Hyang-to-Gol Korean Restaurant

15th September, Tuesday

A Korean restaurant located at the 2nd floor of Amara Hotel.

Yang-Gooi

The good thing about Korean food is that they serve you those appetizers by default. Today's had vegetable soup, mushrooms, kimchi, and potato. The mushrooms and kimchi were excellent!

This dish is actually marinated BBQ lamb slices. It was quite all right; the meat was rather tender and was seasoned just nice. $11

V's verdict: 7/10

Amara Shopping Centre Food Court

14th September, Monday

The food court at the 4th floor of Amara Shopping Centre. All the food we tried were from the fishball noodles stall, 新雄记.

Bak chor mee

This turned out quite well. Just moist enough, and the pig liver was fresh too. But cabbage is ugly and I think it ruins the appearance of this dish.

V's verdict: 7/10


Fishball soup

Because they put cabbage into the soup, the taste of cabbage permeated throughout the whole bowl and I didn't like it. Fortunately their fishballs were still quite all right.

V's verdict: 6/10


Mini wok noodles (小碗面)

Again, the soup tasted too strongly of cabbage. It was overpowering! But the noodles were all right; roughly the same as their bak chor mee. Other than that, an average dish.

V's verdict: 6.5/10
K's verdict: 6 /10

Cafe 2000

31st July, Friday

Goose Liver Pasta

My favourite foie gras! Well, this dish is simply pasta with goose liver. That's all. The pasta was a bit too oily and too bland, so I had to add some salt. The foie gras was cut into cubes. It was normal, nothing really special for foie gras. $28

V's verdict: 6/10

Tanjong Pagar Food Centre

14th July, Tuesday

Lor mee (Soon Heng Food Delights)

This was supposedly quite well known, so I decided to give it a try.

I was quite disappointed. The gravy wasn't tasty; it tasted a bit like tasteless goo. And there were lots of ingredients, but they weren't very good either. Give me Golden Shoe's Lor Mee (Wei Nan Wang Hock Kian Lor Mee) anytime over this!

K doesn't like lor mee, so a lousy lor mee only managed to earn 3 marks from her. $3

V's verdict: 5.5/10
K's verdict: 3/10


Fried kway teow (Tanjong Pagar Fried Kway Teow)

The unique thing about this is that they use thinner kway teow. It also tastes a bit sweeter than other fried kway teow, but it suited my taste buds! I tend to prefer thinner noodles (e.g. mee kia compared to mee poh) as I feel that the taste can be spread more uniformly.

They were quite generous with their ingredients too; I think there were 5 prawns in this plate. Or maybe they gave me more because I told them I didn't want hum... $3

V's verdict: 7/10
K's verdict: 6/10


Yong Tau Foo (Rong Xing Cooked Food)

They actually have clothes pegs to use as queue numbers, but none were in use when I was there. I found it okay, not as good as what the reviews say. Their ingredients didn't really taste that special; I think I prefer the ones my mother cook (which she usually buys from Serangoon Garden Market). And their soup was not bad, but once again it can't beat my mother's soup. Maybe I should have ordered their noodles to eat with their sauce? K likes it though! This bowl cost me $2.40 (soup only)

V's verdict: 6.5/10
K's verdict: 8/10

Tanjong Pagar Food Centre

1st July, Wednesday

Fried kway teow [ Katong (Peter) Fried Kway Teow ]

This was not bad! Not too oily too. Worth a try.

V's verdict: 7/10
K's verdict: 7.5/10


Fried carrot cake (利兴菜头粿 Fried Carrot Cake)

This looked promising, but didn't taste that good. I thought that it wasn't tasty enough.

V's verdict: 6/10
K's verdict: 6.5/10


Chicken claypot rice (Kim Kee Cooked Food)

One of K's favourite foods. But I didn't like it; the rice wasn't tasty enough. It seemed as if the whole dish wasn't cooked long enough for the taste from the meat and mushrooms to seep into the rice.

V's verdict: 5.5/10
K's verdict: 6/10

The Buffet

26th June, Friday

A buffet restaurant at M Hotel. They serve international buffets during lunchtime, but for dinner, they serve steamboat buffet. Came here today with my colleagues for lunch.

The octopus sashimi was quite good, and I love octopus sashimi especially. It's not that commonly served in buffet restaurants, unlike salmon sashimi. The lamb steaks were quite good too, and my colleagues liked the corn chowder a lot. They didn't try the oxtail, but I thought it was not bad too.

