Food not worth paying so much for




Top is a picture of the supposedly "Tonkatsu Miso Ramen" a bowl of Japanese noodle with fried pork cutlet in miso soup. The stall selling this item is at the ground floor next to McDonald and near the Serangoon bus interchange. It cost $7.80. I ordered the item and to my dismay, it turned out to be a bowl of instant Maggie noodle with miso flavouring and a miserable piece of pork (not fried cutlet pork)and a half hardboiled egg. It didn't taste good. I won't recommend this place to anyone.

The bottom is a plate of wanton noodle sold at the Sheng Kee Hong Kong Dessert restaurant at Seletar Mall. It cost $9.20 inclusive of 10% service charge and 7 % GST. Not worth the price and a normal hawker center wantan mee would taste better at $3 to $3.50 a plate. Definitely not recommending to anyone.

Seletar Mall's McDonald opened this morning (26/11/14)







Being McDonald McCafe's first customer at Seletar Mall, I was awarded 6 free vouchers for buggers/drinks plus a McCafe cup & saucer nicely wrapped. This company has got class unlike others which do not care whether you're the very first customer they have in their new outlets or not. Well done McDonald and McCafe!

Opening of Toast Box and BreadTalk@ Sengkang Seletar Mall





The above opened at 8 am this morning. We were their first customers. In fact, we knew 2 of the Toast Box crew who were originally from the Greenwich outlet at Seletar Hills.
Welcome to Sengkang, Toast Box and BreadTalk (they're from the same company owned by George Quek). The topmost picture was taken a day earlier before the opening and that's the reason it looked so bare.

Shabu Sai @ Orchard Central





The opening hour is from 11:30am. We were there at 11:20am. There was no other customer waiting at the entrance except us. Come 11:30am we were not allowed entry untill 11:40am. No explanation nor apology was given.
The food was average and so I did not take any photo except the one above. I am rather surprise to see flies flying around the food.
The bill came to $44.70 for the two of us. We were also given only 70 mins to stay in the restaurant.
I definitely won't recommend this place to anyone.

A Sunday WhatsApp message

Photo from Rakuten.com

U must try tis Uji green tea daifuku mochi, available at d Rakuten Jap Gourmet Festival in Jurong Point Shopping Centre. $23 for a box of 6, but worth every cent of it. Yummy.

One KM Mall and Saizeriya Restaurant




We visited One KM Mall which was opened earlier this month. It is situated where the Lion City Hotel once was. It is opposite City Plaza at Tanjong Katong Road. Nearest MRT station is Paya Lebar.

There are many eateries and we decided to eat at the Japanese Saizeriya which serves Western food and pasta. The lunch menu is worth every penny and so are the others. The lunch menu cost $6.90  upwards and it comes with a bowl of salad and free flow of beverages.
This offer is from 11am till 5pm on weekdays only. Try the menu here at Saizeriya and you will not regret it.

Newest Mall in Singapore: The Seletar Mall

                                          PHOTO: SPH

The Seletar Mall situated at 33 Sengkang West Ave will be opened on 28 November 2014 (Friday). It will have 130 brands and has 380 parking lots.

It will have a list of established cafes and restaurants like A-One Claypot House, BALIthai, Delifrance, Din Tai Fung, Fish & Co., Han's, Hong Kong Sheng Kee Dessert, Let's EAT, McDonald's, My Briyani House, NeNe Chicken, O'Coffee Club, Oki-Machi ,Paradise Inn, Pizza Hut, Proofer Boulangerie, Shokudo, Song Fa Bak Kut Teh, Starbucks, Subway, Sushi Express, Swensen's, Texas Chicken, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Toast Box, umisushi, Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe and Ya Kun Family Cafe.

It will also have retailers, such as Bata, Challenger Mini, Citrusox, City Chain, dENIZEN, District 5, EEWU Laundry & Alteration, Giordano, Hang Ten, I Love Accessories, M.2, Pierre Cardin Lingerie, Popular Bookstore, Precious Thots, Royal Sporting House, The Travel Store, World of Sports and Young Hearts.

Claypot Chicken Rice at Half Price



This Claypot Chicken Rice was from A-One Restaurant, Nex Mall which I had for lunch.
Between 10:30am till 5:00pm A-One gives a 50% discount to its dinners (weekdays only but not on public holidays).
Discount aside, this dish is delicious.
Cost after discount was about S$6 inclusive of tips and GST.

Wagyu Beef for dinner




Do not be deceived by the unattractive photo of my dinner. I am not a professional photographer and as such the photos that I snapped aren't usually good and reflective of the quality of the subject. Moreover, the beef was home cooked and the colour combination wasn't that outstanding.

