Astons @ Sembawang Shopping Centre

What pops into your mind first when we talk about cheap and nice western food with with perhaps a restaurant serving standard. Maybe you will think of Astons, Botak Jones, UNO Beef House, Char-Grill Bar or some other place which is good and cheap.

Astons which is located at level of Sembawang Shopping Center has both indoor and outdoor dinning area. It was on a raining evening that we went and the crowds of about 20 people are queuing outside waiting for seats since it's only the indoor dinning area that is available.

We are asked to place order of our food while waiting for the next available seats and the waitress seems to be very impatient when we are looking through at the menu. Most of the customer in the queue felt so odd that it seems like we are being force to decide our order within less than 5 minutes time. And yet we have to stand there waiting for at least 20 t0 30 minutes before entering the resturant.

After about 45 minutes of waiting time, we finally managed to get our seats and settle down for dinner. While in the restaurants, we saw a few hiccups from the tables around us like:- the steak is over cooked rather than medium raw, chicken chop is not proper cooked through, food and drinks have being wrongly served to the customers and etc.

Finally about 5 minutes our food arrived, but unfortunately it's also a wrong ordered which does not belong to our tables. With hungry mood, we have to wait for another 10 minutes for our correct orders to be served. But this round they served the food without any cutlery and drinks, and for them to take the cutlery it takes another 5 minutes.

At the point I was kind of annoyed with their service and furthermore our medium raw sirloin steak has became over cooked steak instead. And our drinks only being served half way through our meals after a few reminder. Although the food look decent and presentable but the taste is not as good as what they have over at their East Coast branch a few months back. Still wonder how come there is such a long queue while inside most of the customers are complaining about the wrong orders .......

Pizza Hut @ Causeway Point

Today we are having our dinner at Pizza Hut as Rey suggests that he would like to have pizza tonight. As usual, we arrived at the nearest Pizza Hut outlet near our area which is location at level 1 of Causeway Point Shopping Mall, just beside John Little Department Store.

While looking at the menu, we are caught up by this great promotion which cost S$11.90 for a 5 course delights which included starter, soup of the day, choice of your main course(pizza, pasta or bake rice), beverage of your choice and dessert of the day..... So without further delay we start off with our order......

The Soup of the Day is one of my favourite which is "Cream of Mushroom". At least this does not taste like those "Instant" soup or so, you still can see generous slices of Mushroom in it. Overall we are still satisfy with the taste of the soup, but if they comes with a slice or two of garlic bread for dipping it will be even better :)

We ordered two sets of the 5 course deal and one of the main course is this Chicken Pomodoro. I have heard and read a lot of good review of their new pasta range, so we decided to get something new from the menu. Chicken Pomodoro is made up with Olive, freshly made tomato sauce/diced tomato with Italian herb like Basil. Overall this is a very refreshing dish and we love their pasta sauce which taste just nice for us.

From the menu, they suppose to give us the CrissCross Fries but according to the staff who takes our order, she told us that it had being replace by the Starry Munchies which is the star-shaped hash browns fried to golden perfection. Rey loves this, as it comes with a crispy outer skin and he ate one portion of the two servings.

Other than the Chicken Pomodoro Pasta, we also ordered one of our all-time favourite which is the "Hawaiian Pizza" that spread with succulent chicken ham and juicy pineapple chunks. Although the flavour it still the same as before, but I think we didn't specify that we prefer a thin crust base so in the end the pizza that served to us was those soft and fluffy texture which we don't really fancy.

After an hour of so of waiting and eating, we finally finished our dinner and now it's time for our dessert. I guess that day was pretty crowded in the restaurant and we waited roughly about 20 minutes for our "Ice cream". In the end I still have to approach 3 different waitress before the dessert is finally being served to us.

Buckaroo BBQ & Grill

Time flies fast, today 31st December marks the last day of year 2009 and almost everyone is preparing for the countdown to welcome another brand new head start of the year 2010. In order to avoid the New Year crowds, we decided to have our celebration dinner one day ahead. Since we prefer to eat at somewhere nearer instead of going to the town, we decided to settle our dinner at Buckaroo BBQ and Grill.

Had about this place a few years back when my mum used to patronise their food with her boss and colleagues. Buckaroo is sort of a typical American restaurant that is located at Andrews Avenue near Sembawang Park. You can take Bus No. 882 from Sembawang Bus Interchange which you can drop at the bus-stop near Sembawang Park around 1st Car park Entrance. They opens from Wednesday to Monday from 4.30pm to 10.30pm.

Since they have a very good reviews from magazine and media on their special Buffalo Wings, we decide to get it a try too. Base on the recommendation of the waiter, we order half dozen of Grade 2 spiciness wings with 1 normal for the kid. According to the menu, they have 3 different level of spiciness for their Buffalo Wings. For your information, Buffalo wings are often fried chicken wings that are coated with special sauce. This sauce can be made with a variable amount of spiciness corresponding to the level of heat, such as mild, medium, or hot. The main ingredients in the sauce are a vinegar-based cayenne pepper hot sauce and butter.

