Mariott Cafe

What's better than eating a good buffet?

Eating a good buffet for free.

Thanks to K & C! :D

My first time eating at Marriott. Yummy dinner to round off a quite good week and a good Friday.

This is the buffet dinner at Marriott cafe - the spread was good, not so overwhelmingly big like the line of course, but nevertheless, just enough to let you try a bit of everything. The main courses were quite strong and I went back for more(which I usually don't - usually just eat lots of seafood and sashimi).

Seafood like mussels, oysters, crayfish and steamed crab.
Salmon sashimi and various types of sushi.
Two soups - Lotus Root and Pork Rib (didn't try it, no more space), Summer Farmer (clear vegetable soup with beans)
For salads and appetisers, the chicken salad (with corn pineapple and some other fruits), Mushroom salad (tangy dressing), smoked salmon, and Japanese Baby Octopus.
There's a roast beef station and a kebeb station.
Main courses were like baked potatoes, charsiew, chinese vegetable dishes, salmon in herb cream sauce with roasted vegetables, roasted vegetables with herbs, beehoon (with the tze char taste somemore!), chicken with chinese herbs, tandoori chicken etc etc etc.

Cheeses from the cheese platter - lots of nice cheeses and crackers. I quite liked the soft cheeses but I have no idea what type of cheese it is - tastes good so it doesn't matter what kind. The best parts of the buffet - lots of oysters (fresh ones too) and big juicy prawns and crayfishes. And tangy cocktail sauce to go along with it.They even had pita bread and kebab made on the spot.
The dessert spread was wonderful - it really stole the show. They have lots of cakes from the Marriott cake shop too. There's apple celery (I couldn't find the celery though), Lychee Martini (it's a creamy slightly cheesy cake), Mango and Lime (really delicious, the mango taste was really strong and the lime gave it a tangy aftertaste, and it's a mousse like cake in between 2 layers of soft sponge), Black forest cake, Mixed Nut Tart and Lemon Tart.There was also small servings of dessert like Mixed Berry Compote, Caramel Custard, Oreo Cheesecake, Tiramisu, Strawberry Shortcake and a very nice 3 layered chocolate mousse with mocha at the bottom.This is a strawberry jelly (I can't remember the posh name) and mango pudding. The mango pudding had the most intense mango taste that I've ever tried, and I kept thinking how wonderful this would be chilled with a bit of alcohol. The mango is very fragrant and it's really delicious, apart from the room-temperature.There was also Bread and Butter Pudding, and Chinese Desserts such as Longan Almond Jelly, Grass Jelly and Sea coconut.

My stomach is so full tt it doesn't have a lesser curve anymore.

Dinner costs $47.50 ++ for adults

Poh Cheu Ang Ku Kueh

Multi coloured ang ku kueh. Whenever I see ang ku kueh, I keep thinking about the play 'A Twist of Fate', where the angkukueh mould plays an important part in the storyline. This store sells lots of kuehs, including soon kueh (in turnip and bamboo versions), the pink coloured teochew kueh filled with glutinous rice, the chives kueh, and lots of ang ku kueh. For a post on the Soon Kueh, go here.


Hmm I just found out today that Ang Ku Kueh in chinese is Hong Gui Guo (accoding to the signboard). And one day after watching 881 (support local talent), I realised that 881 is ba ba yao and not ba1 ba1 yi1 >.<

This is a durian ang ku kueh - I didn't try it but it smells really nice and durian-ish. I hate eating durian outside (unless i'm cheonging home rightaway) cos then i'll get durian breath.

I will always eat the normal green bean angkukueh cos I'm very boring once I find anything that I like to eat (like the yongtaufoo in Alexander Village).

The angkukueh has nice soft chewy and slightly sweet skin, and there's a good amount of filling (not like the very flat ones). I like all these kuehs with banana leaves, cos I think it makes it more fragrent (like kueh tutu).
There's so many flavours - Normal green bean (which isn't green - it's yellow), salted bean (which I don't quite like), Green tea (I haven't tried it), Coconut, Yam, Peanut and Durian.

Poh Cheu Handmade Ang Ku Kueh and Soon Kueh

Bukit Merah Lane

Eeps I don't know the address - I'll try to find it the next time I drop by. It's in this coffeshop near Alexander Village, but not in it.

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

Vansh

Today is the 5th time I've been to Vansh - and it's a really nice place to go to cos the ambience and food is really good! They have really nice seats with lots of cushions and also have al fresco dining along the river. Starter was something like pappadums but in shape of cigars - and with these 3 sauces. The first one was some herb yoghurt sauce, the second some very spicy sauce and the third was a sweet mango yoghurt sauce (which is my favourite).The white stuff at the back is Madras Curd Rice ($14), which we didn't like. It's rice with lassi, but it's really thick lassi. And it's really expensive too. Try the seafood briyani - it's much better.


