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

Nandos @ Tanglin Mall

I have somehow been returning to Tanglin Mall many many times in the last 2 months - about 4 times I think! Especially since there's absolutely nothing good to buy there (one of my aims of going to shopping malls for meals is so that I can buy things!) So I've finally tried Nando's after nearly the rest of the world has tried it. I had the quarter chicken with 2 sides ($13.80++) and requested for the thigh (which is my fave part of the chicken cos it's tender and meaty). I had the 'mild' spiciness (hence the 'tickle your tastebuds') and it's really quite mild even for my very low standard chili tolerence, I was able to complete the chicken without any water.

Of course, being flame grilled chicken specialist restaurant, their chicken doesn't dissappoint. The skin is charred just right so that it's crispy and there's hardly any fat under the skin. The chicken is well marinaded in their spices, and an additional layer of sauce (mild, moderate or spicy) coats each piece. Best of all, it's not too salty either. The thigh was on the skinny side, so it really wasn't that satisfying. They have their special sauce in 3 different levels of spiciness on every table - so if it's not tasty/spicy enough you can always feel free to add more. The mildest sauce is the Lemon herb sauce which isn't to my liking since I don't like citrus but the mild is pretty tolerable.

I had the potato salad and coleslaw for sides - the potato salad is pretty nice different from usual potato salads in that it was new potatoes and had this quite watery saue. The spiced rice was a much better choice and had this nice middle eastern taste.

Just as well that their mild sauce wasn't so spicy since Nandos' has joined the league of other 'no tap water' policy, which is such a shame since they have pretty good chicken. And pricey considering that you only get restaurant service but no water with it.
Though the chicken tastes great, prices are on the steep side, which makes me feel like just roasting my nicely marinated chicken thighs in my oven at home - rather than spending around $15 nett on a skinny thigh and 2 sides, and no free water. Not even a compromise if you paid 50 cents/80cent/s 1.20 you CANNOT get water here - you just have to buy bottled.

Nandos
163 Tanglin Road
#01-14/15 Tanglin Mall
Tel: +65 6235 3555

Mood Boosting Sticky Date pudding

The day is so perfect so nice cool and rainy for sleeping in and eating macdonalds pancakes but I'm on call!! So tragic. And I got woken up at 550am cos I forgot to turn off my work phoneD:<
Had my fave marmalade pantry sticky date pudding ytd after eating alot of sushi at Itacho. Sticky, chewy and warm with sweetness from the dates and a huge scoop of kapiti vanilla bean ice cream. Topped with butterscotch sauce. So satisfying. I suppose that I will think of this when I eat qiji for dinner:(
Maybe I shall return there tmr for more sticky date pudding to boost my mood. Morale is at an all time low...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cold Poached Chocolate

I've never particularly been interested in Awfully Chocolates chocolate cakes until trying their cold poached chocolate. I've tried their Super Stacked Chocolate Cake a few times and their usual chocolate cake a few other times but they never were extremely inspiring so I've never blogged about them. Furthermore, Awfully Chocolate outlets have sprouted out everywhere like mushrooms after the rain, and hence it was never really worth blogging abt.



However, I've just had an epiphany and I'm now really inspired to blog after trying their awesome Cold Poached Chocolate. I've never been interested in trying it cos there's a mountain of whipped cream over a relatively small lump of chocolate and I'm not a big fan of whipped cream. They prepare the cold poached chocolate on a cold slab with these circular chocolate moulds (very much like the met moulds you use while making a perfectly circular sunny side up egg) and then leaving it there to 'poach'.


The product is a mousse like chilled chocolate dessert. The whipped cream comes in 2 different flavours -Bailey or butterscotch.

The chocolate is just as I have described but it's extremely rich and satisfying. Like eating those delicious chocolate mousse cakes without any of the interfering cake layers.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Fourty Hands

Fourty hands is this Eco friendly cafe tucked in the recesses of the sleepy Tiong Baru estate. (I still don't know why it's Eco friendly - says all abt my environmental friendliness...)


We had their poached eggs with muffins which was not bad,though nothing extremely spectacular which I will crave for. Muffins were a bit soggy too.


The lamb sandwich($9 something) stole the show tho it was so delicious and smelt really strongly of lamb and assorted spices. There were also diced crunchy cucumbers, onions and peppers. The foccacia bread is nicely toasted in the press grill and it's quite affordable and filling.


We also had the chocolate tart which has a chocolate tart base but the filling was had the texture of pudding/custard.

It's a nice place to chill, though it can be a bit noisy cos the place is quite small. Will come back to try their other sandwiches!

