Zoukout day - Bakerzin, Anatolia Turkish Restaurant, Hotshots Flame Grilled Burgers

im left with a permanent souvenir after a failed brunch attempt around this area... what a jinxed end to the end of o&g!

i was walking the opposite direction towards brussel sprouts, away from the planned venue, maybe something invisible was drawing me away from the casualty site, but im not about to let all this ruin my supper nor Zouk out!

so to calm down my traumatised soul i needed some nice warm comfort food. Actually we intended to eat at Ah Wok's over at St James (cos i wanted to try the pumpkin porridge that Michelle recommended) but we got super put off by a totally ignorant waiter. He came back saying our orders were not available and when we asked him for other recommendations - and what else was available - he shamelessly said he didn't know cos he works for Dragonfly. And replied that the Ah Wok waiters were too busy to entertain us. What kinda crap service is that! I will never go there for supper anymore. Boo to lousy service!

So while circling around Vivo while waiting for Chong, I realised Bakerzin at Vivocity takes its last order at 11pm so we scuttled off for our dose of sugar. Its an incredibly long walk down to St James and back to Vivo (all the more reason NEVER TO GO THERE FOR SUPPER ANYMORE) so we were quite hungry by the time we got our sugar fix =)

I remembered that Bakerzin has dessert tapas but we got so distracted by the cakes on display that we didn't look at the menu and quickly ordered the 2 cakes.

Strawberry shortcake

If you know me well enough, you know that I'm not a fruit sponge cake with cream kinda person. Give me a dense chocolate-hazelnutty cake anytime man. So this must be like the first strawberry shortcake I've eaten so I don't have any benchmark to set this against. But Chong prefers the strawberry shortcake at Canale better - it was only after eating Canale's version that she started liking Strawberry shortcake, ordering it everywhere she goes (hence, here too =p)

I thought that this cake was rather ordinary tasting - the sponge is light and fluffy. The cream is equally airy-light - I would prefer if there are actually more strawberry puree or even real strawberry pieces though. This is for people who like airy-fluffy cakes, with a good proportion of cream. I shall try Canale's version soon.

Coeur Noir

Yup this is the kind of cake I fancy - bring on the chocolate mousse and hazelnut! This is actually dark chocolate mousse and a hazelnut layer at the bottom - with white chocolate roses on top. The hazelnut layer is made up of chopped up real hazelnuts - there is no crunchy praline layer. Having overdosed on chocolate hazelnut cakes during the previous birthday platter, I think this cake is also quite average. It doesn't pack a punch like the Hilton's version. Although I must say that the chocolate layer was really smooth.

This is the fourth cake I've tried from Bakerzin and my favourite is still Lavande. Oh the lavender chocolate combination is ingenious. Anyway, after polishing up the cakes, greedy us finally remembered to check out the menu when I realised I wanted to try the Baileys souffle!!!!I tried the Chocolate souffle a long long time ago but I don't think any can beat the version over at Laurent's Chocolate Cafe. I cant believe this slipped off my mind. Second on the priority list include the banana pizza - part of their dessert tapas. Oh well, for the next time then =D

Finally after getting high on sugar we were all set to conquer the beach! The express train queue was crazy and the walk down to the actual venue was really tedious too...

so all the energy expended just getting to the venue meant we've to top up our calories! All the junk food sold at the Zoukout venue were actually appealing even though they were a total ripoff. Like Old Chang Kee selling any 3 fried items for 5 bucks.

There were quite a number of stalls there - Frolick - which has a tie up with Zouk whose members get discounts/free upgrades to larger sizes of yoghurt - strategically placed a pretty babe to sell their yoghurt ice cream, there was a stall selling Singapore food - Satay etc, and there were the following 2 stalls which we tried.

The first is the kebab from Anatolia Turkish Restaurant. I haven't heard of this place before this.

This Turkish guy that carved the chicken meat from the large skewer of meat was incredibly sweaty and we were damn scared the sweat will drip into our food..

Chicken Kebab $5

But I guess the tastiest food is sometimes the most unhealthy - and unhygenic as well..think of all the street stalls all around the world - The Thai street stalls especially sell fantastic fried food. Here, the chicken kebab was....well bready. The bun was extremely thick! The meat were in really small pieces and they were drowned in the chilli sauce and mayonaise. Well, I guess drunk people can't really discern good food. Yes I ought to kick myself thinking that the Zoukout venue will have blog-worthy food! Well wherever Anatolia is, over at the mainland - I hope they do have better kebabs if they're not targetting hungry drunk clubbers.

