Five & Dime Eatery @ River Valley

Here's what my uni-pals and I explored for brunch today! Made a reservation for 6 pax, and got this really cosy corner at the back, beside the barista area. Look at the pretty vintage looking menu, and the awesome table setting!

So these are the drinks we ordered, forgot how much each of them cost, but they were on average between $7-$8 per glass. Green Tea Latte, Ice chocolate, Hot mocha & Hot green tea. I love how they served the hot teas/coffees with cute latte art & 2 pieces of my favourite childhood snacks, Iced Jems Biscuits FTW! I ordered the green tea latte for myself, and its honestly quite comparable with starbuck's version though smaller in quantity at five & dime.

This is the $16 Egg Benny that they have on their menu, and this was what my friend ordered!

And if you are adventurous like me, and don't mind topping up some cash. I added 2 chicken sausage for $5, which I reckon was pretty worth. The sausages were soft and tender, and wasn't too salty, like the usually fried with lots of oil kind, that you get at most restaurants. I reckon they boiled them, and lightly fry the sides  I was surprised that their fruit salad was a little sour, i think they squeezed lemon juice on top. Mesclun was suffiicient and simple. Breakfast potato cubes could use some more seasoning, I paired it with chilli sauce, and it was quite nice. I love soft-boiled eggs, so 2 poached eggs was the best thing I could ever have for breakfast, on a superbly soft, fluffy and warm brioche.

And this is their $22 worth of Big Brekkie, consisting of thick toasts, sauteed mushrooms, baked beans that were superbly flavorful and appetizing (not your usual canned beans), bacon, chicken sausages, and a choice of 2 sunny sides or scrambled egg.

This is their Spinach Tamago at $16, pretty awesome dish if you like the japanese version of tamago.

This French Toast at $15, is not too filling, a good portion for a light brunch at just $15. The butter and the toast was pretty fragrant and fluffy.

Overall, cosy ambience, decent music, decent service and staff, and all their staffs practically say goodbyes and thanks to you when you leave the eatery. Reasonable price for food, good quantity, good taste & pretty pleasant experience.

They are opened everyday, but do take note of the serving times, as different menus are served. Lunch serving is weekdays 12-5pm, Brunch serving is weekends 10am-3pm, Dinner serving is 6-9.30pm and they even have Supper serving only on Friday & Saturday from 10-11.30pm. Do take a look at their menu at http://www.fiveanddime.com.sg/menu.pdf

They are located at 297 River Valley Road, and I suggest taking Bus 32 from Redhill MRT, as it allows you to alight at a bus stop opposite the restaurant within a visible distance of about 5 minutes walk. I highly advise that you make reservations (call: 9236 5002) before turning up to avoid disappointment, as the area isn't very big, and there aren't alot of tables.

Nara Thai @ WestGate

Hey guys! Today my bosses brought the company for an impromptu farewell lunch for me, and my mgr, wai & I got to choose the location. So when i knew Nara Thai opened at Westgate, I suggested for us to give this a try, as this restaurant is highly raved by SG bloggers for the outlet in Bangkok, at Siam Paragon.

They had two seating areas, one outdoors one indoors, initially we got seated indoors, but the aircon was way too cold. I guess it was cause the restaurant was pretty vacant at opening time, we reached the restaurant at about 11.45am. So switched to the outdoor area, which was pretty relaxing, due to the lush "greeneries" just behind our table of 6.

We practically ordered a feast fit for a queen's or princess's banquet i think, lots of dishes ranging from carbos to proteins to sugars;

This is "Khao Pad Samunprai" aka Thai Herb fried rice cost $10.90, we ordered this cause of curiosity as we have never tried and seen blue colored rice. I don't know what this should taste like, but for me this was a mediocre dish, just fragrant colored rice...

