Yishun 925 Chicken Rice

I saw this eating place recommended by a neighbor on our estate Facebook page. I love a good chicken rice, and hubby was doing night classes at that time. So it sounded like a perfect on-the-way-home dinner alone.

I'm not a fan a eating out alone, especially in a coffeeshop where I have to find seat, order food and order drinks somehow without losing my seat. I don't fancy the 'chope seat with tissue paper' method. So I solved the problem by packing home instead. Simple dinner of chicken thigh rice.

This stall is a little more commercialized than usual hawker stalls. You place order at the cashier, is given an order slip, and return the slip upon collection of your food. I was expected quite a wait, and was quite surprised to receive my packet before I finished taking a decent photo of the signboard.

That packet of rice made me extremely hungry on my 20 minutes bus ride home from Yishun Interchange. It smelled sooooo good. It's aroma floated up to my nose throughout the entire ride, making me hungrier with each second. I simply couldn't wait to get home and devour the packet. And devour I did. I opened it up immediately after getting home, paused to snap a picture, and proceeded to wolf down the whole pack.

Alright. I did pause a little to chew slowly and enjoy the flavor. The rice is very aromatic, and cooked just nice. Fluffy grains of rice that aren't mushy. The chicken was tender, and perfectly flavored. The chilli... I can't remember. I ate this back in May 2012. Hubby graduated after that and I no longer had dinner alone, so haven't gone back for chicken rice. That coffeeshop doesn't have a vegetarian stall. I'm craving chicken rice recently after watching someone eat a packet in a movie a few days ago. I think it's time to revisit 925.

Shashlik

Haha! Here's another birthday entry.. For those that are wondering, YES I usually have a one month celebration for my birthday.. J and SY are cracking their heads on where to bring me for birthday treat and I conveniently suggested Shashlik. This is not my first time there and their baked alaska and lamb shashlik have certainly brought me back there many times. 

Shashlik is well hidden at level 6 of Far east shopping centre and been around for a long long time, they brand themselves as a Russian Restaurant but I feel their food is more inclined to Hainanese western homely style food.

We ordered mushroom soup for SY and beef borsch for Me and J and half dozen escargots to share. Mushroom soup is simple and comes with pieces of fresh mushrooms, tuaste wise will be more like mushroom in chicken cream soup and I taste a tinge of Campbell soup taste in it. I don't usually recommend their mushroom soup.

Borsch on the other hand was marvelous, it has a dab of sourcream to balance the sourness of the tomato, comes with a chunk of beef in the soup. That particular piece that I had was tough but still I enjoyed the rest of the soup. Photo wasn't available because I was too hungry. LOL! Escargots are just passable, I had better at Mariner's corner and Vines.

Mushroom Soup

Escargots

We decided to order 2 mains to share, so we can keep space for dessert and ordered chicken shashlik and lamb shashlik to share. Shashlik comes with vegetables and thick french fries on the side, the server will push a trolley with an empty hotplate to the tableside and put the meat onto the hotplate in front of the customers. Both chicken and lamb are nicely cooked, juicy and flavorful, sizzling hot on the hotplate, between the two I prefer the lamb. I do not like the green pea+corn+carrot mixture and fries are your regular frozen fries. They also have a small plate of sourish vegetables thats quite appetizing.

Lamb shashlik(top) and Chicken shashlik (bottom)

Next, star of the night! Baked alaska. Server will heat up some liquor, I am guessing whisky? and while it burns he will pour it onto the ice cream cake. The white parts are whipped egg white with sugar topped with some canned syrup cherries. You gotta eat this fast before it gets runny, each mouthful will be absolute heaven. Ice cold Vanilla ice cream with melty egg white with a tinge of liqour taste... HHmmmmm....

Baked Alaska

Overall, its an enjoyment dining there for I value the taste over ambience, in fact theres an old school feel to the place that i liked. Average spending will be about $40 per pax, dependent on the orders. This place might not be suitable for your romantic first date and do not expect excellent service over there. However for those lamb lovers, this place is worthy of a visit. From previous dining experience, their beef and fish seem to be on the tough side and I don't really like their other dessert selection.

Shashlik Restaurant

545 Orchard Road

#06-19 Far East Shopping Centre

Tel: 67326401 / 67343090

Dean & Deluca

It suppose to be a birthday lunch, me and R were hunting for lunch place at about 2pm at Orchard Central when we chanced upon Dean & Deluca so we decided to give it a chance. Dean & Deluca is a cafe that serves all day brunch and also sells some atas grocery stuffs like truffle oil. You need to queue and pay for your orders and it will be served to your table. 

