Sat Playtime! :)

It wasn't a melodious Sat but we enjoyed watching Ivan playing on a charming, powder blue and woody baby grand piano. :) His dad picked up violin for a while but gave up. Will he be more musically inclined than his dad? Perhaps. :)

Ivan's definition of fun is very simple. :) Dumping coloured balls into a bright purple octopus with multi-coloured shoes is fun. Simply pushing a red truck around is fun too! :D

It's awesome this buddy has a soft spot for little animals. :) He stroked & kissed the toy rabbit very, very gently. :)))

Our sat afternoon is further sweeten by desserts from BlackBall. :) Lin & I love the 3Q Cranberry & Lemon Tea with black pearls while Adelene is able to down 2 tubs of BlackBall Signature (melted grass jelly with YamQ, Golden Sweet Potato, yam balls, sweet potato balls, red beans & pearls) on her own! :)))

Details of BlackBall:
#02-27 112 Katong
112 East Coast Road
Singapore 428802
W: http://www.blackball.com.sg

B'day Treat from Yvonne & Tommy

Yvonne & Tommy treated Lin & I to fish head hotpot at Tian Wai Tian this evening. I'm trying my best to enjoy the dinner even though I'm still upset by afternoon's road bullying incident. :( 

We heart the soup but was surprised to fish out deep fried garoupa. We prefer the non-fried version but according to Lin, there wasn't such an option.

The prawn paste roll (hay chor) was lovely. I love the crunchy chestnut and it wasn't too meaty at all. :)

I wasn't blown away by the prawns & beancurd as it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

There isn't any place for dessert in the area. We headed to Udders at MyVillage for some sweet treats! :)

Thank you Yvonne & Tommy for trying to make my Wednesday a little better. :)

Details of Tian Wai Tian Fish Head Steamboat Restaurant:
1382/1383 Serangoon Road
T:+65 6292 9982

Details of Udders:
#01-11, MyVillage Mall
1 Maju Ave
Singapore 556679
T: +65 66345839
W: http://www.udders.com.sg/home

Celebrating Mom's Birthday at Chui Huay Lim - Round 1

Mom's turning 60 and we did an early celebration for her at Chui Huay Lim Teochew Cuisine.

The place was packed on a Monday.

The birthday celebration started with steamed birthday buns for the birthday girl. The buns were soft but the bean paste filling was too dry.

The Teochew cold crabs were fleshy & sweet and packed with crab roes! :) Who cares about cholestrol? ;)

I'm usually not into deep fried traditional Teochew five spice rolls but these were pretty good. I had two to three I think! :)))

Next dish, pig trotter jelly was a no go for me. But grandmom loves it! :)

I'm not into Teochew fried oyster omelette too. Yahui had lots of it, including my share! :D

Teochew style steamed promfret at it freshest. Loving it! The broth was light but flavourful, further enhancing the sweetness of the fish. :)

The braised conpoy with eight vegetarian treasures were bursting with flavours.

The bean sprouts gave the fried seafood noodle extra crunch. It wasn't too oily. Nice. :)

The Teochew "Puning" fermented bean chicken was well, an acquired taste. The chicken was very tender though. Beneath the chicken were preserved mustard. Uncle Francis seemed to like it alot...





















Braised goose is one of the must haves when we have Teochew cuisine. Unfortunately it was badly done at Chui Huay Lim. The meat was extremely tough. *.*  A big minus here...We told the manager about it, and she told us it was an old goose...if you know it's an old goose & the meat is going to be tough, why bother serving it in the first place???

We had two types of desserts to sweeten our dinner. First up was yam paste with pumpkin & ginkos. It was smooth & wasn't too sweet. :)

We didn't think the sugar encrusted yam sticks was well done. To do this well, the taro has to be really good.

And here's us with our guests. :)

Details of Chui Huay Lim Teochew Cuisine:

190 Keng Lee Road

#01-02 Chui Huay Lim Club

Singapore 308409

T: +65 6732 3637

W: http://www.chlteochewcuisine.com.sg/

Appreciation Dinner from Sharon

Sharon bought us an appreciation dinner at Signatures by Lam's this evening. :) It's always a pleasure to try out new restaurants. Signatures by Lam's located in a perculiar location; within an industrial park and opposite a hostel for migrant workers. So we didn't quite expect to find a nice restaurant there. Btw it's patronized by even the ministers! *.*

Almost every patron ordered Signatures by Lam's vegetable juice. We gotta try it too even though we're not veg juice lover. It makes one feel healthy instantly! hahahahah :)))

The Kung Fu duck was tender. But I wouldn't say it's spectacular.

