Coffee Stars by Dao @ Wisma Atria

Located at Level 1 of Wisma Atria, this newly opened Thai cafe, was easy to find. Open spaced concept, so if you are seated by the side, be prepared to be oggled at by other shoppers.

interior

chair in nice electric blue

The place was bustling on a Friday night. We ordered stuffs like fried noodle shrimp and crabmeat in yellow curry egg sauce, tom yum noodle, and lots of cakes! Hahaa, we had like 4 cakes for the 3 of us. For cakes, we had coconut, baby champ cheesecake, devil food cake and durian cake.

fried noodle with shrimp and crabmeat in yellow curry egg sauce

yummy prawns

Perhaps there was a mistake? We weren't sure ourselves.. but we didn't find any crabmeat at all in this dish. But there were lots of eggs though. The kway teow was quite mild tasting and the flavour were mostly concentrated in the fried eggs. There was just a tiny hint of curry flavour. So tiny that it was almost negligible. Prawns were nice but there was hardly any kick to this dish.

various condiments

some chili flakes to give it that 'oomph'

tom yum noodle soup

looks like udon?

Had just a quick taste of the tom yum soup, and it was pretty tasty with that sourness at the end. But my friend who had the noodles said the dish didn't make any impression on her.

For me, I just had coffee and cakes.

cappucino

baby champ cheesecake

coconut cake

Cheesecake was sweet and moist. Coconut cake was light and had slivers of coconut flesh layered in it. But was not particularly fond of that cherry ontop of it. Ok for decorative purposes but felt that the cherry had somewhat disrupted the overall taste of the cake.

cheesecake

coconut cake with grated coconut, fresh cream, sponge cake, coconut flesh

Two cakes aint enough for us girls, so we ordered another two!

devil food cake

dense

durian cake

smooth and creamy

Devil food cake probably because it is sinful? Hahaa, perhaps. The cake was nicely dense and chocolatey but not overly sweet. We liked. The texture of the cake reminds me of "ma lai gao" (rice cake). Durian cake was not much of a looker, but it sure tasted good! The durian taste was not overpowering and just nice for a cake.

The service was friendly, and iced water is served here.

For this meal, we paid $23 per pax and there were three of us. Currently there is an OCBC credit card promotion where a total bill of more than $60 entitles you to a free slice of cake.

Tai Liok Claypot Rice @ Alexandra Village Food Centre

Visited the new Alexandra Village Food Centre for dinner tonight. Alot of stalls were closed. Guessed those are only opened during the day. Not many people there at night, so we took our time to browse. Old Punggol Satay had moved there from ABC Market. My friend wanted to eat claypot rice, so we went and got ourselves one pot. Minimum order is $10 for 2 pax. Waiting time was between 25-30 minutes. Added an extra order for watercress soup.

waiting patiently for our food

After some 20 minutes or so, our food came.

claypot chicken rice

add the dark soy sauce according to taste or colour...

watercress soup $4

The rice came piping hot, and it has chinese sausages (lap cheong) and a darker sausage (yun cheong) that is made out of liver. Besides that, it also has some stalks of vegetable, salted fish bits and chicken breast meat. However, do watch out for that odd bit of chicken bone and skin.

fragrant savoury claypot rice with generous amount of ingredients

spicy chili sauce

Each of us got around 4 small bowls of rice, and plenty of soup. The portion should be just right for one male and female combo, but for two females... it was a little too much... hahaaa! The chili sauce is worth mentioning. A little dash of this chili, goes a long way! Kid you not. It is loaded with garlic! Superb.

scraped till the bottom...

almost done..

Enjoyable and worth the wait. Take note that this stall is not open during lunch time.

ps: we've finished dinner by 8pm but am still feeling full... even at 1130pm...

Joe's Kitchen @ Bukit Merah

Everyday, on my way to work, I will pass by this place. From the bus, the shop's name was quite prominent as the lettering on its awning were huge. Located opposite Alexandra Hospital, and nearby you'll see an OCBC bank.