Being a fan of truffle oil, I am very much tempted by their mushroom soup with truffle oil (~$10) and we also decided on the American Country Breakfast (~$22) and Belgian Stack (~$21).

Interior of the cafe: Self-service counter

Table tag for food delivery

Orders came pretty fast after orders, we need to help ourselves to drinks and cutlery. Mushroom soup came first and it's disappointing, soup is kinda bland and tasteless, it comes with a piece of bread in the soup which goes well with the soup. However, I can't detect any truffle taste and the soup isn't blissful at all. 

Mushroom soup with truffle oil

Belgian Stack came next, sauce and ice cream tastes homemade, though everything goes well together, it's just mediocre. It just looks like how it suppose to taste. Quite a letdown, waffles are not piping hot and does not live up to its pricetag, we definitely expected more from the $21 we are paying. Only redeeming point is that waffles although not hot, its not soggy either. I can only say I had better from Gelare. 

Homemade Waffles, Fresh Mixed Berries, Red Currant, Drizzled with Vanilla Creme Anglais, Dean & DeLuca’s Grade A Organic Maple Syrup & Raspberry Coulis

American Country Breakfast came last, servings are huge! I am not a big fan of all day Breakfast but this is definitely GOOD! R commented that my breakfast set is much more worth it than his Belgian stack. Eggs are smooth and nicely scrambled, bacon nicely crisped, hashbrown tastes homemade from real potatoes and in short it's just one plateful of goodness. I like the sausage the most, it's not your regular sausage from supermarket but theres a nice bite and they added herb to balance the meatiness of it. Even the tomato is sweet and juicy! Portions abit too much for 1, so I shared some it with R.

c

Eggs, Bacon, Hash Brown, Sausage, Sauteed Portobello Mushroom, Vine-Ripened Cherry Tomatoes & Toasted Farmhouse Multi-Grain Bread

Overall dining experience still pleasant, the breakfast set saved the day and it's a nice place to chill out and have your Tai Tai High Set and grocery shopping. LOL! Might come back when I have cravings for power-packed breakfast.

Dean & DeLuca Singapore

181 Orchard Road,

#04-23/24 Orchard Central,

Singapore 238896

Tel: 65097708

Website: www.deandeluca.com.sg

美人锅: Tsukada Nojo Restaurant

Alright, it took me 2 visits to 美人锅 and several reminders from Gracie to complete this entry. Tsukada Nojo Japanese Bijin Nabe Restaurant is located at Level 3 of the new wing of Plaza Singapura. They open at 5pm for dinner and only serves their hotpot during dinner. During lunch, they serve only ramen and according to them the soup base is the same. 

Other than their much raved about soup base, this place has a pretty interesting reward system. After your first visit u will earn the title of  "assistant manager" and will be "promoted" on your second visit. Reward will be either "Maximum Fries" or "Edamame".

We decided to pay this place a 2nd visit for our Poly class gathering for 6 pax on a Saturday night. We placed our names at 5.15pm and its not till close to 7.30pm that we get our seats. So maybe not the best place to have your big grp gathering.

Reward: Maximum Fries

We also ordered onigiri wrapped in bacon and topped with mayo seasoned with yuzu salt.. Very NICE!! Warm japanese rice wrapped with pork bacon and grilled. Yuzu salt gives a slight zest taste to the mayo. There are a total of 4 flavours and according to "I", this tastes the best.

Onigiri

This is another appetizer that we ordered, i forgot the actual name of it and we don't really like it. A tad too much vegetables and abit too bitter for my liking. Salmon is rather fresh though.

Salmon with ALOT of vegs wrapped in rice roll

Finally our soup base is here! Its placed in a claypot on an induction cooker. As you can see, it looks like slabs of beancurd which is the collagen chicken soup, the soup that makes u a 美人 (beauty). It melts after heated and reveals the chicken meat beneath. It's stated in the menu that the soup base is prepared by boiling chicken, water and salt only, we did not feel thirsty after the meal so I supposed what they stated is true. =) After the soup brings to a boil, we suppose to scoop abit into a sake cup and taste it... yummy. Definitely one of the best chicken soup I ever had.

Melting soup base with chicken meat

These are the ingredients, portion for two person. There are 3 kinds of noodles to choose from: rice noodles,   yellow noodles and thick mochi mochi noodles. We went for Thick Mochi Mochi noodles, good choice. It looks like ramen but its more springy and extra bouncy.

Ingredients, portion for 2

Their service is pretty good, the server will help to place the vegetables and stuffs into the pot so you can take your time to savour the soup and chit chat. =) You can also eat the chicken meat with their special sauces provided. Watermelon radish and chicken meat balls are nice, making this pot even more heavenly. You can ask for soup refills and refills comes in slabs of beancurd-like soup base.

