Sunday, March 25, 2012

Le Tonkin

Le Tonkin

28 Ann Siang Road
+65 6808 2182

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Le Tonkin is a Vietnamese French restaurant. 
It is located at The Club Hotel, which is just beside Scarlet Hotel. 


One of my colleague bought us a meal at Le Tonkin during Restaurant Week period. 
This is the very first time I have tried the Restaurant week. 

The layout of the restaurant is very weird, I must say. 
It is embedded within the architecture of the hotel. 

There are both indoor and outdoor seating for the restaurant. 
There is just 1 room for the indoor seating and within the room, there are three tables located at each corner. As for the outdoor seating, it is located just beside the indoor seating and you will have to climb up a flight of stairs. 

The food was interesting as it has both French and Vietnamese cuisine. 
My favourite dish was the beef noodles because the beef was tender and cooked just right. 

Rating
Yummy-ness of food : 5/5
Pricy-ness of food : 3/5 (Pretty reasonable as this was a special promotion for restaurant week at $25++/pax. However, for other days, the price will be approximately $56, i.e. $18 for appetizer; $20 for beef noodles and $18 for fruit salad)
Overall Experience : 4/5 (May come back again just for the Beef Noodles!)


A common item served in French cuisine - bread with olive oil. 
Unlike the typical balsamic vinegar, the dark sauce used was sweet instead of sour. 

If you look at the stalks on the right hand side, this is edible and it taste something like spring onion. 
Not a big fan of greens to appreciate it. 
This dish was complimentary from the restaurant - wan ton wrapped with cheese. 
It was very delicious and this was paired with a sweet fruity sauce at the bottom. 


This is the appetizer - Le Tonkin fresh rolls. 
This is traditional vietnamese rice paper rolled with prawns, roast duck, fresh vermicelli, shredded vegetables and herbs. 
The top rolls were filled with prawns while the bottom rolls were filled with duck. 
Despite being a veggie hater, I managed to enjoy this dish, I must say. 
There were two options for the main dish. 
This is the Lime Leaves Chicken ordered by some of my colleagues.  
This is what the majority ordered - Beef Noodle Soup. 

This is very good. 
The picture below is before the soup base is poured in. 
This picture is after the soup base is poured in. 
You can see the nice pink beef colour. 
The meat was very tender. 
The last dish was desserts. Two choices were provided - ice cream or mixed fruit salad. 

This is the ice cream
Mixed Fruit Salad

Monday, March 12, 2012

Barossa

BAROSSA

22 Lorong Mambong
227681 Singapore
Tel: 6468 4688


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ALL YOU CAN EAT AUSTRALIAN STEAK!!!

What more could you ask for? We had the opportunity to visit this place over the weekend. 
Buffet is only available on Wed and Sun. Which leaves us not many free days to try it. 
Free flow of Wagyu, Black Angus and T bone steak. Sorry I don't remember the types of cuts.

The place is a nice quiet area around Holland Village. 
Quite reasonably priced @SGD43.90++/pax

They have steaks, sides, salad. Not really much to rave about. But not bad. Just that I usually would enjoy better prepared steaks although I'll probably not be able to find really good quality and quantity at this price. 

I'm not saying it's not a good place to go. Actually, it's quite a nice place, just that it's not really my style. 
Price wise, its fine for an all you can eat steak buffet with some good cuts. 
Quality wise, its also some fine meats you're getting. 
Quantity, you can order all you want. The cuts are pretty thin though so you should be able to try them all without much of a problem.
Service, really quite good, the staff are attentive, keep asking you if you'd like more meats when you're done with your existing serving. 

Not really sure why I'm not too hot about this place. 
Just didn't seem like my kinda place. 

Archipelago beer not part of the buffet. But I've tried the beer previously, it's pretty good. 

Rating
Yummy-ness of food : 4/5
Pricy-ness of food : 4/5
Overall Experience : 4/5 (Overall rating is good. Although not my style but I'd recommend you to try.)

Chiso Zanmai

Chiso Zanmai

6 Eu Tong Sen Street, #02-17 The Central @ Clarke Quay, Singapore
+65 6221 3177

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I was invited here by a friend. Interesting place. Not the usual jappy places which I usually go to. This place is really one of the cheapest jap buffets around in Singapore. We're talking something like SGD15++/pax for lunch. Which is really good for value. 

You get to enjoy the usual sushi, sashimi, some great desserts, the typical japanese hot pots, and other really authentic japanese cuisine. 

A perfect place to get value for money japanese food with your friends especially during lunch.

Ratings
Yummy-ness of food : 3/5
Pricy-ness of food : 2/5
Overall Experience : 3/5 (Not my style but it may be your's.)

Akashabu

AKASHABU

5 Stadium Walk, #01-12 Kallang Leisure Park, Singapore
+65 6346 3868

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Somehow I've been visiting a few shabu shabu places recently.
Been here twice, really left a good impression on me. 

Usually start with a scallop sashimi and sushi platter, (Oops forgot to take a pic of the sushi platter.)
But the sushi was relatively well done. Kinda slow though. Fish was larger than the rice, small bits of rice, just the way I like it so that I don't get too full before the main course. (I'm really against those sushi places which give large lumps of rice to make you full, rice which are as large as the fish slices. Like example..... nvm... I'm sure some of you know the usual places which serve crude sushi...)

Oh well... Love the sushi here, you gotta try some of them....

Shabu shabu.... well... pretty pricy for my liking, but that the usual prices so... cant really complain.
Meats are pretty good, sauces are good. As with all shabu shabu, the temperature control and cooking timing are very key to the whole dish. Mess up the cooking and the meal would probably be not a good experience. Yep... I'm good with my temperature control so... can't really go wrong.

