Ritz Carlton Buffet Dinner

Ok. We mentioned in one of our earlier post we'll visit Ritz Carlton again. And yes! There comes that special occasion which gives u that good reason to splurge at RC again! We were having our early V-day dinner.

This time round, we will zoom into some of the changes and bring u closer to that dessert bar.

Black chicken soup was offered this time round. The restaurant was somewhat full considering CNY was round the corner, so we speculate this could be an impromptu solution to fill up partial of our stomachs should the buffet dishes do not suffice to satisfy. It was good but quite salty.

I went back to the barbeque bar and ordered some prawns but well.. no prawns for the day but they had... LOBSTERS! Very meaty and filling. Taste wise was ok. The rest of the dishes were pretty much what we have tried on our first visit.

Take a good look at the dessert bar. The cakes all look pretty and they certainly match the 'good looks' with their 'good taste'

This is a zoom in for the sorbets we would always order to wrap up the dinner 'sweetly'. The berry and lime flavours were really good but mango was ok.

A shot outside the restaurant.

Crystal jade HK Cafe @ Orchard Central

Honestly speaking, HK Cafe has become an overwhelming phenomenon in Singapore. Just like bubble tea, some restaurants eagerly take off in the HK Cafe direction after seeing decent successes in the pioneering batches. Crystal Jade was the latest finding for us. Hmm.. deco wise seemed abit off - a combi of Tong Shi Cafe + Cafe Cartel. They were playing Taiwanese CNY songs with MTVs which probably even our parents wouldn't enjoy too much more than us!

Foodwise.. let's take a closer look.

A weak tummy day for me meant I wasn't so looking forward to the food until...

The 'Yuan Yang' came in a COOL conical flask that has a concaved portion containing dry ice. Well, taste wise was ok, but the presentation was innovative for sure with all the smoke surging out from the centre. It actually also helps to keep the flask cool too. It impressed Shirley more than me, but the next on the list that came certainly raised my eyebrows!!

Mixed Grill!! It looked fantastic! With a decent sized portion of lamb-chop, chicken, sausage egg, it reminded Shirley of her mixed grill meal in HK. It cost only around $13. Worth every penny if you are looking to fill up your tummy in Orchard area.

Ok. Got to admit, this green tea snow ice was disappointing. I know this sounds weird but it was suppose to be my staple food for a bad tummy day haha, but at the end it was the mixed grill (okok.. generously shared by Shirley) that help make up for the snow ice. The snow ice was more of green tea syrup than real green tea powder taste, mixed with red been and jelly. Can't really taste real green tea honestly.

A place you can visit when u are really hungry and do not want to suffer the long queues else where. Foodwise - stick to mixed grill.

Ci Nai HK Cafe @ ECP

Wa work has been keeping me super busy! And I lost the USB cable to my HP. so sad! This is also why we haven't been posting since Dec.. hahaha... This post is for our date on 17 Jan 10. We went to one of our favourite eating place - Ci Nai HK Cafe @ ECP:


Though the decoration is far from the traditional HK cafe I've been to in HK itself, this place never failed to satisfy our hungry tummy! If I am not wrong, they open until 3am!


Here's our orderfor today: Curry fishball, Mango king (not sure of the actual name but it has icecream, jelly, mango puree, mango slices etc), yang zi gan lu with ice cream


and how can we forget their signature dish - XO sauce fried carrot cake:


Besides the fantastic menu with a wide variety of delicaies to choose from, there are live bands performing everyday. Most of the singers can sing quite well. Music varies across different languages - chinese, hokkien, cantonese... I think I haven't heard any English songs here before. Ci Nai HK Cafe is an ideal place for supper hunters like Mark and I but don't sin too much!

Mark's birthday dinner @ Ritz Carlton

This was certainly one of the best restaurants I've been to for my birthday. Nice ambience and a wide choice of food for buffet. We almost missed this meal as we went for a wild goose chase and went to Carlton Hotel first before moving on to the correct 'Carlton' (with a 'Ritz' in front) Hotel. After walking some distance and arriving at the wrong hotel, we decided to ease some of the frustration by taking cab. Haha.. it was certainly worth all the effort and money after all..

