The Coffee Nation

It has been a while since I had an entry in my blog, so I just want to share with you people a place I recently "discovered" while waiting for a friend who wanted to meet up for coffee. For the record, the owners did not offer to compensate me for the publicity (or lack of it).

A review of the place.

Located along Bali Lane, which can be equally inaccessible whether you drive or not. Not many bus services serve this area & it is not located inside a shopping center that is located above a MRT station. Parking is totally limited too.

What I like about this place is that a few graduates came together & wanted to have a place to hang out. Not too commercial like Coffee Bean & Tea leaf or Starbucks. It is homely yet suitable to meet people to discuss serious stuff.

It is quiet. Sometimes too quiet that you worry if the place is making enough money to stay afloat. You know the feeling when you find a really decent place to hang out & it closes down because it is not making enough money?

There is a nice corner with really comfortable sofas. At the other end of the 2nd storey near the stairs & toilet, there is another corner where you can sit on the floor & sip your coffee placed on a low coffee table. Light snacks like fries & wedges are available if the hunger pangs get to you.

The highlight of this place would be the free Wifi that is available as well as numerous power points to juice up your lappy if the need arises. A lot of though has been put into planning what the owners really want & also keeping up with modern times where people work away from their desks & laptop computers become more common place.

Prices are reasonable & service & prompt & polite. Prompt & attentive but never to intrusive.

This might be my new hangout as it is located near my workplace & it doesn't cost anywhere near an arm or leg to spend the hours if you have time to spare.

Last but not least, here is the official website of this really nice place.

Ja neh!!!

Yummy Mee Hoon Goreng

Yummy Food.. Mee Hoon Goreng.. My all time favourite hahhaa.. miss the one at bedok which i alway went with junkie when watching soccer.. long time since we last went there. are you hungry?

Was walking around Vivocity when I passed by the really BIG Candy Empire stall. It must be every kid's fantasy to own a store like this. It is my destiny to have a really big house in the near future & have a section of my kitchen just like Candy Empire, with all sorts of candies & chocolates & snacks like the ones sold here. I also wan a bar as well stocked as any bar you find in our watering holes but that wil come in another post.

What I like about this place is they import varieties of familiar brands that are not sold here. For example. the Chunky Kit Kat. We used to have only peanut better (even they have stopped importing this, I wonder why), caramel & something else which I can't recall. Cookies & Cream Chunky Kit Kat is not something you find even in our high end supermarkets but the people at Candy Empire did so.

Walked around the chocolate section & have to limit myself to 3 bars of chocolate as shown in the picture. OMG!!! The average price is about SGD$3 per bar so thats SGD$10 of chocolate sitting in my tiny plastic bag. So SO SOOOOOOO expensive.

I guess I should give myself a treat once in a while, even though I am in shape. Round is a shape.

Ja neh!!!

Arnott's Shapes (cheese & bacon)

It is not everyday you see this on the shelves, since the most common supermarket near you would be NTUC Fairprice as they are the largest supermarket chain in Singapore. Wen tto the branch located at the void deck of my block but they do not have it. So did the much much larger branch in Tampines Mall.

Finally found it in Cold Storage. Don't you just love those things that are not commonly found elsewhere?

The taste is heavenly! Salty, unhealthy & savoury. the closest competitor might be Chicken in a Biscuit. Only tried the cheese & bacon flavour but not the barbecue & pizza flavour. Might try the pizza flavour soon.

Arnott's Shapes. Slurp!!!

Ja neh!!!

Chocolate strawberry Kit Kat

Was walking around Candy Empire when came I across this variation of Kit Kat. Really every child's dream to own a shop like this. All sorts of chocolates & snacks like potato chips that are not found in Singapore. Prices are on the steep side as most of these are not found in your everyday NTUC or mama shop.

Anyway do your bid to support awareness for breast cancer. It is more prevalent than you would like it to be & it affects the people we care about.

it is said that once a woman loses her breasts, she does not feel complete as a woman. Same goes for her womb as she is not able to bear children.

Ja neh!!!

Waruku @ Marina Square

My maiden trip to Waraku. Heard many favourable from Yuri so decided to make a trip down after work one day to find out what the fuss was all about. The facade of the restaurant. Can facade be used in this context? Hmmm. The usually refer to the front of a building.