Love this place. Not too expensive overall. Even the sushi's pretty decently priced. SGD1 for a salmon sushi... Heys thats actually cheaper than a lot of places...

Rating
Yummy-ness of food : 5/5
Pricy-ness of food : 3/5 (Pretty reasonable. Approx SGD60++/2pax)
Overall Experience : 5/5 (I'll be back)

The dipping sauces

Huge scallop sashimi

Shabuya

SHABUYA

1 Harbour Front Walk, #01-102/103,
Singapore,
098585
Tel: 6377 0070



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Buffet Shabu Shabu.... woooooo yum yum MEAT!!

Well, they serve a nice choice bits of meat for their shabu buffet during their weekend brunch.
$39.90++/pax, 1 hour time frame.

All you can eat wagyu beef, black angus, pork collar, pork belly, chicken thigh.
Tuna/salmon sashimi,
Shitake mushrooms, other types of mushrooms, and vegetables which I didn't bother to order...

Ok I stayed purely on the meats. 

The sashimi was a nice way to start the meal. Pretty good. Just the nice amount.

Then came the main course, MEAT!!! (yea if you didn't realise I love my meats.)
What could go wrong with all you can eat wagyu beef, black angus and other nice bits of pork.

I stayed mainly with the meats. Really good stuff. Can't really find anything bad about the meats although some people may like to other the other stuffs. But I came mainly for the meats so I really had my fill. 

Of course you'll have to know how to cook them. U know just lightly dip them in the boiling water, learn to control the temperature, shake the meats in the boiling soup for a bit, place them with the peanut sauce and YUM YUM YUM.... you get the picture. 

It's really a good place. Service is pretty good too. For the types of meat and the price... well, I'd say... I've paid more for less/worse, definitely a worthy place to visit.

Ratings
Yummy-ness of food : 5/5
Pricy-ness of food : 4/5
Overall Experience : 5/5 (I'll be back.)

Epicurious

Epicurious at The Quayside
#01-02 The Quayside, Robertson Quay
Tel: 6734-7720


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Decided to try out Epicurious as we've been to many breakfast places recently and with our great experience with Wild Honey, decided that there would be other places which served good breakfasts.

Unfortunately, in our opinion, this place din't live up to it's name, we read a number of good reviews in magazines so we had our hopes up. Called the usual steak and eggs benedict so that we could try a similar dish as compared to Wild Honey. 

Eggs benedict was well.... Ok..... bread served with the eggs benedict reminded me of the Macdonald's muffin. Doesn't come with the usual parma ham which I'm used to, comes with an option of either smoked ham, smoked salmon or smoked... (forgot the last one.) 


I'll let the pictures do the talking. If you would like to compare with my earlier breakfast posts. 

Steak was pretty small. Just a small bit of meat with toast and eggs. Abit =_=

Once again I'll let the pictures do the talking. If you would like to compare with my earlier breakfast posts. 

In my opinion, I could get a lot more for a couple more dollars.

Ratings
Yummy-ness of food : 3/5
Pricy-ness of food : 3/5
Overall Experience : 2/5 (Sorry not coming back.)

Wild Honey

Wild Honey
6 Scotts Road Scotts Square #03-01
+65 6636 1816


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We've been here before. Wild Honey. Although the last time I went to the one at Mandarin Gallery. Also reviewed in an earlier post. This round, however, we went for a nice HARDCORE steak early in the morning. A 240gm Australian breakfast and the usual eggs benedict. 

As usual the eggs benedict were perfectly done with the egg yolks all nice and runny with the wonderful brioche bread baked in-house at wild honey.

The highlight of this post is definitely all about the steak. Not the best steak I've had but still something to mention about. A great start to a day. Assuming you can finish the whole thing without any problem. I believe most others might not be able to finish the meal easily thou. But seriously a nice healthy chunk of meat, an egg, potatoes, mushrooms and a nice strong coffee is truly a great way to start the morning. 

Would highly recommend the Australian breakfast to anyone who's up for the challenge. 

YUMMY MEAT!!!

Ratings
Yummy-ness of food : 5/5
Pricy-ness of food : 4/5
Overall experience : 5/5 (I'll be back.)

Hoo Hah

HOOHA
216, 218, 220 Pasir Panjang Road, Singapore 118581
+65 6475 2210

As of the date I write this post, this place is slated to relocate. Would recommend checking out their website before visiting. 


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This place was introduced by my mum.
Apparently she has been going to this place for a nice steak without telling me about it.
Well, today I got my mum to bring me to this place. 
And WOAH! Now I understood what she meant by a nice steak.

The steak comes in various sizes 200, 300, 400, 500gm.
I had mine medium well as usual
(yes yes many have asked me to take it medium, just that I cant get over the blooy parts so... oh well.)
Nonetheless, the steak well extremely well prepared. 
Served with ratatouille which was also delicious. 
I had mine with red wine sauce. Which I felt was significantly better at bringing out the flavour of the meat as compared to my mum's black pepper sauce. 
I would say the baked potato which came with my meat to be relatively ok. Not the best baked potato, but at least it was truly a baked potato. 
(Considering I have had some places serve me a "baked" potato which was steamed first before baking. This results in a not as fragrant roasted flavour in the potato.)

We also ordered a side serving of the laksa to share. Laksa gravy was rich with coconut milk. Not entirely a healthy choice but still oh so wonderful. Not the same as the typical Katong Laksa but still good. 

Ratings
Yummy-ness of food : 5/5
Pricy-ness of food : 4/5
Overall Experience : 5/5 (I'll be back)