Journey to the Far East Part 3 - The Coastal Settlement

So if you thought that our food journey ended there, you were wrong! 

 Feeble attempt to try to use up some of the calories we consumed previously

And of course failed. Had this awesome chocolate lava cake on top of vanilla ice cream from Chocolate Origin - do give it a try - the chocolate is really good - even I, a non chocolate lover, find this dessert very irresistible.

 Was hot from cycling, so decided to cool off with some cider.

We went back and slept at about 11pm (would have been later but I was so sleepy cos it was past my bedtime). Kept yawning and then made everyone else sleepy by looking so comfortable lying in bed.

 And the next day, woke up bright and early, and went over to the Coastal Settlement for my second breakfast.

Truffle fries, portobello fries (really really nice!) with truffle mayonnaise. Best thing to clog my arteries on first thing in the morning.

The big breakfast, which was really very average, standard unremarkable cafe fare.

And the mind blowing XO prawn aglio olio pasta. Really good - umami taste from the xo sauce, lots of garlic and just enough chilli for spiciness which doesn't overpower the entire dish. The pasta was cooked just right. This dish is a winner. I might just trudge all the way back to the far east for this.

 The Coastal settlement has a really big seating area.

 It was empty when we first got in. But very quickly filled up, until there was no more space left.

I hate the small tiles in this area though - just something I'm uncomfortable with like how some people have trypophobia. I think I just don't like the idea of dirt getting caught or mould growing in between the tiles. But unfortunately for me, it was the area with the best sunlight (for photo taking purposes) and no one else at my table wanted to budge after sitting down.

Somehow the whole place reminds me of this scene from Howl's Moving Castle. Maybe cos there so many things cramped into such a small space.

Ok that's the end of my very lardy staycation.

The Coastal Settlement
200 Netheravon Road
Singapore 508529
Tel 64750200

Journey to the Far East Part 1 - The Nasi Lemaks at Changi Village Food Centre

I was supposed to go to Batam (to laze around and relax) with 2 of my friends, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, couldn't. Since we were all sort of free, we decided to go for a staycation instead. 

Of course, the most important thing that the staycation revolved around was none other than food! And of course lots of relaxation (i.e. vegetating on the bed and sleeping early, since I'm secretly 80 years old). I think I ate a whole weeks worth of calories during this staycation. And have yet to burn them off cos I have been happily feasting the last 2 weeks...

International Nasi Lemak

So we decided to do a taste test (non-blinded unlike my fudge cake taste test here), we tried International and Mizzys standard nasi lemak, with an added otah. 

I personally preferred the International nasi lemak because their rice wasn't as oily and yet had lots of the coconut taste. I felt that Mizzys rice was as oily as the kind found in chicken rice, which, unfortunately, is my least favourite hawker dish (and yes I am Singaporean, just that I some how do not like chicken rice. My heart sinks to the deepest darkest pit when I have to eat it).

One of my friends preferred Mizzys corner because of the rice and the chilli. I suppose my friend really likes chicken rice (Note: I have yet to confirm this assumption).

The chilli from Mizzys was less sweet, and more fragrant compared to International. But I don't eat my nasi lemak with much chilli (due to my astoundingly low chilli tolerance) so I still preferred International.

Mizzy's Nasi Lemak

I found the ikan billis and fried egg very similar for both stores. The chicken wing was marginally better for International (to me at least), as I felt that the batter had more seasoning.

Anyway, to end off my post (since I'm really sleepy it's nearly my bedtime) I still think International is better, but since I hate queueing up, I will just go for whichever has the shorter queue and not waste my life queueing up. (The last time I came here was in 2007 - check out my post from then with my old non-smart phone camera)

The nasi lemaks can be found at Changi Village Food Centre

Penny University

 Penny University is one of the many brunch cafes popping up like mushrooms. It was pretty darn crowded on a weekend morning, and we had to wait about 20min for  a seat. It's a self service counter, so you have to secure a table first, then queue up to order your food, which will then be served to you.

Their brunch menu - pretty simple, and prices are reasonable. 

 I had the Turkish Eggs ($8) which comes with whipped yogurt, 2 poached eggs, olive oil, and harissa sauce. There was some confusion over the harissa sauce when I asked the cashier what exactly it was. It's this very strong smelling spice (ah the wonders of Wikipedia). Topped up $3.50 for the smoked salmon.

 I also had the lemon strawberry tart. It was really good, especially the tart base. I found the lemon filling a little bit too tart and not as creamy as I would have liked, but the strawberries and the flamed cream made it a bit more interesting. I still like Marmalade Pantry's heavier Lemon Brûlée tart more than this one.

It's places like these which make me wonder why I should pay so much (like $20++) for brunch elsewhere. And the standard is still pretty okay.

Btw the Snickers tart tastes exactly like Group Therapy's! I wonder if they share the same supplier??

