Pizza Capers

I always love to visit new food outlets especially pizza outlet. There this place at East Coast Road called Pizzacapers which claimed to originate from an Australian chain. Me? I have never heard of the place prior to this and the quite empty place didn't inspire any confidence. But what was great were the many witty slogans and quirky scribbles on the wall and place mat.

So we decided to try them out. We started off with the Parmesan crust which comes with a choice of dips. Taste great especially with the Guacamole dip. 

We also ordered the Capers wings which are chicken wings in a spicy sauce and deep fried. This is just like the many hot wings that are available everywhere and not that great or spicy but they do use fairly large chicken wings though.

Of course, we saved the best for last. The pizza. They had a promotion ongoing, there were 6 of us and so we ended up with 4 regular pizzas to share. Their pizza is the traditional type which is just what I like best. Not for me the thick dough type of pizza. We wolfed down the pizza in double quick time!

The nice looking interior of the restaurant.

And they served Australian beer too!

Maekhong Thai Cusine

One of the find while walking along Tanjong Katong Road. This little Thai place at one of the corner.

It serves the usual Thai food plus a steamboat set. Being greedy fellas, we ordered both.

The steamboat which comes with a plate of vegetables

A plate of mixed food stuff

And a serving of some special beef. I think we had to pay separately for this

We could have a combo soup so we went for the Tom Yum and the herbal

Of course for M, no Thai food is complete without mango salad so we ordered that as well

Believe it or not, the kids have tried the Thai style crabmeat chicken wing so we ordered it specially for them

We also choose to have some fried rice instead of the usual white rice. This is pork floss seafood rice

The Princess must have her tungfen and this came with big prawns.

And I must have my Thai otah. This came aluminium wrapped and was filled with seafood.

Price is reasonable and food is fairly good. No complaints here. A great place to go for nice filling dinner.

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.

Bruno's Pizzeria & Grill

The last time we were at this particular outlet in Tanjong Katong, it was known by another name. Now it is called Bruno's Pizzeria and Grill. That last time, we were the only customer. 1 other customer walked in and then walked out but this time round, the place was packed. Luckily, we had been forewarned and we had made a reservation. 

We ordered 1 pizza to share and individual portion of various type of pasta. The average price per dish was about $20.00 but it was certainly worth the money as the portion was fairly large. The pizza was one of the best I had in a long while. 

Pizza!

Black Ink Squid Pasta

Mussel Pasta

Prawn Pasta

So I hope the next time we get round to coming back here, it will still be around. Somehow, those Italian places that we have dined at in recent years – by the time we decide to go back, practically all of them (except the chain outlet like Pizza Hut or the hawker centre/food court outles) have closed down or change owner. Let’s see. there were Finalmente Gastromomia at Macpherson (heard that they moved to Goldhill, still there?), Artz Pizza.. gone with the golf driving range, VI Pizz (replaced by Bruno) and Olive Restorante (closed down together with the spa at Labrador now under new management). Maybe we are a jinx to these places?

Jai Thai Restaurant

I love the thrill of going to a new food outlet. You never know what you gonna get. Hit or miss? I also love Thai food. So last week while out hunting for cheapo Thai food, saw this little place tucked among all the eateries along East Coast Rd. How come I never see it there before? Wonderful, can kill 2 birds with one stone.

Tom Yum soup

So we walked in. At 7pm on a Saturday night, it wasn’t exactly crowded so I was like “oh dear”. The wait staff was most helpful though. Maybe a bit too helpful. He didn’t stopped us when we started ordering.  He walked us through the menu and recommended the Beef Kway Teow soup. And then of course we have to order our favourite Thai food. So we had our usual Tom Yam soup and mango salad; picked another 2 of the Chef’s Special from the menu (prawn cake and pandan chicken) and then because we also love seafood, we ordered the Crab Tanghoon and to round it off a plate of olive rice plus a plate of stir fry kai-lan. On hindsight, that was probably a bit too much for the 3 of us so we were quite relieved when we were told they had ran out of crab so we cancelled the tang hoon dish.

Mango Salad, prawn cake and pandan chicken

Olive Rice

Since there were only 3 of us, we ordered small portion for everything except the Olive rice. We finished almost everything except the rice and 1 piece each of the prawn cake and pandan chicken. The prawn cake and pandan chicken are sold in pieces (minimum 2 pieces). We made a mistake and ordered 4 thinking they were like the usual fare at other places but these were huge pieces and the 3 of us could have easily shared 2 pieces.

