Singapore Food Log: Urban Mix, One Raffles Place

I can’t believe it happened to me but I’m having a nostalgic longing feeling toward the food at Raffles Place MRT. Well, it’s probably because I have not been there for months when I am unemployed. I mean, who will go to CBD when not working right. The crowd can be madness at times. But there are many dinner options available at the area near the MRT station such as the basement level of One Raffles Place and Chevron House. I know that the Daily Cut seems to be the most favourite amongst Raffles Place office crowd at the moment with its constant bee-line queue at both lunch and dinner times. But this time, I wanna try another type of DIY box from Urban Mix. Similar to the Daily Cut, the ordering start by taking the ordering chit and tick whatever options you’d like to take in your box.

There are two options with the price of SGD 9 for small mix (1 base, 0.5 protein, 1 side salad, 3 toppings, 1 sauce) and SGD 12 for big mix (1 base, 1 protein, 2 side salads, 3 toppings, 1 sauce). I chose the small mix and I think the combination of kimchi fried rice and beer batter dory will be good although I never try this combination before. If you don’t like to scratch your head so much on which item to tick, you can opt for the Urban Mix’s signature bowls too. They have 4 kind of signature bowls such as Gangnam Style, Texas Cowboy, Viva Mexico, L.A. Crossfit and Little Tokyo. I forgot to check how much of this signature bowl costs but I think it will cost around SGD 12?

The choices of the protein seem to be more interesting than the Daily Cut although this probably because I have been eating the Daily Cut for a bit too often. Urban Mix offers some items which I don’t see at any other places such as Korean pork belly and BBQ pulled pork. Pork ftw oink oink. Oops, but today I’m fated with dory not pork.

Drinks are available too from cokes to the fancy coconut water. Hmm, has anyone tried Mexican cola before? Does it take different from the usual cola?

The counter staff was very generous last night, she informed me that by right I should only get 1 piece of beer batter dory because after all I’m only entitled 0.5 protein in my SGD 9 small mix. But she told me that she would give me 2 pieces of beer batter fish instead. Yeay! Overall I love the combination that I chose and turns out the roasted sesame sauce works so good with the beer batter dory and kimchi fried rice. The crab mayo salad tastes yummy too without any weird tangy feel. So yupz, I will definitely be back here whenever I crave for something from Raffles Place.

Urban Mix is located at:

One Raffles Place, #B1-01A

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday: 11AM – 8.30PM

Saturday: 11AM – 3.30PM

Singapore Food Log: Wok Hey

I have been forever hungry for the past few days I wonder why. I actually ordered bigger portion of cai fan than usual for lunch consist of fried egg, pumpkin, chinese cabbage and ngor hiang (meat roll) with rice but guess what, I was already hungry around 5PM. Am I turning into one hungry monster? Oh wait, maybe I’m all along like that. Anyway there’s no way I can handle having light dinner in this starvation mode so I decided to try Wok Hey for dinner tonight. 

 

I am so weak against all things fried so the menu offered at Wok Hey kinda give me something to ponder. Fried rice, fried ramen or fried udon hmm. Bae could not stand me taking forever just to choose something out of 4 choices so he suggested udon. I supposed fried udon sounds good. After that, I was in meditation mode to decide whether I want to go for chicken, beef or prawns. I was initially gonna opt for prawns but bae said the prawns that Wok Hey used seems to be the frozen kind. Hmm, I wonder how did he know. Anyway, after that kind of comment, I opted for grilled chicken in the end to go with the fried udon (SGD 6.80). Add ons are available if you don’t want any meats in your order and each add on costs SGD 1. 

 

 

Since there is no seating area in any Wok Hey outlet that I have seen so far, they serve the food in the takeaway box which looks similar to the Chinese takeaway box used in the States. Maybe the owner of the business get the inspiration from there. It seems to be pretty good packaging though because my udon still warm when I reached home 40 minutes later. 

