New World Mutton Soup

I like to patronize this stall near my place every now and then. One of the better "Chinese" style mutton soup. I also like Indian/Malay style Kambing Soup but somehow this feel less "sinful".

New World Mutton Soup. Located at Bedok Central Food Centre. The only thing that stops me from patronizing is the chaotic parking and the heavy construction of Bedok Residences. I can't imagine how crowded it will be once the mall and condo is up and running :(

If you want the hawker culture to continue in Singapore (like what Singtel is doing now) and not die off, there are a few things we need to do.

1. Keep the rentals low.
2. Allow them to charge a higher price. The next generation will not want to be a hawker due to the long hours and seemingly low rewards.
3. Patronize them.
4. Promote them as part of the tourist experience and not just to Newton Circle where locals like me avoid.

Side note: The local food served at Sky@57 at Marina Bay Sands can definitely be better. I am pretty disappointed with Justin Quek's version of local food served there. Expensive and not good...

The Art of Mee Pok

This is one of my favorite Mee Pok stall in Singapore. It is located at Simpang Bedok.

There is a long documented story behind how this mee pok stall was started and its rivalry with the mee pok at Jalan Tua Kong. You may want to google it if you are interested.

Be prepared to queue up to an hour or more during weekends. It is open from the early mornings till 5pm. If you want to avoid the crowd, the timing will be early mornings or late afternoons.

Happy waiting. There is a "rival" Tua Kong stall at the diagonal opposite end, which I think u can give it a miss. Visit the original one at Jalan Tua Kong if you really want to compare it with this stall.

Lim Seng Lee Duckie

Another piece of heritage food is going down the history books as the younger generation is not going to take over.

This stall located near West Coast and Kent ridge out of now where will be closed from June onwards... And the entire place is crowded during lunch today.

Go try it before it appears in the archive records.

Ippudo Singapore

Today we had lunch at Ippudo Singapore at Mandarin Gallery. This is the first Ippudo outlet here and they opened a second one near to Mohd sultan road (can't remember the name of the exact building)

I am not sure if you have been to Fukuoka, Japan. The Hakata ramen there is delicious and Ippudo hails from there. Having said that, I think the quality of the Ippudo ramen in Fukuoka is much better than what Ippudo serves here in Singapore.

Personally, I prefer the shio ramen from Santouka, which I have blogged about previously. The Ippudo ramen here is a tad too "commercialized" for me.

The gyoza and the salad is great but I didn't like the "kong ba" bao or "pork bun".

The long queues, ambience of blasting loud music and the rushed service makes you want to finish your food and go off quickly.

Overall, the experience is so-so and the ramen okay but not great. I enjoyed the side dishes though.

Saboten

Saboten in Singapore is one of the better place to have tonkatsu. Fried breaded pork Japanese style.

We had lunch at the Changi airport outlet at Terminal 1. This is the second outlet, the first was at Millennia Walk.

The free flowing cabbage served with Yuzu and sesame dressing was great compliment to the "meat".

The sauce mixed with freshly grounded (DIY) sesame seeds blended perfectly with the breaded pork that is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

The free flow of rice and miso soup just makes you eat more "gohan" and become sinfully fat.

I never really like fried stuff but the tonkatsu at Saboten is as close as you can get to the Japanese standard in Singapore. Try the breads potatoe, it's tasty too.

Food Review - Sin Huat Eating House

Tonight we decided to be adventurous and try the "notorious" Sin Huat Crab Bee Hoon located in Geylang. The reviews from Hungrygowhere is here.

Sin Huat Eating House

This is the restaurant which Anthony Baudouin visited when he came to Singapore (and probably saved by him as well). The chef is one peculiar kind, he doesn't allow anyone to take orders. He will personally take the orders and recommend the dishes which he wants you to eat.

Fried baby kailan

The first dish that came was the baby kailan. Fried just nicely but a tad too salty.

Scallops

The second dish that came was the scallops in dark sauce. I think he used too much garlic and that overpowered the scallops. A bit wasteful as the scallops are fresh.

Frog legs in chicken essence

The chicken essence frog eggs are cooked perfectly and tender and fresh. Again, it is on the salty side and I am quite sure they recycle the chicken essence bottles. 

Steamed Parrot fish 

Again the parrot fish is steamed just right. The sauce is once again salty, thus luckily there is enough veg to neutralize the saltiness.

Famous Crab Bee Hoon

Finally, the crab bee hoon arrived. This crab bee hoon is not the usual type soupy type. This is the dish that made him famous and the first time we tried this. The crab was succulent and not overcooked but by this time, we are pretty full because we have to wait so long for the dishes to be served one-by-one and had almost 6 coconuts and 6 lime juices (due to the salty dishes).

Expensive!

The dinner for 4 adults and 2 kids came up to $430.80. Unbelievably expensive for a coffee shop experience with no ambience to start with. It will be a long while before i will consider visiting this place again.... but if you never try, you wouldn't know. I will rate the food as a tad too salty even though the ingredients used are fresh.  The services are very slow and mediocre. The service staff's attitude probably reflected that of the boss as well. It is indeed true that the CEO sets the culture of the firm!

Valentino

Bar Counter

View of private dining area

We had lunch at one of our favorite Italian restaurant in Singapore. Valentino.The entire family is now based in Singapore and have moved to a bigger premises at Turf City. I have been visiting their restaurant for the last many years. hahaha.

Salad with pine nuts

Mixed Mushrooms

We had salad with pine nuts and mixed mushroom today for appetizers followed by one of my favorite grilled Octopus leg. Yummy.

