The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Lan Fong Yuen in Hong Kong

Other than stopping by HKIA for flight transfers to various parts of China, I had the chance to spend a few days there for my own leisure a few times as well.

A few years ago, mango related desserts were really popular in Hong Kong and there were branches of Xu Liu Shan popping up everywhere.

Now, however, they seem to be mostly on Kowloon side and I couldn't find any around Central at all. Instead, when I needed a break in between shopping, I headed to Lan Fong Yuen near the mid levels for their famous milk tea.

Obviously you don't go to this kind of place for the ambiance. Much as I wanted to try the hot version, the stifling weather (unusual for autumn) forced me to go for the cold milk tea. Exhausted and dying of thirst, I probably enjoyed this a lot more than I normally would, because it was a little bit bitter.

Since each time I went it was just supposed to be a "pit stop", I had to restrain myself from ordering the heavier dishes. Went instead for the sweeter stuff such as the toasted bun with condensed milk. While it looked great, my sweet tooth would have prefered a more generous topping of the condensed milk.

The other well-known snack there is the french toast. This one was as unhealthy as it looks in the photo below, and as delicious as it was unhealthy.

I had a bit of trouble finding this place initially. Gage Street is not exactly a major road and hard to find amongst the confusing maze of back roads. The easiest way is probably to head to Lyndhurst Terrace where the famous Tai Cheung egg tart bakery is.

Entrance to Gage Street is along Lyndhurst Terrace just before the shop, and Yan Fong Yuen is on the left at the start.

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Lan Fong Yuen
G/F, 2 Gage Street, Central, Hong Kong
Tel: +825 2544 3895
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My Daily Cuppa...

Even on the weekends I can't do without my daily cuppa when I get up...


Lately *Shinta and I have been trying out Papa Palheta. Sadly their original branch at Hooper Road is no longer encouraging sit-ins. It's much closer to town and a pretty nice chilling area.


Instead, they're directing everyone over to their new outlet at Kampong Bugis (near ICA) where they've set up a proper shop.


I like the concept of a place to chill and drink good coffee, but ultimately I think Oriole still wins in terms of quality and smoothness of the espresso drinks.

Supper

1.30am, Saturday morning
Newton Hawker Center
Supper with friends
- BBQ stingray
(1 large to share)
- BBQ chicken wings
(1 each)
- Oyster Omelette
(1 large to share)
- Small squid
(1 large plate to share)
- Beer (640ml each)

3.00am, Saturday morning
Totally knocked out (thanks to the beer!)

Food Bytes: Oriole Cafe & Bar (Update 1)

Was craving coffee so *Shinta and I made a special trip to Oriole to pick up take-away coffee. Remember my previous post on the place? I had totally raved about the coffee there, and subsequent trips to Oriole had also met with expectations both food and drink-wise. This time however, I was terribly terribly disappointed. Our coffees (latte and ice-blended) were not done by the usual 2 (award winning) baristas, and the end product was simply undrinkable.

Rather than an ice-blend with coffee and ice bits mixed up, what I got was a bitter cup of.... foam? It was really weird and tasted totally bad. I can't even imagine or start to guess what went wrong with it. Too much blending? Forgot to put sugar syrup? Too much milk? There were no ice bits in it, and no real coffee either. Even when I left the drink standing for a while, hoping for the foam to settle, the resulting layer of coffee at the bottom was bitter and "harsh". *Shinta's latte also had a foam problem with it.

If I had this standard of coffee the first time I visited the place, I would have been so disgusted that I wouldn't have returned. It's only because I've been there a few times, that I know this is not the "usual" standard for them. Or if I had drunk this there, I would have complained and sent it back. Unfortunately for us, because we had bought it take-away, we didn't taste it until we had driven off from the place, and were unable to give feedback or complain about it.

