Joe's Kitchen

Went to this little Thai place at Alexandra. It wasn't as crowded as we feared after reading the reviews in HGW. But maybe it is because we were there around 2 pm. Well after lunch. 

We ordered our usual staples of Thai food.

Mango salad. This come comes with lot of mango, peanuts and onion. A bit too spicy for me but M loves it. But then again, she always like this dish everywhere.

Clear tom yum soup. M wasn't really impressed with it though. I thought the portion could have been bigger but then again it is for 2 so it wasn't that little.

Olive Rice. It comes with a separate dish of parsley, onion and cashew nuts to mix into the rice. The rice was topped up with fried egg. The portion was too big for the 2 of us but this was the dish that I really enjoyed.

Sambal long beans.

Stuffed chicken wing. Supposed to be their house special. At $2.50 each, it was kinda expensive but man, this is like damn shiok! I could have more than 1 except that I have been over eating for the past few days.

Plus drinks, the total was slightly over $40.00 which was really value for money. This is the place to go for cheap, home cooked Thai food.

Salt Grill by Luke Mangan

Its the kid's birthday and since he is very big into steak, we decided to go upmarket. After checking out all the reviews, we decided that Salt at Ion was interesting enough. Got quality food, good view and great service. So we went there. Getting to the restaurant itself was already an eye opener. First we had to find our way to an obscure corner of the mall and there was a counter there where we were greeted by a staff and then shown our way to the lift that will take us to the 55 floor where the restaurant is located. And so after a 'long' ride, we reached the place.

We were served throughout by a very attentive Caucasian staff. I not too sure what they call these people in the restaurant (restaurant manager?} but it is rare to see someone take so much pride in his work here in Singapore. He was able to rattle off everything in the menu, told us what each item were and recommend them to us.

Beside the usual bread, we were served a complimentary soup which tasted like tomato soup and which came in a teeny weeny bowl. 

We ordered two starters to share. This weird looking dish is "sashimi of kingfish". Of course it comes with some other stuff. The taste was very unique. Being a country uncle, I especially like the yellowish sauce that they pour over it.

This is the crab omelette. Some egg and crab and enoki mushroom. It was real good. Too bad that like all atas restaurant, all the food comes in small portion not enough for the 3 of us to slurp it down.

The kid and I had our usual steak. This a an Australian restaurant so the steak are Australian steak. Not that I can tell the difference where they come from. A cow is a cow to me. But then again, I quite like my piece of steak. It has some toppings that is not usually found in other restaurant. And the size was big enough for me. Not a tiny little piece. Of course, it didn't exactly come cheap though.

The kid had this "miserable" looking piece that comes with chips. He assured me it wasn't miserable at all even though there was no other sides that comes with it.

M had the barramundi with prawn. She didn't complain either and wolfed down everything. I don't recall her passing me some of the stuff so either she was very hungry or it was real good. 

What is a birthday celebration without a birthday cake? Well since we didn't buy any cake, we decided to make do and ordered something from the dessert menu. We let on that it was the kid's birthday and the ice cream dessert came like this. No cheesy birthday song over the PA system or a group of waiters standing there singing to embarrass the crap out of him. Thank goodness.

We also ordered this Mango and coconut bomb. Why did we ordered this? Because we like that it was called a "bomb".

Overall, it was an expensive, probably the most expensive meal I ever had in one sitting for just 3 person. The staff were so friendly and so helpful. I mean they looked at our appearance but could probably tell we are country bumpkin and gave us the cold shoulder but no, everybody was so nice. When we walked out to the lift, the lady there asked whether we had took in the view and when we said no cos we were too shy to walk, she led us right back in to take in the sights. 

The view was great. The cameraman not so. Unsteady hand, poor lighting and a phone camera make for lousy photo. 

Overall, it was a great experience. Did I said that already? We enjoyed the food. Great service. Great view. But it not a place that we can afford to eat at regularly so I don't think we be back any time soon though. But for those who have some money to splurge and want to impress a date, this got to be The Place. 

