I went to Oriole Cafe for Sunday brunch today.

The coffee is rather famous, so I opted for regular coffee (rather than my usual decaf). I had a vanilla latte ($6), and it came with such beautiful latte art. The latte is smooth, even with low-fat milk. It tastes way better than Starbucks. Maybe it’s because I had it warm; the cold Starbucks vanilla latte now tastes like swill in comparison.

For my brunch, I had the Ali Baba, which is Turkish-inspired. A herbed lamb patty with flat bread, halloumi cheese, a bean dip and a side salad. The lamb is flavourful and juicy, I really enjoyed it. The Halloumi cheese is a little too salty, but goes well with the bread. I will not hesitate to reorder this.

My friend KL had the classic Eggs Benedict. The poached egg is dully runny, which is good. At least for those who love runny egg yolks.

Oriole Cafe has a nice relaxing ambience, great for Sunday brunches and lazy afternoon tea.

Do check out their website at http://www.oriolecoffee.com/

Oriole Coffee & Bar
96 Somerset road
Pan Pacific services suites, #01-01
Tel No.: 6238 8348

Last week I had brunch at Antoinette at the Mandarin Gallery. This is my review.

Antoinette specializes in French desserts, so it is no wonder a whole glass case is devoted to macarons. These colourful sweet treats are pretty to look at, but I just don’t have that sort of sweet tooth to stomach them. If you like macarons, these colourful delight will sweeten your day.

The seating capacity at Mandarin Gallery is small; les chaises sont tres jolie (and my grammar is probably all over the place). The ambience is relaxing and the lights are dim, very classy, I suppose.

For brunch, I had the scrambled eggs with French ham and Gruyere cheese. It is served with thick toast and a side salad. The bread is toasted to perfection, and the scrambled eggs are fluffy and rich. The ham and cheese are a little too salty for my liking, but overall they balance out each other.

Angela had the Blinis pancakes with smoked salmon, served with sour cream. I tried some of the pancakes and I dare corroborate they are the best pancakes in Singapore. It is crisp on the outside but fluffy and soft on the inside. It’s the right taste- not too sweet and not too bland.

See how fluffy the interior is? After these pancakes, I don’t think I can stomach those from Strictly Pancakes or MacDonalds anymore.

We also had dessert to share.

I had the Religiuese of Caramel with fleur de sel. It’s basically cream filled choux pastry. For some reason it tasted rather stale to me; the choux felt more like overnight bread. I like the cream filling; it’s slightly salted caramel and I know from the interior shot below it looks too much like tau sar piah , it’s not too crumbly. In fact, this dessert reminds me a little of salted tau sar piah, just different in texture.

Angela had the Antoinette. It’s some kind of mousse in the interior that is flavoured with Earl Grey. I didn’t know it was Earl Grey at first; I just mentioned I tasted bergamot, a prime ingredient in Earl Grey tea.

Overall, the dessert and food at Antoinette is delicate, along with their cutlery and decor. It’s a nice place to chill and while away an afternoon. If you get a seat by the window, you get to people watch patrons to The Mandarin Gallery. This place is good for dessert lovers (not me). Will I return? It depends. I am not known to queue for my food, so if there is no line, I might return just for a relaxing after high tea with friends.

Read my review below.

We started off with the spicy pomelo salad with prawns, chicken, roasted coconut, ground peanuts and sweet sauce. (In their menu it was written grounded peanuts, which is quite funny.) This salad is da bomb. It is spicy, tangy, sweet, savoury all rolled in one. A true explosion of taste. The pomelo is ripe and sweet, not bitter nor sour at all. I liked how the salad is very well mixed.

Next I had the thai herbal soup with prawn, mixed vegetables and lemon basil leaves. This is a miss in my opinion. The soup tasted funky, there’s some strange unidentified gourd, and I didn’t eat any prawns. I will take Chinese herbal soup any day.

We then had a green curry with roasted duck, coconut cream, sweet basil leaves and seasonal fresh fruit. In this case, there was lychee in the curry, but I doubt it is fresh. It tasted too sweet to be fresh, frankly. The roasted duck in curry combination is not a winner. It felt too much like throwing leftovers from some banquet into the curry. The taste didn’t go together. I think it’s still a better choice to stick to chicken or beef.

