Paddy hills

Paddy Hills was a great experience ( despite the horrendous parking ) and seeing how my foodie friend has revisited this place numerous times in the past months, it certainly warrants a visit, and boy was it an interesting lunch/brunch

Suggest you come here after 1130....then can try both the breakfast ( which ends at 5) and lunch menu 

This was their version of a small breakfast , but boy does this humble do pack a punch.

Polenta, roasted mushrooms, poached egg.

Comfort food with a luxe twist.

Squid ink tagliatelle, with roe and scallop. Love the crisp rice bits.

Kimchi fried rice with hangar steak

Would be back just to have their steak !

Eyeing their double digit noodles for dinner- lobster soumen, udon and beef noodles. Would be back 

No Menu Bar

A happy discovery after NDP at the promenade.. Everywhere was crazy packed including lau pa sat so we made our way down and intended to check out dinner at Sarnies ( which was closed on a Saturday night ) and we were drawn to this place which looked like a corner coffee shop- we only realised it was the No Menu Bar - ironically, after we checked out the menu. It was a good mix of hot and cold tapas ( all priced at $14), pastas, cheese and pastas

On the house 

The bruschetta is the best we've had. Ever ! The sweetest tomatoes which they brought in from Sicilly. Smoked octopus at the corner left - awesome with a tiny wee bit of salad. Squid ink pasta's definitely got an intrinsic umami taste to it. Fried potatoes were kinda a waste of my carbs :p

Smoked mozzarella cheese which was breaded and fried and in the sweetest tomato purée. I think we certainly appreciate the importance of the  quality of tomatoes after this dinner

Petit fours on the house - apple cake and meringue 

Lovely hosts for the evening and home made food is indeed a great combination for a Saturday supper :)

Osteria Mozza

Post ndp preview made our way to Osteria Mozza (marina bay sands) and was lucky enough to snag a table !

Mini ricotta that's on the house 

Upsized that's on the parents

Grilled octopus perfect with the salad 

Smoked ocean trout in a spicy salad 

Lamb ragu

Linguine with clams that's spicy

Duck confit most amazing with the sweet corn and jam. Highly recommended !

Simple doughnuts with sorbet 

A trick to get a cozy corner here is to ask for the room with a surround wine cellar ;) 

Enjoyed these Italian dishes American sized served with a twist!

&sons

Vascular weekx1 mid week break at &sons( China Square). Too many eateries here ! The platypus lobster place looks awesome. &sons is surprisingly not too crowded ( a manageable work crowd) with a mix of bar seats and table seats. Of cos we were atop the bar seats.

Awesome smoked cheese and truffle pasta. The smoked cheese was grilled further and tasted like a sausage.

Beef is so so ( lukewarm ) but cod is lovely in a salsa sauce. Flakes off in a instant. 

Mushrooms - uber cheesy and creamy. Chunks of cornmeal inside this dish. 

Panna cotta flambeed. Base tasted like a light cheese ( when in fact it's panna cotta), another later of cream and the whole dessert torched and topped up with strawberries. Very interesting.

Would be back to try their array of cheeses.

Petit menu

Had a late lunch with mom at greenwood to satisfy her fish and chips craving before meeting my student and then J, for our dinner date night. Discovered a really lovely place called Petit Menu (Aqueen hotel, Lavender Street- beware there are two Aqueen hotels in the same area !) with pocket friendly prices and innovative dishes presented quite stunningly. Definitely worth the trouble of the travel and the horrific parking!

Lavender scented pumpkin soup- the lavender really added a new dimension to the pumpkin soup. Again comparing with the base line of J's home cooked soup, this is really of a different standard. The lavender balances out the pumpkin. With Wakame seaweed, puffed up pumpkin seeds and Granny Smith apple balls by the side.

Sea bass with ratoutoille and quinoa.. We liked the sides more than the main:p the crisp fish skin was probably what I enjoyed the most.

Salted egg soft shell crab fettuccine- this was quite mind blowing ! This ang moh mee pok is really the best noodle to soak up the salted egg yolk, firm and coated in its entirety. With sweet tomatoes and curry leaves to top it all. Ingenious !

