Chinese New Year Market @ Chinatown, Singapore

Every year in Singapore, the Chinese New Year celebration kicks off with Street Light-up, festive bazaar stalls, street performances and etc. And these activities usually takes place in the Key streets in Chinatown such as Eu Tong Sen Street, New Bridge Road, South Bridge Road, and Garden Bridge.

This Luna New Year would be the year of the Water Dragon and there would be with traditional Chinese lanterns and colorful street lights together with street performers and acrobats like lion dancers to buzz up the lanes in Chinatown.

Make your New Year wishes come true at the Chinatown Wishing Tree this Spring Festival! You can try your hand at tossing a mandarin orange wishing charm onto a lucky banyan tree at Chinatown.

The Lunar New Year bazaar stalls occupied the lanes from the Pagoda Street, Smith Street, Sago Street, Temple Street and Trengganu Street within Chinatown. Below are some of the photos showing the auspicious New Year goodies and the bazaar stalls at Chinatown.

Pussy willow or also known as Ying Liu has fluffy white blossoms which resemble silk with the color of green jade. And majority of the Chinese enjoy such signs of growth which represent the coming of prosperity.

Cakes such as "Sticky Rice Cake - 年糕" which symbolizes a rich, sweet life plus "Pomelo - 柚子" in mandarin word "柚子" sounds like the word for "to have" and "Red Radish" symbolizes auspicious beginning and etc.

All sorts of sweets, puddings, jellies, peanuts, preserved persimmons and etc which is must to purchase during New Year.

Stalls selling waxed meat products such as sausages, waxed meat, waxed duck and etc which most of the household used it to braised delicious dishes during Chinese New Year gatherings.

All sort of Chinese auspicious handicrafts, red packets and customary New Year decorations along the bazaars area.

In conjunction with the 2012 celebrations, the festive Bazaar runs from December 31 2011, opening from 6pm to 10:30pm daily till January 22 2012.(some stalls starts around NOON time during weekends too) And during Chinese New Year Eve, the Bazaar would extends its operating hours to 1.00am.

To avoid heavy traffic around the Chinatown area, you could take public transport as such the MRT and alight at Chinatown station.

Soup Broth Asia @ Raffle City

Talking about Soup! I am a Soup craze especially Asian type of double-boiled soup. My soup interest came from my dad who used to boil soup for us almost everyday when he is around. Recently in Singapore, you can find more and more hawker/food center stalls selling “Steam Soup” or also known as double-boiled soup that comes in different combination of ingredients.

I am sure most of you have heard or even try those delicious western soups from “The Soup Spoon”. And for your information, Chef Anna Lim have concocted 12 different types of Asian Hearty Soup such as “Herbal Chicken (S$7.20)”, “Indonesian Chicken Opor Soup (S$7.20)”, “Hainanese Fish Maw Soup (S$10.20)”, “Kimchi with Beef and Beancurd Hotpot (S$8.60)”, "Salted Vegetable with Duck Soup (S$9.60)" and etc for soup lover to enjoy a pot of tasty comfortable soup at a affordable price.

Their Herbal chicken soup is very usual compared to those that we have tried from the local Chinese restaurant or soup stalls. Imagine spotting some deep-fried dumplings and fresh watercress in your herbal chicken soup? Does this sound interesting! I am sure there are a lot more interesting combination of ingredients and taste waiting for you to explore at their outlet.

This herbal chicken soup has a very mild herbal taste that suits those foreigner or even youngster whom cannot accept those strong Chinese herbal taste in their soup. But when compared to those traditional Chinese Herbal Chicken Soup, this one at Soup Broth Asia taste rather more like confinement soup which has that hint of ginger taste in it. Perhaps adding ginger is good to expel wind in the body as well as keep body warm during cooling year end weather.

Each pot of soup is served with a bowl of complimentary steam white rice. But to suit your personal preference you can always top-up extra S$1.00 to exchange the white rice with either fried rice with egg or fragrant yam rice. If not you can always get it as an extra bowl to go with your soup at S$2.00 each for a fuller meal.

For guys who have bigger appetise or those who wish to share the meal you can always get the "Set Meal" updgrade at S$3.80 or S$4.80. Each upgrade comes with either 2 or 3 side dishes each from the category below:-
Appetizer: Cold Tofu, Egg Sambal, Kimchi
Meat: Roast Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork, Fried Fish Slices, Soya Sesame Chicken, Wasabi Prawns
Vegetable: Braised Beancurd, Stir Fried Baby Kailan, Chap Chye, Stir Fried Egg with Tomato

The Set Meal Upgrade also include a drink of your choice on either Hot Green Tea or cooling Ice-lemon Tea.

