Fu Lin Yong Tau Fu 福林豆腐园酿豆腐

This place along Amoy Street (near the Cross St end) is always really crowded during lunch hour and it's not easy to get a table. The wait can be up to 15-20 mins if it's really crowded, but this place is pretty good if you're in the mood for a hot, oily and unhealthy yong tau fu fix. It costs around $5 for a set meal (price varies if you have 6, 7 or 8 items).

Everything is deep fried and a thick dark sauce is poured over it, together with some minced pork and mushroom bits.

I always prefer to have the noodlesserved separately from the main items, which is how they do it here. I like the thick bee hoon, which goes really well with the savoury sauce.

19 Amoy St Singapore 069854
Look behind the construction hoarding near Cross Street

Tel: 6423 1911

Open Mon to Sat from 8am-4pm; closed Sundays and public holiday

Matsuo Sushi

Matsuo Sushi at Goldhill Plaza has a really good value-for-money set lunch, where the special changes daily. For $17++ (about $20 all in) you get a chawanmushi, miso soup, fruit plate and main meal. Monday's special was chirashi sushi, which costs about $30 if ordered a la carte off the main menu.

It was a fairly substantial serve, and the seafood was really plentiful and fresh. I thought the ama ebi was excellent - sweet, fresh and absolutely no prawny smell. The miso soup and chawan mushi were both good too. The standard vinegared sushi rice was perhaps the only letdown to an otherwise perfect meal.

I intend to check it out on other days to try the other daily set lunches. They don't take reservations for lunch, so you need to be patient especially if you can only get there around 1pm.

Matsuo Sushi

1 Goldhill Plaza #01-17

Tel: 6356 2603

Open daily from 11:30am – 2:30pm, 6pm – 10pm

Laos - Traditional Lao food

Traditional Laos food is rather similar to Vietnamese and Thai food, which is easier to find in our part of the world and therefore more convenient to make references to. I'm not sure which culture had greater influence over the other, so perhaps it's fairer to say that all three are rather similar to each other.

During a weekday lunch, we went to this pho stall (or feu in Laotian, or kuey teow naam in Thai) a short walk from the morning market in Vientiane. Called Pho Zap, it was extremely packed, and we were fortunate to get a table quickly.

Really amazing smells emerging from this pot of boiling soup

Miscellaneous condiments to add into your noodles - a rather wide range, including different types of chillis, sauces, and spices.

All this for 13,000 kip (approx US $1.30)

Various veggies for adding to the noodles - not just basil and bean sprouts. I had no idea what some of the leaves were.

This was a good hearty bowl of noodles. The soup is more similar to the Vietnamese pho than the Thai version - it's less sweet, less dark and a bit less intense.

Absolutely packed

Walking around the streets of Vientiane, I found a man grilling fish outside a provision shop

This tank was at the back of the shop - plenty more where that came from!

We also ate at the food court on the top floor of the morning market in Vientiane. The Laos papaya salad has a stronger flavour than the Thai version, almost like rojak sauce but not quite. They also add a sour green fruit that is similar to buah dong dong, but I have no idea what it was.

A really good chicken curry noodles from one of the food court stalls.

Finally, grilled food stall on the streets of Luang Prabang - grilled fish must be a hot favourite!

Laos - French food

I was in Vientiane last week and managed to try out 2 of the more renowned French restaurants there, namely Le Nadao and Le Silapa. Being a former French colony, Vientiane is apparently known for pretty good French food at very reasonable prices.

Le Nadao is located near the Patuxay or Victory Monument just away from the city, and it's not that easy to find since it doesn't have a driveway or parking area. When we got there last Thursday evening, the restaurant was practically empty. There was one other couple that came in about half an hour later, ate quietly, and left before we did.

They used to have a 4-course set meal with wine pairing for each course that we wanted to try (it was apparently really good value) but it was no longer offered since patrons had apparently commented that it was difficult to finish so much wine. They had a 4-course set dinner for 185000 kip (or approximately US$20). We had a glass of wine separately for 33000 kip each, or approximately US$3.

We were given little slices of bread with melted cheese to start the dinner.

First course: a fresh garden salad. No surprises here.

Second course: Veloute d'epinard Lao Selon, or a spinach soup. This was quite pleasant, and went well with warm bread, but had strong traces of ikan bilis in the soup stock.

I had the Grillade d'entrecote aux poivre-verts frais, gratin de pommes de terre, or the rib eye with gratinated potatoes and green peppercorn sauce (thank goodness for English translations). This was really really amazing. The steak was very tender, and the peppercorn sauce was heavenly.

The magret de canard grille miel et spices, or charcoal grilled duck breast with a sauce of honey and spices was even better than the steak - there was no gamey smell; the meat was tender and tasty, and had just the right amount of fat. And it was excellent with the wine.

Dessert next: The chocoloate souffle was really soft and fluffy, and cooked just right without turning into a warm chocolate cake.

I had the creme brulee which was unfortunately served cold. I wasn't sure if it was because the Laos residents have it that way, or because of a serving error. But I was so enraptured by the ribeye that the restaurant could no do wrong. The creme brulee was really good, nonetheless - not too sweet, and just the right texture.

Before we left Vientiane, we went to Le Silapa for dinner. Le Silapa is highly recommended by all the tourist guide books as the place to be at. Unfortunately, the main courses turned out to be just average. And they didn't have a set dinner, which meant that we paid slightly more on the whole.

