Medzs

after work, arranged to meet up with cousins for a get together! under Lionel's recommendation, we headed over to Medzs...

its located at Orchard Central, basement something (cant remember its B2 or B3.. heh)...



its a Mediterranean cuisine but in marche concept as in they give you cards to charge ur purchase and payment is made at the end.

the first thing i searched when i got there was the salted roast beef mentioned on lionel's blog. Found it at the France stall...





they have a huge selection of beer!





they also use this buzzer concept.. where you can go back to your seats and once ur order is ready, they will buzz for it...



its an interesting concept which is probably useful but can get quite annoying too. like when i ordered my mashed potato, the server wanted to offer me a buzzer as well and i asked her.. " would ur mashed potato take long? ", she replied no and i said i'd wait. i mean.. its quite silly if on my way back to my table the buzzer starts ringing right?

also, it did get kind of irritating when we have a few buzzers back on our table and we cant differentiate which item's buzzer is ringing... n its so noisy! haha

back to the food, i LOVE THEIR GARLIC MASHED POTATO!!



its partly smooth and partly textured with potato bits and the flavour is awesome!

the salted roast beef....



its so darn good! the sides are slightly salted and its tender. tastes sooooo good! sides are rockets with cheese. really good!!

Veal sausages...



which are not at all interesting. not my cup of tea.

charmaine ordered the pizza..



and the pasta...



the aglio pasta can afford to add A LOT more flavours.. like say salt and pepper? haha..

fruity beer! the fruity beer is one for one and its nice! i like the raspberry and peach one! the cherry one tastes like cough syrup haha...





cheers!


for desserts, we shared the creme brulee...



which was ok.

and the waffle with ice cream...



the waffle was quite nicely done. not the best around but good enuff!

Palio

Eu Jin brought me over to Palio in view that we both like Italian food...



eu jin's pasta...



ok honestly i cant remember what he ordered already bt i remember it wasnt very good. it wasnt lousy but it was probably just.. hmm.. edible.

likewise for mine...



mine was supposed to be penne with cheese sauce. the sauce was very thin which was quite sad. texture of the pasta also wasnt great. again, not lousy but edible.

pizza was a slight bit better but still ... didnt live up to expectations...



the mains were so unimpressive we were not into the idea of giving the desserts a chance.

Hamoru Japanese Restaurant

met up with shuping for lunch! went to the japanese place she raved about for their sushi...



located at the food republic of suntec city.

shared a swordfish sashimi...



didnt find their sword fish very fresh today. but not saying its not fresh.

the very yummy sushi....



cant remember what its called but its big and its yummy and its filled with flavours. particularly love the flamed salmon and inside is avocade and unagi. shuping's favourite.

Broth

I made dinner reservations at broth to celebrate mr chua's birthday.

broth...







the manager chunky made great arrangements for me. thank you for the great service!!




the complimentary bread...



i didnt eat but mr chua had almost 2 whole pieces of it. he said the butter tastes really good.


mojito...



starter was the baby spinach and mushroom...



standards for this dish never dropped. its still as good as before. love their mushroom's texture and how it is chilled. yummy!

beet root, rockets and fried cheese...



mr chua really liked this dish particularly the rockets.

a foie gras for each of us...



their foie gras is good! nicely pan fried! portion is good also.

for mains, i had the veal cheeks...



which is tender and yummy!

ordered the lamb chops for mr chua...



i cannot take lamb but broth's one is the only exception really. it doesnt have that very strong lamb taste and this is one of their signature dish. it is also very tender. mr chua said its good.

and for dessert, they made a special for mr chua...


the sticky date pudding...



also, standards never dropped. still one of my favourite desserts from there! butterscotch and ice cream .. DAMN YUMMY!

and a pavlova...



MMMMmmm!

Thank you Chunky for the arrangements!

Itacho

camilia said she was craving for itacho so we arranged to meet for a last minute dinner...


dont u agree with me that while itacho's food is damn good, their colour coded order sheets are really damn messy! haha

camilia ordered sake...



we shared a omelette with fish roe...



foie gras handroll...



i'm in a foie gras craze lately!

cant remember what fish this is... camilia recommend it and it was good!



the fish roe chawanmushi!



fish liver..



baked crab....



still as yummy as the first time i tried it! generous crab meat portions!

some other sushi we tried...







these are also darn good! some dorsai fish, flame grilled.. damn good!



and i 'found' these during my previous hk trip in the hk itacho... its damn good. its crab miso.. its got crab meat with some crab roe like thingy...

Fatty Weng

Fatty weng sambal fried rice....



still nice but the one the other day was much nicer.

crispy chicken...



very yummy! even the breast meat was tender!

Ember

today, cynthia celebrates my birthday for me! i chose the place! been hearing about Ember for a long while but never got round to visiting. Ember is located at Hotel 1929 along Keong Siak Street...








complimentary bread...




we went for the set meal which cost (i think $89 per pax).

for starters, cynthia had her scallops and bacon thingy...



it was pretty good.

i had the crab cake...



it was a generous mouthful of crab meat. yummy!


next was foie gras.. we both ordered foie gras coz it was just too tempting! it included truffles, foie gras and poached egg...



it was quite good! couldnt really taste much of the truffle though.

but while the above was not bad, it was a disappointing 45 mins wait for our mains to arrive. as we checked with the server, they said it was because the roast pork dish we ordered was overdone hence they redid the pork... and cynthia joked and said.. " so you mean all this time my beef is done but waiting for ur pork to finish? "

but seriously, 45 mins is a bit too long isnt it? on top of that, the servers did not bother to even explain to us until we asked about it.

also, when asked if we can borrow any charger for our dying iphone, the server declined and said they need it to charge their ipod which was playing the music on the house. for one, i think given its a hotel and iphone being such a popular fone (with super lousy battery life), it should be effortless to help a guest locate a charger. But the server did not even bother to check and delined. while of coz, its not their obligation, i think its only good service considering every minute spent waiting for you to redo the the pork was also a step towards my mobile fone dying.

finally, cynthia's steak arrived...



and so did my roast pork belly...





by the time it arrived, we were really not keen to hear the server explain on how to eat the dish already. i must say the roast pork belly was nice. its very crispy and thick skin and very very tender meat. it was good.

we were also served some sorbet ...



the sorbet was pretty good.

for desserts, i had the panna cotta with red ruby...



i loved it! what an interesting creation, to add the traditional thai dessert to panna cotta. i really love this item. i would go back to them (despite the not so spectacular service.. wont say its lousy.. just not impressive considering the price we are paying).

cynthia's warm chocolate cake...



which was also not bad.

coffee and tea after the meal...



overall, i did enjoy the meal, cant get over the foie gras and the panna cotta. thank cute sweetie!