Beauty In A Pot

A 2am supper thought after watching Charlene Choi eat steamboat, it was Beauty In A Pot! 

The previous restaurant manager redeemed himself by giving us the final last rock melon...

 

Beauty pot steamboat is one of our favourite! Be it soup or the selection of meat and their sweet rock melon!

The Magic of Chong Qing

The group came together for dinner at The Magic of Chong Qing hotpot.

 

Located at level 4 of Tanglin shopping centre.

 I pretty much liked it after visiting it previously. For the price it felt quite value for money with free flow better quality beef, fish maw and prawns! Well, at least those 3 are the ones I liked and what makes the it worthwhile!

So the normal dinner buffet is about $38++, doesn't come with drinks.

The one we took is supposedly a promotion. Normally it's $98++ (which if it is so, it wouldn't be worth it at all) but with the promotion it's $55++ and it includes free flow ba bao Cha. The ba bao tea can be iced or hot. The iced one basically tastes like a very nice version of chrysanthemum ginseng whilst the hot version looks like this...

 

Much better in terms of 卖相！tastes good too!

Soup base wise today we opted for the 酸菜 and the chicken soup yuan yang....

 

And that's the server adding in the fish paste for us. The soup base wise honestly it's not fanciful. It's ok to consume but definitely not as good as the current market favourites like beauty pot or hai di lao.

They also didn't come with fanciful sauces which disappointed Ken. Haha

I guess Chong Qing came as a slightly more value for money option for big eaters like us. The beef especially....

 

 

 

And fish maw!

 

Previous visit, the fish maw was thicker and gluey. It was so good! This visit the fish maw lost its thickness and glueyness. 

 

Sadly, I just realized I forgot to take pictures of the prawns which were fresh and of a decent size. We had so many sticks of it!

I can't say for sure that everyone who came today enjoyed or will be back but I probably would still come back.

What was funny about this buffet is they are super damn strict with the dessert portions. Each person is only entitled to one portion of the dessert. Not like it's super fanciful. It's a mini platter of chestnut cake, man tou and fried nian gao.

The chestnut cake is decent, man tou with condensed milk is so good and the fried nian gao is a waste of calories.

At the end you also get a choice of either an ice cream or black glutinous rice (which they affectionately call it as 八宝粥）or fruit platter. But u can only have choice of one n strictly one. I don't really get it, it's a buffet right?

The Magic of Chong Qing hotpot

I didn't expect that I haven't been here but I am pretty sure I heard abt this place previously. This place was popular way before all the steamboat craze of Hai Di Lao, beauty pot etc.

Located at Tanglin shopping Centre, Ginny introduced this place coz they served buffet at $38++.

When we got there, they told us there's a promotion for better beef servicing at $55 and we went for it!

It's quite Wu hua coz the beef was really super good!

 

Importantly, they also had fish maw in their regular buffet menu. The fish maw is thick and sticky - super good!

The prawns were also really fresh!!

 

Pity I was too busy eating to take picture of the rest of the items but the buffet also included a ba bao tea which tasted like chrysanthemum with ginseng tea.

The desserts (only one serving each)

 

I'm so coming back here again!

Beauty in a pot

Despite some unpleasant incidents previously, Beauty In A Pot remains to be my favorite hot pot. I guess I really like their soup base (both collagen and mala) - yes, mala, I typically won't even order mala. Aside from the soup base will be their meat! The beef and the pork are both good! And we already know which type of beef / pork we like! 

So when I first heard they had an outlet at Centerpoint, I was happy on different counts. Firstly, one km one won't be as crowded. It's almost impossible to do a walk in to the one km outlet at regularly dinner hours. The earliest table is like 9pm or 10pm. 

Secondly, the Centrepoint outlet opens till 6am (yay! Supper for after mahjong!) 

 

Despite all the hype, we managed to get reservations at 11pm. Despite the reservations, still need to be patient to wait for awhile. But it's a manageable wait. 

And of coz, had to try the new soup base that they have here that one km doesn't. Interestingly they allow up to 4 soup bases! Yay yay yay!

 

There was herbal chicken, tomato, coconut and vegetarian. We went for the usual plus herbal and tomato.

The tomato soup turned out to be really good! I know many people like HDL's but I haven't really tried that. This one tastes a little like minestrone! Haha

 

It was a very satisfying round of supper!

Ah Pang Steamboat Seafood

We met Eileen, Rochelle and Charmaine for dinner. 

Rochelle highly recommended this Ah Pang steamboat located at Mei Ling Street...

Rochelle is definitely quite a regular here and she is full of raves of their steamboat...

the soup was not bad and i must say its very reasonably priced. They have very fresh and huge prawns. I usually won't eat the prawns for steamboat coz its usually very small but i actually liked the ones they have here. 

meat selection wise, i found it so so. 

importantly, the place was hot, no air con! 

Hua Ting Steamboat

The lunch that was meant to be at Hua Ting but they were fully booked so we routed over to try Hua Ting steamboat...

I am normally not a sauce person be it when it comes to steamboat or not but they really have quite a variety of sauces and that makes me want to try them...

And the sauces have proved to be good!

