Honolulu Cafe Singapore

Finally, I got my hands on a polo bao! It felt like a never-ending quest, considering how seldom I venture into the realm of HK cafes in Singapore all by myself. But lo and behold, on that fateful day when I feasted with my dear aunt and cousins at Orchard, Singapore, destiny played its mischievous hand. There it was, like a hidden gem amid the bustling mall, the very HK cafe that fulfilled my longings.

Well, I could not resist the temptation of ordering a rich polo bao and a delightful egg tart, even though I was full. I mean, who needs self-control when there is a warm cup of milk tea begging to be enjoyed? My stomach might hate me later, but hey, it is all about living life on the edge, right?

The HK-style hot milk tea cannot be missed. It has a strong tea fragrance with a small trace of slight bitterness in between the milk tea. It goes well with the polo bun and egg tart. Definitely one of the good choices for a tea break on a lazy weekend.

I will give the same rating, 3.8 stars for the food that I tried. They were delicious and satisfying, but, it is not something that I will return real soon for another one.

Address: Honolulu Cafe – The Centrepoint (HK Cha Chaan Teng), Orchard Rd, #01-33 F/G 176, Singapore 238843.
Google rating: 3.8 stars.

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Tempura Tendon Tenya

I tried much food outside of the Tampines area that I did not share with my readers in the past year. One of them is the Japanese tempura restaurant in the basement of Orchard Central. Based on the Google review, it is rated at 4.3 stars. It is a pretty good rating. The waiting time was said to be an hour. I could not recall how long I waited for my dinner on one of the weekends, but definitely, I did not queue for an hour.

The menu stated Asakusa Japan! It has been many years since I visited Japan, so I cannot recall whether I have seen the shop at Asakusa, Japan. How about you, guys?

I ordered the Tenya tendon with hot udon and another set with rice and cold soba. Both orders came with some pickles. It was a decent meal. The tempura was not too oily, and the portion was just right to go with my udon.

The tempura was crispy too. The food is served by a robot, and sometimes the waiters themselves will serve us. Do watch out for the robot behind your seat.

I will revisit the restaurant if I am not looking for something too filling. And, of course, when the queue is not that long too.

Address: 181 Orchard Rd, #B1-01 Orchard Central, Singapore 238896.

Tsukada Nojo

The Tsukada Nojo at the Plaza Singapore on one of the weekdays after the working hour. We travelled from office to Plaza Singapore by bus instead of taking the MRT during the rush hours, however, it made no different. I have another colleague waiting for us at the restaurant, queuing up in front of the restaurant.

Together with another two colleagues, 4 of us tried one version of the beauty pots from their menu after waited for about an hour. We ordered the Tsukada Nojo’s house specialty is the Bijin Nabe, the signature golden jidori chicken soup. The soup is stewed 8 hours until chicken bones fully dissolved and cold down at room temperature to make silky smooth pudding beancurd… Is to make silky smooth and super rich collagen. Ingredients for soup was said to be imported from Japan.

This is how the food served on our table excluded the pork meat. We have to order the same pot as it just has 1 stove for our table, so it means for each group of people, only 1 type of based is allowed.

The second picture shows the portion of pork meat for 4 persons.

Initially, we felt the portion was not enough for us as dinner while waited the broth to boil because every ingredients just nice for four of us. The first round with all the vegetables and meatballs. It is served by the waitress who is quite friendly.

After that, she served us with a small bowl of the broth. The taste of the broth is quite similar to the Din Tai Fung’s steamed chicken soup. You will like it. I do like it and asked for top up too. It is free to top up once. And, you can order more ingredients to go with it.

While we’re trying out the soup, the waitress gave us some seaweed to go with the broth, and she said it tasted good too with seaweed. I did not realize the seaweed was in heart shape.

It did not make the soup tasted better or not, so just can go with or without it based on your preferences. Do not cook the vegetable for too long.

Soon after, we started to serve ourselves the second round with the prawns and the pork meat by ourselves. Just like the waitress, I did a nice presentation when I dipped the prawns into the soup before I took a picture of the pot.

And, the waitress saw it and told us the prawn would not cook if we put it that way. Haha… I told her it was just for us to take picture 🙂

Then, we told her to start serving the udon and we cooked it with the pork meat. The portion of udon for 4 person was quite reasonable and we did not get to finish all the udon even we asked to top up the soup once.

The waitress told us to give them a Google rating and we can get a free ice-cream after showing them the rating from our mobile phones. It is simple mission to get a free ice-cream, so give a try to rate it according to your preferences.

There are two favours, but I just remember the one we chose which was the Yuzu ice-cream. It’s refreshing, concentrated but not too sweet, good for a try if you want to have dessert of the meal.

After all the great meal and ice cream, the waitress is friendly enough to serve us another plate of dessert, I think is sour plum pudding and again, it is nicely decorated and presented to us.

It is a great dining experience at this Japanese restaurant, although it is expensive, it is the fresh ingredients and services make me feel it is still worth for a try during special occasions with a small group of friends or family.