If you have a posb or DBS card you get a complimentary dessert with every 2 mains- so we ended up ordering two desserts. The first was this deconstructed Black Forest. The cute plant pot contained a hazelnut crumble with a tiny leaf ( this chef really likes this tiny leaf which seems to star in many dishes). Our tiny wee at home has found a new friend and potentially a new home :p and even the sturdy bowl (which the waitress said it's so heavy she can pound sambal in :p)

Kaya toast deconstructed as a Mille feuille, with kaya cream, kopi tiam toast and atap chee purée, blueberries, warm kopi c sauce and mint espuma (which they poured out from a pot). Kaya toast usually marks the end of J's call so it's his happy food, but the eggs are usually in the bowl and the coffee in a cup:p

Really lovely place which obviously takes pride in the food and it's presentation we will want to check out the blow torched steak and chicken confit sometime :)

Fordham and Grand

Some quick shopping to pick up my hats at Haji lane and to check out the merchandise at the new Robinsons at Heeren before heading to this very discrete Fordham and grand at Craig road. ( note to self: need to try Selfish gene and Binomio soon !) Quiet, intimate and if I may say, a little forbidding. Not many customers but still, our orders got mixed up!!

Artichoke, eggplant and mushroom 

Greenpea risotto - very unlike us to have something vegetarian !

Scallops and jumbo crab 饺子- gone in a bite

More plans and rocking music( courtesy of 3 crowns) at Craft bakery at holland village where we had the 3 inch sin Baileys cake. Kept looking at the baileys tart :p

Melbourne!! Stereosonic festival !!

Our korner

The end of posting venue was courtesy of checking out the Restaurant Week site during breakfast and fatherhood talk at BS. Our Korner at Scarlet Hotel is a restaurant bar and we sat at the area previously belonging to Desire. Always been wanting to check out the Asian fusion food ( ESP the chili crab stuff) but it always closed too early for supper snacks.

My team loved the quiet ambience ( towards mid dinner we kinda seem to own the place for ourselves ) and the warm wood decor, and it was a great place to catch up- away from the rest of the ruckus at Ann Siang and Club street.

Laksa clam chowder was essentially like an ultra creamy laksa latte. Chilli crab sliders was a favorite, and I liked my crabmeat-soft shell crab-poached egg linguine. Think the poached egg is supposed to substitute the eggy sauce of the chili crab dish. 'twas fun mixing it all up.

But the most stylo dish has gotta belong to C - they torched her smoked duck pizza and it was in flames momentarily. Quite spectacular if you ask me though I am not sure how searing it this way adds to the taste of the pizza. A's crusted lamb chops looked super impressive too, the size and plating.

Ended with the chocolate tart which was quite a substantial , gao portion. Pity this place looked empty on a Friday night ( though the bar was filled ). Good food and ambience and great for big group catch ups. Would love a drink on the rooftop bar someday ;)

Laksa clam chowder

Chili crab sliders

Crab meat linguine

Smoked duck pizza

Lamb

Chocolate tart

Sauce

Met Kels on the Sun after A&B, and her suggestion we met at Sauce (Esplanade). She was there early and almost wanted to shift elsewhere cos of then noise from the amphitheatre. The alfresco is done up in such a sunny garden style it looked attractive in the day. Well by night we sat at the bar tables to enjoy our semi bar food! Away from the noise.

A little disheartened I didnt get to check out 7ate9 before it closed, but this place is actually opened by the overeasy folks so was expecting good bar food! Sauces are served here too and are chargable per serving. Real interesting concept, and sauce is such a Kels thing.

Mushrooms which i must say was sauteed very well. Have learnt the art of sauteeing from J..

Beef nachos - well for once the nachos was served as a bowl, and you'd have to break the nacho bowl apart to eat it. Quite an interesting concept but well, it means its a compromise on nacho volume isnt it? The beef was done chilli con carne style so it went very well with the beans and chilli. Yums. Nothing beats the farmers style nachos at Overeasy though! Cheese and half boiled eggs thrown in.
No flash for this one -mentaiko pasta. Love this salty bits of roe. Reminds me abit of the roe we had, J! Mentaiko anything (with cream) seems to do magic to the pasta.

Walked around and almost to the helix before we turned back. Almost to the tail end of my east days and going to a new start soon;)

Open door policy

With no list at DSOT, Cheang joined me at MOT, only to be overutilised at the adrenalect. I started off with jc's, then hopped over to the LAP pancreatic (ugh, lap), and a pyolomyotomy (one of two that week!!) -thought there were 3 regs scrubbed then, with 2 doing the spreader...... then to cheang's. But she escaped and found us at bean flat out trying to resus ourselves in my first icecream since med days. Double booked us both, at the same time at 715pm. Hehe. Dropped them off and instructed to meet at Books actually. Really looked forward to Open door policy ( Yong Siak Street). Surprisingly there was space still, even with double booking.