 

 

Other than the grilled chicken, the udon comes with cabbage and egg and it was quite yummy. You can add some chili but if you want more, you should really tell the person upon ordering. Otherwise, you will end up like me, seeing only a bit of chili given at the corner of the box. Overall, I pretty enjoy the fried udon with grilled chicken. I have not tried fried ramen before so if I’m gonna buy another thing from Wok Hey, I will probably go for the ramen. With beef, maybe? I dunno, let’s see how it goes. 

 

Wok Hey have a number of outlets in Singapore but the one that I went today is located at the basement level of Clementi Mall. It opens daily from 11.30AM to 10PM.  

8D Avia Japan Trip: Japanese Food Replica Making in Gifu

Good morning from Gifu. After our very packed first day getting through Osaka, Kyoto and ending the day with a stayover at Gifu, we were ready to embark on the second day of our spring Japan tour with Avia tour. Day 2 starts at Gifu with a unique activity which can only be done in Japan. Uhm, nope, I know that river in the old town of Gifu is so beautiful and we do feel like having a morning walk immediately around the old town but we have thing that we need to do here. 

 

The activity that we need to do will be done in this one traditional store in Gifu. Oh I wonder if this involves eating snack, which is definitely what I love to do in Japan. I think I have space in my stomach for Japanese snack for sure. 

 

 

The store is actually selling food replica. Do you notice that most restaurants in Japan display their menu in a wax replica which really looks similar to the real dish (sometimes even better). This is the store where you can buy keychains or fridge magnet in the form of food such as ice cream, dango (i.e. traditional Japanese cake), tempura, sushi, and even a can of spilled coffee or beer. That would be a very fun and harmless prank to pull at one of your friend’s house. 

 

 

The classroom for the course is situated at the back of the store. The store itself is pretty huge and it seems to be very popular with the tourist because our tour guide emphasize that we have to reach this place by certain timing. I initially thought we will be exposed to intricate and complicated design of food replica but turns out I was worry for nothing. 

 

 

Oh, are we making fake fruit tarts? Looks at how real the fruit pieces look like. I suddenly imagining myself having a real sweet and fruity tart for after-breakfast-dessert. Hahaha. Since there are 16 of us, we were split into 2 groups but the teacher spoke in Japanese and hence, our tour guide need to explain to us the steps required to make our food replica. Since it involves hot wax, please exercise caution. After a demo has been done, we will have our chance one by one to make our own version of...

 

 

...prawn tempura and cabbage. For the tempura, each of us was given the prawn so we just need to wrap the yellow which eventually turn into something which resembles batter. The cabbage is basically made by spreading out the green color wax like crepe and then shape it into a ball by squeezing it slowly. I wish they can be smaller because it’s kinda difficult for me to display them when they look this big. I mean, bigger make it kinda less cuter, right? Hahaha. 

 

 

After the whole hands-on experience is done, the store staff will hand you a discount coupon yeay! We took our time to check out what we wanted to buy and my mum ended up with 4 fridge magnets in different kind of food. Our fridge door is really full of magnet now. Once you are done shopping, take your time to enjoy the scenery of the surrounding area a few steps outside the store. I really love the view of the river in the old town in Japan. It’s so clean and serene not like the river in the big cities I suppose. 

 

 

The other side of the river has some flowers which I don’t think are sakura but nonetheless, they look pretty. Brown enjoys the view and sunlight of a clear spring day too. 

 

 By the way, where is Gifu? Gifu is actually located within 2 hours of bus ride from Kyoto. Train ride from Kyoto to Gifu takes longer around 4 hours unless you want to take shinkansen to Nagoya instead and then taking bus to Gifu. I read in Tripadvisor that it is cheaper to take an overnight bus from Kyoto to Gifu if you want to save time. 

