Bao Today, Marina Square

Bao Today at Marina Square (#02-234-235/236) is a little dim sum place a difference in ingredients and delivery. From the menu of Bao Today prices aren't over the roof. In fact, it was really affordable. I've personally been told that the food here isn't really exceptional (euphemism for mediocre if you didn't catch the drift) by people that I know (and trust in recommendations). Still I didn't think that it would be so bad that I would write them off without even trying. It's not too bad really. For their prices, it was actually decent. But as I like to think it, taste, like art is subjective.

Minced meat & century egg congee

@ $2.50 a bowl, I got a generous amount of minced meat and some bits of century eggs in there, however it's a very noticeably smaller bowl than I expected. I think it's of a good size if you're doing dim sum and not just having congee. Not mediocre, just pretty ordinary.

Xiao long bao

The xiao long baos ($3) were actually a disappointment. They seem to contain little soup in each dumpling. The skins of the dumpling stuck to any surface they come in contact with so picking them up was tedious process. If you're concerned with having them with the juices intact well..... Crystal Jade and Din Tai Feng does much better ones than these. These, are truly mediocre.

har gao (prawn dumplings)

The prawn dumpings ($3.50) here are quite large. The prawn filling however does come with something which could be fish paste as they look fused together. In all, it was not too bad, but I couldn't wipe away the suspicions of the fillings.

Open faced buns

A basket of these open faced buns came at $2.50. These aren't the usual baos as we know them. What you get is an assortment of meats (pork, shrimp and maybe chicken) with mushrooms and salted egg yoke laid on top of clam shaped "half buns". It looks gimmicky, but didn't taste too bad.

Bao Today's signature Black Sesame Bun with pork fillings

Noteable things about these black sesame buns apart from the grayish skin shade is that the interior were filled with soup or juices more than a usual bao has. For a non dumpling, the insides were really wet and biting into them risks those hot juices bursting into your mouth. I didn't really think too much of the meat fillings which has a generic processed meat flavor making it quite unidentifiable. The black sesame which has been added into the flour that made the bun didn't have the fragrance I was expecting neither.

a gaping wound in the Black Sesame Bun

With a name like Bao Today, I think that it would be great if there was some improvement in how their buns are done. I expected so.

The Diamond Cut

Lawry's is currently doing a promotion called The More the Merrier (it ends in a couple of days so hurry!) Basically they subject the interested to a mind boggling formula which calculates a certain discount percentage based on the number of mains ordered which goes something like x = (total amount of mains X 10) - 10 where x is the said discount in percentage which only applies to mains. Phew, I'm sure it didn't boggle you there. What better time than now to take advantage of the deal for some solid juicy prime ribs... or a Diamond Jim Brady. This promotion does trim some corners off the usual offering that come with their meal. The servings of the Yorkshire pudding were reduced to a single piece per person as compared to the usual entire pudding per person. How much cost could they have saved for some eggs and flour anyway?


The Diamond Jim Brady cut from Lawry's is their largest cut, weighing 450g. For $94.80, one can land themselves a juicy and most satisfying slab of prime rib meat. Does cost a pretty penny obviously. I'll save myself the usual description and let the pictures do the talking. This was the first time I'm having one and in retrospect, I think nothing else smaller might do in the future.

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.