Moral of the story:
1) Make sure your coffee is done by the good barista
2) If you buy take away, check your drink before leaving the place

*sigh*

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Oriole Cafe & Bar
96 Somerset Road #01-01, Pan Pacific Serviced Suites, S(238163)
Tel: +65-6238 8348
Hours: Mon-Fri 10.30am - 9.00pm(food)/9.30pm(drinks),
Sat-Sun 10.00am-9.30pm(food)/10.00pm(drinks)
http://www.oriole.com.sg/
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Food Bytes: Eton Mess, great coffee & food! (Oriole Cafe & Bar)

I'm interrupting my series of reviews on Japan for a quick one on the newly discovered Oriole Cafe & Bar. Located at the bottom of the Pan Pacific Serviced Suites (the big black building between Singapore Power and Somerset MRT), its not a place you would simply pass by because its hidden at the back and there is construction work on the other side. If you drive, rather than park in the building itself, please use the Grange Road public carpark which is just next to the building and very much cheaper and more convenient.

We went there totally blind and not knowing anything about it, other than that it had been favorably reviewed in the papers recently. It was fortunate that we arrived early, as the 30-40 seater restaurant although not filled up yet, was almost fully booked with reservations. Those who arrived later than 11.45am on a Sunday, had to sit outside. Normally that wouldn't be a bad thing, except the area is still surrounded by construction works, not great for ambiance. The dress code is probably more of smart casual, especially on weekdays where the crowd might trend towards office workers, although in sunny Singapore where everyone under-dresses, you can get away with casual too.

The best item was the coffee. *Shinta's latte arrived first, topped with slightly brown foam and pretty coffee art drawn in. Unlikely other lattes, this one boasted a rich coffee smell and taste right off the first sip. Apparently its because of the way the milk is poured into the cup; the coffee forms a "ring" around the foam enabling the rich flavour to be appreciated right away. Other lattes have a pure white foam scooped on top, resulting in the whole latte tasting more of milk with a slight hint of coffee, rather than real coffee with milk.

My ice blended milk coffee was fantastic. When you get ice blended drinks at other places, the terrible ratio of ice to milk to coffee results in an extremely diluted mix as the ice melts and dilutes the coffee. At Oriole however, not only is the coffee perfectly blended into a smooth mix with the ice, the blend remained smooth, rich and creamy even as the ice melted. There was no rush to finish the glass off since it didn't become the usual uneven mixture ice blended drinks normally become after a while. It was only much later that we found out that Oriole boasts the services of the top 2 barista's in Singapore. A title well deserved I think!

I suspect the menu at Oriole changes very often, because this one was specially printed with the day's date on it. There were quite a lot of tempting items, but given my new drive to "eat slightly less", we settled on sharing a salad, 2 individual main courses and most importantly, Eton Mess!

The Wafu Salad was quite standard, nicely seasoned with fresh crunchy vegetables. Warning: Portions are not very large.

My Steak Melt sandwich didn't look very impressive when it first arrived. Just 2 simple pieces of toast with a beef patty, a bit of cheese and caramelised onions. It tasted pretty good though, with the sweet and juicy onions offsetting the slightly drier and salty flavour of the beef. For the price I paid, I think they should have included a small side salad. Even just a few lettuce leaves or slices of tomato and cucumber would have really brightened up the plate and made it look more balanced.

*Shinta's fish and chips took slightly longer to arrive, but was pretty worth it. The deep fried batter was not too oily, and the fish was soft and tasty. Chips were not too bad too, but the real difference from other fish and chips was the small pieces of fried garlic which added a slightly different flavour to the whole dish. The tatare sauce that we requested was "real tatare sauce" and went well with the fish, while we had to get mayo for the fries.

Finally, the highly anticipated dessert. I had been searching everywhere in Singapore for Eton Mess for quite a while now, but this is the only place that has it. Supposedly originating from the dining halls of the elite UK boarding school Eton, this is a mix of meringue bits, strawberries, berry juices, whipped cream and lightly sprinkled with nuts.

The version served in Oriole was slightly different from the English one because 1) normally I see it in a cup and not on a plate; and 2) the meringue was left in relatively large pieces rather than crushed into small bits. Still terribly delicious (and sinful), I think crushing up the meringue makes a big difference because otherwise it tends to get just a little soggy and difficult to eat in large chunks.