This is "Khao Pad Sappaprod" aka Thai Pineapple fried rice with chicken and pork and cost $12.90. Honestly, I had high expectations of this dish, but it disappointed me. Rice didn't had that "wok-fried" taste, it was pretty moist, in fact this dish felt like they cooked it in the rice cooker, didn't think it was fantastic, rather have the blue rice.

This is "Phad Thai Gai" aka chicken phad thai and cost $14.90. Quite awesome really nothing to complain about, though my mgr commented that we shouldn't be matched with chicken, should have matched with prawn instead to make it more fragrant.

We ordered "Tom Kha Gai" aka chicken in coconut soup that costs $13.90, and "Tom Yum Kung" aka river prawns in spicy lemongrass and lime soup that costs $19.90, both for 2-3pax portions. My bosses and mgr loved the Tom Kha Gai, i guess people who loved coconut milk and spicyness will love this dish. I honestly do not really like it, as I felt it was less flavorful as compared to the Tom Yum Kung, which I absolutely loved, and practically finished half the pot on my own!

We ordered "Yum Sum O" aka Pomelo Salad that costs $13.90. Superbly good and appetizing! The aroma of the fried shallots and the cashew nuts, as well as the sweet sauce with the pomelo was a heavenly match! Then we ordered "Koh Moo Tord Hgar" ask deep fried pork neck with sesame seeds that costs $9.90. We ordered cause my boss tried it in bangkok and said it was awesome. And true enough, the lime chilli sauce that go with the crispy pork neck was superb!

This is "Tord Mun Pla" aka thai fish cakes that costs $13.90 for a mere 6 pieces. You can order this if you want to try your luck, but i wouldn't suggest that, the fish cakes were too hard to even bite, and my boss complained that it wasn't fresh, all of us had 1 bite, and then we got the waiter to refund us. Though the waiter claimed this fish cakes were freshly made everyday.

Hors D'oeuvre Nara aka assorted nara dishes that costs $17.90 suitable for 2-3pax, if you don't want to order the sides separately and just wanna sample, 3 pieces of thai chicken satay, 3 pieces of pandan chicken, one mini pomelo salad, and I recalled 2 thai fish cakes(-.-||| which we totally left it there un-touched)

"Gai Tord Kapi" aka thai version of shrimp paste chicken that costs us $9.90. This came with a sauce dish of pepper and salt that matches the chicken quite well, crispy, but the meat a little dry. I reckon not enough shrimp paste too.

 "Phunim Phad Pong Karee" stir fried soft shell crab with yellow curry that costs us $18.90. Honestly this dish actually quite nice, but cause they used deep fried soft shell crab, it was a little salty, best to match with some plain carbos like a bowl of white rice? The curry wasn't spicy at all, so its suitable for the people who prefer non-spicy dishes.

I love pandan lemongrass drink, from the first time I drank it, so when i saw this pandan lemongrass roselle cooler, i thought i tried it, it costs $6.90 i think. I love my teas without sugar, so they went a bit heavy with the syrup, this drink was quite sweet, and hint of lemongrass was mediocre. The waiter promoted their thai young coconut, claiming it was shipped in from Thailand, from Nara Thai's own plantation. But when we ordered two of it, well the meat was pretty tough, so I guess the coconut is pretty old?

(You guys can try making this drink on your own actually, I boil a huge batch from time to time, 1 bunch of pandan leaves and 1 stalk of lemongrass plus 1 green tea bag would suffice for a 1.5litre portion to be kept in the fridge and added with hot water whenever you want to drink it or just drink it cold lo.)

 Before we ordered desserts, we were mostly neck-full, kinda over ambitiously over ordered. But girls being girls will somehow always have room for desserts right? We ordered their "Khao Neeo Mamuang" aka thai mango sticky rice that costs $7.90, we didn't regret this, though portion of the rice was a pretty small ball, but the mango was ubber sweet! Then we ordered "Tub Tim Krob" aka thai red ruby, my usual favourite thai dessert, nothing much to complain about this dish, totally love the jackfruit slices on top!

