Nakhon Kitchen and Project Acai

 Thai food is my 3rd most favourite kind of food - but since my chilli tolerance is pathetically low, I can't eat most of the ultra spicy dishes. I've tried Nakhon Kitchen in Bedok once (recommended by colleague KH 5 years ago) and most of their branches are located in really hard to get to out of the way places (i.e. industrial estates). I'm really glad that they have a branch in Holland Village now.

Its a no frills extremely affordable Thai restaurant, which serves really delicious authentic Thai Food. Quite similar to Diandin Leluk at Golden Mile, just much more accessible.

I their papaya salad as they can adjust the chilli level according to your tolerance. The pineapple rice is nice and sweet, and their phad thai tastes really authentic. Their fish cakes and prawn cakes are not bad either. Plus they serve water for free!

Also, the prices here are really pocket friendly (much more affordable than Thai Express) and the taste is really good (lots of Thai staff here). Superb place for lunch when you're in the Holland V area. The queues can be a pain but if you eat lunch early at about 1130 it shouldn't be a problem.

Nakhon Kitchen Holland Village
27A Lorong Liput
Singapore 277738

 One of the highlights of going to Nakhon Kitchen is that I can hop over next door to get myself a bowl of Acai goodness from Project Acai. I'm not sure about the purported health benefits of acai, but since it tastes so good, I just take it as a dessert (plus perhaps half a serving of fruits).

The acai pulp texture is similar to a slushie and it is the same shade of colour as red bean. I really like how refreshing it tastes, especially when paired with lots of fresh fruits.


Project Acai 
Holland Village
27 Lorong Liput
Singapore 277738

http://www.project-acai.com

Teppei Syokudo

I really really like Teppei for its budget no frills super worth it chirashi don. But going to Tajong Pagar area during lunch time is really a major pain. Not only do I have to pay ERP, pay for the super expensive CBD parking when I finally get a carpark lot, I have to queue too. I'm so glad that Teppei has come up with the concept of takeaway chirashi dons.

They have a very concise little menu, which includes a hamburg steak as well as some Japanese Curry dishes. But of course, I didn't manage to try those.

The chirashi don is great - marginally less tasty than the original Teppei but for no queues and no carpark angst, I'll definitely come back here again. All those lucky people who work in the area - I'm envious +++. No frills fuss free seating - stools and wooden tables uncomfortable enough so you won't hog the seat.

Teppei Syokudo
Millenia Walk #01-105
9 Raffles Boulevard
Tel 62381945

There's another branch in Takashimaya but I have yet to go there.

Immanuel French Kitchen and Two Wings

I'm a big fan of cheap and good food - especially if it's not in some far flung inaccessible place. Immanuel French Kitchen was on my food radar for the longest time, but then somehow I never went there. Till about 2 months ago (yes this is superbly outdated).

 The chicken liver pate with port wine ($7.90) was rich and creamy, and went fabulously with the warm crusty bread.

The pan fried foie gras ($16.50) may look a bit unusual, but it tastes great - prior to this I've never eaten foie gras in broth. Surprisingly it goes really well with the dash broth and daikon.

The escargots ($12.90) were also delicious - can't go wrong with ordering escargots in a French place right?

Fried frog legs with shallots and parsley ($12.60) - it was a bit disappointing for me cos I found the other starters better than the frog legs - perhaps it was also because we ordered chicken wings (see below) from another store so it was a bit of an overkill.

 The pork belly ($16.50) was a crowd pleaser - served with onset egg, duxelle mushrooms and potato foam. Melt in the mouth pork belly with creamy potato foam and delicious oozing onsen egg. Plus the crouton bits for the extra crunch. I think this would have cost me double the price from some fancy restaurant.

 Duck leg confit ($16.50) which was moist and tasty, but since duck confit isn't my fave dish - possibly biased cos I saw some cooking show and they cook it in pure duck fat >.< The mash potatoes were so awesome - I think we contemplated getting an extra mashed potato side but then we had too much food already...

 We also went to try the famous Two Wings, which supposedly has the best chicken wings in Singapore. I was waylaid by their awesome heaping cheese fries. But not a good idea to eat so much rich food in one seating... I will try to space it out the next time...