Singapore Food Log: The Coconut Club, Ann Siang Hill

This week we have our big boss coming over from HQ and to my surprise, he’s the one who suggested the Coconut Club for the venue of today’s team lunch. My surprise came because I have been spending nearly 10 years in this country and I have not heard of a restaurant named the Coconut Club before. Everytime the name Ann Siang Hill is mentioned, I only know P.S. Cafe and its famous truffle fries. I guess it’s time I know another restaurant residing in this area. 

 

The Coconut Club sign in many languages. The restaurant does not accept reservation by the way, so you have to reach early if you don’t want to queue for a table. They are surprisingly popular. Where have I been in Singapore? 

 

 

I suppose partly the reason of why I seldom go to this part of CBD is because the restaurants here tend to be on the pricey side especially if you compare the fare to hawker centre’s food price which I know, I should not even start to compare. The Coconut Lemak adopts the simple style of design with everyone sitting on a stool kind of chair instead of normal chair. Since the table and seat can only cater around 40 people max, queue is bound to happen at peak hour. 

 

 

I actually did a check 2 hours before lunch time to see what I can order at the Coconut Club and to my surprise, this restaurant only serves nasi lemak and some dishes for sharing. Oh my gawd, I really wonder how can a restaurant survive by selling nasi lemak solely? I suppose the answer lies on the cost of the nasi lemak. This is the most expensive nasi lemak to-date that I have ever eaten at SGD 12.80 price tag (excluding GST and service charge). 

 

 

The Coconut Club offers cendol (local iced based dessert with gula melaka) and some traditional cakes but I don’t think I have space for these desserts and drinks. Since everybody else (except our visitor from the States who opted for iced milo) ordered tap water, I simply followed. Hahaha. 

 

 

However, we did order some dishes for sharing such as Sayur Lemak (SGD 8.50), Assam Pedas (hmm, weird it does not appear on their website menu but it was available when we ate there), and Sambal Sotong (which also does not appear on the website menu, hmm). Both Assam Pedas and Sambal Sotong should be more expensive than Sayur Lemak, probably in the SGD 15-ish since they both involve seafood i.e. stingray for Assam Pedas and squid for Sambal Sotong. Sayur Lemak is just veggie cooked in coconut-milk-laded soup. I think the idea is that sayur lemak is supposedly close to sayur lodeh but for Indonesian standard, they are totally not on par. My colleague did enjoy the Assam Pedas but we were unable to finish the Sambal Sotong so one of us asked them to pack it for take-away. 

 

 

Right, let me have a closer look at the most expensive nasi lemak in my life so far. The nasi lemak can be more fragrant but at least they are not so oily. The chicken is grilled perfectly but seriously how can all these ingredients add up to SGD 12.80++? I can only suspect this is because of the high rental for the shophouse in Ann Siang Hill. Overall, it was a pretty good nasi lemak though I still can’t accept the price tag. 

 

 

Would I come again? Hmm, I think I’m pretty good with nasi lemak offered at Amoy Street Food Market cause I’m poor. Hahahaha.

 

The Coconut Club is located at: 

 

6 Ann Siang Hill

Singapore

 

Opening hours:

 

Monday to Saturday - 11AM to 3PM, 6PM to 9.30PM

Sunday - 11AM to 3PM

8D Avia Japan Trip: Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto

Kyoto has so many attractions but the thing is, it may not be easy to reach some of these attractions because of their location. On my previous visit to Kyoto three years ago, I remember I had to take bus to reach certain destination like the Golden and Silver Pavillion. However, some of the attractions are reachable by taking train such as Fushimi Inari and Arashiyama. Group tour seldom (or never?) includes Arashiyama as part of their tour itinerary. I suspect this is because the need to spend the night in Kyoto if the operator include Arashiyama in the itinerary. But, Fushimi Inari will always definitely in the itinerary of any tour operator whenever Kyoto is included. 

 

As such, Fushimi Inari is always flooded with visitors from inside and outside Japan. All of them came to Fushimi Inari with the same goal, to take a look and take picture (whenever possible) with the many rows of Japanese torii gates (i.e. the red temple gate). The path to the torii gates are located at the very back of the main temple of Fushimi Inari. 