Despite the place being opened for 2 months already, I found the service although polite and eager to please, still very clumsy, awkward and slightly slow. The restaurant is not large, but it took a while for them to re-confirm that every other empty table had been reserved and only one was left for us. There was a slight communication problem, the waiter didn't really understand our orders until we pointed to the item on the menu. I don't think it was because he didn't known the menu, but more of a pronunciation difference, because he kind of distorted the name of the items when he read the menu back to us. Getting our card swiped for the bill also took a while. Redeeming factors are that the manager (?) was friendly and checked on how we were enjoying the food, requests for additional sauces were met with quickly, and they offered us ice/warm water without prompting.

This is definitely a place I would come back to, especially for the coffee and the Eton Mess. Hopefully efficiency of the service will improve with time, and as the furore from the news reviews dies down a little, maybe it will be less crowded. I look forward to trying the many other dishes on the menu.

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Oriole Cafe & Bar
96 Somerset Road #01-01, Pan Pacific Serviced Suites, S(238163)
Tel: +65-6238 8348
Hours: Mon-Fri 10.30am - 9.00pm(food)/9.30pm(drinks),
Sat-Sun 10.00am-9.30pm(food)/10.00pm(drinks)
http://www.oriole.com.sg/
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The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Twinkle twinkle little Starbucks!

I was so impressed with this, I just had to post a picture of it here. Takeaway coffee in a 7-11 convenience store! And Starbucks no less! Keeping the quality of the coffee is very difficult and not very cheap, that's why you seldom get good canned coffee. Somehow the Japanese have managed to get Starbucks to do it! And the price "only" comes up to under S$3.40...

Food Bytes: Update (Kohi Ten)

Following my 3rd visit to this place, I have decided NOT to eat here anymore. The pastas just simply cannot-make-it. I could barely finish my plate of scallop mushroom soup spaghetti.

The final straw however, was this pudding:

To be fair, the waitress did warn me that it was a capsicum pudding, describing it as "not too sweet, not too sour". My advice is to order this ONLY if you are a very very very very very big fan of capsicums. Seriously, it was that bad, and 4 people couldn't finish it.

When we gave feedback to them, the waitress said that surprisingly this was actually quite a popular dessert. With who I really wonder!!!

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Kohi Ten
19 Cuppage Road, Cuppage Terrace,
Tel: 64768083
Hours: Mon-Thu 8.30am-11.30pm, Fri-Sun 9.00am-11.30pm
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Food Bytes: TOW all the photos (House, Camp, Barracks)

We had driven past House, Camp, Barracks a few times before, but never bothered to stop and take a look. The huge building is intimidating, and we couldn't actually figure out where the restaurant was at first, until you walk closer to the edge of the road and see the steps leading down a slope.

I liked the place. It was big and airy, with tables nicely spaced out for privacy. There are 2 private rooms, and unlike private rooms in other restaurants which are usually cramped, no windows and claustrophobic, one of them was even set in the glass patio area, and could very comfortably seat up to 20. Just nice for throwing a party!

Fish and (Truffle) Chips was one of the recommended dishes on the menu. Although the fish looks like hardly anything in the pictures, the 2 pieces of cod were actually a decent size each. The batter was extremely hot and crispy, with the fish slightly oily, soft and very yummy. The fries (or chips) were doused with truffle (olive?) oil giving a nice kick to them. You didn't need to use any of the 3 dips (tatare, salsa and vinegar) provided. *Shinta found it slightly too oily/ heavy. For a "small eater" like me, the Kid's meal at half the price and half the size would have been perfect, but they only allow that for kids or for take away.

Pizzas here are described as having "crusts thin enough to slip under the door". I'm not sure if this description is technically correct, given that it tends to separate into 2 layers with a bubble of air trapped in between. Having said that, its extremely crispy and light, more like eating a thin cracker / crisps rather than the usual doughy bread.

It went pretty well with the mushrooms with truffles. The rocket was extremely fresh and bitter, making me wish I had some parma ham and melon to eat it with. Try to avoid the raw onions though, they're not worth a whole afternoon of feeling uncomfortable.

This mocktail was a waste of time. Longan with red dates. I think the chinese dessert place at Peace Center does it better, for 1/10th the cost.

Dessert was so horribly disappointing. We chose the #3 ranked flourless chocolate cake with honeyed almonds. I can understand the metal mess tin was suppose to be keeping with the theme of Barracks (although I don't see why since all the other food came on very pretty plates!), but still it looked ugly.

