Showing posts with label Food Outings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food Outings. Show all posts

Monday 18 October 2010

Porn's ~ The Charm of Sexy Thai Food

This is our 4th food gathering and each month we will venture a new restaurant together with our group of food lover friends. From the above photo, you can roughly make a guess on our what is our October theme.

Yes! You are right! Our October theme is the hot and spicy exotic Thai cuisines that used lots of fresh herbs and spices to enhance the aroma and taste of their dishes.

For your information Porn’s is opened by one of the MediaCorp’s most popular host, Pornsak Prajakwit who host the recent “Food Source - 食在好源头” (click HERE to watch) TV program that draws tremendous feedback from viewers. And according to some patrons, sometime you might be lucky to bump into Pornsak who will take and serve your orders in certain days too. The above photo shows the the translation of Porn on one side of the wall near the back siting area which mean "blessings" and "good wishes" to everyone who visit Porn's .

Bright and simple menu with black and blue prints descriptions, bundle up together with blue ribbon that gives the feeling of old school day scrapbook look.

If you think of adding some extra condiments to enhance the taste of your dish, you can feel free to choose from any of these 4 items that is provided on each table. These 4 complimented condiments are:- cut red chilli with light soya sauce, chilli flakes, crash peanuts and white sugar that are mostly used on fried rice or noodle dish.

Prawn Cakes (Tod Mun Goong) are usually one of the all times favorite appetizers for both children and adults. The one serves at Porn’s has a very lovely golden breaded outer crust, moist and juicy minced prawns filling that goes well with their special Thai sweet and sour chili dipping sauce. Worth trying if you don’t wish to get yourself oily from all the deep-fry hassles in the kitchen.
Price: S$8.50 for 3 pieces


Guess most of us who frequent the Cze Char stalls would have tried at least once on their Egg Foo Yong. So even when we are at the Thai restaurant, Fried Omelette with prawn (Kai Jiew Goong) is also one of the items which most of us would like to try. I remember having good encounter with the Thai fried oyster omelette that I had during one of my trip to Bangkok which I can never forget the taste and fragrant of their fried omelette.

The one we ate at Porn’s was relatively small in serving and slightly more expensive compared to those from the Cze Char stall. Taste wise; nothing really special about this dish as I can’t really taste any fish sauce in it too. (or perhaps they didn’t add even add any to enhance the taste)
Price: S$7.90 per plate

I am sure for those of you who have being to Thailand would have tried this common foodcourt or street food dish which is known as “Minced pork with basil leaves” that is usually served with steam white rice. And this is always a must eat dish whenever my brother goes for his Bangkok trip.

Before ordering this “Fried Minced Pork With Basil Leaves (Kapow Moo)”, we have heard and read some bad reviews on this dish. As from the photo you can see that there is a pool of red chili oil that makes you feel spicy and greasy by the look of it. (the pool of oil is one of the bad comments from some patrons) Secondly, most of us agreed that the minced pork is rather too tiny and scattered which makes it look and taste like “salted turnips”. I remembered those we had in Bangkok has more fresh and lovely fragrant basil compared to the wilted and black strands shown above. I think unless you are those who prefer spicy gravy to go with their rice or else you would consider giving this a try.
Price: S$8.50 per plate


Out of all the dishes we have ordered, this Pineapple Fried Rice (Khao Pad Sapparod) has the most pleasant presentation where the pineapple rice is served in a hollowed out pineapple, sprinkled with generous amount of pork floss and cashew nuts. When you scooped out the rice, you can even find hidden treasures of small cubes of pineapple, raisin and shrimps hidden in between the grains of rice. Although this is not the best Pineapple Rice that most of us had but overall this is still acceptable if you would like to go for something mild in spices and sweet in taste.
Price: S$10.90 per serving

I always discourage people ordering Fried Rice at any restaurant or Cze Char stall because I find that it is simply too expensive to pay that amount just for Rice and Egg or maybe some extra small shrimps or so. The Thai Seafood Fried Rice (Khao Pad Talay) at Porn’s was just a rice bowl serving that consists less than 5 medium size shrimp, egg and a bit of frozen mixed vegetables. Nothing fancy about the taste and I would rather choose the Fish Roe Fried Rice from Café De Hong Kong (here) for the same price but with a definitely bigger serving for at 4 – 5 persons.
Price: S$9.90 per serving

Thai Green Curry (Gang Keaw Wan) is always one of the dish that I would ordered during our family eat out at our frequent Thai Restaurant. And since Alvin and Audrey are also keen to try out, we decided to get a bowl so that everyone can sample this special green curry that is different from our local curry.

