Ban Leong Seafood Restaurant

Ban Leong Wah Hoe Seafood Restaurant (万隆华和海鲜菜馆) is situated the residential area of Casuarina Road which is near the Upper Thomson Road. They served Great "Seafood Zhe Char" at an incredibly affordable prices. As this stall is extremely occupied during weekends, it is best to call ahead to reserved a table in order to save time on waiting. Other than dine-in, they also provided take-away orders on the phone too.

We arrived at about 7.10pm and almost all the tables were occupied and each of the tables will have at least one crab order which is either their signature Chilli Crab or whatsoever. While waiting for the food to be served, Rey and I went around the restaurant to take some shots on their seafood.

As we are celebrating Mum's Birthday with some friends and relatives, we ordered quite a number of dishes which a few of it I didn't managed to take a clear shot of them due to the poor lighting late in the evening as well as our table position. So I will just leave you with these 8 dishes:-

~ 1: Stir-fry Kai Lan which is not over cook and still remain crunchy and it comes with a special fragrant seems like pepper......

~ 2: Birthday Noodles was actually a plate of Fried Mee Sua with generous amounts of squid, eggs, bean sprouts, prawns and surprised some deep-fried quail eggs(which resemble mini fishball).

~ 3: Xia Zhao(虾枣) which is similar to Wu Xiang but is deep-fried in individual pieces consists of minced meat, prawn, yam, water chestnut and spices. The Xia Zhao here is rather crisp on the outer skin and it goes well with their special sweet dipping sauce. I prefer this more than the shrimp-paste fried chicken.

~ 4: Shrimp-paste Fried Chicken is seasoned with shrimp-paste and some other ingredients then coat with fry and deep-fried until crisp on the outer skin but still the inner meat is still tender and juicy.

We ordered 3 crabs but cooked in two different methods which one is their signature Chilli Crab while the other one is in Butter flavour. Other than the crabs, we also have deep-fried fish with dark soy sauce, sweet and sour pork and hot-plate deer meat(铁板鹿肉).

~ 1. Signature Chili Crabs that served with gorgeous amount of egg sauce gravy and deep-fried mantou. As I am not a great fan of Crab, I only eat the mantou with the gravy. But overall, the taste is great.

~ 2. Butter Crab has a very unique fragrant and taste which covers with a thick layer of crispy fritters which I think is deep-fried egg. It has a very nice butter taste and most of us prefer this than the chilli crab.

~ 3. Deep-fried Fish cooked with dark soy sauce is rather salty on the sauce, but overall the fish is still fresh and not oily even though it had been deep-fried.

~ 4. Sweet & Sour Pork is one of my brother's favourite dish but then I find that their gravy is kind of sour. Maybe they have added too much plum sauce or tomato sauce.

The Manhattan Fish Market

This is one of the new eat-out places in the newly renovated NorthPoint near Yishun MRT. When my boy and I first saw the wooden signboard during the renovation showing the name "The Manhattan Fish Market" on it, my boy still told me that it might be a FISH MARKET opening soon..... But to my surprised it is actually a western restaurant selling all kinds of Seafood Delights.

The Manhattan FISH MARKET at Northpoint branch consists of two different dinning environment. You can choose to have your meal inside the restuarant itself and enjoy some videos of fishing tips or you might prefer an out-door concept where you can enjoy another view of the shopping mall while eating.

They have all kinds of eateries on the menu(click on the menu link), range from Soup, Salad & Green, Starters & Appetiser, Pasta, Seafood and etc..... The menu also comes with a very cute lobster shape kid's menu which with good choice of items at reasonable price. Since this is a new outlet at Northpoint, at their promotion, customer are given a S$5 discount voucher for their next dine-in.

And in conjunction of celebration with our 44th Singapore National Day. Thy also having a promotion with DBS Credit Cards holder on this S$44++ NDP Platter during the month of August. So do check up the nearby outlet for more information.

We order a set of "Perfect Catch" which comes with the Soup of the Day and a big tall glass of Ice-lemon tea for just S$4.90. A "Flaming Platter for One" which consists of one piece of Grill Fish Fillet coated with special herbs, garlic rice, chips and their award winning Flaming Prawns for S$18.90. I love the taste of the Flaming Prawns, the stuff will use a blow touch to cook the prawn right in front of you before serving. The prawn is top with something like a sweet mayonnaise-like sauce which will melt over on the rice when it is done.