 

 

Basically you don’t have to worry about not being able to find the torii gates because you just need to follow the crowd. The torii gates along the entire trail are actually donations by individuals and companies. If you are curious how much does a torii gate cost, well it costs around 400,000 yen for the small one and it can reach 1M yen for the large one. 

 

 

The name of the donators will be inscribed at the back of the torii gates. However, the front sides of torii gates seem to be inscribed with either phrases or prayers, I am not so sure. Oh right, before you decide to complete the trail, let me just let you know that the torii gate trail at Fushimi Inari is actually a hike to the summit of the mountain. So it’s not like a walk in the park because you will keep on hiking and the hike to the summit and back takes around 2 - 3 hours. However, there is no restriction on how far visitor need to walk. You are free to walk just as far as you wish before making your way back. 

 

To be honest with you, it is almost impossible to have a clean shot of the torii gates (and yourself) at the beginning of the trail. So it is highly advisable to walk further deeper into the trail at least until you pass by the statue of the fox. Oh right, a bit of background may be useful here. Fushimi Inari temple is built to worship Inari, the Shinto god of rice and foxes are thought to be Inari’s messengers. Hmm, now that I take a closer look at the fox, it seems to have a message scroll on its mouth. I wonder what the message that it’s carrying. 

 

 The trail becomes a bit less crowded as we go along but it will be split into two paths with smaller torii gates in front. But if you don’t feel to walk even further (like what happened with this tour group because we only had limited amount of time to spend here), you can just wait for your chance here to get a clean picture without anybody photobombing you. Tough but good things come to those who are patient. LOL.

 

Anyway, we managed to visit Fushimi Inari within less than 1 hour. Of course, we definitely would not have time to spend checking out the temple market but as far as I remember, the market at Fushimi Inari is not as huge as the one at Kiyomisu Dera so you probably should spend more time there. When we made our way back to the bus, we saw a small Japanese cemetery which is probably built for the neighbourhood. The cemetery is so neat and well taken care of. In Jakarta, this would be practically impossible for public cemetery. 

 

 

On the way to Gifu, we made a stop at BBQ restaurant for dinner and I notice that there’s capsule machine (a.k.a. Gacha machine) which gives Rilakkuma or Korilakkuma. My goodness, they are so cute and I can’t believe that you just need 300 JPY to get them because I bet this will cost at least double in Singapore. The morale of the story is, let’s play gacha when we are in Japan. 

 

 

I managed to get Rilakkuma and pretty much happy with what I get after I assemble him hehe. Konichiwa Rilakkuma! 

 

 

Another interesting thing that I bought in Kyoto is definitely related to green tea. Malebranche’s green tea langue de chat (i.e. chocolate biscuit) is pretty good especially when you want to pair it with green tea during tea time. However, the biscuit does not last long so consume them fast. 

 

Singapore Food Log: Poke Doke, Millenia Walk

It has been a while since the last time I caught flu virus and oh boy, the virus lingers even after 2 weeks in my body. Ugh, I really hate the sensation of sick-and-yet-not-so-sick because it kinda hinders you from doing a lot of activities like staying out late after work or go for high intensity cardio workout after office hours. I suppose it’s time to eat a bit healthier although it may have been too late because I’ve caught the virus already. If you are feeling like having a healthy nom at Millenia Walk, you may want to try out Poke Doke for a dose of vitamin sea. Like what it advertises on board. Haha. 

 

Poke Doke has joined the F&B market which specialises in Hawaiian inspired dish, poke bowl. I have only tried out poke bowl from a-Poke Theory at Telok Ayer and I have to say I don’t think I am a fan of poke bowl. But a friend had been raving on about Poke Doke so I’m willing to give poke bowl a second chance. The menu at Poke Doke starts from SGD 7.90 but that if you want to eat salad. Otherwise, its poke bowl starts from SGD 12.50 with 1 scoop of poke + 4 add ons. 

