Au petit salut

The last time I was here was prob the first luxe lunch I had with Brevis.. It must have been years ago and I'm pleasantly surprised to find the menu lunch options expanded for each course. A welcome change:) 3 course lunch for 38++

Snails which make me miss those in Spain.. The garlic butter was most moreish.

J had awesome steak and I had the fish which I felt needed a tad more flavour to it

Frozen cappuccino.. An atas affogato this is.

Quiet place to catch up over lunch in a quaint little bungalow. Perfect for a rainy day hangout!

French ladle

Scopes am/asc pm, finished on time and for once, full attendance on the dot at dinner place , French Ladle at Pandan Valley condo. Love the convenience here- near home , free parking right in front of the restaurant.

Excellent warm and cosy atmosphere, felt like I was being hosted for a dinner at someone's home. Lots of magazines to browse too, am sure it will be nice to hang around post brunch on a weekend. We shared the truffle fries ( with lots of Parmesan cheese ) and French onion soup. ( lots of sweetened onions ). I had the board special- the barramundi which came with mash and butter. Ended up koping most of xuans fries and salad after she was done with her steak:p Pek had a mushroom risotto.

Enjoyed our convos about human behavior and food webs haha. Can't wait for our next French date (prob at toots or shelter in the woods!)/dirty dancing.

Saveur

Today was supposed to be discovery centre iron man with the boys but dad couldn't snag tickets so we are here at the second outlet of Saveur at Far East Plaza, where Mei has been wanting to try for some time.

Thanks to the bro for coming early to snag the table ;) ordered many appetizers - doubled the salmon confit and mushroom cappuccino, and I had the sea bass, mom had the cod( realised I only took photos of the fish -.-) j had the duck confit and the other side of the family also shared another duck confit in addition to their individual. My dad enjoyed his beef loads. Can't believe I met m here ( with a half sized a !!) who couldn't make it to sushi bar. It was nice catching up that wee bit.

Thanks J for coming with mom and me to shop! Knew you were pretty knocked out from your half call :p

Can't wait to try le bisrot at stadium !

Balzac

Sun brunch with the French trio- Pek picked me and we got lost finding the car park entrance to Rendezvous Hotel ( it's along Prinsep street ) and so did Xx so we ended up being much later but the icing on the cake was when Pek had to go back :( xx and i had the very awesome bread ( we ordered a second basket for another 5 bucks) and the truffled veal sausage salad whilst waiting.

Then the French onion soup ( sweet ! ) and the set came - croque, foie gras and the truffled mushroom omelette. The steak frites came soon after ( love the skinny fries). Desserts was of deconstructed apple crumble, chocolate creme brûlée and vanilla bean ice cream.

We loved the ambience of this place - the sexy French cafe music and the lighting of the high ceiling. Lovely place to catch up at. Thereafter we headed for nails at holland v before dinner at J's bro.

La Cantine

From a double date to a triple date, we had our next French grub date at La Cantine at Asia Square. Attempted to go to one raffles place to shop but was dampened by the rain .. Literally !

Headed back and sat at the al fresco area ( the indoors was closed for a private event... Pity )

The highlight was prob the French onion soup with foie gras ( it melted into the soup !). Cod and scallops were a tad small. Also pleased with the sorbet with lotsa lotsa berries ;) Service here was great despite them holding another party indoors. Felt very at home and the hosts were always checking on us.

Next would be the French place at pandan valley !

Cafe Gavaroche

The weekend before I hit clr the Paris girls met for a photo exchange and some catching up. Found a lovely gem in this place at tras street ( with a very discrete entrance !).With the sunlight streaming through the central courtyard, the tiled artwork, Parisian posters, the place was pretty damn gorgeous. Great service to boot too.

I was drawn to this place cos I thought they served the traditional French breakkie ( 8 euros- comprising of baguette, croissant, fruit juice and coffee) but we ordered eggs instead. I had the eggs Benedict with salmon instead and the girls had the baked eggs. Best eggs Ben With a lovely pepperish hollandaise sauce, and fried potatoes. Desserts of creme brûlée and chocolate pots x2 to end, with mocha to down it all we felt almost back in time to those good old days.

Sque Rotisserie

On take day, with just 3 day admissions, partial gastrect going on alongside my forehead, multi flank/UL, hugeass axilla bumps, I was done in time to pick up the boys from TMFT from golf and then headed down to Central to meet Jo & Jills at Sque Rotisserie (Central). Opened by Emmanuel Stroobant just a month back, it occupies the space formerly owned by Sun with Moon. Its broken into sections now - 2 indoor seatings, alfresco dining and another alfresco bar. Pretty spaced out, and still not too crowded for now. Pretty good for conversation and catching up, which we most needed to do.

We ordered the platters to share as below..

