TBR again for our eighth

There are several hidden gems in Singapore, particularly in Tiong Bahru. Tiong Bahru is actually a really old estate which has recently become hip and funky with the sprouting of uniquely-decorated cafes, pubs and specialty stores which sport items you may not find anywhere else. After hearing many people raving over the food, ambience and all, Ivan and I have actually gone cafe-hopping one Sunday afternoon for a long-awaited date. Barely 2 weeks later, we are back again, mainly for the bookstore BooksActually. It exudes a rustic literary vibe, with its fiction and literature books beckoning for Ivan (more bookworm than I am) to return cos it closed too early! At 6pm on Sunday.

So of course, to kickstart our Friday night, we headed to BooksActually only to find that there's actually an event held there, where people were reading their pieces of work out loud to the audience. I find it very reassuring and inspiring to see the sheer number of people interested and passionate about the arts and literature in Singapore. And as I was browsing the books on the shelves while keeping my ears open for the sharing session, I came across several Singapore literary publications including one penned by Dick Lee, a collection of Singapore-related poems and a Singlish dictionary!

BooksActually is therefore a must-visit if you're in the neighbourhood! Good place to absorb the bookish aura and take a break from food, food, food!

BooksActually

No. 9 Yong Siak Street

Singapore 168645

+65 6222 9195

Opening hours:

Mon 11am - 6pm

Tue - Fri 11am - 9pm

Sat 10am - 9pm

Sun 10am - 6pm

After doing some research into restaurants/cafes that open late into the night for late dinner till at least 10, since we intended to stay at BooksActually till its closing time at 9pm, we decided on PoTeaTo! One reason was also that it specializes in potato, my favourite, and tea, his favourite. :) And I must say, no regrets. :D  

The entrance of PoTeaTo is pretty misleading, the 1st time I passed the place I thought it must be a really small cafe and did not pay much attention to it as it is more unheard of compared to its neighbours like 40 Hands, Open Door Policy, etc. However, after reading several good reviews online, Ivan and I eagerly stepped into the cafe. The seating space is not exactly huge, but much bigger than expected. Very rustic and cosy decoration and ambience. It got me even more excited! It is free-seating and we had to hang around the teapots/pastries area before getting a table. The good thing is you could use the waiting time to browse the menus and decide on your orders. You gotta make your orders at the counter as well, I guess that's why there isn't service charge, if I didn't remember wrongly. 

The dinner options ($15-$18) were quite limited with fixed sides like potato mash, potato wedges, roasted potatoes, sweet potato mash, fries, etc. I would suggest allowing customers to customize their sides to the main courses! I had a difficult time deciding between the pan-fried salmon with roasted potatoes and roasted chicken leg with sweet potato mash because I wanted roasted chicken leg with roasted potatoes. :( I eventually decided on chicken because salmon wasn't available and Ivan ordered Louisiana pork ribs with potato wedges for himself. Although the chicken has a waiting time of ~30 min (as informed by the waitresses), we had our drinks in jars to keep us happily chatting and immersing in the ambience. We ordered iced chai latte and hazelnut latte ($5.60). I love jars!!!

I highly recommend the pork ribs because there was abundance of meat and the accompanying sauce is freaking awesome! So tempted to ask for more from the counter. The potato wedges were really yummy too. As for the roasted chicken, it was succulent and given that it is my favourite thigh meat, I couldn't pick much on it. But I would really prefer potato mash to sweet potato mash, anytime! I would rather the consistent savoury taste throughout my main course than to have the tinge of sweetness from my mash. While there is room for improvement, I must admit that all in all, I was extremely satisfied with the dinner, ambience and of course the company. ;)

And to end off this really long post, (you should've guessed I have alot of assignments due coming week because I tend to do trivial things when I have more pressing matters on hand), happy twirdsary darling! <3

PoTeaTo

78 Yong Siak Street #01-18

Singapore 163078

+65 6221 2488

Opening Hours:

Tue - Fri 11am - 10pm

Sat 10am - 10pm

Sun 10am - 9pm

Comfort Food, Indeed

Such familiar pain.
That perhaps an easily-whipped up trifle for a Saturday morning's breakfast can soothe.