When the Green Curry is served it gives out a very fragrant aroma, which we believed is from the Basil leaves and coconut gravy. We are all very excited to try this dish and most of us find the taste was rather good with the amount of coconut milk added. The bowl also consists of generous amount of chicken fillet, thai egg plants, and basil leaves. Overall we are quiet satisfy with the taste which blends well with the sweet and salty combination which I am sure it will goes well with a bowl or two of steam white rice where you can make full use of the curry gravy.
Price: S$10.90 per bowl; (steam white rice at S$1.00 per bowl)


We ordered one each of their Tom Yum Soup With Prawn (Tom Yum Goong) and Tom Yum Soup With Seafood (Tom Yum Talay) but for the price that we are paying we can’t really find a lot of ingredients compared to what is shown on the recent review at I-Weekly. We are kind of disappointed with the Seafood pot as it taste rather sour compare to the Prawn Pot and you don’t really find many seafood in it too. The most is a few slices of squid, straw mushrooms, tomatoes and a few shrimp.

Most of us prefer their Tom Yum Soup with Prawn which taste slightly better in terms of flavour but it has a bad setback as the soup taste really spicy and it covers most of the taste of the ingredients such as lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and galangal. The only thing we taste is “SPICY” which leaves us having “burning” tongues. Maybe this is more suitable for those who loves hot and spicy soup or can consider order this during cold raining day.
Price: S$10.90 per bowl; S$12.90 per hot pot

These are some of the drinks that we ordered:

1. Freshly Brewed Thai Rosele & Lime (Nam Ga Jeab) @ S$3.90 (Red Drink)
2. Lemongrass Drink (Nam Takai) @ S$4.50 (light brown drink)
3. Homemade Barley @ S$3.00
4. Thai Ice Tea(Cha Yen) @ S$3.90 (orange drink behind)

If you like the taste of Milk Tea, you should try their Thai Ice Tea which has a colour similar to Carrot Juice(which we mistaken). This drink has a very special fragrant and the icy cold feeling that gust down your throat makes it prefect to go with their Tom Yum Soup.

For dessert the waitress recommends us this Sticky Rice With Mango (Khao Niaw Mamuang) as our preferred Red Ruby with Snow Ice is not available on that day. When the dessert came we were all surprised by it's setting. The glutinous rice is shaped into two small rice balls, which is served separately in a bowl with some black and white sesame seeds and coconut milk drizzle on it. We find the glutinous rice is kind of dry and chewy in texture compared to those soft and sticky types served in most Thai restaurant. And we also agreed that we would not pay for this pricing again for this quality of dessert.
Price: S$8.50 per serving

Despite of the slightly over pricing and small portion of dishes, Porn’s charm definitely can be justify with it’s daily never ending lines of customers dining or queuing at the restaurant just to sample their homecook Thai dishes. And according to the counter staff, reservation at Porn’s has being fully made for the next few months till mid December 2010.

Although this is NOT those “must try” restaurant with something really fancy but you if you want to know what charm it has to lure so many patrons perhaps you can always try your luck and drop-by their outlet and start queuing for a seat or two. A good way to avoid the crowds and secured a place is to go after peak hour meal time. For more reviews on this outing, you can read it from "miss tam chiak", "lobsterpaint" and "susan" blogpost.



Remark:
~ Overall our dining experience with Porn’s was fairly good. Although their dishes are not those with “WOW” factors but for a change in taste if you don’t mind spending slightly more there is no harm trying certain items on their menu.

BAD Experience:
~ I would like to highlight their service attitude, particular to one of their senior staff that kept asking us to place our order even though half of our friends have not arrived. And the way she asked us to place our order is like she kept coming back to our table at least 4 times within the 10 minutes with the same excuse as “please make your order fast to avoid the lunch crowds” with that kind of “black face”.

