Small Potatoes Make The Steak Look Bigger

Glutton Bay (Esplanade Mall) emerged after Glutton Square (Orchard Road) was closed and the construct is basically a representation of asian food, more rather, popular local street food at it's better. Seriously, after a tryout, I'm far from being impressed. To be fair, I did not manage to sample all there is to be offered. But I think I can positively claim that I know of more than a small handful who are able to recommend a better player for most of the stall options available here. And I wouldn't be too sure about Makansutra's claims about the term "top hawkers" which is probably a very loose and superficial reference. It's probably good gathering spot for tourists to sample local fares though. Since it's tourist prices here anyway. A note to remember if you do try, avoid the horrible sambal squid.

Irish ale tavern that has chunky chilli crab dip for chips. That's something to say about Muddy Murphy (442 Orchard Road #B1-01/01-06, Orchard Hotel Shopping Arcade). Well, maybe not in here. I generally like Irish themed pubs and it has to do with the word Strongbow. Now a couple of other reasons I can throw in to come back is their bar snacks which while not amazing, happens to me as something I could come back for again. Chilli crab dip and green lip mussels.

The chilli crab dip taste like what you expect from regular chilli crab. Well, it probably isn't as spicy as some can get, but it's the local chilli crab sauce we're talking about here so this is really localised and not just an attempt do a western rendition of chilli. The mussels are fresh, large and chewy. And chewy in a good way full of bite. Something that the sweeter smaller varieties from Norway that Brussels Sprouts serve, doesn't bring.

Marmalade Pantry (Palai Renaissance, B1-08/11, Orchard Road) is a spiffy tai tai canteen that is secluded in the basement of a building laden with branded boutiques. I guess it's only food adventurous people like me who bother finding out and getting to know people who know that I learnt of the ultimate beef burger and I came here just to try their ultimate beef burger today. Well, I had soup too. And service here on Saturday is poor, poor and poor. Places that want their customers to wait to be served should earn that station. And the very first step to that is to ensure that there is always someone available to be in attendance. And it looks pretty understaffed with half the place filled up.

The parsnip sweep potato and butternut soup was a bad call on my part. I didn't really like it since I was expecting the just a nice butternut soup. It tasted more like a carrot flavored dahl. Very unremarkable except for the cheese filled loaf that's accompanied on the side.


I thought it might have been better minus the mayo but I'm not complaining. It would definitely have scored more points with cheese, but again, I'm not complaining. This is a serious heavyweight beef burger with a firm, dense and thick patty atop slices of gherkins that makes holding the burger together a tad a slippery affair. Juices dripped as I ate, so that's a good sign. Now this is the kind of leagues we're looking at similar to the Brewerkz Bistro Burger and the sirloin burger from the late überburger. The thick looking bun is much softer than it looks and it's actually not bad. Though it's probably a bit pricey at $19.

We live in a world where commercial fast food restaurant chickens are sold by aged country singers and even long dead colonels. Kenny Rogers is another one of those that used to have better tasting roasted chickens in the past, but has seen declining standards very much like many other restaurants without exceptions. It seems that all commercial food businesses are condemned somehow into a slow downward spiral which is a sad thing.


The chicken here is still decent actually, and it's not too bad a roast if you ask me. The portions are however wildly inconsistent and very much dependent on the "luck of the draw". Some times you get more and sometimes, it's just pathetic. The lack of consistency for that is a major drawback for me. Also, the signature roast chicken doesn't get into the lunch deals which instead, gives the option of some chicken filet. I had to get the regular quarter chicken ($13.55 with tax) off the menu. What's the deal? The management that decided on the menu of their lunch packages obviously do not care about the company. How much more obvious can that get when you throw in shitty lunch deals that make people not want to come back again after having them one time? I didn't make that up. That's what my new Israeli colleague told me.

The side of macaroni with cheese and corn muffin fortunately still delivers.

