The whirlwind

This is the longest post ever in terms of scrollable length with many photos to show! We have four people today and ordered a lot more!

小旋风 (xiao xuan feng) is a restaurant that sells mainly 拉面 (la mian) and dim sum during different timings of the day. It showcases a 60's chinese interior design and recreates the atmosphere using various retro furnishings like metal buckets, refrigerator and closets. Overall, we had a pleasant experience with the food and with the service, by an apparent full force of china chinese.

担担拉面 (dan dan la mian), in fact minced pork and chilli oil, was nice except you might find the oil a bit too excessive.



But with a pot of 普尔 (pu er) tea like this you should be able to get rid of the oil in the throat, plus, it's only $1!



The curry in Curry Chicken La Mian tasted like indonesian style curry but with a weird twist which we didn't enjoy. It's not yucky, but we think it's not for everybody. At least overall, it's a decent bowl of 拉面 (la mian).



Many compliments for the Seafood La Mian with wholesome fresh ingredients.



The 小笼包 (xiao long bao) here is not small at all. I would prefer them to be in small bite sizes although it doesn't bother most people like L. This one has a hole in the center for you to suck the savoury soup within. I believe the usual ones doesn't have these holes, and I usually just bite the nipple off to make the hole myself. In fact the soup is so nice we ordered this twice.



We also have Red Bean Soup...



and Shrimp Dumplings...



and supposedly their signature dish Durian Puffs.





Name: 小旋风 Xiao Xuan Feng
Venue: Tiong Bahru Plaza

Sinful supper at Holland Village

It was very late at night already and we still have not eaten. We were watching seven swords (七剑) on TV, earnestly waiting for the final battle to commence. Suddenly, they tell us there is a mole and they have to hide in the caves first. Oh dear, how can they treat us like that! Just hurry up and get into battle! We have waited for too long and we cannot wait any longer - we must eat.

Holland Village comes straight to our mind when we think about happening night scenes where we can have our dinner cum supper, really sinfully. A stroll along the road takes you from fine dining restaurants to chic cafe to bars and pubs, but all too expensive for the two of us.

We have recently busted our pockets from so many consecutive days of luxury food and it's not even NYD yet! So our plan tonight goes like this: we will have a humble meal at the hawker centre first, then indulge in Cold Rock ice creams later on.

I'm already feeling fat. But there was like nothing left opened there except for the western food and carrot cake stalls. I had Fish Fried Rice and L had Pork Chop and they were dry and not very nice. Luckily the Carrot Cake was very well done with big chunks of juicy omelette. It was prepared unusually with chill powder and grinded peanuts. I really think it's one of the better Carrot Cakes you can get value for money.



It was now time for desserts! The way Cold Rock goes is this:

step 1: Choose your cup size (choose how much you wanna pay)
step 2: Choose your ice cream flavor (from a choice of about 20? I don't know, I didn't count)
step 3: Choose your toppings ($1 per topping from nuts to Mars and Snicker bars. Crazy.)
step 4: See them mix and mash your ice cream into a cold chunk on their "cold rock".

Now this is the final product L got. Aussie Vanilla and Macademia Ice-cream with Chips ahoy and oreo cookies as toppings!



And this is mine: large size, lemon sorbet plus mango ice cream, and raspberry and bayenberry (forgot the spelling) topping.



Incidently, we were able to take a video clip of their advertising roll just displayed outside through the glass walls. You can see roughly how they mix 'em up.



Name: Holland Village Food Centre / Cold Rock Ice Creamery
Venue: Holland Village

All time favorite~!

At last finally we present our favorite NaNa Curry!!



I remember that we used to have NaNa Curry almost every weekend regardless is it lunch or dinner. And we can just enjoy it so much even we're sick! NaNa Curry has the best curry in Singapore and they have several outlets selling Chicken, Mutton, Vegetable and Fish Curry islandwide. One of the best that many people recommend is the one at Bedok Interchange NTUC Foodfare which we frequent alot.

