Ooh La La I went pubbing!

at a British pub, to eat lunch.

You may be interested to know the original British pubs have a different connotation from the modern pubs today. Interesting how it has evolved over the centuries.

British pubs are called public houses, serving alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises, especially in Britain. Under English common law, inns and taverns were declared public houses responsible for the well-being of travelers. They were expected to receive all travelers in reasonable condition who were willing to pay for food, drink, and lodging. In Tudor England, certain innkeepers were obliged by royal act to maintain stables; others served as unofficial postmasters. The early public houses were identified by simple signs that featured creatures such as lions, dolphins, or swans. In the 18th century, the word Arms was added to many pub names to indicate that the establishment was under the protection of a noble family. Though British public houses were traditionally owned and operated by independent licensed proprietors, by the early 20th century many were owned or associated with brewery companies. (from the free dictionary)

The Queen and Mangosteen (no link?? why the association??) is situated at Vivo City. They were having a lunch offer during the weekdays. The dismal lunch crowd made us decide to eat here, no need to queue. It has a nice view of Sentosa at the alfresco area and the weather that day was nice and cool.

Yes. Let’s drink and eat and be merry

Drinking pumpkin soup. The hearty and creamy soup has a curry aftertaste which is a good combination; caught me by surprise. The extra kick of curry makes the soup rather appetizing and goes so well with the warm baguette. Rather pleased at my healthy lunch…

Until I gave in to eating desserts…though it was fruit crumble which undeceivingly sounds healthy, it was so sweet and the buttery (ooh…so sinfully buttery) crumble made me wonder how many sticks of butter and grams of sugar have gone into making this dessert.

Recently I have become rather health conscious; which is not a bad thing because I lost weight in the process. But I realise that my objective of being health conscious should not be for the sake of losing weight. If that’s the case, then when I reached my desired weight, I would not want to practise healthy eating after that. Thus I decided to be health conscious because I want to live healthy, stay healthy and keep fit. Losing weight is extra bonus that I gained through the process. Even if sometimes I indulge in junk food or unhealthy stuff, I need not feel guilty and swim extra laps to burn off the guilt and fats, my choice to eat healthily as my lifestyle will allow me such indulgent luxury once in a while. hee.

E-sarn

E-sarn has always intrigued me when previously it was at 6th Ave. The gaudy green interior and exterior sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the shop houses. However there was always a crowd which I believe is a testament of their food quality. Having tried Isan food when I went for mission trips and loving every bit of it, I am more than interested to try E-sarn to see whether it’s comparable to what I ate in Thailand.

It has since closed down the outlet at 6th Ave though. Now it’s next to a condominium Ridgewood Close. I love the ambience, it’s quieter, design is less tacky and the sound of falling waters from the condo pool makes the whole environment so relaxing. I can just stone my day away. The restaurant is next to an ice-cream shop “haato” opened by the E-sarn boss’s mother, even more reasons to say there longer. There was a period of time I was there so frequently that the waitresses even remembered my face.

I still have not shared how is the food after all my ramble

The tom yam soup is authentic, seafood is fresh, soup is tangy and spicy, reminiscent of those in Thailand. Yums!

I never fail to order their olive rice when I come here. I am not a fan of rice but I always succumb to eating rice here. Every grain is so flavorful with olives, minced meat, fish sauce and whatever that contributes to the success of this dish. So addictive.

Another must-order dish is their grilled chicken. The charred bits and the marinade go so well together with the tender chicken bits. The thai sweet chilli provides the extra kick to this well executed dish. Loves!

aw…ww why are little boys so cute

And this boy is super talented.

check out his official site

My favorite chee cheong fun

is at Boon Tong Kee. Surprise surprise, that a famed chicken place offers such good quality chee cheong fun. Even more surprising is that they don’t advertise their rice rolls. Such a humble cheong fun has been made exceptional by their sauce. I love Boon Tong Kee’s service, when I ask for takeaway and request more sauce, they will be generous enough to give me another pack without any grouse. If I eat in, they will also be generous enough to drizzle another helping of the sauce too. The cheong fun is firm and fresh, not a hint of floury or even a sourish taste unlike some poor quality ones. The beauty is the sauce, savory and filled with sesame oil fragrance and a hint of something unique which I can’t really tell what is it. I don’t even mind eating this than their chicken rice when I go there. It has that much appeal to me

so much so that even their chicken has become the supporting cast.

Yanqing’s Shanghai Kitchen

Yanqing’s Shanghai Kitchen is located along this row of shophouses that witness several F&B outlets that come and go. It’s along Bukit Timah Road, in front of Sixth Ave Cold Storage. The latest I saw was Tinhill (nice name, Bukit Timah =Tinhill) bearing the brunt of the economic downturn (i think). Somehow Yanqing has remained the solitary winner in this competitive F&B industry among the restaurants over there.

It’s not exactly cheap but recently they have come up with an affordable lunch package. I can’t remember the price since I am not paying. haha. But I know it’s quite worth it judging from the expression of the person who paid for the meal. It will be even a steal if you bring another person along to help you finish the food, I think for 2 persons, it’s quite a heavy lunch.

At such times when I see so much noise in the picture, I wish I have brought my SLR instead of using my point-and-ahoot..