Needless to say, the food was not bad (considering the prices). But I couldn't enjoy it cos of my unfortunate luck of being seated opposite some 6-7 year old kid and his grotty parents. The kid was sick and vomited over the saucer and the table and the floor (it was chunky and brown btw). His parents stopped eating, moved the kid away (who said he was feeling fine!). The waitress then brought some paper towels over.And the parents just cleaned the kid up. And left the chunky brown vomit festering on the table for the next 15 minutes. Waiting for the waitress to clean it up! If your dog poops in the park don't you clean it up? (Poor unfortunate waitress - you could see the disgust on her face - I don't blame her - she came back wearing disposable gloves).

Plus I thought it was damn inconsiderate cos it was a communal table and EVERYONE had to smell and stare at his chunky vomit. They didn't even have the decency to at least use a napkin to cover up the vomitus. Gross max. The kid was perfectly fine after vomitting, and the parents could even finish up their meal. So it wasn't as if the kid was so septic and sick and lolling around that they were 'busy'.

Note to self - to try to avoid communal tables next time! Btw the communal table is this very rustic woody looking table with lots of ridges (like a tree trunk). I'm sure some of the vomit is still embedded in some of the ridges there. Yucks.

Penny University
402 East Coast Road Singaproe 428997
Tel 9008 9314

Freshness Burger - Spam Burger

Happy Chinese New Year to all my Readers! I know I've missed New Years and Christmas :(

Next post up will be the obligatory lo hei dinner post :D And after that, hopefully I will stop procrastinating and start on my Pamplemousse post!Had the Spam Burger from Freshness Burger (after a positive experience, and after checking out a couple of blogs and finding that most people who tried it enjoyed it). At first sight, I thought my eyes were deceiving me cos the bun was white and coated with sesame seeds but I distinctly remembered the chicken teriyaki burger had a soft yellow bun! Fret not cos the teriyaki chicken burger really has a different bun from the spam burger.

The Spam Burger has a pan fried thick piece of spam (aka Luncheon meat) sandwiched between their signature juicy tomato slice (big sweet and red) and a sunny side up egg. In the other blogs that I checked out, they had runny yolks which looks so delicious - imagine the golden yolk oozing over the spam and dripping onto the burger - makes me feel like eating one right now. Perhaps it was cos I had takeaway so my egg wasn't runny anymore?

The spam makes the burger really delicious especially when coupled with a warm fried egg and cottony soft buns. Somehow unhealthy food tastes so good - perhaps it's cos it's a rarity? There's also a bit of mayo with the shredded cabbage at the bottom so the whole burger is nice and moist. I liked how they used cabbage instead of lettuce cos the lettuce would just soak up all the oil and turn translucent and gross. The cabbage still retains it's crunchiness and adds texture to the burger.

Of course, I had these with my Kiwi Mix Protector ($4.90) in hopes of its antioxidants clearing out the junk I've been eating, just because it has real fruits blended in ;p I still stand by my avocado salad ($3) which comes with nice ripe diced avocado, minced onions and cucumbers, with a dash of what I think is Tabasco for some zing.

The coleslaw on the other hand is very unremarkable - the corn is sweet and juicy but the dressing lacks a punch and it's only shredded cabbage and corn and isn't particularly tasty.

I also decided to clog up my arteries with the onion rings (highly recommended by atetoomuch) and I had no regrets. Whole onion slices deep fried in a light airy batter (think the kind of batter that comes with beer battered fish and chips, minus the beer). Though my only complaint is that the portion is rather small and after popping what seems to be a few of these onion rings in, you'll realized that you're through the packet before you know it.

Freshness Burger

2 Tampines Central 5

#01-37 Century Square

Singapore 529509

When I was working today, I had one extremely nice incident and another unpleasant thing happening to me. I was so touched by the first one and it really made my day:D
The other one was this filthy liar b*tch (and it's not the female dog I am talking about) that I was unfortunately working with previously who I again had the misfortune of interacting with today. Of course, what goes around comes around ;) We shall have to wait and see;P