The sambal wingle bean was interesting. We've not had such veg before. I think it has 4 angles???

The beansprouts gave the fish hor fun extra crunch. ...and there was plenty of them! :)

The sea cucumber & fish maw chicken soup was flavourful. :) A taste of home cooking... 

To our disappointment, the steamed pomfret was overcooked.... :( A pity because the fish was actually very fresh!

Sharon ordered imperial crabs, something different from our usual black pepper or chilli ones. Not too bad if you prefer a milder version of black pepper crabs. The flavours are less intense.

Rich, creamy with the right sweetness, and well cooked sago. The mango pomelo sago was a joy. :)

Soya bean ice cream atop soya bean curd. :) A healtier dessert option for the health conscious I suppose. :)

The yam paste with pumpkin which wasn't on the menu was a tad dry. : I

We weren't blown away by the main dishes. The mango pomelo sago & soya bean ice cream stole the limelight of the night.

Details of Signatures by Lam's:
18 Kaki Bukit Road 3
#01-16/17
T: +65 6749 9337

Ice.....brrrrrrrrr :)

Ice. I love chewing on ice cubes. Bad for my teeth? Yes, I know. I'll do it still nonetheless. ;) Btw, I'm proud of my teeth. They are healthy and every dental check-up takes less than 10 mins. :D

It's a sunny Monday and I'm craving for more creative icy treats than just ice cubes/ice creams...

Let's imagine we are in Taipei now.... we can head down to Ice Monster or Taro King. :)

Look at the generous amount of mangoes, strawberries & kiwis toppings! :D Just looking at it makes me happy!

Details of Ice Monster Taipei:
15 Yong Kang Street
Website: http://icemonster.com.tw/e_main.htm

There's Ice Monster in Singapore as well, but it pales in comparison. However if you are unable to resist the craving, details are as follow:
68 Orchard Road
#B2-52 Plaza Singapura

The other place we like to have our icy treats in Taipei is Taro King. :) This place was introduced to us by a gf, Elaine.

We have never tasted chilled taro before. This was amazingly good! :D

Details of Taro King:
No exact address. But it's on the right side of Ice Monster (15 Yong Kang Street) under a staircase.

Homeground - Fast Foward

Happy happy happy :) Able to stay home this Saturday. Not sure what's for breakie, lunch or dinner today....but it's dim sum with our girlfriends, Wendy, Angie and Tina at our fav restaurant tomorrow after church! ;D

We love going to Imperial Treasure Teochew Restaurant at Ngee Ann City. The  service is warm and the food suit our palette to a T. I know what I wanna have already...

The restaurant serves kung fu tea before and after meals. I try to take only one after the meal...cos it's strong and I don't want to risk counting sheeps :)

On a diet? Keep it till the next day. This roasted pork is a definitely must order. There are so crispy minus the grease... :)

We like the scallops cheong fun.The scallops are decent in size :)

Har kows, it's impossible not to order these succulent prawns dumplings at our dim sum sessions :)

This steamed yam cake just melts in your mouth. :)

Imperial Treasure Teochew Restaurant does awesome panfried turnip cakes. It's so soft.... :O I always try to take only half a cake but... 

These chubby dumplings are called chiu chow fen guos. There's turnip, dried shrimps and a peanut in each dumpling. :)

Take note all mushrooms lovers! :D The skins of these mushrooms dumplings are translucent!

The fillings of these panfried chives dumplings are generous. :)

In our opinion, no other Chinese restaurant in Singapore does creamy egg custard buns (liu sha nai wang bao) as well as Imperial Treasure Teochew Restaurant. The restaurant ranking for making these awesome buns is as follow:

1) Imperial Treasure Teochew Restaurant

2) Shang Palace at Shangri-la Hotel

3) Cathay Restaurant

I love eggs. Hence more eggy stuff. :) Flaky egg tarts anyone?

These mushroom pies are a hit too. There's a tinge of sweetness in the pastry...yum :)

Sweet tooth...I'm not sure where else serves sugar coated taro bars. If you do, let us know. These taro bars have to be ordered at the beginning of the meal as they take a quite a while to be made and served.

Some of our other favs:

Comfort food - homemade tofu with mushrooms and spinach.... :) It goes really well with minced pork and dried fish porridge (fang yu rou sui zhou). Unfortunately I do not have a decent photo of our fav porridge....  : I

There's always room for these noodles made of fish meat. :) The broth is light and tasty.

Mom likes this prawn and egg hor fun. :) I think you should try it too!

Details of the restaurant:

Imperial Treasure Teochew Restaurant

391 Orchard Road

#04-20A Ngee Ann City

Tel: +65 6736 2118