Chef Icon

I've been to Chef Icon a few times after work for their desserts - they do a really impressive iramisu and cheesecake brownie, which come in these really cute glass jars (that you can keep).

What most people don't know, is that they serve vegetarian food - just that the whole cafe doesn't scream vegetarian. It's really subtle - so that most people won't even notice it. I even managed to get WKR (one of the most anti vegetarian food friends that I know) to eat the a quarter of a sandwich, to which she agreed tasted really good (bread's super fresh!) and then told her the whole thing was made from soy ham :D

Looks like the real thing right? Tastes like it too (WKR didn't even know the difference). Do try their sandwiches - they're really delicious - much better than most of these new hipster cafes.

Chef Icon
5 Kampong Bahru Road
Singapore 169341
PHone 93373900

Duke Bakery

Shucks! After parking myself at one place for the last 2+ years, I keep discovering more and more great foodie treats when I'm about to leave :( The latest being Tamoya Udon (which I will blog about their awesome egg udon later) and Duke Bakery.

Duke bakery originates from Taiwan, and bakes Japanese-European style bread. Sounds like a mouthful, but don't worry yourself about it! The bread here is heavy and crusty, stuffed full with ingredients like dried fruits, nuts, cheese (I absolutely adore the cheese breads!) or chocolate. They add in fruit wine to enhance the taste, and the breads have this really sweet fruity smell. They're so hard core about the quality of bread, there's even a fixed bread schedule so you can get your bread fresh from the oven (you can check it out on their Facebook page).

I really like the cheese breads cos I can just grab 1-2 pieces on the way out of my house, no need to spread/add anything on top. I'd recommend that you go before 6pm on a weekday cos when I went there just after 6, there was hardly anything left :/ The price ranges from $4-$8, and the $8 breads are really chockfull with ingredients.

Duke Bakery
101 Thomson Road
#01-02/3 United Square, Singapore 307591
Tel 625229556252 2955

Choupinette

I've had a pretty productive week - finally tried 2 more restaurants on my restaurant wish list

Choupinette is located along the row of shops/restaurants right after Coronation Plaza. They're a well known breakfast/brunch/lunch place, and they've recently started a dinner menu (Tues to Sat, 6pm-10pm), which has Duck Confit ($22), Stuffed Lamb Shoulder ($24) and some other interesting French Dishes. I went there and ate their all day brunch for lunch.

The price of my Eggs Royal's - a staggering $21 (this is without the plus-es! inclusive of one hot drink and one small fruit juice).

I actually wanted to justify spending so much on my eggs, so I asked the waiter if there was anything special about my eggs (perhaps they were organic, I though, which would partially explain the exorbitant price), but to my dismay, it was 'just normal eggs'. Oh well, since it's rare that I'm free (to explore new places) for lunch, and even rarer that I'm free (or awake) for brunch, I decided to splurge a bit. After all, it's not everyday that I have a 2 week pseudo-holiday.Eggs Royal's comes with 2 poached eggs on toast, with smoked salmon and hollandaise sauce. Lots of hollandaise sauce. The eggs were poached perfectly (but not like I've never had nicely done poached eggs elsewhere) with the centers still runny. Not sure if they use some very special type of smoked salmon, but it tasted very ordinary to me. My one cold drink -pineapple juice from a carton.My one hot drink - hot chocolate which tasted pretty thin, flat and tasted like something that I could easily make at home (minus the froth and chocolate powder). Drinkable, not impressive.The Chou Chou's Set ($22++) with the Croque Monsieur

It comes with any juice, water, soft drink, coffee or tea (or Iced Chocolate) and a dessert. Croque Monsieur was pretty small, with some ham and cheese. I think Canele does a much better job (with their Croque Madame). The iced chocolate, like it's hot counterpart was very uninspiring. Creme Brulee (with the Chou Chou's set) - served cold with a thin layer of burnt sugar. It was pretty eggy and was rather hard. Definitely not very memorable and I've tasted better. They didn't have the chocolate mousse, so we were stuck with either this choice or 4 macaroons.
Choupinette's Brunch/Lunch menu

Choupinette epitomises the extremely expensive prices for normalish food along Bukit Timah Road. Somehow, the restaurants/cafes which are easily spotted from along the main road seem to have higher than normal prices, for average tasting food. Perhaps the pastries are better? I suppose you're paying for the nice cutlery and ambience. As well as the rental. This is definitely a place to try if you like to dine at Dempsey.

