite like the pickles from the outer ring.

mushroom soup....



it was scrumptious! all 3 of us love it! its very good.. not very mushroom like but seems to haf lotsa ingredients.

foie gras apple salad....



also yummy.. nicely pan seared foie gras...

chicken pasta...



this pasta is FABULOUS! its really yummy though it looks normal. the flavours are so robust! the chicken is shredded and its got this mild cheese like taste.. its so good!

the salmon and potato gratin...



also really good!

ended off with a cuppa tea...



nice tea served in fine teapot set.

and a lovey honey date pudding...



the date pudding is much softer den most other places. i'd say its really good. but in comparison, i think i still like broth's because they use a very fragrant caramel and they top it wif sour cream! the combination is simply divine!

joey treated! thank cute!

The Seafood International Market & Restaurant

The seafoodies 2nd year anniversary at The Seafood International Market & Restaurant....



they've got that area where you can select seafood from tanks....





den decide on how you want it to be cooked.

we sure did take a long time trying to decide how to cook who. haha.. we ordered each of us!

for squid, we ordered the baby squids.....



crispy and sweet. they generally liked it. i found it nice.

den came the star for tonight (ME! ME! ME!)... prawns cooked in salted egg yolk...



clammy insisted on prawns cooked this way and it proved to be a winner. it was amazingly good. so good dat clammy refused to even wait for me to take a proper picture... she began biting on the prawn like it is so scrumptious, making the other seafoodies glare at me in fury coz they are so hungry and it sure looks yummy. IT IS.. its amazingly yummilious! the salted egg texture on the prawns is simply great. everyone began even biting off the shell to savour every possible bit of the sauce.

for clams wise, we had it done in japanese wine sauce....



its great. and the clams were relatively bigger den usual.

fried kang kong...



nice.

man tou....



i like! their man tous are nicer den mellben's. haha

man tous to go with our chilli crab....



i forgot to take a picture of the crab itself so its just crabby and the crab. didnt really like the chilli sauce though.. its got that paisley taste.

fish wise, we went for seabass baked in salt...





comes with brinjals...



i thought the fish was good. nice way to have it done.

dinner was good, the meal came up to 167 which was pleasantly a good price.

Broth

after work, i met up with xinhui for dinner. its kinda her belated birthday celebration and i made reservations at Broth.....



i know i can always count on Broth for a good meal.

the complimentary bread...



we shared a starter of the baby spinach and portobello mushrooms...



this has always been a personal favourite. its light and unique. i love it.

for mains, i had the veal cheeks...



love it. thick big chunks of super tender veal. the stew tasted excellent. savoury yet not overpowering.

xinhui went for the salmon...





we both loved it. the cream sauce was special and not gerlard. i love the green peas dat came with it. the salmon's doneness was good and the fried mushroom on top was just oh my god. brilliant!

service was without a doubt, wonderful. very attentive and friendly servers.

and desserts time... i requested for the happy birthday word on the plate and cheeky jiancheng added the word darling...



happy birthday hot hot babe!

Baikohken

it was a rather last minute and impromptu lunch date. We managed to secure 4 out of 5 seafoodies and managed to get fishy to walk all the way over to our office building. i tempted her with the Baikohken charsiew don.....



clammy initially refused to believe me that it is good but when she tried it, she loved it!

Cedele

Lavinia's birthday cake from Celede.

the pistachio chocolate cake ....



thick chocolate fudge, good stuff!

Da Paolo

missed lunch and could only grab a quick take away from Da Paolo....



i heart rockets!! pizza was pretty good, very thin and nice tomato sauce.

Orchard Parade Hotel

Jinghua's wedding at Orchard Parade Hotel. Service sucks big time. for starters, the place has quite a number of pillars so much of what is going on the stage is blocked.

im not sure if its coz its a sunday and next day is monday hence the servers are trying to rush the guest because the server serving us was totally rushing us through the dishes. also, she was totally giving us attitude and a black face throughout. what is worst is when she tried to keep our plates, her hands brushed against my eyes and she didnt even bother to apologise.

one of the horrendous story was yunping was telling us the server from her table miscalculated the number of people on the table and missed out a bowl of sharks fin while seperating it into little bowls. When informed, the server just went over to the side where all the big bowls were placed to scoop a bit from here and there to make up the plate. although technically it was clean, it kind of grossed out everyone from the table. Yunping was so funny. she was commenting at .. " even if she wanted to do that, should at least hide and not let me see... " hahah

one server who is more senior even very openly brought her 'disciple' to our table and was loudly teaching him... " you see, this table, got empty sets, look very messy, you must clear .. etc etc ".. we are like practicing targets. Got me reminded of the captain in novotel who did it much more discreetly and tastefully. There is really a great disparity in the service level.

also, note that there are only 2 female cubicles.. when kaizhi and myself visited the toilet in the midst of the dinner, we heard many people complaining and commenting that they will never hold their wedding or functions here after this experience.

food wise, it was actually all pretty good and tasty.

Ya Kwang

Lionel asked me along for dinner today at Ya Kwang (lorong 37 Geylang). This place has been blogged a couple of times on several food blogs and well known to be a not your ordinary tze char coz they use things like lobsters, lala to cook wif noodles and even ban mian.

first to kick start is the lala noodles...



its very much like vongole, the portion was big and there was a lot of lala! it was mildy spicy, tastes pretty good. audrey, lionel and michael were filled wif praises for it. i found it nice but not wow-ing enuff for me to crave or want to return for it.

da chang jin set...



it is actually pig intestine thinly sliced and fried till very crispy.

to be eaten like peking duck...



was quite nice, only $6.

fried kway teow...



i like the kway teow, i think its very nice and tasty! i think this is $9.

finally, the most special item for tonight has gotta be the lobster tang hoon ($90!!)...



very big and meaty lobster....





this is so damn good. good enough to make me crave for it. good enough to make me want to actually finish all the tang hoon. the lobster being big, was meaty though the meat was a bit tough, not tender.

the tang hoon was very tasty wif the sauce.. its thick tang hoon, quite sweet. SUPER NICE!

before we went down, lionel also highlighted that he read from some forums saying that the owner of this place will be migrating hence the place will cease operations by this month's 17th.

when we were there, we were surprised the place despite being so popular is not overwhelmed wif crowds of people. when we tried to check with the staff and the owner, we were given very ambiguious replies and awkward expressions. as a result, we kinda determined that this is probably some marketing gimmicks.... makes sense coz like wat i mentioned, this place is not your ordinary tze char stall. haha