 

 

I figure regular size poke bowl should be good enough for me since after all, this is my first try out at Poke Doke. While they are making my order, I took a peek at the ingredients shown on the display. I super love edamame on either salad bowl, protein bowl and salad bowl. I dunno why but I enjoy having it and the green color make my bowl looks somewhat healthier, no? 

 

 

A lot of customers ordering take-away and this is probably because the eating space at Poke Doke is not so big for a big group to eat together here. The seats that they use are also high seats which are a bit similar to bar stool so I figure those kind of seats won’t be comfortable for some people. But if you’d like to enjoy your food here, go ahead and you may start to enjoy sitting under the imagination that life’s a beach. Hahaha. 

 

 

Anyway, my order is ready within less than 10 minutes or so and I joined the take-away peeps. This is the size of the regular poke bowl from Poke Doke and I chose the combination of spicy salmon (yumz) + edamame + beancurd skin + corn + pumpkin + brown rice. I like the combination that I’ve chosen but my favourite item gotta be the spicy salmon and beancurd skin. I wish it can be cheaper though because having lunch costing me SGD 12.50 everyday will sure put a hole in my wallet. Oh well. 

 

 Poke Doke is located at: 

9 Raffles Boulevard, #01-95 Millenia Walk

Nearest MRT: Promenade

Opening times:

Daily 11.30AM - 8.30PM

Singapore Food Log: Les Patisseries

It seems to me that the neighbourhood of Upper Thomson is populated by a lot of cafe selling waffles and ice cream. Well this is good news for me who love the combination of warm thick waffle and ice cream plus sauce. In the midst of many choices, I decided to go go to Les Patisseries because it’s basically just right beside the cafe that I just visited, Columbus Coffee Co. I was really lazy to walk that day. Hahaha. 

 

At 8PM-ish on a public holiday, the cafe was deserted. But we did not mind it because after all my bae and I were on a date and we love quiet and dim cafe as our dating venue. There is a menu right outside the cafe so you can check out their selection of waffle, ice cream and sauce before stepping into the cafe. There are a few cakes available at the counter too but they did not pique my interest at all, unfortunately. 

 

 

The great thing about how Les Patisserie serve their waffle is that although the cafe offers their set waffle creation, it also offers option for its diners to create their own waffle at both half size and full size. You can choose the combination of the waffle (plain/double chocolate/ earl grey/ rose), ice cream (salted caramel/ belgium chocolate/ madagascar vanilla/ mint chocolate chip/ thai milk tea/ mango sorbet/ raspberry sorbet/ rose & lychee/ horlicks/ strawberry shortcake/ cookies and cream) and sauce (horlicks/ classic vanilla/ dark chocolate/ salted caramel/ lychee puree/ forest berries compote/ maple syrup). The waffle costs ranging from SGD 3.5 to SGD 4.5 for half size and SGD 6 to SGD 8 for full size, ice cream costs SGD 4 per scoop and sauce costs ranging from SGD 2.5 to SGD 3.5.

 

 

 I let bae chose the combination because I am okay with the selection since there is no durian inside the option. He came back with a combination of half-sized earl grey waffle, mint chocolate chip ice cream (his all-time favourite, why do boys love mint ice cream/chocolate/drink?) and salted caramel sauce. Our waffle creation costs SGD 10.50 (SGD 4.5 + SGD 4 + SGD 2). This is the first time I saw the option of choosing half waffle (except Gelare, maybe?) and I was really glad this option is available because I was pretty full from my gluttony at Columbus Coffee Co right before visiting Les Patisserie. 

 

 

Les Patisseries is located at: 

 

222 Upper Thomson

Singapore

 

Nearest MRT: Marymount

 

Opening times:

 

Monday to Thursday - 11AM to 11.30PM

Friday - 11AM to 1.30AM

Saturday - 9AM to 1.30AM

Sunday - 9AM to 11.30PM

Singapore Food Log: Columbus Coffee Co.