Fourty Hands
Block 78 Yong Siak street
#01-12
tel 62258545

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

VeganBurg

Tried vegan burger on a weekday last week. The name is such an oxymoron and I don't know why people want to eat pseudo-meat (with the exception of myself since I am very kaypoh and want to know what everything tastes like). I suppose eating pseudo-meat is against some peoples principles;) Actually I have no idea why people need to make fake meat when there's perfectly good meat around other than for religious reasons. Personally I don't see why bother making vegetable material into the form of real meat - I mean doesn't the thought of eating meat make vegetarians feel guilty?
This is the Tangy Tartar ($5.85 for the burger, $9.85 for burger, fries and juice) which is a breaded flakey vegan patty (I suppose it's trying to be a fake fish patty?) which was supposed to come with lettuce and alfafa but the latter was missing. It comes with a whole meal bun and tangy tartar sauce (which tastes like tartar sauce with an extra squirt of lemon).
Their pseudo fish patty is deep fried and has a texture quite close to a badly fried fish fillet but it was the better burger out of the 2 we tried that night.
I had the Pineapple soy burger and the patty was actually quite mushy but had the texture of meat and didn't really taste of much besides the sweet plum sauce. The ciabatta bread was one of the highlights and I liked that the bread came with pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Though I didn't quite enjoy my burger cos it was too sweet and I was really craving for something savory.

From my very limited experience with all these soy patties and Iif my memory doesn't fail me, and if I remember correctly from my secondary school days, they actually can use yeast in a reactor and then spin down the proteins to make these patties! so some of these vegan patties are actually made from yeast cell walls though I think Vegan burger uses soy. Btw, Marmite/Bovril is also made from yeast... I've tried the Subway Veggie patty (which is very ridiculously priced cos it's flown in from the USA) and I think they're more or less the same - quite mushy and not having any particular taste.

There's also some more interesting burgers like the Char-grilled satay burger and another one called Cracked pepper mayo which has a vegan patty with cracked black pepper. I suppose if I ever come back, I'd go for one of the more 'tasty' ones.

The meals all come with seaweed fries which are pretty unremarkable, but then again, I am not a fries lover.
I also had the spinach potato pops which are quite pricey at $3.80 for 5 pieces (looks like alot but its just lettuce underneath). Wouldn't try those again... It's like deep fried herbed potato balls nothing amazingly special. But I would have liked to try the veganfranks which is a pure vegan sausage (but it really looks like a sausage!) I really want to know how a fake sausage tastes like...

They also have these really 'healthy' drinks like passion fruit and orange juice hough it's not freshly squeezed. I had the spinach and wheatgrass which j thought tasted moe syrupy than anything and it had a fruity base (I think it's pear juice?). Somehow after having this meal I missed my usual coke/green tea.

I think it's a pretty interesting concept but I'm totally heading to Freshness Burger at Century Square instead! And just a note if you're curious about Vegan burger - I was studying their menu and I think that if you want to try the burger and vege franks, the best meal to get will be the VeganKidz meal which has a kid sized burger (Looks like the tangy tartare one) and vegefranks and fries, including a kid size juice.

Vegan burger
44 Jalan Eunos Singapore 419502

Tel 68446868

www.veganburg.com

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Soup Broth Asia

My life is passing so slowly it feels like 2 months has passed in the last 10 days. Omg! I still have 15 more weeks left!!! :( I am damn sad cos the canteen has the worst food possible. And then there are issues of respecting privacy which is important to me +++++ So the whole sum of nonsense things is making my life damn sad that I cannot sigh enough times to make myself feel happier. HAIZ!!
Anyway onto a nice meal I had what seems EONS ago cos my life is crawling by sooooo slooooooooowly like a geriatric snail.


Went to try Soup broth Asia at Raffles City. They have these mix and match set meals where you can have either a 1 appetiser, 2 sides, rice and a soup for about 12-15 bucks. Some of their soups are very commonly found in S'pore like their fish slice soup, which I think I will not spend my money on cos I can get it for much cheaper in a hawker centre, but they have other interesting ones from different regions in Asia like some Korean chicken ginseng soup (which apparently has no ginseng taste), some Indonesian duck (or was it chicken) soup, some spicy curry etc.


I tried the soup which has soy milk added and tofu as well as some weird gluten ball thing as well as pork slices. It's really pretty tasty, not too salty (considering my salt tolerance is v long) and there's an option of upgrading (for aobut 1.50 or 2 bucks) the plain white rice to either yam rice (which I wanted, but was sold out) or fried rice (which I took cos I don't like eating white rice).


The fried rice has lots of egg and a mild wok hei taste and smell, though it's nothing spectacular.
Their sides are pretty interesting - I tried the stir fried kai lan with garlic which wasn't too bad just that it was slightly too oily, sweet and sour pork which was average, and the potato salad. I think the wasabi prawns looked much better - dunno why I didn't choose that? And they have healthy cold tofu with ponzu sauce.
The soups tend to sell out when it's too late (like when we decided to have dinner) so if you want all the options available, go early...
Bumped into Julie there too!