It makes us feel that she is trying to chase us for the orders so that we can eat and leave immediately without taking up the seats so that they can make more business. The way she handle this makes us feel very uneasy and annoyed that she is trying to be rude in serving customers. And when I ask her to introduce some signature dishes for us to try she can’t bother and ask us to take 2 each of the fried rice and pineapple rice instead of suggesting us to try different varieties of their rice and noodles dishes.

Lastly while helping us to take the group photographs, she even shows “faces” in front of us which reflects that she is very impatient with our act and delay. Hope she is just moody on that day and won’t treat other customers the same as what she had treated us. Or else soon or later she will either loose her job or Porn’s will loose valuable customers.



Porn’s
28 Liang Seah Street
Singapore 189049
Telephone: +65 6337 5535
Website: http://pornsexythaifood.blogspot.com/
Facebook Page: Porn's

Opening hours:
Mon-Sat: 12.00pm - 3.00pm, 6.00pm - 10.00pm
Sun: 6.00pm - 10.00pm



Monday 13 September 2010

Cafe De Hong Kong

Our September Food Outing was held at Cafe De Hong Kong (新天地小橱) last Saturday, 11 September 2010. This Hong Kong style cafe is located at 586 Balestier Road which can be reached by bus from either Novena or Toa Payoh. Our group makes an effort to have food outing at least once a month and last month our outing theme was on Burger Hunt(click HERE for details) and we managed to try about 10 different kinds of burgers from 2 different well received burger outlets in Orchard area. And for September, we are here at Cafe De Hong Kong to try something more adventure...... Can you make a Guess?

Yes!!! Our mission for this month, which we all look forward to, is to conquer our fear on eating "Crocodile Palm".... So let's continue with this post where I will share with you some interesting and yummy dishes that we had.

Upon entering the café, you definitely will be captured by all these lovely drawings and art crafts on both sides of the wall. And according to Alice, all these beautiful drawings are in the café are done by Mr Francis’s kids. From the photo, I feature some of my favourite pick such as the lovely DIY clock, pop-ups drawing on the café menu and spaceship.

First we have these lovely "Fortune Seafood Roll - 如意海鲜卷" as starter to excite our taste buds before the "Star" dish appears. Although this might be some deep-fried food but it is not that oily at all, the fresh and crunchy ingredients are wrapped with Vietnamese nested rice paper, deep-fried till golden and crispy, then topped with extra fish roe before serving. I think this is an ideal finger food to be served as starter together with cold beer before dinner.
Price: S$7.00 for 2 pieces

After the seafood roll, here comes our long waited "star" dish of the menu, “Stewed Crocodile Palm - 红烧鳄鱼掌”. Everyone was very excited about this dish when it is served and we thought at a certain angle, it looks sort of like black chicken feet.

Surprisingly this stewed crocodile palm is so soft, juicy and jelly like texture that is similar to sea cucumber. Most importantly it does not have any of that “fishy” smell or taste compare to those crocodile soup or stir-fried crocodile dishes that I have tried before. If you are just being served with a bowl of the flesh parts, I can guarantee that you can’t even tell this is crocodile meat. Overall this dish comes with one Crocodile Palm, green leafy vegetables, roasted pork and etc. Most of us agreed that the chef has done a great job on this dish too. From the menu, they also we spotted crocodile soup which perhaps we can give it a try next round.
Price: S$50.00 per pot (best is to pre-order ahead)

Braised Duck with Sea Cucumber - 港式海参扒鸭" is the most expensive dish in our menu list due to the good quality of sea cucumber and cooking process and time taken for this dish. The duck is well cooked and the meat so soft and fragrant which required less chewing, and the sea cucumber is cut into thick chunk which makes it taste bouncy and yummy on each bites. The dish goes well with steam rice because of it's excellent gravy.
Price: S$78 per plate