Wow, this is probably the cheapest place I've encountered gnocchi so far. I'm pleasantly surprised that Miss Clarity is making inroads into the not so commonly available pasta around here. At $9.80 and no service charge in the cafe, there is probably no one else that makes this available at a lower price. It's almost three times more across the road at Garibaldi. This one comes with a smoky cabonara like sauce topped with artichokes, sundried tomatoes and real bacon. The cooking was done with good timing as none of them looked like they were about to be disssolved.

This little and not so hidden gem of a food court located near the Napier Road entrance of the Botanic Gardens reminds me of King Albert Park. And it's actually quite a pleasant place to eat at the spacious outdoors from the serenity during the quieter week evenings. I hear that it gets really crowded in the weekends and holidays. Foodcourts generally are boring for me. At least in the context of local ones, they abide by a very similar configuration of stalls and are currently monopolised (mostly) by the food court conglomerates that inject little variables into individual outlets with the exception of a few like the Food Republic at Wisma. So the generally impression that gives is that they are costly (in the context of their food versus good old hawker places) and do not taste very good. Once in a while, exceptions to occur.

The stores in Taman Serasi Food Garden (1 Cluny Road) are named after the food types which the stalls as in most of the others, so it's pretty easy to figure out what you want from the huge labels hanging overhead in front of the stall units. There's the usual nasi padang, fish soup, chinese mixed rice, roasted meats, dessert and drink stall. The drink store here actually has Erdinger. Wow. A unique vendor in this place that doesn't go by the regular labels is Yummy Crab. Yummy Crab does a variety of food items with crab ( e.g. noodles & rice). And they whip up a mean fried rice with crab meat!


What you get basically is a rather generic fried rice. Generic means that it's not even in the league of Crystal Jade, but I think that is not the point here. Apart from the regular diced roasted pork (larger chunks here!), egg and shrimps (larger shrimps too!), you get a generous amount of crab meat with the roe. I noted that the rice is not of the dryer variety, so we're talking about better grains and still decent cooking standards for such a dish. To make note, this fried rice does come at a fairly hefty cost. This portion which feeds one hungry big eater or two smaller appetites is priced at $18.


For a week night there was only a few people in the queue in front of the stall. I'm told that it does get horrendously long during the weekends and crab noodles (which seem to be a trend nowadays) are also one of their specialty. I don't like do deal with shells and bones normally, so this fried rice works wonderfully for me. Enough of the crab and let's move on to the other stuff.


There roasted meat store serves excellent char siew. I like the way they are done here with charred edges that adds to the sweet fragrance of the exterior of the meat. The roast meat and duck (too much fat under the skin) wasn't exceptional though they came in rather generous portions.

Another item I shouldn't neglect to mention is the combo murtabak which is available in the Indian food store. I heard that this is the store that used to be located just across the road towards the direction of Gleneagles in the old hawker centre (gone a long time ago) with leaky roofs during the rain which I fondly remember for the Roti John and teh tarik.


It really looks quite mundane, though a little larger than usual compared to the regular murtabaks. What makes the combo murtabak here is the use of variety in the fillings instead of the single meat type which most stores do. This featured one contains shredded chicken and ground mutton. There is the seafood option for the combo murtabak which looks deliciously messy from pictures at the store. One of the uncommon things about the murtabak here is the addition of sliced fresh green chilli which gives the prata more kick in the arena of spice. I certainly appreciated that. Also, this store does crab murtabak and the logical speculation is that it's a collaboration with Yummy Crab which probably provides the meat. Something I'll want to check out the next time I come back.

These are one of my guilty pleasures in life. Buttered and lightly oven toasted buns, double patty, double cheddar cheese, lettuce and marinated ground beef hand made patties. It's a lot more work than it looks getting everything prepared. I'm still trying to find out how to make the patties more firm. Also trying to find someone who will hand chop the meat instead of getting minced ones. Suggestions will be entertained.

Baladi at North Bridge Road (across the road from the mosque at Arab Street) purports to be a place that serves authentic Lebanese food. I think this is the first time I am having Lebanese and a lot of parallels can be drawn with what they eat to the Iranians. In fact, I'm not really sure what is the difference between the cuisine of the two cultures. It's grilled meats, flatbread, hummus, rice, more vegetable dips and arrays of spiced teas.