This is the Grade 1 Buffalo Wing which does not have any sauce coated onto it. The outer skin of the wing is very crispy and overall the chicken is very well marinated with the herbs and spices. From what we see, we guess that the different between each Grade of spiciness might be due to how much sauce the wings have being coated with. Which means, the more sauce, the more spiciness it is. The price of this Buffalo Wings might be slight higher at S$18.80 for half a dozen which mean around $3 per wing, but if this suits your tastebud, I am sure it will be worth for the cost.

Look at this, isn't it gorgeous! It has always being in our thoughts to try Escargot after our last taste many years back. And so happening, when we saw this appetizer appears on the menu list, we decided to order without much hesitate. To our delight, this appetizer is great with the combination of butter garlic sauce and addition herbs and mashed potato. This is indeed worth the price of S$16.80 for half a dozen.

After the appetizer and finger food, here comes our Main Course for tonight. We are having this Medium Well done Beef Tenderloin with Mushroom Sauce that served with Bake Potato and Mixed Vegetables. The Tenderloin is juicy and nicely done to our liking and it really taste great with the Mushroom Sauce which infuse with a little buttery taste when you eat it.

Afterall, we think the food served in this restuarant is of their standard depending on what you ordered and what is your preference of liking. If you want to find a new and cosy place for gathering, drinks and maybe have a try of those Buffalo Wings. Maybe you can give this place a try, but the price of the food and drinks might be a bit towards the higher side even though it is not a High class restuarant. So do take note when you place your order :)

Char-Grill Bar

Saw some good reviews from some food bloggers site about this Western Stall in one of the coffee shop at Yishun Ave 11. And after taking a close look at the address, I realised that it is actually near-by to our Church cell-group venue. So today before dropping mum to the cell-group class, we decided to try out the food in this stall.

The stall has indeed a nice fast-food style menu with pretty lights and a bar counter with tall seats. They have many variety of food too, from different types of meat like chicken, beef and lamb to fish and even pastas. Other than food, they also serve alcoholic beverages like Long Island Ice Tea and the stall is open till 3am on weekends.

For the start, we try their soup of the day which is the Cream of Mushroom that comes together with the set meal that we have ordered. The taste of the soup is ok, cannot expected too much from a coffee shop stall, but then at least it is not salty and it still taste good.

This is the Grill Fish Italian Herbs which come with a huge serving of Dory Fish Fillet, Salad and Cut-in Fries at the price of S$5.80 per set. You can choose any two side dishes with the main course from raisin rice, fries, salad, baked potato, pasta and etc.

Other than the fish fillet, we also ordered the Single Rock Burger Set, which come with coleslaw and baked potato. The Single Rock come with a piece of Handmade Beef patty that is sandwich before the burger bread and top with their special sauce.

While dinning at the coffee shop, at the place where we were seated which is just directly from the stall. We can see that most of the tables were fill with either the Italian grill fish or steak. So I guess these must be the popular dishes of the stall.

Lunch @ Bakerzin

What is your best way of relaxing your body and soul after facing a hectic work week. For me, the best way to relax my mind is to have a fulfilling meal that satisfy my tastebuds as well as a great dinning environment that can calm soul and takes my mind off those workload. Most important there must be a "great" dessert after meal.............

Upon reading this Bakerzin, 1 For 1 Main Course advertisement(according to the leaflet, the promotion is only available at "Jurong Point" and "North Point" branch) from TODAY newspaper, I knew I must go during my off-day. They have a new branch which had being in my area for about 6 months or so. I have not dine-in every since it open, but I love their layout and design. So with this great deal offer, I must go and try out their set lunch with the opportunity to take a break off my hectic week.

The atmosphere is great with tall glass window all around the cafe that enables the late morning bright light to shine in. We arrived around 11am and the area is still quite empty with only two or three tables occupied. Rey prefer the cushion sofa seats which are more cosy and we start glancing through the menu. The waitress who serves us is very friendly and she is keen in introducing to us the what are the dishes that suits our preference. She also invite us to try on their Free flow of homemade bread that you can either dip with extra virgin olive oil or balsamic vinegar.


This is the MAIN reason that bought me into Bakerzin this morning........ I was attracted by this "Braised Pork Belly With Japanese Rice" because I love Braised Pork Belly and from the menu, this dish give me the feeling of a "Comfort Dish" which that luxury, soft and fragrance braised pork belly lingering in my tongue. Indeed when this dish is served, it didn't disappoint me and my mum. We are both impressed by the taste and the texture of the pork belly which is so soft and juicy. The gravy is not salty compare to the usual Braised Pork Belly and it goes just nice with the steam Japanese short gain rice.

As mum wanted to have something light, she ordered this Seafood Pasta which serves with generous amount of seafood like Prawn, squid and green mussels. The tomato pasta sauce is great, the taste is not over-power with extra herbs added and the sauce is light and tasty which suits mum's tastebuds.

