Lawry's Prime Rib

Since our outing to Mortons last year, which burnt a large hole in the husband's pocket, we hadn't been an amazing meat place in a while. But a friend of ours had a one-for-one deal at Lawry's with his POSB card, and a bunch of us decided to have a couples night out - for them, without the kids. We had a fantastic time, and with good food and good company, it was throughly enjoyable.

Our poison for the evening. The shiraz matched the food beautifully. It was even better after it had some time to breathe.

We shared a cream of mushroom soup ($12.90) as a starter. This was not too bad, but I liked my version better.

Lawry's own seasoning. We didn't really try it though.

Lawry's copyrighted Spinning Bowl salad. The marketing guru among us said that this was a tactic or gimmick employed by businesses to differentiate themselves from other similar businesses. I suppose Westin's Heavenly Bed is one of these (although I've slept just as well in other normal hotel beds) too.

To me, it tasted like normal salad tossed with thousand island dressing, although it was nice and cold. They also gave out chilled forks, which promptly warmed up to room temperature as soon as they reached the table.

The star of the evening - the rib wagon

The side dishes on the wagon

Our prime rib being sliced....

...and the eagle has landed.

There were 2 types of horseradish - we all went for the less pungent one.

In the meantime, the lobster tails arrived...the Atlantic Lobster Dinner ($96.90) came with clarified butter and lemon wedges. This was excellent. The lobster meat was tender and sweet, and a perfect complement to the beef.

The Diamond Jim Brady cut ($106.90) - "an extra thick cut for the hearty appetite" was over 400grams worth of solid prime rib. We had it medium, and the meat was melt-in-your-mouth tender. It was one of the best beef meals I had since Mortons.

The ensemble with Yorkshire pudding and mashed potato.

We also had peas, creamed corn, and creamed spinach for an additional $7.90 each.

It was a very enjoyable meal - with top quality food, albeit a bit expensive. We were fortunate enough to be eating with very generous friends who picked up the tab in the name of a birthday celebration for one of the guys, but it's not a place that we would go back to without a significant discount, bonus, or special occasion.

Lawry's The Prime Rib

333A Orchard Road #04-01/31 Mandarin Gallery,Meritus Mandarin Hotel

Tel: 6836 3333

Email: reservations@lawrys.com.sg
Operating Hours: Sundays – Mondays: 11.30am – 10.00pm

Fridays / Saturdays / Eve & Public Holidays: 11.30am – 11.30pm (Last Order at 10.30pm)

Mellben Seafood at Ang Mo Kio

The husband and I decided to reward ourselves with a lot of crabs after a long hard day at work. We usually go to Uncle Leong's at Ang Mo Kio, but decided to give Mellben across the carpark a try that night.

We ordered the butter crab, which was absolutely delicious - it was creamy, rich, and yet not too jelak. We licked up the cream with mantous.
We also had the crab bee hoon. The soup was amazingly rich - it was very flavourful (I have no idea how many crabs they used to make the stock), and the noodles were very supple. Top marks for this.

The crabs, we were told, are all of a standard size. The ones we had were very meaty and fresh. At $40 per kilo, we were quite happy with what we got.

The place was absolutely packed. If you come prepared to wait for a parking lot, then a table, and then for your food, you'll be right.

Blk 232 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3 (off St 22) #01-1222

Tel: 6285 6762

Lufthansa Lounge, Frankfurt Airport

After my 12 hours in Frankfurt city, I decided to head to the airport earlier to get some (free) food from the lounge before my red eye flight back to Singapore. Like every good Asian, I was starting to miss rice and noodles after a week in Portugal. So I was most pleased to see that they were serving chicken noodle soup in the lounge. It even came with chilli padi and coriander leaves on the side! It was so good (well, objectively speaking I have had much better noodle soup) that I had 2 bowls.

After I had satiated the noodle craving, I moved on to more traditional German fare.

I shall miss my Krisflyer Gold status dearly : (

Japanese Snacks 3

The mother spent a month in Tokyo with the sister, and came back with various knick knacks for us to try.

There was a persimmon snack - dried persimmon wrapped beautifully in really nice wrapping paper.

This was way too sweet for my liking though.

What we really liked was the Camembert mochi - this was the first time we had ever seen this.

It looked like normal mochi on the outside

But with a cream cheese centre! This was quite yummy.