Grilled Octopus Leg

For main course, we had lobster linguine, Oglio oglio prawns and pork chops in wine sauce and they tasted delicious. These are courses that are usually not on the menu.

Oglio Oglio Prawns

Lobster in pink sauce

Pork chop in wine sauce

We had a Chianti Classico today to go with the dishes. A light classic wine from the Tuscany region.

Chianti Classico

My kids had Panecotta for dessert but i dont have a sweet tooth. This is the Italian "豆花" but cost many times more?!

Dessert

The owners treated us to a nicely decorated Limoncello to end the meal. This is the Italian way to end the meal. A sweet lemon flavored wine.

Limoncello

Our family will be there about once or twice a month. You can catch us there one day :).

Food Review - Heritage Suites, Siem Reap

Menu

From my earlier post, you would know that we stayed in Heritage Suites in Siem Reap for 3 nights. We had dinner there on the first and last night. Here is a quick review on the food we had. We had the tasting menu on the first night. (The menu on the bottom right below).

Tasting Menu

Detailed menu

 Bread with real garlic and butter!

The garlic bread came with real garlic and butter which you then "mashed" together to spread on the bread. It was really delicious.

I always "judged" a restaurant by how good the bread is. If the restaurant serves good bread, you can be pretty assured of a certain level of standard for the food.

Linguine Carbonara with egg

My kids ordered a plate of Linguine Carbonara. It was pretty tasty and usually you can't go wrong ordering this even though it is not my favourite. The seemingly raw egg blends nicely with the bacon and pasta and tasted good. I am not a fan of this dish but it does look and taste good.

Tuna with mango

The first dish of the tasting menu is the tuna with mango infused into it. If the dishes looked "fusion" to you, i don't think you are wrong. The taste does blend well with the tuna and mango melting in your mouth.

Foie Gras cambodian style

The Foie Gras tasted fine as well but not as exquisite

Jazz night

It was Jazz night when we were there and things can get rowdy and noisy. It is a form of gathering for the 'expatriates' working in Siem Reap and many came to network every thursday. If you cannot 'tahan' loud music, then my suggestion is to avoid this place during Thursdays.

Grilled Mekong "Lobster"

I am not sure why they call this a "lobster". It looked very much and tasted very much like a prawn. It must have been a busy Thursday night as the prawn was a tad over-cooked and once prawn is overcooked, the texture becomes more rubbery

Beef tenderloin

The beef tenderloin tasted much better than the "lobster" and the portion is just right and goes really well with a glass of red.

Exotic Gratin

The exotic food is actually a "Dragon eye fruit" in Chinese. hahaha can't remember the English name for this. I gave it a miss.

Breakfast at Hotel

The breakfast at the hotel is "ala-carte" buffet style where you can eat as much as you like but order only what you like to have. I find this arrangement much better than buffet style.

Omelette with sausages and bacon

My kids love the Omelette while we prefer ours the sunny side up with a runny egg yolk waiting to ooze out.I will take the egg and put it into my noodles.

Sunny side up

Bee Hoon Chicken

I had the bee hoon for 3 mornings in a roll. It was that good and tasted heavenly with a dash of lime. The chicken blends better than the pork and beef as it is less hard.

Ala carte Dinner

Italian Barolo

We had dinner on the last night here as well. We ordered some similar dishes from the tasting menu and had a bottle of red Italian wine.  (I will not repost the same dishes we had here).

We shared some soup (can't remember what exactly) haha..scallop carparccio salad and lamb rack. The meal we had was good and the lady serving us was excellent. She is really an outstanding waitress who make sure we are well taken care of and provided excellent service. (I must remember to take their pictures next time).

Soup

Salad

Lamb rack

My intention of this blog is to build up the pages slowly overtime so that it can actually help 'archive' some of the nice memories we had and provide reference materials to fellow travellers who share the same passion as me.. I still have tons of pictures which is in my hard drive and i will share them slowly whenever time permits (such as when the market is in a doldrums) haha... but somehow at the rate at which we love to travel, i think i will have a difficult time catching up... :-P

Happy travelling.

Ramen Santouka

Ramen Santouka @ Central

I have decided to make this blog a food and travel blog since i enjoy both "hobbies" immensely and can be said to be "passionate" about it. hahaha. One of my 'retirement' plan is to travel round the world next time and i certainly need to 'work harder' so that i can fulfill that dream one day. :) Unless this blog become so famous that i get free food and accommodation next time?

Sometimes, i think the reason why i work so "hard" is because i look forward to my next break. I think it is important to take a break, so that one can walk farther in his or her career. 休息是要走更长的路。

Anyway, my family visited our favourite Ramen house in Singapore today. It is Ramen Santouka. In my personal opinion, one of the better Ramen places in Singapore. Ramen Santouka is located at 

6 Eu Tong Sen Street #02-76. 

The Central. Singapore 059817

Tel: 6224 0668

We started with 2 nice appetizers.

Green Salad

Gyoza

My son decided to be adventurous today. He had the dry cold noodle dip in hot miso soup. I don't think it taste good. You can give this a miss.

Dry cool noodle with hot miso soup

We came here for our fix of Shio Ramen with an extra portion of pork cheek, soft egg and bamboo shoots.

Shio Ramen 

Pork cheek, egg, bamboo shoots

There is too much ramen, so we had a bowl to share. I like to add a lot of chilli flakes to the soup to make it hot and then washed it down with a bottle of Japanese beer! Shiok.

I also found another 'excuse' to upgrade my phone to iPhone5. I need a better camera-phone! :-P 

Hope the fever die down soon and i can get my phone... part of the reason why i need to upgrade my phone is because my phone dropped into the toilet bowl before and the speaker phone has since 'died'. :)