303. Ah Yat Seafood Restaurant III

A group of us entered the partition room at Ah-Yat. They named the room, Shanghai. Not a thing in the room was of symbolic significance to Shanghai. Beijing and KL?? as its "neighbours".

"Night Shanghai" relived with singing that should have gone behind closed bathroom doors. >.<
Stir-fried lobster with scallions

If you go Ah-Yat, you should really order their seafood. I think they are really worth the money. I would not say they are of the best quality but they fulfilled typical Singaporeans' criteria - "cheap and fresh". Cooked in a lenient Sze Chuan style, the lobster pieces were snapped up where the fastest fingers was rewarded with the biggest piece of palatable meat.

Spinach with garlic

Salad Prawns

Roasted Chicken

I have always used Boon Lay Raja's roasted chicken as a benchmark because I felt they have the best roasted chicken. Surprisingly, today's roasted chicken came close to be on par with Boon Lay Raja's. Juicy and tender. Most probably they made the chicken exercise when we placed our reservation 2 weeks ago.

Bamboo Clams with Garlic

Steamed Fish

Chili Crabs

These 2 guys had a hidden plot!

Singaporeans' favourite! They have already won a quarter of the battle in seducing us. They put on a weak front at first. The spiciness was mild, so you gradually fall deeper into their trap and reached for the second serving. Ah Haa! You had it! They are subtle liars. Wily crabs! They planted spicy bombs and you realised the area where the bombs effected got bigger. They won half the battle.

Scallops with Greens

Lotus Glutinous Rice

I would rate this dish the lowest. It was dry and not fragrant enough.

Pan-fried Red Bean Pastry

We had 2 servings. The flaky hot pastry was topped with sesame seeds and filled with red bean paste. It was very delicious. Red bean paste was made to the right sweetness.

$612 was deducted off my bank account for a meal of 11 pax. Given private space and karaoke, I would say this meal was very reasonably priced. Contacted the manager to arrange for this menu so I have no idea how much each dish cost. Considering the food that we had, I felt it was worth the money.

The partition room was built in a way that there was just enough room for walking to your seats. Not so comfortable, I thought. Service was not thoughtful enough. We called for the dishes and suddenly it was like everything was on a fast mode. 5 to 6 dishes appeared one after one at once and we were like competing with the chefs. Our plates were all filled with bones and shells but the waitress did not change our plates. I was for a moment the waitress, distributing the new plates to the people.

See previous

entries.

302. Guan Hoe Soon Restaurant

Pickles - Cucumber, chicken gizzards, chili and onions. It was like a cold dish. The cucumber cubes were crunchy. They were not marinated. Mixed together with the chili sauce and onions, the taste was spicy and there was mild sourness, probably lime juice was added. Very appetizing.

Sayor Lodeh @$12

Curry vegetables, we called it as. Just like our Malay food, lontong, without the ketupak. It was delicious. Not too spicy and the vegetables were boiled till soft.

Hainanese Pork Chop @$12

I was surprised to see Hainanese Pork Chop on the menu because Guan Hoe Soon(GHS) is known for their Peranakan cuisine. The Hainanese Pork Chop which I have had eaten were usually served without gravy but GHS's had them cooked in tomato gravy. There were even fries in it! Even though the pork chop was soaked in the tomato gravy, I could taste the pork chop was quite well-marinated. I believed it will taste good even on its own.

Otak-Otak @$12

I personally felt GHS's otak lacked in taste. It was quite bland. But there were fleshy fish meat mixed in the otak and probably because of this, their otak was slightly harder than others.

It cost about $51 for 4 pax. Food was decent but I felt they were slightly overpriced. One thing I noticed was the dishes we had were not very oily, especially the sayor lodeh. Not too sure if this standard of cooking was maintained for the rest of the dishes. GHS has started since 1953 so I believed that they have already attracted a group of regular patrons. How authentic their peranakan cuisine is compared to others like Kim Choo, I believed it's subjected to each's perspective.

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Guan Hoe Soon Restaurant

214 Joo Chiat Road

Tel: 6344 2761

301. Pondok Jawa Timur

Dining out on the weekends is always a hassle. There are queues everywhere, even the M fastfood chain is full house. Well, it is not necessary that people would go for better food on weekends. A set meal of fastfood can be a satisfying meal too. Anyway, a few of us decided to walk out of Plaza Singapura(PS) after crossing out the food restaurants that were in PS. We decided to go for the Indonesian cuisine at the Atrium. There were flyers on their menu stand which comes with a 10% off coupon. Luckily, there wasn't any queue.

Cendol @$4

A traditional dessert from Indonesia. Cendol has become a quintessential part of cuisine among Singaporeans, Malaysians and the other nearby South East Asia populations. We could easily find them in the dessert stalls at hawker centres. But, we have more ingredients like red beans, atap seeds and etc. The green starch noodles were most probably the reason why I ordered cendol. I felt the taste of Indonesian cuisine is always tagged with the word 'very'. Very sweet, very spicy and food is always very coconut-ty. Coconut milk and chili are almost like the primary ingredients in Indonesian cuisine. Cendol consisted of coconut milk and palm sugar syrup. Too sweet. So, I waited for the shaved ice to melt before drinking it.

