Red Mansion

The ambience of this restaurant is similar to Grand Shanghai, except that this is a cheaper version. This restaurant is located at Circular Road.

Went there for lunch. They have thi $9.90 set, comprising of:

- Soup of the day or salad
- Main Course
- Drink


Soup of the day - Corn and carrot soup

This is the "Chef's special" - Chinese sausage fried rice with sunny side up and chicken wing

A cup of coffee


Rating:

Price

Quality

Quantity

Service

Overall


My Ramblings...

I was quite disappointed with the food though.

The soup base has lots of MSG in it and the ingredients looked as if it was cooked separately from the soup. If I am not wrong, I have used the MSG before and can be found in local supermarkets.

As for the fried rice, you cannot go very wrong with chinese sausage in your fried rice. But I was quite surprised to see burnt bits in the rice....

This will be a good place for drinks at night. But definitely not a place for lunch.

TNP Lifestyle Gourmet Series

Brought my whole family for the Lifestyle Gourmet Series organized by HSBC & TNP for Chinese New Year.

There was a cooking demostration for 3 of the dishes. This was followed by a set lunch and of course lucky draw...


The Chef






Yusheng


This is like my first yusheng of the year. Yusheng is a Chinese New Year dish and can be taken anytime during the 15 days of new year.

Depending on the dialect group, the ingredients may differ. Typically, there will be a few auspicious items like orange rind, carrots, chilli etc. And of course, fish. Salmon is a common fish used nowadays. Plum sauce, oil, crackers, pepper etc will be put in the dish above. For each item, an auspicious blessing will be said.

Next, everyone will surround the table with their chopsticks ready and on cue everyone will start tossing the ingredients. During this tossing, there will be wishes for the new year, i.e. good luck, good health etc. It is said that the higher the tosses, the better it is..

The result of the tossing...

This is mine...

Double boiled scallop soup and stuffed fish maw with minced pork and chestnut soup

Prawns..

Assorted vegetables wrapped with long bean

Pig Trotters mee sua


And, of course dessert. But being the greedy me, I have forgotten to take pictures of it...

Rating:

Price

Quality

Quantity

Service

Overall


My Ramblings...

I loved the whole experience. Learnt a couple of cooking tips. Of course, if I have won something, that would be great.

Lunch at TWG Tea

Met up with ex-collegue for lunch last week and we went to TWG Tea at Republic Plaza. Both of us ordered their set meal of the week. The set menu comprises of a main dish, tea and dessert.

Main dish.. Something like sashimi with chopped onions with bread. A bit too light for my lunch though but understand from the waiter that their main dish changes every week.

Tea (similar to green tea. just a different variant)

Dessert (I do not remember what is it made of. All I know is that this tastes heavenly. The top crust is crispy and sweet and the cream is not too sweet yet rich. The crust at the bottom just ends it perfectly)

Rating:

Price

Quality

Quantity

Service

Overall


My Ramblings...

This is like one of the rare times where I will recommend this place even though I am upset with their service. Their waiters fall into two categories - one that know their stuff very well whereas the other just serve a customer because this is their job.

I was served by a waiter from the second group. I was quite cheezed off because:
1. He refused to let me change my tea,
2. "Blamed" me for not telling him earlier
3. When he FINALLY allowed me to change my tea, he charged me the full price of the new tea. I was like you might as well tell me I can't change -_-

Well, the dessert made me changed my perception of this place. And, when I went to their gift shop, I was very impressed by the tea knowledge that one of the waiter knows. He was the one who brewed the tea and knows every single tea in the place (Some background - the whole exterior of this place is nothing but different type of tea from different places. There is even tea on a year basis type).

Final conclusion - Choose the right guy!