My bosses paid for this, so i don't really know much it amounted to in the end, but base on estimate, 5 pax, 3 carbs, 2 soups, 5 sides, 5 drinks, 2 desserts, I reckon it amounted to $200-250 plus the gst and svc charge. It may be a little expensive for some people, and way "pricier" than hawker thai food, but I think it is quite worth for the ambience and the quality of most of their dishes.

It is located at Westgate #03-07, opened everyday, 11.30am to 10pm. This is their menu from their website that you guys can browse http://narathai.com.sg/nara-menu-singapore-2013-e12.pdf and for reservations can call 6710 5867.

Kazokutei @ Bugis Junction

So lé gf and i went shopping at bugis, then was hungry, so we were walking around the level 2 food level at bugis junction to recce some interesting menus, and see which ones to try. So we came across kazokutei, which had pretty appetizing set menu displays as well as pictures, and had a variety of dishes in one set, so we thought we gave it a try. Got a table for two, and at 5pm, there were only 3 tables occupied, inclusively of ours. Ordering system was thru the ipad mini on every table.

Pardon the blur picture, but i ordered their lowest value set meal. The chicken wappa gozen set that cost me $11.90 with $1 top-up for their refillable hot houji-cha that i didnt bothered refilling. I thought that since there were so little people in the restaurant, sure serving time will be faster, but we waited a good 15-20mins for our food, i think cause their rice is freshly prepared and steamed for us upon ordering. 

And this is how i eat my jap food, when i see a bottle of chilli flakes on the table! XD, #justspamonly I used to do that in yoshinoya, super major love with chilli flakes and piping hot japanese rice! The dimsum bowl rice was surprisingly good, its my first time eating steamed japanese rice, it had bits of carrots, french beans, shitake mushrooms, and chicken bits in it, which made it fragrant, and steaming it, made the rice super moist and fluffy! Chawanmushi was pretty average. The "amazing" 2 slabs portion of milk pudding dessert was so good! But they damn stingy, instead of give like maybe half a cup, they give 2 spoonful niah.. Miso soup quite palatable not too salty. Chicken karaage quite crispy and tasty, but 2 piece only :(

And my gf ordered a variation of my set, Duck wappa gozen that cost her $14.90 then a dollar top-up for hot tea. This shouldn't taste much difference from mine, since they just place 3 slice of duck on top, all else remains same. I jokingly disturbed her though, i told her, "eh u joke lei! Paid $3 more than mine, for 3 pieces of duck, 1 slice $1, so ex siah?" Didn't tried her duck, but she finished it, so i think it should taste pretty palatable.

Didn't know about this restaurant before i went today, and didnt know they were famous for their udons and not their rice, until i searched for their website. Overall, i found the food pretty yummy, will definitely come again to try their udons or their other value for money setmeals. ;)

BUGIS JUNCTION
200 Victoria Street, #02-49, Singapore 188021 
Tel: 6338 0187

Xoxo,

CheryL

PS café at Ann Siang Hill

So 2 days ago, i made dinner reservations at PS café at ann siang hill to pre-celebrate my cousin's birthday. I suggested this café as she wanted a place with nice ambience, and i've been here before but just for drinks, so i thought of trying their food..

Look at the pretty ceiling tiles, the motifs gives me the very baroque feel, the lights made the ambience in the café very romantic..

Their famous trufflé fries! I forgot how much it was, prolly $20 a dish? But super worth, it was so huge a plate, that the four of us left 1/3 of this dish untouched, not cause it was not nice, but cause the portion was too huge, considering that we had orderd other dishes as well.. We asked for tartar and chilli sauce to match the fries, but the tartar here was a lil different, so i felt it matched the chilli sauce better or even the honey dip or the kaffir lime aioli mayo from the calamari.

