Shakey's Pizza - Oishii@ Liang Court 2013: Wednesday Food Trail

Our second stop for our Oishii food trail was Shakey's Pizza. If not for this food trail, we would have missed this nice restaurant.

Shakey's Pizza is one of the restaurants that offer the most set meal for the Oishii food trail. You can choose from the following

• Shakey's Baby Back Ribs (Full Slab, $19.80)
• Slim Trim Caesar Salad ($4.80) and Spaghetti Carbonara ($13.80)
• Oishii Wasabi Premium Pizza (9-inch, $19.80)
• Hula Hawaiian Classic Pizza (9-inch, $18.80)

We ordered the baby back ribs and Oishii Wasabi pizza.  The baby back ribs has a nice charred, smoky fragrance.  The meat may not be a lot, but is tender and filled with flavourful BBQ sauce. Besides some salad, it also comes with few slices of fried potato which are quite nice as well.

Shakey's Baby Back Ribs
Rating: 4.25/5

Their signature pizza was good. The pizza crust was crispy on the outside and slightly chewy within. We loved the baked cheese on the dough, you can really taste the cheese which is fragrant and add on to the crisp texture of the pizza. There are prawns, scallops, pineapple and watery juice kind of "wrapped" within the pizza. Complementing with the creamy wasabi sauce and topped with lots of bonito flakes, unique and Oishii!

Oishii Easabi Premium Pizza
Rating: 4.5/5

With the coupons, this meal was only $20 nett, super value for money.

I had always associate Japanese food to Liang Court. But maybe sometime I will be back to enjoy the unique pizza again.

Oishii@ Liang Court 2013: Wednesday Food Trail - Shin Yeh

Shin Yeh 欣葉 @ Liang Court Our first stop for the Oishii@Liang Court 2013 Wednesday food trail is Shin Yeh, a reknown Taiwanese restaurant chain in collaboration with TungLok Group.

Shin Yeh

They are causal on the food serving sequence. The rice with soya sauce lean pork was served before the cold platter. The egg might be a bit dry, the braised pork a bit lean and finely chopped, but dig further into the bowl and you will be delighted. The braise sauce at the bottom was fragrant, flavourful and goes really well with the rice.

Rice with soya sauce lean pork

The restaurant run out of their fried yam prawn. We requested to change to Lean Pork with Bamboo Shoots in Soya Sauce. Do not expect tender, juicy like "Dong Po Rou" for this signature braised pork dish. The braised pork was tougher, leaner with a fatty layer beneath the pork skin.

Lean Pork with Bamboo Shoots in Soya Sauce
欣葉卤肉

Next came the combination Cold Dish Platter - King Oyster Mushrooms with Herbal Sauce, Chilled Fresh Bamboo Shoots Salad and Poached Savoury Kampong Chicken.
Strong herbal and mushroom scent for the king oyster mushroom, snow white crunchy bamboo shoots. Kampong chicken meat being tougher, it taste like duck meat and goes well with the pickles and ginger.

Combination Cold Dish Platter

The best part of this set meal was actually their dessert - Mango and milk over shaved ice.  Loved their sweet and smooth mango, wished there were more pieces.  The texture of the shaved ice was creamy and taste good too.

Mango and milk over shaved ice

Although not all dishes go well in the set, but we really can't complain much since the set meal is only $10 per pax.  Overall, its still a good deal!

177 River Valley Road
Liang Court Shopping Centre, #02-19
Singapore 179030

Tel: +65 6338 7337
Fax: +65 6336 6142

Opening Hours:
Daily
Lunch: 11:30 - 2:30PM
Dinner: 6:00 - 10:30PM

Oiishi@ Liang Court 2013: Wednesday Food Trail & Cooking Workshop

Happened to pass by Liang Court today and noticed their innovative and interesting marketing event to promote their food & beverages - Oishii Wednesdays' Food Tasting Trail.

With only $30, you can get to sample 3 different set meals at any 12 participating restaurants at Liang Court on Wednesdays (17, 24, 31 Jul & 7 Aug 2013). Do note that the first restaurant is pre-selected and you can't get to choose it when purchase the coupon at the customer service at level 2.

With the $50 spent, you can also get to register and join in a cooking workshop at level 1 for free! Its more than just a cooking demonstration but also a hands-on session where 2 participants get to share a cooking station with induction cooker, pots and pans provided.