Hakka yong Tau Fu and Beef Balls at Gar Lok Eating House

The husband and I had read about hand made beef balls in the Sunday Times, and decided to visit the place on a Saturday lunch. We knew it was at Syed Alwi Road, and happily parked near Mustafa before embarking on our search for No. 217. Unfortunately Syed Alwi Road happens to be one of those where the odd and even numbers are on the same side of the road. Even more unfortunately, the numbers split up and don't quite make sense- so there we were on a very hot Saturday afternoon following the trail of No. 105, 106, 107, etc, only to find ourselves....at Serangoon Road with a big open field in front of us across the road. So we had to trek all the way in the reverse direction, watching the building numbers decrease, and hoping that once we crossed Jalan Besar, that we would miraculously find the 200s. And we did! But by the time we got there it was just past 1pm. And by the time we ordered, the stall was out of yong tau fu.

Not to be deterred, we went again the following Saturday, this time slightly earlier, and also being smarter to turn left off Jalan Besar. AGAIN, however, they had run out of yong tau fu. So what do die hard foodies like us do?

We went again the very next day, rushing off immediately after church service.

The stall has no English sign, but it's clear it's the only one in the coffeeshop selling beef balls.

Our haul - for 2 people. The stall owner looked incredulously at my husband and I, and asked "how many people"?? When we replied "2" rather sheepishly, he shook his head and muttered something to himself.

The beefballs ($3 per bowl) had a great texture to them, with a lot of bite. There must have been a fair bit of tendon mixed in, and they came in a mild clear soup that was a refreshing change from the usual soy sauce base that the Teochews use for their beef soup.

Close-up of the beefballs. The slimmer mee pok with minced meat is, according to my Hakka husband, how the Hakkas do their noodles.

I loved the texture of the noodles. It was springier and less oily than the usual mee pok.

The yong tau fu ($3) was decent - I can't say that it was the best ever, but it was certainly very yummy. This stall doesn't use a lot of salt, so it's really easy to eat and the fish meat is fresh.

We also ordered a portion of the abacus discs made out of yam. This was a dish which I had never tried until getting married. The abacus was quite chewy, but rather oily, and I think my mother in law's version is probably nicer. Tasty nonethess.

Gar Lok Eating House

217 Syed Alwi Road

大浦牛肉之家 The Beef House

Open from 9am until lunchtime when they sell out

Closed Fridays

Tel: 96654919

Tuck Kee (Ipoh) Sah Ho Fun

The hor fun had a very supple texture, and the sauce was richly flavoured without being too sweet or salty. Overall a very enjoyable meal, although the crayfish could have been larger.

Originally at the second floor of Hong Lim Food Centre, they're now at the temporary market at Hong Lim Park.

Wah Kee Big Prawn Noodes

This stall perpetually has a long queue, and when I finally got my bowl of noodles Iunderstood why. The prawns are extremely fresh, the soup tasty and sweet with a robust prawn flavour and the chilli combined with the noodles is pretty decent too.
Pek Kio Hawker Centre, Blk 41A Cambridge Road#01-15
Open from 7.30am until 2.00pm every day except Monday.

Curry Udon

The husband and I wanted something yummy but not too expensive for dinner, so we headed for the food court outside Meidi-Ya at the basement of Liang Court to grab a bowl of noodles. We found a branch of Tsuru Tsuru Tei there selling curry katsu udon for $10 flat. This was much better value than the $13 or $14 for the same thing at the Central outlet, which came with service charge and GST. A very decent meal.

Pesto & Pasta

Decided to make some pesto for lunch during one of the public holidays. Using a Jamie Oliver recipe, we did a supermarket run the evening before. Here's the basil and lemon.

I roasted 100g of pine nuts in the oven.

We bought fresh pasta, since I didn't think the dehydrated one would taste as nice.

Blending the roasted pine nuts with basil leaves, salt and pepper, some lemon juice and lots of extra virgin olive oil.

Adding parmesan cheese to the blender before giving it a good run

Voila!

Our very satisfying lunch

Behind the table vs behind the counter

I've never waited on tables before.

As a die hard foodie, I've always regretted never working in a restaurant, whether as a kitchen hand, waitress or dishwasher. The closest experience was working in a kitchen during Easter Camp 2000 cooking round the clock for 300 hungry campers, but peeling potatoes and skinning chickens was more memorable for the fun with friends rather than the kitchen experience gained.

So I decided it was time to learn how a restaurant was run, and volunteered to waitress at a friend's restaurant last Saturday night for free. After donning a black apron, I had about one hour to memorise the menu, table numbers and reservation list for the night. My most memorable moment was waiting on the table of my old pri sch+sec sch+JC classmate who was celebrating her birthday at the very same restaurant that night by complete coincidence, which we both found extremely hilarious.

After being on my feet for 5 hours, I concluded on the following points:

1. It's much easier to be behind the table than behind the counter.

2. Being nice to the serving staff is very important. It can determine whether you eat food from the serving bench or food from the floor; and

3. Some people will eat your leftovers if you leave them on the plate!

Image source: http://www.whataboutclients.com/archives/clients_keeping_them/index.html

Chicken Rice

I had some friends over for dinner recently, and since I had a couple of chickens in the freezer, decided to cook chicken rice. It wasn't the prettiest, but I was really pleased with how it turned out. This was done by stuffing ginger and garlic pieces into a whole chicken, and then boiling it for half an hour with some salt. I fried shallots, ginger and garlic pieces with dry rice, and then cooked it with the chicken stock in the rice cooker.