So do give this new fusion Asian soup a try if you love their western soup over at “The Soup Spoon”. This outlet is located in between “The Soup Spoon” and “The Handburger” (a review post HERE) at the basement 1 of Raffle City Shopping Mall. You can’t miss it with their friendly serving staffs wearing sweet pink T-Shirt greeting the customers outside the restaurant.

Soup Broth Asia
Raffles City Shopping Centre
252 North Bridge Road
#B1-62
Singapore 179103
Telephone: 6338 6909
Website: http://www.soupbrothasia.com/

Opening Hours:
Sunday - Thursday: 10.30am - 10.00pm
Friday - Saturday: 10.30am - 10.30pm

Read up!

~ If you are keen to read up more on "Soup Broth Asia", do follow the link HERE to OpenRice Singapore for more Dining Guide information.

Popeyes Chicken & Biscuit

This post has being buried into my DRAFT post box for more than half a year until I happened to saw it a few days ago while doing some clear up on those draft posts. Other than this branch at the Singapore Flyer what is mentioned in this post, we have also tried out some of their outlet at Novena Square 2 and Toa Payoh Entertainment Centre. Overall, the services and food are still quite a pleasant experience for us.

Although I have heard a lot of good comments on Popeyes' Deep-fried Batter Chicken, Cajun Fries and Mashed Potato but it was only recently that I get the chance to try it at it's branch at the Singapore Flyer during on our way to the Marina Barrage.

Comparing popeye's chicken to the KFC chicken, it is less spicy, less oily, and more crispy. There is also an option to choose between mild or spicy preference.
Price: S$5.40(2 Piece Chicken), S$7.40 (Combo meal including 1 side and drink)

If two pieces chicken meal cannot satisfy your hungry, you can always add extra items from the Munchers menu on either Drumlets, Calamari Ring or Fish Bites which cost less than S$4.00 a plate. Although the drumlet is nothing fancy but at least they can be treated as tea snack or kid's meal too.
Price: S$3.60(4 Drumlets), S$3.90 (Calamari Ring) or S$3.90(Fish Bites)

Their biscuits (scones) are slightly savoury, soft and fluffy that goes well with a touch of the jam or maple syrup over it. Some occasion they might run of this hot selling items and will try to replace them with corn or etc. But to me, not everyone likes the taste of the biscuits because it has a hint of sourish fragrant and taste due to the buttermilk and it has never capture my boy's liking towards it.

Mixed Seafood Combo set comes with batter fried shrimps, fish and calamari, together with 1 side, 1 biscuit and drink that costs S$9.40. This is quite similar to Long John Silvers' (LJS) seafood set that comes with fish & shrimps and I personally prefers LJS's version of batter compare to Popeyes which i find it slight dry to taste.
Price: S$7.40(seafood set), S$9.40(combo meal including 1 side and drink)

Cajun Fries are the main reason why my boy loves to pop-by to Popeyes Chicken. The fries taste crispy and lovely with that cajun spices while hot and it goes pretty well with either tomato or chilli sauce.
Price: S$2.00(regular), S$3.00(large)

This is one of Popeyes' hot selling item other than their Cajun Fries. Their special gravy on the “Mashed Potatoes” taste great with some added mild spices and smooth mashed potatoes. And from a glance on it, you might even think that there is some minced meat in the gravy.
Price: S$2.00(regular), S$3.00(large)

There are about 8 outlets spreading at different parts of Singapore which you might be able to find one near your area from the address shown below:-

Popeyes Chicken @ Ang Mo Kio
61 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8
Jubilee Entertainment Complex
#01-05/06
Singapore 569814

Popeyes Chicken @ Changi Airport Terminal 3
65 Airport Boulevard
#B2-LF1
Singapore S819663
Tel:6247 5521

Popeyes Chicken @ Century Square
2 Tampines Central 5
#05-27
Singapore 529509
Tel:6789 8091

Popeyes Chicken @ Singapore Flyer
30 Raffles Avenue
#01-13
Singapore 039803
Tel:6338 8300

Popeyes Chicken @ Toa Payoh Entertainment Centre
450 Toa Payoh Lorong 6
#01-11
Singapore 319394
Tel:6250 0013

Popeyes Chicken @ Downtown East
1 Pasir Ris Close
#01-35/36
E!Hub @ Downtown East

Popeyes Chicken @ Square 2
10 Sinaran Drivr
#01-04
Singapore 307506

Popeyes Chicken @ The Cathay
2 Handy Road
B1-21/22
Singapore 229233

Chef Daniel's Kitchen @ Iluma

Chef Daniel's Kitchen, a newly setup rooftop restaurant located at the Sky Garden (level 7) of lluma at Bugis offers a very valuable Set Lunch @ S$10.50 Nett which includes soup of the day, main course, dessert of the day and a drink.