The pat thai was not inspiring either. It was too sweet; they seem to have used tomato ketchup in frying it. This really tasted flat and icky. I don’t think pat thai should taste like this.

Overall, Sabai Thai does not live up to the mark for me. It feels a little like the now-defunct Lemongrass, just not as tasty. The lunch crowd that day was made of tourist and expat businesspeople on a company lunch. After eating the food I knew why only these suckers people eat there. Will I go back? Hell no. You want to know why? After eating their food both my friend and I had bad reaction to some spice or MSG they used; overnight we developed headache and felt really dehydrated and the early onset of sore throat. It’s almost like having a hangover. Their food is not worth the morning after.

Official website: http://www.sabaifinethai.com.sg/

Sabai Authentic Fine Thai Cuisine
391B Orchard Road
Takashimaya S.C.
Ngee Ann City #04-23
Tel No.:  6333 8491

I am fan of Japanese ramen, but I have unique taste. I need my broth to be complex but not too salty, rich but not too thick. Basically, I am Goldilocks without the housebreaking tendencies. Will I find my favourite Ramen from one of the stalls at Ramen Champion?

Ramen Champion at Iluma Bugis conglomerates 6 ramen chains from different parts of Japan including 3 from Tokyo and others from Sapporo, Toyama and Hakata. The concept is post-paid food court, where you are given a card which records all the purchases and you make payment at the end of the meal.

There are 6 ramen stalls to choose from – Bario (seen above with the red sign), Gantetsu, Tetsu,  Ikkousha (seen above with the black sign), Menya Iroha, and Taishoken. My friend and I decided to eat from Bario and Ikkousha.

Bario ajitama ramen

My friend had Bario’s Ajitama ramen, which comes with beansprouts. Bario is from Tokyo.

The noodles are fat and slightly flat; not as flat as meepok, but more like those noodles used in lor-mee. It soaks up the broth rather quick, so eat fast! Their egg is cooked to perfection – hard on the outside with the yolk still running. I did not manage to capture a picture of that, but I think their eggs have some kind of standard.

Ikkousha chashu ramen (with extra chashu)

Being the greedy person that I am, I got the chashu ramen from Ikkousha with extra meat. On hindsight, it was a bad choice. The meat is definitely not fall-apart tender; it was quite hard to chew at some point. The soup is a little too spicy, but I liked the crunch of black fungus inside.Ikkousha is from Hakata.

The noodles are pretty standard, not too chewy, not too soft, just nice. But I am not too picky about my noodles, really.

However, this is by no means my favourite ramen. So the search continues!

I also got gyoza from Ikkousha for sharing. Based on the picture I’m sure you can tell how crispy the charred bits are. This is meant to be eaten warm; once it starts to cool down the crispiness goes away. The filling is made with the standard ingredients, but it tastes pretty good. I will recommend ordering this dish.

Overall I liked my visit to Ramen Champion. Even though I didn’t find my favourite ramen in this visit, I will definitely revisit this place to avoid run-of-the-mill chain ramen stores.

To look at the comprehensive menu from each stall, visit their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/theultimateramenchampion2011

Ramen Champion
201 Victoria Street
Iluma Bugis
#04-08/09
Tel No.: +65 6238 1011

]]> http://lovelyloey.me/ramen-champion/feed/ 0 http://lovelyloey.me/frostbite/ http://lovelyloey.me/frostbite/#comments Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:59:59 +0000 lovelyloey http://lovelyloey.me/?p=4897

What’s best for the sweltering heat in Singapore? Popsicles!

I was in Toa Payoh and came across this quaint little popsicle store. I was instantly attracted by the kitschy signboard and colourful popsicle display.

I love popsicles more than ice cream; ice cream always comes across as cloying and thick and fattening, while popsicles always seem so light and refreshing. The flavors at Frostbite are mostly fruity -

Fruity flavours cost $2.80 each, and the chocolatey exotic ones are $3.80. Expensive for a popsicle, but cheap for an icy dessert!

