There's just something about kate spade accessories that make one go "i want! i want!". They are happy, bright, colourful, and quaintly twee. It is impossible to resist them.
The queues for Meng Kee Satay Bee Hoon (East Coast Lagoon Food Village) are horrendous. Even on weekdays, it is easily a 45 minute wait, and thus our many attempts to try this famous satay beehoon always sadly ended in us walking away to Leng Kee for beef kway teow (queues too, but thankfully shorter).
Mention Morton's of Chicago and apart from the obvious association with steaks, the next thing that comes to mind is $$$ signs (and lots of them). It was therefore too good an opportunity to miss when D found out that they were having this fantastic promotion (until 31 Mar 2010) where a set dinner goes for $95 - for that you get (1) a Morton's salad, (2) a choice of seafood appetiser, (3) a choice of vegetable or potato, and (4) a lovely aged filet mignon! One set was in fact more than enough to feed two and our server had to stop us two excitable girls from ordering two sets. 
We upgraded our order to a prime rib (additional $15) and it was a good decision for this cut was simply bristling with flavour (and also fat). D felt that the steakhouses in the US served better steaks and I agreed that it should be so since the quality of the produce is much better and wider over there. I also had this little sneaky feeling that my sirloin steak at La Strada had been just a tad more tasty than Morton's.
Apart from the Morton's Salad with blue cheese dressing, our other choices for the set were the jumbo lump crab cake served with mustard mayonnaise sauce, and grilled jumbo asparagus with balsamic glaze. The jumbo lump crab cake was excellent - whole chunks of crab meat as the name suggests - although it looked deceivingly small on the plate, it filled up our stomachs comfortably. 
The friend was in need of a safe sanctuary to talk about some issues and hence we snuck off to this quiet little hideout tucked away in a nook of Rochester Park. Eden Sanctuary is a little café serving the Body With Soul healthcare and wellness group, so naturally the cuisine also falls into the “wellness and healthy living” category.
I went for the three course set lunch at $20.90, starting with the orange feta cheese cashew nut salad. The salad dressing had a shot of what I thought was orange juice but turned out to be calamansi juice instead, and had a nice sour tang, just the thing to perk up the appetite. I enjoyed the very sweet and juicy orange segments tossed with the salad leaves (calamansi dressing and orange segments are a good idea for replicating at home!).
My main of spicy chicken with mango basil salsa sounded exciting but it was an anticlimax. The flavours of the chilli salsa had not permeated the chicken meat and I could hardly find any mango. The nice touch was that there was more of the delicious salad on the plate.
Finally, tofu cheesecake for dessert which I shared with my friend who had by this time finished downloading most of her troubles. This was passable but forgettable.
You wouldn’t find gourmet food or sophisticated cooking here – indeed the food would only be considered average, but the privacy and leafy green surroundings are ideal for a good goss with friends. Add to that the virtuous feeling one gets from feeding your body with healthy foods, and I wouldn’t mind coming back again.
A visit to Chiharu had been on the cards for some time and it was wonderful that they were having a special Ladies Set Lunch ($38) on the day that I dropped by with L. We were already on a high enjoying our complimentary cocktails of plum wine, and got progressively more excited as the stunningly laid-out baby blue porcelain platter was placed in front of us. So frankly in such a great mood, we were already very much pre-disposed to find the food good.
side view of giant clam shell used as container for the mategai mentaiko!
There was a smorgasbord of things to try on that huge platter but the three I liked best were:
Temari sushi in the shape of adorable miniature balls. So very fresh and delectable, particularly that sweet sweet scallop sushi. The sushi rice was firmly packed and well seasoned, with the grains still retaining their texture and bite.
Handmade crab tofu and pidan tofu. So smooth and light and yet flavourful in a very subtle way. Clean-tasting and very understated! The bad part was the teensy servings so the enjoyment was over in two bites.
Both L and I agreed that our favourite was the Mategai Mentaiyaki – grilled bamboo clam with mayonnaise and spicy cod roe dressing. This came beautifully presented in a giant clam shell supported by a mound of baked salt. I love anything mentaiko (dig the spicy and salty flavours!) but this was really super addictive, with the succulent bamboo clam meat providing a good base for the taste explosion of the mentaiko.
After all that happiness and enjoyment, I am now making plans to return to Chiharu soon, in particular to check out their Monday yakitori buffet promotion (priced very reasonably at $28 per person). Bring on those chicken skin skewers!!
Chiharu
779 Bukit Timah Road, www.chiharu.com.sg
We knew we had to buy them when we saw these stunningly fresh and glistening jumbo tiger prawns at the supermarket on Saturday morning. Each one weighed in at an astonishing 100g and at a price of SGD39 per kilo (more expensive than Sri Lankan crabs!), four of these babies cost us SGD16.