The lighting was comfortable. While the buffet area was very brightly lit, the dinning area was cosy and easy on your eyes with rather dim lights.

We started the course with raw food, comprising fresh oysters, salmon sashimi and cold crab. Sashimi was decent, but oyster and crab was better. The former was really quite fresh for what you can get in Singapore while the latter was sweet.

We moved on to cooked food. Big barbecue prawns and cod fish were some of the better dishes. The prawns were prepared on order and takes around 5-10 minutes to cook.

The dessert, in terms of variety, taste and looks made us question if Fullerton's Chocolate buffet was worth your money. Well.. of course at Fullerton, the desserts were chocolate-themed. But throw in the ice cream (the sorbet ice creams taste really really REALLY GOOD!), and the winner for dessert is clear. Your can literally taste happiness when it comes to Ritz Carlton's ice creams. TRY IT!!

Look at our blissful faces, and you know you can't go too wrong with RC. Its $178 but with UOB card it costs around $160 for 2. Pamper yourself on those special occasions! A place we'll definitely visit again.

12 Dec - Home cooked lunch

I've simply forgotten about this until I was uploading photos from work. On this day, I decided to cook lunch for Mark. It was an in-prompt-to thing. So we didn't caught a video of the process. Only the result, TADA:


My famous green curry chicken, dear's favourite saba fish, leftover fried rice which granny cooked for my brothers and 2 lovely coconuts!


The price for saba fish has increased 2 times ever since more korean restaurants and stalls have opened in Singapore. Shop n safe sells it in slices as above. Raw of course. It's easy to cook. Procedures are as follow:

1. Wash fish and drain off water.
2. Season with salt.
3. Heat pan with oil.
4. Pan fry fish till cooked
5. Serve with lemon slice.

Christmas Eve Dinner

This is a long overdue post covering our Christmas Eve celebration together. Wanted to give Shirley a surprise and I started feeling cocky when she made all the wrong guesses where I was about to bring her. And well.. sigh.. as usual the surprise turned to 'no surprise' as she still managed to figure out it was 'Chocolate Buffet' treat she was in for eventually!



We had a short stroll along the river before heading for the well anticipated Chocolatey treat which starts at 8pm and is available till 11pm. According to the website, Chocolate Buffet is available on Fri and Sat, however on Christmas Eve, a Thu, it did not disappoint chocolate loving peeps like ourselves looking to pamper our taste buds during the festive season. It costs around $60 a person and comes together with dessert wine (we thought the wine was nice).

A place I wanted to bring Shirley to for some time already. The Fullerton Hotel's Chocolate Buffet was well-known and recommended by many. Well, the treats were equisitive but the experience fell short of our expectations, factoring the rave reviews it has earned over the years.

As we step into 'Courtyard' for the buffet, our eyes combed the place, expecting long stretches of tables displaying chocolate desserts, however our eyes were the not getting the treat as expected. Visually it could have been more impressive. What the place had were a) small round table displaying assorted chocolate cakes and desserts




b) section where you can choose from a variety of solid chocolate which the staff will melt together with milk to give u a chocolate drink ( u can choose to infuse Rose Petal, Lavender, Szechuan Pepper, Chili, Star Anise, Black Cardamon, Wasabi, Lemongrass, Ginger and Coffee into your drink but we say it doesn't taste that different) and




c) a fondue area where u basically mix and match fruits and mush mellow for a sinful chocolate dip!




With that said, it was still no doubt a worthy trip to uncover all that hype behind the Chocolate Buffet. A place we will still visit, but maybe well.. not that frequently? Below are some pictures covering those sinful looking faces indulging in a chocolatey evening..



That's all for 2009! Have a great 2010 to all!

Singapore flyer

Last Sunday, we finally got onto Singapore Flyer for the first time!
Mum's right. Evening is a great time for a ride on Singapore Flyer.
We boarded at around 7pm and managed to catch the sky darken to night.
Here's a compilation of the photos and videos I managed to take with my humble 2.0 Megapixel phone camera: