天晴 Appare Udon & Tempura Japanese Restaurant @ Novena Square 2

Located at Level 2 of Square 2. Opened in April 2014, so it is fairly new. The first thing one notices, would be the huge serving bowls for the udon!

Already tried their udon and tempura, so wanted to try something else for this visit. Earlier visit saw teething problems, not unexpected as of newly opened restaurants. During April visit, our food did not come till much later, and we were given a free-piece of tempura. For this visit, the food came out in good speed.

nabeyaki udon @$16.50++

tempura prawns, fish cake, mushroom, peas and raw egg

Had to wait a few minutes to heat up the udon and to cook the raw egg. While waiting for that, my seafood donburi was served.

seafood donburi @$16.50++

There's salmon, tuna, scallops and ikura. The rice was not heavily vinegared and the whole bowl had a homely and mellow feel to it.

plenty of toppings

The donburi came with miso soup.

miso soup

Some service staff are fairly new, and hence could be a bit clueless. However, there was one staff that was pretty attentive to our needs. Tea refilled every so often. Came over to ensure that the raw egg in nabeyaki udon was properly cooked, and even gave a refill for miso soup. Excellent service.

Green tea is complimentary and total bill came up to $19.50 per pax.

Yi Jia Le Seafood Delivery (一家乐煮炒外卖) & Shi Fu Ge (食福阁) @ Foodpanda

Had previously used Foodpanda, so once in a while will receive email offering discounts or vouchers. Feeling lazy one weekend, so decided to use the voucher before it expires (only valid for 3 days).

Very quickly settled on Shi Fu Ge as the delivery menu looks more manageable (aka reasonably priced and minimum order is $30 with additional $3 for delivery).

Chinese zhi char food it is, and for two pax. Assam fish head, omelette egg, salted egg yolk pork ribs and white rice. Both small portions for the omelette egg and pork ribs. Total bill was $43.50 before the use of discount voucher.

The total estimated delivery time shown online was 2 hours. Various modes available for payment. Once that's done, there should be a confirmation email for the delivery order. There will be an automated sms sent out to indicate that the restaurant had received and confirmed the order. Though the sms stated 105 minutes for delivery to arrive, the initial estimation of 2 hours was more accurate.

Previously, the experience with Indian food order was that the butter chicken that costs us $17++ came in the normal noodle soup container size. So this time round, we waited with trepidation on how the fish head will turn out. Thankfully, it arrived in a good sized round container!

'Ang kueh' assam fish head @$21

closer view of the ingredients

The assam fish gravy was really appetising. Sourish but not overly. Brinjal looked abit raw but actually pretty juicy. The fish was a tad overcooked.

salted egg pork ribs (咸蛋排骨) @$12

Hmm. For some reason I had expected pork ribs as in pork ribs with the bone-in. Haha...The pork ribs were lean and some meat was quite tough. Turned out quite oily too, otherwise the salted egg flavour is there although abit mild.

egg omelette (芙蓉蛋) @$6

The white rice portion was actually adequate per pax and came in individual styrofoam box, much like when we 'da bao' rice outside. Had ordered 3 white rice (@$0.50 each) as precaution and ended up with one extra that was kept for the next day as we couldn't finish.

Ate as much as we could, and there was enough for the next day too. The meal can actually feed 3 pax easily.

Soup Restaurant @ United Square

Located at B1 of United Square. Finding for that escalator to move downwards to basement in United Square took a bit of time.

This restaurant has a lot of secluded corners so there was that bit of privacy, though our corner actually has clear glass that outside can see. Haha!

@Soup Restaurant

typical cover charge

Dinner with two lovely ladies. Ex-colleagues that have known each other for about 7 to 8 years now? How time had passed by so quickly.

Was already 8pm, so decided on 3 dishes to share and a pot of soup.

order chit

chrysanthemum tea (sweetened and refillable)

Service was efficient. Food was delivered in quick succession and tea regularly topped up.

lotus root soup with pork ribs (medium)

For soups, one could order individual portion with various properties. For example, they have 'Healing', 'Strengthening', 'Wellness' type of soups. However, seemed like only lotus root soup has a bigger portion for sharing.

lotus root pork ribs soup (莲藕汤)

Soup was simple and flavourful. Plenty of pork ribs in the pot.

Samsui Ginger Chicken

Steamed white chicken with tender flesh. Lettuce was really sweet and crisp. Best eaten with lots of those yummy ginger. Oily, yes but it is a necessity!

leaf lettuce (油麦菜) with fried dace fish

Usually will order sweet potato leaves (番薯叶) if its in the menu. Decided on something different and friends liked it. Leaf lettuce has that slightly rough feeling but yet still gentle to eat. First time having it with fried dace fish.

hometown fried fish belly (鱼腩)

Loved the thick slices of fried fish belly. Firm and tasty with the simple sauce.