There's nothing quite like a nice lunch to perk up the workday. This month's lunch outing with Y was at La Strada, the Les Amis group's Italian restaurant. It was an impromptu decision and thus no reservations made in advance but we were warmly welcomed and served a wonderfully tasty and crisp pizza bread made in their authentic wood-fired oven. So simple, with just a smear of tomatoes and herbs on the top and yet so terribly good. 
For her starter, Y went for the croquette with crab, bell peppers, onions and mesclun salad. I sampled a bite and it was delicious, with a smooth, creamy and piping hot potato filling.
Y always seems to order pasta 8 or 9 times out of 10 and this time was no exception. Pasta of the day was spaghetti with ham and onions in a tomato-based sauce. The flavours were good but the spaghetti was a tad overcooked (also, I would have expected home-made pasta), so I thought this dish was pretty unexceptional. 
On the other hand, my char-grilled 70 day grain-fed sirloin steak was a revelation. Perfectly and simply seasoned with only sea salt, the flavour of the meat was utterly delicious (probably even better than Morton's but I need another tasting at Morton's to be sure☺) and absolutely no sauce was necessary. Unlike the bistecca I had at La Nonna, this was cooked exactly to my medium-rare specifications. 
On Sundays when I have nothing much planned, I like to cook hearty stews. Therapeutic to stir and taste and add herbs, stews gently simmer for many hours on the stove or in the oven, filling the entire house with delicious smells and the warmth of a home. They don't need very much effort to prepare or cook and their flavours improve with keeping, making it entirely possible and even desirable to cook up a large batch and store leftovers for easy dinners over the working week.
Last Sunday's stew was the classic French dish, Boeuf Bourguignon (beef stew in red wine with onions and mushrooms). I used Julia Child's recipe as a reference but did not follow all the steps that closely, being susceptible to shortcuts and not wanting to spend a small fortune on pearl onions. Even then, this turned out to be stupendous, one of the best things I have ever cooked. I almost swooned as I took my first taste....the sauce was fabulously rich and flavourful; the beef tender from the long slow braising; the tiny braised onions sweet and soft and wine-y....
We had the stew for dinner on Sunday night, and the remainder on a weekday night accompanied by warm toasted baguette - it tasted even better if that is at all possible - and we mopped up every single bit of the sauce. What a meal!
Photo borrowed from Yuan's update
Just from reading this blog it may seem that my greatest love is for food, but in fact the real passion of my life is reading. I simply love to read. I devour books. I HAVE to read every single day, at least 30 minutes or I can't go to sleep.
Prosciutto e Rucola pizza
La Nonna signature pizza
Bistecca: ribeye steak in red wine sauce
One of my resolutions this year is to go vegetarian at least once a week, as a small contribution on my part for the sake of the environment (the production of beef and pork take a huge toll on the environment).Lunch at a health food cafe in the Biopolis area a couple of days ago was for lack of a better description, extremely healthful and virtuous. Hakka Thunder Tea Rice is something that I've been wanting to try for a long time ever since I first heard about it, just because of THAT NAME.
A rather schizophrenic experience at Ootoya last week. Prior to the visit, I was full of anticipation, having heard so many rave about the place. I liked that Ootoya specializes in teishoku – an all-in-one set meal with a main dish, side dish, rice, pickles, and miso soup - just like home cooking.
Driving up the dizzyingly steep carpark ramp (all of 16 floors before I found a lot) of that bewildering vertical mall of Orchard Central gave me a staggering headache. Good thing there was no queue and we promptly got seats at the big communal table. Unfortunately after 20 minutes our food was still nowhere in sight, as our server had forgotten to key in the orders – which would ordinarily not have peeved me so much but for the attitude of the manager who couldn’t be bothered to find out what had happened.
Despite being in a huff E was appeased by his first bite of the Torotoro set (steamed rice with Mutsu bay scallops and a soupy stew of tofu and chicken), $17 and 751 calories. So very tasty, with a homely, down-to-earth feel – three small scallops but judge not by the quantity, these were real sweet. The soup was flavourful and heartwarming to sip on, although it seemed a little weird that it was thickened with cornstarch.
The most popular item on the menu, the charcoal grilled atka mackerel ($17 and 579 calories) was deservedly so. An oily and succulent texture but not over-the-top greasy, and pleasantly salty and bitter notes that were complemented perfectly by the grated radish, I couldn't stop eating it and finishing my entire bowl of rice in the process.
Lovely Ying sent this beautiful pair of orange chalcedony earrings with Melissa, and it was such a wonderful Christmas surprise! These perfectly match the stunning orange fantasia necklace that I had gotten from her earlier.
Just gotta love that petit leaf detail, topped off with a tiny cream pearl. Ying is really one of the most talented jewellery designers around - support her one-of-a-kind creations at www.floralbox.blogspot.com! 
