Freshness Burger at Nex

Hello everyone! I've been MIA-ing again but I'm actually free-er now with more regular working hours even though I feel like someone has suddenly pressed the 'slow motion' button on my life! It's a morning crawl around instead of a heart pumping adrenaline surge in the morning(which I much prefer!). And on top of that I feel redundant! and like I haven't moved around in eons even though it's been only 3 days and my day feels uberrrrrrrr long! Hopefully it stays this way so I can slowly sink back into a nice relaxed mode which I have not been doing for the past 8 months.

Here's another post on food I ate during my end of December annual leave. I ventured North to try the much raved about Freshness Burger from Japan. Prior to this, there weren't many Japanese burger joints. My teriyaki chicken burger ($4.50) which is really better than Mos burger's. The serving is rather small (the bun is definitely of a smaller diameter than the usual burgers from BK and Macs) but the bread has the nice bakery smell and has a nice yellow hue.
The chicken isn't over salted (I tend to find food from most Japanese chains too salty) though it is rather thin widthwise.
I suppose that I like the burger bun more than the filling, but then again, since I don't eat beef, the bun is usually the main draw and then the filling secondary.
I had the Kiwi Mix Protector ($4.90) which is also the most expensive drink on the menu. I asked the counter staff if it was made from fresh fruits and she said yes - so hopefully all those antioxidants in the kiwi and pineapple will negate those generated by my burger. It's quite refreshing and has little bits of kiwi seeds which get stuck in my teeth. It's even more expensive than my burger...
I also had the Avocado Salad ($3) which is really nice and refreshing - the tomatoes are the nice mega large juicy kind (see the thick red piece in the burger below) and they are even skinned. The avocado is slightly mushy and the Christmassy combination of green avocado and red tomatoes are topped with chopped fresh shallots and a dash of spicy sauce. I think they go really well with the burger and I ate half of it as it was, and another half over my burger.

The Freshness Burger ($4.50) has a beef patty and some chilli sauce as well as their picture perfect juicy red tomato. Can't comment on this since I didn't eat it.

One gripe is that the burgers are really much more pricier - the pricing above is for the burger alone with no fries. I didn't manage to try the fries which are supposed to be really good cos they're made from Hokkaido Potatoes.

Freshness Burger
23 Serangoon Central #B2-48/49 NEX Mall Singapore
Tel: +65 6634 4439
(btw the carpark is annoying ++++++ the mall's carpark is perpetually FULL and there's an insanely long queue leading to it, and the HDB parking opposite is also full ++++... I shall just have to get my burger fix from their other branch at Century Sq)

Hooked (Thomson)

I've read about Hooked on hungrygowhere, and it seems to be getting pretty good reviews. There's one near my house at Rail Mall, but I've never been there because if I go to Rail Mall, it either means that I'm going to takeaway subway sandwiches or going to Gabialti. Also, I thought it was just like another Fish and Co wannabe, so I've not made an effort to visit them. Just as well that my friend organized dinner at the Thomson Branch, or I'll be missing out on a really good restaurant.


Hooked was having a Super Saver dinner set promotion, where you can choose from about 10 different main courses and get a drink free. Not really a dinner set, but it was pretty cheap. For example, my Aloha Salmon and Prawns which usually costs $19.90 ala carte now costs $16.90, with a free drink (soft drink, coffee or tea) thrown in. My main, the Aloha Flame-Grilled Salmon and Prawns
They use Norweigian salmon and it's served with rice pilaf and grilled pineapple. I requested for the salmon to be rare in the middle. The salmon fillet was very fresh, juicy and really exceeded my expectations (even though I already had quite high expectations for this place). The prawns were coated in a slightly salty and creamy sauce (reminds me a bit of miso paste), not the freshest but the marinade was pretty good.

