Patara Fine Thai Cuisine

Lots of food to eat during this period contributing to the increase in the waistline. No choice somebody got to sacrific for the sake of not wasting all these food.

Some of the more interesting and memorable ones in the next few posts starting with this set lunch at the Patara Fine Thai Cuisine restaurant at Tanglin Mall. The last time I went to this restaurant was when it still has an outlet at Raffles City which was like a gozillion years ago. Now there is only 1 outlet left and more disappointingly no more dessert buffet.

We ordered the special lobster set lunch promotion which cost $88.00 but paid only $68.00 under an OCBC credit card promotion.

This is a four course meal  which comes with this starter comprising a chicken popiah, a fried prawn, a "gold" pouch wanton and a choice of pomelo, papaya or mango salad. I opted for the pomelo salad. The portion was much smaller than I like but it was kinda expected since they have the "Fine" food tagged on to the restaurant name and I have come to associate "Fine" with less.

Next up was the Tom Yam soup. There was a total of 1 prawn, 1 scallop and a few slices of cuttlefish and fish. But it was not too bad although not spicy and sour enough for me

Following that was the main course which comprised a green curry with an option of chicken or beef. I had the beef. The curry was a bit sweet in my opinion.

The main course - olive rice, stir fried vegetable and 1 lobster. The lobster wasn't that fresh. In fact it was quite hard, the flesh I mean. Maybe because it was stir fried and not steamed? The olive rice was also so so and definitely not up to what I expected from the place. I can get much better food from the many small Thai  eateries that is now all over town.

Dessert was a choice of Red Ruby or Mango sticky rice. Since there was 2 of us, we each had one.  

The red ruby was not red at all. In fact it was so colourful. A bit sweet but rather satisfying.

Unfortunately, I can't said the same of the mango sticker rice. It was rather bland. How they got something so simple so wrong I don't understand.

All in, after tax and service charge, we paid more than $180 for both of us but more than the price, it wasn't really worth the money. The standard of the food was so so and in fact plain ordinary. The service was good and impeccable of course, as befits a restaurant of its standard but other than that, the money could have been better spent on 4 similar meals at Thai Express and I will dare say without much difference in quality.

Parking Idiots

Following my earlier post on the Mercedes Benz in a No Parking lot, I snapped another photo of another "big" car improperly parked in the same HDB Multi-Storey Carpark.

This time I uploaded the picture to FB and made a general comment implying that people with "big" car tends to any how park.

I was very swiftly contradicted by a friend who sent me the following photo

Okay this isn't a "big" car but it is still in that class which I  classified as "rich man" car. Again I generalised but the impression I get is "I got money to buy expensive car so I can anyhow park. At most pay fine only what!" shitty snooty snobbish type of attitude.

And this photo reinforce my view. An "ultra big" car occupying the motorcycle lot!

Need I say more. I rest my case.

Sunnyhills Pineapple Cake

Was reading the Sunday papers on Tuesday and came across this review of the Sunnyhills Pineapple cakes. Pineapple tart is something I must have during CNY and this year unfortunately my lobang for the Le Cafe golf ball pineapple tart is no more. So I was pretty keen to try this import from Taiwan until I saw that it was located at Raffles Arcade in Raffles Hotel which means it was going to be expensive and true enough it was going for 10 pcs for $25.00.

But somebody up there must like me a lot cos the next day back in the office, a box appear on my desk!

And in less than 10 minutes, 3 quarter of it was gone. Okay so I shared it with the colleagues but I still kept half for myself and I rationed myself to 1 pc per day.

This pineapple cake is very international. The pineapple and eggs are from Taiwan, the flour is from Japan and the butter from New Zealand. So how was it? It wasn't too bad but different from our local version. And 10 pieces for $25.00? Way too overpriced. I think we paying more for the packaging and air freight!

Hongkong Soya Sauce Chicken

Out for lunch and went I couldn't get any teochew porridge after going through 3 hawker centre; sold out; closed and sold out respectively, I was left scratching my head wondering what to eat.

There was this stall which always have a long queue. It was selling soya sauce chicken, not something that I eat on a week day and certainly not for lunch but since I had nothing else to eat, decided to join the queue. The signboard said Hongkong Soya Sauce Chicken. The only other soya sauce chicken that I like used to be the Upper Cross Street Soya Sauce chicken. Was this good? Should be, judging from the queue and the adverts

The delicious chickens hanging from the display window. The chickens are braised right at the stall not delivered from some factory in Woodlands or Bedok.

Everybody was ordering half a chicken to take home. Me, I ordered a plate of noodle and ask for roast pork to be thrown in as well. To my surprise, it only cost $3.50.

But cheap price not withstanding, how does it taste? Why not find out yourself? Me? I went back on one of my off day and bought half a chicken home.

The stall is on the 2nd floor of the Chinatown Food Centre. Just walk around and look for the soya sauce chicken stall with the long long queue.