Yuri is a fan of this steam egg dish called chawamushi (spelled correctly?).

My dinner for the evening. I normally have the katsu don when I go to a japanese restaurant. Not really an adventurous person & normally stick to the tested-&-proven stuff. It was delicious. It came with some purple radish thingy & a bowl of miso soup with a piece of naruto floating on it. Not too salty, just the way I like it.

Yuri's dinner. Some na-be (sounds like some rude Hokkien phrase we use oh-so-often but it actually means something like mini paper steamboat in Japanese) Of course na-be is the shortened version of the word kaminabe.

Our common side dish. Some cheese & potato croquette. Not too cheesy. Something different.

Ja neh!!!

Tomton @ The Central

Met up with the ex-roomie for a little get-together session. isn't it sad that we are not able to spend as much time with our friends in the past once we have started working? Long working hours, fatigue, other social obligations & geographical distance keeps us away from catching up.

Meeting place was The Central above Clark Quay MRT station. Relatively nice shopping with a good number of japanese restaurants. Probably to cater to the expatriate population that frequent the area. Roomie (a.k.a musashiken) suggested trying out the famous black pig cutlet at Tomton.

A little write-up on the famed black pigs (they are really black in colour, not the nice pink we all know. Why are they black? Too much rolling in the mud? Neva bathe like some girls I know? Apparently the reason why they taste so nice is also because they leave a relaxing life & are fed good food. Like some of us. Muahahaha!!!

Forgot what musashiken had but he was given this really cool grinding bowl to grind his sesame seeds into a fine power before mixing with some dark brown sauce. It is amazing how efficient the design is. A few rounds & the sesame seeds became really fine.

Musashiken's set meal & my black pig cutlet rice.

The service was attentive but never intrusive. Great place to bring your date, especially if she is a ni-hon-jin.

Ja neh!!!

Dinner @ Mid Summer's Nite Breeze Cafe

Toast Box

Food Temptation

Decide that it has been quite awhile since i post an entry on Junkie's blog. Thus, i decide to write a food review in this entry since Junkie seldom comment on food. Posting entries of my pedicure, shopping goodies doesnt sound too right on his blog. haha..

Here we go... First, the Aglio Oglio is from Hans (newly open outlet) at Eastpoint. Didnt order the set lunch as the soup of the day is chicken celery which i dun like celery.. yucks.. Thus i order this aglio olio plus 1 ice tea for lunch.. hmm, personally i think pastamania pasta would make a better option for me.. i added alot of tobasco into the pasta to make it taste nicer.. it smell nice as comment by my colleague but when enter into my mouth.. its just average.. :p

Following up next is the curry chicken noodle at bedok central. The ingredient are dao po ( is that how it is spell?), slices of fish cakes, potatoe (if i didnt remember wrongly hor), chicken shreds.. Overall, i think this taste fine.. marina sq food court has a similar curry chicken noodle but i haven got the chance to eat it becos the q is very long when i was there back than.. must go back soon to have a taste of it...

Sigh.. im feeling the hunger now.. but i have had my dinner one lor.. wat a pig i am..

Note- hey i realise when i post this entry, everything falls into place nicely as compare to blogging in my own blog!!

I love shaker fries

Shaker fries are back!!! McDonald's periodically bring them back for special promotions, the most recent being the Shrek burger meal, which is a little bit like black pepper teriyaki chicken according to Mana123. I could eat 3 large servings of it, with all of the seasoning. Only to end up with a really sore throat & a terrible thirst. Anyway, got to get it out of my system before they make them disappear again.

Ja neh!!!

Marche @ Vivocity

Not much to comment as the food here is disappointing. To make things worse, the staff showing us to our tables said that the outlet is a direct franchise from the master franchise from whatever country Marche came from. Oh gosh!!! The standard of the food has fallen & somehow the atmosphere does not seem the same as the outlets previously at The Herren & Suntec City. Everything seems the same though. Guess what??? The Village at the former location of Marche at Hereen is even better than the original, though those anal-copyrights people would say the former is a complete rip-off of Marche. I do not care. Good food & reasonable pricing is all that matters to people who live to eat (that's me!!!) rather than copyright issues.