• Potato Salad (ポテトサラダ)
• Sukiyaki Beef Don (すき焼牛丼)
• Instant Cucumber Pickles (浅漬け)
• Hiyashi-Tauki-Soba (冷やしたぬきそば)

Potato Salad & Sukiyaki Beef Don

Pickles and Soba

And there is a goodie bag for every participant. Besides apron, food magazines, stationary and accessories, most importantly it include the bento and sandwich accessories tool set.

Goodie Bag

Sandwich and Bento Tool Set

Can't wait for Wednesday to come :).  Will update on our food trail then.

Buffet Town @Raffles City

Only realised that Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar at Raffles City was changed to Buffet Town when we were there for a gathering.

Buffet Town and Japanese Food Bazaar were kind of similar - a variety of themed stations offering different cuisines. The main difference is the payment mode, instead of having a passport and get it stamped whenever you placed an order, Buffet Town is all inclusive, just take or order whatever you fancy for a fixed price.

Fresh seafood station is among the first that we will explore. There were white clams, scallops, chilled prawns, mussels and crayfish. The crayfish was a bit disappointing, the prawn was quite nice and you can taste the freshness with just some lemon.

Seafood Station

Japanese Sushi and Sashimi - Buffet Town was generous for their sashimi as well. To keep them fresh, the sashimi was not on display, you can request Salmon or Tuna sashimi from the chef at the sashimi station. There were also assorted sushi rolls and appetizers at the same station.

Fresh Salmon Sashimi
Rating: 4/5

Italian Pasta and Pizza - Their pasta was quite nice. Pick and choose your ingredients - mushroom, onions, green and black olives and decide on a sauce - Aglio Olio, cream or tomato-base.  They also have forrest mushroom, hawaiian and seafood pizzas cut into small pieces, allowing you to savour variety without getting too full.

Teppanyaki and Tobatayaki Kiosk.  The usual teppanyaki where the chef will prepare to your choice of vegetables, mushroom and meat.  They will provide a number tag if the queue gets long.
There is also beef and pork satay, grilled pineapple. The marinate of the satay was nice too, just that some portion was a bit tough.  Well, since its buffet, you can add as much pineapple puree to your satay sauce :).

Pork Satay
Rating: 3.75/5

The gilled chicken wings and shishamo were good as well.  The white fungus chicken was good that I had 2 portions.

(clockwise)White fungus chicken soup, grilled Shishamo
Beef stew, Pasta, Sausage

Local Delights were available as well.  Our famous chicken rice, laksa and also prawn crackers.  A range of beverages were available - homemade soya bean milk, soft drinks, teh and kopi as what you will find in coffee shop.

Local Delights

The dessert spread was not very interesting, but they do have a few dessert worth trying  - waffles with ice cream and silky beancurd.

Dessert

Buffet Town - $24.80++ for lunch buffet from Monday to Friday.
Setting was ok, just that the tables were too close to one another, you might need to maneuver to your seat.
Being a themed kiosk concept where not all food are on display as normal buffet, you will need to look out for those small little signs at the counter else you will missed out the goodies hidden behind the counters.

Buffet Town

Buffet Town
Raffles City, #B1-44E
252 North Bridge Road
Tel: (+65) 6837 3793

Operating Hour:
  11.30am to 3pm daily
  6pm to 10.30pm daily

http://www.buffettown.com.sg/

Tapas Buffet @ Loco Tapas

$15.90 for a All-You-Can-Eat Tapas Buffet at Loco Tapas Bar.  Nice food, centralised location at such an attractive price. it is really the BEST deal ever!!

It was a 55% discount buffet deal to promote the newly opened Loco Tapas bar at Boat Quay, offering tantalising Spanish cuisine.

There were a few dishes that were memorable.  Grilled asparagus with bacon was one of them. Fresh asparagus couple with crispy grilled bacon with drops of flavourful oil from the bacon dripping down. They were very generous with the dried bacon, but on the other hand, it can get a bit salty.  Sinfully yummy!

Asparagus with Bacon
Rating: 4/5

The bacon prawns were very nice as well.  Yes, oily bacon wrapped again. The bacon gives additional flavour to the prawn and add crisp to the dish. Equally yummy!

Bacon Prawns
Rating: 4.25/5

Marinated Salmon cold cut - free flow of marinated salmon that you can eat to your heart's content. The  green "pea" like capers that comes with the salmon taste really well with the salmon.

