Pepperoni Pizzeria

J had vouchers for dining in at Pepperoni Pizzeria from doing their delivery, so off we went to utilise those vouchers. I do think I'm slacking off on my blogging duties. On top of these horribly belated entries, I am missing pictures too often. I actually forgot to take photo of the pizza!!!!!

Pepperoni's Pizzeria's branch at  Zion Road, opposite Great World City, is a very cozy outlet. They are actually a branch-off from the Les Amis group of restaurants.  I've already tried their pizzas several times before, from deliveries to work, as well as someone buying before. Why buy when they do deliveries? Because Pepperoni's pizzas, on top of the usual small, medium and large, comes in an XXL size. Delivery is not available for XXL.

I like the flavours they carry, and because I love wild rocket, my favourite is the parma ham with wild rocket. Remember my lack of love for Parma ham? Well, I think the wild rocket won over. Haaa. But you can always add wild rocket to any other flavours at a small cost.

Because of the lack of picture, I cannot remember what pizza we ordered. But I'm pretty sure we ordered the XL one, in two flavours, one on each half. And looking through the menu, I bet we took the parma ham and rocket salad (Prosciutto Crudo di Parma) and the seafood (Frutti di Mare) to be shared among 4 pax. 

Since we're so familiar with their pizzas, we decided to try some other foods. J loves aglio olio, so we ordered that with a request for additional mushrooms. Perfectly cooked penne, tossed in fragrant garlic infused olive oil. The sliced garlic pieces inside were aromatic, and the mushrooms lent an additional aroma. We also ordered oven roasted baby back ribs (Rosticciana). Roasted to cripsy perfection, it was tender and delicious. I'm not a super ribs loving person because I get sick at the third bone. But when shared among 4 of us, it was perfect. 

Baby back ribs with it's accompanying wedges in the background

Aglio Olio with additional mushrooms

We subsequently got more vouchers, but unfortunately forgot about them past expiry. Sigh... I'll love to get an excuse to return here for a long lunch!

Pepperoni Pizzeria

56 Zion Road, Singapore 247781

Tel: 6732 3253

Mouth Restaurant

It's somewhere near Mother's Day and I brought my mama to Plaza Singapura to try out Bijin nabe and the queue was too long to wait so I had to find another place to feed my hungry mama. Mama then chose this Mouth Restaurant seeing that they offer dim sum buffet for less than $30/pax, the receptionist uncle was quite friendly so we thought we can give this place a try.

After being seated, and we were given a order chit for ordering and I later saw the most ridiculous thing on earth, each person will be limited to 2 orders of Har gow (Prawn Dumplings)! I thought I read wrongly and double confirmed with the waitress, who sloppily reaffirmed it. We then decided that we'll just order ala carte, who will want a dim sum buffet that only let u order 2 har gows?! 

We then proceed to order spinach with salted egg, Squid ink Rice roll with Trio sauce, Salted yolk prawns and Steamed Glutinous rice in Lotus Leaf wrap

Spinach

Spinach tastes insincere, it tastes like they just cooked and threw the spinach in the metal pot and pour some egg sauce into it and heat up, if i need to say anything about it, the spinach is well cooked.

Squid ink rice roll with trio sauce

Squid ink rice roll tastes not bad, but it's drenched in sauce so its more like eating the sauce rather than rice roll. Sounds special but tastes mediocre.

Salted yolk prawn

Salted yolk prawn was nice, the crust is quite crispy and rich but we both grew sick of it from eating just one prawn.

Glutinous rice in lotus leaf wrap

That's just your regular glutinous rice in lotus leaf wrap, after the prawn we cannot down the glutinous rice anymore and we did not finish it.

Overall dining experience was just bad, it's not just the food, its the service crew there as well, they seem like they are on auto-zombie mode and the waitress in charge of our table, her sloppy attitude is worse than the food there.