Beef Kway Teow

The beef kway teow soup which was supposing their ‘trademark’ dish tasted like our bak kuh the soup. The kway teow was the usual thin type found in Thailand and Vietnam. It wasn’t really that great. I tasted better Vietnamese beef kway teow at a little stall in Golden Shoe Cooked food centre but again, everything in this place seems to be ‘upsized’. The bowl was supposed to be for 1 but the 3 of us shared it and still couldn’t finish it which means we had to struggle to finish the rest of the food and thus leaving us with no room for deserts.

Anyway, final verdict - very reasonable price for the portion served. We paid around $60.00 for the 3 of us. Service was good. Food came pretty fast and above all, tasted fairly decent. A place that I couldn’t mind popping in now and then for lunch or dinner.

The Olive Ristorante @ Labrador Park

Had dinner at the The Olive Ristorante @ Labrador Park on Saturday evening.

Been wanting to go there for a long time as I was curious how an Italian restaurant in such an ulu place can survive for so long. Transport inconvenient, no air con and right smack in forested area (haven't they heard of dengue?)

Anyway, after running, the 5 of us decided to eat there. Although it was suppose to be an 'atas' restaurant, decided we in our smelly after run gear should still be able to fit right in since the place has not much atmosphere (or some prefer to call it ambience).

I had thought the only reason the place survived for so long was because the food was cheap and good. Unfortunately, I was wrong on both count. It was neither. Most of the appetizer starts at $15.00 and main course from $25 onward. Price by itself seem reasonable considering the 'restaurant' tag but the portion was minuscule.

We ordered a seafood platter and a foie gras to share. Each cost $25.00 but when it came.... we had to cut the 2 teeny roll of salmon into 5 and there were I think some prawn and scallops? which was just enough for each one of us to spear and pop into our mouth once. And in our mind were thinking of the seafood platter that we get at Fish & Co or Manhattan FM!
The foie gras came with 5 very tiny slice of pear and a scoop? of rocket salad.
For the main course, we ordered 2 dishes with unpronounceable Italian names but actually they were just a ham pizza ($25) and seafood spaghetti ($35 each x 2) to share. The pizza was okay - of course much better than Pizza Hut. The seafood spaghetti came wrapped in aluminum foil. Inside there were 1 crayfish cut in 2, 6 prawns and lots of mussels and clams. So not too bad.

Service overall was decent. When the waitress saw this old Uncle me peering at the menu, she came over with a torch. Food came pretty fast. But she lied. She said what we ordered was enough for the 5 of us but I left with barely 1/3 of my stomach filled and so we had to adjourn to Holland Village for further food.

Final verdict - won't be back again. Decent food but not worth the money.

Photos courtesy of Roo + more on the food at Olive Ristorante here

Finalmente Gastromomia

Stucked for a place to eat. The kids suggested pizza again! but didn't want to go for the so boring Pizza Hut or the ex California Pizza. Referred to good old trusty ieatishootipost and managed to fish out a place in Macpherson - Finalmente.

The place was quite empty considering that it was peak hour on a Saturday evening. A bit doubtful about the quality of the food but all doubts were vanished when the 2 pizza arrived.

We had a folded pizza which resembled an oversize curry puff. It was stuffed with ham, mozarella cheese, mushroom and all sort of gooey stuff and was absolutely delicious. Best of all, it cost only $17.00

We had a normal round pizza. It was more or less the same but with a thin slice and rocket salad on top. The crust was so well done that it tasted good even by itself!

We wanted to order some pasta but the friendly owner, a bald headed Italian (I presumed) asked us to eat first before we order some more and it was certainly good advice as between the 3 of us, we nearly couldn't finish both pizza!

We also had a piece of chocolate cake and ordered another pizza to take away. The total damage + water came up to only $67.00 certainly good value for money and worth many more visits.

Artz Pizza

Went for dinner at the Artz Pizza at East Coast Park. It shares the premise with the Baraonda Restaurant and the Seafood Station (previously SingaInn). No aircon but it was breezy and atmosphere quite great.

We ordered the Mamma salad which consist of mixed greens, feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, avocado, dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and lemon (mamma dressing). M didn't like the cheese although I thought it was quite unique. But I thought there was too much olive oil and lemon.

 

We also had the fried chicken wings which apparanently came from the seafood restaurant. Nothing great about it though.

 

This was followed by the signature Artz pizza. This consist of a thin pizza with smoked scamorza(whatever this is?), rocket salad, tomato, and mozzarella and parmesan cheese. The rocket salad made the whole pizza look like a plate of raw vege.

 

This one look much better with the 'jungle' removed!

 

The last dish we ordered was a Cannelloni which was actually a pasta stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach in cream sauce.

Overall, the quality of the food was good but a bit ex. The pizza was $33.00 whereas the salad was $19.70 and the pasta $22.00. Nice place to bring a date for a nice quiet romantic dinner followed by a stroll along the beach and .......