 The wings didn't disappoint- slightly larger than the scrawny ones that you get in most places... The skin was very crispy and evenly cooked. I'm not a big fan of chicken wings either so I didn't think it was spectacular, just that if you're in the area and love chicken wings, it would be a good place to go to.

Finished off the day with more good oils - and did a taste test of 2 of the more famous avocado milkshakes - I do think that the store beside Mr Avocado has the better milkshake (more creamy, less sweet) but then if there was a queue, I'll just go to whichever is shorter...

Immanuel French Kitchen and Two Wings can be found in a coffeeshop
119 Bukit Merah Lane 1
Singapore 151119
Just next to Alexandra Village Food Centre

Porn's Thai Food

I had the pleasure of dining at Porn's Thai Food on a Sunday evening. It wasn't very crowded, so we managed to get a seat straight away. I just got back from Bangkok a few weeks ago, and was craving for some good Thai food.

Many years ago when they opened their first outlet at Liang Seah Street, I went there for lunch. The food was not bad but because it was so out of the way I never went back again (as you can tell, I don't particularly enjoy going to the Bugis area cos I feel very old there). And forgot all about it (since I have a goldfish memory).

I wanted to order Tom Kha Gai, which is a less/non-spicy version of Tom Yum soup with coconut milk (partly because I have extremely low chill tolerance). However, I was unable to find it in the menu. When I asked the server about it, he instantly said that they would be able to cook it for me (at no extra cost), and recommended that I order the seafood version, as I had already ordered their fried garlic chicken. Also, our small 2 seater table didn't have their special offers menu. The server also straight away asked if we had a UOB credit card, as the tom yum soup was 50% off if we did.

Food wise, I think that they are comparable to the standard Thai restaurants.
I really like the Tom Kha Gai soup, which, without the UOB offer, would be about $13++. It was a really big portion (good for 2 pax), came with 4 medium prawns, lots of fish and mushrooms. I could see the galangal and lemongrass, which some Thai stores don't even have (which, to me, means that the spices came out from a packet). There was just the right balance of coconut, so that the soup wasn't too thick and cloying, and neither was it too watery.

The garlic fried chicken was extremely addictive, and the basket of chicken was devoured in a matter of minutes. Light crispy batter, and soft moist morsels of chicken. It was tasty on its own, and I didn't have to dip it in to the sweet chilli sauce accompanying it.

The pineapple rice came with some prawns, baked cashew nuts and raisins. The rice was very fragrant and there was a mild hint of curry powder. I would like to try their olive rice during my next visit.

The papaya salad was really refreshing and crunchy, but the only part I didn't like about it was that there was way too much raw garlic for my liking. I will order this again, but definitely ask them to tone down the garlic taste.

I'm very impressed by their flexibility - especially with being able to adjust the spiciness of the dishes, which is very important to me since I have extremely low and pathetic chilli tolerance. I was also very happy with their service (something that is very rare nowadays) well as the waiter's initiative.

It's pretty hard to find restaurants nowadays who actually bother to train their staff well, or who have staff who actually bother and take the initiative to inform customers about the in-house offers.I was so pleased that for once, I didn't feel annoyed that I had to pay 50 cents for my cold water. If you frequent Thai Express, I would strongly encourage you to give Porn's Thai Food a try - it's much more wallet friendly, and I personally think the dishes I had today were really delicious.

Porn's Sexy Thai Food 
Star Vista Outlet
1 Vista Exchange Green
#02-09 Singapore 138617
Opening Hours Monday to Sunday 11am to 10pm
Tel 66943501

Tamoya Udon - United Square

Tamoya Udon is this really famous Udon chain from Japan. I've been hearing a lot about the outlet at Liang Court, but since Liang Court is really out of the way for me on weekdays (plus I would need to pay ERP) and I don't fancy going there on weekends (there's so many other places to checkout) I haven't made my way there. Until, by a stroke of luck, I chanced upon their outlet at United square. Somehow United Square has been surprising me again and again, with new food outlets that I never knew existed (perhaps cos it's further from Novena/Square 2 I seldom venture there, and it's overrun by screaming kids on the weekends). 