Ja neh!!!

New York New York @ AMK Hub

Nasi Lemak @ Changi Village

Junkie lost his version of the nasi lemak picture so me been nice enough upload my version for him.. muahahhaha... the rice is already scattered by me and thus this pic doesnt look so glam hor.. Junkie, u can write ur entry from here.. :p

Junkie say thank you to Yuri for kindly giving a picture taken from the her mobile phone for me to us ein my blog. My picture mysteriously disappeared from my memory card, or I did not capture the image & I though I had. It is seriously time to consider changing my mobile due to the display problems.

Anyway since Yuri had a nasi lemak craving while we were at Changi Village to check out the prices of various mobile phones from Online Mobile (the only shop I would trust to get the best prices & service), so I queued up to get 2 chicken sets (chicken wing, ikan billis, egg). They cost SGD$2.50 which is the same as the famous Boon Lay Nasi Lemak but this is where the similarities end.

At Boon Lay, the service is superb. The people who serve you are friendly & enthusiastic, always with a smile. One of the malay brothers there even can speak simple chinese!!! I cannot say the same for the malay aunties behind the counter of this stall. They gave me a feeling of arrogance & nonchalance. At Boon Lay, the quality & flavour of the food is several classes above that of Changi Village even though the standard per se at Changi Village is reasonable, probably due to the fact that there is high food turnover. At Boon Lay, the portions are filling & there is variety. Changi Village Nasi Lemak's portions are pathetic & if you were to change an item for something else, they will still charge you SGD$2.50 in addition to the item you want changed. So if you want to change the ikan billis for an egg, they will not give you ikan billis, they will give you the egg you requested & started you an extra 50 cents which brings it to a brand total of SGD$3. Over at Boon Lay, they will charge me for whatever is on my plate. No more or no less.

In short, I do not understand why so many people patronize their stall even when they are given bad service & average food. It is definitely not worth queueing up for even 10 mins & the only time I will eat their food is once in a blue blue moon or when S.O. wants it.

Ja neh!!!

Terra Cafe @ Bugis Junction

A mid-priced cafe with decent service. Food is cheap & palatable Each set meal comes with soup (cream of chicken for that day) & dessert.

Mana123 had the sweet & sour fish, he claimed the fish was very fresh & the flavour goes well with the fish.

Yuri had this spicy Maggi-mee-like noodle which comes with some seafood.

Junkie had the potato gratin which was absolutely sinful. It is made up of slices of potatoes which cream & bits of bacon cover by a layer of grilled cheese. I am definitely not a fan of cheese but it goes well with the rest of the ingredients. Absolutely savory, definitely guaranteed to raise your overall cholesterol level.

Dessert of the day is a scoop of chocolate ice cream. Nothing to shout about.. Overall I recommend this place for it's relatively inexpensive food which worth more than it's price range. There is another branch at Vivocity but I have not been there to have a meal.

SGD$12 ice cream

Another lazy day spent shopping for windows at Suntec City when my tired legs & sweet tooth craving got the better of me. So while Yuri went to get some Ice Blended from Coffee Bean, CunningDevil went next door (Ben & Jerry's) to get some really really expensive ice cream.

SGD$12 for three scoops!!! Even Haagen Dazs is not that expensive. I remember sharing a similar item at the branch at Jurong Point & it only cost SGD$8 (I think). A little bit on the history & flavours of this wonderful brand of ice cream.

Nevertheless, their ice cream is in a class above the rest & worth every penny or cent or whatever currency you prefer. Could not remember the flavours we had that day, but I was very very satisfied!!!

Ja neh!!!

Strawberries

Cunningdevil, Yuri & Yours truely were at Carrefour to get some of the missing ingredients for the family gathering in my home at Tampines. One of the highlights is the chocolate fondue which includes fruits like apples, bananas & strawberries. Another item not to be missed are th mashmallows!!! Yummy.

As we were searching for the strawberries, we cane across two varieties. One of them is from Egypt, there other I have forgotten. The packet on the left is the cheaper variety, which cost around SGD$3 while the packet on the right cost SGD$10!!! You really get what you are paying for. The colours are more radiant, the strawberries are larger & even the packaging makes it more "atas".