Ingredients: Sliced-banana (bottom-most layer), Alive Low Fat yoghurt, Post Crunchy Pecans whole grain cereal, fresh seedless green grapes

2nd Visit to Wild Honey

Hey I just met you and this is crazy! But here I am back again, wide awake at 5.30am in the morning when the perpetual sound of the raindrops is lulling me to sleep. Just wanna post some photos of my recent visit on Thursday to Wild Honey @ Scotts Square again! To be honest, I was kinda disappointed that I didn't get to brunch at Prive cafe bakery cos I've heard of the breathtaking view at Keppel Bay and I've never seen yachts in real life. And I guess the all-day breakfast at Prive is more affordable! Oh well, it was fine nonetheless experiencing a different Wild Honey with my cousins and with more people dining, we could try a wider variety of breakfasts.

I enjoyed my first visit to Wild Honey more though, this time round I somehow felt pressured, confused, anxious and a little unhappy while dining. Firstly, my youngest cousin toppled the baked beans from his English Breakfast (Full Works), the most value-for-money one, due to a careless slip of his fingers. Though Wild Honey kindly replaced it with a new pot of baked beans, I felt that the table was still messy and all. Furthermore, I realized that the brioche* (not bread haha) were missing from his breakfast! I had to apprehensively ask the waitress about it and when the waiter served them standing precariously on a small plate, it was totally expected when the brioche tumbled and almost fell off the plate. Such carelessness in forgetting the brioche and serving it haphazardly was quite disappointing.

I recalled how the brioche were standing tall for the English Breakfast during my 1st visit!

Another reason was perhaps that the Tunisian Breakfast which the conservative me adventurously ordered turned out to be not really to my taste and my stomach seemed to be churning after which. Not really used to the Tunisian breakfast style despite me being a lover of tomatoes & onions! It is Wild Honey's signature dish though, you may like it, unlike my family!

"Sizzling pan of shakshouka (tomato, onion, red pepper, chilli), studded with Chorizo sausage, crowned with 2 fried eggs..."

Served with "signature brioche and Israeli salad"

What salvaged the experience was the amazingly good Breakfast Hangover sandwich which my aunt ordered but dared not touch because of the strong cheesy smell she claimed. I gobbled up one half of it. It was so satisfying with all my favourite things, scrambled eggs, cheese, smoked ham, ciabatta and potatoes awwww.

Eggs scrambled to perfection, mingling with the cheese, awesome potatoes at the side!

Toasted ciabatta!

The European Breakfast was as good as ever and my cousin YT loved the egg benedicts with their signature Hollandaise sauce. The portion for the New York Breakfast (forgot to take photo!) looks small for my 1.8m cousin YH but turned out that my aunt loved the bagel and most of us were smearing the cream cheese on all our brioche in the end hehe.

European Breakfast caught my heart at my 1st visit!

Look at the oozing Hollandaise sauce with the egg, ham & mushroom on fluffy brioche

I ordered the Scandinavian Breakfast for mum which looked really sumptuous too with all my favourite things as well (I've too many favourites). It was grilled salmon fillet with Hollandaise sauce on top of crispy potato rosti and asparagus with 2 cute little tomatoes. I think my mum can make us something similar to this at home! Hope she gets inspired and prepare it for us soon yumyum.

Mum fell in love with the tomatoes!

Rosti was really crispy and salmon beautifully grilled!

Of course, I wouldn't forget to snap pictures of this pretty cosy brunch place. And I realized that I have forgotten to try the cakes and pastries on both occasions! They look so beautiful and yummy. I'll definitely be coming back to Wild Honey soon to try more of the breakfasts, sandwiches & desserts!

The strawberry cake is driving me crazy!!! LOL at my aunt's finger!

Interesting use of plates to decor the walls

I love this area, maybe I'll adopt this style for my dining/kitchen in future!

After the filling brunch! (Cute 阿宝色 effect from MTXX)

Ciao!