For dessert we are tossing between their Manhattan Mud Pie or Tuscan Tiramisu. But in the end as I am craving for some coffee dessert, we choose the Tuscan Tiramisu. Since there is no picture on the menu, we will surprised to see the Tiramisu to be serve in a cup rather than the usual slice form. Their tiramisu is absolutely great in taste, the texture thick, smooth and the scent of coffee is blending well with the overall ingredients.

Other outlet includes:-
~ The Manhattan Fish Market (Plaza Singapura)
#06-07, 68 Orchard Road
Plaza Singapura, Orchard
Singapore 238839
Tel: 6835 9300

~ The Manhattan Fish Market (The Central)
#02-79/90, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street
Central, Clarke Quay
Singapore 059817
Tel: 6534 7903

Ikea - Tampines Branch

IKEA has two branches in Singapore that is located @ 317 Alexandra Road and 60 Tampines North Drive 2. Both offer a wide range of well designed, functional Home Furnishing products at reasonable prices that many people will be able to afford them.

And other than the wide range of imported furnitures and home accessories. They also have their own IKEA Restaurant which offers "Traditional Swedish Dishes" like Swedish Meatballs and Poached Salmon at less than S$7.00 a set for adults. Little kids also have special kid's meal which is less than $3.00 and there are microwave available to warm up baby and toddlers food in order to cater for everyone needs in the family.

I love their Poached Salmon served with potatoes and broccoli and topped with a buttery cream sauce that does not taste or feel greasy and it really blend well with the salmon. Other than the poached salmon, we also try their famous Swedish meatballs. Em... the overall taste is great, but then we don't really like the fragrant of the meatball which taste a bit odd for us :)

Other than the above, I also get a bowl of their soup for the day which is - Cream of Mushroom but I am kind of disappointed with it as it taste kind of salty and I can't really get that touch of mushroom taste in it. But as usual, their fried chicken wings are still as good as before. The taste is great and it's best to eat while hot so that it is more crispy and tastier.

Savory Oatmeal Porridge - 麥片粥

Oatmeal is usually used to make porridge or act as an one of the ingredient in oatmeal cookies or oat cakes. Sometime it is use as a topping on many oat bran breads. Research shows that Daily consumption of a bowl of oatmeal can lower blood cholesterol, due to its soluble fiber content.

This is my very 1st attempt in cooking Savoury Oatmeal which really worried me before the final end product being served. But to my surprised these really turn out well and it taste just as similar as to those "Cantonese Porridge - 广东粥" texture. To further enhance the fragrant of the porridge, I even prepared some pan-fried shredded ginger to use as garnish.

As for this recipe, I use this "Quaker - Quick Cook Oatmeal" which you can purchase in most supermarket. You can add your preference amount of Oatmeal to the thicken the porridge to the consistency that you want the it to be.

Ingredients: (Serves 2)
5 - 6 Tablespoons of Quick Cook Oatmeal
3 Imitation Crab Meat, diced
100g Of Mince Pork
1 Egg, lightly beaten
600ml of Water/Stock
Chopped Spring Onion & Coriander
Pan-fried Shredded Ginger, optional

Methods:
1. Marinate the mince meat with some light soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil and set aside.
2. Preheat a saucepan with some oil, lightly fry the diced crab meat until done, then add in the marinated mince meat.
3. Give it a quick stir until the meat are well separated and cook through.
4. Add in the water and bring it to almost boiling point then add in the quick cook oatmeal.
5. When the mixture come to boil again, low the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes then season to taste.
6. Switch off the heat, remove the pot from the stove, then drizzle in the beaten egg and give it a quick stir.
7. Serve in the bowl with extra topping of chopped coriander, spring onion and shredded ginger.

Notes:
a) To make the pan-fried shredded ginger:-
~ Preheat a small pan with about 1 tablespoon or more of oil, then add in 1 tablespoon of shredded ginger, saute it over medium low heat.
~ Stir consistency until the ginger turns almost golden in colour, switch off the heat, remove the shredded ginger and set aside in a small saucer.
~ Pour some of the oil over it so as to drizzle on the porridge or noodle.

At a glance of it, you will definitely mistaken it as the usual "Mince Pork Porridge" that we used to have in the Asian way of cooking. So do give this a try to serve Oatmeal in a new taste compare to the sweet flavour varieties that we used to have for breakfast.