Next interesting item on the list is this “Stewed Lamb Brisket - 枝竹羊腩煲”. It is piping hot when served so this will make a great choice for rainy days or year-end dinner where the weather is much cooler For those who dislike mutton/lamb because of it “scent’ you will be surprised with this dish. The chef used a great combination of spices that mask up most of the unpleasant scent of the lamb leaving it only with soft and tender meat. From the recommendation of the Francis, this dish goes well with little bit of fermented beancurd sauce(豆腐乳) and extra topping of thinly shredded “Kaffir Lime Leaf”.
Price: S$20.00 per pot

Talking about Fried Rice, which is your favourite choice? Although I am not a fan of fried rice because I often find it too oily or dry for my liking, but if I have to order I will always go for “Yang Zhou Chao Fan - 扬州炒饭” which I love it's special fragrant. For our last item on menu, we have this special fried rice that totally changed my view towards fried rice. This is also one of the chef recommended dish of this cafe which is known as "Fragrant Fish Roe Fried Rice - 太子炒饭". If you take a closer look at it, all those orange little dots are actually fish roes. Each mouthful that you eat, you will be able to taste all those popping fish roes in your mouth. Does it sounds great to you!
Price: S$10.00 per plate

After all the yummy dishes, here comes our dessert of the day, which is their popular “Hong Kong Style French Toast”. Look at the height and thickness of this toast, does it look sort of like “Deep-Fried Beancurd -豆干/豆腐“ to you? This taste really different from what I used to have from the local toast café. The bread is so soft and fragrant inside leaving a little crispy crust on the outer layer and most importantly it don’t gives you that greasy taste at all. It also goes pretty well with a cup of Hong Kong Style Milk Tea.
Price: S$5.00 per piece

For the lunch, we have enjoyed 10 wonderful dishes plus French Toast and fresh cut fruits as desserts and we are very thankful to Mr Francis Mak, whose specially design this set of menu for our food outing. We really appreciate his warm hospitality towards each one of us and his kitchen crews for whipped out all these yummy dishes. Lastly, I would like to thanks Alice and Maureen who helps to do all the co-ordination in order to host this food outing successfully.


For more photos of the dishes, you can click HERE.

Or you can also drop by to these websites on those who attended the outing for more read up and photos. Misstamchiak, Lobsterpaints, Camemberu, CalvinTimo, The HungryCow and The Hungry Photograper. Posted by Picasa



Cafe De Hong Kong
586 Balestier Road
#01-01 Eastpac Building
Singapore 329898
Tel: 6255 3865
Email: cafedehongkong@gmail.com
Web: www.cafedehongkong.com

Opening Hours:
11.30am - 3.00pm, 5.00pm - 12.00 Midnight
Closed on MONDAY, except Public Holiday(then the next day after PH close)


Tuesday 24 August 2010

The Handburger @ 313 Orchard

Remember our Burger Hunt outing, after sharing the post with you on Burger Bench & Bar(read more HERE), now let me continue to share with you our 2nd stop of the food hunting at "The Handburger" which is located at the end corner at Basement 2 of 313 @ Somerset.

3 best friends, Anna Lim, Andrew Chan and Benedict Leow who want to offer quality, artisan burgers that are priced reasonably so that everyone is able to enjoy them regularly, own “The Handburger” restaurant. Other than burgers retail, they are also the owner behind the popular western soup restaurant known as "The Soup Spoon" that has varies outlets in Singapore.

Since we have just finished our 1st hunt over at "Burger, Bench & Bar", we decided to order something more unique over here. After going through the menu, the few of us (Alice, Lobster, Alvin & I) agreed on this "Tandoor Chicken Burger" and "Duck Confit". I love the Indian Tandoor Chicken so I have much higher expectation on this burger.

According to the menu the chicken thigh is cooked in tandoor style that is marinated in yogurt, cucumber, red onions, hand cooked masala sauce, mint mayo. It is then topped with sweet mango chutney on some coral lettuce and tomato and sandwich together with toasted spinach and Parmesan bun. The greenish bun does look appealing to us but the taste of the tandoor chicken was kind of plain perhaps of the sauce and overall it does not really suits our liking. But for those who don't really like the strong Indian spices taste, you might wish to give it a try at S$10.80 each.