*brioche:  highly enriched French pastry, whose high egg and butter content give it a rich and tender crumb

Bus Ride to Holland Village

Hey guys, did you miss me? Haha I've been wanting to write a post on TWG Tea at Ion Orchard after visiting it for the first time last Friday with my mum & aunt! After always walking past the place where you can see couples or tai tais romantically enjoying an afternoon high tea through the glass panes and wondering how the tea, desserts and ambience would be like in there, my dear aunt simply led us through the entrance and before I knew it, she has already asked for a table of 3 and that was how my first ever high tea session at TWG Tea started out. I procrastinated writing on TWG because the photos we took are in my aunt's phone and despite having sent them to me via Whatsapp, I realized for the first time that Whatsapp greatly reduces the resolution of the photos! :( Oh well, so you gotta wait awhile before I get my aunt's phone plugged to my lappie for the pretty pictures.

Oh man, it's really late now but I just had the urge to share some words and photos here. I've recently discovered this awesome photo-editing app on the iPhone, it's called 美图秀秀! It seems complicated to use at first but after you find a few of your favourite effects, it really makes your photos more gorgeous than before without readjusting their sizes, like how my other favourite photo apps e.g. Instagram do. So if you're proficient in reading Chinese, download 美图秀秀! Or if you're not, just download and explore, maybe you'd find it useful too.

Today I realized how relaxing it feels to be taking a bus down to Holland Village on a weekday evening when the rest of the population are heading home in the opposite direction during the peak hour. And wow, I guess the bus fleets for Bus 75 are all recently revamped, or perhaps it has already been for quite awhile but I wasn't observant enough to notice. The seats are so new, clean, comfy and in really vibrant, nice colours. Haven't felt so great about a bus ride for quite some time, so here are some photos taken during the bus ride!

My beloved primary school!

The lovely seats :)

The happy passenger!

I was unexpectedly early for my date with YL! Walked around Holland V aimlessly, wanted to try Everything with Fries but there was a long queue as usual (even on a weekday?!) and so, ended up at Wendy's for dinner. First time eating Wendy's without him, so I spent some time looking at the menu properly and ordered the Beef Baconator, which I remembered 987FM intensely promoting when it was first introduced. The baked potatoes were screaming for me to choose them from the Sides menu, as they knew I would easily falter and give in to my love for potatoes. However, after much deliberation when YL had yet to arrive, I decided to go lenient on my body and ordered a slightly healthier Caesar salad for a dose of veges. Turned out to be yummier than expected!

Photo not giving justice to the juicy beef patty and savoury bacon slices hugged by the toasted buns with melted cheese

YL must be really full to resist eating when I'm enjoying myself in front of her

It was my first time having my meal at the Holland V Wendy's outlet too! (So many first times in this post) We sat beside the stairs on the 2nd level and the environment was peaceful with dim lighting, best for catching up with old friends over fast food which incorporates more authentic and fresh ingredients than others.

On the wall along the stairs

And lastly, when you're here at Holland V, a chillax session with friends gotta end with either some alcohol like a mug of beer at the coolio Wala Wala or some desserts at the lovely ice-cream joints and Coffeebean! We eventually settled on sharing a large Black Forest frappuccino and slice of Tiramisu YUM :) Okay, and so all the hesitation and giving the butter baked potato a miss at Wendy's was kinda redundant. I can never escape from the clutches of food... Oppps I think I'm overusing personification in my writing!

Black Forest frapp & Tiramisu <3

Gotta make my own tiramisu with the ingredients I bought before flying off!

But where to get rum? RUMMM

Gonna sleep for like about 5 hours before waking up for Brunch at most likely Prive bakery cafe! Finally!!! Stay posted for more updates on my food escapades! Good night!

Crabbie Day, Not a Crappy Day!

I'm so proud of myself coming up with such a witty title for this post! The release of exam results yesterday morning resulted in my intermittent waking up throughout the night's sleep to check my phone for the revelation SMS. Glad that my results were up to expectations. And so today, after the crazy sleep bug continued harassing me despite me waking up at 2 in the afternoon, my aunt proposed treating us to a crab feast! The glutton in me immediately perked up, enough for me to wash up and look decent enough to leave the house.