This was the result:

No chicken rice is complete without chilli - garlic, ginger and large red chillies blended with salt, sugar, lime juice and rice vinegar. Pretty good stuff!

The rice came out smelling and tasting great : )

Aoki at Shaw Centre

I had been keen to try Aoki for some time, and was fortunate enough to have good friends who were willing to give me a birthday treat there one Saturday lunchtime. The place was absolutely packed but my wonderful foodie friend managed to wrangle us the private room, which was nice, but a little weird because 4 of us ended up sitting in one row. We all ordered the set lunch since it was the most economical option.

The amuse bouche: some jelly-like noodles which might have been made of yam, since the texture was very similar to konnyaku, with a soy ginger flavour. They were pretty chewy, and I quite enjoyed them. No idea what the white seeds sprinkled on top were.
All the set lunches came with a salad with a soy-sesame dressing. This was quite pretty, but nothing much to crow about - just a salad after all!

Above-mentioned foodie friend ordered the Nigiri Sushi Jyo Sen ($30), which had 7 types of sushi, kappa maki and tekka maki and miso soup. They had another nigiri sushi set that came with 9 pieces and chawanmushi, but that cost $50 which I personally thought was not quite worth the extra $20 (then again I didn't analyse what the extra 2 pieces would have been). The servings looked fairly substantial and I would have been quite keen to have ordered this, had I not been more interested in other things on the menu.

I ordered the chirashi sushi, described in the menu as a Mazechirashi - sushi rice served with mixed sashimi, miso soup, pickles and dessert ($35).

The pickles looked very pretty - radish, ginseng and no idea what else dyed blue!

The stuff in the main bowl was astounding though - there were bits of otoro (fatty tuna), ikura (salmon roe), ebi (prawn), shima aji (jack), awabi (abalone), uni (sea urchin) and if there were other bits of yummy fish/shellfish (on hindsight I think there was also tako, or octopus as well), they were unidentifiable but absolutely delicious as well. This was all mixed with sweet omelette and cucumber. The wasabi also had yuzu in it.

After uncovering all the tamago and cucumber, the seafood bits were more visible. It was throughly enjoyable because the seafood was so fresh, and it didn't matter that these were the ugly off-cuts that were not presentable for sushi or sashimi pieces!

The miso soup was extremely flavourful - more so than the normal tofu version - since prawn stock had been used.
We were so absolutely greedy and happy that we decided to order another lunch set to share. So greedy friend and I went for the Shokado bento ($38) consisting of sashimi, nimono (steamed vegetables) and tempura, served with rice and miso soup.

The sashimi was drop dead gorgeous - with otoro, maguro, an unidentifiable shellfish on the right, ama ebi, hotate and hamachi and another fish and another shellfish - it was an amazing feast for the eyes as well as the belly.

The tempura was fairly average - crispy, non-oily, but ultimately, just tempura after all! There were veggie and prawn bits.

The broiled fish in light soy - no idea what it was, but it was similar to sardines or sanma - came with a piece of daikon. This was also non-exciting compared to the sashimi - that's not to say it wasn't good, but it didn't really have the wow factor of the sashimi. The fish was sweet and fresh.

The rice was flavoured with mushrooms, so it was a fairly light subtle flavour. I would have preferred normal steamed white rice, although this wasn't too bad.

Dessert was yuzu ice cream, umeshu jelly and a salty caramel/peanut mochi, which came with a fresh hot cup of tea to end the meal with. If I knew enough about tea, I suppose it would have been nice to have known how this slightly more brownish tea was different from the ocha that was served earlier, but it didn't really matter to me. It was the perfect ending to a perfect meal.

At $35 for the Mazechirashi, this was definitely comparable to the chirashi sushi at Sushi Yoshida - the last time I was there was mid-2009 and they had a wonderful chirashi sushi set lunch then for $38. I've heard they've raised their prices since, but am not sure by how much. But parking's definitely easier at Shaw Centre than Devonshire Rd. In terms of value for money, I think Matsuo Sushi still wins hands down for a normal everyday Japanese lunch - they're a less upmarket joint, but $20 all in for a chirashi sushi set, including chawanmushi, is pretty hard to beat.

Aoki

1 Scotts Road #02-17

Shaw Centre

Tel: 6333 8015

Open Mondays to Saturdays for lunch (12.00 to 3.00pm) and dinner (6.30 to 11.00pm)