Singapore Eats: Ma Maison, Bugis Junction

 Weekdays lunch dates are officially back on track with the end of Chinese New Year weekend. CNY weekend flies so fast this time because we only have one day of public holiday instead of the usual two days. My ex-colleague which is now one of my close friends has received a great news about her secondment to Australia. Since we were in such a good mood, we decide to celebrate by having a lunch date at Ma Maison at Bugis Junction.

Ma Maison offers lunch time menu ranging from Western set lunch like chicken chop or fish fillet to pasta and chicken curry rice set. The price for the lunch time menu vary from SGD 13.90++ to SGD 16.80++.

Despite the menu which looks pretty Japanese to me, Ma Maison has the atmosphere of those Italian diners, completed with the flowery table cloth and European furnitures and lamps inside the restaurant. It is even cozier if you dine here at night time because the restaurant will be dimmed and hence, you can get more romantic vibe during your dinner. 

I ordered the daily set lunch which comes with a bowl of mushroom cream soup. The mushroom cream soup tastes so so and it can't beat the superb mushroom soup from Poulet. 

Other than the soup, the lunch set also comes with a small plate of salad drenched in thousand island sauce. 

The main dish for the daily set lunch that day is beef steak. The funny thing is, you have an option to have the daily set lunch with either rice or bread. And yet, the beef steak is actually served with pasta as one of the side dish. Isn't this carb overload? Notwithstanding the carbs, the beef steak taste quite good. Texture-wise, you don't have to exert a lot of energy to bite and munch the meat. Taste wise, the meat is quite well marinated with the brown sauce. 

Ma Maison is located at: 

200 Victoria Street, #02-51 

Bugis Junction

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday: 11.30AM - 3PM, 5PM - 10PM

Saturday and Sunday: 11.30AM - 10PM

Singapore Eats: Nakhon Kitchen, Holland Village

Hello! Happy Chinese New Year! Wishing everyone a prosperous and abundant joy in the year of Rooster. I just came back from a short home-bound trip to Jakarta today and along the way, I realised that it has been a while since the last time I update my blog. Since I am in a pretty much happy mood (Tuesday blues has not kicked in yet for another hour I think), I feel like sharing my new-founding joy in eating Thai cuisine at Nakhon Kitchen in Holland Village.

If you come to visit Nakhon Kitchen during busy dining hours, chances are you have to queue up for a table. Yikes I know. If you hate queuing up like me, you may want to consider coming to Nakhon earlier like around 5.30PM-ish. We immediately got for ourselves a table of 2.

Since it was pretty humid back then, we were totally in the mood to enjoy iced Thai milk tea. The Thai milk tea served at Nakhon Kitchen is pretty good (if you find them to be too sweet, wait until the ice cubes melted and the drink will be just nice). 

We ordered three dishes to share amongst the two of us. From left to right, a bowl of green curry chicken, stir friend kang kong belachan and deep fried squid served with Thai sauce. 

I always wonder how to say kang kong in English. Some google reference mentions them as water spinach or whatever but there does not seem to be any on-point English word for this veggie. The dish, kang kong belachan (SGD 6) is a popular Asian veggie dish which rely heavily on the spices used to stir fry the kang kong with. Nakhon Kitchen serves a pretty fresh and yummy rendition of kangkong belachan. Yum!

The next dish, the green curry chicken (SGD 8) is actually nothing new in the Thai cuisine-world. If you don't like chicken, you can enjoy the green curry with either beef or prawn. The green curry is leaning toward the tangy and spicy taste but it is still considered mild enough for our tastebud, thankfully. Best to be eaten with hot white rice. 

The last dish that we ordered is the deep fried squid with Thai chili sauce (SGD 10). Thai chili sauce is actually not spicy at all. In fact, it tastes kinda sweet. Like the sweet in the sweet and sour sauce. Haha. The deep fried squid is served with a lot of lettuces as garnish. Overall, this dish taste okay. Nothing can go wrong with anything deep-fried, I suppose. 

Will definitely go back to Nakhon Kitchen to try out their other dishes like phad thai. Yum. 