In the section where the cheaper strawberries were placed, there were loose strawberries everywhere & open containers as ugly S'poreans opened up the packaging & try to mix & match the better looking strawberries into the container they want to purchase. However in the dearer strawberries section, everything was in order. Sigh. Why do ugly S'poreans behave in this way?

Anyway we bought some of each & throughly enjoyed the strawberries. Another thing to take note. Strawberries spoil really quickly, even when stored in the refrigerator!!!

Ja neh!!!

Central @ Tampines Mall

Finally decided to see for myself what all the fuss is about. I believe there is another branch somewhere out there, in Singapore. Plaza Singapura??? Anyway this trip was not planned as me, mum & Yuri had gone to Courts to look at some furniture beforehand. The facade of the eating place. Can facade be used in this situation? Anybody knows? Okie, this is the "dian mian" or the front of the shop. Also the trademark or "zhao pia". My Hanyu Pinyin is getting rusty. Lots of seats for you to sit as they anticipate long queues & waiting times just to eat their food. Egotistic or good service? Very thin line in between there is.

The menu on display outside the eating place. The ones we had at the table were old & seems like they have been used & abused. I guess it is time for them to update the food selection on the menu as well as make new copies to give hungry people a good first impression of the place. Revise the menu but not the prices!!! Do not be like Cafe Cartel, increasing the price whenever they add or remove food items from their menu. Cafe Cartel is officially on my black list (more on that in just a bit).

My dinner. Nissin noodles with 2 fraking thin pieces of luncheon meat & an egg that is too hard-boiled. Defnitely not value for money. Taste delicious because of all the MSG (aijinomoto?) & not because the cook manages to bring out the best flavour of the freshest ingredients & blend them together into a harmonious combination. Nevertheless, I love what I ate. Will not be going back to try this, but will attempt to cook this myself, for a fraction of the cost of what I paid. Central, if you are reading this, though I doubt you willpay attention to what I say because the crowds somehow just keeps coming, I will not pay premium prices for something even my mother can make better than you!!!

Yuri's Nissin noodle with spicy chicken wing. I heard the chicken wing was the saving grace of this dish. Spicy, tasty, not bloody. I hate to see blood in my chicken. We all know that the poor chickens were murdered & frozen & shipped to faraway places like Singapore (though we are not part of China!!!), but please make sure the parts are washed, cleaned & cooked properly. We are paying for food, you have a duty to be professional.

Cunning Devil's durian fried rice!!! To be continued.

Mini Ben & Jerry's tub

Mini fix on the go, for those who need to satisfy their sweet tooth or ice cream craving. It comes at a premium. Only for those with expensive taste. I have seen these at petrol stations' convenience stores as well as 7-11 so far. SGD$3.50 for a mini tub, while the pint size (I think) costs SGD$11.50 at the Shell petrol station opposite my home & SGD$12.50 at the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop in SUntec City opposite Carrefour (car-ful, hahaha).

I-SCREAM!!!

Lau Hock Guan Kee Bak Kut Teh @ Joo Chiat Road

I am going to spend more of my time updating backdated posts that only have pictures but no words. This entry could be considered a blast from the past, if I knew exactly what that phrase meant. Anyway, when I was just a wee lad, or young child, or when my parents still called me "boy boy" (this is such an embarrassment, hahaha), we used to frequent this bak kut teh joint somewhere near Joo Chiat.

Coming back to this place again brings back those memories & feels as if I am transported back through time, only now I am a little older & a lot bigger. Sigh. Hahaha. The lady boss does not have any recollection of us but turns out that her husband, who is in charge of the kitchen remembers us!!! Prices are on the steep side to me, considering the ambience & location of the shop. Oh, I forgot to mentiont that the fish head curry is quite decent. Look at the spread we orders. A lot of food for 5 persons. Will go back again some day, not because the food is cheap or it has the best bak kut teh, but because I treasure those little trips back into my childhood.

Originally wanted to scan the receipt & post it online, but somehow, can't seem to find the time to do it. Procrastinator wins this round.

Ja neh!!!