Choupinette

607 Bukit Timah Road

#01-01 Tel: 6466 0613

Provence - Kaya Wassant (croissant)

I'll make this short and sweet - my school's killing me! Hope I don't age 5 yrs in the next 9months!!!!!!:/ Provence has a new wassant (croissant) flavour - on top of the usual custard (my fave) and chocolate, there's kaya. It's 60 cents per kaya wassant and it's as fresh, as soft and maybe even slightly more fragrant than the other two. I think the layer of kaya is spread too thin for my liking - can hardly taste it (but I have no problem smelling it). Maybe it's cos I like kaya too much and I usually put a rather thick layer onto my bread.

Btw, I'm spelling Wassant cos they pronounce it that way - in fact, when I called to order croissants, the guy didn't understand me until he figured out that I was calling his Wassants 'croissants'. Ok I didn't check the exact spelling - hope I'm spelling it correctly!

Provence

17A Lorong Liput

Holland Village

Tel: 6467 6966

Journey to the far East: Tampines 1 - Yamazaki Bakery

We were very hungry so the moment we got into Tampines 1, we headed to the basement to grab some food from Yamazaki Bakery. It's run by the same company as Sun Moulin Iseatan Orchard (I think), so there was some bread which had Sun Moulin packaging.

We tried the belgian waffles - Chocolate and Peanut ($1-something each). The waffles were too cakey for my liking, and I thought the chocolate coating was to stingy. Not that I like that kind of chocolate anyway. The peanut wasn't much better - just a sprinkling of peanuts on top of the waffle. They were pretty dry too.

I decided to try some of the bread - the cheese thing right infront is pretty nice - crusty bread with at least 2 different kinds of cheese. It's delicious if you microwave/toast it in the oven before eating.

Partially shown on the right is the cheese naan, which is skinny and too crispy to be a naan. I didn't particularly like it.

On the left is the ham and egg bun - the ham used is the super inferior but extremely tasty kind of ham, which has a nice pinkish hue to it. The egg is pretty dry.

Right at the back is the ham and cheese bun, which was okay.

Lots of bead - lucky the que wasn't so long when I went - I hate queueing up for things.

Yamazaki Bakery

Tampines 1

This concludes my trip to tampines1!

I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon.

Barcook Bakery

I tried Barcook quite a while ago, but because I was hungry, I didn't get nice photos of the buns, so I didn't blog about it. Just as well, since I finally had the time to go down, get the buns, and take nicer, blog-able photos.

It's no wonder why their cream cheese raisin bun ($1.30) is their most popular item - savoury cream cheese and sweet raisins embedded within a cottony soft bread. It's best eaten when it's straight out of the oven. Although microwaving them for a few seconds on each side will suffice in mimicking the fresh-from-the-oven temperature.To make my trip and queueing even more worth it, I grabbed a bak kwa bun as well as a hotdog bun. The bak kwa bun is pretty good - fatty pieces of bak kwa and mayo/cream cheese. Their buns are so soft and delicious -I had to take extra care not to accidentally squash them. Coffee bun - it's somewhere around Rotiboy's standard - the crispy coffee layer, soft white bread and a oozing salty butter center. I just ate Rotimum (from IMM) today, and I actually think that Barcook does a better version of the coffee bun.

My spoils from all that queueing - I ordered 8 cream cheese raisin buns because I figured since I was trudging all the way down to Chinatown, and queueing up, and paying so much for carpark, I must as well get more to make my trip worth it. Especially since I had to call them >10x before they picked up the phone!

Here's a picture of the poster with all their different kinds of bread. I'm eyeing the Mexi cheese bun next, as well as the coconut bun. Prior to this, I didn't have their menu, so other than cream cheese raisin, I didn't know what else to order when I called them. It's only 1 day later, and there's no trace of the 6 (I ate 2) cream cheese raisin buns left in my fridge.

Barcook Bakery

Blk 531, Upper Cross Street

#01-54 Hong Lim Complex

Mon-Fri: 8am-6pm (or when bread is sold out)

Sat-Sun: 8am-4pm (or when bread is sold out)

To avoid disappointment, please call 65336588 (manymany times till they pick up the phone) to place an order, so that they can reserve the much coveted buns for you.