Sque platter- onion rings, baked potato, crabcakes, wings. Crabcakes were the most awesome followed by the crisp airy onion rings. Well, they were not really rings, more like strips.

Combination platter- for which I could only try the beef cheek and the wings. And of cos, my dear potatoes. Comfort food for my friends.

Chocolate beer pie , for which none of us could taste the beer. Interestingly, the nicest part of this dessert is in the very potent liquer filled cherry. Ooh, the liquer rush was pretty good.

Chocolate mousse - my first gulp = soap ?? the spice/cinamon made it taste really so, though once I got by that I enjoyed the mousse pretty much. Its a distant cousin of icecream, so i like.

Just before desserts came (Which was a pretty long time!) , we met Pang and her fren Shaoru, who shared with us this amazing peach fruit beer. Awesome possum indeed. Inspired the girls to go to Bali - Jo just back from ZJJ and Jill just back from Viet. Cant wait to head to London and Viet yays.

Gunther's

It was a nice start to the electives - first day of Paeds elective, on the excuse of getting back all my notes from Chong, we met up for lunch at Gunther's (36 Purvis Street). The lunch was almost not meant to be - the Prof kept changing his mind about whether the afternoon tut was on (and thus horrible science canteen food) or not (food freedom) and thank goodness this happened.

And I did make a promise to myself to make my best effort in school to account for the treat...unfortunately.....treat first worry later is always a sign of procrastination....it should be like M's one month long wait (just nice the length of the elective) for Buko Nero..

convenient parallel parking right alongside the restaurant, but very ex its a dollar per half hour not counting the numerous gantries into City Hall!

Complimentary Bread Roll

A tad too hard for our liking and not warm and nicely toasted. I miss the olive bread from Iggy's!

Braised Portobello mushroom, egg sunny-side-up

This was my appetiser - the mushroom was really bursting with flavour with the rich stock, but one mushroom and one egg is a little too....little!

Roasted prawns à la Parisienne

Chong was not much better with her 2 prawns - though they were extremely fresh and crunchy but again....its TWO prawns.. We kinda need greater quantities to appreciate the food, French portions are miniscule!

Char-grilled US grain-fed Ribeye, confit of onion

This was the Chef's creation and this was Chong's - she had a choice between the Ribeye and the cordon bleu. But she decided to go for the steak after all (cos I was pushing her =P) and we were glad we did cos it was a great slab of meat - simply grilled but it had such a great smokey flavour to it. No fancy sauces but it was so good in its meat juices it was just divine, just as a steak should be. I ate most of her confit it was really yummily soaked in the meat juices!

Angel-hair pasta, chili Monte Poro, kombu, dried prawns, chives

I actually wanted to go for the carbonara but requested to change the meat - and the waiter suggested either doing the pasta with prawns or cod fish - I chose the latter, and oh boy this is really good! I'm getting to like angel hair pasta - the other one i really enjoyed was the Sakura Ebi Cappelini at Iggy's. Again this was a simple dish executed perfectly - the pasta al dente, and tossed lightly in olive oil and every strand was just delicious - the condiments enhancing every bite. And the cod fish was so smooth and tasty! We both really liked this.

Both the Ribeye and the pasta are available on the ala carte menu as well.

Creme Caramel

This was really sweet - but the creme caramel was really smooth and delicious. One queer thing was that the caramel in mine was much darker than Chong's. Maybe it was more concentrated caramel goodness! This did us in, we were super full after this super sugar loaded dessert.

Petit Fours

This was a dark chocolate slab, a magdeleine-looking sugar coated orangey pastry, and a chocolate-centred thin cookie. We really like the cookie cos it had a fluidy chocolate centre, and the dark chocolate was our next favourite. The middle one was quite a disaster.

Latte

I wanted a flat-white but they didnt have it so they served us Latte...

I must say that the service here is impeccable - when the waiter noticed that I didn't finish my Latte (now I don't really dare to finish a coffee entirely cos of the massive nausea from the Coffee Bean breakfast set), he asked whether I wanted to change my coffee. Also, when I wanted to change the meats in my carbonara, he actually made an effort to ask Chef Gunther himself - they were so flexible they allowed me to change the entire pasta itself - he did it so differently, just to cater to my choice of pasta. And of cos, Chef Gunther also came out to greet us - we were one of the last people to leave.

We really had a good meal - but straight after that I was still hungry I ate 2 peanut pancakes from Jollibean while I was at Daiso at PS! I know this is a rather anti-climatic end to the meal but I can't seem to downsize my appetite!

Creperie Entre-nous, Out of the Pan, East Coast Park and Changi village

Today was the Chan Brothers Travel Fair and Kelly and I thought we could snag a good deal for our flights so we met and planned for a leisurely lunch at Cityhall. Parked at Shaw Leisure Gallery and cos Tom's Palette is closed on Sundays (bah!) I had to settle for the green tea ice cream from Mr Bean(Shaw Leisure Gallery) cos it was really such a hot day!!..