Mouth Restaurant

Plaza Singapura
#02-01
Tel: 63377446

Birthday Triology Final edition: CUT

After our hi-tea, we leisurely made our way to MBS for our long awaited dinner at CUT. It wasn't too crowded when we arrived and were shown to our seats promptly. Took us quite awhile to decide on our orders and with some suggestions from the service staff, we finally decided on the American blue crab and shrimp (~$28), Porterhouse steak, 990g ($175) with wild mushrooms (~$16) as side and baked Alaska as dessert.

Complimentary Bread sticks with cheese

Complimentary Bread cheese ball

See the yummy cheese inside

Complimentary bread selection with butter sprinkled with seasoned salt

Other than trying to make my pictures look dark with their dim dim dim lighting, it seems like CUT isn't gotta let us go without a happy stomach, they are generous with the complimentary bread and god, they are GOOD! the bread cheese ball came piping hot and the taste of cheese fills up your mouth without being too overpowering. Bread sticks are nice to chew with while deciding what to order.. They later came to us with complimentary selection of 4 kinds of bread: Pretzel, Onion bread, sourdough, Olive bread. We skipped the olive bread as Gracie doesn't like olive and we shared a pc of sourdough, had 2 pcs of onion bread and a pretzel each. Sourdough is cold and hard and I din like it, Onion bread is magnificent! Well caramelized onions on top of soft fluffy bread, the sweet onions balanced the saltish bread quite well, however could be better if its warm. 

American Blue Crab and Shrimp "Louis" Spicy Tomato-Horseradish

Appetizer was great, they kindly split the portion into 2 plates for us so we din have to struggle with sharing. Crab and prawns were fresh and juicy sweet and went well with the sauces and cherry tomato, but I find the Mayonnaise-like sauce to be abit too thick. Overall it's an enjoyable appetizer but I can't help but compare with the heavenly colossal crab lumps from Wooloomooloo. 

Sea salt and Mustard Selection

Bearnaise and House Steak Sauce

Wild Field Mushroom

There's 4 kinds of mustards plus the 2 sauces that came with the steak, and my favorite is the sea salt. Hahaha! Mushroom is very well flavored and went perfectly well with the humongous steak. The steak was beautifully done, Australian Angus, 300+ Days grain fed, Rangers Valley, Aged 35 days. It seem to coated with some spices, nicely charred and made its entrance on a sizzling hot plate. The server cut and portioned it for us and we each ended up with 3 big pcs of Sirloin and 2 pcs of fillet mignon. 

Sirloin was wonderfully done, the char on the outside gave it more flavour and the meat was flavorful due to the 35 days aging process, juices were well sealed and its an enjoyment to chew chew and chew and experiment with the different sauces provided. Mignon has a softer, more gentle texture and the same great taste, this really is meat with soul and depth.

The portions are quite huge and would recommend 3 person for comfortable sharing, towards the end we both need to struggle through the meat as its getting cold and harder. But having said so, we still polished off the meat in the end.

Porterhouse 990g Bone-in (for 2 pax)

Portion for one: Fillet Mignon (left), Sirloin (right)

Medium done Sirloin

Baked Alaska

Raspberry Ice cream centre 

We were contemplating on desserts as we were already filled with meat but Gracie saw the Baked Alaska on the dessert menu and we decided we got room for dessert afterall. End up, its a good move as the sourness of the raspberry helped to get rid of the gelat feeling after meat overdose. The egg white portion of the baked alaska was firm with a crisp outer skin and taste abit like marshmallow, its not overly sweet and went well with the sourish raspberry ice-cream

With food and dessert this good, we certainly went home happily rubbing our happy tummies. Total damage of our dinner is slightly less than $300, which in my opinion, money well spent on my BFF.

