Lins Smoodees

Peter Pan Green Smoothie of the Day $8.50

Green smoothies are all in the rage (online, at least) but I've yet to try any cos the thought of ingesting a whole bunch of kale/spinach/whatever-dark-leafy-green-vegetable seemed rather unappetising.  So when we happened to chance upon Lins Smoodies I decided to give it a try. 

Check out their superbly eco friendly bamboo straw! The staff strongly discourage wastage and you'll have to bring your own tumbler to get your smoothie or have it in house (or something along that lines)

(wkr will be rolling her eyes and wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole)

Actually, we were waiting for Croute to open, so we decided to sit down and rest our sleep deprived selves and get a healthy drink. According to the staff there, the drink is best drunk with an empty stomach (which we had) but you shouldn't eat anything within 30 minutes of having the drink (which we did not follow cos we were eating at Croute).

Actually, I couldn't really taste or smell the veggies, mostly could taste the sweetness of the pineapple and a faint banana aftertaste, but it was really refreshing, and perhaps it's placebo but I imagine all the antioxidants counteracting the wrinkles that my skin forms when I'm post call. Comes with a small sprinkle of chia seeds for your daily dose of Omega 3 fatty acids.

They also have this really awesome granola thing with coconuts and dried snakeskin fruit. Really addictive - would totally buy this to munch on once they start production. I must have munched though a significant portion from that large glass jar while waiting for my smoothie.

The green smoodie of the day - with all organic vegetables: nai bai, wild spinach, sunflower sprouts, finger bananas, pineapple, and orange (of course, mine had no orange). It changes daily depending on the supply of fruits and they also do door to door deliveries. If you're interested in that kind of thing, check out their website.

Lins Smoodees
Check out their website here
#01-13 Valley Point (next to NTUC Finest)
491 River Valley Road
Closed Weekends and public holidays

Poulet

This is a way outdated post - just dug it up from the recesses of my blog - and since I've already watermarked the photos, I shall just blog about it. (Not sure if they've increased the prices, but these are the prices I found online)

The Salad de Paris ($9.80++) cranberry, tomato, black olives, avocado, pine nuts in a light French dressing was not bad - well dressed, light and refreshing.

Granny's Chicken Salad ($9.80++), which isn't really a salad (in local terms) considering that it has only 4 leaves and 4 tomato halves. The shredded chicken was combined with crunchy granny smith apples, capers and mayonnaise. Taste wise it's not bad (because of the sweetness from the raisins and apples) but I doubt this whole thing has even 1 serving of vegetables.

Iberico Pork Belly ($15.80++) was not bad - very tender and soft, served with leek confit and mustard.

The Braised Duck Leg ($15.80++) - braised in a rich red wine sauce (very tasty) with cranberries and glazed onions.

Their classic poulet chicken ($15.80)  - was very underwhelming. In fact, it reminds me vaguely of the western lunch I get at work. Slightly more moist and tender, but I won't be trying it again (the other mains are much better). The creamy mushroom chardonnay sauce is a bit jelak by the end of the meal. The chicken is brined for half a day and then slow roasted to get it's caramel brown colour. Very average only. For the same price, please try the other dishes instead.

I really liked the banana bread pudding (with a scoop of vanilla ice cream). If you don't like moist mushy desserts, this is definitely not for you - it's very moist, lots of soggy bananas and rather sweet. Ice cream was ok-ish, not like the awesome vanilla bean kind (like Marmalade Pantry's).

Price wise, it's quite affordable - mains are about $20 after taxes/service charge and they're pretty substantial and filling. It's getting rarer and rarer to find affordable food - the going rate for a simple dish of eggs benedict at most popular cafes is now around $20, so considering that these dishes are made from solid meat, it's a pretty good deal.

However, they do not serve water, so you'll have to buy bottled water. Thumbs down for that.

I suppose that this is a much better alternative to Nandos (which I really dont' like) if you're hankering for some chicken (though it's not Halal certified), and  price wise its comparable to Nandos. I won't mind getting the banana bread pudding again.

