Lai Lai Family Restaurant, Tom's Palette, Ah Chew Desserts

Beef Brisket Noodles

It was a rather impromptu meeting that brought Nat, Xueling, and I to Lai Lai Family Restaurant (20 Liang Seah St, 11.30am-3am). I picked the girls up from the Clementi area and we were deciding between Big D's at Holland Drive (no luck with the parking there) and Cityhall area to eat burgers or this, and we ended up with this.

The first page of the menu has a HUGE picture of the beef brisket noodles so we all had this. You can choose between Small ($7.80) Medium ($8.80), or Large ($9.80), and if you want a special order for your beef (like brisket, or all tendon) you'd pay extra. You can choose between Taiwanese ramen, kuayteow, or potato noodles - soup or dry. Yup, many permutations and combinations to try.

The first picture on top was my Medium sized Beef Brisket noodles - I chose the Taiwanese ramen in soup. The soup was super beefy, and to the point of being very herbs- tasting. It's really very tasty though, and the chewy thick noodle (its thickness is in between that of a ramen and an udon) was extremely delicious with the super potent broth. And the beef brisket pieces were really chunky and succulent! Extremely beefy bowl of noodles- its almost like an oxtail soup. I'd prefer the soup version over the dry versions (that both my friends chose below) cos the noodles really soaks up the beefiness from the broth.

This is Nat's Small Beef Brisket Noodles - Taiwanese Ramen, dry.

This is Xueling's Medium Beef Brisket Noodles - Potato noodles, dry.

Notice how the noodles look like tang hoon? transparent and slimy, Chong couldn't stomach it..but I liked it that its very slippery!

They serve the dry noodles with a bowl of soup. And all of us had a small plate of white radish.

Lai Lai also serves other kinds of rice and noodles dishes but we just zoomed into the beef noodles, which they are famous for.

Egg Beancurd with Red Bean

Nat ordered this instead of a drink and this was a really smooth and soft beancurd! Quite eggy - more so than the steamed milk egg from Ah Chew's. Its sweetness is enhanced by the red bean and I like this.

After a late dinner we then strolled over to Tom's Palette (Shaw Leisure Gallery, Level One). I've lost count of how many times I've conveniently ate around here so I can have an excuse to eat the icecream here!

Pistachio, Chocolate Banana

Mine! I LOVE the chcocolate banana! This is my first time trying this flavour and I love it! I almost never repeat my flavours at Tom's Palette cos everytime there are new flavours I fall in love with but this might be an exception.

I ate the Pistachio before, but this time's one particularly packs a punch. Maybe the other time I ate the Pistachio, it was among the 6 scoops shared by 3 girls so I was rather overwhelmed.

Lavender, Pistachio

This was Xueling's. The sniffing runny-nose girl couldnt taste anything and she could taste the Pistachio so you can figure how strong the Pistachio was that day. Even the Lavender couldnt be detected on the poor girl's radar - and I always thought Tom's Lavender was super strong. And I don't like Lavender! It's prob the only flavour I don't like at Tom's but thats cos I'm biased against it - the only time I'd eat Lavender is in the Bakerzin cake - Lavande or drinking it in teas.

Cherry almond, White Chocolate with Cranberry

This was Nat's. She wished she had a whole scoop of white chocolate with cranberry instead - she was a new fan of it. The cranberries were plentiful and its fruity sweetness acccentuated the subtle white chocolate.

Other new flavours I tried that day was Lime and Spice (way too whacky for me) and peanut butter. I like the peanut butter here too!

*Michelle I saw your brother here (nat called out to him and we talked) and even he wasnt gonna buy ice cream for you, buying for himself only! If I was zooming home I'd deliver it to you but I knew we werent gonna stop at Tom's so its too bad! Eat with us the next time!

One round of desserts is never enough for 3 girls so off we went for a second round! Yes I'm always having multiple courses of desserts with my fellow sweet-toothers...

Steamed Milk Egg

Xue had her own (so she won't spread the germs to us) and Nat and I shared one and the dessert below. Xue and I had this just a week ago and she found her new found favourite Chinese dessert. Nat found hers too today =) Extremely smooth custard with the nice egg-milk balance, it is as in Nat's words, a Chinese version of Creme Brulee (though its a world of a difference)

Durian with Yam and Sago

Usually I'd go for a warm paste (like sesame/almond with Kelly the first time round and sesame/red bean with Xueling the second time round) but today I decided to be adventurous and.....it didn't pay off!! Hai the durian paste was totally diluted in the coconut milk (which seemed diluted as well) and there were thick chunks of bland yam inside this sweet soup..only saving grace was the numerous sago that was quite nice to munch on as we slurped up the dessert...and to think we ordered a large portion! It was their daily special - their other special for the day was also another durian dessert. Nat saw in the back of the kitchen that they weigh exactly the amount of durian puree to add into the dessert..how very mechanical!

We then adjourned to Cineleisure intending to catch He's not that into you but no luck with the timings so we ended up catching up till the wee hours of the morning munching on the Cheese fries from KFC (no pictures for you to drool all over). Comfort junk food, interesting eclectic mix of young punks (there was totally attitude punkish girl in a long skirt super interesting) and sweet old couples suppering at KFC - totally unabashed about hanging out at Cineleisure at their age! Okay I'm not ageist - I'd wanna still do that at that ripe old age, wiping out whatever arteries I've left =)