Infront of the rice is the Fish Masala ($18)- the fish is tender and flaky, and the curry is tasty and not too rich.


On the right is the Tandoori Chicken ($16). The tandoori chicken is very moist and juicy and tastes really good. It's not like the horrible dry and hard kind that you find elsewhere. If this place wasn't so ex, I would visit it many many many more times.


This is the lamb kebab, I think it's called Malmali Sheek or Murg Angar. Im not too sure - one of them is the chicken and the other is the lamb. It's minced lamb kebab, and the lamb is really soft and yummy. ($16)
This is the Deccan Vegetable Curry ($14). It has lots of curry and coconut and is pretty spicy. It sort of reminds me of sayur lodeh. My all time favourite dish - Butter Chicken ($18). It's tender chicken cooked in a tangy tomato sauce and it goes really well with naan. I have to order butter chicken whenever I eat at any Indian restaurant :D

Garlic naan, Butter Naan and plain naan. $4 for each naan. I like the garlic naan best.

Btw, we over ordered cos the curries are relly filling - if you order, order about 1 dish per person and a naan each, or not you'll be exploding by the end of the meal.

Vansh

2 Stadium Walk #01-04

Singapore Indoor Stadium

Singapore 397891

Tel 63445344

Gobi

Gobi dessert not desert.

I like Central - it's bursting with so many stalls which I've yet to try! And it's really exciting! I want to try Ma Maison (which has another branch at Bugis but I still want to try it), the Waraku pasta, Grains, and more stalls at the basement. And they have so many dessert stores :D Apart from the very pink design, the deserts look really good! A carousel menu

This picture reminds me of the Never-ending-insatiable-appetite in the Bishibashi game. You can either have a box of 6 or a box of 12. The box of 12 costs $23.80. Not bad for a gift - it's pretty impressive and tastes good.

I quite like the pink macaron, which is called Sweet Somethings. It's a pink macaron shell which encases fresh strawberries and cream. THe Smell The Roses, which has the purple swan like thing is also nice, and it has almond tupip, lavander infused cream topped ith voilet meringues.

This is called Cupid. It's light cheese mousse piped into a handmade white chocolate hat. Pretty unique.

Gobi

6 Eu TOng Sen Street

#01-27 THe Central

Singapore 059817

Tel 65348187

(They have another outlet at Katong Mall)

www.gobi.com.sg

Paisley and Cream - Life with Passion

Ok, we've walked past Paisley and Cream before, but today, for the life of me, we walked so many rounds round central (actually, not complete rounds that's why we kept missing it). We spent at least 15 min walking round and round trying to locate Paisley and Cream >.< It faces Eu Tong Sen Street btw. And you can only access it from outisde Central.
Happy Sale Signs :D 30% off ALL food items :D
Nice table and menu. The menu is really unique, with lots of names of famous people inside - I really want to go and try the breakfast menu!
Light Cheesecake with Fresh Strawberries $6. This is the first cheesecake I've seen that has real vanilla beans inside. It will be described as a light cheesecake with a really great taste - I think this will be my favourite cheesecake for the time being. It's not like the rich ones, and it's still really creamy and tasty.
I really like the strawberry sauce - I'm not sure if they make it themselves, but it's really full of strawberries, slightly tart to balance the sweet cheesecake and with lots of strawberry hair (or fur, whichever you might want to call it). Does strawberry hair = to lots of real strawberries used?
I ate the Double Chocolate Cupcake ($5). I thoguht it was pretty steep for a cupcake, but they give a good scoop of fresh cream (for those of you who are indulgent). The chocolate cupcake is really really chocolately. I would say don't eat this by yourself it's really very filling! I'm not quite a chocolately person so this would be average. Cupcakes are $2.50 after 5pm, so that's the best time to zooooom down and get some! $2.50 for these wonderlfully iced cupcakes is a real steal!