Marinated Salmon
Rating:3.75/5

The buffet also comes with free flow of drinks. Besides salmon, there is also marinated mushroom and Chorizo.  Chorizo is spanish pork sausage which get their distinctive smokiness and deep red colour from dried smoked red peppers.

(clockwise)Marinated Mushroom, Lemon Tea, Chorizo

We have also tried their seafood soup, stuffed mushroom, deep fried fish fritters and rack of lamb.  Their lamb was nicely pan-fried topped with rosemary and flavourful sauce. A substantial portion as tapas.

(clockwise)  Stuffed Mushroom, Seafood Soup,
 Deep Fried Fish Fritters and Rack of Lamb

We end the meal with Churros, spanish doughnut. The fried dough pastry topped with cinnamon, was still pipping hot when served. Dipped in the mildly sweet chocolate mixture, the churros were nice!

Churros
Rating: 4/5

Churros by the river

Nice alfresco setting just besides the Singapore river at Boat Quay. Even though it was a bit warm and humid for lunch, we enjoyed ourselves, indulging in nice food and enjoying the nice scenery.

Loco Tapas Bar Pte Ltd
48 Boat Quay
Singapore 049837
Tel: 6535 2841

Business Hours (Mon – Sun)
Lunch: 12pm to 3.30pm
Dinner: 6pm to 10.30pm

Fullerton Cafe Boutique

Happened to be at Fullerton hotel few days ago. Enjoy the ambience and lavish interior of this 6 stars hotel. There was also live music at the lobby where the musicians played violin and flute at the 2nd storey.

Will definitely find an opportunity to enjoy hi-tea in this relax lavish settings one of these days. For that day, we will just settle for a takeaway.

Fullerton Hotel

The Fullerton Cafe Boutique staff approached us and recommend us to their signature pastries, highlighting that there is 50% discount for their pastries and sliced cakes after 7pm for takeaways.

Sweet Indulgence in our home sweet home.

Fullerton Cheesecake @$9. Creamy rich cheese cake not too sweet. The refreshing strawberry, blueberry and raspberry entice your palate to have more of the rich cheesecake without getting to jelat. Yummy!

Manjari Chocolate Mousse @$9.  Bright orange cake with a thick layer of chocolate mousse on top. Manjari chocolate refers to chocolate made with beans from Madagascar which is slightly bitter with hints of soft fruit. Nice :)

Fullerton Hotel 
1 Fullerton Square
Singapore 049178
Tel: 67338388

Authentic Hong Kong Dim Sum @Victor's Kitchen

Was very disappointed in our last visit to Victor's Kitchen, not because of the food but because I realised my flash card was not in the camera only after we finished the meal. Managed to have a few snaps using my phone :)

Long queue and Crowded restaurant during Weekend

We made another visit Victor's Kitchen again, avoiding peak period this time round. As it was weekday and we are slightly early, we managed to get a table without queuing.

After getting a seat, unlike the previous visit, the staff was quite prompt to set the table for us.  Knowing the protocol and to beat the crowd, I quickly go and grab an order chit at the counter, write down our table number, note down our orders and pass it to the lady boss at the counter.

Order Chit and Menu

Ordering tip -  if you want to enjoy their double-boiled egg white with fresh milk, do order early as it takes 20min to prepare.  For Golden egg yolk lava bun, its important to eat it while hot so that you will enjoy a consistent flowing lava. If you intent to enjoy lava buns as savoury dessert after the dim sum, will suggest to submit your lava bun order separately when you are half-way through the meal so that you can eat them while hot.

Scallop, sausage carrot cake with XO Sauce XO酱干贝腊味萝卜糕@$4. One of Victor's Kitchen specialities and authentic Hong Kong's Dim Sum. Soft carrot cake in its simplicity with complimenting black sauce.  Slight spiciness and added fragrance of the XO sauce contrasted and brought out the taste of the radish. Quite nice but would be better if there are more chinese sausage or dried prawns. Additional XO sauce at additional $0.50.

Steamed Carrot Cake
Rating: 4/5

Yummy Phoenix Claws 香辣惹味凤爪@$3.50. Slightly spicy chicken feet with chopped garlic. Nothing really that fantastic.

