Lunch Deal @Vintry, Clarke Quay

A relative introduced us to this good, value for money lunch deal.  No coupon, no voucher and no pre-purchase required, just walk in to the restaurant on a weekday during lunch hour.

Vintry offer this nice 5 course set lunch at only $15 nett.

5 Course Set Lunch

We had the whole restaurant to ourselves as we arrived early. The ambience of the restaurant was nice. The restaurant is vintage style decorated with wine bottles, decanters, glasses and filled with bottles and bottles of wine.

Nice Ambience

They have a large collection of wine offered - cabinets of bottled wine near the dining area and a wine cellar at the restaurant.  Besides a variety of bottled wine for sale, they also offer a large variety of wine by glasses, ranging from around $3 for 250ml.  The wines offered by glasses are well preserved in their state of the art wine vacuum pump and dispenser in a chiller.

Restaurant

Now we come to the food. Fresh mixed Salad. Vegetables to fulfil our daily fibre requirement.  Not sure what is the dressing, it was quite strong but was ok.

Fresh Mixed Salad

Soup of the day was Potato soup.  The texture of the soup was quite smooth and creamy.  You can also taste the potato in the soup. Quite nice.

Potato Soup
Rating: 4/5

We followed the recommendation to try the Tangy Baked Dory Fish in Lemon Caper Cream. It was definitely a right choice - tender dory fish with creamy sauce.  The cream was not too rich, with hint of lemon and mild sourness from the capers. The potato wedges were crispy as well. Yummy!

Dory Fish
Rating: 4.25/5

We can't resist ordering a dish which is named after the restaurant - Vintry Caramelized Roast Pork Rice.  Even though white rice doesn't seems to fit in to into this western restaurant, this caramelized roast pork house specialty was good.  Nicely caramelized pork belly with a mix of fatty and lean meat.

Caramelized Roast Pork
Rating: 4.25/5

Ice cream had never been able to impress me unless its those premium fine ice cream.  But the coconut ice cream with gula melaka was quite special and satisfying.

Coconut with Gula Melaka
& Vanilla with Chocolate Sauce

The coffee offered was illy.  Illy coffee seems to be a famous brand reputed for quality coffee produced in Trieste, Italy. According to my lunch partner, the coffee was aromatic and quite rich.

Vintry 
Blk 3A River Valley Road
#01-01 Clarke Quay
Singapore
Tel: +65 6338 2808
http://www.vintry.com.sg/

Opening Hours
Sun–Thu: 12pm–3pm, 6pm–11.30pm
Fri–Sat: 12pm–2am

Glasses

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

Paul Bakery

PAUL - French bakery company with more than 120 years of savoir-faire. It is touted to be the leader in authentic French pastries offering unmatched quality of sweet patisserie using all real cream made with real butter and milk.

Our expectation was definitely raised after reading about this French Patisserie.

We ordered their cannele and a butter cream pastry for take-away.


Canele @$3.50
Canele is a small cake with dark, thick caramelized crust and soft centre. The name Canele came from the little fluted copper mould in which it is baked.

Canele

This canele is flavoured with vanilla and rum.  I would not describe it as soft and tender custard center but something chewy like Nonya kueh Bingka Ubi or Indonesia honeycomb cake.

The rum is quite distinct and the caramelized crust was quite nice as well.  However, $3.50 for such a small piece of honeycomb cake like canele is a bit expensive.

Canele

Butter cream pastry
Not sure what's the name of this pastry as the tags were all mixed up. Only get to know that it is some butter cream pastry from the salesperson.

It doesn't taste as good as it looks. Neither soft cake nor fluffy crispy puff, cream was nothing special as well. We didn't continue after 2 bites. Perhaps its just because we kept it overnight in the fridge.

ButterCream Pastry

Maybe we will try some other pastry fresh at the restaurant next time.

Paul Bakery
391A Orchard Road,
#03-16/16A/17 Ngee Ann City Tower A,
Singapore
Tel: +65 6836 5932

Business Hours
Bakery:
  Sunday – Thursday: 9am to 9:30pm
  Friday & Saturday: 9am to 10:30pm
Restaurant:
  Monday – Sunday: 10am – 11pm

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)

Snack @Poh Cheu, Alexandra

There is always a long queue at Poh Cheu stall, in a coffee shop next to the Alexandra Village Hawker Centre.  The stall seems popular and there are many newspaper cuttings and good food awards all over the stall.

