The soup & bread bar @ Cedele

Spinach & chicken soup

For $7.50 one can get lunch in Cedele at the soup and bread bar. Which was soup they have for the day and a free flow of bread that you can help yourself with from their bread bar. There a small variety like the regular baguette, walnut loaf, garlic focaccia and some other dark rye bread. The soup was warm and pretty decent but the bread however were generally hard and cold. Despite the fact that the place always appears crowded at lunchtime, the turnover for the bread bar doesn't occur frequently enough. Probably means that they're not a popular choice since the carbs tend send us halfway through to the midday siesta as we struggle to pretend to stay awake at work. Lol.

Muthu's Curry, Suntec City Mall Basement

From Race Course Road, Muthu's Curry has expanded into prime grounds at the basement at Suntec City. I hadn't expect the variety in the menu since everyone only talks about their curry fish head which led to my assumption that it was mostly what they served. Apparently, their menu is fairly comprehensive.


This was the smallest order of the Curry Fish Head. $20. It served about 3. Almost. The gravy was less viscous and was also not as robust tasting as I was expecting. That was not to say that it was not good, but it was thin enough that I could actually drink it like soup. Which I did for most of the part after the dippers (the tandoori prata and cheese naan) ran out.

Taandori prata

Cheese naan

I hadn't a clue what a tandoori prata could be until today. Essentially, it's a roti prata that looked like it was baked rather than pan fried. Tasted like it contained less oil with a texture that was something between a regular roti prata and chapati. I much preferred the cheese naan but that's coming from someone who digs cheese in general. And of course, the palak paneer didn't escape my notice...


Their's was fine and smooth compared some other places. I noticed that they fried their cottage cheese cubes and that gave them more fragrance. If I might say so, this was one of the more buttery tasting spinach puree I've had.

Back in Banoo

My previous visits to Banoo had always been positive experiences. This weekend lunch made another another one of them. From the food to the service, I have had little to complain about eating here. Food has been great and the people here are well.....friendly. In comparison with the other restaurants down in Mohd Sultan Road, Banoo was even relatively inexpensive.

Shiraishi, Ritz Carlton Millenia (lunch)

Lunch with sinquanon88. For how much Shiraishi charges, I had expected to leave lunch feeling much more satisfied than I actually did. I'm not sure if this was a bad day for the restaurant but I opine that expensive places cannot afford bad days because they not charge bad day rates. No one comes in paying for your bad day service. And if that wasn't a bad day, I ought to be getting my friends avoid it. Not much of ambience while the food and service didn't cut it. Don't know what had people been paying for.

The lunch menu here run from $30 to $85. I ended up with a Hisago bento ($50) because of a mistake by the waitress. Impressions kind of went downhill from there. Getting a wrong order on a manageable lunch crowd in a small restaurant was pretty bad. Especially if you still tried to argue that you had gotten it it right and I was sure as hell that I had asked for something else. I let the mistake slide because I had been waiting for some time and was hungry. The thought of waiting through a change of order just didn't sit.

I was charged $5 for their otoshi (pickled vegetables). That looked to me to be hefty for a tiny amount of vegetables which I could fit in my mouth at a go. Lol. The Hisago bento came with rice that was laid with tempura fritter bits of prawn and sweet potato. That came with a serving of sashimi, miso cod, soup (a choice of clear or miso), a small salad, some fried tofu stuff and ankimo. Wrapped up with a dessert of fruits (sliced watermelon and mango). Since this was a first visit, I couldn't resist doing an uni test.

rice with tempura prawn bits and sweet potato

mixed sashimi

miso cod

uni gunkans ($30)

Shiraishi for lunch was very pricey. While the food was pretty decent, I didn't feel it was worth what I paid for. To credit where it is due, the sashimi was of fresh tasting and the uni was definitely better than some other place which I've paid more for. Still I left slightly disappointed with the entire experience. For what they charged, I would much rather re-visit Aoki which I thought was a much better deal.

Lunch @ Garibaldi

Lunch with fatpig. I'm quite enamoured with Garibaldi. The restaurant has a certain charm or class which I don't quite sense elsewhere. Service was attentive and the ambience could be pleasantly peaceful for a romantic dinner or warm for a gathering of friends...depending on when you turn up. Just some thoughts on the place.

Garibaldi does a 3 course lunch plus coffee at $29++ from 12pm to 2.30pm which I think is pretty good deal when other spots in town are having theirs for ten or twenty dollars more. The lunch menu is changed every Thursday and options are available for starters and mains.

Today, mine was a Vitello Tonnato (thinly sliced and cooked veal in tuna sauce and capers), followed by a penne al salmone spinaci e crema di zafferano (penne with salmon and spinach in saffron cream) and a dessert of hazelnut chocolate and pistachio gelato.

Vitello Tonnato

"Magnum"

"Blue Steel"

penne al salmone spinaci e crema di zafferano

hazelnut chocolate and pistachio gelato

The vitello tonnato really got my saliva flowing, I meant, it's the tuna sauce. That sauce was applied in moderation that you could taste the veal. In comparison, the one which we had a Papi was totally smothered you couldn't really taste anything else apart from the tuna.

The penne came with hot saffron cream sauce which was delicious. Some of those sauce actually squirted out as I bit into the pasta

Chin Chin Eating House, 19 Purvis Street

Located near to the Beach Road end of Purvis Street (across the road from Yet Con), this old school coffee shop serves Hainanese food in the form of various stir frys, braises as well as chicken rice (both roasted chicken and boiled variety). These guys are one of the eateries known for  chicken rice amongst other things. The locale in this area between Bugis and Beach Road is also a hub of chicken rice stalls. Competition is about and Chin Chin lools to be doing better than the next door, also another Hainanese coffee shop that too sells chicken rice.

We got ourselves a serving of their chicken rice for two along with stir fried sliced fish in black bean sauce and Hainanese pork chop. Does anyone know what makes Hainanese pork chop distinctively Hainanese?

sliced fish in black bean sauce

Hainanese pork chop

Chicken rice here was pretty regular tasting. Not outstanding as far as I could tell. The rice wasn't fluffy and was little dry. Wouldn't call it bad - just unremarkable. Still it seemed to be the the thing to be getting here as evidenced by the neighbouring tables. The sliced fish in black bean sauce disappointed with their sauce. There wasn't much of that fermented black bean flavour. The portions of the fish were generous though and tasted pretty fresh.

Chin Chin's pork chops shone in comparison with the other dishes. The fried pork were not sliced overly thin and had a tasty crust. My only gripe was that it didn't taste freshly fried. The total cost of for this dinner plus two lime juices came to $22.