Recently we just had a small foodie gathering at this restaurant and these are some of the Set Lunch that we have tried. We decided to order different varities so that we each can get a chance to try out more of their dishes.

With Rey around, I decided to pick this "Prawn And Crab Meat Burger" as my main course because usually most of the kids love fast food such as burger and fries. We are glad that this seafood burger taste great with its yummy seafood patty that is moist and juicy. One add-on point is the fries that comes along with the burger is still hot and crispy while served.

The Soup of the Day was "Cream of Corn Soup", which was decent enough to go with the warm freshly baked herbal bread that was served together with the soup. But flavour of the corn soup was pretty mild so don’t expect those kind of really thick and creamy soup that is full of corn kernels in it.

Kai's choice was this "Unagi Cooked in Katsu Sauce". For me I guess I won't try a Japanese dish in a fusion restaurant unless it is highly recommended. But this bowl of unagi don should be able to fill up your tummy without much complains.

Lobsterpaints like to give their "Tonkatsu Don" a try which she finds that perhaps the authentic Japanese restaurant might served a better taste of this as the pork cutlet was rather tough and dry.

Alvin choice's was this "Grilled Chicken" which we think the portion was rather small for those with huge appetites.

Misstamchiak left with a choice of Spaghetti that served with Pan-fried Dory fillet. This might be a great choice for those who love tomato sauce base spaghetti. The pan-fried dory fillet taste great and is suitable for those who wants a combination of fish and pasta together.

The Dessert of the Day was a joke that made us all have a good laugh. Before serving, I check with the waitress on the dessert and was told that it would be mango cake. But later when the dessert came, it is a two-layer cake with "pink & light yellow" colour so we are wondering where is the "Mango cake". The more we taste the dessert the more it taste and look like raspberry. So Lobsterpaints, Alvin and I decided to verify with another waitress again and finally we got the correct name:- "Raspberry Mousse Cake". This raspberry mousse cake is served with some tangerine sauce and the texture is kind of soft and moist with slight sour taste due to the berries. But overall it might be considered as a light and refreshing dessert that is not too heavily infused with cheese or cream.

Overall Chef Daniel's kitchen presents contemporary east-meets-west blend of cuisines that satisfy your taste buds as well as sight. And another good point is, this restaurant is located away from the crowds that make it a quite and peaceful place for meal with contrast between serenity of the nature and busy city area.

In the month of August, in order to celebrate the Singapore's 45th Birthday, Chef Daniel's Kitchen is also having a 15% for their National Day Special Menu.


Chef Daniel's Kitchen
201 Victoria Street
Iluma @ Bugis
#07-04/05/06
Singapore 188067
Telephone: 6509 9888
Website: http://www.tornado-ent.com/

Operating Hours:
Mondays to Sundays
11.30am to 10.30pm

Official Opening of Singapore Food Festival & Clarke Quay Food Street

Finally the official opening of this year Singapore Food Festival (SFF) was held concurrently together with the Clarke Quay Food Street from 16 July - 24 July 2010. Come let us embark on a mouth-watering journey on this year Singapore Chinese Dialects Heritage Food to stimulate your senses for an unforgettable experience.

But before you enter into the food street to start off your feast, remember to get a SFF Kopitiam stored value dining card from the cashier counter at either side of the entrance at a minimum of S$10.00 value. This stored value card will allows you to enjoy fast and convenient transactions at all the 30 participating stalls at the Clarke Quay Food Street. And remember, "CASH" payment are not allow at the Food Street so do get ready this card before you step in to avoid any inconveniences.

Due to the Opening Ceremony today, there is this long table with a few plates of similar items that symbolised the different Dialect groups and their culture. Eg. The beancurd represent the Hakka yong tau foo, the mee suah represent Hokkien, Fishball for Teochew, Wanton for Cantonese and Beef for Hainanese.

Let's walk through some of the stalls in this year Singapore Chinese Dialects Feast at Clarke Quay Food Street.

