Crystal Jade Kitchen

Crystal Jade Kitchen has a number of branches scatter at different parts of Singapore. Their menu consists of authentic Hong Kong Style Dim Sum, Roast Duck/Meat, Congee, Noodle and Cantonese dishes.

Last week, we happened to shop around Bishan area so we decided to drop-by one of the Crystal Jade Kitchen located at basement 1 of Junction 8. While queuing up for our seats, we are attracted to their Rice Dumpling promotion(click here).

From the list, we decided to try something sweet and savory so we ordered this "Rice Dumpling with Pork - 五香咸肉粽" that consists of pork belly, whole salted egg yolk and green bean. The glutinous rice is very soft and lightly fragrant by the spices and seasoning and it goes well with the tender pork belly that make you crave for more. Personally I love the adding of green bean to this savory rice dumpling as it really blends well with the ingredients, especially with the salted egg yolk.

Since it is around lunch time, we decided to try their 2-in-1 combo lunch menu. This set comes with the "Poach Chinese Spinach with 2 kinds of eggs" and "Deep-fried Prawn Coated with Wasabi Mayonnaise".

This vegetable dish taste great with the combination of 3 different eggs such as Egg, Century Egg and Salted Egg. The soup broth of this dish is very tasty and you can even drink it like a soup because it is cook using superior stock.

Next dish is this "Deep-fried Prawn Coated with Wasabi Mayonnaise" which we find it a bit disappointed. The large prawns are coated with batter and almond flakes then deep-fried till golden. Although the prawns are very fresh and crunchy but it was kind of overpower by the over coating of Wasabi Mayonnaise sauce. The wasabi sauce actually makes the dish too spicy and greasy to consume. If the sauce is slighter lesser like what is shown in the their menu, I guess this dish will taste better than what is it now.

Foodfare @ Ang Mo Kio Hub

There are about 6 NTUC Foodfare outlets located at different parts of Singapore such as at Simei MRT, Rivervale Mall, Admiralty MRT and etc. Today the outlet that we went to is located at the 3rd level of Ang Mo Kio Hub. You can find a large varieties of food like Chicken Rice, Korea/Japanese Food, Fish Soup, Wanton Noodles, Dim Sum and a lot more. I am sure you can find something that you like over there.

While roaming around to look for our brunch today, I decided to get a plate of this Chai Tow Kway which is also known as "Fried Carrot Cake - 菜头粿". In Singapore, there is two version of fried carrot cake which is either "Black" or "White". The Black version is usually rice cake fried with garlic, eggs and thick sweet soy sauce. While the White version which shown on the photo above does not use any sweet soy sauce and the carrot cake is fried on top of the beaten egg to form a nice golden crust. Sometime they are served with some extra chilli and spring onion accordingly to individual preference.

Stall No. 06
Thye Hong @ #03-12


While waiting for the Fried Carrot Cake, I was attracted to the Congee stall next to it. Other than selling different varieties of Claypot Congee, this stall also have a few Hot Plate with rice dishes. Since it is brunch, I decided to try their "Hong Kong Style Porridge" which cost, S$4.90 per claypot.

There are a lot of ingredients in it such as fish slices, peanut, ikan bilis, scallop, cuttlefish and fried fritter - 油条. This porridge texture and taste of this porridge is kind of different from the normal Cantonese porridge which those creamy texture. As you can see from the photo, you still can see grain of rice in the porridge and it's very fragrant and tasty due to the added ingredients.

Stall No. 07
Congee/Hot Plate @ #03-12


Due to the hot weather recently, most of the drink stalls are always packed with long queue of people. Even the drinks stall at this Foodfare is also packed with crowds getting their drinks, desserts or toasts. While getting our drinks, I spotted mum's favourite Soupsop dessert which I think she would love to have it for after meal dessert. But I was kind of disappointed that those shaved ice is actually more than the soursop topping which make this dessert kind of expensive for the price of S$2.00.

Zhou's Kitchen @ Far East Square

This year Mother's Day celebration as usual was organised by my brother at Zhou's Kitchen, Far East Square branch. As most of us are working and also to avoid the weekend crowds we decided to settle the dinner on Friday night.

Zhou's Kitchen provide casual Chinese dining concept and it has about four branches located in different parts of Singapore such as Square 2(novena), Anchorpoint and Jurong Point. Besides serving a tempting variety of A-La Carte dishes, there are set meals offering value and convenience too.

For today we are having their A-La Carte Dinner Buffet which cost about $29.80++ per Adult where you can pick your choice from "Cold Cuts and Appetizers", "Meat", "Seafood", "Vegetables", "Rice/Noodle" and "Dessert".