Green tea icecream $2.20

I felt like I was taken for a ride cos the green tea is so subtle I feel like I'm eating a green coloured original soya ice cream! Which cost 50% more! The last time I'm eating you!

And once again, like Marcus' homemade green tea icecream, the colour of this icecream blends right into my blog background...

The night before I met Michelle at 2am dessert bar and I told her I needed brunch places and she suggested Pump Room but that'd be for another Sunday when I don't have to do errands. She joined us for crepes at Creperie Entre-nous (27, Seah Street, #01-01Tel: 6333-4671) instead.

I've been wanting to try this quaint French creperie since I read about it on atetoomuch and it came out in the Cheap and Good section on Life! before but somehow I never got the chance till now. Cheap and good recommended Stephane's favourite and moines.

There are 2 set menus - $20 set menu you can choose from these savoury crepes and you get a salad and a soft drink thrown in, the $28 set menu gets you the savoury crepe, salad/soup of the day, a dessert crepe and a drink.

The savoury crepes here are called galettes, which are only cooked on one side, and are made with organic buckwheat flour. Their sweet crepes, on the other hand, are the regular wheat flour ones hence the difference in colour and texture. The galettes tend to be more crisp and the wheat flour ones are slightly more chewy.

avocado/cream/garlic/tomato $12

Michelle is quite a fan of avocado so she quite liked this. I like avocado only if its mashed up (think milkshake, icecream) so I thought the creamy avocado went very well with the crisp buckwheat crepe.

egg/emmenthel cheese $13.50

The red haired waitress(whom i think is a co-owner!) asked if we wanted the egg to be done sunnyside up (the way the French do it) or scrambled and we requested for scrambled. This was so so, the cheese was rather bland - Kelly said she had to keep adding salt and it tasted better. Well, I like anything with cheese though some meat will be great! After a while I felt like I was eating ang moh thosai.

Stephane's favourite $16.60 chicken, caramelised onions,french mustard

This was the hot favourite - the chicken was fantastic and had this smokey flavour! Reminded me of the tea-smoked chicken sandwich I had at the Moomba tuckshop. The caramelised onions were really sweet and flavourful too. At first we hesitated about this cos we thought chicken will taste weird in a crepe but luckily we went for it cos it was my favourite. This comes with a salad which has a similar french mustard. Ooh the french mustard was good - fragrant and nutty.

entre nous $7

with home made salted caramel

Oh this was a fantastic dessert crepe and Michelle said she was gonna try making her own salted caramel after this. It was plain, sweet, but very good. You can buy the home made caramel - I think it is $14 for a jar. Michelle and I were fantasising over adding the sea salt caramel icecream from Tom's Palette yums.

Mich left home (to go and sleep tsk tsk) so Kelly and I ventured onto humanjamland at the crowded Chan Brothers Travel Fair. We took a queue number and there were 120 people in front of us so of cos off we were to afternoon tea.. waffles at Out of the pan (basement, Raffles City)! Actually we wanted to go Ji De Chi but it was too far away and it was too hot so we decided to take the air con route and eat at an air con place =P

We were perched up on very high bar seats and this is really the place for being people-watched (NOT people watch we were staring at the fountain the whole time) it is inevitable that the people on the elevator will spy on you cos Krithika saw us and said hello! Not a good idea if you don't want your gluttony for all to see..

Fresh Berries $13.50

with vanilla bean icecream

This waffle is made of whole wheat and is really quite bready - with a slight crisp at the edges. It is dusted all over with sugar and we thought that there was cinammon in the batter as well. It was alright, I guess - especially with the ice cream - although we preferred the fluffier waffle at Shokudo. The strawberries were extremely fresh and sweet and crunchy!

We totally missed the point of the dessert - if you scroll up again to the previous photo you'd realise the whole time we were staring at the backside of this pretty heart shaped chocolate - well not like the waiter had any aesthetic sense either to place the dessert the right way! Seems logical being the love cynics we are, turning our backs on it.

I think the Chocolate waffles sound damn good I feel like going back to try it...the only thing that deterred me was the orange sorbet that came with it I hate anything with orange in it!

Guess what, when I went back to the travel fair after our long long leisurely dessert, there were still 20 people ahead of me! No one entertains your enquiries till you get a queue number! Of cos I gave up (and Kelly left for tuition) so I also left to meet my friends at East Coast.