I chose the Coconut Rambutan.

The popsicle tastes of toasted coconut flakes and rambutan. Frankly I don’t think the two go well together, but I  guess that’s just me. Coconut will go well with almonds, and maybe lime (and we sing – put the lime in the coconut…)

Anyway, my colleagues had more colourful and interesting flavours.

One of them decided to colour coordinate her outfit and her popsicle – that’s the watermelon lemon flavour.

This is the mango lychee – it looks really pretty.

Will I go back to Frostbite? You bet. Each time I’m in Toa Payoh I will instantly drift over. Where is Frostbite? It’s near the Toa Payoh Hub along where Watsons and Tiong Bahru Pau is. Detailed address : 190 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh, #01-546.

For a person who has never eaten Teochew mooncakes before, why on earth am I trying to duplicate them?

So the story goes – this year I didn’t plan on making any mooncakes. However, we had supplies at home because my little niece (all five years old of a little girl) wanted to make snowskin mooncake, so the family went and bought supplies. Now you must know — having baking supplies at home and having my weekend free is a deadly combination. So I whipped out my mother’s trusty cookbook and tried my hands at making Teochew mooncake, just because they are pretty and I can add colour to them. Never mind that the cookbook isn’t very good at describing the action required to make the the flaky layered skin, and never mind that I have never eaten Teochew mooncakes before.

So instead of folding the layers neatly like making a croissant, I rolled them up towards the end, so there is no distinct layers, as seen in the picture below.

According to my sister, the texture of the skin is like flaky charsiew dimsum (叉烧酥), so I guess it’s not too bad after all. I believe next year I can get this right. If I still care, that is.

The skin is so crumbly it was difficult to cut it open for an interior shot, but you can see my red bean paste filling and the crumbly skin around it. It tastes fab though – the crumbly not-so-sweet skin coupled with smooth sweet interior and you sort of roll it all in a ball in your mouth… yummy.

The salads are customizable and comes in 3 sizes- rabbit size, zebra size and elephant size. It’s not really the size of the container or amount of base vegetables, but the number of mix-ins you have. Elephant feed, which we had, allows you to choose from a number of meat.

Every component of your salad is customizable, from the base leaves, to the mix-ins like nuts, berries, peppers, to cheeses.

My colleague has eggs, roast beef (and other stuff) with baby spinach leaves. The container is about 15cm x 15cm x 10cm deep.

I had a combination of deli leaves (with things like rocket and radicchio), cous cous, sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, bell peppers, mushroom, pine nuts (and some others) and roast beef. The dressing is a mint yogurt, which is unfortunately not very minty nor yogurty for my liking.

See my pieces of roast beef – they were tender and flavourful.

The Salad Shop makes good customizable salads, which are light and satisfying meal. At $12 for an elephant feed it doesn’t come cheap, so I can only indulge once in a while. They only have one outlet at UOB Plaza, so it’s quite out of the way for me. Nonetheless it’s a place worth going if you like salads.

Visit their official website (http://www.thesaladshop.com.sg/) for the menu and more!

The Salad Shop
80 Raffles Place
UOB Plaza 2 #01-20
Tel No.: 6536 3686

There was a short queue when we got there at about 6.45 pm on a Friday night, partly because of the small seating capacity in the restaurant.

There are several varieties of xiaolong bao (XLB) served here, and we got the Crabmeat & Porking Filling Steamed Bun (蟹肉小笼) ($9).

I don’t know about you, but I typically pierce my XLB, squeeze out the soup into a spoon, drink the soup before I eat it. Each of these steamed buns had one tablespoon full of soup in side. I’d say that’s a golden standard. The soup in this Crabmeat steamed bun is lighter than I expected. Far lighter compared to some other establishments. My only qualm is that it doesn’t seem to be warm enough, unlike my other soupy bun (below).

