Viet Cafe by Waraku

Many of us are familiar with Waraku and Pasta de Waraku, but I've never heard of its sister restaurant till recently. They recently opened a branch at Square 2 but it's so well hidden that I didn't know it existed until one of my friends pointed it out (don't really go to that corner).

Mixed fresh rolls ($6.80)

I'm a big fan of the fresh Vietnamese rice rolls, and so we had them as a starter to share. It's a mixture of chicken and prawn, with 2 kinds of dipping sauces. I didn't like the minced chicken cos it was a bit mushy and clumpy, but the prawns were nice and fresh.

Btw, they're really easy to make at home - I eat them about twice a week for dinner. Just need to get the dried rice paper from Cold storage, lettuce and Japanese cucumbers, tung hoon (used to substitute the noodle portion of this), either fresh or frozen prawns, +/- lean pork and roll everything together. For the dipping sauce, you can use this recipe. I don't like lime so I use white vinegar instead.

Chicken Vermicelli Salad ($10.80)

 I had the chicken vermicelli salad (in essence, it's the dry form of pho, which I usually eat since I don't particularly like chickne pho). The dipping sauce (nuoc cham) has a very strong lime taste, and was a bit too sour for my liking. What I did like about it was the loads of crispy vegetables, herbs, cucumbers, beansprouts and crushed peanuts.
I really think that chicken pho doesn't taste as good as the beef one, so I tend not to to order the soup version of the noodles.

This is the spicy beef pho, which of course, I didn't try ($11.80) but according to my friends, this was pretty good. The website says that they boil the soup for 8 hours daily, just like Ramen soup!

Crispy Wings ($6.80)

It's really not bad with the 50% discount (just need to post on face book when your'e there, and you'll get a voucher). Plus its still relatively quiet (a rarity especially in the Novena area, during lunch hour) and peaceful. Of course, I think that I've had better Vietnamese food elsewhere but this has filled the void for Vietnamese food in the Novena area. (I'm told there's one in the Velocity Kopitiam, but I've never been there).

Viet Cafe
10 Sinaran Drive, Square 2
#01-07

Matsuo - Lunch

The only redeeming factor for P_ _ _ is that I can trot out for lunch and get to eat what I feel like eating. The walk to Matsuo 12min (round trip!) if I'm by myself and since their service is so quick I can get my lunch, buy Gong Cha and get back in record time. Of course, I'm not the world's slowest eater ;p

I like their lunch sets - Mondays and Fridays is Chirashi don days.

Comes with a piece each of salmon, tuna (one fatty, one normal), cooked prawn, sweet prawn, sword fish, eel, hamachi and half a scallop and tamago. Their rice is always consistently good.

The set comes with chawanmushi on top of the miso soup and watermelon. Mondays and Fridays are the best days! Plus they're not too crowded once it hits 1+pm cos the office crowd usually disperses by then.

Tuesday is eel (never made it out on Tuesday) 

Wednesday is tempura udon and sushi. 

 I liked the tamago with the eel - but not the maki (top right).

 Tempura udon with prawn, carrot and mushroom. Lots of carbs - guaranteed to be sleepy after lunch...

Lunch sets are $22 (after taxes) and comes with miso soup and fruits. (Except Thursdays cos it's beef teppanyaki and it's $15++ if I'm not wrong).

There's a cheaper alternative for Japanese lunch sets in the Hokkaido Fish Market in Square 2 but the lunch sets are super limited (12-1 only, and very limited quantity) so I've only managed to go there successfully for lunch once, and that was nearly 5-6 months back...

Matsuo

1 Goldhill Plaza

#01-17 Goldhill Plaza

Tel 63562603

Prego

Went to Prego (a while back) after watching Toy Factory's The Crucible - could never finish the book last time but I guess the play is much easier to watch! I guess that my school never did that book for O levels cos of the themes :/ Pretty sad that most of the sec school students don't do literature anymore - it was really fun and I suppose that with the half humanities, it makes more sense to do history and social studies, and since geog is purely a mugging subject. But lit was really fun (though as usually, it's teacher dependent!) 