The rice pilaf is very fragrant and not oily at all. I think there's a bit of tomato inside, as well as onions and some other spices. I prefer this to the usual potatoes, fries or butter rice. The pineapples on the skewer weren't exactly grilled (like the menu said) but nevertheless, I enjoyed my main.
Steamed Red Snapper in White wine (Dinner Set B, $16.90) served with linguine (if I'm not wrong you can choose your type of carbo)
The snapper was also very fresh - this is probably the best dish to test for the freshness of the fish. Though I thought the linguine was too oily for my liking.

The Red Groupa ($16.90), which was also coated in a tasty crust, very fresh and served on top of pilaf rice.

The Salmon page in the menu - the menu groups the dishes according to what kind of fish is used. Personally, I'll just get the Super Saver set - it's really very value for money.Here's a picture of the dinner set menu - there's quite alot of choices, but they're all fish.
Hooked proves that good fish dishes doesn't have to come with a high price tag. I'm very impressed by the freshness of the fish and the affordable pricing, I'm definitely going to try the one at Rail Mall sometime soon. Bonus points cos they also serve iced water.

They don't have the 10% service charge here, and only charge extra for GST.

Hooked
203 Upper Thomson Road

Tel: 6256 9005

Free valet service provided by the restaurant

(Its along the row of Tong Shui and Miss Clarity Cafe)

Bollywood Veggies - Poison Ivy Bistro

Since we were suspended from class, we decided to spend our time doing stuff that we don't usually do, such as driving to the very ulu Neo Tiew road to look at a vegetable farm (and for me, to eat).

The bistro was pretty packed for such an ulu place - 80% of the tables were filled (we went on a Friday for lunch). Service was pretty efficient - our food came really quickly, and the staff knew their menu well, and were very friendly.
The drinks are home made. Fig tea is made by boiling figs (from a tree in the farm) with sugar cane. It was served icy cold and was very refreshing. The lemongrass drink was very delicious - usually I can't resist drinking lemongrass tea when I see it, but the fig tea sounded more interesting (since I've already learnt how to boil my own lemongrass tea).

4 angled beans stir fried with garlic, lady fingers with sambal and fish curry.

We also ordered sweet potato leaves with sambal. I think that it would have been better if we had ordered all the vegetables with garlic, cos they're so fresh and the sambal was very spicy. The portion size is not bad - $4 for something that about 2-3 people can share. (I was looking up hungrygowhere, and the grilled eggplant with fresh flowers looks really lovely! Pity they didn't have it when I was there).

The fish curry was a hot favourite and it was polished off very quickly. We ended up ordering another bowl of it cos everyone wanted to have more of it, despite being happily full.

There's a choice of either white ($1) or brown ($1.50) rice. Being healthy, we chose brown rice.

Chicken Drumlets with Sweet Chilli Sauce ($8 for 8 drumlets). This was rather unhealthy but we decided that we wanted to have more meat (such carnivores we are). The drumlets were suprisingly nice - the batter was crispy and very tasty.

Warriors Chicken Curry ($8). We ordered a big portion of this cos fish and dedrick had this before and said it was v good. The curry is rather spicy (for me) and very tasty. Actually, everything here was extremely tasty, not too oily, not over-salted.

Chicken Stew ($4 or was it $6? can't remember). This is a pretty big serving for $4. Tender cubes of chicken cooked with carrots and potatoes in a slightly sweet gravy.

Banana Curry ($4) - this was the most interesting dish of the day. The banana doesn't taste anything like the normal ripe bananas that you eat, instead it reminds me more of yam (ie. no taste). The curry is very robust - I can imagine it goes extremely well with prata.

3-in-1 Dessert Platter ($7.50)

This is fantastic for greedy people for me who want to eat a bit of everything.

The kueh kosui (brown one infront) is probaly the best kueh kosui I've ever tasted - bursting with gulamelaka taste and it's very soft and wobbly. It comes with a generous heap of fresh grated coconut. Delicious!

Kueh Bingka was a favourite amongst my friends - it's served hot, lightly browned outside, very moist and chewy inside.