Nakhon Kitchen is located at: 

27A Lorong Liput

Holland Village

Nearest MRT: Holland Village MRT (Circle Line)

Opening hours:

Daily 12PM - 3PM, 5.30PM - 10PM

Singapore Eats: DW Workshop, Buona Vista

I wonder if I ate so much today up to the point until I am wide awake after 12.30AM. But if I recall correctly, the most likely stuff which I consume which contain caffeine is Starbucks' green tea latte. Which to some people, are not even considered coffee. I wonder if it's the soup, the latte, the Chinese New Year crackers, some bits of chocolates, the half portion of mango shaved ice, a pizza bread and lot of pieces of spicy cassava. Oh shit, did I eat so much? #gymtomorrow

Since I am wide awake now, I think I just go blog some stuff like the last cafehopping activity which I did back in December. That was kinda outdated I know, actually nearly one month outdated because I visited DW Workshop exactly on Christmas Day (that explains the Christmas tree decoration in front of the kitchen).

We visited DW Workshop straight after church service at the Star since DW Workshop is located at Rochester, which is only on stone away from the Star. It serves weekend brunches and sweet treat on Sunday. There were not many people lunching that day maybe because the cafe is pretty secluded.  

If you wanna take a peek at the weekend brunch menu...

Once we have made our order, we took a look at our surroundings and noticed that there seems to be so many art pieces lying around all over the place. Those art pieces (e.g. The painting hanged on the wall, the art piece in the "8" shape, the stuff under the clear glass table are actually for sale. So if you are an art collector, you may want to take a look around this place. Who knows you can find what you have been looking for. 

Other than art pieces, DW Workshop also sells those imported products like Yarra Valley teas (which I suppose come from Australia). You can grab (and purchase) them from the cashier. 

While we were admiring our surrounding, our caffeine orders came and to our surprise, my chai latte and my cafehopping buddy's green tea latte don't look so pretty. Taste wise they are OK though.  

We ordered one sweet food and one savoury food to share among the two of us. The fuwa fuwa pancake taste so fluffy and yummy. I don't really recommend this food for one solo diner though. Seems a bit too much for a solo diner unless he/ she has sweettooth. 

For the savoury stuff, we ordered grilled pork bangers & potato rosti. It tastes awesome, I never know pork bangers and rosti go well together (apparently they do). With a touch of poached egg and cherry tomatoes, the whole lunch tasted even better. 

One last pic of our Christmas lunch. Wishing more and more cafehopping stories wherever we go. 

DW Workshop is located at: 

41 Rochester Drive

Nearest MRT: Buona Vista

Opening hours:

Daily 9.30AM - 10.30PM

Singapore Eats: Barrio by Mex Out, Vivo City

Hello! There is a saying "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life." However, nearly 10 years down the road of career, the only thing that I love about what I do is the payday. One thing that money can buy is the food to share between you and your friend on a weekend date. Hahaha.

For the last Saturdate, Le BFF and I went to try out Barrio (which is owned by the business behind another Mexican restaurant, MexOut) at Vivo City. The outlet at Vivo City is the second outlet of Barrio in Singapore. The first is at 313 Somerset. The outlet at Vivo City seems to be slightly bigger than the Somerset one so we decided to choose Vivo City for our Saturdate's venue. 

I ain't a Juan so I did not feel like ordering tacos that day. But I was interested in the rice bowl and jalapeños nachos. I wonder what kind of Mexican breakfast does Barrio have. 

The presentation of the jalapeño nachos and pulled pork rice bowl look so pretty, we could not help not to take picture of the food before eating. Hehe. 

Okay, let's start with the pulled pork rice bowl. The amount of pulled pork given to the rice bowl is quite generous but the touch of the purple cabbage is what making the dish looks photogenic. Taste wise, I enjoy this plate of rice bowl. Yum. 

The nachos are served with cheese, jalapeño, guacamole, minced beef, tomato salsa and a lot of mayonnaise. Looks very unhealthy, I know but this combination makes the whole plate so delicious. YUMMY! Perfect food to share with friends while talking about daily life in general.
 