Disappointing is a rather appropriate word to describe the experience here. And the disappointment trails after the fact that I was already prepared, knowing that such an offer comes probably with fine print. Is that bad or what? Let's start from the beginning. Honjin offers a self termed lobster a la carte buffet at $52++ if I remember correctly. The buffet includes a menu of a tiny variety of various options from sashimi, sushis, tempura, yakimono, agemono, ramen, temakis and so forth. UOB card holders get a 1 for 1 deal in this buffet. Now that "buffet" and "1 for 1" is mentioned, you think you're probably geared up for what's to expect for the lobster. You think! Behold the lobster butteryaki portion for 2!


Yeah, that's pretty much 2 mouthfuls for you there. The condition attached to this a la carte lobster buffet is that each table is only eligible for one serving. Yup, you read that right. One serving per table, not per patron. Yippieee!!! I wonder why with foresight did I not see that coming from 3 meters away. And the supposed top notch executive chef that runs the show with supposedly 15 years of experience which includes places like Nadaman and Keyaki? This puts into me some questionable light about what kind of experience was that. Hell, dishwashing is experience too.


The food on the whole is palatable. Certain items turned out to be pretty good (tasting better than they look) while others fared worse than Sakae Sushi. This is definitely not a place that I would re-visit and yes, I am basing that decision from an a la carte buffet. One can reasonably expect lowered standards because of the nature of buffets in the effort to churn food out en mass to a contingent of hungry people. This is simply a lack of effort with respect to the quality and for one that did not receive that benefit of the UOB card offer, it would too be very reasonable to think that it is seriously overpriced with mediocre food to boot.


I shall refrain from further visual terrorism. I'm positive that in the realms of a la carte buffets, I've had better.

Changing Appetities (Marina Square #01-204/205), located just beside Carl's Jr actually does a sort of western/japanese fusion in the menu. You get to see wasabi, green tea plus and mash of a variety of cooking methods e.g. Tex Mex, pasta and et cetera items which really takes the finger away from them if we're talking about identity. The food comes fairly affordable in the similar price range of eateries like Swensens and Sizzlers with a more creative menu. I actually don't really think too much of them apart from being a novelty when I first visited them a few years back when they were just opened.


The Classic Double 2 Thick burger ($15.90) is really, just thick. I don't know if anyone can actually bite into a double patty like that so, the fork and knife is truly necessary to just polish off the first patty. The patty despite it's impressive appearance isn't the firm type which I was hoping for. It breaks apart fairly easily and there is no query for done-ness for the patty. It's all cooked to a default done-ness unless there is specific request otherwise. The marination of the meat is so distinctive that it takes the beef out of beefiness. So I really wouldn't be able to tell, from the taste what meat it is. The saving grace of that is that, it wasn't actually too bad. And to my surprise they actually use a dense brown rye bread which was quite good with the buttered insides.

Brewerkz, conspicuously located at the ground floor of Riverside Point by virtue of the unit spaces it occupies, position itself to be one of the really attractive watering holes around and despite the emergence of many other fanciful competitors and those that arm themselves with the shiny spiffy arsenal of a microbrewery, this place to me still remains one of the better locations for good beer at reasonable prices. If you have ever dropped by in the afternoon, you will realise that Brewerkz has the cheapest beer in town due to their lowered prices in the day. Bar none.

This also makes it a good place to do dinner because there is really little need to adjourn for drinks. Ever since I can recall, which I actually have no idea when that is, it's always had a healthy crowd and dropping by with no reservation is usually never a good idea. Good selection of decent food, great drinks, reasonable prices....take down the secret formula the rest of you, goddamnit!

To the Bistro Burger...


Brewerkz actually serves pretty decent burgers. What we have here is minimal pretension and the gears shift towards heartiness. We're also looking at a level where the doneness of the patty has to be indicated. The Bistro Burger ($19.90) is just a regular hearty burger which is the way burgers should be everywhere else that thinks to justify their upscaled prices. These people should know whom I am refering to. The main factor that drove me to order this is the smelly blue cheese.