The banana bread is served warm, and there's chunks of banana inside the bread. It's not too sweet either.

Of course, the 7 of us won't be satisfied with the small 3-in-1 desesrt platter, so we ordered their daily dessert specials which was chocolate banana cake and banana muffin ($4.50 each). I didn't quite like the chocolate banana cake, cos I thought that the chocolate taste completely masked all the banana flavour, but everyone else said that the chocolate cake was better than the banana muffin. Chocolate and banana is always a winning combination.The banana muffin had a slight caramel aftertaste and the outsides were browned and crispy. It was very moist inside. This was my favourite dessert.

What I liked about the service here was that they give a fairly good recommendation of how much to order, and whether to take the small ($4) or large ($8) portions. We ended up having more of the small portions, cos we wanted to sample more of the menu.

I can't wait to go back to try all the other dishes - on hungrygowhere, other people have eaten banana stalk curry, grilled eggplant with fresh flowers, jackfruit cake etcetc

My spoils from Bollywood Veggies - a full banana cake ($10), which I have been slowly eating over the past few days. Theres none of it left already. The banana cake has chunks of banana inaide, and is not too sweet.

After the satisfying lunch, we decided to take a look around the farm (and had a tour by Ivy herself, even though it was a scorching hot afternoon:)

From Top, left to right:

Banana trees (lots of different species)

Nonni fruit

Fig Tree, where the fig for the fig tea served in Poison Ivy Bistro comes from.

Breadfruit - eat lots of this to run as fast as Usain Bolt

Frog statues

Dragonfruit

Eggplant -it can be grown in pots!
Beware of dogs - she has 2 black great danes :D

I think it's so nice to retire on a farm (though I won't do it cos I don't want to have frogs and toads in close proximity of me).

Overall, I really liked the whole Bollywood Veggies experience - I am going to drag my mother back so that I can eat more fish curry and perhaps try the eggplant and jackfruit cake!

Please note that they only accept cash - and the nearest ATM is non-existent unless you drive back to civilization (as fish found out on her 1st trip there :P)

Poison Ivy (inside Bollywood Veggies farm)
100 Neo Tiew Road
Tel: 6898 5001

Chomp Chomp Egg Bean Curd

This is one of my more favourite bean curds, but then it's quite unlike the usual bean curds that you find in the market. It's not easily broken into pieces, and it has a more gelatinous texture, somewhat like a more fragile form of konnyaku jelly.

There's a slight milky after taste, and it's quite sweet - if you want to taste the bean curd, don't order it with too sweet toppings (ie sea coconut) cos it overpowers the bean curd taste.

A bowl of plain bean curd costs $1.50, and a bowl with toppings cos $2. Toppings include tangyuan, yam paste (ohr nee), ginko nuts etc etc there's really quite alot to choose from. Furthermore, they don't charge you an irritating extra 20cents for takeaway! :D

They've also branched out into other fruity desserts (quite like Taiwan), including yummy mango desserts. Hmm i can't remember what I tried, but its mango dessert with coconut milk - I have concluded that coconut milk makes most things taste nice! cos it's so creamy, cold, and the mango is nice and sweet, and it's really refreshing. I think it costs about $3.50 (or slightly more?) for this dessert, but there's lots of other fruity desserts to try! I'm so going back there to try the other desserts!

Rainbow Wonderland Dessert Stall

Chomp Chomp

Chomp Chomp - Serangoon Hawker Centre

Went to Chomp Chomp Hawker Centre at Serangoon Gardens. The last time I went was super super super long ago. Lots of stalls have change I really don't know which one is the best stall for satay, but the goreng pisang stall is still there.

Anyway, I went there cos I wanted to eat the egg beancurd. It's not like the ordinary bean curd cos there is egg inside. I think it originated from Taiwan. The beancurd is more gelatineous and doesn't break as easily as the normal one. It doesn't really taste like the normal bean curd, and is more milky and jelly like. There are many different types of toppings, including tang yuan (glutinous rice balls with seaseme), nata de coco, ginko nuts, red bean, yam paste, honey sea coconut, aloe vera, QQ balls etc etc. If you have it plain, it costs $1.50 and with toppings, $1.80.
It's yellow in colour cos of the egg I suppose.