Phoenix Claws
Rating: 3.75/5

Victor's King Prawn Dumpling 超级虾饺皇@ $5. Pure white dumpling skin wrapped with big prawns.  The skin is very thin and texture is soft but it tear easily when you try to pick it up.  Quite nice and full of prawn flavours.

Victor's King Prawn Dumpling
Rating: 4/5

The filling is not the usual where pork is mixed with prawns. It seems to be just prawns and generous big prawns. Which explains why the price of their prawn dumpling is similar to that offered in up-market restaurants.

Prawn Dumpling Filling

Tasty Queen Size Siew Mai 美味蟹皇烧卖@$4. Their Siew Mai was quite nice, tender pork with a strong fragrance which I believe came from the mushroom.

Tasty Queen Size Siew Mai
Rating: 4/5

Siew Mai Filling

Steamed Chicken with Chinese Wine 花雕杞子蒸鸡@$3. Fragrance Hua Diao wine coupled with tender smooth chicken.  The wolf-berries add sweetness to the dish as well.

Steamed Chicken with Chinese Wine
Rating: 4/5

This is why I am back at Victor's Kitchen - Hong Kong Summer Ice Tea 香港夏日冰镇奶茶@$3.  One of the best milk tea we had.  One of the most "Kao", smooth, tasty and fragrant milk tea.

The thick milk tea was placed in a bowl of ice to keep it cool without diluting the tea. Although it can get a bit messy when the ice melts and the cup starts to floats up as it gets lighter, I still like this gimmick which adds some fun to it.

Hong Kong Summer Ice Tea
Rating: 4.5/5

Chicken and sausage in glutinous rice 干贝蛋黄腊味珍珠鸡@$5.  One of their signature dish. The glutinous rice is fragrant and super soft.  The watery filling within are some chicken and sausage. Would prefer the egg yolk to be more apparent.

Chicken and sausage in glutinous rice
Rating: 4/5

One of the authentic dish of Hong Kong Dim Sum - YouTiao Cheong Fun or "Za Leong" 香港风情炸两 @$3.50.  Instead of wrapping the usual BBQ pork or prawn, the rice roll wraps a you-tiao (fried dough) which gives a contrasting yet complimenting texture.  The fried you-tiao here is crispy and still soft, which is much better than those hard ones offered in some restaurants.

YouTiao Cheong Fun
Rating: 4.25/5

Now we come to the desserts.  They offered double boiled egg white with fresh milk in 2 flavours - Ginger or Almond 鲜奶炖蛋白@$3.50.  Home-made style, soft pudding-like with ginger taste that is not too over-powering. Being traditional "dun dan" 炖蛋, do not expect it to be as smooth as Lao Ban Beancurd :)

Double 

Finally, THE dish that make them famous, Golden Egg Yolk Lava Bun 黄金流沙包@$4.0 for 3 buns. Golden savoury egg yolk lava flowing out as you break apart the steamed fluffy bun. Loved the consistency of the lava, not too watery nor too lumpy. The custard combined with fragrant salted egg yolk was simply yummy.

It is important to eat these buns while hot, else your bun might end up like the one in the photo where the lava filling starts to coagulate and oil starts to separate itself from the custard. Ya, the golden egg yolk lava is sinful, you will be surprise on the amount of oil in it.  But its definitely worth the calories.

Golden Egg Yolk Lava Bun
Rating: 4.5/5

Total cost S$49.50. The dim sum here is nice but not really the best - Steam carrot cake, I will prefer that from Kam Boat. Porridge? I will prefer the dried vegetable with roast pork porridge in Ritz Carlton Summer Pavalion.  But their Golden Egg Yolk Lava Bun and Hong Kong Summer Ice Tea are something that I will definitely return for.

Squeezy small dining area that resembles Hong Kong as well? Be prepared to make way for people while you are eating. Since there is no service charge, be contented that the staffs set the table and bring you your food. Don't expect smile or attention from the busy staffs.

There will some "loud communication" among the working staffs now and then. We went over the counter to settle the bills, highlighting to the lady boss that one Dim Sum was not delivered to us and to be excluded from the bill.  In Cantonese to her staff, "Hey, table 32 says you never serve the pan-fried rice roll!", then she turned to me, "How? she says she is cooking it for you already." Ok ok, pack it please.


Victor's Kitchen 

91 Bencoolen Street, #01-21
Sunshine Plaza, Singapore
Tel:  9838 2851

Business Hours:
  Daily 10.30am – 8pm
  (Closed on Mon)