Wan Hao, Marriott Hotel

I had been hearing aplenty about this Wan Hao from friends.

The food on the whole is not bad. Service was lousy. That's as simple as it can described. From the reception to the delivery of menu, it started off on a bad foot. Yeap, a bad foot. The manager at the reception didn't look interested and we were ushered in with the Golden 60s menu with the waitress at the border of confusion when I asked about the a la carte menu. To someone who is visiting the restaurant for the first time, it would appear that the Golden 60s menu is all they have. While I understood that it happened to be the current promotion for the restaurant, haven't they heard of options? Maybe it's just me.

sliced Yunan ham enveloped in vegetable wrap topped with crab meat and roe in egg white gravy

a close up

Seriously hard pressed to find the sliced Yunan ham in this one. This dish was expensive and unremarkable. It tastes exactly as it looks.

wok fried egg with shredded fish maw, crab meat, dried scallops and bean sprouts topped with crispy dried scallops

deep fried spare ribs with fresh strawberries & Grand Marnier sauce

The fried ribs were not too bad. Not excessively greasy and I could taste the strawberries from the sauce. Nothing from the Grand Marnier though. On the other hand the sauce also looked and tasted suspiciously like jam. Pretty sweet.

stir fried bean curd sheet with fresh mangoes, pineapples and mixed capsicums

crispy boneless chicken coated with almond slices in a light tempura batter with orange liqueur sauce

This was very fried chicken crusted with the sliced almonds. The supposed light tempura batter tasted like regular fried chicken batter. Perhaps I wasn't discerning enough to tell otherwise. The orange liqueur sauce was refreshing - came with diced orange pieces. There was citrus tanginess that I liked. This dish did also appear to be, an upmarket variant fried lemon chicken. Not saying that it is. Just that parallels can obviously be drawn if you strip away the almond slices and replace orange sauce.

cashew nut paste with peanut tang yuan

This was pretty good. Portions are pretty damn small too. Not one of the better cashew paste I've had though. Pretty sure the $2 ones in Chinatown tastes as good if not better. Comes in larger portions than this too. Hotel restaurants.

chilled black glutinous rice with soursop ice cream

The combination was actually not bad. Whom would have thought, black glutinous rice and soursop ice cream.

some lotus paste pastry

This was possibly one of the worse desserts I've had. No appeal to this for me at all as dessert.

There's a whole lot more options from the menu which we haven't tried. I'm also of the opinion that the mark of a good Chinese restaurant does not have to stem from sharks fin, expensive fishes and abalone. This first visit definitely left me with little desire to come back again. I'm not saying that's definite. I could just give it another chance and try something else different from the menu. For now, this was one unanimous agreement at the table on a mediocre dining experience. Shame on that.

Mini pork burgers @ home

Home made meat in bread again. 

The pork was bought minced and were done with minimal seasoning. Just salt actually. I'm wondering if there were differences in how pork and beef patties are prepared. The bread were Gardenia butter rolls so you get the idea of the sizes of these little burgers. The reason for the butter rolls was because of their buttery flavour and they were lightly toasted with jam inside. A piece of lettuce and a slice of tomato in each and little pigs little pigs let me in......

Harry's Mexican Restaurant and Bar, Orchard Hotel

This place used to be Chicos & Charlies. I remember them from many years ago and they were the first time I've had Mexican food and margaritas. Since I hadn't had real Mexican food before, I have no basis for comparisons. I did think that they were quite pricey for their food. I'll probably try out someplace like Cha Cha Cha for more of these stuff.

 

nacho mamasita

carne asada

grilled prawn fatijah

The food wasn't bad, just didn't taste exceptional. The prawns were small. And the freshness of the wraps wasn't top notch neither. To be honest, I tend to be a little prejudiced against food from Harry's anything. Because this place like Marrakesh, they're kinda selling a veneer and not exactly soulful food. With a jug of margarita, the total bill was about $140. I think it's gotta be mexican't for this.

B.R.O.T.H., Duxton Hill

Dinner with Junie and Lea. Nestled in the little urban jungle of Tanjong Pagar in the tree lined streets of Duxton Hill, sits a quaint little Australian restaurant within decades old colonial shophouses. Which many people probably doesn't even know exist. B.R.O.T.H. (21 Duxton Hill) is dressed in like a old English cottage. The place exudes a certain unique charm of the older world. Honestly, I like this place enough that I probably will want to come back again. It makes a very good place for a nice dinner date.