Address: 68B Orchard Road, #03-81 Plaza Singapura Atrium@Orchard, 238891 Singapore.

Fat Boys Burger

Fat Boys Burger, Orchard Road, Singapore.

I am going to do a throw back of the events happened during the last March. Just a day before the Sundown Singapore Marathon 2017, I met up with two other friends for a casual dinner after work at the Fat Boys Burger which is located at Orchard Road. It is my first time visiting this branch. The first visit was at Upper Thomson Road.

There was no queue when my friend and I walked from Plaza Singapore to this restaurant which is situation along Orchard Road, right behind the bus stand. However, the restaurant was full house and no tables available for three person. We waited quite a while because we did not want to sit at those high chairs at the bar side.

So much waiting time wasted and we quickly ordered our food once we got our seats not far from the restaurant’s entrance after a couple paid their bill and left the place. The waitress is quite friendly and repeated our orders carefully. It took a while more before they served our food. My friend ordered the Fries with Cheese and shared among us. It is a day full of fries and carbohydrates.

I ordered the Royale with Cheese which comes with a beef patty, soft sesame bun and some fries. I took a top view of the burger and then, I recalled the days before I met a sales person who works for F&B merchant portal. It makes me to take another good shot of the burger in which I decided to make it naked.

I took a close up picture of the beef patty with a piece of cheese. This is how the burger looks like. As for the taste and the sauce combination, I felt satisfied and finished the whole burger without complaints.

Ban Heng Restaurant

Ban Heng Restaurant
Address: 181 Orchard Road #11-01/02, Orchard Central, Singapore 238896.

I was with my aunt and cousin for my aunt’s birthday celebration at Ban Heng Restaurant which located at Orchard Central. It is my first time visiting this Chinese restaurant. They serve dim sum eat all you can during weekday and we went on to try it.

It starts with their default dishes which are 8 of them.
– Drunken live prawns with Chinese herbs
– Shark fin soup with crab meat
– Deep fried Halibut cod fish in Thai style
– Chilies crayfish
– Braised whole abalone with brown sauce
– Deep fried soon hock with superior soya sauce
– Steamed half shell clams with garlic and ginger
– Steamed red Garoupa with superior soya sauce in Hong Kong style

After finished with the default main dish, we ordered other steamed dim sum, fried dim sum and dishes from the menu. The portion which they served us was not small at all. The quality of the dim sum is normal and nothing great to share. The taste is mild and need a lot of improvement to bring up the quality of the food.

It is not a good selling point when you focus on giving a big portion of food to your customers and forgo the quality and taste of the food. End of the day, your staffs complained about the customers were not able to finish the food they ordered.

The prawns with wasabi mayo, prawns with oats and fried squid rings.

We ordered a plate of the braised Ee Fu noodle which turned out to be slightly flavoured and I ate it with the plain green vegetable and a fried chicken.

The fish maw soup has the same soup based with the shark fin soup. Even  soup, they serve more than enough for three of us.

Lastly, we ordered the yam paste in Teow Chew style. I was slightly shocked with the yellowish liquid in my bowl of dessert and I was thinking how come it has so much oils inside. It does not taste anything and I did not know what it is. I skipped the entire “liquid” and just scooped the yam paste.

Again, quality of food is important too as customers enjoy the taste and presentation of the food more than the quantity of the food served. Hope there is improvement from the chefs.

Sanpoutei Niigata Ramen

Sanpoutei Niigata Ramen, Singapore.
Address: Shaw House, 253 #B1-04/05 350 Orchard Rd. Singapore 238868.

For some reason last month, I landed myself at this Japanese ramen restaurant which is located at the Shaw House and tried their signature ramen. It is my first time visit to this place and this restaurant.

I ordered the Tonkotsu soup ramen and it is no regret at all although it is not a highly recommended ramen from the menu. It comes with soft boiled egg, two pieces of porky meat and seaweed. At first, the portion does look small to me. As soon as I try the soup, I believe I will have a filling ramen as my lunch.

The six hours simmered tonkotsu broth to get the delicious and concentrated soup. It is rich and I love the soup. Do they allow refill soup? The ramen is said to be handmade and it is cooked al dente. I also noticed that it is different shape, slightly thicker and more filling. Oh heavely!

You can order other add on if you wish. Otherwise, a hot green tea is good too.

Mon Bijou

Mon Bijou, Orchard, Singapore.
It is located at Claymore Connect, the French cafe serves all day breakfast, lunch and desserts. I was tasked to check out what to ate for lunch when both princesses just woke up from their beauty sleep. A quick search from the Internet, sethlui.com recommends this French cafe as it has something great to try. Since, we are nearby, we just walk over and we are greeted with their friendly waiter.

I start with translating the name Mon Bijou to English, it means My Jewel. I quite agreed with it, this place is a hidden gem.

The chef recommendations list on the menu includes this MB Crabby Patty burger serves with mango salsa and fries. Food presentation is good, taste for the crab patty is good too. My friend likes the mango salsa.