CUT

Marina Bay Sands
B1-71 Galleria Level
Next to the theaters
Tel: 66888517
Website: http://www.marinabaysands.com/singapore-restaurants/celebrity-chefs/cut/

Birthday Triology Edition 2: Octa Hotel

After our TaiTai shopping, we decided to rest our tired feet at Octa Hotel, Octa Hotel is not a Hotel, in fact its a a small cafe nest within Parco Marina Bay. It's interior was tasteful done up, very English styled with a hint of Japanese influence. It also has a small retail corner that sells small merchandises like stationery, bags and jewellery. 

As it's near dinnertime, we decided to share a hi-tea set that consists of  2 scones, creme brulee, baguette with egg and cherry tomato, wrap. Scones were warm and fluffy, perfect pairing with the cream and jam, after taking a mouthful and washing it down with some tea.. it reallys gives u the "Aaahhh... I am Tai Tai feel"... 

I like the Creme Brulee but Gracie felt that the sugar crust is kinda thick.. We both like the custard within, its light, creamy and has a hint of tea taste, not overly sweet.. Baguette with egg and cherry tomato is just your regular baguette, egg, tomato. Wrap is cold and not fantastic, so both of us can't really remember what meat is inside. LOLZ.. 

Hi-tea set

Warm scones with cream and jam

Overall experience was good, excellent spot to spend a lazy weekend afternoon or to rest your tired feet after some hardcore shopping. Service crew were friendly and helpful, yet they give you enough privacy for chit chat and gossips. Total spending is $15.90 after tax and service charge.

Octa Hotel

9 Raffles Boulevard
Parco Marina Bay
#P1-39
(S)039596
Tel: 63364614
Website: http://octahotel.com.sg/

Birthday triology edition 1: Saboten

It's Gracie's birthday again! Being a busy month for her, we finally got to do her belated birthday outing on a fine Saturday. I have cravings (as usual) for Saboten's pork cutlet and ONLY Saboten's pork cutlet, so she has no choice but to satisfy my cravings, we then decided on the Parco Marina Bay branch since its near to our dinner venue.

The mall is extremely quiet for a Saturday afternoon, when walking to Saboten, I saw the receptionist and masseur of a massage place sleeping in the store! Needless to say, we were the only ones in Saboten as well. Without much debate, we decided on the Twin Special set ($46) to share and with an additional order of curry sauce ($3). The Twin Special set consists of Breaded Pork Loin, Asparagus Cheese roll, Breaded Shrimps x2, Crab Cream Croquette x2, with pickles, dessert, free flow of miso soup, cabbage and rice.

Cabbage and Sesame

Sesame sauce and Ponzu sauce

Twin Special Set

Miso soup, Rice, Radish Ponzo Sauce

Although there isn't much crowd, food items are kept fresh, cabbage is crisp and cold, perfect for a Sunny day. I strongly recommend adding the sesame sauce, it's slightly sourish and adds a flavorful and refreshing taste to the cabbage.

The fried items tasted very nice on its own, especially the pork loin, the breaded crust was light and non-oily, locking in the natural juices of the pork loin. For those that prefer a sweeter taste, you can grate the sesame seed and add it to the tonkatsu dipping sauce for more fragrance and flavor. As for me, I prefer my meat to be more saltish so I'll dip it into the curry sauce. Freshly fried shrimps, with the light crust were just perfect, aparagus with cream cheese was good as well. Crab cream croquettes were creamy and warm and fluffy. We noticed that the "crab" was referring to crabstick meat and were greedily hoping for real crab meat. =)

Something worth mentioning is their rice which is pure heavenly! We had an additional serving of white rice, that's how marvelous it is, soft, shiny, bouncy and has a nice chew to it.. with a spoonful of curry sauce on it, hmmmmm.... 幸福！(this is happiness!)

Downside of Saboten, the set came with matcha ice cream that's pure mediocre, sweet and without green tea flavour and I found a short hair in my matcha ice cream and requested for a new serving, server was apologetic and quickly replaced a new one. However, being near the kitchen, I overheard some unhappiness with the kitchen staff replacing the ice cream. Well, I believe it could be a one off incident and most probably I will still be back for their Tonkatsu but there are certain much room for improvements for their service.