There was tempura too, which was quite good. Only the chicken cutlet was horribly dry.

They offered durian pengat (excellent!) and ice cream cream for desserts, so that bought me over immediately. Heh.

Overall, it was quite good. Variety was bit lacking though. $36

V's verdict: 7.5/10

Tanjong Pagar Food Centre

17th June, Wednesday

Herbal chicken (Herbal Kitchen, 大厨帝皇鸡）



This was too diluted to taste good. The chicken was quite tender, but honestly it was ruined by the taste of the soup. $3.50

V's verdict: 5/10
K's verdict: 5/10


Laksa (Ah Seng Laksa.Prawn Noodle)



I must say this laksa tasted rather... unique. I think they added lemon or lime into the gravy, which served to neutralize the strong taste. It tasted quite refreshing, actually. $2.50

V's verdict: 6.5/10
K's verdict: 6/10


Fried hokkien mee (Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee)

(For some reason, I couldn't align this picture to the left. And no matter how many times I delete it and re-upload it, it stubbornly stays in the centre.)

This hokkien mee is the sticky kind, which means that it's quite filling. If you were to eat too much of it, you would probably get too stuffed and may even get sick of it. The plate was quite small though, so the portion was just all right for me.

The taste was not bad, and the noodles were very sticky, as I mentioned earlier. They added pork, but I think 90% of the pork was fat. -.- $3

V's verdict: 7/10
K's verdict: 8/10

Maxwell Food Centre

15th May, Friday

After Wednesday's porridge, I was really craving for some good porridge. So I went to Maxwell Market with some of my colleagues.

Century egg porridge (Zhen Zhen Porridge)



(Ack, I should have taken a picture of it before stirring)

This is still the best porridge I have ever tasted. The porridge is thick to the point of being described as creamy. But that's the way I like my porridge! I don't like watery porridge; it doesn't even fill the stomach for more than an hour.

The porridge came full of ingredients --- chicken slices and century egg. I have asked them before, and they confirmed that they do not serve pork. That probably explains the Malay that was queuing in front of me.

There weren't a lot of people in front of me, but I still took almost half an hour to order my porridge. They have 3 people in the stall --- one cooks the porridge and prepares the 鱼生, one washes the dishes and cuts the fish, and the other takes orders, collects money, and serves the porridge. Each bowl takes quite a long time to prepare; the cook will scoop the plain porridge from his giant stove, pour it into a saucepan, add in the ingredients, and cook it separately. Add the fact that he is also preparing the 鱼生, and it pretty much explains the long waiting time.

Still, to me, it's worth the wait. Definitely coming back for more. Do remember to stir the porridge well though, or the taste won't be homogeneous. And unless you are a huge eater, don't you dare order the biggest bowl --- you are gonna get stuffed beyond measure. The porridge is thick enough, and a big bowl gives an over-generous serving of ingredients that you will practically unmovable after eating! $2.50/$3/$4

V's verdict: 9/10


鱼生 (Zhen Zhen Porridge)



This gets really popular during CNY for obvious reasons. But I always order it when I queue up for their porridge (might as well, right?).

It's quite simple, as they add mainly fried onions, ginger, spring onion, and of course, fish. I don't know what kind of fish it is though (my knowledge of fish is woefully limited).

Anyway, this tasted quite good, and the fish is fresh. The ingredients go well together, and it's value for money too. $2/$3/$4/$5

V's verdict: 7/10

Men-Tei Japanese Noodles

23rd April, Thursday

Tonkatsu Ramen (面亭 - Men-Tei Japanese Noodles)



(oops, that's my finger at the top of the picture)

Located at Robinson Centre. (61 Robinson Road, #01-01). Reached there at 12pm and got the second last table. Within 5 more minutes, there was already a long queue outside.

The ramen was ok. The soup was quite good, having a good balance between tastiness and lightness. Of special mention should be their egg --- the japanese egg tamago, where the egg white is hard but the egg yolk is still soft. It is excellent, and they actually sell it as a separate side dish for $1.50 each. The pork was a bit disappointing though, since there's a bit of the "frozen taste", due to cooking meats without properly defrosting. But I could still bear it, as the frozen taste was quite mild.

Each bowl of ramen costs $13 along with a free flow of japanese green tea and ice water. No service charge or GST.

V's verdict: 7/10