Sweet Secrets

Pardon my tablecloth...I'm an ardent supporter of Sweet Secrets cakes - have been eating them since primary school. They're reasonably priced - $22 for 600g, $36 for 1kg and tastes as good as some more expensive branded/hotel cakes, to me at least. Best of all, they taste fantastic - good enough to rival most other chocolate cakes. If I remember correctly, it used to be $18 for 600 g when I was still in Sec school... but I shan't be like those older people who lament so much about how their 5 cent bowls of noodles have been inflated into $3 bowls... hehe incase you're wondering why this is small it's to make it harder to read hehehe
Aiya! I just realised that my cake has all the candles! So much for trying to be forever 21! HAIZ!! (and Claire, thanks for not putting my age - guess that this is the nicst pict of my cake cos it doesn't have the ugly tablecloth).
Though it looks pretty unappetising here cos it's all melting and wet (cos it survived the long journey back and I cut it straight away without letting it chill in the fridge) picture of my half melted Etoile cake. Basically, it's a half mousse half sponge cake. The top most layer is a layer of rich bittersweet chocolate, dusted with chocolate powder. The underlayers below is a mixture of spongy chocolate cake and chocolate mousse. It's fantastic chilled (just ate some from the fridge just now) and taste very chocolatey, moussey held together in a cake shape by the sponge.

Do note that there is a little alchohol inside (but you can't taste it).

My cake is the Etoile, which is chocolate mousse and chocolate sponge, and I've also tried the Concorde (chocolate mousse, chocolate sponge and chocolate meringue) which I find too sweet but it's quite popular. They also have a Chocolate Royal which sounds pretty interesting - chocolate mousse, chocolate sponge and hazelnut crunch.

Sweet Secrets
9 Bishan Place
#B1-10 Junction 8
S(579837)
Tel 63534714

Other branches - Upper THomson Road, Serangoon Gardens, Great World City, International Plaza.
Website:http://sweetsecrets.com.sg/

Privé - Keppel Island

Thanks to Annalisa & sister for finding this unique dining place :) So there was a 2hr we scuttled off intending intending to eat crabmeat pasta but it was sadly 'shuttered down' :( drove arnd for a while before deciding to go to Privé. The 1st time I went to Keppel Island, I ate at the very uninspiring tcc.The place is flooded on weekends (by people of course), and it feels very resort-ish and unSingapore-like.

They have a bread corner, with lots of interesting stuff like the Banana walnut bread ($7.90 for a loaf, which I shall buy back next time when I'm not rushing), whole loaves of foccacia, sourdough, whole wheat bread etc. They only sell it in full loaves though. If you order a bread, they will toast it in the oven at 180 C for you to make your loaf happily crispy and warm. And they serve it with unsalted butter. The sourdough bread ($7.90++) we tried was deliciously crispy, soft and fresh and tasted delicious slathered in butter.

Soups - Mushroom Soup, which was deliciously creamy and packed with mushrooms, Smoked Bacon and Asparagus which yummy salty bits of bacon, sprinkled with chives. Smoked Duck Salad (can't remember the price) came with a measly few pieces of ducks breast, dressed in a vinegrette dressing. But it's not outrageously expensive for the quantity of duck.

This is my Blue Crab and Prawn Wrap ($11++) which was absolutely delicious! The sweetness of the crab, freshness of the prawn mixed in a yummy cream sauce, crunchy onions punctuating every few bites. It's also sprinkled sparingly with chilli flakes, which gives the wrap a punch.

However, i thought that the ends of the wrap could be a tad thinner as it tasted too floury at the ends.Smoked Salmon Wrap, with some kind of fruit (apple?) chutney. Didnt really like this cos I felt that the spiced chutney didn't really go with the smoked salmon. Plus, the wrap was drippingly wet and soggy, probably from the chutney.Chicken and Mushroom Bechemel Pie ($9++), with buttery puff pastry baked over chicken morsels and mushrooms. There were also little bits of carrot. I conldnt really taste or see the bechemel - but the chicken bits were soft and tasty. Was pretty stuffed from the bread by then.Bailey's Milkshake ($11++), with the sweetness of the baileys and lots and lots of cream. Its pretty ok for alcoholic milkshake I suppose, but I'm not a fan. Maybe I should try the peanut butter one next time :D Dessert Conter in Privé, which we were unfortunate enough not to try cos we were really rushing for time. I'm going to try the Caribbean Panna Cotta, Chocolate cakes and Tiramisu next time! They really look yummy.