For Appetizers we have Century Egg and Cucumber cubes - 青瓜皮蛋 which is light and refreshing. Salad Prawns with Mixed Fruits in Thousand Island sauce and Deep-fried Fritter were rather kind of average standard. While "Fujian style Meat Roll that comes in 5 thin slices was kind of to our liking with it special ingredients.

Talk about their soup, it was rather disappointing. The 2nd soup shown in the above photo supposed to be their limited one serving dish known as "Braised Shark's Fin Broth with Crab Stick and Shredded Chicken - 红烧蟹柳鸡丝翅" but it ends up to be just like a normal bowl of diluted soup with some shredded chicken which mum hint to the waitress on her dismay. On the other hand we all agreed that the normal "Braised Beancurd Broth with Diced Seafood - 海鲜豆腐羹" taste even much better than the Shark's Fin broth.

For the Meat dishes, each of us select our favourite items such as "Pan-fried Beef Tenderloin with Black Pepper - 黑椒牛柳烧" which is fragrant and tender to taste, "Pi Pa Duck - 琵琶鸭" where the meat is soft and goes well with the topping sauce but their "Deep-fried Pork Ribs With Chef's Special Sauce - 京都排骨" is quiet a disappointment due to the presentation and the sauce taste so sour and the pork ribs are so tough. "Sweet and Sour Pork - 咕噜肉" on the other hand was much better with it's tasty sauce and overall combination, so end up we have two serving plates of that instead. As you can see from the photo, their "Deep-fried Chicken with Prawn Paste - 虾酱鸡" was just like some deep-fried chicken strips instead nothing fancy.

Beijing Roast Duck - 京式片皮鸭 is also one of the Limited to 2 Slices per Person items on the list. This dish is kind of different from the usual Peking Duck that use the outer crispy duck skin to wrap with the pancake wrapper. Rey enjoy himself on serving us this dish by assemble the spring onion, cucumber and sweet sauce with the duck and wrapper while we are busying with other dishes.

On the Seafood list, we tried their "Chilli Crab A-La Tung Lok - 辣椒螃蟹" other than the presentable look the taste wise was rather average or not suitable for our liking. The Chilli Crab sauce was too sour rather than those usual hot and spicy chilli crab sauce that we have patronised from some of the famous crab restaurant. "Poached Live Prawns - 白灼虾" was rather better with its look, taste and freshness. "Deep-fried Prawns with Crispy Oats - 香酥麦片虾" and Sauteed Shrimp with Long Bean in Sambal Sauce are another two prawn dishes that we ordered too.

We also tried two of their fish dishes such as "Thai Style Soon Hock Fish - 泰式炸笋壳鱼" and "Steamed Red Tilapia in Black Bean Sauce - 豉汁酱蒸红鱼". I also ordered brother's favourite "Stewed Ee-fu Noodles - 干烧伊面" and mum's favourite "Fried Rice with Chicken and Salted Fish - 咸鱼鸡粒炒饭".

Finally, the moment that I am waiting for is here. Dessert menu/items is always one of the main thing I look for when I scan through the menu. So when it comes to the end of the meal, I will always reserved extra space for my favourite dessert. Today we are having "Chilled Herbal Jelly With Honey - 龟苓膏", "Sweetened Almond Cream with White Fungus - 雪耳白果杏仁露", "Sesame Cream - 芝麻糊", "Glutinous Rice Balls with Peanut Crumbs - 擂沙汤丸" and lastly "Ice Cream Puff - 雪糕酥点".

New Menu @ Sakae Sushi

I didn't know that Sakae has a branch located at Icon Village around 12 Gopeng Street which is within less than 10 minutes walk from "Tanjong Pager MRT - 丹戎巴葛地铁站". Since we are all at Mum's new place at Pinnacle Duxton, rey suggests that he wanted to have sushi for lunch at Sakae which Uncle Daniel bought him once before.

Because of the lunch hour crowds we managed to get a place at the conveyor belt table after some "not so good" incidents happened. But after all the 5 of us are still very excited to try out those new items on their New Menu.

Rey was too hungry and busy with his usual "Tamago Sushi" that he has starts his meal without waiting for us. I was impressed by their new menu which is bright and colourful and it gives us a very classy outlook.

There are about 5 new salad items on the new menu for you to select from. Actually I am looking at the "Maguro Tataki Salad" which is not available at that branch according to the Manager. So we will have to go for the 2nd choice which is this "Wafu Salad". We must compliment that their ingredients are very fresh and it goes well with their sweet salad dressing.