Duck Confit Burger is something rare to be found in most common burger outlets so it is worth to get a set of this. They actually grilled the whole boneless duck leg confit in handmade orange sauce then topped with baby snow pea sprouts and mandarin orange on a bed of coral lettuce and tomato together with the toasted caramelised bun. The duck itself is very tender when bite and it combines very well with the handmade sauce and orange topping. Recommend to try this if you have eaten too much of chicken burger.

You can create a set meal with either S$4.00/S$6.00 top up for extra side and drink (ice lemon tea/hot green tea) together with a burger of your choice. So for this set, we choose the "The Works Burger" that consists of 100% New Zealand ribeye beef patty that weights 150g, this patty is nicely grilled and topped with battered onion rings, crispy bacon, sunny side up egg, sauteed basil pesto mushroom, sweet onion jam, cheddar cheese and etc on a bed of coral lettuce then sandwich with toasted caramelised onion bun.

Can you imagine when you bite this burger, it will be burst with all kind of flavour such as juicy beef, onion, runny egg yolk, cheese and etc. For beef lover like me and Alice, we do agreed that this beef patty is far much more better than the previous one that we have tried especially on the seasoning and sauce that makes a great different. As for the side, we have a Caesar Salad to go with the burger while drink, we top-up extra to have the Lychee Mint Crush instead of the usual ice lemon tea.

Lychee Mint Crush is definitely a very interesting drink. The sweet fragrances of the lychee and the refreshing cool mint blend together with crush ice ineed makes this a great choice to go with those burgers. Most of us are guess what are the ingredients blended in it which makes it taste so addicting. Some mention about kiwifruit and cucumbers, but I will leave you to try this out on your next visit to the outlet. A glass of this cost cost about S$5.50 which is good enough to share between two person.

This restaurant also offer some Kid's Friendly meal for either "Mini Mister Meal" or "Mini Miss Meal" where you can choose between Cheeseburger or Fish Burger to go with chunky fries, buffalo winglets, a cup of freshly blended apple juice and a cupcake for dessert. All these only cost you S$9.50 per set which I am sure your kids will love these combination. But somehow or rather, we find they should change the drink to something else instead of fresh apple fruit because tends to oxide before consume which makes it look rather not appetising to the kids. (Above is the "Mini Mister Meal" with Fish Burger where you can find a slice of lovely lotus root in it)

This is something new to us, sweet burger which they known it as "THB Dessert Burger" which sandwich a 70% dark coverture chocolate patty filled with macadamia nuts, topped with apple crem cheese filling on a bed of butter icing and strawberries with fluffy donut bun. We love this, the chocolate patty is so rich and fragrant that it makes you crave for more. If you like chocolate and with something special rather than the usual meat patty, I suggest you go for this S$6.50 dessert burger with a cup of tea or coffee.

Overall we have a great time on our second food outings for this Burger Hunt event. But however we did not managed to try the 3rd places which is included in our schedule at Ice Rockz, located at Scape because they are running out of rice patty when we get there. So I guess, we have to go back another time or perhaps another BURGER OUTING!!! Our next outing will be something more exciting so do stay tune for our outing updates in September. Posted by Picasa


The HandBurger
313 Orchard Road
#B2-17/18/19
313 @ Somerset
Singapore 238895
Telephone: 6509 6214
Website: www.thehandburger.com

Opening Hours:
Daily: 11.30am – 10.00pm


Note:

1. You can read more related posts on this outing at Misstamchiak, Amanda and Lobsterpaints site too. Stay till for our next outing updates in September challenge ourself on eating "Crocodile Paw".

2. Or you wish to take a look at more photos on Cuisine Paradise Fan Page Album HERE.





Monday 23 August 2010

Burger Bench & Bar @ Cineleisure Orchard

Last month we have our 1st Blogger's outing at Chef Daniel's Kitchen @ Illuma (click HERE for post) where everyone of us share some great time together. And this month, we have organised a Burger Hunt on 14 August 2010 as our 2nd outing event. Initially we have planned to try out different burgers from 3 places along Orchard area but end up we only managed to set our taste buds for 2.

This post I will share with you the 1st stop of our Burger Hunt which is at Burger Bench & Bar opened by ex-lawyer Willin Low, owner of Wild-Rocket, Wild Oats and Relish. This store was located at level 1 of Cineleisure Orchard since last year December and it has another name known as "B3" which derived from "Burger, Bench & Bar".