Next, I ate the satay bee hoon, which is on my must-eat list whenever i go to chompchomp. I like it alot cos it isn't overly spicy so that you can taste the sweetness of the satay sauce. I don't believe in adding chilli to my food, and especially when the dish is too hot and drowning in chilli taste that you can't taste anything else. Might as well eat just plain rice and chilli since you can't even taste anything.
This one comes with lots of cuttlefish (which I like), cockles (even better) and lean pork, fried bean curd and kangkong and prawns. That's my mother dividing out the noodles cos we were sharing.And this is her eating while i'm trying to get a good picture of it. -_-"

Then, we ate satay. 5 sticks of mutton, 5 sticks of chicken. It was a chinese satay stall but then I didn't order pork cos I usually prefer chicken and mutton :D It's usually softer than the pork.

Satay with cucumbers and no onions (cos I don't like raw onions). I usually ask them to give me more cucumbers in place of the onions, and I like dipping them in the satay sauce. I don't eat the kutupat (rice in coconut leaves) cos I rather spend my stomach space on other foods.

Next I decided to try the popiah cos the stall had sooo many signs saying that it was voted Life!'s Top 8 Popiah. So must try. There is an option to add chicken/pork floss, seafood (like prawn, crab stick etc etc) but I decided to try the plain one cos that is the best way to see if the fillings taste good. It's $1.30 for the normal popiah, and about $1.80 for the ones with floss. For $1.30 I guess it's not too bad - the lettuce is thinly sliced (unlike most stalls which put a whole lettuce leaf inside) and the turnip filling is slightly crunchy and not soggy. But my favourite popiah is at Queenstown, in Mei Ling Street Hawker Centre - however I may be biased cos I've been eating it since I remembered (it's only $1 per roll, but can't really compare price cos that place is really really old and thus much cheaper rent).

Then we decided we wanted to eat the char kway teow but then not enough space (getting full already) so we decided on the zero carb option of cockles with bean sprouts.

Good for iron so you won't become anaemic. Its stir fried in a bit of egg, so it's essentially Char Kway Teow without the Kway Teow. Yum! I still don't know why people eat char kway teow without the cockles - It's the defining ingredient of the whole dish...

But then again, it's really dirty - I've heard that they feed the cockles chicken shit or something like that but I don't know how true that is.

Then, my pizza from Devon's Daddy's Pizza arrived. It takes about 10-15min to bake. It's a thin crust pizza, and a one person portion costs $5. There is a choice of any 4 ingredients from chicken sausage, ham, bacon, pineapple, grilled peppers, button mushroom, onion, corn etcNot bad for a $5 pizza - it's really unique cos i think this is the first pizza store to be set up in a hawker centre?

Another place to get $5 pizzas is Anchor Point Food Junction. There is this pizza store which gives lots and lots of toppings for $5 and the pizza comes with any amount of topping you want from a list, and no extra charge if you want ALL the toppings.

To end the meal, we had Goreng Pisang (Deep Fried Banana), which I haven't eaten since the Somerset Goreng Pisang renovated.
There were 2 choices of goreng pisang, one was 60cents the other was 80cents. According to the lady boss, the 80cents Raja banana was sweeter and thus better. So since 20 cents wasn't an issue, and because of my firm belief that if you want to eat something lardy, don't waste calories on inferior stuff. (ie don't eat those cheapskate oily chocolates which don't taste good when you can eat Royce - it's prob the same amount of calories, but more satisfaction).

The bananas were freshly fried and very sweet as the lady promised, and with the melt in the mouth texture of good Goreng Pisang.

Too bad Chomp Chomp isn't near my house or not I'm sure to visit it more often.