I was somewhat disappointed by the lackluster starters that this place offers. I should have listened to my inner voice and gone for the goose liver. Doh! Apart from this, the rest of dinner was enjoyable. The restaurant just needs to remember to get steak knives for steaks.

spinach & mushroom salad with raspberry dressing

crab cocktail with capsicum tomato relish & avocado

daily broth (clam chowder)

pork & anchovy fritters w/ apple, chilli & onion salad

The mains here actually looked more appealing to me than the starters. Running through, the only memorable item was the spinach & mushroom salad which I felt was a good light starter drizzled with a very nice raspberry dressing and topped with what I believe to be very fragrant fried shallots. The crab cocktail was quite disappointing as it wasn't really chilled nor warm. The meat lacked flavor and body and the accompanied dressing was boring. The clam chowder's decent with a generous amount of clams and carrots. The soup's flavor is a bit more on the milky side. The pork and anchovy fritters are just really normal fried balls of pork. I didn't taste anchovies and for $18, I really thought little of it.

lobster scallop, prawn and pork chop combo (off menu request)

Mr Dickson's macaroni baked w/ cauliflower and peas

fillet steak w/ blue cheese, crispy mushroom and shiraz

The macaroni's strange. It looks like a baked mash and it tasted more of potatoes and cheese than macaroni. I didn't detect any macaroni at all. Came with an nice crust with toasted cheese. The seafood and pork chops are pretty good too. There's not much to fault with the cooking. It's probably just the herb that didn't agree very well with me. The pork is otherwise exceptionally tender. The steak with blue cheese is, if you've guessed, good stuff. Pity that the photo doesn't bring that out. It arrived medium rare as I liked. The blue cheese was quite overwhelming in flavor and for me, it drowned out pretty much any other taste there. That includes any beefiness and the shiraz reduction.It was otherwise a very enjoyable tenderloin.

supernova pavlova with fruits and cream

sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce

The pavlova tastes better than it looks. It's a meringue with cream and fruits, however it's quite large. The sticky date pudding is recommended. This stuff is really fantastic. Maybe it's because it's been a while since I had warm butterscotch, but if you're thinking of desserts here, this is one warm cake to try.

Buckaroo, Andrews Avenue

If you're wondering where on earth is Andrews Avenue, it's one of the lanes off Sembawang Road.

The place (12B Andrews Avenue Singapore 759930) is BBQ and grill setup like Blooies with a much smaller menu and there wasn't any air conditioning. Floor was layered with rickety wooden floorboards and ventilation was by fan only. Food reminded me of Outback Steakhouse with their ribs and fried onions and steak and whathaveyous. I have mixed feelings about this place. The draw for me was that there's Hoegaarden on tab and there have Strongbow. It is secluded in a rather remote spot surrounded by private residences. Their food which came in pretty large portions here weren't what I would consider competitively priced. The ribs and fish & chips were passable in taste. Nothing exceptional.


Hefty's a good word to describe the fish & chips ($22.90). Was the largest single brick of fried fish in batter I've come across. Yes, brick. Not only was it clad with a thick batter, the fish on the inside was substantial too. For obvious reasons, it made one feel greasy at the end. I thought it was quite pricey.

Not likely to come back for various reasons. Inaccessibility would be one. The other being $93.30 for the above and 2 Hoegaardens. The experience just didn't justify what they charged. And I know of better/cheaper places for beer.

From the creators of Heartstoppers, comes a not so heart stopping entry...

I'm not a cook. In fact, I barely qualify as a regular person who has some cooking skills. The same can be said for my brother, so when there's things in the fridge and we want to eat something, we just make do with what we have at disposal. This time round, it's an omelette of sorts with ham and feta cheese. Yep, feta cheese. 2 eggs, a few cubes of feta cheese and bits of ham. We use a mini frying pan (pre-heated) because they're easier to clean. You can also pre-fry the bits of ham on the pan to oil the base.

It starts to cook from here. The eggs can be or not beaten. It's really your call.

Do note that if you're using a tiny pan, 2 eggs pretty much fill it up. Because of the volume of the contents, the insides tend to cook slower so what you can do is lift up the edges of the cooked egg and let the runny parts spill over and get their turn on the hot pan. Doesn't take a lot of skill to do that.

Of course there reaches a point, where you have to flip the omelette to cook the topside. With a small pan like that, you would need acrobatic precision. Otherwise, I prefer to use a plate to transfer, then flip it back onto the pan from the plate. It's really a non-dexterous solution that non cooking people think of. Not rocket science.

This is where I say "Tada!!!"

Feta cheese melted in the omelette tastes like a strong cream cheese, so there's nothing weird or unpleasant about it. It adds quite a bit of cheesy flavor to the omelette which if you have noticed, does not come prescribed with salt from my instructions. The cheese and ham is really enough sodium. It'll probably do better with some pepper, sliced mushrooms and diced tomatos, but I didn't have those and it would have been much more trouble.