However, take it from me this piece of beef steak I ate for dinner was better than any steak I've ever eaten in the Singapore steak house. This Wagyu steak is juicy and tender. It's delicious and its taste is excellent. I bought it from a Japanese supermarket.

Cost of this 220 grams of Wagyu is S$22

These 2 lovely lucky pets will be eating pressure cooked beef and carrots






We bought the pressure cooker a week ago so we can cooked the meat & fish into soft and tender dishes for our furry kids. We do not give them the stinking and unhealthy dog food which they do not like.

Finest Wagyu beef from Japan






Wagyu (和牛 Wagyū?, literally "Japanese cow") refers to several breeds of cattle, the most desired of which is genetically predisposed to intense marbling and to producing a high percentage of oleaginous unsaturated fat. The meat from such wagyu cattle is known for its quality, and demands a high price. In several areas of Japan, wagyu beef is shipped carrying area names. Some examples are Kobe, Mishima, Matsusaka, Ōmi, and Sanda beef.

Above was my dinner (1 pc only)

Source: Wikipedia

katsu Don and other Japanese dishes





Lunch/dinner in Johore Bahru with RI cohort











It was an excellent trip to JB with the RI cohort .
Started off from "monitor's" place at Springleaf area by having our favourite Roti Prata and Teh Tarik etc at 7:30am.

The Malaysian coach picked the 14 of us at 8:30am.

Arrived Jusco Terbau City just before 10:00am. We were given 2 hours to do our shopping and sipped our Cappucino, Caffe Latte etc with donuts at J Coffee. We left Jusco and arrived at Sungai Rengit  for a seafood lunch.

After lunch, we went to JB City to do our shopping again for about 2 hours. Some of us gathered at our favourite ToastBox coffee joint for a kopi and chit chat session.

The coach picked us up and proceeded to Pekin Restoran for dinner at 6:30pm. It was a 45 minutes ride. Evening traffic was heavy.

At Pekin Restaurant we ate a yummy dinner of Suckling Pig, Roasted Duck, Fish etc etc. The food and ambience here is good.

After dinner, we left for the Causeway check point and returned to Singapore.

Cost of the trip:

  • Roti Prata breakfast and cost of transport plus tips for the driver: S$30 each
  • Lobster seafood lunch at Sungai Rengit : S$ 40 each
  • Dinner at the famous upmarket Pekin Restaurant : $25 each
Total = $ 95 each. The trip and the great company is worth the time and money spent.

We may do this again but instead of JB, we may want to visit Malacca.

BT: Sorry no photos for the dinner session.

Brunch Porridge, Dinner Curry Mutton Rice



Premium Dried Scallop Porridge





This porridge with dried scallop plus slices of fish and cuttle fish in a claypot can fill up to 3 bowls. Aone is the name of the restaurant at Nex Mall. It gives a 50% discount on certain menu like the above from 10:30am to 5:00pm.
If you do not want the peanuts and the glass of water you will save $2. I paid a total of $8.55.
The porridge is delicious but a little oily. The restaurant has a nice ambience. Service was good.
Overall: Worth the money spent.

Japanese Yong Tau Foo-- Oden



Oden is a Japanese winter dish consisting of several ingredients such as boiled eggs, daikon, konjac, and processed fishcakes stewed in a light, soy-flavoured dashi broth. Ingredients vary according to region and between each household. Karashi is often used as a condiment.
Oden was originally what is now commonly called misodengaku or simply dengaku; konnyaku or tofu was boiled and eaten with miso. Later, instead of using miso, ingredients were cooked in dashi and oden became popular.
Oden is often sold from food carts, and most Japanese convenience stores have simmering oden pots in winter. Many different kinds of oden are sold, with single-ingredient varieties as cheap as 100 yen.

Exchange rate is S$ 1 = 89.5 Yen
                         US$ 1 = 115 Yen

$500 of noodles sold in 3 hours?



This bowl of fish ball noodles cost $3.50. The stall is in my neighbourhood and it also sell prawn noodles, laksa and other varieties of noodles. The stall is owned by a brother and 2 sisters. They do the noodles themselves except for 1 worker.
The other day I overhead them talking about the amount of sales they did in just 3 hours of a weekday morning. Gosh it was about $500. By the time they closed in the night it would amount to at least $1,500 of sales. Minus the costs of rental,their salaries as well as the worker's salary and the raw material I guess they make around $1,000 a day. Multiply that by 30 days they would make $30,000 a month. They worked very hard and not only their food is good, they are very nice and polite people.
My wife and I frequent this stall at least twice a week.