It's a no frills udon restaurant, pretty much like a fast food restaurant, where you order and pick up your food and pay for it at the cashier, before sitting down to enjoy your bowl of udon. They also have a few rice dishes, but obviously the udon is the star here. 

After ordering the udon, there's a nice long line of tempura (some freshly cooked, some which have been sitting there under a heat lamp for a while), which are very reasonably priced (in my opinion). I got tempted by the tempura x3, because my udon took 15 minutes to come. 

One of the things that my friends raved about was the unlimited toppings counter - where you can get unlimited servings of spring onions, tempura batter (everyone loves this, except me), and seaweed. There's also plum, grated ginger, radish (love this!) and some other toppings which didn't really appeal to me. 

 My Kama-tama udon ($5.80) which took forever to come. To be fair, they did tell me that the wait would be 15 minutes. And I ate 3 pieces of tempura while waiting. I picked this udon because I wanted to enjoy the udon with minimal distractions. It comes with dipping sauce (which I didn't use, cos I thought that the noodles were tasty by itself). Looks really plain in the picture, but you can always add the unlimited toppings.

 I tried  3 different tempura - the first one being this longish fish cake thing ($1.50), which was pretty good. Actually, I chose it because it was freshly cooked and just out of the deep frier, so it was nice and warm and crispy.

I also had the chicken cutlet ($2) and the pumpkin ($1.50). I really liked the pumpkin because it was a wedge, rather than a scrawny little slice.

 This is how the beef udon ($10.80) looks like after it's dressed up with the unlimited toppings.

If you go to the United square outlet soon, be sure to look for the 1 free tempura brochure which they have outside their store

Tamoya Udon

101 Thomson Road 

#B1-07 United Square

Tel 62587783

Spruce Taqueria

Part 2 of Day 1 of Annual leave! Pardon the interruption from the Truffle Infused Creme Brulee I was so overjoyed after eating it I had to blog about it stat.

I've positively been dying to try Spruce Taqueria but their office worker unfriendly cos their opening hours are only weekdays 12-3pm. So I used my annual leave day 1 (for this posting) just to try it (and many other yummy foods which I will be blogging about later).

Somewhere around 2pm, we arrived at the much awaited Spruce Taqueria (right on top of the hill, at some obscure corner of phoenix park). Underwhelmingly, it's a little black and white shack with a small shelter infront and some plastic/wooden tables and chairs thrown around. Suprisingly, there was a rather huge group of people there feasting on the tacos already.

We decided to have the set with 2 tacos, corn chips and their salsa, plus a drink ($9). For the set, you can only choose one type of filling for both tacos, so we settled on the pork carnitas. There's other choices of beef tongue, grilled snapper, portobello mushroom etc but pork it was... No regrets about the pork - insanely soft, juicy and with a bit of that porkey smell, its a generous portion (for $3 per taco) of succulent tasty pork topped with guacamole. Though it got a bit soppy and wet after a while when the pork released its juices on to the corn tortilla and onto the plastic plate...

It's purely al fresco seating right next to nature - think having a nice picnic with wooden tables under a large shady tree, with all the ants, houseflies as well as a cacophony of crickets to accompany you and your meal, not to mention patches of birdshit on the tables and chairs... We found ourselves taking refuge in the car - the carpet of decaying leaves and lots of ants under our table was too much to handle. Of course, the tortillas being slightly wet from the juicy pork made it even trickier to eat inside the car...

I really pity the people working hard inside the little shack during midday, when the sun is scorching hot. No air con inside either! But thanks to them, yummy soft corn tacos for a super worth it $3 a pop.

The watermelon with lime drink (it's some fancier name in the menu, but essentially, it's watermelon with lime) is extremely refreshing, and I think it'll taste even better with a dash of vodka... Though I must say it did the perfect job of washing down the spicy salsa dip...

I really cannot figure out why Spruce would want to have this little shack instead of opening up their main restaurant. But it's really yummy so if you're not afraid of the heat, the long trek up the slope (unless you drive) and if you happen to be free from 12-3 on a weekday, do go down to try some tacos. Though if you're a non-nature lover like me you would probably want to drive and have it inside the car...