What's nice about the curry is the gravy which we can just eat it plainly with rice. The curry is quite spicy but it is so much delicious that you don't mind keep spicing ourselves up! And also the tenderness of the chicken.. mmmmmm



We always order chicken and vegetable curry but too bad we were there quite late and therefore only left the Chicken. =(

I kept bugging J whether is he still hungry as I really crave for the porridge at the Bedok hawker centre. It opened not long ago and I've eaten most of their porridge there already. The best of the porridge is the You Tiao that they served. Its not too oily and its not too BIG to eat and most importantly that they have this special taste which taste very different from those normal You Tiao usually have outside.



Name: NTUC Foodfare/ Bedok Hawker Centre
Venue: Bedok Interchange

Forbidden City

On the second day of Christmas, my girlfriend gave to me, a $135.36 meal for TWO!~~ Forbidden City by IndoChine. (This should compensate for the Emporio Armani Shades the previous day)

I thought IndoChine was a very good choice because we could avoid sore-throat-inducing food stuff. We had Scallops of the Southern Sea (Starter), Sauteed Abalone, Seafood of Supreme Harmony and 2 servings of Jasmine Rice (actually white rice) each.

Each scallop is skewered with a single stalk of lemongrass and sprinkled with chilli pineapple bits so you could get that appetising sweet and sour taste. Hold one end of the stalk between your fingers and then gently slide the scallop off the other end. Let the scallop rest on your tongue and slowly feel the aroma fill the entire cavity before you lose control, chew it into a tasty white mash, finally swallowing it in one gulp!

The Sauteed Abalone is sliced and fried with oyster sauce, baby cabbages. It's not very much of an eye candy, no special effort on the presentation but what's otherwise considered interesting too were the cute bird and deer carrot slices.

And the last dish is Seafood of the Supreme Harmony which was baked garoupa skin stuffed with minced prawn and garoupa meat of course, accompained with two prawns and stir fried watercress.

A very helpful waiter also told us there is another outlet at Waterfront (ACM) with even better ambience.



After the hearty dinner, we went down the first floor to have some drinks. We ordered the Singapore Sling, Chocolate Martini and White Russian. It happened to be the ladies night so we had another free Chocolate Martini which L ordered.

Name: Restaurant Madame Butterfly / Bar Cocoon
Venue: The Forbidden City, 3A Merchant Court, River Valley Rd

Merry Christmas

It was Christmas, but we didn't get very excited this time round, because both of us were quite sick to go anywhere special. So we just shopped in and around Bugis Junction and feel very broke at the end of the day.

We started our day at 6 pm, sharing a single Calm Chowder set at The Soup Spoon to whet our appetites. It came complete with an Iced Lemon Tea and a Mushrooms Sandwich.

Then we made a round trip along the snack stalls at basement where we decided to pick up one of these Fresh Cut Fries.



The Crab Fries emerged winner as it battled with the also deliciously looking Seafood Fries. For first time, we could try this seemingly weird combination of fries bathed in crab meat and chilli sauce. Individually, the fries were fresh and thick with some crispy skin still intact, while the crab is indeed real and meaty with a nice spicy touch. However, when combine together, it almost spoils all the goodness. I would suggest the next time you order this, request that they separate the sauce and fries.

We continued shopping for clothes at the holiday sales, buying a pair of jeans ($89.90) and a shirt ($53) at Levi and Top Shop respectvely.

As hunger came to dawn upon us, we visited Sakae Teppanyaki. There we had a Turkey Set and a Beef Set. Sadly, we don't have any pictures to show you because we were afraid that it's going to be quite irritating for the rest of the diners, you know, in a Teppanyaki Setting, everyone shares a single table and we were already coughing germs around!