Bread with olive tapenade

We ordered a starter of duck breast, tomatoes, olives and cheese to share (US$8). This was really good - the duck was rare, but again, no gamey smell and the meat was soft and tender. It went really well with the tomatoes and olives. And the serving size was very decent as well.

We were quite disappointed by the mains - the chicken breast with applesauce was rather boring...

While my medium/well-done steak turned out very well done, and was very dry.

The entire bill came up to US$36, without wine. Am giving Le Nadao higher marks for value and quality for now, but I think we ordered the wrong items at Le Silapa, and based on the duck appetiser, I wouldn't mind giving it another go if I was in Vientiane again. Le Silapa also has a 3 course set lunch for US$10 as well, but we didn't have time for that. Their card says they're closed on Sundays, but when we rang up to check, they said that they were open for dinner.

Le Nadao

Sibounheawng Road (on the west side of the roundabout next to Patuxay)

Vientiane

+856-(0)21-213174

Le Silapa

17/1 Sihom Rd

Vientiane

+856-(0)21-219-689

Open for dinner 7 days, and lunch every day except Sunday.

6 hours in Bangkok

Enroute to Vientiane last week, I had a 6 hour transit stop in Bangkok, which was long enough for me to justify taking a cab into town for some eating and shopping.

I ended up walking around Siam Square at about 10 in the morning. Found a small food street between Sois 5 and 6 directly behind the main road (with LRT overhead), which I'll try to make it to during my next trip to Bangkok since it was way too early for rice and curries. Everything smelt and looked really good.

Wandered off to MBK to browse through the shops but nothing really caught my fancy. I remembered they had a pretty good food court on the 6th floor for local Thai food, but nearly got sidetracked by the new food court on the 5th floor. Fortunately my memory served me well, and I decided to wander on to find the original food court one floor up. The first stall I saw had this really impressive big vat of boiling meat which looked and smelt amazing!

It was irresistible! I ordered a bowl of kuey teow nam, sen lek with the lot.

Extremely delicious but I found it a bit too sweet for my liking. Easily solved later by throwing in lots of dried chilli.

Wandering on through the rest of the food court, I found a dessert stall:

Interesting chendol-like dessert

Treated myself to a khaw niaw thurian - durian with sticky rice!

Random shots of food stalls in MBK....unfortunately was too stuffed to snack more

The total cab fare into the city, inclusive of the 50 baht airport surcharge and 70baht for highway tolls, was about 300 baht. On my return flight through Bangkok, I didn't want to run the risk of getting caught in a jam since I had just over 5 hours, so I took a taxi to Central City at Bang Na which cost just under 200 baht. Highly recommended if you don't have a lot of time but don't want to hang around at Suvarnabumi.

The Central at Bang Na has got a fairly substantial food court at the basement with the usual noodle and rice stalls, but also with a few stalls selling traditional Thai street food. The grilled squid was delicous : )

Handburger - Only if you possess patience and like eating at off-peak hours

The husband is a huge burger fan, and wanted to try out this place after reading about it in the Sunday Times a few months back. Compared to other joints like Botak Jones and Carl's Junior, both of which we really quite like for the value-for-money factor, the burgers weren't all that cheap.

The place was packed solid. I was really disappointed by the service - we were standing first in line for about 10 mins and didn't even get a nod of acknowledgement. If not for the husband's eagerness to try the place, I w0uld have walked away.
The husband ordered the onion rings ($4.80) as a starter. These were fairly normal - nothing to crow about, and nothing to complain about.
The drinks were pretty good - I enjoyed my lychee mint crush ($3.50), and the husband really liked his root beer float ($3.80) (A&W where have you gone?).

My original Handburger burger ($.13.80). I thought the bun was a bit too sweet and soft. Also, I had ordered a chilled stuffed tomato to come with it as part of the set....but....

...this arrived instead. I asked the waitress what it was and explained that I didn't order this, and she looked blankly at me for a while before telling me they were yam/sweet potato chips (I forget now what they were). I had to explain that I had ordered the tomato with my burger before she gave another blank look and subsequently, after going back to the kitchen to check again, divulged that they had run out of tomatoes. Sigh. Information that should have been volunteered had to be prised out like a dentist extracting teeth without anaesthesia.

The husband's The Works burger ($16.80) with almost everything but the kitchen sink. This was a pretty good burger, I must admit.

The beef patty was tender and not too fatty, and the cheese was nicely melted.

The service was the real problem with the place, and it wasn't just the normal servers as well. At the end of the meal, the manager came up to us for a chat. Well, actually he asked specifically how we found the beef, which we said was really good. But we were really shocked to find out that HE was the manager since he was the waiter that pointedly ignored our presence while we were waiting in line - a cursory "we'll be with you in a minute" or "thank you for waiting" would have sufficed. Based on his bevahiour I thought he was ordinary staff. No wonder the rest of the team seemed to be rather poor in their customer engagement.

The value-for-money factor was a bit lost since the entire meal cost us nearly 50 bucks., despite me thinking that the beef patties were really good. I would have been happier going to Brewerks for a burger that cost a bit more, but with better service and atmosphere. This was just a fast food joint trying to play with the bigger boys.

If you really must, Handburger's at the Raffles City basement.