I tried Poulet at the Great World City outlet, but it's taking over Singapore with lots and lots of outlets.

Poulet outlets are at:
Bugis
Chinatown Point
Vivocity
Bedok Mall
Jurong Point
Raffles City
West Gate

Da Palo Gastronomia - Great World City

Black and White Chocolate cake - it's fluffy moist spongy and yummy - thought a bit too sweet but it's really nice for $8 you get quite a good sized cake and it's chocolately and smells wonderful.
Compared to those cafe $5 cakes, i'd rather top it up by $3 to get these wonderfully huge portions :D

Banana cake - $3 for a small piece - it's packed full with bananas and it's very dense too. I suppose you're paying for all that bananas.

All the desserts in the cooler - got so many! Tiramisu, strawberry cheesecake, black forest, banana chocolate cake, hazel nut cake, nutella cup cake etc etc etc it's about $8 for a small box, so tt's why we got the biggest box we could find for $8 - the Black and White Chocolate cake :D
Meringue - $4 each for a big piece
Lemon cupcakesThey have lots of other take-away stuff, including pasta sauces (a very wide range indeed) and I can't wait to go to the chip bee branch (nearer my house) to grab some sauces (cos they need to be refridgerated)


Da Palo is located next to That CD shop

Cedele (3)

Ah the whole week I've only gone out once for lunch. Cos I've been extremely busy :( But lunch was very good - with Chocolate Banana Expresso from Cedele. The cake is soft and spongy and fresh (like a Lana cake), with generous chocolate expresso icing and caramelized bananas (not the soggy yucky kind). It's pretty ex at $5 bucks but I think having it once in a while is fine.
I also tried the soup, salad and drink set (it's suposed to be $12.50, but the woman charged us for a sandwich lunch set i think, so it was $14.80 including the sandwich, when the sandwich costs $8 by itself)Out of the 4 soup of the day(s), I tried the pumpkin apple soup - it's a weird tasting soup, I can't make up my mind if it's sweet or savoury, and the apple is quite tangy. It's a nice change from the usual pumpkin soup.

The Burmese Tofu Salad with Corriander was passable - it's not very tasty, unless you consider the brown bits of fried garlic and corriander. Don't eat this if you don't like corriander though, cos you'll be wasting your money.
With soup of the day comes free flow of fresh cedele bread :D There was this walnut raisin one which was worth mentioning - the rest are like white bread and wholemeal bread. You'll also have a free flow of olive oil, balsamic vinegar or herb butter.

This is the rosemary chicken burger with cranberry sauce - the highlight of the whle burger is the cranberry sauce - it's not overly sweet and it's sour like how cranberry should be. But I prefer the tofu chicken burger cos it's softer and juicier.

The quiche set comes with salad and a drink - I think it's about $10.50. This is the apple orange almond salad but I didnt try this. The quiche is just like a quiche (I don't really like quiches so it's not for me to say).Science Canteen has a new cafe/restaurant - it's called 'Megabites' cos it's in the computing building -_-

The food there looks promising and cheap - hope the quality is good (unlike some other cafe in science...)

Tong Shui Cafe 2

Visited Tong Shui Cafe today for dinner cos I was so bored with myself, and looking at the pictures on my blog makes me hungry.
Like when I look at the peanut butter toast, I feel like eating it, but then when I get to eat it, I don't think it's that nice (cos I don't really like peanut butter to begin with).

We ordered the Steam Egg (it's really excellent!) which only comes in the chilled version. The egg is very wobbly and smooth - no bubbles in the egg. Its topped with ginger soup, which makes it taste spicy and interesting, and ginko nuts.

Super cao ji smooth like tofu! and milky too!
Next, we tried the French Toast with Ham and Cheese.

This is quite interesting cos it's sweet and savoury - ham and cheese with maple syrup!
The toast is so soft and thick that when you cut it, it looks like cotton wool. But I didn't quite like the idea of eating my ham and cheese with maple syrup, so I ate them separately, and used the bread to mop up the excess maple syrup. Yum.
I had the Peanut Butter Thick Toast with Bananas, and I requested to have condesed milk with it. Actually, I realised that i like the Thick toast (cos i like bread) and condensed milk, but not the peanut butter. Next time, I should just ask for thick toast with condensed milk and bananas.