The second chef recommendation is the Truffle Scrambled Egg with toasts, hash brown and sausages. I wanted to smell the truffle after seeing a TV programme sometime ago. Just curious how it is actually smell when we cook it with our food. I quite like the two-tone toast (black and white toast), I cannot be sure what is the favour of the black colour, and online search, some says it is squid ink. And, then the hash brown used to be handmade, however, the hash brown that I got that day was those frozen ones.

The third chef recommendation under the same menu is the Spaghetti Carbonara which my friend ordered. She says it is really nice 🙂  Overall, the food here is delicious and worth to try. All food served after waiting for some 15 to 20 minutes, I believe they prepare the food with ‘heart’.

For drinks, we choose three different drink, the healthy green juice consists of the green apple, celery and cucumber, the mango smoothie and mocha.
Address: #01-19/20, Claymore Connect, 442 Orchard Road, Singapore 238879.

Maccha House

Maccha House, Orchard Central, Singapore.

Guess what kind of occasion that brings us to this restaurant? I guess it is normal if you are one of those people who frequent Hai Di Lao, a steamboat restaurant in the city. The waiting time for a table at the steamboat restaurant is insanely long. Each reservation is expected to wait for a minimum of two hours for a table. And, what do you do when you are hungry and the table is unavailable? Either sit and wait, change location and if not, look for a tidbit or dessert.

Yes, correct, we went to this restaurant for dessert before our dinner. It is a wrong sequence of events but we have nothing to do while waiting. This is my first time visit to this restaurant and we made a good choice for our dessert selection.

The Matcha Tiramisu serves in a cute wooden box with a small cup of green tea. It is a really nice food presentation. How about the taste? My first bite tells me the taste is not too sweet, as I have been cutting down my sugar intake for the past years. The matcha taste is the best part, strong and not overly.

Dorayaki Set. They are doing a promotion for the dorayaki during our visit and we ordered it with a choice of ice cream besides the default favour, green tea and we chose the vanilla ice cream. It comes with azuki beans, green tea syrup and paste,  small glutinous rice and some creams.

I tried to put as many toppings on top of my dorayaki which comes in two favours, the original and green tea. It is fluffy and really good to eat it while it is warm.

Address: 181 Orchard Road, #B1-40 Orchard Central, Singapore 238896.
Google rating: 4.0 stars.

Hai Di Lao

Hai Di Lao, Somerset 313, Singapore. Many of my friends told me the steamboat restaurant is nice and I should go try for once. It has extensive good services for their customers. This restaurant does not offer buffet style, all ingredients are on its ala-carte menu.

And, finally, I gave a try one day. Not being surprised that I have to queue up for my table especially during the dinner time and the queue can be as long as one hour. While you are waiting, you can walk around in the shopping centres surrounding because sometimes even after an hour, your table is not ready too!

If you choose to stay at the restaurant to wait for your table, then they will serve you some titbits and other services as well. You can do your medicure and pedicure where as well. What??! Yes, this is included in the waiting list services.

The next best thing about this restaurant is you can choose up to 4 different soups at some minimal cost. So, it is up to you on what types of soup you prefer to have. My picture above may look they are the same soups. We ordered the chicken soup, herbal soup, mala soup and mushroom soup. Seriously, the mala soup is very oily and the mushroom soup is plain. The herbal soup and chicken soup are the same soup based. We keep drinking the herbal soup for the night with our steamboat ingredients.

It is quite a lot of them but not as much as you eat buffet steamboat. The meat are fresh and nicely presented. They provide spring onions and parsley, so if you like them, you can put it into the soup and boil or add it into your bowl of soup when you drink it as garnish.

If you think you are not enough full, you still can check out their cooked food on the side bar along with the sauces. Some of the mala Chinese dishes are quite nice to eat.

Lastly, their waiters or waitress will come and check with you if you have any other orders, refill the soup occasionally and they even help you to dish out the foams and extra chili oils from the mala soup.

Address: #04-23/24, 313@Somerset, 313 Orchard Road, Singapore.

Ajisen Ramen

Ajisen Ramen, Plaza Singapore.

I went down to city to meet up with my cousin and my aunt. Since my aunt is in Singapore for a stay, we meet up pretty often and usually we meet up during the weekends. And, this time we were at Plaza Singapore.

I suggested to them to try the food at the Tokyo Walker since my aunt likes Japanese food so much and I was attempted to eat Japanese too because a lot of my friends went to Japan in March and April.

Ginger Pork with Karaage Chicken

I ordered the set that comes with sliced pork cooked with ginger and Karaage chicken set that comes with the gyoza and a bowl of soup. I also wanted to eat gyoza lately but I cannot finish all the gyoza if I were to buy the big packet from the supermarket. So, this meal is sort of a stone kills two birds.

The set is pretty generous with number of chicken and the sliced pork. It tastes good as well as the pork is well marinated before cooked with the ginger. The Karaage is usually oily, however, it is still fine to eat with the sliced cabbage and rice.

I do not see their table has the mayonnaise for me to go with the cabbage. Maybe, I need to request and it is very plain to eat it without any sauces.

Address: #04-01, 68 Orchard Road, Plaza Singapore, Singapore.