Soup base wise, we chose a yuan yang pot which consist of the shark cartilage and the black herbal chicken soup...

Both were nice but the herbal chicken soup one was super good. The herbal chicken soup base was flavourful!

Some of the items we ordered....

Overall the steamboat items were good, particularly the beef and the drunken chicken enhanced the taste of the soup.

They also had a good selection of cooked food like this black fungus..

It was chilled and with some sesame sauce like thingy. Very yummy!

And this squid cake...

Also really good!

Beauty in a pot

Close friends will know, one of my favourite steamboat these days is none other than beauty in a pot. I love their pork balls, their meat selection and their Mala pot is saltish and nice.

So I have basically been coming here whenever I want a steamboat fix. Service has also been generally good. 

But today it was quite infuriating.

In one of our vegetable order, we had one which came with the roots...

We feedback to the manager who said this to us " 哦和，这个拿掉它就可以了。可以吃的” 

Meaning to tell us, just remove it and actually this can be eaten.

Well, not saying it can't be eaten but clearly you don't expect to have veg with such roots in a restaurant right? Clearly it should be well processed and cleaned and this may be an episode of missing out - which is fine, which can be easily resolved by probably just doing a simple apology. But no, the male manager concerned just went on an on about how this can be eaten and just needs to be removed or if we really want he will just change for us. Not a single word of apology... He went on until I pu huay! Coz this is actually a dinner with bunny's friends who have never been to beauty in a pot. In fact it's a treat and we sort of highly recommended the place to them.

That's when I asked him, if this is how you serve your baby spinach how come I don't see a whole basket filled with such roots? Clearly we expected the veg to be processed and really to begin with, a simple SINCERE apology would have sufficed. We don't even need you to do a change. If you genuinely want to change it or do a service recovery, it should not be IF WE WANT. It should be IF YOU WANT. IF YOU BOTHER.

Jpot Steamboat

recently developed a craving for steamboat and Jpot is one of those that i really like! Especially their laksa!

was craving for sashimi and the only sashimi they kind of have is the geoduck...



i really like geoduck for its crunchy texture.

as for why Jpot, love their laksa soup base. goes very well with the fried beancurd skin!

their variety of meat is also good. i also really like one of their pork balls with cheese!

Shancheng Hotpot King (Sydney)

by the time we were hungry, it was a little later already and we decided to try out this steamboat place over at chinatown....

8A/363 Sussex St, Sydney,
New South Wales 2000,
Australia (Chinatown)
02 9267 6366







this place is quite cool! ordering is done on the ipad!



soup base...



ingredients..



and you know, these chilled noodles are SOOOOOO GOOD!



i think its called fen guo? its sooooo soft, breaks in the mouth and the sauce is mildly spicy with sesame oil ... i love it!

this one is made of like beancurd skin strips...



anyone knows where in singapore we can find these? please let me know!

King's Laksa Steamboat

after work, i met up with Saphy, Sharon and June for dinner. They wanted to go for laksa steamboat! located along upper serangoon road..



the soup base...



create your own sauce...




the food!



their fried chicken wings are pretty good! aside from steamboat items, they also have fried platter of stuff. the beancurd skin is good and goes well with the laksa soup!



overall it was a nice meal.

Imperial Treasure Steamboat

I met up with shan and joey for our little 'reunion dinner' over at Imperial Treasure Steamboat....




Shan and Joey has raved about this place to me for awhile. They call this the best steamboat place in Singapore. Joanne has also introduced this place and commented that its good but pretty pricey.

the condiments for us to mix a sauce... (or they can do it for u)




the beef....




and the beancurd skin...




veg...




pork bone soup....



wanton..




overall the steamboat was really good in view of the fine ingredients they use. Yes, its pretty pricey but its nice to enjoy it with my favourite couple...

Tsukada Nojo Sg 美人锅

after work, i met up with shawn and jeraldine for dinner over at 美人锅! We couldnt really decide on what to have so i recall dear dear's recommendation....




the queue was mad long and they don't take reservations so we had to queue!

what is so interesting about this place? its their concept.

check out this list...





basically, they will give all visitors a 'namecard'....



this is ours....




so everyone starts out as an assistant manager. and as you can probably guess, the more visits you go to, they will slowly promote you and with each promotion, they will probably give you a free starter or dessert as a 'celebration' for your promotion.

very interesting concept eh?

the menu...




while the concept was interesting, its a little disappointing in terms of their variety of food. they didnt have beef or much meat. mainly chicken.


and what is also interesting about this place is their soup base! it starts out in pudding like pieces of collagen!




even when u want to 'add soup', they come along with additional pieces of these!


and see how the collagen melts into soup base...




i must say, the soup is pretty good!




what comes along with the meal...




given its only chicken, i think its quite over priced.




drunken chilled chicken...



only breast meat. but must say the sauce is not bad.






there was also sides of some meat wrapped rice...




which was pretty nice and interesting.




some heart shaped seaweed thingy.. which we forgot to eat! hahaha




and for dessert, there was yuzu sherbert...





and creme brulee...




the creme brulee was decent but not impressive.

but the whole concept was fun, that we were colleagues again! but without beef slices, we decided this is a career we dont' plan to pursue! hahaa