Mum suggest that she would like to have something hot and soupy so I introduce her this new "Chicken Sukiyaki" which is like a mini hotpot that consists of toufu, negi(type of green onion), vegetables, chicken, mushroom and jelly noodles in a pot of sweet broth. Rather than using the Raw Egg as a dipping sauce, mum prefer to add it into the hot soup to give it more flavour. Em... while eating this Sukiyaki, I found a special Fried tofu pouch that contain so mochi like fillings in it. Other than we all agreed that the soup is more towards the sweet side of our preference, the taste and ingredients are all worth to give this a go.

With the new menu, they have this S$3.99 pink plates which consists of some worth trying items. Here I will share with you 4 of the items that we select from the menu. 1st let's look at this "Unagi Tamgo Sushi" which they add another layer of Tamago on top of the usual Unagi Sushi to enhance the sweetness of this dish.

This "Soft Shell Crab Sushi" seems to look good which half portion of the crab stick to a piece of sushi rice. Aunty comments that the crab is not crispy enough and it's kind of oily too. So perhaps this will not be on our list again :)

"Ebi with Kanifumi" consits of rice stuffed in the fried tofu pouch and top with ingredients like prawn, crabmeat and tamago. This stuff will be great for those who loves seafood without extra sauce combination.

"Ni Hotate with Tobiko" captures my attention while flipping through the ordering menu because I love the vibrant colour of this dish. Furthermore, the toppings are one of my aunty and mother-in-law's favourite.

Here comes the "Butterfly Mentai" that we are all very disappointed with. The colour of the prawns seems to be over-cooked and the colour of the Mentai topping look so huge different from the one showing on the menu. Although the taste is quite good but the appearance won't bring it for another ordering. Perhaps I should give it a second chance to try at another Sakae branch to compare the end-result :p

Avocado is always one of our favourite fruit on sushi toppings, whatever sushi or side dish that include avocado will definitely be in our considering list. "Unagi Avocado Maki" is another new item found on their Special Makimono section.

Talk about tofu in Sakae, our favourite used to be their "Fried Tofu" or "Agadasi Tofu" but now, we have another choice:- "Lobster Salad Tofu" @ S$7.99. If you are craving for some cold appetiser like lobster salad, this will be a great dish for you. The tofu taste great with their special dressing and everyone of us feel so refreshing with this dish.

Finally, it's dessert time again!!!! I have being aiming for this "Matcha Cheesecake - S$5.99" long before they release on the branch from Sakae facebook updates. We were all very impress by their new serving of this cheesecake which consists of 3 layer of plain cheese, red bean filling and matcha flavour cheese filling. In the end, we all agreed that this taste more like ice-cream cake rather than cheesecake :)

Lastly, I must highly recommend this "Matcha Ice Cream with Warabi Mochi" which cost S$3.99. The Matcha ice-cream is so full of flavour that we all fell in love with it. This ice-cream has a very fragrant Azuki Bean taste in it and the texture is so creamy and smooth with a refreshing matcha scent.

Reunion Dinner @ Si Chuan Dou Hua UOB Plaza

This year is my brother's turn to arrange the venue and crack his head on which menu to select for our 10 persons Chinese New Reunion Dinner gathering. So without hesitation, he selected one of his favourite hangout @ " Tian Fu Teahouse - 天府茶艺馆" which is one of the tea house concept by "Si Chuan Dou Hua Restaurant - 四川豆花饭庄" which is located at the UOB Plaza 1, level #60-01.

For reunion dinner, this restaurant offer similar timing like most others do which you can select either the earlier timing which will ends around 8pm or later slot which start serving at around 8.30pm. Upon seated, we are being served with a cup of traditional "Long Jing Tea - 龙井茶" that is prepared with exact measurement of tea leaves and served in an amazing way by the Tea Master. Other than their special tea, you must also try their very own appetiser, "Si Chuan Pickles - 四川榨酱菜 " which is crunch and tasty.

Our today's menu will be the "Prosperity Set - 大展鸿图" that serves with 7 dishes and 2 desserts. After about 10 minutes of waiting, the 1st dish of the night, "Ikan Parang Yu Sheng with Golden Fish Crisps" arrived. According to the waitress, this is known also as "风生水起" where she will help to add/pour in the ingredients one at time with auspicious greetings used for Chinese New Year. When she has finished the process, it is our turn to use the chopsticks to stir the ingredients together and lift it up as high as possible to represent good luck, prosperity, promotion and etc.

For your information, there is a plate of "Deep-fried Salmon Skin" which is prepared by the restaurant for this Yusheng dish.