When I sliced the bread into half, the peanut butter and condensed milk started oozing out.
There's nothing better than to have a palate clenser in between bites of the cloying peanut butter, which "sticks to my palate and renders me speechless" (It doesn't really render me speechless, just that it makes my throat a bit dry and scratchy. Jane do you remember which book this quote is from????)

So, the best thing to drink is the 8 treasures tea. I like mine chilled. There are the usual 8 treasures (i think longan, wolfberries, tea leaves, chrysentamum, some twig thing and they add rose buds (supposed to be for YOUTHFULNESS - very good since Fish says that I'm growing old)

Just a sidenote - I was so impressed by the 8 treasures tea that I went to Eu Yuan Seng to buy one packet (gg to ask my maid to help me boil). After I paid (I think it was about $2) I stupidly asked them where the herbs came from, and the duh answer being China. But then I had thought the herbs came from Malaysia (cos it's so near Singapore and it's so simple import) and I had heard horror stories about herbs from China (nothing against Eu Yuan Seng - it's just that it's from China). So my sad packet of 8 treasures tea in herb form, in a vacuum sealed packet is still on my table. Annalisa has declined my offers to give it to her - its supposed to be very liang and good for hot days :( Any takers? It's free :D

After the toast, we ate the cheese baked rice with chicken chop. It's fried rice, baked in a steamer. It's supposed to be their signature dish and it's not bad - the fried rice is tasty and the thick layer of cheese complements the rice. The tomato sauce is unlike the kind that you get out of the bottle - it's chunky and even tangier than the usual sauce.
Tong Shui Cafe

417 River Valley Road

Singapore 248361

Tel: 67333561

Tong Shui Cafe

My main aim of going to Tong Shui Cafe was because of this :Peanut Butter Thick Toast
As i am blogging about this, my stomach is actually rumbling cos i want to eat it! It's super huge look at this :Even bigger than a HAND and THICKER too!
Cholesterol laden (not that i care) artery clogging diabetes inducing, don't attempt to eat one of these yourself if you're a bit full - you won't manage to get it down cos it's very filling! and the condense milk on top - mmmmmm! i'm so going to tong shui cafe tmr!

Tong Shui Cafe is quite a new place catering to the clubbing crowd, it's opposite Great World City and it's opened till the wee hours of the morning. It serves hongkong style food - there's this really good Eight Treasures Tea which has the usual 8 treasures (whatever they are the only one i know is the wolfberry) and comes in either hot or cold. For the cold one, it's $3.80 for a jug which will give 2.5 servings in a glass. Its the perfect beverage to wash down the sticky peanut butter and its supposed to be very liang (cooling). Good for neutralising the heaty peanut butter (What's chocolate icecream then? Chocolate is heaty and icecream is cooling right?)

You can't really miss it cos of the bright pink decor, and they play Cantonese Cable Channel all day long.
Another thing i like to have when i go to Tong Shui Cafe is the Steam Egg Dessert. It's just the right consistency but only comes in cold - not hot.
They have other desserts such as mango pomelo sago, some ice mountain with ice cream etc but i still like the steamed egg! :D

The serve lunch meals too, but i don't really fancy it cos it's quite oily. I would prefer to try the Nasi Padang next door, it's supposed to be very famous but i have yet to try it. I usually come here just to eat dessert and the peanut butter toast.
The specialites is the baked fried rice with cheese which comes in a bamboo steamer. There's an option to add an egg and there are choices ranging from luncheon meat, sausage to chicken chop and beef steak, and you can even have a double chicken chop or beef steak.
There is also hongkong style instant noodles with the works, macaroni etc

Tong Shui Cafe

Opposite Great World City, on the side of Zion Hawker Center

Open till the wee hours of the morning

eeps i lost the name card :( i'll post the exact address when i can find it.