Poh Cheu

Poh Cheu specialised in a variety of handmade kueh keuh - Soon Kueh, Ang Ku Kueh.  They also have nice abacus and glutinous rice, which was the reason we were there.  We queued for 45 minutes before we managed to buy the "prized" kueh kueh.

Variety of Kueh

The staffs were still busy making kueh at around 2pm. They were still rolling the dough, wrapping the filling red bean paste and peanut paste into the kueh, placing it on a cut banana leaf and arranging the kueh onto the steaming rack to steam.

Kueh Making

Ang Ku Kueh (红龟糕) @$0.70
Ang Ku Kueh are made with glutinous rice flour and shaped like a tortoise to symbolise longevity. Besides the traditional Peanut and Red bean paste fillings, they also offer a variety of other fillings - Black Sesame (new), Durian, Green Bean, Salted Bean, Yam, Coconut, Coffee, Mango and Green Tea. Loved the vibrant colours and enjoyed choosing the different flavours.  Maybe that's the reason why it took every customer so long to place their orders.

Ang Ku Kueh are traditionally used to celebrate baby full month. You can order Hong Qian, Hong Yuan and glutinous rice for the traditional baby full celebration snack. Understand from a colleague that according to traditional, round bottom and sharp tip HongYuan is for boys while flat HongQian is for girls. In the olden days where boys were preferred over girls, glutinous rice was privileged for only the baby boys. Nowadays, you can just include whatever to you liking for baby full month.

Noticed that these sticky skin traditional snack is not popular among the kids. Luckily there are still adults who can appreciate the Ang Ku Kueh which we had queued 45 minutes for. Peanut and black sesame are our favourites.

Ang Ku Kueh in Vibrant Colours!

Soon Kueh 笋粿@ $0.70~$1.00
The other speciality is their Soon Kueh with different fillings - Turnip Soon Kueh, Ku Cai Kueh, Bamboo Kueh, Yam Kueh and Rice cake (Peng Kueh). Even though the name  笋粿 literally implied snack made with bamboo shoots,  the typical filling in Singapore is turnip, which is my favourite.  I personally cannot appreciate the "authentic" bamboo shoot kueh (which is also more expensive) as I can't stand the smell. Do note that Yam Kueh is only available on certain days (Fri & Sat).

Not the best Soon Kueh I had, but still very satisfying, especially with the black sauce and chilli.

Soon Kueh
Rating: 3.75/5

Abacus 客家算盘子@$2
The reason why we were there was not Ang Ku Kueh nor Soon Kueh, but the Hakka dish - Abacus Beads (Suan Pan Zi 算盘子).  It is not easy to find this traditional delicacy in Singapore, only know of a few stalls and this is the nearest.  They were named as Abacus because the shape and size of these yam balls resemble the beads of a Chinese Abacus (算盤 or counting tray) and symbolises wealth (got $$ to count).  They were boiled and then fragrantly sautéed with hei bi (dried shrimp), shredded carrot, mushrooms and some waxed meat.  The abacus were garnished with spring onions and deep fried shallots.

Liked the texture of the abacus, slightly chewy without sticking to your teeth. The main drawback is the abacus are pre-packed into a container.  The condensed steam seems to make the surface a bit soggy. Believe it will taste much better if eaten immediately after the stir-fry.

Abacus
Rating: 4/5

Glutinous Rice 糯米饭@$1.50
Glutinous rice cooked with mushrooms, waxed meat/sausage, peanuts and small white fish. Fried shallots was sprinkled on top. Same issue as Abacus, its pre-packed and the condensed steam seems to affect the taste.  But the container is definitely very convenient for reheat in the microwave.

Glutinous Rice

According to the old folks, glutinous rice and snack are a bit difficult to digest. As it is sticky, oil is often added to prevent them from sticking together. People are getting more health conscious nowadays, these starchy snacks maybe not be suitable for daily consumption but maybe more for occasional indulgence.

Small tips to beat the queue.

• Poh Cheu provide call & collect service which allow you to skip the long queue.  The condition is the order for each kueh flavour is to come in multiple of 10 only. 
• If you are only interested in the abacus, glutinous rice and rice cake which are pre-packed, you can just take the number of containers you want and pay directly to the stall owner without having to queue.

Poh Cheu
Address: 127 Bukit Merah Lane 1,
#01-230 Singapore
Time: 8am - 6pm, Closed on Sunday & Public Holidays (Except Friday & Saturday)
Tel: +65 6276 2287
http://www.sbestfood.com/pohcheu.htm