Spruce Taqueria

320 Tanglin Road

68365528

Btw I have 1 more post before I blog about my annual truffle affair at Otto! *satisfied and highly contented sigh*

3 Inch Sin

Such an appropriate quote, especially since it serves such decadant desserts. 3 inch sin is a 4 week old dessert cafe specialising in Molten Chocolate cakes. The bubbly chef/owner trained in Le Cordon Blu (guess which country? you'll have to ask her!). They serve chocolate cakes in 2 sizes, normal size ($5) and mini ($5 for 3).The molten chocolate cake comes in eight different flavours. If you're a big fan of the molten part of the cake, be sure to order original (in the 3 inch 'full size') because that's the one with the most molten chocolate. Though the chocolate is not super runny, the cake still has adequate crispiness right on the outside, chocolatey cakey middle, and the molten chocolate core.
For people like me who like novelty, mini 1 inch cakes are the way to go since their core has different fillings (but no molten chocolate core). Which kinda defeats the purpose of eating a molten chocolate cake I suppose? But I really like the raspberry one (down to the little bits of raspberry which get stuck in my teeth), since it's tartness complements the rich chocolate well.
I tried Hazelnut and Peanutbutter as well. Hazelnut was ok, was expecting it to be more nutella like but I think the chocolate taste kinda overwhelmed it, and I found the Peanut Butter (yes I am really not a 'true' fan of peanut butter cos I like having it in miniscule portions only) too cloying. But Peanut Butter fans should rejoyce since Peanut Butter + warm Chocolate Cake is always a wicked combination.

Their unique and pretty menu - flavours are mint, bitter orange, white chocolate, coffee, peanut butter, raspberry and hazelnut. I think if I go back, I'll stick to the lighter flavours (since I think I'm growing old and have a much lower dessert threshold than I used to have) like raspberry and mint.

It's a pity that Cluny Court has so little human traffic, and most of the stalls are hidden from view (think Relish, Taste Matters). Which is such a pity since Island Creamery is doing such a roaring trade just 2 buildings away.

3 Inch Sin

501 Bukit Timah Road

#02-27 Cluny Court
Tel: +65 6314 1217

4 more days of exam left!! Then I can plan for more gastronomic adventures in peace...

EAT - Laksa

Laksa with additional $1 cockles

Sometimes when a rare laksa craving hits, I go down to EAT at Railmall to get a nice big bowl of laksa. It's around $4.50 (or is it $5 now?) for a bowl of laksa, but then again, it's open 24h so I really don't mind paying a premium for my laksa. They also add a piece of crispy deep fried stuffed (with fish paste) tau kee, which soakes up the goodness of the laksa broth. The cockles are juicy, clean (no gritty sand) and pretty fresh, though it'll be better if they were bigger and juicier.

The noodles are smooth and translucent, and the laksa broth is spicy (but not overly so), with pounded hae bee (dried prawns) for flavour. It's not as creamy as the katong laksa, but quite flavourful still. Top the whole thing off with aromatic laksa leaves - makes a real satisfying supper.

I still prefer Katong Laksa cos the soup is really creamy and fragrant, but convenience is tops for me.

Eat also sells other noodle dishes such as bak chor mee as well as fish ball noodles. Bak chor mee seems quite popluar but I have yet to try it.

EAT
436 Upper Bukit Timah Road
The Rail Mall
Tel: +65 6462 3034
Daily 24h
(There's another branch at Ion basement)

Galicier

Happy Chinese New Year! It's the year of the Tiger, and I'm pretty sure Singapore birth rates will be plunging again!

True to my school's tradition, I've spent the last 3 or 4 Chinese New Years slaving away studying (and trying to collect ang paos in between). At least this is (hopefully!) going to end soon! And I'll be able to spend my next cny slaving away over something else and not getting any sleep! Since it's Chinese new year soon, I shall blog on a more Chinese-related post, and since I haven't really got any, these delicious kuehs from Galicier should suffice :) Ondeh ondeh is one of my more favourite snacks. The best part of the ondeh ondeh is the little globule of gula melaka floating in the middle of the molten gula melaka. Good ondeh-ondehs should always burst with a smokey sweet spurt of golden brown gula melaka. Not only does it have molten gula melaka, Galicier's gula melaka filling is exceptionally fragrant, as they also add roasted sesame seeds to the gula melaka, which makes their ondeh ondeh a level up against other ondeh ondehs I've tried. The skin is soft and chewy, and Galicier's ondeh ondeh smells of freshly cooked sweet potato. I think that these are the perfect ondeh ondehs, just that the shredded coconut is a bit on the dry side. Other than that, it's one of my more favourite snacks. Each piece is sold at 60 cents.Mountain of ondeh-ondeh coated with shredded coconut, waiting to be bought.