Arriving at the entrance of Seafood Paradise at Senja-Cashew Community Club, we realized it opens at only 6pm for dinner time. With half an hour more to go, we strolled to Bukit Panjang Plaza via the link bridge for some snacks and drinks. I bought my favourite Gong Cha Alisan Tea with Pudding before joining my mum and aunt at the 717 Trading store to enjoy the durian crepes they bought! It was buy 5 get 1 free at $2.20 each and  so they bought 6. The tables and seats provided were pretty cute cos you'd be facing a huge slab of mirror while eating and somehow the mirror makes you look better than you really are hehe. I thought the durian crepes were rather expensive because we were looking at each other in disbelief when we witnessed how little durian the staff scooped onto the crepes. However, I guess it is worth a try cos you can squeeze your crepe for the durian lump to be spread evenly throughout your snack and so, you would not miss the durian in every bite you take! And ta da, it was already half an hour past 6 and we slowly made our way back to Seafood Paradise for our Crab Feast!!!

This Seafood Paradise outlet at Bukit Panjang is their one and only outlet located in a residential area, but I can say it has one of the best scenery and ambience among its 4 outlets, simply because it sits on a huge reservoir surrounded by lush greenery and oversees a beautiful skyline sculpted by neatly-built HDB flats. I can't help but feel very fortunate and proud to be living in Singapore, living in this neighbourhood. 

Seafood Paradise is located at where the pink arrow points!

The posh interior and what you see from inside!

I was busy snapping away when they started serving our food and I shall let the pictures say their piece :) First up, fried Kang Kong with cuttlefish! The Kang Kong is fried the tempura style, very different from the usual sambal Kang Kong. Not exactly to my liking but very unique with the crisp of the veges and sweet sauce. According to the waiter, this is pretty popular among diners. 

Next up would be the favourite of my brother and mine! Extraordinarily tender and the cliche 入口即化 (literally melts in your mouth) stir-fried beef cubes. My brother claims that these beef cubes taste even better than the steaks at Jack's Place! Oppps, different styles I guess!

Oh so tender!

So succulent!

So irresistable!

Omg, it's such a bad mistake to be writing this post full of tantalizing food pictures at this unearthly hour! Oh well, and here come the main stars of the day... CRABBIES!!! We ordered one Sri Lankan crab each for both flavours, Butter and Black Pepper! I still prefer Butter largely because you can dip the fried Man Tous into the yummy creamy buttery sauce (and my stomach just growled at the reminder of its awesomeness).

The Butter crab in a menacing pose!

Close-Up!

The killer combination!!!

The freshly fried and warm Man Tous at their best!

And here comes the Black Pepper crab! We were pleasantly surprised and impressed by the plating! So pretty that it comes with a "painting" of a plant! And of course, the flesh of the crabs are always so sweet, fresh and filling. 

The pretty plant on the left!

Credits to my brother for taking this picture

This picture of the Black Pepper Crab screams AWESOMENESS!

I had a really great experience taking my time leisurely picking out the flesh from the shell which were hateful obstacles, yet making the "success" of tasting the flesh even sweeter. The waitresses were extremely attentive, frequently changing your plates to enhance your dining experience. But I was glad that they left me alone when I was engrossed with all the crab pincers and legs on my plate. Due to carelessness and using too much force prying open, a pincer slid out of my fingers onto my blouse and NEW WHITE F21 shorts! Fortunately, the stains were not too bad. So here are some photos of me and my family who had the honour to be part of this crab feast, cos we hid this from my uncle and cousins who were boringly home and wondering where we were! :P

That's all for today and if I didn't remember wrongly, the bill was about S$130 for the 4 of us. Do drop by Seafood Paradise at Bukit Panjang for a unique seafood experience for special occasions or just when you feel like it, like us! But of course, choose the day you wanna visit wisely because... they're currently having this special promotion which varies according to the different days of the week! (That's why we chose Tuesday for our Crab Feast!)

Poster board displayed outside the restaurant

You may visit their official website for more details and promotions. And for your convenience, the address and opening hours of the Senja-Cashew CC outlet are below! Cheers!

#02-01 Senja-Cashew Community Club

(Opp Bukit Panjang Plaza)

Singapore 679910

Tel: 67669813

Opens Daily

11.30am - 3pm (last order at 2.30pm)

6pm - 11pm (last order at 10.30pm)