But the next stall, Hotshots - Flame Grilled Burgers - is a place I've been wanting to try since it first opened. Hotshots is a burger chain from the Philippines and apparently they are very big there. But the mainland branch at Lau Pa Sat is just too inconvenient to get to (and if I'm there at night I'd rather eat Satay from the street stalls) so I was actually gonna wait for their newest outlet at Cathay to open to try their burgers. I wanted to try the Lamb burger - Lamburghini if I didn't get the name wrong.

When we were lingering around the counter enjoying our burger and nachos we actually spotted our idol Amanda Ling from Electrico....having fries! gasp, our idol is actually human, eating junk food! Haha. We actually bumped into her many times throughout the night at the dance arenas so we were quite happy.

This set of burger and irish nachos cost us 13 bucks. Super ex!! I think the main branch has an offer during weekends- the sides of fries/wedges are free with an order of a burger and their burgers cost from 5 bucks to around 8 plus bucks.

Crispy Burger meltz - Quarter Pounder Flame Grilled burger, Mayo, Cheese Sauce, Mushrooms, Turkey Bacon

Boo they didnt have Lamburghini so we had to settle for this. I don't see what is the fuss over Hotshots now that I've tried their beef burger. Given their patty was indeed quite succulent - it wasn't thick enough for me - I guess I am too used to the thicker meatier patties from Relish or Foo House's burgers. I'd probably need a half pounder.

This burger makes me miss the Whopper from Burger King. Note that this Crispy Burger Meltz has cheese sauce over the burger, not real cheese slices. So everything was very saucy - Mayo and cheese sauce. A little soggy! Plus the burgers were not made on the spot - they were made in a small kitchen behind the counter and then packaged, waiting to be sold. The ones at Lau Pa Sat are made upon order so they would probably be much fresher. Chong didn't really like this much so I ended up eating most of the burger.

Irish Nachos

Chunky CrissCut Fries topped with signature flame grilled beef, covered in Salsa and cheese sauce

What we really liked though (especially Chong) was this! Thick twister fries with cheese and tomatoes and beef - junk food heaven. It would have been perfect if the twister fries was freshly fried and crispy - it'd balance out the sogginess of the sauces. Nonetheless it was still very good. It is something different from the KFC cheese fries (the fries are too skinny and there is no meat) and the normal nachos (tortillas and cheese can get quite boring after awhile)

I must go and try the freshly prepared irish nachos from the main branch and see if it tops Yella Fella's Chilli Crab fries (cos that is my current No 1 on my fries radar). And I still want to try that Lamb burger.

So having recharged ourselves we rocked our night away. Fantastic turnout this year, more international (and much bigger crowds - in more ways than one) hence the median height of the crowd was definitely more impressive. The homophobes should avoid certain areas cos they were certainly more prominent this year and they were....entertaining for sure. I admire their guts cos I don't even know if its legal.

But of cos we got hypoxic and hypoglycemic after getting exhausted at the main arena so we got outta the venue for a stroll towards 7-11 where we had cup noodles and icecream.

When was the last time you had a Cornetto? I remember Cornetto was like a mega ice-cream treat in primary school. It is like the more expensive icecreams around (as compared to the 50 cents Rainbow icecream) and it seemed huge for my tiny mouth.

Cornetto Royale - Almond Praline in Love (?!) must be a new flavour (or either that I havent eaten Cornettos in a long long while) cos I havent seen it before. There are other flavours too - like blackforest - but when I see PRALINE its quite a brainless choice.

Well there was alot of plain cream in the icecream and unfortunately not much chocolate or hazelnut flavour inside the ice cream. But the pleasant thing was that the cone was actually quite crunchy and when you reach the bottom tip there is a hardened chocolate pool filling the tip. I always look forward to finishing the cone because of that! Sometimes the cone is soggy so I just bite off the tip but this wasn't.

Actually I thought I'd be too exhausted to continue my arduous journey back to the venue (at least 500 metres to Siloso Beach again) but on my way back Matthias told me Above and Beyond was spinning at 5am and they were good. We were glad we listened to him because indeed the trance was fantastic. It was way better than Sasha. Sasha was supposed to be a mega big dj but we couldn't really appreciate his beats as much as we did for Above and Beyond.

We left before dawn and we're glad we did cos there was an early morning drizzle. Madness again at the bus station so we chionnnng to the train express which opened at 7am and pushed our way to be the first to chiooonnngg thru the gantry. Fantastic night with long chong as usual, Im glad I didnt forgo this year's event cos of the nasty accident. Till next year's Zouk out!