印巷小馆 @ Lucky Street (好运街), Beijing

Located at Lucky Street, Chaoyang Gongyuan Road. Its address: 朝阳区朝阳公园路好运街1-8号(近三元桥). Pretty far from the hotel and we transferred a couple of MRT lines and walked quite a bit before even reaching this area.

Lucky Street is a stretch of road that has plenty of restaurants. Many cuisines such as Japanese, Western, Italian, Chinese etc can be found here.

restaurant's facade

Senior manager suggested this restaurant as he has been here before. Our group of 7 pax waited for about 5 mins before being shown to a tiny room at second floor. Many diners there that night, almost full house.

up to the private dining rooms

inside the room

paintings on the wall

 menu

Manager did all the ordering while we sat back and relaxed. As usual, jugs of plum juice to start off the meal. Almost all restaurants will tweak the recipe and it'll taste different from place to place.

homemade plum juice (suan mei tang 酸梅汤) - light brown coloured

pork with kelp

stewed beef

stir-fried lotus roots with gingko

Usual order consist of pork, beef and lotus roots. This time round, we're having fish.

deep fried fish, served with herbed salt

with bones

The herbed salt that came with fish tasted the same as those use to flavour the Xinjiang mutton skewers. Let's just say that pork, beef and chicken remained as safer bets (in terms of likeability) as compared to fish.

rice (米饭)

In Beijing, rice is served with a more than generous serving. The spicy tofu dish goes well with the white rice. Well, the beef and the pork too. As usual, we asked for reduced salt and oil kind of cooking.

sweet and spicy tofu

Ordered the shop specialty to try. A huge square of bread with its insides carved out to contain curry chicken. Took one bite of the curry and it was a no-go for me thereafter. The rest didn't seem to mind and commented that the bread was nice. Personally, the biggest turn-off was the very sweet tasting curry. It was just weird. Really.

curry chicken bread

The service staff carries a device that they can key in the ordered items and it gets sent to the kitchen immediately upon confirmation of the order. Hence, we got our food like within 10 minutes after we're done ordering.Wow.

But the bad thing about being seated in a private dining room, was that one gotta holler real loud to get the attention of the service staff. The term to use when addressing the service staff is '服务员' (fu wu yuan).

Alkaff Mansion Ristorante @ Telok Blangah Hill Park

Went there for my cousin's wedding but taxi uncle couldn't find the place given its address as 10 Telok Blangah Green. But luckily, someone was eagle-eyed enough to notice a sign that points to Telok Blangah Hill. Phew.

evening sun

ready for the wedding

Very nice ambiance. Old world charm. Spacious where older folks would mingle with a drink in hand, and the kids running freely with nary a care in the world. Sweet.

dinner shall be served, in a while

The inside of the mansion is as charming as its exterior. High ceiling, and warm furnishing. Service was friendly.

warm bread

Definitely loved the warm bread. Soft and pillowy. The service staff would replenish the basket and we were never without bread. Never.

Fegato d’Anatra

First antipasto, Pan Seared Duck Liver with blackberry/raspberry sauce.

quivering richness

The duck liver was good. Rich and oily. It became better when paired with the soft pillowy bread and a sip of red wine. Yums.

eat, drink (responsibly) and be merry

Next up, Burratina. To be frank, am no fan of this cheese. While many extolled the butteriness of it, unfortunately (and sorry) I just don't get it. It's like a very mild (almost tasteless) cheese with slight creaminess. Hence, the drizzle of good olive oil and the pairing of it with sweet tomatoes, plus a bit of seasoning (salt and pepper) is a must.

Burratina with rocket and tomatoes

Next up, first course of Ravioli.

Raviolio with truffle and mushroom sauce

The ravioli has strong flavours of porcini, with a not so subtle hint of truffles. Charming. Thank goodness for its not so big portion because we were pretty stuffed from all the free flow bread!

For the mains, it was either cod fish or beef short-ribs. Guess which one was my choice.

Atlantic cod with caviar

Beef short-ribs with asparagus and mash potatoes

Beef, of course. The boneless short-ribs wasn't so tender till it falls apart but it was tender enough to bring a smile. Perhaps, the way the meat was cut, the way it was cooked until the satisfactory outcome where the flavours merged and its texture retained that bite yet jaw friendly.

yum yums

To finish off the meal, we had our sweets.

dolce

Likewise, here's wishing my cousin and his wife all the sweet things in life and may they be happy, together, forever.

鸭王 (Duck King / King Roast Duck) @ Minzuyuan Road, Beijing

Here is its address in Chinese: 朝阳区民族园路1号 which translates to 1 Minzuyuan Road, Chaoyang District.

Apparently ranked #399 out of 3901 restaurants in Beijing by Tripadvisor, and it made into Top Ten (#4) Peking Duck restaurants in Beijing based on a 2011 article.

restaurant's facade

cute chopstick holder

As usual, our choice of drink would be sour plum juice (酸梅汤) but this time, we had beer as well. And why not? Local beer is very very wallet friendly in Beijing! Beer brand like Yanjing have very light taste but it's refreshing on a warm night.

local beer

beer in a wine glass?

Happy to say that all the dishes that were on our table, tasted good. Just remember to state, "少盐少油" (shao yan, shao you) which means less salt and less oil, before the service staff sends out the order to the kitchen.

pig trotters

beef hotplate

pork ribs with corn

My senior manager adores the pork dishes (plus lotus roots) while I'd go for the beef. Vegetables was good too. Just the corn that's not agreeable. Don't quite like Beijing corn, because I think its texture is all wrong.

But of course, the highlight would be the Peking Duck, which was served last and rightly so. The portion of it wasn't that big to be shared for our table of 8 pax. If I remember correctly, the price of the Peking Duck was around ¥198 per bird (about SGD40), and it was roasted upon order.

Peking Duck

盐酥骨架 (deep fried bones with pepper and salt)

The duck skin was crackling and has enough oil. But the finale was its bone carcass which we requested for deep fried with salt and pepper (extra charge). Just the right snack for the cold beer.

If not wrong, the entire meal that night (with a couple more dishes that I didn't photograph and included vege, and lotus roots) costs less than ¥800 which was about SGD22 per pax for our group.