After a hearty meal, here comes the "Profiteroles" which we are all waiting for. This Dessert serves in a plate of 3 medium size Profiteroles, each sandwich with vanilla ice-cream, coated with a layer of chocolate sauce on top and drizzle generous amount of toasted almond flakes which add extra crunches and fragrance to the dessert. Everyone of us who tried, agreed that their vanilla ice-cream taste great. It has a very light and aroma scent of vanilla fragrant and it won't leave you with that creamy taste of ice-cream that is fattening. But there is a little setback on this dessert, we find that the puffs are a little bit too dry and hard when bite but after all it do soften a bit when soaked with the melt ice-cream :)

When we are looking at the menu, the waitress did pass us a piece of this kid's menu for Rey. I didn't know that they have such a wide range of Kid's menu. So my mum was telling me that, nowadays the young kids are very fortunate. They even have their own choice of "Kid's Menu" to select from when dinning out.

Note:
~ OFFER ONLY APPLY TO
* Jurong Point Branch #03-58
* North Point (new wing) #01-44

~ TERMS & CONDITIONS
* Second main course is of lower or equal value, offer strictly for dine-in only.
* Valid from Monday to Friday, 10.30am - 5pm (Not including eve and day of public holidays)

ABC Brickworks Food Centre

ABC Brickworks Food Centre is located in Bukit Merah District. According to some google search that I have made, this placed used to be the site of a brewery in the 1930s. And the ABC food center got its' name from the Archipelago Brewery Company which was set up in Alexandra road in 1931.

I got to know this place from the food review introduction by "U-weekly - 优1周" magazine on their 196 issues in September 2009 on Penang Laksa - 槟城辣沙. I remember there used to be a Penang Laksa stall near our area many years back and I still can re-called the taste of it's sweet and spicy soup.

Today, based on the information given in the magazine, we managed to find Jason Penang Cuisine which is located at #01-113 in the ABC food center. The signboard and colour of the stall was kind of attractive in "Bright Yellow" colour as it easily caught our attention. After finding a good place to settle down, I went forward to take a look at their menu on what are their speciality.

Although from the photo, you might not find the dish as appetising as it look, but when you give it a try, you might like it according to your preference. To me, the soup is still not to the standard that I expected it to be. But overall, you still can give it try for the small size portion. Other than their famous Penang Laksa, I also saw some good reviews on their Penang Cha Kuey Tiao. Maybe we might give it a try next round when we visit this market again.....


Walking around the food center, we spot this Western cuisine stall known as "WOW WOW WEST" where they have this HUGE Cheese Sausage that caught our attention. The atmposher of the stall makes me feel like I am having western food in a foreign country...... Look at the texture of the cross section of the cross section of the sausage, isn't it look great!

Wow Wow West
Unit number: #01-133

Other than their signature Pork Cheese Sausage, they also have a good range of Western set dishes like, Chicken Chop, Chicken Cutlet, Pork chops, Steaks, Fish N Chips and etc. We saw that most of the table around the stall are having Chicken Chop, so without hesitate we also order a plate of it which is served with huge portion of chicken cutlets, crinkle-cut fries, beans and salad. The chicken cutlet is well cooked and it is drenched in a tasty black pepper sauce that left you to crave for more.

For those who stays or work around this area, I am sure you have tried most of their dishes and agreed that the portion is really huge to be handle by one person :)

Astons Specialties @ East Coast

Astons has many branches located in different parts of Singapore range from Shopping Center to neighbourhood coffee shops. So I am sure no matter which area you are from, there is always a Astons outlet near you. Today we are visiting the outlet at East Coast Road which is opposite Katong Mall after hearing a lot of good comments from friends, especially on their Wagyu Beef Set.

The atmosphere of the restaurant is great with it's furnishing and warm and prompt services. First to be served is their Cream of Mushroom soup which is very good. The soup itself is very thick and creamy which is towards our liking.

From a quick glance on this post, you can see that we have actually ordered 3 different "Beef" set which are "Porterhouse Cut", "Prime Ribeye" and their famous Grade 6 "Wagyu Beef". This Porterhouse Cut served with Potato Salad and Garden Veggie which gives it a brighten up colour contract from the cut.

Medium Well cooked Prime Ribeye comes with Onion Rings and Pasta Salad. The beef is nicely grill and it is still soft and juicy when cut through. This is sure worth the price of S$16.50 including two side dishes.

Finally comes the STAR of tonight dishes which is their Grade 6 - Wagyu Beef. This slice of 200g beef cost S$38.90 with 2 side dishes of your choice and a drink. It is kind of high for such a pricing to enjoy a small piece of beef but if the chef has done it well, I am sure it will worth it price for that.

Finally here is my Salmon Spaghetti which I was kind of disappointed with it. This seems to be like a chunk of fish meat coated with tomato sauce placed on top of the cooked spaghetti. Overall it is kind of an affordable restaurant for Western food as there is no extra GST or 10% service charge in the total bill as in you only pay for the price that you see from the ordering menu.