Yes, on the patty sits a lump of pungent milk curdle. This is definitely not the stinkiest of it's varietal, but packs enough stench for most cheese lovers to be satiated by the taste. The patty is a good medium done, firm and not crumbly. Very much like the hand chopped patty from the sirloin burger from überburger. Paired with the ever good Golden Ale (truly a nectar among beers), it isn't very hard to understand why people keep coming back.

This actually isn't as good as it looks on the menu and I should have known. But now I can convince myself that I've tried and that I didn't avoid it based on pre-emptive prejudice on my part. For one, the noodles turned out softer than even those in the soup based noodle and the bottom of the bowl is actually filled with diluted teriyaki sauce which didn't do much to enhance any of the taste. The sogginess is probably due to them being soaked in the sauce for an overly long duration which kills the texture and bite. The chicken comes too with soggy skin instead of crispy and there is no fragrance. Looks like it's only soup ramen (which sees falling standards like many other places over time) for me at Ajisen now.

This place is actually a basement unit at the junction of Beach Road and Middle Road in a building NTUC Income Beach Junction (#B1-01/02). From the posters on the walls of the entrance, it has been visited and talked about and probably appeared on television. It's actually another outlet of the Indonesian nasi ayam penyet franchise that is scattered sparsely about the island. This outlet seems to be noticeably better than the one I tried at Chong Pang. For one, it gives more sides with some tempeh, cooked kang kong and tauhu goren instead of just a cherry tomato and a stick of cucumber. It seems that differing franchise outlets have different serving standards for the food. The Chong Pang version provided chicken rice while this came with plain white rice. And here, there's a slathering of crispy crumbs which was really a nice plus. Curiosity drove me to try the beef version of the dish (at $6) which the menu describes as steak. Yeah, right.....! Well, it came as expected to be the usual dry beef chunk.

So that's how smashed beef appears. Taste aside, the extras from this place puts it over the top with the Chong Pang version which to their detriment, does not seem to have as good a chilli sauce. This one gave a helluva kick (the kind that sends the immediate prickling sensation up your scalp) which makes their nasi smashed XXX a winner over the other previous location. There is more spice than sweet in this one.


Apart from the meat being a tad try, I must say that this is quite good stuff. The good that comes is largely helped by the exceptional chilli sauce which made me eat rice faster than usual and finish them before the rest of the meat and vegetables. It's so good you would want to ask for more.

If you're wondering from the title, this is what it is. Squid ink sauce linguine with oxtail and baby squids and it comes from Miss Clarity. This is pretty good, although the al dente needs some work. With that done plus a bit of polish on the presentation, we're looking at some competition for Garibaldi across the road. Seriously, I think so. I'll be back again another day. This place looks to make a serious and price conscious substitute for the other Italian places with their pasta. I said substitute, not replacement.

This return to Cafe de Amigo has actually been prompted by the availability of Argentinian beef tenderloin. Heads up from Recentrunes. Never having had them before, curiosity leads me down by the nose for lunch. My previous visit ended with mixed feelings about the place. While the food is decent with what I felt to be an array of hits and misses, the price of the place lowers the entire satisfaction experience from dining here. As with the service, things here are feel scripted or pruned to a level where one cannot really complain about inadequacy, but otherwise feels lacking in warmth.


I'm generally quite wary of lobster bisque. Apart from a wonderful rendition from Coachman Inn which I've had about half my life ago and a very good one from Morton's in the recent weeks, I've never really found any of the others that I've tried to be good, or even remotely close for that matter. Cafe de Amigo seems to have whipped up a pretty good version of the soup. Albeit not as robust in flavor as the former two which I mentioned, I have to say that this is a pleasant surprise based on many poorer prior experiences. One of the appreciated things about the soup apart from the rich buttery flavor is the presence of a fairly generous portions of lobster meat.


The escargot ragout turn out to be very savory starter. What's involved in this is basically escargots housed in mini puffs with some garlic cream sauce and topped with chopped almond. The ragouts comes with a very generous portion of the sauce which while was pretty good, became overwhelming together with the puffs, drowning out most of what is to be tasted of the snails. I'm not complaining on this one, really. I enjoyed them. And the remaining excess sauces works with bread as well.