They have 8 different flavour of burgers that you can choose from the range of Beef, Pork, Poultry, Fish and etc. And if you feel like having something extra, you can also try some of their yummy snacks such as russet potato crisps and golden chicken wings. For this outing, we have ordered 6 different burgers and 2 snacks from their menu to try out.

I am sure if you like Japanese Food such as Sashimi you would have tried Wasabi before. This is "Sasame Wasabi Butter-Fish Burger", deep-fried fish fillet which is cripsy is crispy and burst with juicy flavour when bite. The fillet sits on top on some some shredded cabbage and top with chef special wasabi sauce which is combined with some addition of mustard and roasted sesame seeds. And according to one of stuff, they adjusted the original level of spiciness after feedback from some customers which cannot take the "spicy kick" from wasabi so this burger is still manageable for kid who can take a bit of spicy food to consume.

Soft-shell Chilli Crab Burger is a new items on their menu which cost S$8.20 with a rather huge piece of soft shell (from the photo) sitting on some shredded cabbage and top with some paste. From a glance the paste look like sort of similar to normal tomato paste but it is actual chilli crab sauce but some of us who tried it comments that the sauce is actually too overpowering which covered that taste of the soft shell crab.

The look of this "Saute Mixed Mushroom & Cheese Beef Burger" seems to tasty and juicy from the photo. When Alice and I tried it, we find the beef patty taste rather ok with it's seasonings and mushroom topping. But it is not those kind that you will go "WOW".

I have tried a few Curry Chicken/Pork Katsu Don before, but the idea of combining a Japanese dish into burger this is the 1st time I have saw and tried. The "Japanese Curry Chicken Katsu Burger" at B3 cost S$7.90 each which is pretty reasonable for the price to have the same ingredients sandwich with 2 slices of bread inside of rice. But you might be surprised with the taste of the sauce which is not what you usually have in your Katsu Don dish.

Compared to the above Mixed Mushroom & Cheese Beef Burger, this "Cheese Burger With Mayonnise & Sundried Tomato Relish" taste much better with it's sundried tomato relish. This is slightly cheaper which costs only S$7.80 but the overall taste is much better if you love "Beef Burger".

Amanda wish to try this "Grilled Chicken Burger With Relish & Jalapeno" which look pretty healthy due to the grilled chicken breast meat and Jalapeno toppings that makes it look less greasy and light, this cost S$8.50 each. Each mouthful, you can taste the tender and juicy chicken meat chew together with the tangy relish and spicy jalapeno.

This is one of their signature side dishes that are freshly made from their kitchen instead of those usual pre-packed potato chips. Their hand-cooked russet potato crisps are surprisingly crunchy and filled with an authentic potato taste that you can’t resists on nibbling more on those chips.

Snack number 2, we ordered two plates of this "Golden Chicken Wings with Chef Gino's Deadly Chilli Sauce" that comes with 6 pieces serving per plate at S$5.00 each. The wings taste a bit spicy itself so if you cannot take spicy food then don't go with that dipping sauce. But with that extra chilli sauce, it will definitely enhance the taste more.

After the meal, we tried this "Gourmet Dark Chocolate Soft Serve Ice-Cream" for dessert. According to their poster, this is the 1st Home-made soft serve Ice-Cream available in Singapore. A cup of this will cost you S$3.00 and it's pretty worth it for it's rich chocolate taste too. Posted by Picasa


BURGER BUNCH AND BAR
8 Grange Road
#01-02
Cathay Cineleisure Orchard
Singapore 239695
Telephone: 65- 6737 9947
Website: www.wildrocket.com.sg

Opening Hours:
Mon - Thurs: 12:00pm - 11:00pm
Fri - Sat: 12:00pm - 2:00am
Sun: 12:00pm - 11:00pm



Note:

1. You can read more related posts on this outing at Misstamchiak, Amanda and Lobsterpaints site too. Stay till for part II on "The Handburger" post soon.

2. Or you wish to take a look at more photos on Cuisine Paradise Fan Page Album HERE.





ShareThis