Ahh I'm getting very hungry thinking about ondeh ondeh now, even though I've just eaten my reunion dinner (like all reunion dinners at restaurant, it wasn't very good and cost a bomb).

Their steamed cupcakes are also really nice. This one is kaya filled cupcakes. They have other flavours such as yam (purple), red bean and coconut. The cupcake itself is light and airy, and pretty sweet and has the nice freshly steamed smell. It could do with a bit more kaya filling, and the kaya used for these cupcakes isn't of a very good quality.
However, Glacier's kaya (coconut, egg and pandan jam) which is sold by the jar is extremely delicious. It's thick, chunky and very fragrant. Goes extremely well with toasted bread. I should really go back and get another jar soon...
The old school bakery - not many of them left now but they sell oh so delicious kuehs and other little confectionaries. I'm so going to go back next week!

Galicier Confectionery

Blk 55 Tiong Bahru Road

#01-39

Opening Hours: 10am to 9pm

Eatzi at East Point

Eatzi is a Halal restaurant chain opened by the same management as Jack's Place. I've been eating there occasionally when I'm in the Far East (much more than I would have liked), as it's located at East Point. The main draw here is the Student's set meal (though I've never tried it) - which is a budget friendly option (comes to slightly more than $8 after taxes). It starts at 1.30pm (this is pretty inconsistent - managed to get it at 1something on one occasion, and on the next, we were told that the computer was programmed so we can't order it till 130). For the meal, there's 4 different choices for main course, and it's served with a soft drink or ice lemon tea, as well as a scoop of ice cream.

There's chicken cutlet, which imoh, is the safest bet out of the four options. I haven't tried it myself, but it's quite a nice portion and looks crispy. And how wrong can you get with chicken cutlet anyway?

The baked rice has a nice brown layer of cheese on top, not too sure if it came with sauce.

The Fish Fingers and Chips (note, not Fish and chips) is exactly what it says, and it's not too bad (fried food usually isn't).

The last choice is the Spaghetti Carbonara, which I think is the riskiest dish to try, since badly done spaghetti carbonaras are really painful to eat.

They also have daily set lunches, including 2 'permanent' mains, as well as an additional 2 mains, for each day of the week. The Set Lunch includes a soup of the day, main course, daily dessert and coffee/tea. Like all set lunches, changing any component of the set begets unecessarily high additional charges. For example, if you want to change coffee/tea to iced tea or a soft drink, you'll have to pay an additional $1++.

Currently, the 'permanent' dishes are Roast Chicken Leg and Crumbed Fillet of Fish ($8-$8.80++)

Soups - Not very spectacular, just tastes like the normal low-ish quality kind with not much taste and thickend with lots of flour. It's the kind of soup where if you close your eyes, it's hard to tell if you're having chicken or mushroom soup, because the taste is just so subtle (to put it in a nice way). I like the garlic bread that's served with the soup cos it's usually a pretty big piece and crispy cos it's usually nicely toasted.

The Roast Chicken Leg with mashed potatoes ($8 something++ for set lunch,) exceeded our expectations. The portion was more than generous, and there was a mega drumstick Check out how big it is - not like those measly chicken thigh + drumstick size. That day's lunch was extra good because the vegetables were really fresh, and there were a few types of vegetables including sweet corn, cucumber, carrots and cabbage. The mashed potato was also pretty good - creamy and smooth, and I was suprised that they included olives (extra costs!) in the meal.

Another chicken I tried - this one was the daily set lunch, and was described as Grilled Boneless Chicken with Oyster sauce ($9.80++).

It's usually served with fries (I think?) but I always pay an additional $2++ to change it to baked potato cos I really love the sour cream and bacon bits.