Lé cousin's bf tempted us to get this dish. Like who can resist trying calamari? This cost us slightly lesser $20, portion wasn't amazing, but the pairing of the sauces was interesting. They had this blob of kaffir lime aioli mayo, which i tasted a lil bit of tom yam sourness. Then there was a dish of what tasted like honey sauce, it was pretty runny, but once u dip the calamari in it and put into your mouth, the sweetness and aroma of the honey makes its pretty yummy..

Don't "small look" this salad, picture dont look big, but this salad that cost us $20+, was super huge and filling. Lé cousin ordered this caesar salad with chicken. Quite nice!

I like gado gado, so when i saw that they had a gado gado salad, and the ingredients in it were pretty interesting, like avocados and quail eggs, so i thought i gave it a try. The $20+ portion was huge as well, i really didnt know how to eat this properly, the crispy fried tofu strips on top was nice but was piling, and i couldn't really mix the salad well. It was a unique dish, as they used raw red cabbage for the base, the beansprouts was too raw for my liking, but cause there was the peanut sauce, so it kinda covered the taste. Nice dish, but i will not order again, too little peanut sauce, and i dont see or get to eat any physical taukwa.

Lé bf super loves pasta, so he ordered their spaghetti bolognese, though my cousin's bf dont really like tomato based pasta, he tried it too, and he found it pretty palatable. I didnt try, so i guess this dish was quite awesome? $20+ for this dish.

Lé cousin's bf ordered this, dont know what made him chose this, but i tried the beer battered fish, and it was pretty succulent and juicy, didnt taste or smelled beer though The fish came with two sauces, one tartar sauce and one of that kaffir lime aioli mayo. Their tartar i think its homemade, you can see some green herbs in it, and they taste pretty different from hawker centre's tartar sauce, slightly milder taste for PS's version. And the fries were inferior as compared to their truffle fries version. We all practically tried one piece of the fish and chip's fries, and just left that whole huge bowl of fries untouched, and carried on with our truffle fries! Mediocre dish, wont order again.

I didn't really get to see the receipt clearly, but i don't reckon they charge for their free flow ice water. I didnt really managed to take a picture of their water flask. But i was so happy when i saw the fruits water infusion that they served! Lemon, strawberry, mint leaves, such a refreshing glass of water to drink..

My cousin's birthday cake that we ordered, the double chocolate blackout cake, i guess for chocolate lovers, as the name suggests, really can blackout? I think they used varlhona chocolate or dark chocolate, cause this was not too sweet, and with every mouthful you get a slightly bitter chocolate aftertaste. Texture was like a brownie cake, pretty dense.

We also ordered an apple and toffee pudding. In my head, pudding is like a creamier version of jelly, like egg custards. But when i saw it served on our table, it was like a sticky date pudding, major love with this dish, the apple and the toffee sauce was superbly heavenly, with bits of walnuts in every bite, with the ice cream it was even yummier. No regrets, next time sure order again!

Overall, nice ambience, will come again to try other dishes. Four pax, 2 sides, 2 salads, 2 mains, 2 desserts cost us $197+ inclusive of gst and svc charge. For first-timers, beware of the portions here, super huge, so unless u have big group, i will advise not to order like us, 1 side 1 salad 2 main 1 dessert would suffice to feed the four of us. We over ordered and was so full, until truffle fries left 1/3, my gado gado left 1/3, the fish and chips' chips untouched, cakes also never finish, we only somewhat finished pasta and cleared the caesar salad. 

45 ann siang road, 10-15 mins walk from chinatown mrt exit A. Ann Siang Hill Reservations : Please CALL or SMS to..... T:(+65) 9797 0648 or can go their website do online reservations via CHOPE's system which was what i did.

Sean Kee Duck Rice @ Geylang

So this weekend, my family and I went to one of our usual food haunts for a fufilling sunday lunch! We went to Sin Huat Eating House at 659/661 Geylang Lorong 35 for the ever so famous Sean Kee duck rice! (Open daily 11.00am - 7.30pm) We have been patronizing this stall since my primary school days, right even before they became even more famous thru the food variety programs. So without further a due;

Look at the happy family of sons working with their dad, I've practically seen their dad from partially black hair 10 years ago, to the now all white hair dad of theirs, always in charge of chopping the duck meat and portioning prettily on the red oval plates!