Thanks to Fiona, I chalked up enough exercise credits for the year! I met Fiona, Sheryl, Kristanto, Tian, and an Egyptian exchange student at East Coast (none of them are in this photo these are some random girls) ..while the rest cycled, I was the lone soul who bladed (cos I cant stand the pain that comes with cycling for more than 45 minutes). Our starting point was Burger King (where I conveniently parked thank god for the lot =p) and end point? Changi Village. I had no idea how impossible it could be on my tiny wheels. Ignorance is indeed bliss, cos I am sure not that ambitious and I don't overestimate my stamina.

It was just about this point at the cable skiing place that the cyclists zoomed off and I was off to chase them =)

Of cos I did pass by rustling bushes which do scare me..
I like this particular turn to Changi Beach..

This stretch parallel to the runway of Changi Airport is an assault to the senses: tiring to conquer, reeks of engine oil, and loud departing and arriving planes..the road went on and on! But I must say I did enjoy the solitude and quietness of the long straight route.
Sun was setting soon, must kuai kuai go to Changi Village before it gets dark. I love the gorgeous rays and I was glad throughout the whole route, the sun was facing my back so it wasnt so glaring!

See how fast the sun is setting?? This was from Changi beach - and there are many planes descending here. Gorgeous background, I loved this place. This was my first time here - I bladed the previous long long stretch before but I didn't complete the whole stretch (so I didnt know it leads to here) as my cyclist friends decided to turn back to return the rented bicycles. But today, my brave friends decided to go all the way to Changi Village and I must perserve!

No guesses, guys, which area I zoomed by...

Super rustic and enjoying the simple pleasures in life

The planes were actually heading towards us inland to land in the air port and it was coolbeans watching the planes appear from the horizon...

After XXXX km and XXXXXXX hours I finally reached Changi Village Hawker centre, where Zhenjin, Jerry and Rou An joined us (smart to miss the cycling =P). Casualty: badly scratched phone that took the fall for me sigh Rous is right skin heals but metal doesnt!!! Thanks Rou An for ferrying my slippers when I was stranded at the Changi Village carpark despite your sprained ankle.

I desperately needed hydration and glucose I was super hypoglycemic and dehydrated. I actually drank a whole 1 litre bottle, and I wolfed down this fantastic dessert that I remembered reading about from nevertrustascrawnyfoodie..not sure if its the same stall (honestly anything sweet from anywhere will do during desperate moments) so I just tried Fu Xiang Hot&Cold drinks..well at least I tried to get the stall right I went to call Michelle (and she wasnt sleeping =P)

The longan red tea jelly with evaporated milk!

Longan red tea jelly with evaporated milk, $2

Actually I gobbled most of it down cos I was so hypoglycemic anything vaguely sweet will taste good. But it is very good, the jelly wobbly and slippery, drizzled with evaporated milk all over and the longans were very crunchy. When the ice melted towards the end the whole concoction of milk-longan juice-red tea colouring was fantastically sweet and yummy.

Funny what intensive exercise does to you...you cant stomach anything heavy or oily or meaty after that! I couldnt take the satay nor the noodles after that and Rous say that its cos all the blood has been diverted from the GIT to the other parts of my body which need the oxygen more....

Besides the Hokkien mee and charkway teow that the girls shared, Wills had meepok and the rest had nasi lemak from this International Food stall (genuine) with the insanely long queue.
I think the fried stuff are good but the rice from Selera Nasi Lemak at Adam Food Centre is still better and fluffier. Here the rice was rather dry and didn't taste of much.

Fly, Will and Rou then drove back to ECP to get Will's van to ferry ALL the bicycles back cos we finished dinner at 845pm and it was quite impossible to cycle all the way back and make it to the shop's closing time at 945pm. To get here, we started at 5.15pm and I reached at around 745pm and they prob earlier.

The worse thing was they got lost on the way to ECP so it took them more than an hour to go to ECP and come back so we were running late - AND the receipt for the bicycle had NO contact number but luckily they called us back (to remind us of the penalty friggin ex at $3 for half an hour when it was not a clause in the receipt!!!!)

After getting all the bikes in, Rous Jerry and I stayed with Sheryl to wait for her parents and Jerry fetched us all back - quite an eventful night - had to scurry back so Rous and Kristanto could exchange back their phones, and my bladder was BURSTING from that 1 litre of water (and I didnt wanna use the Changi Village hawker centre toilet) so had to hurry rush back to Burger King but the toilet was on a damn ulu second floor and it was already 1045pm I didnt wanna kena peeping tom so I had to speed to Macs to the toilet then had a second pseudo scare with the lost camera when I came home so sorry frightened Jerry and Rou an and Zhenjin with my moment of panic! All my food photos!!!!!!! I was really scared that the camera popped out of the boot cos there were many many humps along the road of East Coast Park and very dark very hard to see!

Blah the worse thing was the next day I woke up to find the $54 deal from JetstarAsia has vanished! Heck, SIA here I come! Travel fairs, never again!