We started off with the steak tartare with speared toasted (till burnt though) bread. Missed that shot (i thought i didnt!). Liked the truffle chips. Preferred Kilo's red wine drowned steak tartare though.

Halloumi cheese - blobs of semi hard cheese. Like a hard tofu/cottage cheese (reminiscent of Krith's place's)

Lamb confit, puff pastry - its presented like a pizza, lotsa salad atop the puff pastry. Difficult to share and keep in place though, the tender strips of lamb kept falling off.

Wild mushroom truffle risotto. Comfort food, period. Loved the greenish mushrooms.

Was fun naming syncope and hearing the arguments. So glad to have cheang in the dsot downstairs - the only hightlight of the day being our lunch of (stale) OT food. Trying to meet more for breakfast time now. And for now, the ERP at SCGS is OFF for the holidays!! Yes best news for my coming after 8 now. Haha! No more incentive to rush anymore.

I'll be back to check out orange thimble and dripz. And of cos, a day dedicated to Books Actually. When im done with IQ 84.

Ember

Got booked by short on the Fri night before my bd to have dinner with Su, Am, Yan at Ember (Hotel 1929, Keong Saik Road). Arriving past time (cos not given a time!) we were all ready to order when I came - they all more or less decided (save for Am who owed us a proposal story), who turned out to substitute things on the set menu which confused her further as to what she actually ordered.

Bread was rather forgettable.

On the other hand the crabcake tasted like it was soaked in crab bisque. Its like, one step away eating from the real thing and so suffused with the flavour it might even be better than the real thing.

The crabmeat capellini tasted very much like chinese fried noodles though... Am's sakura ebi cappellini was drowning in ebi it looked so delicious!!

Seabass - I took out the bacon and the highlight for this was surprisingly the bed of mushrooms. Its a different base from the others who had the bacon ragout with mushrooms (cos they complained the mushrooms were shrivelled out). Very smooth sea bass but didnt taste as flavourful as them mushrooms. Yes for once the plant outshining the meat.

Palate cleanser Sorbet with grapefruit. Sour things make you forget how good the salty ones taste. How can i forget my distaste for orange. Miss the Iggy's rock melon soup muchos.

Apple pie - the layered pastry was very crisp and flaky. Though i wished there were bigger apple chunks. This was over in a few bites.

The biggest dessert goes to Am's Sticky date pudding. Jealous much, portion wise.

Met Fly, M, Cel at Filter after for some champagne but left after a short while, packed ++. Music's pretty much Phuture like though the DJ was just coming on as I was leaving. Found some peace elsewhere ;)

1 Twenty Six

Happy birthday Carol! Plans to play tennis were shelved after I ended late post take. We had dinner at 1 Twenty Six (Playground@ Big Splash) , alfresco dining by the beach seems very much like a beach holiday already. We lounged at the couches facing the sea (although I reserved an indoor seat ;P). We must play tennis one of these days at your new place.

1 Twenty Six, pretty much like Rochester, has a communal dining menu as well. For 70 ++ per pax, you get the Nibble or Coast (the latter sounds very good...) Platter to share, a mains and a dessert or cheese platter to share. Sounds like very much how I dine, so I get a bit of everything to try. But we went for ala carte in the end cos well, we prefer the flexibility.

The nibble platter - a compilation of their consequential nibbles - our favourite was the Homemade code brandade with grilled brushetta. Can't really go way off with Soft shell crab (frying yummifies almost everything), and with the Vongole clams with garlic and herb crumb (very creamy, and the crumbs were yums) although we didnt like the Potato Skins with sour cream and ocean trout caviar.

126 Home made burger with Ground angus beef, sauteed spinach, mushrooms, Fontine cheese and fries.

This burger is one of the better ones I've had here (I'm dying to try the 4seasons one...). The beef patty was substantial and had the smokey taste which I like. Plus the fries were really crisp and the thickness just right for me. A favourite for us both ;)

Capellini with crab meat, chilli flakes, leek and creme fraiche.

This is one cream bomb but I really liked the al dente Capellini. Enough cream dosage for the rest of the year (cos I ate most of it!). Loads of crab meat to boot as well.

C hasnt come round to this part of Big Splash (she's mostly confined to Sushi Tei - and I don't know where that is) so we intend (or rather, she...) intends to check out Brussel Sprouts here - for once, its not as cramped as the one in Robertson Quay. Beach side dining here is so rustic.

Had supper at Coffee club with calamari/wings/salmon quesidillas. And still got appetite for more ;)