Went with a colleague to have lunch, and we reached there at about 1215pm. To our surprise, the place was empty. No other customers except us. Hmmm...

menu

interior

glass door, and outside view

We ordered mango salad, tom yum soup, green curry, prawn cake, stuffed chicken wing and pandan chicken. For drinks, I had thai iced tea.

thai iced tea

Service was brisk, and the items were delivered in succession pretty quickly. Probably because we were the first customer of the day. I felt more at ease once the other customers began to stream in... Mixture of demographics; a group of middle-aged uncle and aunties, a group of Korean ladies, a caucasian boy eating with his local friend and a group of working adults.

mango salad

with peanuts, raw onions and cuttlefish

Mango salad was a mixture of sour and sweet mangoes. It has raw onions, peanuts and cuttlefish. The cuttlefish was chewy, and perhaps the dish would taste even better if the chewy cuttlefish was replaced with small anchovies for extra crunchiness. Nevertheless, the mango salad whets the appetite and we were ready for more.

green curry (chicken)

long beans and brinjals, and tender chicken

The green curry gravy was rather bland. The vegetables were soft, and the chicken was tender. The small bowl was enough to feed 2 pax.

seafood tom yum soup

mushrooms, cuttlefish and prawns

The tom yum soup was good! Tasty and with the right sourness and spice.

stuffed chicken wing

prawn cake

Liked the prawn cake. Fresh and springy on the inside and crunchy on the outer part. Tasted even better when dipped into the chili sauce provided. However, the stuffed chicken wing, was just so-so.

pandan chicken

boneless chicken

The pandan chicken was quite disappointing. The meat was a little bit dry and not as flavourful as expected. The prawn cakes fared much better in terms of taste and texture.

All in all, the meal costs about $34 for 2 pax.

Fika Cafe @ Arab Street

Fika Cafe, located at the corner of Beach Road and Arab Street. Can't miss it. But parking could be a problem during lunch hour. Serves Swedish halal food. It's a cosy cafe, and for my maiden experience, we got the upstairs dining section as we went in a large group.

homely ambience

cosy furniture and fixtures

table decor

menu

Think Swedish and we'll naturally think of meatballs... Wanting something familiar yet different, I chose the Swedish Pannbiff, which was basically beef patties (like hamburger patties) doused with cream sauce and served with mash potato, salad greens and lingonberry jam.

Swedish Pannbiff

What's a lingonberry jam? Hahaa, I wiki'ed it and it's a staple food in Scandinavian cuisine. Here's the link to the info. The beef patties were moist on the insides and goes well with the cream sauce, and lingonberry jam. The mash potato was a little dry and probably needed a dash of pepper, butter and salt. It's also a very filling dish.

closer look at lingonberry jam

beef patties and cream sauce, yums

Besides meatballs, the service staff said that their Swedish Hash is also another bestseller. So two of friends ordered it, and it came looking good! It has a sunny side up egg, some salad greens, potatoes and beef cubes and beet root slices.

Swedish Hash

But I thought the beef cubes were rather chewy! The mains here starts from $15.90++ onwards. They do have daily (Mon-Fri) set lunches at $17.90++, and it has a selected main (for that day), a soup and a dessert. Quite a good deal. They had seafood pasta in tomato based cream sauce on the day of our visit, and I tried a sampling of it. The sauce was good (sweet and tangy), but albeit a little watery.

The place was bustling during weekday lunch, so a reservation would be good if you're planning to visit. Take note that iced-water here costs 50 cents.

Cafe Indulge @ The Cathay

Located at B1 of The Cathay. This restaurant is next to the popcorn shop, and near the Japanese restaurant. They have premium set dinner, priced at about $23++ and it has a starter, a soup, a main course and a drink. Quite a good deal if you can eat that much.

menu

interior of the restaurant

seats

Drinks are priced from $3.50 onwards. They have mocktails from $4, and wine (housepour) from $9.

orange juice @$3.50 per glass

The main course here comes with 2 side dishes. I ordered a lamb shank braised in red wine sauce and for side dishes; french beans and corn. Didn't opt for any potato as I wasn't feeling very hungry. The dish came out looking good. Presented on a elongated plate.

lamb shank braised in red wine sauce

tender lamb

sweet corn

The lamb shank was good. The meat was tender and yet, firm to bite. Enjoyable. But the side dishes fell short of expectation. French beans were hard to bite as the side stem was not peeled off. The sweet corn were limp and soft.

Main course price ranges from $10++ onwards. If you order ala-carte a main course and a drink, it'll set you back at about $20 per pax.