Smiths Fish and Chips

Smiths Fish and Chips is a much blogged and talked about Fish and Chips, ever since it was featured in the Posh Nosh Section. So we went with very very high expectations to try the Haddock ($13 for the fillet alone, and $16.50 for fillet and fries). True to the British style of eating fish and chips, the fish and chips here come served all nicely wrapped up in the parchment paper parcels and served to our table.
The haddock was nice and oily, soft and flaky, but nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose that if you live in the east and was hankering for some good fish and chips, this will be the place for you. More so if you're also hankering for a beer. I think this would have tasted superb with a nice icy cold beer (but drinking and driving are mutually exclusive).
The batter is very light but overall, the fish is oily. My parchment paper became an oil slick in no time. I really liked the malt vinegar bottles they had at each table - it's very rare to find malt vinegar available so abundantly at fish and chips stalls in Sgp...
Fries are the chunky home made kind, soggy and oozing with oil. I like! (not the oil part) I'm a soggy fries person and thus Macdonald's fries aren't my favourite kind of fries. But for people who like the golden shoe string crispy kind of fries, this is definitely not for you. The serving is more than generous and I was struggling to finish my fries (in the end I gave up and didn't so my arteries would have leeway to get clogged up by something else).
The Mushy Peas ($2 per 8oz cup) was an unexpected winner. For someone who picks out all her peas and throws it at the side of my plate or onto the tray (depending on how much peas there are in my dish, sometimes they will overflow onto my tray), I thought that I wouldn't enjoy this dish but it's really warm and hearty, and the best thing is that the peas don't even taste like peas and taste more like tasty mashed potatoes. No gross wrinkly hard peas in here, only soft mushy ones! The photo looks v unappetizing but their really good just not photogenic
The salmon cakes were pretty disappointing as I was hoping for more salmon rather than potatoes. It was extremely herby and peppery but at $7 for 2 cakes, the price was slightly too steep.
I think perhaps it was so overhyped that I had higher expectations for it. Though I loved the mushy peas (must try!) the fish wasn't something that I'd be hurrying back for more - I think Fisherios (sp?) at the Taka basement food court does a decent rendition of the fish and chips and they even have beer batter.
The chef (husband and wife?) duo are really friendly and smiley! Service with a smile wins extra points anytime! Sadly there weren't any pickled eggs left -only pickled onions

Smiths Fish and Chips
230 Tanjong katong road

Btw I've only realized after my expedition to Smiths Fish and Chips that I've never been to Tanjong Katong. And Smiths Fish and Chips faces TKGS! It's the same green as their uniform... A good landmark for Smiths is the Carltex station. Smiths is across the road.

Manpuku - Tampines One

Visited Manpuku at Tampines One for lunch when I was in the Far East (because, while trying to find Simpang Bedok, we turned the wrong way and ended up there instead). My very insipid Udon from Toku Toku Udon stall, which serves handmade udon. Had a much better chilled udon set here the last time. Didn't feel like eating tempura or cold udon that day. It's essentially something like oyako don (cooked chicken with egg on top of rice), just that it's served in udon soup. The egg was okay, cos it was flavoured with some sauce, but the pieces of chicken breast were quite hard and tasteless. Then again, it's $6.50 so I shouldn't be complaining too much. Saving grace for my lunch - $1 green tea ice cream cone. Not as creamy as I would have liked it, but the green tea taste was distinct. For $1, it's a nice way to end off my meal, since I don't like the fruit tarts at Manpuku.

Also had a $1 cup of Gryphon tea cos my friend got a fruit tart from Fruit Paradise. Of course, being the boring person that I am, I went with my usual Pearl of the Orient, which has rose petals.

Shall have Aoba ramen instead if I ever go back to Manpuku.

Manpuku Japanese Gourmet Town
10 Tampines Central 1
#03-16/19Tel: 6789 6810

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

F.I.S.H.

This restaurant run by the people behind fish and co has the same name as my cg mate's nickname, so when I walked past, I had to try it. And even more so cos I was nearby (not going to trudge all the way back to the far east to try the restaurant). So I ended up going there for lunch 2 days in a row, and I snitched one of the disposable coasters so I could give it to.

Their lunch sets are pretty affordable, and on Mondays, 4 of their main courses go for $12++. The 4 choices char-grilled codfish fillet, Barramundi with cheddar cheese crust, and Prawns Fettuccine.
The Codfish Fillet (usual price $15.90++), which is rather small. Then again, at $12++ is pretty reasonable for cod. The cod's pretty fresh, and is quite well done - nice and flaky, drizzled with a creamy lemon sauce. Completely not filling if you're eating this alone. Prawns Fettuccine ($13.90++) comes with a herb based cream sauce, and is really heavy, especially if you're eating it by yourself. Quite a few prawns (I think there were at least 6-7 pieces), but they're the bicarbonated/crystal kind which aren't really that tasty.
The Mediterranean Fried Fish ($9.90++) is a good-sized portion Mediterranean fish (not sure what kind of fish cos I forgot to ask) coated in a light, crispy golden batter. This was quite nice, and the creamy cheese sauce went really well with the fish.


All the mains come with new potatoes and grilled tomatoes. The portion of new potatoes is rather small, and I think most people will not be full from the meal. Not that I'm complaining, cos I prefer new potatoes to fries anytime.

They also have a salad bar buffet (lunch price is quite reasonable). Although they're Fish and Co's sister restaurant, their menu is quite different. The service was quite slow on the 2 days I went, and it took painfully long (about 30min) for our dishes to arrive on the 2 occasions I went there, even though the restaurant was 1/4 full. So don't come here if you're rushing cos you'll definitely be frustrated by the slow service.

F.I.S.H
10 Tampines Central 1

#04-11 Tampines 1

Tel: +65 6260 0183