Another 10 minutes or so our "Braised Shark's Fin Soup with Crabmeat - 双喜展亦翅" came. Most of us was quite disappointed with this dish because we find it too starchy which we think it look and tasty like those sticky dessert rather than shark's fin soup. Moreover, I don't even seen any crabmeat which mentioned is most of the bowls, but rather we found a lot of chicken cubes in it.

While waiting for the chef to sliced off the crispy outer skin of the "Bei Jing Roasted Duck - 北京脆皮烤鸭" and the preparation of the pancake parcel, our "Stir-Fried Prawns with French Beans in Garlic & Chilli - 欢乐满华堂" was served. The prawn balls are very fresh and crunch and it goes well with the chilli sauce which we find it similar to chilli crab sauce.

But I was rather attracted to the chef and waitress who is busying slicing the roasted duck and rolling the pancake parcel. My brother loves their Bei Jing Roasted Duck and he ordered this for an extra bonus dish for us to try. We were all amazed by the chef skill in slicing the duck which is still piping hot with smoke filling in the air. The pancake still is kept warm in a bamboo steamer which two tone of colour which is jade green and white. The waitress quickly spread a layer of sweet bean sauce(hoisin sauce) then top with generous amount of crispy duck then wrapped it into a pocket parcel.

The remaining parts of the duck will be made into a second dish called "San Choi Bao - 生菜包" where they cut the duck meat into small cubes and stir-fry it with spices, spring onion, white onion and etc. This dish is served together with a plate of "Iceberg Lettuce - 生菜" leaves that are used to wrap the duck meat mixture and eat it as a finger food.

Next dish on the list is "Pan-fried Pomfret in Soya Sauce - 年年添有余". This can be consider as a normal classic homecook fish dish that can be found is most family. I remember, my late dad used to cook this dish for us at least once a week. I love the outer crispy texture of the fish that goes well with taste of soya sauce base.

"Braised Pork Knuckles with Dried Oyster & Sea Moss - 发财就好市" is the 5 dish on the menu list. According to the myth of most Chinese, they believed that dried oyster sounded like "好事 - good deeds" whereas moss sounded like "发财 - get rich" in Mandarin so when these two ingredients put together with pork kunckles it became another auspicious name such as "横财就手". I love this dish, because I love Pork Knuckles that is braised in such method where the meat and fat are so soft and smooth like jelly texture.

Eat out during holiday season like Christmas or Chinese New Year can be a great problem because due to large crowds they might be a longer waiting time interval before each dish is being served. It's already 10.30pm and we still have another 2 more dishes and 2 dessert to go. And because of the late dinner and waiting time, by the time they served this special and attractive "Crispy Roast Chicken - 金风报佳音" we were almost too full and tired to try. Most of us love the toasted almond flakes topping which bring extra fragrance to this dish.

Now we reach the last dish which is "Glutinous Rice with Waxed Meat wrapped in Lotus Leaf - 五谷贺丰年". At first, mum suggested that perhaps we shall ask the waitress to help us pack-up this dish and served the desserts instead because everyone of us are too full to eat any rice dish. But after seeing the actual portion, uncle James feel that it is alright for us to take a small portion after divided into 10 serving. Although we are all very full, but we must admit that this dish is indeed very nice, fragrance and most of all not greasy.

Finally! Here comes our desserts of the night. I have being waiting for these two dessert before even the main course is up. First to come is their "Homemade Beancurd with Red Bean - 红豆豆花". The sweet and aroma of the cooked red beans goes very well with their homemade silky beancurd. Even though I am very full after eating the above dishes, but I don't mind having a second share of the extra bowl of beancurd :p


My excitement of tonight focus on this special "Steamed Layer New Year Cake with Egg Custard - 千层煎年糕 " which I am able to it from the restaurant "Imperial High Tea - 宫廷下午茶 " dim sum which is being feature on TV entertainment programme, "NEW CITY BEAT - 城人新杂志". These new year cakes are being served on a cute little bamboo hanger in the bamboo steamer. Each cake comes in about 8 layers in a mixture of Nian Gao, Egg Custard and the white portion seems like bread/cake/or something like rice flour texture...... Overall it's a very delighted sweet dessert for both Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day.

Overall everyone of us are very satisfied with today's menu and each of us have our own preference on each dishes...... And I am looking forward to try their limited period promotion on the "Imperial High Tea" which is till 28 February 2010. If you are interested in the unique Imperial Dim Sum that serves with good grade of tea by the tea master, perhaps you can consider this offer at either UOB Plaza 1 or Park Royal Hotel(Beach Road).