This is the appetizer. Ooh! So good! Drunken chicken, pickled cucumbers, mocked goose (fried beancurd skin) with peanut sauce were gone in a jiffy. I like the mocked goose, fried stuff always taste nicer, don’t you think?

This is a prawn dish. I kind of forgot what’s it’s cooked with but it tasted rather like kung pao sauce. The prawns were good, succulent and fresh. I had to stop myself to eat more of it especially when prawns is one of my favorite seafoods…have to watch my cholestrol level. I think when one gets old and learns to appreciate food, the ironic thing is they can’t eat more of what they like and have to control their salt, sugar, calories etc intake. They have to choose those foods with healthier choice labels and stay away from unhealthy stuff which somehow always tastes so much nicer. Sigh..the lure of forbidden fruit.

But when you are faced with such an amazing delicate and exqusite dish of crab with roe and egg, whatever thoughts of healthier choice are immediately banished from your mind. At least for mine. haha. It was such a well-executed dish, I took a longer while to finish the dish just to simply savor every teaspoonful.

This veg dish is so delish. I think it was some kai lan species. The stalks were real crunchy and fresh. I did not like the strange white mushroom though, tasted weird.

By now, I was already so full. But I could not resist every grain of rice this carbo dish offered. Look at the scallop, it was cooked just right. I felt so bad that we could not finish this fried rice, such a waste of good food.

you are a tough one

I can’t wait for the day to master you.

A Royal Treat-ment

I was treated to watch the movie “Julie and Julia” at Vivo GV Gold Class. It costs a whopping $28 dollars! Made me momentarily stunned; it better be well worth the money spent.

We were ushered into a lounge before the movie. The lounge was exclusively for Gold Class members. I was expecting to be given complimentary snacks or drinks. The only complimentary was a bowl of mixed nuts which did not reflect any sense of atas-ness. Even if you packaged it by placing the nuts in a crystal bowl instead of those kacang-putih conical wrappers also does not warrant us pay you $28 bucks leh…

The friendly concierge whipped out a menu; another shocker; charge us so much for ticket and expect me to pay $4 for a can of coke and some lay potato chips? Not a whole pack somemore, picture showed a handful. Thankfully we smuggled in some snacks..hee. They were nice enough to remain oblivious even if they saw it.

I guess we are paying for the plush electronic seats and rug…wow. The seat can recline to a horizontal position in a smooth and silent movement. It’s so roomy that as I snuggled into the seat, I felt lost in the sea of space, not that it was a bad thing. I nearly fell asleep in it if the show did not start. There is even a service call button to order meals which I saw some did. But I thought it was rather distracting to have meals served intermittently when watching the show.

The seat was so comfortable, ambience was so pleasing that I almost forgot how nice the show was. Moral of the show: Behind every successful woman is the support of a husband. It was such a heart-warming show and made me excited about cooking once again.

Ahh…fish soup is my comfort food

From food republic. Not sure whether there is MSG but the soup is one of the better ones I have tried. Flavorful broth with fresh fish, crunchy vegetables and slurp-worthy seaweed with chilli-padi as an explosive side-kick; what’s not to like?

旺角Taiwan Street Food

旺角Hong Kong Cafe has expanded to include Taiwan street food but seems like Bukit Panjang Plaza is the only location. I always longed for a day when I can go Taiwan to experience their wide array of street food. For now, I can only satiate my desires watching Taiwan variety food show. I got all excited when I saw this place, I can at least have a taste of what street food is like!

This is brasied cold tofu. I did not really like it. Felt it was too bland and the tofu was dense, weird combination of texture and taste.

This is oyster omelette with some sweet chilli sauce. Hmm…I prefer singapore oyster omlette to this. The sauce did not really contribute any oomph to the overall taste. It was also not fried to a crisp, thus there was this soggy taste which made this dish rather dismal.

This is taiwan’s famous 盐酥鸡. I guess the five-spice seasoning saved the day, if not the chicken would be tasteless. At least it was the most palatable dish out of the above.

I think 旺角 still has lots of room for improvement in replicating taiwanese street food. If Taiwan street food taste like that, I would be better off going to Hong Kong..

Not so awesome-est blueberry muffins

I was very excited to try this blueberry muffin recipe. It looks so idiot-proof. Being an amateur, such simple recipes which can guarantee awesome-est is a great motivation to try.

It looked quite promising in the oven, the aroma emitted also quite promising, thus I was quite hopeful it should be quite awesome as what the recipe says.

Not so. I should have followed more strictly to the recipe. I cut down on some sugar which somehow affected the taste of the muffins. They tasted quite bland. The muffins were also rather moist, not as crumbly and dry, very un-muffin like. Perhaps I have put too much yogurt. There was also this floury taste which I did not like. Wondering was the cooking time too short or I added too much flour.

The first batch looked rather flat, I thought it was because I put too little a portion. I tried to put more in the 2nd batch but it did not rise a lot too, I guess perhaps I have stirred too much in the mixing.

After my disappointment, I decided to try making cornflakes cookies which is more idiot-proof than the muffins. Maybe my mood affected the cooking, it also did not turn out well. It was too buttery till the base was soaked in oil and I was told it was too sweet. Next time when I do it again, I must remember to make in smaller batches so that if it fails, at least my “guinea pigs” need not suffer