Saturday, February 28, 2009

Good Morning Nanyang Cafe, Annie's Peanut Ice Kachang, Saybons

Everytime I meet Kelly we always have these spontaneous food trails (it never goes according to plan though we've a list of places we want to try) so this time round it was no different. And I never fail to be excited about writing about the entries, and to write it quick lest I forget the extraordinary measures we take to fill our tummies.
It was a wet gloomy day but chilling at Good Morning Nanyang Cafe (Level 2, Chinatown Point)while watching the crowd go by through those glass panels was the perfect day to spend with my best friend.
Yes, I'm not past the kaya toast phase so here we are trying another place again.... and it was tea we were having, not breakfast. Toast is such a breakfast thing, yeah? We were actually here before, but we were so stuffed from bread that day from Tong Ah Coffee Shop and eventually Barcook Bakery we bypassed this place but luckily we came back to try today cos the bread here is really GOOD!
We ordered a set (kopi, eggs, ciabatta toast) and an alacarte orange ciabatta.
I must say that the coffee here was quite good - not bitter at all, and not too sweet. Definitely freshly brewed local style coffee. Kelly had an iced tea (not part of a set).

Ciabatta Toast

The bread was really light, crispy, and crumbly...even though it looks thick its actually really light - fluffy inside yet crisp outside. One of the most perfectly toasted thick bread I've eaten.

Check out the eggy lumpy kaya! There are no slabs of butter here - the kaya and butter are mixed together. This kaya tastes similar to Tong Ah Coffeeshop's kaya - homemade and extremely fragrant. I read that here, the Coconut, Eggs, Sugar and Pandan leaves are slow cooked over a double boiler for 1 and a half hours. The flavour of the pandan is enhanced by leaving the pandan leaves in the Kaya overnight after cooking.
Don't you feel like making your own kaya now? Easier said than done man - I can imagine the temperature, timing, proportion of ingredients must be extremely precise!

Orange Ciabatta Toast $2.60
This toast is really unique. At first I thought our toast was gonna come with Orange Marmalade but no - the orange peel was actually embedded in the bread and the filling is actually the same - kaya. It has a fruity, coconuty taste - you taste it all together. You have to go try it to actually know what I mean. The bread here is slightly more sturdy than the ciabatta toast above - that was really quite crumbly.
Actually i went back to read the article on ieatishootipost and I realise you can choose the filling from a range of preserves like Orange Marmalade with Cognac, Four Fruits Marmalade and Strawberry with Champagne! Wow! Warrants another visit! And we totally forgot about the scones here... But we were so comfortable on those seats we actually sat till closing time (just before 7 pm). so we had to set off for another place after catching up.
Oh today seemed like a CG day I bumped into Jason along Holland Road just before meeting Kelly and after our tea we bumped into Kums in Chinatown MRT who was gonna try this cigar cum fine dining place which he said was amazing. Okay an aside for Kelly and my reference =)
Then for Chinese desserts we walked all the way to Smith Street cos we wanted to try the elusive 115 Tang Shui Stall (which was closed) and the Hai Sing Ah Baling (which we couldnt find) and since we were unsuccessful - our backup was actually the porridge over at Smith Street - then we decided to walk to Glace at Chinatown Plaza - (and our backup was Tong Ah Coffeeshop's toast) but it closes at 630pm so gaspp we reached Duxton Hill -which has beautiful architecture in the evening by the way, each shophouse had such interesting riot of colours and styles. I'd wanna come back and walk the rest of Duxton Hill (and try Pasta Brava at Craig Road). However, the looming HDB project at Duxton looks quite monstrous now - and even more so in the dark..Wonder how it'd look like when its all done.
Walk and walk and walk....eventually we landed up at Tanjong Pagar Food Market! My poor friend was quite exhausted esp when climbing up the stairs here! But we were eventually very =) when we saw that Annie's Peanut Ice Kachang(Level 2, Tanjong Pagar Plaza Market and Food Centre) was open! We were really quite discouraged that ALL our dessert places ditched us today so you can imagine our surprise when this place was open!! (it closes at 715pm on weekdays)
There is peanut ice Kachang, mango ice kacang, and durian ice kachang. She also has Chengtng, Chendol, bobocharbar. But everyone goes for her signature Annie's Peanut ice kachang!

It is gigornous at $1.50!

The shaved ice was really smooth! And it doesnt melt - so it doesnt leave a pool of colourful syrup at the end - according to the observant (and experienced ice kacang eater =P) Kelly. The red bean, corn and peanut went really well together, and with the evaporated milk and syrup it was phwoah! Just the thing we needed after walking the length of many train stations!

Oh but the ingredients when you get to the bottom is scant. There is no atapchee, and there is very little chendol jelly and grass jelly. It doesnt have much.....inner substance =P

We wanted to go Amoy Food Centre but it was too hot to walk any further so we decided to head to Saybons(B1 Plaza Singapura) on our way home.

This is our second time at Saybons - previously we tried the nutella crepe and seafood bisque so we decided to try something different today.

We went for the (nutritious according to an article pasted on the screen) Brocoli and Cheddar soup (and additional bread which we didnt try) and a savoury crepe.

They actually warm/fry our bread before serving...

Don't the wild mushrooms look like some virulent octupus? We were truly..enthralled.. haha, we love watching chefs at work...even watching Annie, the icekachang lady make our dessert got some oohs and ahhs...yes it doesnt take a lot to entertain us...

Brocoli and Cheddar Soup, Regular $3.20
The soup was really heavy on the cream - but surprisingly it wasnt jelak even with the cheddar. I couldnt really taste much vegetable but I thought the soup was really a good cream soup.
Sundried tomato Bread, Garlic Butter Bread Additional $2.50
You can choose a maximum of 2 spreads with your additional bread. These are the 2 more popular ones out of the 3 spreads they have (the last one is a herb butter). The bread was gently fried and really delicious - even better with the cheesy soup!
Mushroom and Cheese Crepe
I really liked the mushrooms here - and they are really generous with the mozarella cheese as well. The crepe is really light and chewy - Kelly remembers it being more crisp the previous time we had the Nutella crepe. Unfortunately here the crepe is ready made - they fry it, and add the ingredients before serving it. We thought the previous time they made the crepe from scratch but we could be wrong.
And after that we made a hilarious secretive transaction at Dorothy Perkins before heading home. Oh I cant wait for her to clear the last hurdle before planning our next trip (for Kelly its our elective trip but for me it meant a food trail =P).. All the best, babe!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

i'm gonna try one day to do what u all always do, food trait eat a bit of everything from a lot places. haha

julie said...

yup its quite fun walking around eating away...must have stamina for both walking and eating!

liverpool1965 said...

Hi Julie

Kindly note that we have moved to 20 Upper Pickering Street, Telok Ayer Hong Lim Green Community Centre at Speaker's Corner.

We are open Mon to Fri 7:30am to 7:30pm
Sat and Sun 8:30am to 5:30pm

Regards
Byron