Barrio by Mex Out is located at: 

1 Harbourfront Walk, #01-116 

Vivo City

Opening hours:

Sunday to Thursday - 11AM to 11PM

Friday, Saturday - 11AM to 12AM

Singapore Eats: Rookery, Raffles Place

Monday is so cruel. If you think the two days of not working is enough to gear you up against Monday, oh boy, you may be in for a ride. Someone decided to ask so many questions for a task which is due today and obviously you have to battle the questions yourself but thanks God, He is an ever present help in trouble and before I knew it, the task is done nicely so that I could meet up with my friend to celebrate the end of Monday. Since none of us has the energy to walk so far from our office, we decided to have some tapas at Rookery, which is situated just opposite of Lau Pa Sat.

We were abstaining from alcohol because it is only Monday and we still have four more working days to go through. So we ended up ordering three tapas to share among the two of us. The first tapas is a must for tapas-buddy, the truffle fries. Rookery does not use shoestring fries for its truffle fries and it uses wedges instead. However, we can smell the truffle and taste it as well, it goes well with the grated cheese. 

The second tapas that we ordered is the fried chicken. The fried chicken looks pretty small in term of size but they are a lot in quantity. The yoghurt sauce makes this tapas a bit unique. I've never dipped fried stuff into yoghurt before but apparently, fried chicken works together with the souring yoghurt. New taste acquired in 2017. XD

The last tapas is the most unique of them all because the waiter was hilariously say that the dish does not taste as bad as it looks. That was not a very encouraging comment I have to say. LOL. However, the black fried fish (hmm, most likely coated with squid ink) taste so awesome despite its unglamorous color. Wait, on second thought, I love black so I should not mind this appearance at all. 

Rookery is located at:

16 Raffles Quay, #01-02A Hong Leong Building

Raffles Place (opposite Lau Pa Sat)

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday - 8AM to 11PM

Saturday - 5PM to 11PM

Sunday - Closed

Singapore Eats: Gallery & Co., National Gallery Singapore

Hello! If today is your first day of working, welcome back to your source-of-income! Work can be tough but at the end of the day, we have to do what we have to do to sustain our way of life. Fighting! Ganbatte! Jiayou!

If you get tired along the way, you can always take a break of what you are currently doing and meet up with friends/ family members at some nice place to relax and unwind. The other day, I went to Gallery & Co. with a friend to have our girls' night out in a chillax manner. To be honest with you, this was the first time I walked to National Gallery of Singapore. Apparently, the path from the exit of City Hall MRT Station to National Gallery of Singapore is sheltered all the way. So happy for this as the rain was pouring down heavily that night.

The menu in Gallery & Co. is not extensive but there are some interesting dishes on the menu like Otak Otak Taco. Hmm, we kinda wondered how the dish's gonna play out on the table. Other than that, the rest of the menu seems normal like pasta, steak, grilled chicken, etc. 

Since it was already near 9PM, I did not dare to order any caffeine based drink and opted for a cup of hot chocolate instead. Taste yummy and it goes well with the table's decoration. Hahaha. 

Since my cafehopping buddy is daring enough to order that funky otak otak taco, I chose for something normal and I hope, healthier, a quarter of roasted spring chicken served with brown rice and salad. Taste pretty good up to the point I started to have a second thought of whether this dish is really healthy.

The otak otak taco is really an interesting dish. Basically Gallery & Co. play around with the fillings of the taco by incorporating the use of otak otak, a Southeast Asian delicacy as the filling added by a touch of salsa. We had quite a fun eating this funky dish. 

Gallery & Co. is located at: 

1 St Andrew's Road, National Gallery

Nearest MRT: City Hall

Opening hours:

Monday to Thursday, Sunday - 10AM to 10PM

Friday and Saturday - 10AM to 12AM

Hello 2017!

New year. New beginning. Let's take up the pen and write a good story in 2017.

HELLO 2017!

2016 has been a year of ups and downs for me personally. It was a rollercoaster ride but thankfully God is faithful and He never leaves me nor forsakes me. 2017 looks daunting both from public and personal outlook but struggles make people stronger. Let's just hope the struggles don't kill us in the process #weneedgod.

My personal theme of 2017 is to CHILL. 

To enjoy life and find pleasure in doing good in life (without abandoning my adult's responsibilities of course). After all, a day is wasted when you don't enjoy it. 

"I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor - it is the gift of God." - Ecclesiastes 3:11-13

 Wishing everyone a happy new year once again and hope you can enjoy your life despite all its circumstances in 2017!

Cheers!