Full of Crab

I have been reading a lot of these new no cutleries, eat with your hand seafood joints like Crab in the Bag and other cajun seafood places. And after more than a year, I finally get to eat at one. Full of Crab at East Coast Road!

The place is pretty small and there are only a few items on its menu. The friendly waitress recommended the combo for us. Each combo serves 2 - 3 and since there were 8 of us, we decided to have 1 each of the combo. Each combo comes with 500 gm of prawns and a choice of corn or mashed potatoes

This is the best of the lot - the King crab.

This is the Sri Lanka crab

Crayfish

Snow Crab

The food comes with 3 different choice of seasoning - cajun, garlic butter or a mixture of both. Most of us like the fully loaded house special which is the cajun and garlic butter mix.  And it also comes in 3 different level of spiciness - mild, medium or hot. Because we have all set, we tried everything. The hot was hot but not so hot to be intolerable. Mild is too mild. The medium is a good compromise and most people should be able to tolerate it. 

Our party of 8 spent slightly over $400.00 for the food which includes drinks and bread (must have) which works out to a reasonable $50.00 per person quite worth it considering the amount of seafood we had.

And the place had some quirky decor so do check it out when you there.

Pietro Ristorante Italiano

With a name like that, one will expect a restaurant helmed by an authentic Italian. But no, instead there is a home grown Chinese chef behind the kitchen and not just an ordinary Chinese chef but a celebrity Chef at that!

Chef Neo must be so confident of his cooking that not only did he choose to do Italian dishes but he set up the place in the most ulu of places at a teeny weeny little road in Yio Chu Kang that is so off the beaten track that I had to use my gps to get to the place. And his confidence show in some of the unusual items he has on his menu.

For starter,  we ordered the Funghi Portobello which is fresh portobello mushroom baked with crab meat, ebiko and prawn finished with rich gorgonzola sauce.

M wasn't really that hungy so she ordered the Zuppa di Mare which is actually a Seafood Soup concocted with prawn, clams, mussels, squids in spicy tomato sauce, white wine, basil leaves. She said it tasted like tom yam soup.

I had the Spaghetti alle Vongole which came with lots and lots of fresh clams. I must admit that this is one of the best spaghetti I tasted.

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The kid ordered something that looks like a cross between the Hakka abacus seed and Chinese la-mian. Didn't get the name and can't find the item on the online menu.

We found out later that the chef made everything ie the pasta and dough from scratch. I enjoyed the meal especially the Spaghetti alle Vongole although I felt the price was a bit on the high side because of the portion size but then again that is the way most Italian food place priced themselves.

Overall, this is a nice place to go to for a quiet dinner. There is live music, nice decor in a rather romantic setting with a picture of a Venice canal.  Very suitable for impressing a date.

Good Food in London

Other than the usual fish and chips and Italian food, I didn't really know what was good and inexpensive. But hailing from Singapore, a lot of people had told me about this place Burger and Lobster and so we dutifully found our way to out of its outlet one day.

Everyone was raving about this place and we were warned to go during off peak so that we didn't have to wait too long. So we went after 2 pm and still ended up waiting nearly 40 minutes for a seat. The joint only serves 3 items - a steak burger, a lobster roll or a whole baked lobster. All the items were priced at the same price of  £20 Since we can have burger everywhere, we went for the lobster. I had my steamed while M had hers grilled. The lobster comes with a side of fries and some salad.

Was it worth the wait and worthy of the hype? Hell, if I am going back there again, that will be my first stop for a meal! 

Another place that we were told is a must try was surprise surprise - Chinese food - roasted duck to be precise and at this outlet in Chinatown.

This photo was taken before dinner time but at dinner time, the queue was super long. Luckily our host for the evening had some "connection" and we managed to get in without waiting too long. We had a whole lot of Chinese food but the highlight of course was the roasted duck.

How good was it? Maybe to the English and the Chinese staying over there who do not see this dish being sold everywhere, this has to be good. The meat was tender enough without much fat. It was a bit too charred too. So nothing great there but not having had decent Chinese food for the past 3 weeks, this tasted real good. But frankly coming from Singapore, where there is a roasted meat stall at every other food centre, it wasn't spectacularly good. 