The alarm bells in my head should have gone off and I should have avoided this like plague (chicken with oyster sauce!?), but I ordered it. It was horrible. Not only was my chicken over cooked, dry and hard, the oyster sauce tasted horrendous. And that day, they were somehow so slow, my sour cream and bacon bits for my baked potato took uber long to come. The vegetables were limp cabbage, which had slightly brown edges, and chicken with oyster sauce tastes really gross with cabbage.
The first lunch I tried at Eatzi - Crumbed Fillet of Fish with Lychee sauce ($8.80++), served with olive rice and seasonal vegetables.
The portion fish was suprisingly generous (2 pieces of fish) and although the vegetables were the usual tastless boiled carrot/cauliflower, the olive rice was pretty tasty. The lychee sauce is rather thin, tastes sweetish more than it tastes of lychee. The grilled fish portion is much smaller than the Crumbed fish, but since I'm clogging my arteries with all the sour cream on my baked potato, I usually try to give my arteries a rest and take the grilled option instead.

After the chicken incident, I've stuck to Fish. I particularly like their fish because it's usually quite consistent. This is the Grilled Fish with Cheese sauce ($9.80++), which wasn't very cheesey, but passable. As usuall, changed my fries/mashed potato to baked potato.

This is my most recent meal at Eatzi - Grilled Fish with Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce ($10.80?++ hmm I think they recently increased their prices!!), which I had on the same day as the spectacular (for Eatzi standards) chicken leg. Look at how nice my baked potato is - they usually don't serve my sour cream until I'm halfway done with my meal cos they're ineficient/overwhelmed/disorganized/slow.Of course, being Jack's Place, they serve a budget friendly steak for a mere $9.80. They've recently changed their menu - they used to have this on Monday, Tues, Thurs and Friday lunches, but now, it's only on Mondays. Monday's daily main course was N.Z. Sirloin steak with mustard seed sauce ($9.80++) Very basic steak. I didn't think it looked fantastic, but for a $9.80++ set meal, it's the kind of quality you'll get? Baked Beef Lagsana ($9.80++ I think it's $10.80 now? need to check this)

Desserts vary - I think that they should just stick to ice cream because some of their daily desserts are totally unpalatable. The mango ice cream (left) was pretty good and came with mango jelly. The fruit cocktail pie wasn't very nice (to me) but my friends liked it, possibly because the pastry base was crumbly). The creme brulee (at least, that's what the waiter called it) tasted like cough syrup. Ice cream is ALWAYS a safe choice, and I think that they shouldn't spend so much time and effort trying to make desserts, since everyone loves ice cream.

The Student's Meal comes with ice cream, and it's not just a plain scoop of ice cream, but it's dressed up with chocolate rice/ jelly etc.

Ok strange - as I was blogging, because the meals I had at Eatzi was over a few months, and I think they very recently changed their menu and increased their prices D:< id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423631128238894258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 59px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-vGe1cYun93HVWfMo4E5oJaXK4hWDGRZuOCpNQaYsXlP7mKvR1d9d5GWUadlL31KpFb-O4ukDLhSsWqkWVP2DDsgXe9Zkds8-pN9mgSzV0Dp9Wji0MN9036B9DXB-OVRxa9aIvlLlw/s200/3+stars.jpg" border="0">Food aside, the service here leaves much to be desired. They're really disorganized, slow and without fail, forget to bring or are really sloooooow in bringing certain things. There's quite alot of staff, but the always look so harrassed. We are ignored most of the time, even though we were trying to call for the many waiters and waitresses attention. In fact, we can sometimes stand outside waiting for a table for around 5 minutes, even though there are many empty tables inside.

Thankfully, they serve ice water (though they take really long to do this, and never do refills unless you ask them).
Their food standard also fluctuates by quite a bit, so certain dishes are cringe worth, while others range from acceptable to good. For the price, the food is average or better, though you shouldn't come here looking for a fancy steak/lunch.

Looks like I should have bought their JP Pepper Dine Card for $25, since it gives a 10% off (not sure if it includes set lunches?) and $35 food credit. But I don't intend to go back to the Far East in the near future (though I could use it at any Eatzi or Jack's Place outlets, so maybe it's worth it in the end?)

Eatzi
EastPoint Mall

3 Simei St 6 #03-14

Singapore 528833

Tel: 6786 6388