The service was quite slow, and our food seemed to take forever to come out (but we were rushing and I didnt time it, so it might just be psychogenic). However, we did note that the bread freshly warmed from the oven, was sitting on the counter for quite a while before it was taken to our table. Privé wasn't particularly crowded - it being a weekday and rainy, and they didn't seem short of staff either. Shots of the area near Privé - yacts of the rich and famous! It was rainy and cloudy that day, so the sky wasn't brilliant blue :(Dark Skies... Privé is located behind that teardrop shaped structure.
En Route to Privé - looks like a resort right? Bridge to Privé
Privé

No. 2 Kepple Bay

Singapore 098382
(Kepple Island)

Tel: 67760777

My rating for Privé:

Provence

Provence (Holland Village) is a Japanese bakery. My favourite confectionary from provence is the Milk Bun.
It's a soft fragrant (the freshly baked kind of smell) bun and has a milk filling. The milk filling has the texture a bit smoother and more wobbly than custard, and tastes like milk with a hint of cream cheese. It's not too sweet either.
I think this is really unique and I don't think you can get it else where.

These buns sell like hotcakes, and it's baked fresh twice daily. Depending on the day, the timings can range from 12 to 2. DO give them a call before you pop by, and you might want to consider making a reservation for the buns.

Provence is in Holland Village, and is opposite Subway.

Tel: 64676966

Provence

This is a little Japanese bakery tucked into a corner of Holland Village, so hidden that I've actually walked past many times and not even know that it existed. It's opposite Subway, and it's quite hard to notice if you dont look out for it.

The Japanese are fascinated by bread - look at the manga/anime Yakitate Japan (at the end of each vol of manga, there will be a bread recipe, there's even one where they teach you how to cook bread in a rice cooker), Melon Bun (i like those with the real melon inside, not the empty one), and there's so many Japanese bakeries. For example, Sun Moulin at Iseatan basement, they have Strawberry and Cream Sandwiches, Blueberry Swiss rolls (very nice!), Liang Court has a few Japanese bakeries too with an interesting variety of breads.

The bread from Provence is really fresh and unique - they only come out at certain times, and if you really want to get the popular ones, you'll have to wait quite a while once they're sold out. It caters to the Japanese - each bread label has katakana and alot of the signs are in Japanese.

It also has a variety of sandwiches - from bento boxes to brunch and tea time sandwich sets which you can consume in house, within the bakery itself or alfresco.

This blogpost was made possible by Yilin, our chauffer for the day.

And since there was a carpark attendent hovering around, we decided that we had to put the exact time on the carpark coupon, and no cheating - not even 5 min.

To get my appetite going for brunch, I shared a Milk Bun with fish. The picture of the whole milk bun is a bit blurred (probably cos I was hypoglycaemic and couldn't hold my phone properly)
Milk bun is my favourite bun from Provence. It's a milk custard, and tastes vaguely like philidelphia cream cheese, but it's more custardy and lighter than the cream cheese. The bun is very soft, fresh and light. In fact, when we were eating it, we realised that the milk custard filling was still warm. Delicious! Oiishi!
This is the cinnamon bun.
Ham toast brunch set. Comes with coffee/tea. $4
Bacon Toast Brunch Set - $5
This is the one that i ate - it's toast with fried egg, bacon, japanese cucumbers, tomatoes and a generous helping of tomato sauce (which i didn't quite like). I ordered it because it came with a salad, which I wanted. The salad is great, with corn, tomato, cabbage and Japanese Cucumbers, in a Japanese Salad dressing.There are 2 choices for tea - English Breakfast Tea or Earl Grey

I decided to buy something to eat for later cos the lectures were so long. So i got an easy to eat seaseme cream cheese bun - but it's not very good. It has a really strong taste of sesame.
Sesame Cream Cheese Buns - $2.40 for 4
Another thing worth trying is the crossaints (sp?) it's $5 for 10 and each crossaint has a bit of egg custard and is slightly sweet. And of course, they're really fresh.


Yilin is sadly tearing a coupon.