We went to 2 other Chinese food places over the course of the visit and they were mostly forgettable. So if you in London and wants good Chinese food, this is probably the best choice as long as you don't mind queuing up.

Koh Grill and Sushi Bar

There this place at Wisma within the Food Republic food court that always have a super long queue. Every time I go there, I can't help but marvel at the queue outside Koh Grill and Sushi Bar. But I have no patience to queue up and I wished there was a way in without queuing. Unfortunately they do not accept reservation. Or so I thought. But it turns out a friend has a connection and so one evening we hitched a ride on her connection and finally got to experience the magic of Koh Grill.

Koh Grill is a typical Japanese food outlet. Its label its menu with "Shiok" for those food that is it house speciality but of course everybody in the knows come for its maki or more precisely, the Shiok Maki of which they have several variations.

Are they really that good? Let just say I can go back and eat this many time over and over again without getting sick of it. 

126 Wan Dou Sek

I heard about this dim sum outlet in Geylang but never actually been there. Until now. As per the grapevine, there was a long queue outside the small little shop. Thank goodness a friend was there earlier and he queued up for us first.

The place is a tad too small with long table instead of the usual round tables. But while the place is certainly no fancy restaurant, it makes up for it with character and a super long menu comprising dim sum of all sorts and even chilli crab!

Ordering was simple. We just write down what we want from the menu onto a plain piece of paper and one of the staff takes it away and before we can even warm the seat, everything is on the table. The food comes quick and fast I suppose so that we can eat and get out fast.

We ordered a lot of dim sum for the 8 of us and surprisingly our bill came to a round $126 the same as the address of the place. Too bad we didn't strike any 4-D or we will be back. Food is so so but certainly very reasonably priced.

Mushrooms

Fried wantons

Century egg pork porridge

Kong Bak pau - one of their signature dish

Fried chee cheong fun

Fried intestines

Kong bak pau and siew mai

Crab Buffet at Brizo Park Hotel Clarke Quay

Last year I went for the crab buffet at Park Royal at Beach Road. There was supposed to be at least 14 variety of crabs dishes. Unfortunately, the night we were there, we only counted a few. Apparently they do not serve all the 14 at one go and the dishes are rotated so depending on the time and day, we will not get to try all the different crab dishes. Despite these, it was still good value for money as on top of the crab dishes, there was the usual buffet food including the popular sashimi and roti prata. 

Well the crab buffet is back and the crowd are flocking to it and we couldn't get a table on the night that we wanted. In the end, we ended up at another crab buffet at what we thought was a sister hotel but which was actually a competitor. And which was where we ended up at what I think is possibly the most value for money crab buffet with not 14 but 19 crab dishes! And mind you, all 19 dishes are laid out at the buffet table without any other food to distract. Really a crab lover's heaven!

Let see - there is the cheese crab or is it the salted egg crab?

 One of the best - steamed crab with egg

Fried rice with crab meat

Flower crab cooked in some Italian way which nobody at the table like. Too unconventional for our taste bud

Cold crab, Alaskan crab, scallop and mussels

Soft shelled crab, crab claw and baked crab in shell

All in there were supposed to be 19 crab dishes including crab laksa, steamed crab, cheese crab, salted egg crab, chilli crab, black pepper crab, baked crab, In fact there were only 3 non crab dishes - a vegetable, a chicken and a bak kut teh and of course the  dessert section. Speaking of dessert, they don't serve the usual scoop ice cream. Instead, they have mini magnum, mini cornetto, potong ice cream and magnolia sherbet ice cream in a mini tub!

So you can gorge yourself silly on all the crabs and got no other food to distract you. And it only cost $55.00++ with a free parking throw in. That is really value for money considering that nowadays most buffet is priced from $68 ++ onwards. There is also some credit card promotion to sweeten the taste and for those who drink, throw in another $35.00 for free flow wine, beer and soft drink. Seriously worth it!