The soft fluffy bagel like bread with rosemary which I couldn't get enough of! It's served with this creamy cheese with pesto sauce (seen in the back) and butter. I ate 2 of these and was so stuffed... such a sucker for restaurant bread...

I had the dinner set which was like $55++ (I think, was quite a while ago but I can't remember exactly). Came with a tomato soup which was pretty average. 

 Some cheesey thing which I found quite salty, though I did enjoy the tomato sauce.

 Cod fish with artichoke and mashed potatoes - not bad and I really like artichoke hearts! Though steaming a whole artichoke and then de-leafing it sounds like a rather daunting task I do wish to do it some day...

 The set dinner dessert - this was some chocolate cake with raspberry and yuzu or something along those lines. They kindly allowed me to swap the dessert for tiramisu since I don't take citrus.

The tiramisu was really good - would come back to eat this if I'm in the area. Haven't had good tiramisu for quite a while...

Smoked salmon and capers thin crust pizza - not bad but most places can do a pretty decent pizza so this was only average. 

Service was good, as expected. Extra points cos good service is hard to find nowadays.

Prego

Level 1 Fairmont Singapore

64316156

Random food things Feb-March

How time flies - I've just realized that I haven't blogged for nearly a month! This is just the odds and ends that don't fit anywhere... Will be blogging a bit more soon...

Since I left off before CNY - spent my CNY slacking at home since it's the first time since I've started work that I had the whole CNY off - awesomeness+++
Btw, the Ritz Carlton cornflake and fatt choy cookies were super delicious - I really like good cornflake cookies (don't think that the fatt choy made it any more special, since there's no taste) and I devoured nearly the whole jar by myself over the 4 days of CNY and ate lots of bak kwa - pretty much what I did everyday is summed up in the picture.
I really like the Gryphon tea - and only the pearl of the orient which has jasmine and rose oil - very fragrant and sweet smelling. I've tried the Hanami (not really my cup of tea) and the white ginger lilly (don't like it either).

Dressed the rabbit up in his bumble bee costume when my relatives came over - he was dressed in the same colours as my grandmother that day, and he's grown so only the top button can close ^v^

Muji @ Ion has the nicest furniture - walking in the Ion branch makes me feel like buying everything. The furry rug is very nice! And so are the chairs! There was this very pretty white candle look alike vaporizer but the prices are so ridiculous.

their food looks so good and organized, but I personally think they don't taste great. Got tempted by their nice food displays and bought 3 different teas - none of them can beat the Pokka ooloong tea though...

 Innards from Tiong Baru Bakery's pandan croissant - I still prefer the chocolate one - though I'm trying not to eat too much of it cos I'm saving my LDL quota for other foods.

 Went to eat tako pachi at the Takashimaya foodcourt - it's extremely nostalgic eating it cos I used to eat it nearly every week in secondary school - bacon and cheese only - none of the other flavours are to my liking. The price has steadily increased from $2 to $2.20 and now it's $2.50 omg I sound like an old woman...

 The packaging has stayed the same for >10 years! I still think this is the best tako pachi ever - the rest can't come close (even the super traditional Japanese ones) cos I like this so much.

 My favourite wanton mee in Singapore! Super oily but tastes so good! I can't remember the shop name but it's at the Lavander Food center.

 Still the same noodles, same ultra thin char siew and 3 wantons.

Another comfort food - NYDC's ham and mushroom baked rice. I've found out that most of my contemporaries have the same few dishes that they've been eating at NYDC since secondary school and most of them stick with the same old thing. I don't think I've tried much of the NYDC menu cos I keep eating the same old baked rice!

Btw I read this article recently which said that if you give people less variation to their meal plan ie have a standard menu for the different days of the week, they tend to eat less than if you offer them a changing menu because it's not interesting and people tend to be curious and want to try new things... No wonder why the lunch menu has only 7 dishes (though they did come up with a new leafy vegetable soup recently...)