Cafe Cartel Tampines Mall

Lunch at Cartel, CP and Jas ordered Grilled chicken with Spaghetti

I deliberated for a while between the pork ribs and the grilled chicken, finally came to a decision. Pork Ribs, because i have been having cravings for Tony Romas for a while.
Verdict: I stayed away from cafe cartel for several years... yet again, i am going to stay away from it. The sauce is sooo sweet... n yes, whether you order the pork ribs or the chicken, the sauces taste somewhat similar.

Baikohken Ramen

Love the egg, but the noodles are a little too soft and the soup salty. I still prefer Ken's ramen at orchard.

Add: 7 North Canal rd

Tel: 65343808

1100-1500; 1700-2200 (last order 2130)

Running around for food!

Mum summon me to Joo Chiat to buy her the Kim Choo Bak Chang so that she can deep freeze it and store it for dumpling festival! Its still at $1.60 each, Fri onwards wld be $2.50. Bought 10 Nonya Chang and 2 Cantonese Bean Chang. My favourite Bean Chang =)

Wanted to eat Nonya food at Tasty Buds (joo chiat), but couldnt find. Walked pass a handmade Bao stall, couldnt resist it so i decided to buy 1 small char siew bao, 2 Big bao and the lady said 'come try the durian tapioca pancake' ... alas i succumb to my  weakness - durian. K back to the bao, was suppose to be for breakfast, but well me being me decided to eat it while its hot... managed to gobble down 1 big bao and 1 small bao before reaching the car... haiii such a pig... Bao was really good, the meat inside was moist and best of all the skin wasnt too thick. Too bad i didnt take note of the address, was one of those random walk-pass-buy stop. All i know is that it is along joo chiat, after Canton Wok
On my way home, stopped at Eastwood to buy a tub of Rum and Raisin ice-cream! I love especially love the durian and brandied prune / fig ice-cream, but too bad they didn't have the flavour today.
After pigging out the whole day, decided that dinner should be 'Qing-Dan' - light. So this is my typical teo chew dinner prepared by me, steam fish and boil veggi with oyster sauce, accompanied by soya bean sauce 'dou jiang'

Nasi Padang River Valley

Saw the raves and reviews of this Nasi Padang stall on some blog sites, decided to skip over to try while on my way to River Valley. 

Had the famous beef rendang, sambal long bean with tempeh, potato cutlet and achar. Love the gravy and chili that went along with it, like the beef rendang gravy but not the actual beef itself, was quite tough i thought. Dishes were also generally cold, maybe cos it was at an off peak hr .. uh well

Li Bai part 3

Siew Mai with caviar and scallop i believe? again it was 'so-so' I mean it is good! but not like to die for 

Yes i love the polo bun! i love the crust, but too bad the char siew inside was a little too salty. Am a pure teo chew 'ah nia', its inherent in me to have a bland tongue, so usually i complain of food being too salty. Yes this is subjective. Nevertheless thumbs up for the polo bun. Very crispy crust!
Finally after the 'normal' dim sum, its down to dessert, firstly mango pudding. Not too bad, thick chunky mangoes!
Most of us opted for the mango sago pomelo, it is usually my favourite dessert in a cantonese restaurant, but too bad this is really disappointing. Tasted much better ones in Hong Kong and in Singapore, you can find better ones in Lei Garden, Hua Ting Orchard hotel and even small dessert shops in Chinatown. I even suspect those cha chan teng sells this dessert comparable to the one we had today. 
All of us wanted the mango sago pomelo, thankfully M decided that we should have a variety, so she opted for the chin chow with aloe vera. As ordinary as it sounds, i prefer this to any of the desserts we ordered. The mint leaf really enhances the dessert, gives it a minty tinge that is not too overpowering. I do not really know how to describe,but in short, the myriad of tastes just tingles your taste buds! Oh but i am sure people who do not like the taste of mint wouldn't appreciate it as much as i do!