Each set comes with salad, a bowl of rice, miso soup and roughly had about 3 meat and 2 vegetable dishes. In all we tried their turkey, beef, cod fish, (duck/goose?) liver, scallops, chawamushi, tofu steak, mushrooms and bean sprouts. Doesn't that sounds like a lot? All hot, fresh and juicy. I would definitely like to go there another time to try e other stuff on the menu.

Highlight of the day: L robbed me of $187 (discounted) when she bought a pair of Emporio Armani shades on our way back to the MRT station.

Go WOW!

Today I played good boyfriend and went to see L after her work. She's a poor thing today with 4 ulcers in her mouth and so we didn't want to go for an expensive treat. Instead, we settled for the long awaited western stall at ABC.



The stall first caught my eyes when I noticed the long queue of plates laid out and around the shelves, waiting to be filled with the baked and grilled. They are not the ordinary plastic-lightblue-faded plates, instead, it's black and sleek enjoyed by the design concious.



Considering it's a hawker centre stall, I would say the effort to please the sight is commendable. Furthermore, they are giving out very generous portions for the price they charge.

L fought the Fish and Chips while the Chicken Chop conquered me. We were bloated after the meal. I would like to suggest that the Fish and Chips here is really worth a try. I am surprised to find the meat to be pinkish and exuding some juicy fragrance as u sink your teeth into it. I doubt it's any kind of dory, must try.


Name: Wow Wow West
Venue: ABC Brickworks Food Centre

A steamy episode

On Saturday, we had a go at some very affordable buffet mini-steamboat near Raffles Place area. It's a quite a good place to hog with a bunch of friends. In fact there was one table of 10 good buddies and another family table of 8. But once again, there was only L and myself.



The first thing I would like to confess after the first picture you see here is that we are totally ashamed of our photography skills. We totally argued on how we should take the shots, and can't stop criticising each other. After many irritating flashes and neighbouring stares, we finally realized that we should really be using the SUPER MACRO function instead. The problem is that we've got shaky hands and the images aren't coming out very sharp. So the best bet is to make them smaller and hopefully we can trick your eyes this way x_X - you get the idea.

If only we can use the camera properly, you will be able to see the crisps on the banana fritters (middle left). In our opinion, that's the best dish you can get. It comes in 6 per plate and we gobbled up all of them in a flash - simply irresistable. Other honorable mention includes the pumpkin fritters and Pumpkin paste.



You get to choose from a small variety of soup base, but we recommend that you always just go for the herbal soup option or the curry one. Because we suspect the difference between the rest is just what "toppings" they add in. The cody soup I had tasted like nothing more than herbal soup, with a few strands of cordyceps. By the way, you have to pay for the soup.



These are the sauces they serve. Quite a number of them, but we only enjoyed one of the chilli mix (bottom left). The sesame paste (middle left) has a unique sour-saltish taste too, I quite like that as well, but L beg to differ.



Name: 国府 (Guo2 Fu3)
Venue: China Square Central #01-23/24, China Court
Price: Lunch $15.90 / Dinner $18.90 per person

Halal food, Indonesian style

So exciting to have our first post on our long awaited journey in search of good food.

I took an exam break when L asked me out for a quick lunch at Cineleisure. She wanted to introduce me to the very nice fried chicken there. Unfortunately, business was so good that they ran out of stock! Though it was quite dissapointing, it proved to be a good opportunity for us to try the other stuff on the menu.



This is the Fish Set I ordered. Pardon our lousy photography skills please, cos' we are really amatuers, plus we are so worried that they will come over and scold us!



Some 100% Aloe Vera Juice topped with caramel to complete the meal.



We also order a pot of Curry Chicken to share. We are curry lovers and experts (eating). And this one is definitely some good curry.

Update 1 Dec 2008

The Fried Chicken Set is here, as we promised. Featuring exceptionally crisp skin, the fried chicken is typical of the Indonesian sweetened taste.



Name: Es Teller 77
Venue: Cathay Cineleisure #B1-02
Price: Ranging from $4.00 onwards