Soup broth Asia
Raffles City B1-62

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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)

Artichoke

Happy belated new year everyone! Didn't have a chance to blog cos I was happily spending my new year doing what I do best - eating and slacking. I finally caught my first movie (The Tourist) in a super long time (though I must say it's really not worth catching after all). 2010 has been a great year - can't believe how fast it has passed (signs of age here! but I have been enjoying the last 3 months lots) and I'm 2/3rds done with my first yr at work... Anyway, I had lots of feasting during the last week of 2010 (many more posts to come) and I spent new years day eating again.Since my new years dinner was so delicious, I've decided to let it 'jump queue'. I first read about Artichoke in the papers under the article of the young and up and coming chefs in Singapore. All these articles are great ways for sourcing for new food places to go to but I usually wait 1-2 weeks for all the hype and queues to die down before I visit them. Artichoke serves Mediterranean/greek/middle eastern food (not really sure exactly what type but under Hungry Go Where it's labelled as Greek) so it means all the delicious bread and dips.

Hummus and babaganoush - chickpea puree and crushed roasted eggplant with sumac, EVOO and Turkish Toast ($9) (the 2 plates on the right)
Hummus is one of my favourite dishes (especially when eaten with flat bread) but it's not readily available in Singapore. I've tried making my own hummus with canned chickpeas but I was lacking the tahini so it wasn't tasty. The hummus has a very mild garlic taste and is very smoothly blended. Babaganoush is the brownish lumpy dip on the top right corner of the picture and is actually mashed roasted eggplants. Although I liked eggplants, I was more partial to the hummus cos it was creamier in texture.

Turkish bread ($4) - we loved the dips so much that we decided to get another plate of Turkish bread to go with them. The Turkish bread is crusty and crispy and goes extremely well with the tasty dips.

Char-grilled globe artichokes with wild thyme and EVOO ($7)

The namesake dish - smokey grilled artichokes with lots of extra virgin olive oil perfect for dipping the crispy Turkish bread into. It's served slightly chilled. It's quite hard to find this in most restaurants locally, and other than the artichoke salads at those buffet salad bars, I've only eaten it in pizza.

Roasted beetroot with homemade labneh (lebanese yogurt cheese) pistachio dukka and garlic breadcrumbs ($11)

Beetroot is one of my more favourite root vegetables cos of it's purple colour (same reason why I like eggplants so much) and I like it's earthy sweetness and juiciness. The yogurt cheese is light and creamy and goes very well with the crunchy beetroot, and the pistachio dukka and breadcrumbs add texture and taste to the whole dish.

Twice cooked Lamb Shortribs ($21) - with Moroccan chermoula spices and garlic yogurt

This was my favourite dish (apart from the hummus) of the night. The shortribs were incredibly delicious and tasted awesome. The shortribs were infused with the exotic spices and each bite was incredibly flavourful. The meat was very soft and juicy, not fatty, and went very well with the herbs and yogurt. Do note that I really like this dish alot because the shortribs have a very strong lamb taste - so people who dislike the lamb smell and taste, this dish is not for you...

I think I am completely capable of polishing off the whole plate of 7 ribs myself cos it's so tasty.

Date pudding with smoked milk custard and salted caramel ($10)

The date pudding here is completely different from the sticky date puddings I usually blog about. It's not sticky at all and is more like a cake. Though I couldn't really taste the dates, the smoked milk went very well with the cake. The cake was sprinkled with chocolate powder and had shards of salted caramel on top. The smoked milk custard is actually dulce de leche (or something like condensed milk but slightly creamier) and they're really generous with it.

Apple cake with crumble and vanilla marscapone cheese and maple syrup ($8)

Perhaps it was cos I was very full and I had just eaten 3/4ths of the date pudding and slurped up the milk custard, the apple crumble tasted rather bland and un-interesting. The serving of walnuts is really generous tho!

I like how everything comes with the extra virgin olive oil which purportedly has lots of health benefits (though I'm sure it comes with lots of calories too). The olive oil keeps the dishes moist and has this nice aromatic smell and a peppery zing at the end of it. Great for dipping the bread. The only complaint I have is that my bread seems to run out really quick! And the $4 servings never seemed enough.

The young service crew is eager to please and although I have read reviews online saying their service is slow, it wasn't the case for me. Though the waiting time for the food was fair (then again, we just arrived after 2 large groups ordered) the food came all at once and the food was so delicious so I'm not complaining. I liked how they leave a whole bottle of chilled water at the table - really saves the waitstaff lots of time and manpower.

I am returning soon to try their many 'large plates' and sharing platters like the Haloumi and Mushrom $23) which has pan fried greek chese with organic mushrooms and smashed avocado as well as their lamb kleftiko (stolen lamb). If the lamb shortribs are anything to go by, I'm totally dying to try their stolen lamb...

Artichoke
161 Middle Road, Sculpture Square
Tel: +65 6336 6949