They also had some desserts not on the menu, such as a Red Velvet Chocolate Cake, which sounded really unique but I wasn't feeling too adventurous today (which I regret now). They have English Bread and Butter Pudding laced with apricot glaze and topped with fresh strawberries ($6), which I would definitely try the next time. They have minature cupcakes as well, and different flavours of the big cupcake.These are the Snow Capped Lemon Muffins - which are full of lemon zest and topped with white sugar and lemon icing. Reminds me of a circus:D The strawberry muffins looked really yummy but then I didn't get a shot of them T-TPaisley and Cream

6 Eu Tong Sen Sreet #01-09/10

The Central

Singapore 059817

paisleyandcream.com

Tom Ton @ Central

Since it's Friday and I had quite alot of time inbetween the things-i-must-attend and the 730 ward rounds, I took the opportunity to zooom to try new foods at the Central, and since it was before 12pm, I didn't have to pay for ERP either :D
So we decided to try Tom Ton, which is another restaurant by Tampopo (at Liang Court). Tampopo serves a really good spicy black pig ramen (kurobuta), we wanted to see if the other restaurant they opened up good. I tried the Grilled Black Pig Steak and Niku Tofu Set (I think it's Lunch Set B, $16.80++). The pork was tender and juicy, with that extra crunch with spurting juices. The tofu had thinly sliced pork pieces and topped with lots of spring onions. The tofu was smooth and silky, and the pork with the sauce tasted really clean and nice. The rice they use is the good quality japanese type, not the pseudo japanese rice. It's nice and glossy unlike the low quality kind.
This is the Gindara Set (Lunch Set D i think, $15.90++), which is grilled cod fish and tamago. The cod fish is nicely marinated in a sweetish sauce and grilled to perfection - it's soft and flaky.
The service is efficient and attentive, and the ambience pleasant - lots of wood and with more space than Tampopo in Liang Court. (They serve very different kinds of food, with exception of the Black Pig)

Tom Ton

No6 Eu Tong Sen Street

#03-88/99

Singapore 059817

Tel 63277887

___ Jia Ji Coconut Rice

yikes my chinese is so horrible is the first word dao or liu?? or liang or something :S:S:S Anyway, i'm quite sure the back is coconut rice :D I was wandering around Alexander Village wondering what to eat when I walked past my favourite Avocado Milkshake Stall and saw this horribly long que (about 10 persons long) and was curious (but slightly doubtful on the quality of food cos people que for everything here-_-")

The que moves quite fast even though it's a one man show inside - the guy's really efficient and he fries the eggs (each is freshly fried), dish out the rice and collects money all by himsef.

Basically, they have various rice combinations, from the Royal Chicken Curry Rice ($4), sambal prawns, sambal sotong, spicy chicken rice and nasi lemak. (All these prominently displayed with large fonts so you can see exactly what you're getting).

I decided to try the Spicy Chicken rice, which comprises of a drumstick (deep fried with crispy skin), deep fried egg, deep fried luncheon meat, deep fried ikan billis and peanuts, oily rice and a sliver of cucumber and a nice dollop of chilli. This must be one of the most unhealthy stalls around >.< My plate is a mini Brunei.

When I asked him if I could replace the ikan billis with long beans (which is given with some of the other sets) he said I had to pay an additional 50 cents whether I wanted the ikan billis or not. Dunno how come these stall holders are so unflexible. Isn't long beans cheaper than ikan billis? Maybe the law of equivalent trade hasn't occurred to them.

Anyway, the picture above shows my Spicy Chicken Set - the portions are quite small - the drumstick is skinny. This costs $3.
I really don't see what the fuss or que for this is about. It's just oil oil oil oil oil i cant taste any coconut. The chilli, like any nasi lemak chilli, is really nice, the chicken crispy and the egg is charred with lots of benzopyrenes. Top all these with a good chunk of nitrate filled luncheon meat and eat this for a month and you'll probably be guaranteeing some colon malignancy.

Yong Tau Foo - Alexander Village

The above is supposedly lasagne, but it tastes nothing like lasagne. It has scraps of soggy lasagne, and a weird tasting meat sauce, and lots of artificial parmesan cheese on top :S and it's super ex. Lucky we're saved from the dismal canteen since Alexander Village is located close by.

This is the only kind of yongtaufoo I eat - I think i've eaten my lifetime quota of the pick and mix kind of yongtaufoo already.

This is the kind that comes as a set and there's no choosing. And even better, the noodles are really tasty cos of the bakchor (minced meat). It's very oily too, but you can always ask for less oil (though this may compromise the taste, depending on the condition of your taste buds)This is the standard meal (excluding the kangkong) and costs $3. It's $3.50 if you add extra kangkong. You can also have kangkong with yellow bean sauce (i think) for $4. The minced meat makes the noodles nice and tasty (even without sauce) and the tofu is fresh and smooth.

You get about 7 pieces of yongtaufoo, and bittergourd is optional.
Hmm i don't know how to read the chinese words on the signboard... It's located 2 stalls away from the Old Punggol satay stall.