Re-visiting Alice Boulangerie @ Icon Village

Quick one from Alice Boulangerie.

Basque bleu cheese tart. 😬

Not as melty as I imagined but the blue cheese flavour was a superb blend with the creamy sweetness and the buttery pastry without being overpowering. 👍🏼 

Nicely done Paris Brest. Choux pastry was a little denser than I imagined though.

Not bad hōjicha cream latte.

Couldn't get past the orange Americano. 😬 While there are probably a few renditions of this drink around, this one was I suppose, a bit more......indulgent. That coming from the orangey sweet creaminess. 

Casa Vostra, Jem

Casa Vostra has opened an outpost at Jem (#01-03 Jem, 50 Jurong Gateway Road) and it appears to have inherited the queue which is equally crazy as the original spot at Raffles City. We got there 15 minutes before opening and ended up spending about an hour in that queue.

There were some things on the menu that were only available here though.

Like their polpette alla fonduta featuring fried meatballs in Taleggio fondue. Great stinky cheese which we enjoyed - couldn't tell what meat the meatballs were made of after that though.

Aglio e olio's nice. It looked a lot spicer than it tasted because of red came from sun dried tomatoes. The one thing that this rendition differed from other aglio olio was the lack of garlic.

Pizza only available in this outpost included the 5 formaggi e pear. Found this very easy to like. I thought it needed a bit more of that pear compote for a more pronounced counter sweetness but I'm not complaining.

Another pizza only available here was their Amalfitana that's basically the seafood pie. Prawns, squid and clams. There was an option to top up extra prawns which we did. Profile's light tomato tanginess with clean thalassic flavour. Nice. Wish there were more clams though.

Just needed to end this with the triple espresso tonic after all the food.

Revisiting Oriental Kopi @ Bugis Junction

We've been wanting to come back to the local branch of Oriental Kopi. As far as we could tell, there wasn't much difference from their Malaysian counterparts.

Think I like their iced kopi better than the hot one. I get the impression that those iced ones seem to be more robust.

Wanted to have a go with their delicious chicken rice and the lime-y chilli here. Couldn't discern any difference between the one in Malaysia and this one so...as far as I was able to tell, they're both kinda equally good.

Dry mee siam's not bad. It has the same texture as their other bee hoon.

The other thing we wanted to try was their rojak. Underneath the blanket of crushed peanuts were cucumber, turnip, guava and pineapple. I'm not a fan of a couple of things. The rojak sauce wasn't great. And then there's the crunchy you tiao which were like biscuits rather than fried dough fritters.

Orange Americano from Cocobella Lifebar

I've never stepped into this place (#01-55 One Holland Village, 7 Holland Village Way) until today. Got an Orange Americano. This rendition came with coconut water. Since this was a "coconut water bar" and that coconut water has got to get in with the coffee and orange juice, something had to give. It wasn't a bad drink but as far as this beverage went, Alice Boulangerie and Luckin makes better ones. This one just tried.

Sunning Restaurant (新寧餐廳), Lee Theatre, Causeway Bay

Sunning Restaurant (Shop B, 16/F, Lee Theatre Plaza, 99 Percival Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2890 2029 / 2576 3301) has the same kind of vibe that old school institutions back home like Shashlik, The Ship or The Tavern have. That's what they are. Restaurants that were classy as defined from their era, enduring and a lot of nostalgia involved for a certain demographic who have spending power.  

The bread basket is better than what Shashlik and The Ship has though.

Mushroom cream soup. I was surprised that the soup actually had some flavour of mushrooms. 😬

This one was oyster bongo soup. The name got me intrigued.

I don't know how the name was supposed to describe the soup but it's a cream soup with spinach and a large oyster. And yes, there was some oyster flavour in the soup. Even though it looked just like the mushroom cream soup. Oyster's great.

Menu called this baked pickle ox tongue with rice so I was curious as well. 'Pickle' was probably an inaccurate translation. The more appropriate word would be 'corned'. Like corned beef.

Lots of tongue in the creamy rice layered with a bit of toasted cheese.

Their rack of lamb was breaded and fried instead of grilled.

We asked for medium but it's close to well done. Pretty tender and fatty though. Tasted better than it looked.

This one not Hainanese coffee. It's freshly ground beans and better tasting.

Lok Yuen (樂園), Kowloon City Municipal Services Building, Kowloon City

Breakfast at Lok Yuen (3/F Kowloon City Municipal Services Building, Kowloon City, Hong Kong, tel : +65 +852 2382 3367). Their menu at this shop has a bit of variety which consists of ingredients that are put together in various permutations. Just like many of the bing sutt or char chaan teng.

While they've caught up with a QR menu for ordering, payment here appears to be cash only still.

Red bean with bottled milk. Kinda nice.

I was curious about this one.

Satay beef stuffed in French toast with butter and condensed milk drizzled over. Not so different from eating a fried bao with the sweet meat fillings. It's not bad.

Lok Yuen's special stir fried noodles feature bits of chopped up luncheon meat, pickled mustard, fried egg, spring onions and cabbage. A little pricey but portions were good and I enjoyed this.

Milk tea with almond. I saw them adding the almond powder into their brewed tea. The beverage turned out to be pretty viscous with both the flavour of the almond powder and the tea coming through. For the benefit of those that may not be aware, the almond referred to here is Chinese almond which are actually apricot kernels.

Lemon tea's pretty astringent. But that's how we usually like it.

Dinner at Kam Wah Cafe (金華冰廳)

First time getting dinner at Kam Wah Cafe. Admittedly, this wasn't one of the better dinners we've had.

Their rendition of yang zhou fried rice (扬州炒饭) had char siew, shrimps, ham and cabbage. In terms of ingredients, it looked to be much better than the majority back home. But it was too oily and a little too bland. The suitable adjective to describe it is 'edible'.

Also couldn't get behind Kam Wah's rendition of xing zhou mi fen (星洲米粉). Turmeric laced, spicy and a tad too oily. Tasted nothing like the version back home which we much prefer. Why the bell peppers? The flavour profile of this plate tasted...Portuguese.

The club sandwich (公司三文治) was a better eat than the other two things we got above. Should've just stuck to this.

Thankfully as well, their 茶走 remains a reliably good cup of creamy aromatic tea.

Tonight's a valuable lesson about how a nice breakfast spot we like doesn't necessarily agree with us during dinner. All the greasy burps we got was enough incentive telling us that we should never come back for any of their post breakfast food.

Coffee Jack, Hau Wo Street, Kennedy Town

Ducked into this hole-in-the-concrete (Shop 3, G/F, Shun Fai Building, 19 Hau Wo Street, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong) refuge in the middle of the day. It was quiet, dimmed down and pretty peaceful; worthy of the description 'sanctuary'.

Got a couple of espresso tonics. Left's lychee and right's cucumber. The lychee one tasted fruity but not distinctively lychee. In fact, I couldn't tell. The cucumber one was nicer because it tasted like cucumber. Decent tasting espresso but we didn't get them just for the coffee. It was the flavour and the fizz in the shady bolthole.