Overall experience, not too bad, I love the company! Food wise comparable to Lei Garden though i expected much better food from Li Bai.  If you are thinking of dining at Li Bai, please do not order your food all at one go, the speed at which they serve is so fast you will have to gobble your food to keep it warm! Order bit by bit!

Li Bai part 2

Very very quickly came the next dish deep fried goose roll. The dishes came so fast that B commented that it feels a little like eating in a cze char stall! Tsk tsk, Li Bai manager, pls take note! It was so fast that i didnt have the time to savour and slowly taste the food. KK now i must tell you about a habit of mine, i love my food hot! And to have it reallly hot and fresh i need to devour it as soon as it lands in front of me (k this is my silly theory), I hate it when food is left cold, especially fried food. And yes, ramen needs to be eaten within 10 mins, so never go to a ramen place with a friend you have not met for months, slowly eat and talk and talk and eat.. that is a no no! k back to my dim sum at Li bai =) Sorry for the digression.

I dont like this dish, i cant taste any of the so called goose, in fact i felt that it is a little oil and hmm tasteless. 

Egg tarts! I left the egg tarts to the last so it wasnt that hot and crispy when i ate it. Have tasted better egg tart at Lei Gardens. Egg tart reminds me of pig.. not the real pig but my friend the pig.
M ordered 2 plates of noodles, one udon (which i wallop before remembering that i had to take a photo) and this the Seafood fish noodle. Both noodles were disappointing. Very normal, can find anywhere in any cantonese restaurant. 
After we ate our supposedly last dish, AY commented 'Hey how come there are no normal dim sum like har gao and siew mai!' and we all went "YAH hor!"... we definitely had to order the normal dim sum as a yardstick to compare the quality of one dim sum dining to another dim sum dining. I remembered telling someone in order to do a comparison of dim sum places, the 'must' orders are har gao,  siew mai and char siew bao.
Char Siew bao... so so 

Li Bai Sheraton Towers

Had dim sum branch at Li Bai today, its been a while since i last ate dim sum at an exquisite restaurant. Started off with appetizer, yam chips. Not many places serve yam chips as an appetizer. It was nice and crispy! Kind of addictive!

Next was Fried cod roll with golden mushrooms. This was my favourite dish.
Very quickly came the crystal dumpling with vegetable. This is good too, the skin is gooey like shui jing bao, if you are not a gooey person you might find this gross, but i love the mix of both the 'gooeiness' and the crunchiness of the vegetable inside, especially the mushrooms. 
The rice roll with cha siew was smooth though a little ordinary. 
This is the drunken chicken with jelly fish.
K this is the maximum number of photos i can upload with one posting, tune in for more...

Big Eater Seafood Restaurant

Had dinner at Big Eater Restaurant. We came here specially for the Hokkien mee, ordered the large portion but too bad probably due to miscommunication, the medium sized was given to us instead. Love the goey noodles with lots of vinegar and yes yummy crispy lard!

We ordered other dishes like the SpareRib King (was ok) Fu Pi Juan and bittergourd with salted egg but was disappointed. Bittergourd hardly had any taste of salted egg, what we got was just a mess of egg whites. Maybe it wldnt be so bad if i hadnt had the best bittergourd and salted egg dish in Taiwan. That was my first taste of bittergourd, and yes i have come to accept bittergourd as part of my limited selection of veggies that i eat. So yup, conclusion just stick to the hokkien mee. I have yet to try the crabs, maybe the crab would be good, then again i am not so much of a crab person. Too much effort, too little taste. I love chilli crab though, for the gravy. 

Oh in case you are wondering, hmm where are the other photos of the other dishes, as usual we started eating them before i could remember to take a picture. 

Seabass for dinner

Tonight's dinner. Seabass (homecooked), veg n toufu (bought from a economic rice stall at Simei)

Seabass is definitely tastier than it looks 

Fish Porridge at home

K this is my first 'food' entry. Tonight's dinner cooked by me... Ikan Kurau fish porridge with scallops. Of cos credits go to mama for buying the fish, preparing, marinating it in the morning, soaking the scallops. So what did i do? er i simply soak the rice for 2 hrs and cook! =)