Didn't really like take the whole table of food, but basically we ordered for 4 people, innards, taukwa and egg aside, then the duck meat on another plate, as well as 3 bowls of porridge and 3 bowls of rice. I loved their porridge with the braised sauce since young, so i always have 2 bowls of them(who cares about carbs when it is superbly yummy?), also love their refillable herbal cabbage soup, we always refill them at least twice! XD

Their duck meat has always been tender and lean & i love their braised peanuts as well as the beansprouts that go so well with the sauce. I usually dump all of them into my porridge and eat. But ever since i started eating chilli, i just cant live without chilli, so now i dump them into the awesome chilli that they have.

Their chilli damn nice can! They mix the sambal chilli together with their sweet and sour chilli, then when mix them up and go with the meat is damn nice, its even better when you pair the chilli with the innards, especially the intestine. Sometimes my dad will order a plate of just duck intestines, and they pretty much taste and look like crunchy and silky white horfun. And the boss will always mix them up with the sweet and sour chilli sauce together with the bean sprouts and shallots, super fragrant and appetizing!

So guys, if you don't mind the slight inaccessbility or the lack of parking spaces, you guys can travel here to try the duck rice, this meal for four, cost my family $46. Pricey if you compare to a standard plate or duck rice at the hawkers, but you wont regret paying for the quality and quantity of the food at sean kee!

XOXO,

CheryL

Ice Edge Cafe @ Kovan

Today, lé bf and I went all the way to kovan to try the famous lola cafe, and to my horror, even though i reached at 12pm sharp, it was already full with a queue, and we had to wait for 1.5-2hrs.. I was like z.z, so we decided to go some place nearby to grab some food while waiting...

So yup, we chose to patronize ice edge cafe which was just across lola's since food reviews online were fine, except for some complains about bad service. Even if there was a stand at the door saying please wait to be seated, the couple that came before us just went to pick their own tables, so we reckon we did the same, took the menu, order chit & ice water, pretty much self-serve. At the door, there was a A4 size note saying no service charge, so i guess we can't really expect much didn't we don't pay for service at all...

Pretty cosy place, quite a decent variety of food here, about 10+- different variants per type. I ordered pesto cream chicken, which came in a reasonable portion at $17+. Lé bf like this dish, the pesto cream was not too jelat which matches the pretty fragrant and juicy piece of chicken meat. I am very particular when it comes to taste, everything has to be strong, but the pesto here was a lil mild for me.. Other than that nothing to complain about this dish..

Lé bf's linguine marinara, surprised that this was served in an aluminium foil bag, and when you open it, the steam from the piping hot pasta emits out.. The sauce was chilli & tomato, even more spicy than when i spammed chilli flakes and chilli sauce on my pesto chicken, but not as spicy as mcspicy. Pretty reasonable amount for $17+...

& this is the highlight of my visit, saw alot of customers ordering it with gelato, so when i saw earl grey gelato, i just couldn't resist this sinful temptation o.o This 2 scoops waffle cost us $14+, i had the early grey gelato and mango-passionfruit gelato.. I was so happy when i saw them sprinkled my favourite fruity pebbles! Presentation for this dish was superb... Earl grey had a super rich aroma, and mango passionfruit was a lil too sour for lé bf, but i loved both! Waffle was a little burnt though, but nonetheless still crispy on outside and soft on inside!

Overall, a cafe to try for their waffles and main courses, but dont expect superb service, like ikea just diy lo... Do note that the menu prices are not inclusive of gst, so this meal amounted to $53 for jus 2 pax, lola might be a lil more affordable in this case...

The cafe is located at 2 Kovan Road, Simon Plaza, #01-10, opened daily 12pm-12am.