The weather has been so crazy hot and humid lately, I ended up getting the flu bug. Actually I don’t really know the correlation between the weather and the flu but I suppose hot and humid weather made you somewhat weaker and then, easier to catch the virus. Haha, that sounds very made-up but I really hate hot and humid weather but can’t really complain because I was born in tropical country. In times like these, it’s time to grab bae to go for a cafe adventure because cafe is equipped with air-con. We took our aircon-looking/ cafe-hopping adventure to Upper Thomson back on labour day and picked Columbus Coffee Co. as our sanctuary for that afternoon. 

 

Oh wow, talking about a fully blast air-con, you can literally feel the chill inside the cafe (even the glass windows get all fogged up). Columbus Coffee Co. was not very crowded when we reached the cafe around 6+ on a public holiday. 

 

 

Let’s see what Columbus Coffee Co. offer on its menu. Since the cafe is owned by the same people behind Atlas Coffeehouse, I expected to see similar dishes offered by these two cafes. The thing is, I only visited Atlas Coffeehouse once and only remembered one dish from their menu, Butterscotch Banana Pancake. Oh wait, there it is, right at the bottom of Columbus Coffee Co. I suppose you don’t have to travel all the way to Botanic Garden MRT if you feel like having the butterscotch banana pancake. 

 

 

You need to make your purchase first upon ordering at the counter, so I left that activity to bae to settle (yay!). He was confused on what to drink so I kinda suggest him to try one of the cold brew items because the bottle is so cute (#wrongfocus). He chose the Matcha Warrior (SGD 7) and it taste so good because it’s chilled and well, it’s matcha and I’m a fan of matcha. But I could not really drink cold drink that day because it’ll make my throat itchy and cough cough. Boo. 

 

 

I ended up drinking Chai Latte because well technically it’s tea instead of coffee, right? Haizz, I forgot to check how much does my chai latte costs. But I figure it should be around SGD 6 - SGD 7 based on the market price of...chai latte. It taste pretty good and oh boy, it did make me awake at night even though it’s supposed to be tea and not coffee. 

 

 

The funny thing that day is, both bae and I did not feel like eating the brunch menu. Instead, we both opted for the pasta dishes. Columbus Coffee Co. is not supposed to be Italian place but well, the cafe does offer a few pasta dishes on its menu. I have set my eyes on Brown Butter Sardine Crumb (SGD 18) because this is the first time I saw pasta served with sardines. Since I have chopped Brown Butter Sardine Crumb pasta, bae ended up choosing Mushroom Medley (SGD 18). 

 

 

His Mushroom Medley kinda hard to differentiate from Mushroom Carbonara except for the fact that there is no bacon anywhere in his pasta. Oh my, bae has turned into a vegetarian although this dish is definitely using a lot of cheese/milk/egg for the sauce. Oh wait, did I see a lot of shreds of cheese on top? I love creamy and cheesy pasta so I like Mushroom Medley although it kinda feels too normal (i.e. can be found at any other place). 

 

 

The Brown Butter Sardine Crumb pasta however is a unique delicacy. The pasta is cooked in aglio olio style so it’s definitely not using any creamy sauce or whatsoever as the garnish. The cafe does not skimp at all on the crumbs and sardines turn out to be a not bad protein to use for pasta although I still prefer salmon. Bae prefer my pasta compared to himself but since I was saving space for dessert, he ended up helping me finishing both pasta. Hopefully he won’t get fat by going out with me. 

 

 

Columbus Coffee Co. is located at:

 

220 Upper Thomson Road

Singapore

 

Nearest MRT: Marymount

 

Opening times:

 

Monday - closed

Tuesday to Saturday - 9AM to 10PM

Sunday - 9AM to 7PM