The cake was soft and wet, with a cookie dough texture. I've had flourless cakes before, but there was something seriously wrong with this one. The honeyed almonds were nice and crunchy, but nothing to fight over. *Shinta thought the ice-cream was movenpick, until I thought I saw somewhere that it was handmade. Dessert was definitely not worth the calories.

On the whole, we can probably bring friends here, but skip the drinks and dessert. Also, the combination of what we ordered left us a little too "truffled-out" and over-oiled! One last note, bring your namecard here as that will entitle you to a 10% discount.

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House, Barracks Cafe

8D Dempsey Road, S(249672)

Tel: 64766050

Hours: Mon-Fri 11.00am-2.30pm, 2.30pm-6.30pm, 6.00pm-11.15pm,

Sat-Sun 11.00am-4.00pm, 4.00pm-6.00pm, 6.30pm-11.15pm

http://www.dempseyhouse.com/

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Food Bytes: Of Brussels and Sprouts (Brussel Sprouts)

Have put off blogging about this for a while cos I wasn't too impressed. Visited Brussel Sprouts at Robertson Quay on Saturday for lunch. Despite going to Robertson Quay pretty often, we had often walked past the other restaurants and headed straight for our usual favourites.

This place however, looked pretty popular in the evenings and had awards posted on the walls, so we decided to give it a try.

We ordered the beer-battered onion rings as one of the starters. Nothing spetacular unfortunately =( Somehow it didn't taste like anything to me.

The beef croquette came highly recommended by the waiter. It was not too bad, but again not a show stopper and not something which I would make a special trip to the restaurant to eat.

*Shinta had the steak and fries. Surprisingly, he described it as "one of the better steaks" he had eaten. High praise indeed! It wasn't too bad actually, the outside had a nice smoky grilled flavour.

Last was the speciality of the restaurant.. mussels/clams with free flow of fries. Having eaten pretty unbeatable fresh mussels before (more on that another time), I decided to try the clams rather than set myself up.

The clams were fresh, but surprisingly small. Was pleased that each shell had a clam (except for 2 empty shells, but I later found the clams floating in the soup). The clear tomato based sauce I had chosen was light enough to drink as soup. It would probably have been better to slurp it up with bread. Originally tried to use the fries to soak up the sauce, but the fries were very very disappointing. Suspect they have different people doing the fries, because the first few I stole from *Shinta's steak were crispy on the outside and nice and light on the inside. But the ones that came with my clams were too thick, undercooked and in general just pretty bad.

Those of you who have eaten at the Trailer of Life before, know how difficult it is to get really good fries elsewhere!

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Brussels Sprouts
#01-12, 80 Mohamed Sultan Road, The Pier @ Robertson, S(23901)
Tel: 68874344
Hours: Mon-Thu 5.00pm-12.00am, Fri-Sat 12.00pm-1.00am, Sun 12.00pm-12.00am
http://www.brusselssprouts.com.sg/
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Food Bytes: The yummiest chocolate cake (for now) (Pump Room)

On Sunday, we decided to stop by our "local neighbourhood store", Great World City. Yeah ok it doesn't really qualify as a neighbourhood store, but its where we can do our grocery shopping, *Shinta can get his hair cut, I can get my 40min neck/shoulder/back massage (My Feet!) and do some window shopping without having to fight through the crowds of Orchard Road.

There's tons of good stuff to eat here, and my current favourite is Pump Room Bistro. This has opened for only a few months, and probably the other outlet at Clarke Quay is better known. Every time *Shinta and I come here, our order is more or less the same... I'll get an appetiser (usually the yellowtail carpaccio), he'll get the steak, and we'll share a beer and dessert.

This time, only the lunch menu was available, and although they were willing to make a special request to the chef for *Shinta's steak, they sadly would not allow me to order the carpaccio. So I ended up with the salmon avocado salad. I thought the salmon wasn't really salty enough, bu the avocado and salad mix was pretty good.