Avocado Juice @$5

It's the first time I saw avocado juice served with palm sugar syrup. It gave me the impression that it's going to be very sweet.

"It was not sweet but it was thick" , he said.

Avocado juice at $5 was considered cheap. Getting an avocado fruit would have already cost $1.50. I still remembered the glass of overpriced avocado juice I had which cost $10.

Javanese Iced Tea @$3

Sometimes having named the drink from the country may not necessary means that the drink is special in anyway.

"It was just like teh bing" , she said.

Ayam Penyet @$6.90

Another classic Indonesian dish. It was big on the flyer but shrunk in size on our table. We had 2 servings. Served with a triangular-sized tau-kwa, a square cut of tempeh (fermented soybean cake) and chili sauce. Basically in the dishes we have ordered, I realised there were just 2 types of chili. One which had been cooked and the other uncooked. I personally felt chili sauce is a must-have for ayam (chicken) penyet, else it would be like something is lacking. The cooked chili sauce was used for ayam penyet. The ayam was a tad dry.

Sop Buntut (oxtail soup) @$8.90

The uncooked chili sauce for sip buntut. The pieces of oxtail were cooked till soft and they were delicious. The clear soup was slightly salty.

Tahu Telor @$8.90

Tahu (tofu) was cut into small cubes. I was surprised to see potato cubes in the dish. The thick peanut sauce on top was sweet. It was delicious to eat with the chili.
Gado-Gado @$7.90

The Indonesian salad. Comprised of vegetables like cabbage, lettuce, bean sprouts, hardboiled egg, rice ketupak cut into small cubes and peanut sauce as the dressing. I didn't like the gado-gado because the peanut sauce had a smoked taste.

The bill was about $59 for 4 pax. Food was just mediocre and service was relatively slow. We had 2 cendols on our order. One came at the start of our meal and the other arrived as the last after our reminder. 10% discount was automatically printed on the bill when we asked for the bill.

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Pondok Jawa Timur
The Atrium Orchard
(next to PS)
Tower 2 #01-16
Singapore 238891
Tel: 6884 5853

300. Minds Cafe

What do people do on the weekends other than shopping? Minds Cafe? I think the games at Minds Cafe do not appeal to only the adolescents but even mummy(s)-to-be. I can't imagine what if they got too excited and their waterbag burst.

A few of us gathered at the branch at Prinsep street on Saturday for their WOW! promotion which comes with free-flow drink at $8.90 per pax. With every 4 pax comes a free bowl of premium munchies and snacker (we had potato chips). Add on a main course for just $6 which I felt was very worth. Well, a main course for $6, what more could you expect?

We played 3 games - Ticket to Ride, Citadels and XXX (a memory game, forgotten the name) and I felt "Ticket to Ride" was the better-to-play game among the 3.

Premium munchies-Calamari

Beef Lasagna

Fish & Chips

Black Pepper Pasta

Chicken Platter

299. Homemade Yam Cake

Mum likes to make kuehs and cakes whenever she is free. Ang ku kuehs, steamed egg cakes, durian kuehs bla bla bla. All because making them yourself is cleaner and with the efforts put in, even if they are not on par with those sold outside, they are still tasty.

Mum commented on her yam cake. She praised it. I felt she had her yam cubes cut in a size a tad too big and as a result, I felt they made the yam cake slightly dry. She added so many ingredients like mushrooms, hay-bee (dried shrimps), minced pork and etc and I questioned if that was a yam cake i'm eating.

Mum said making yam cake was easy.

Ingredients

1 packet of rice flour

2 tbsp of tapioca flour

1 yam (about 400g), cut into small cubes

2 tbsp of cooking oil/shallot oil

1 tbsp of sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Your own preference: minced pork, Chinese mushrooms, dried shrimps. Some like to add Chinese sausage (lap-chiong).

Garnish

Spring Onions

Chili

Fried Shallots

Process

Stir fry the ingredients such as the dried shrimps, Chinese mushrooms, minced pork with shallots. Prepare extra serving of fried shallots for mixing into the yam mixture and for garnish. This is to increase the fragrance. Do not pour away the oil used for frying shallot, it can be added into the mixture in place of the untouched cooking oil.

Steam half of amount of the yam and mashed it. The other half of the yam will be added to the mixture unmashed. Add hot water to the rice flour to get a thick batter (Alternative is to put the mixture over low heat, with continuous stirring). Add the steamed yam into the batter. Mix well. Add the rest of the ingredients- the fried ingredients, yam cubes, fried shallots and seasoning. Steam for about 45 mins to 1 hour. Garnish with chopped chili, fried shallot and spring onions.

If you're a yam cake lover, why not try making it yourself?