Overall, we ended up spending abt $30 per pax after tax and service charge. There's a warm and homely feel to the place and the good service makes up for the little teething problems they have. have. However, due to the space constraint, the waiting time can be a killer. Soup is actually flavorful without being too overpowering so you wouldn't feel sick or gelat at the end of the meal and for sure will leave the place with a wide smile on your face.

Bar & Bistro Bottletree

This Groupon for Bottletree Park appeared somewhen mid October this year. Seeing how close to home it is, I asked hubby's siblings if they were interested in going for a meal. Very nicely, the highest value option was $60 for $120 dining value, with minimum 5 to dine. So even if vegetarian options aren't available, I don't have to recruit one more person to fill in the space for a 6 to dine.

I had initially wanted to go for a so-call 'good meal' before I went for my spinal surgery in November. (I had a herniated disc surgery, which explains my long absence here. I wasn't quite in the condition to blog, and definitely wasn't actively out eating. I had mum's post-surgery diet to keep to.) However, we weren't able to secure a reservation pre-surgery. So we put off the dinner til after Christmas on Boxing day.

The park is actually quite a drive in to get to the carpark from the road behind. From how late C reached, I think it's quite a walk from the main road too. I was pretty surprised when we found the Bistro. It was actually so empty that we could choose our own table. Couldn't understand how it could have been full pre-surgery. Maybe everyone was trying to use their Groupon back then.

It's a photo-less post, partly because I was too lazy to take out my camera cos I wasn't feeling too well. And partly because it was so dark that most photos wouldn't have shown much. Lighting was weak, and the main light we had was probably from the oil jar on our table. Maybe it would have been nicer earlier part of the evening, when there's still light and we could enjoy the scenery. As it was, we met pretty late because it was a work day. And the darkness didn't help with the comfort level either. There was so many mosquitoes that, despite the mosquito coil burning under the table, I left the bistro with 15 mosquito bites! I guess it's rainy season, so mosquitoes are a little harder to control. I'm just glad that none were dengue carrying ones.

Food wise, the bistro serves up very simple western food. Affordable too. We managed to order a salad and two sides on top of our main dishes in order to hit the $120. We were told that the Groupon doesn't include drinks. That's ok by me. We weren't refused when we asked for ice water. What's funny was when we requested for a top up of our ice water, we were then told that required a 50 cents charge. Weird.

And it didn't help that the waiter seems new and blur. He had to run back to ask someone something about 7 - 8 times in total. When we settled down, he hung around (actually just stood there staring at us) while we browsed the menu. When I asked what the Groupon included, he ran off to ask and returned to tell me the answer. Since C and L had not arrived, we ordered some fried chicken mid wings and a crispy chicken salad to start off. The wings were small, but well-seasoned and fried to a crispy skin. It was quite yummy.

I was having a bad tummy so wanted something light. So we asked what flavor their maggi mee soup was. He ran off to ask and returned to tell us - curry. So we asked if we could change the flavor since curry really doesn't cut it for my bad tummy. He ran off to ask and returned with a no. So I ordered spaghetti bolognese and requested no cheese. G ordered sambal fried rice, and W ordered tom yam udon. We then asked for a top up of ice water and he ran off to ask again and returned with the 50 cents information. So we passed, and decided we would pay additional to get a jug of soft drinks instead.

When C and L arrived, they placed orders for another bolognese, a chicken cutlet and another plate of chicken wings. The poor waiter returned to our table twice to ask if C's order is a bolognese. Finally another guy came to ask how many bologneses we ordered. I had to politely say - two. The waiter must really be new.

Anyway the wait after this was really long. It took a long while before G's fried rice arrived. Very normal fried rice, and the sambal wasn't too fragrant. The wings came soon after. And by the time G finished his fried rice, non of our mains had arrived. Finally our bologneses came. The cheese and no cheese plate looked the same to us, although they announced them differently. The two rings I took to be onion rings in the photo in the menu turned out to be calamari so I was pleasantly surprised. The pasta was again normal. I was almost done when W's udon finally arrived. Her tom yam soup tasted instant. W also almost finished hers before L's cutlet finally arrived. He didn't have any comments so I guessed it was normal too.

Overall I find the food mediocre. The ambience could have been nicer with more light. I do think that it can be a nice place to chill a early evening with friends over beer. Just don't expect too much from the food, and do be ready to have time to spare for waiting. The price are generally ok. And please bring mosquito repellent patches.


Bar & Bistro Bottletree

Bottle Tree Park81 Lorong Chencharu (Yishun)
Singapore 769198
Tel: 93277181