I also got the King Size Nanxiang Crab Roe Steamed Soup Bun (蟹黄灌汤包)($6.8). It’s really crab soup served in a steamed bun. It reminds me of the one we had while we were in Shanghai, but this tastes better. The soup is light but flavourful, and there is copious amounts of dried scalloped fibre to be sucked out of the straw. Beware, the soup is this is really hot. Also, the skin is too thick to be consumed; it’s not meant to be, anyway.

The Shanghai Pan-fried Dumpling (上海锅贴)($5) was not crispy enough for my liking; the skin is slightly too thick, but the filling was nice. Compared to Japanese gyozas, I prefer the latter.

Also for unbeknownst reasons, restaurant vegetables are always nicer. I bet it has something to do with the copious amounts of oil and the intense heat in the wok. The Stir Fried Doumiao with Garlic (蒜茸豆苗)($9.80) is very delicious. None of the bitter grassy taste of doumiao (which I don’t like) retained, which is a plus to me.

We shared a Shanghai Fried Rice with Special Sauce Duck (上海酱鸭炒饭)($8.50). The special sauce tastes like charsiew sauce. The rice is fried with spring onion and egg, fairly standard across most Chinese restaurants. There is nothing to rave about this dish, but for those who need to fill up on carbs, the serving is pretty big.

Perhaps I had some expectations when I went to the restaurant, so nothing seem to be VERY nice; but they all meet the standard somewhat. I am not sure if I will go back again in the near future, but I know I won’t shun it if someone suggests this spot to dine.

Visit their official website here (http://www.nanxiang.com.sg/).

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant
200 Victoria Street
#02-53 Bugis Junction
(Branches at City Square Mall and Plaza Singapura)
Tel No.: 6835 7577

Consists of hard boiled egg, baked chicken, tricolour capsicum, cucumber over a bed of Korean sweet potato transparent noodles.

Consists of hard boiled egg, broccoli, tuna, tomatoes and green peas.

Consists of spiral pasta, tomatoes, capsicum, lettuce and tuna.

Consists of edamame peas, grass mushrooms, capsicum, lettuce, tuna and Korean sweet potato transparent noodles.

Consists of shredded baked chicken, broccoli, cucumber over a bed of spiral pasta.

One of my favourite salad dressing recently is mustard Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt has a thicker consistency near the the consistency of mayonnaise. I mix it with English mustard and the end result is a refreshing yet creamy, sour yet savoury dressing that goes really well cold. I love how I can put in as much Greek yogurt as I like since, well, it’s yogurt and not mayonnaise.

The name of this really describes what goes into the savoury mini muffins. Wholemeal flour, cheese, herbs, and caramelized onions. Then the usual other muffin ingredients of salt, egg and baking powder. I adapted this recipe from various that I read online. There seems to be an agreement that anything can be added savoury muffins – herbs, bacon, all types of cheeses, peppers, mushroom. It’s quite like building really chunky sweet muffins too, with all the nuts and dried fruits and what not. So that’s that.

I used grated cheddar, which really adds a lot of flavour and crunch baked. Apart from mixing the cheddar into the batter, I sprinkled some on top for good measure. A word of caution though- cheddar, after baking, tends to be very salty. Take that into consideration when adding salt to the batter.

The caramelized onions added sweetness to the muffins, which is quite nice juxtaposed with the saltiness of cheese and salt. The herbs provide great aroma.

And there’s an interior shot. The onions in this don’t seem to be overly dark, but they were soft and juicy. This is a recipe worth repeating and tweaking. I do think my onion to flour ratio is a little too high. Feels more like an onion fritter or some kind, but I’m not complaining.

Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup wholemeal flour
0.5 cup plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1.5 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 white onion, sliced and caramelized
1 tsp dried herbs (I used an Italian mix of oregano, rosemary and thyme)
1 egg
1 cup milk (I used skim)

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius
2. Mix wholemeal flour, plain flour, baking powder and salt together, whisk to combine
3. Beat egg with milk
4. Add onions and cheese to wet mixture, then add flour and mix lightly. Do not whisk or beat. Mixture will be lumpy
5. Spoon into muffin pan and bake till brown on the outside and skewer comes out clean.

I made 24 mini muffins using this recipe.