Our routine is quite standard, we order everything in advance, and once we're done with our appetiser/main, we ask for the dessert. That's where the problem starts. The "self-saucing" chocolate cake understandably requires some time to prepare, but given that we ordered it upfront, shouldn't they either (1) warn us that it will take x mins from the time we end our mains, or (2) estimate accordingly and get it ready? And so, impatient us sit there twiddling our thumbs, contemplating whether or not to cancel the order. Finally as we're about to give up..... the cake arrives and when we poke it and warm chocolate sauce oozes out invitingly, all is forgiven.

Likewise this time, we waited.. and waited.. and waited.. Finally, 10min after being assured "only 3 min more", our dessert arrived. Next time I think I'll just tell them to start preparing the dessert right away after we ordered.

I forgot about complaining after I started eating though. Its an extremely rich chocolate gooey thick sauce just bubbling out from the hot soft crumble cake. Give me a thick rich fudge chocolate cake over the light sponge ones anyday!

Note 1: BTW, I must apologise for the blurry photos. The i-phone really doesn't live up to all the hype

Note 2: Yes I know my posts are usually a day late, but better late than never right? =)

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The Pump Room @ Great World
#01-66/67, 1 Kim Seng Promenade, Great World City, S(237994)
Tel: 68873229
Hours: Sun-Thu 10am-1am, Fri-Sat 10am-2am
http://www.pumproomasia.com/
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Food Bytes: Paper Prata.... with Milo Dinosaur! (Teacher's Estate Prata)

Did a lot of driving around this morning and was hovering around the North part of Singapore. Whenever I'm in the North, the question arises... which prata place should we go to? The famous Jalan Kayu, Teacher's Estate, or Upper Thomson Road?

Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Jalan Kayu for example, is supposed to be the most famous prata. Unfortunately, due to the huge inconvenience of the location, I frequent this the least and are not so familiar with it. The one time I did make it up there, I wasn't particularly impressed... I can't remember much about the prata, but the one thing I remember was that the milo dinosaur disappointed me sorely. To me that's kind of like the essential drink when eating prata, and it should come with heaps and heaps of milo powder which you can slurp up through the straw.

The Upper Thomson Road one is nearest to town and the one I've been to most often. You still have to struggle to find a seat and fight for the many waiter's attention even late at night. This place has my favourite milo dinosaur. The squid here is soft and not too spicy, while the prata goes nicely with the curry. You can even request for fish curry instead of the usual chicken.

Today however, we decided to go to the Teacher's Estate prata. Parking was "easy" since it was illegal, and there were tables open for us. One reason I like coming here is the "Paper Prata". Its thin and layered, crunchy and very very tasty. If it weren't so oily, I could probably eat a few of these! *Shinta thinks it would go nicely with ice-cream. He settled for his usual prata combination with egg and onion.



The other reason we like this place, is the fried slightly tandoori chicken. We attacked it too fast that I forgot to take a photo of it! The milo dinosaur here is passable, nothing to shout about, while the squid was unfortunately a little tough and chewy.



I've heard rumours that some prata places "recycle" the curry when they think customers are not looking. I can't remember which shop was supposedly guilty of this, but since I usually eat my prata plain or with sugar, it hopefully won't affect me!

Food Bytes: "I'm bored, meet me for lunch" #2 (Kohi Ten)

Thurs was Day 2 of *Shinta's leave, and I had an errand to run, so we ended up at this little yoshoku shop called Kohi Ten at the little street between Centerpoint and OG.

This was my 2nd time here. The food is.... so-so, but what I do like is the coffee. *Shinta had the ice milk coffee, while I had the normal house blend. Its pretty ex (>$5 a cup), but I like the little syphon brewing contraptions they had.


The Garlic Mushroom Spaghetti I had was horribly bitter. *Shinta says the shoyu was added too early to the mushrooms and there wasn't enough water, hence it got burnt leading to the bitter taste. The Seafood Soup Spaghetti that *Shinta had was too diluted for my taste. I guess I was expecting bouillabaisse or something. Its a pity cos the Chilli Garlic Seafood noodles and the Chicken Mushroom Soup of the Day I had on my first visit was not too bad.
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Kohi Ten
19 Cuppage Road, Cuppage Terrace
Tel: 64768083
Hours: Mon-Thu 8.30am-11.30pm, Fri-Sun 9.00am-11.30pm
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