Hearty homely meal with good friends. Thank you guys!

Melt - The World Cafe @ Mandarin Oriental

Located at Level 4 of Mandarin Oriental at Raffles Blvd, Marina Square. Friend said he wanted to do a research on buffet, hence I got a free meal. Yay!

Buffet for adults are priced @$68++ per pax on weekdays. Lunch is from 1130am to 230pm.

interior

Buffet drinks include juices only. The juice counter is located at the dessert section. There were orange, guava (green and pink), grapefruit, mango and fruit punch.

tiny glasses for juice

As usual, started with cold seafood. No oysters nor crabs though. =(

white fish sashimi, scallop sushi and maguro sashimi

clams, prawns, mussels, small scallops in shell

Enjoyed the prawns. Firm flesh and sweetish meat. Yums.

For bread lovers, no worries. Took some pictures of what's available although bread is not one of the items that I'd take when having buffet.

selection of bread

dips

cold cuts

Next, took some crackers from the Thai food section to munch. Also tried baked salmon, chicken tandoori and lamb skewer.

baked salmon with some tubers, crackers with thai chili sauce, chicken tandoori and lamb

The baked salmon was still pinkish and thankfully, not dried out. The tandoori item was so-so.

baked salmon

crispy fish skin for snacks

There was a section where it has more European influence dishes such as duck confit, lamb stew, oxtail stew and seafood stew.

stews, sauteed vege and soups

Tried the seafood stew which had plenty of mussels and squid. Didn't have the seafood umami and it was rather salty.

Decided to get some salad for the daily greens intake.

cucumber tomato salad (at the back). feta cheese, smoked salmon

my plate of greens, well...sort of

The Thai beef salad was kinda salty (and tasted heavily of fish sauce), cucumber tomato salad was nice, the minced crab with fish roe was really good as well. Smoked salmon was abit too thick.

Can't believe that I only had 2 prawns so went back and took some more.

succulent fresh prawns

Had 3 more of those babies while friend devoured the rest. Service staff was attentive and she brought out a bowl of warm water with lemon for us.Thanks to her, our fingers were lemony and clean after that! =)

Had 4 glasses of juice, and I like orange the best. Grapefruit was good to digest the food as it was sourish.

Desserts for finale.

chocolate fountain with marshmallows and fruit sticks nearby

cakes galore

chestful of sweet delights

My loot.

petit six - blackcurrant macaron, financier, raspberry velvet cake, coconut pandan, tapioca kueh, forgot the name but it was super-sweet dessert

The raspberry red velvet cake and coconut tapioca were really nice. Soft, cakey and not overly sweet.

banana panna cotta

The banana panna cotta has a really strong banana taste. Sweet on its own but its sugary high was evened out with the blueberries.

Service was efficient and the staff would come and clear the plates every so often.

Didn't eat alot but was seriously full after that. Thank you for the lunch treat!

Sumiya Charcoal Grill Izakaya @ Orchard Central

Located at Level 12 of Orchard Central. Took the lift to Level 11 and then have to take the escalator to the next level. Reservations via TableDB was conveniently fast.

Visited on a weekday for dinner and it was rather quiet. Got a table with high chair by the window.

interior

view from our table

Their staff was subtly attentive. We were looking quite unsure on whether to put our bags onto the next chair when one female staff quickly descended upon us to offer her help. There's actually a hook underneath the table for light weight bags. Having understood that we are not able to hook the laptop, she requested for another staff to bring us the bag stool. Good service, and customer centric. Nice.

not Asahi Shimbun but Sumiya's paper menu

Having gone through their online menu, it was easy to quickly order our food. But before that, let's quench thirst with a small mug of ice cold beer.

Asahi Draft @$4.90++ (Happy Hour till 8pm)

Let's have potato salad to start. Andy must've quite a sense of humour. What's with the cutesy cherry tomatoes'eyes'? There's the usual hard-boiled egg, mayo, mashed potato and juliened raw onions and cucumbers.

Andy's Potato Salad @$4.50++

For main course, friend ordered the unagi rice which can be enjoyed two ways; as it is and with the dashi added so that it becomes like ochazuke.

Unagi Hitsumabushi @$15++

Portion was smallish, so no worries. One pax can finish it all and still have room for beer. The soup was really light and preferably eaten while still hot.Some wasabi for that bit of a kick! Rice was abit hard though.

with dashi

Also tried the fatty pork yakitori. Too much radish piled onto it. Would've been better if there was more meat. Otherwise, quite interesting texture.

Taki san's fatty pork yakitori @$6++

And the dish that took the longest to arrive, was the grilled salmon collar. Was ok, mildly seasoned.

grilled salmon kama @$9++

Every $50 spent will get a chop on the rewards card. Expect to spend about $30 per pax.

Thank you my friend, for the early birthday treat!