Near to the right side of the main entrance are some delicious traditional Hainanese dishes and snack such as Chicken Rice, Chicken Curry, Pork Chop and etc. All these items look so heart warming as it reminds me some of my mother's family traditional Hainanese cuisines.

Talk about Cantonese delight, Dim Sum is always one of the good choice to start off with. I am sure these traditional Cantonese delight such as Cha Siew Bao, Har Gao and Siew Mai can be also found in some western countries too.

If you want something more different from the above dim sum, perhaps you can try out some of these Hokkien and Cantonese delight by Gim Tim. Above is their signature Traditional Hokkien Fried Topical Roll - 招牌大茨粉 which I have review in another SFF post (click HERE). Whereas on the second photo is their Cantonese snack known as Steam Glutinous Rice Roll - 糯米卷. This is a special dim sum dish whereby the seasoned glutinous rice is wrapped with a white skin that is similar to "Bao" skin which is soft and fluffy.

Ngoh Hiang Prawn Cracker is some kind of assorted deep-fried snacks that you can pick from the choice of items such as fishball, cuttlefish, sausage, prawn or fish roll, prawn fitter and etc. These deep-fried items are often served with some sweet/spicy dipping sauce with crushed peanuts.

Lim Hai Sheng Carrot Cake is one of the stalls that is always surrounded by people queuing to get their famous fried carrot cake. Although this dish might look simple with just steam carrot cake fried together with beaten eggs and salted turnip but you must really give it a try which will makes you crave for more. You can read more about this stall at another SFF review post. (click HERE)

I saw a lot of people eating this snack along the way while I venture the stalls. When I asked around, some of the folks told me that this is a Must Try item as they actually prepared the freshly made Popiah skin on the spot at the Food Street.

Without hesitate, I went over to the stall and ordered these Popiah and Kueh Pie Tee. I must admit that those recommendations are good because the ingredients are very fresh and the taste of the filling is very fragrant and with the right amount of seasonings.

Tian Jin Hai, Teochew stall caught my attention with their traditional Fried Black Olive Rice instead of the Cold Crab. This is not the usual fried rice that we used to order from local Cze Cha stall. The fried rice sold here is fried with black olive which makes the rice infused with a special fragrance and taste.

Kew Gardens offered some of their traditional Hakka dishes such as Chicken with Wine Lees - 红糟鸡, Abacus Seeds - 算盘子, Soon Kueh - 笋粿 which is made of yam instead of the normal white soon kueh skin. Other than the above-mentioned, I also discovered the Hakka Black Bean Kueh - 黑豆糕 which I had never seen my in-laws whom are Hakka prepared in any occasions before.

Other than local Chinese Dialect food, you can also find some Malay or Indian food stalls around selling their traditional satay, otah, biryani, curry, and etc.

If you prefer something sweet, perhaps you can try the Four Seasons Durian stall where you can get some durian products such as durian cream puffs, durian tarts, durian kueh and etc.

These are some of the yummy food that are available at the Food Street market. But we are quite disappointed that there actually isn't any dessert stall around except some ice-cream from Four Season Durian and cheng teng from Gim Tim.

The beautiful night view of the Food Street together with the crowds that are busying with the choice of food to buy and also tried to sample as many as possible on those delicious food.

You can also sit along some open air cafe to enjoy a cup of coffee, tea or drinks and look at the beautiful view of the Clarke Quay river after the feast at the Food Market.

If not you can take a walk along the Street Market to pick up some clothing or stuffs which you might be fancy of. Teochew Hand Puppets show is also available the Central's River Promenade from 8:00 - 8:30pm and 9:00 - 9:30pm from 16 - 25 July 2010.

Lastly for all the Media and invited guests, each of us get to take home a very traditional and unique 8 Treasures Box - 八宝盒 from Mandarin Oriental Hotel as a gift. It consists of some traditional sweet candy treat such as malt sugar, candied lotus, candied melon and etc.

So if you love to eat all these dialect dishes, do drop by the Food Street from today till 25th July with some friends or family to sample some or all of these delicious cuisine. And if you are interested on the Chinese Dialect Heritage Feast on 25 July 2010 where there are more than 100 over dishes served. You can drop by this website (HERE) to book your tickets online.

Clarke Quay Food Street
Date: 16 July to 24 July
Time: 4pm to 11pm
Venue: Clarke Quay Read Bridge
Pricing: Payment via Singapore Food Festival Souvenir Card
Official Website: http://singaporefoodfestival.com.sg




p/s: For more photos on the SFF Food Street, you can click on this link (HERE) at Cuisine Paradise Facebook Fan Page.