This charred piece of meat is the highlight of lunch for me. I wasn't really sure what to expect out of Argentinian beef, but it turns out that it wasn't really distinctive from other beef which I've had. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be or not neither. In fact, the taste was less robust in comparison with US and Australian beef. Not quite what I was expecting after reading about it. What was distinctive about the steak is the amazing juicy tenderness. If not for other aspects of the beef, the succulence is remarkable and surprisingly so to a level that I didn't quite anticipate. The steak is accompanied by sides of fries, boiled vegetables and a cream peppercorn sauce.



I'm don't know what leng fish is, but it tasted quite ordinary and it's something that I wouldn't order for myself. The duck breast was of more note, in medium doneness with a prune sauce of sorts and accompanied by some potato croquette and poached spinach with garlic. The meat is a tad dry and flat in flavor, however I think it's still acceptable and the accompanying sauce does enhance the taste to a noticeable degree.


The apple pie seems to have shrunk a little from the last visit, but it is still good. In fact, this time round, I think it got a little better. Freshly made, sliced apples on top of a light buttery crust is good with vanilla ice cream.

This trip was worth it for the beef I imagine. It's too bad it won't be available for much longer. One more week I hear, so you don't want to wait too long if you're keen to try it. I think I felt better about Cafe de Amigo this time round, but still can't shake the feeling that they're still pricey for what they offer.

Woohoo! It's been a long time since I've bought CDs. HMV tempted this morning by playing it and I succumbed. Long live Sharon Den Adel!!!

This simply means that I struck at Kazu again. Reservations was made at approximately 2.30pm and we were told that there were only seats at the counter left on a Thursday night. That spoke some about the patronage that the place is receiving.Being seated at the counter also means that I get to gawk at the sizzling grill, see what comes off the grill and get to ask about what I cannot identify.


It is inevitable for one who has eaten at both Kazu and Kushigin to make comparisons on the offerings by both since the focus is on charcoal grills. After tonight, Kazu remains the undisputed triumpant option simply because, it edges Kushigin out a notch in terms of quality, and beats it hands down in variety. Though I must lament the disappointment that I have for being out of the shortneck clams and anglerfish liver which I had originally intended to make home in my stomach tonight. The crab and pumpkin croquette has also been replaced by the crab and corn.


This is a minced chicken in miso sauce over cooked pumpkin. Nothing fancy but if you like pumpkin, you'll probably want to give it a try. I thought it turned out to be quite a good snack. Even the carb fillers here are something to look forward to in the department of taste.


This is basically rice infused with oyster flavor and piecemeal vegetables in the mix. The portions are actually quite small, so it doesn't fill one up very much. Served hot, it comes rather tasty and taste a lot like yam rice. The only gripe on this is that there is very little oyster that comes with the rice. I counted only one oyster. Would have been good to have a couple more in it. This isn't featured on the menu since it's seasonal.











Excellent stuff. The scallops and prawns are deceptively juicy as with all the other grills in this place.



Did I say deceptively juicy before? Here's another one that you can pay heed to.


Kazu serves a mean lamb chop. I mean this boned meat tops the one I had at Kushigin which I thought was pretty damn good already. Sizzling hot meat and fat wrapped with char marked surface with pinkish juicy flesh near the bone, you'll be surprised how many other places that serve lamb don't do lamb chops this good.


These sweet potatoes are excellent. Even more so with the butter which you can rub over and let melt into the potato which is exuding fragrance and delightfully sweet in it's own right. If you haven't had these Japanese sweet potatoes before, this is a good place to try them. I ate it, skin and all. The cook process is just a grill and what you taste is essentially the root of a wonderful dish where condiments are really unnecessary and the butter is but a plus. Pun intended.


This seems to be a signature tiramisu of Kazu. The reason as explained by the server, why it is called bbq tiramisu is because the top of the mascarpone is scorched to create a moderately charred surface before the cocoa powder is sprinkled on the surface. The result is a smoky fragrance that comes with the bitter (and choke inducing) cocoa pairing with the sweet mascapone cream which actually has texture like a soft pudding than the usual firm cream feel.

Morton's may make the best crab cakes in town, but Menotti's crocchette aren't too bad neither at less than half the price. Breaded and fried to a crispy golden brown surface, these saltish cakes are made of shredded crab meat instead of whole sinews of flesh. Apart from the big M, I'm definitely hard pressed to find better of such a snack anywhere else here. I'll be glad to be proven wrong though if you can.

Out of the Pan has be around for years as far as I can remember and this is actually the first time I'm eating here despite being tempted by the aromas that frequently escape this place as one makes their way on the escalators that flank the eatery. If you truly have not heard of this place before, you need to get out more and look out for a very visible fountain at the basement of Raffles City. The main servings in this place is crepe (mostly around the range of $12-$14) as one can obviously tell from a glance which comes in either plain, whole wheat or sundried tomato flour. Apart from that, there is a small selection of salads and crepe and waffle based sweets on the menu. Despite the small selection of filling options, the place is almost constantly crowded during meal hours and that makes me wonder why. I'm not saying that the food is of low standards, the crepe is actually decent, but the crowd seems to speak better of the offerings than I believe. One of the plus points to commend here is that the Seafood Jungle option comes with real seafood. A generous amount of prawns, scallops and real shredded crab meat. I'm quite impressed that this place doesn't use crab sticks in their seafood whatever. It comes with an unidentifiable sauce which while wasn't spectacular is decent on the whole. The black pepper option lacks kick in the peppers (it's just the regular sweetish black pepper sauce) and well, do not expect too much in the way the beef is done. Overall the place is a decent deal, but I'm not exactly inclined to re-visit.

Kushigin (5 Koek Road, #01-01, Cuppage Plaza) appears to be another Japanese establishment similar to Kazu that specialises in the tasty charcoal grill located in the premise of the same building as the latter place. The decor of this small restaurant hints at traditional small Japanese eateries with the exception of the choice of music which ranges strangely from retro pop to stuff from the 70s. Which is something that feels totally off synch with the generic ambience visually set by the place. Otherwise, the Kushigin sees a small private dining area, a common seated area which constitutes most of the restaurant along with a bar seat situated conventionally in front of the grill. What this place pales in comparison with Kazu is that they lack the astounding variety of grilled items, however this by no means says that they quality is likewise lacking. In fact, the grills from this place is as good if not better. Judging from the crowd of the restaurant at dinner, this would be one of the two really good eating places in Cuppage Plaza. I mean good as in I would recommend it without reservations.

The menu here ranges the standard fare of Japanese restaurants like tempuras, sashimis, bento set dinners along with a decent array of grilled meats and vegetable options which I generally found to be mouth watering. We don't really see exotic items in there, but what's available is of undeniable quality.



An old and common favourite, nothing much needs to be said about bacon blanketed oysters.

This is another dinner a long time in coming. If I remember correctly, fatpig has made various previous arrangements which never took off because of various personal committments by the various attendees with various excuses for not being able to honor a simple dinner appointment right at the last moments. Well, this time round, some of us have actually made it. And to set the record straight, the anticipation of this dinner probably set expectations higher than the actual standards Xi Yan has. Well, for $105, I certainly expected better.

For those that are not in the know, Xi Yan is a private and somewhat secluded Chinese dining place (it actually looks like an art gallery) that hails from Hong Kong. The place is located along 38A Craig Road and is really not very visible from Craig Road itself. If you're interested in scouting out the location, remember the unit number or you'll never find it. How this place works is that you turn up for your appointment with them and you eat what they cook for the day. There is no a la carte order from the menu and this featured dinner is a fairly elaborate 12 course chinese fusion dinner which comes with a summary explanation of how each dish is painstakingly done by the serving waiter. Right. I mean, right on to the pictures....

greenhouse tomatoes in sesame sauce - these tomatoes are purported to be organic and grown in greenhouse. The texture of the tomatoes are noticeably different from regular ones and are actually quite close to perssimons rather than tomatoes. The accompanying sauce is a seasame vinagrette taste a lot like the bottled types easily found in the Japanese supermarkets. All in all, this turns out to be an appetizing starter.

cold tofu pork floss - this chilled tofu is the second starter of the dinner. The style of the dish is actually quite common. The server made mention of the tofu being freshly made instead of using ones that are purchased in bulk. Apart from the soy sauce which makes the whole dish appetizing, there's actually nothing special about the tofu.

shrimp and crab paste on baguette toast - as mentioned by the server, the paste of shrimp and crab taste like 'hay bee' or chilli shrimp that's quite common locally. This is totally uninteresting as a dish and in fact, tastes cheap

Sichuan pickles in spicy sauce - this apart from tasting cheap is probably really cheap. Strip sliced gherkins and radishes that are marinated in some spicy sichuan sauce. The effect to this dish is a combination of spiciness and sourness with a heavy hint of herbs. It wasn't any good to me.

deep fried prawns with salted egg yolk - the saving grace of the prawns is actually the sauce which is made with salted egg yolk which I personally felt was mouth watering. The prawns themselves aren't of the fresh crunchy type one would expect from a place like this and is totally below expectations. The result of it is a disappointment. Did I mention that they aren't well cleaned as well?

stewed beef shin in tangerine peel - I couldn't taste any tangerine peel in here, but the sauce that was used to stew the beef was full of tangerine flavour. The stewed beef was of pretty decent standards and was on the whole enjoyable.

fried lemongrass shrimp paste grouper - there's nothing very special about prawn paste fish and I'm sure the taste can be easily imagined. What I found to be good about this is actually the very tangy citrus pomelo salad filled with chopped water chestnut which made a surprising good compliment to the fried grouper.

basil sorbet intermezzo -basil sorbet with chopped fruits. There is nothing more to say about the palate cleanser.

furong chicken soup - a chicken soup which was less flavorful than I expected. Another dish that fell off the mark in this place. I'm sure I've had better soup elsewhere.

young and old happy news - for dou miao stir fried with preserved vegetables, this dish certainly had a cryptic name that got everyone on the table intrigued. The reason for the name on the other hand, was crappy. This is a very normal dish of fried dou miao, and I'm sure is rather inexpensive and easy to whip up. Thumbs down for a $105 dinner.

tofu ice cream on pandan glutinous rice - with the general impression of the food items here being mediocre, I certain had low expectations of the dessert. The pleasant surprise here is that this is actually very good. The fragrant pandan glutinous rice was coupled nicely with coconut milk and the cold ice cream made it a wonderful pairing resulting in a very Asian fusion taste. The tofu ice cream doesn't really taste much like tofu to me, but I'm not complaining about the taste. The whole dessert was satisfying to the point that I wished there was more. Someone out there should mimic this. It probably will sell.

The general feel of the dinner is that for the cost of it, it's a tad too pricey. The best I can say of Xi Yan is probably that it's good for an experience, not so much of the culinary expedition that one might expect from the place. The ideas of the fusion is well moderated without outlandish results, but however falls really short in the actual execution due to inadequate design of the menu and to my views, poor quality control of some of the ingredients used. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it.

Lawry's is currently undergoing a promotion which they dub as Simply the Best. Each day of the weekday gives diners a different promotional offer. But I'll clue you in straight on what's actually good. Go for the Wednesday early bird special where you get 50% off the bill. And the promotion's good til the end of April as I was told by their staff. It's half price off menu items and it's the only time you can get a solid slab of 450g prime rib for less than 50 bucks at that place. Check out that lovely pink flesh.

Garibaldi has of recent months(?) upped their cost for lunch. It used to be $29++ and now it's $32++. I'm not sure about a $3 increment in experience though. The deal for the lunch is still the same as before, 3 courses plus coffee or tea. This lunch was done with a reader whom has responded to and old post from last year. It's dated, but what the heck. It's usually interesting to meet new people and perspective. Especially people who enjoy a good meal.

Certainly, I'm not expecting any noticeable changes in both service and food quality as it wasn't that long back since I last ate here. I will try to remember to come back for dinner instead. It'll probably be more interesting than lunch and you'll get to see something else than pasta (which is btw, always an excellent al dente in hot sauce). ;)