Saboten (Parco Marina Bay)

P3-01 

Tel: 63333432

Yakinikutei Ao-Chan

ML and me always get a combined birthday meal, since our birthdays are only 11 days apart. This time round she chose the location, and she stated she wanted Yakinikutei. So the girls made the reservations, and there we are for dinner. Japanese table barbecue. The idea already sounds delicious. And ML's boyfriend seems to know all these hidden small authentic Japanese places. Yakinikutei is run by a Japanese lady boss. Their clientele consists of a lot of Japanese, so it goes to show the authenticity of this joint.

The one thing I minded about here? The tiny saucer we get as a side plate. Each table setting have two saucers, one will be filled with a sauce, the other apparently there for me to eat from. Like really, why can't give me a bigger plate to hold more food? But it's beside the point, since the food are so nice that they don't really spend a whole lot of time on my plate.

As Yakiniku simply translates to grilled meats, you can expect a good selection of meats for you to choose from. They also have a good selection of veggies to go with the meats, and some interesting side dishes, many of which I didn't try.

If you order their sets (beef course or non-beef course), it comes with some small side dishes such as kimunchi and salad. Nothing out of the world, but a good way to kickstart your appetite. We ordered the garlic fried rice to share, and loved it. Fragrant Japanese rice, fried with lots of eggs and garlic. Akin to Din Tai Fung's egg fried rice with extra garlic. If you order their deep fried garlic (no photo, but its a MUST TRY!) alongside, you get double the garlic flavor. Yum! It turned out to be a fantastic vehicle for soaking up all the meat juices left on our dishes, so no wastage!

Kimunchi

Salad

Garlic fried rice

Now to the meats. Yakinikutei have a huge variety of beef, ranging from premium to regular to Australian wagyu to Japanese wagyu. The Japanese wagyu is pricey, and we didn't try them. We tried an order of the Australian wagyu slices. Subsequently on another visit I tried the Australian wagyu kaburi. I prefer the kaburi. Tender beef, mildly marinated, full of the wonderful wagyu flavor. WOW!

Wagyu beef slices

But to me, the star MUST-ORDER item in this joint? The premium beef belly cubes. Oh My God. They are succulent. Even when slightly overcooked, the interior of these cubes remain juicy. Sooooo juicy. You can feel the juice running down your chin as you bite into it. Bliss. A lot of bliss. The kind of bliss that makes you stop talking and close your eyes to enjoy the beef juices and flavors exploding in your mouth.

Premium belly cube

Ok, so on to the pork. We had the ton set, which came with both Iberian and regular ton toro. The Iberian ton toro was soooo well marbled. They look pale pink, with no signs of white streaks. So innocently 'fat free'. Then when you grill them, the fats melt and cause little combustions happening on the grill. And then when you bite into them, your mouth is filled with a mouthful of lard. Lard is flavor, don't you know? Extremely juicy, extremely sinful, but oh so worth it.

Ton set - Iberian and regular ton toro

They have a decent variety of offals too, if it's up your alley. I've tried ox tongue, tripe and liver from two separate visits. I think I'll stick to the meats. Haha! The problem probably lies with us, as we don't really know how well these needs to be cooked. The results were very overcooked offals that were too tough to eat. ML loved their ox-tongue. I didn't really feel a lot of love for them.

Liver and tripe

Ox tongue

The cutest food we ordered was the rice ball. A triangle of rice, which I meticulously grill at a corner, flipping infrequently to make sure every side is charred. Then I brushed on the given sauce, and you there you have a yummy snack. Crunchy outside, salty from the sauce, fluffy and fragrant inside. It's like a savoury rice crispy dumpling.

Rice ball

I've been here 3 times now. And left feeling happy every single time. The lady boss is such a nice lady. On my second visit, I brough Lynn here. We were given a big table for 2 pax reservations. While Lynn was waiting for me, a big group came in and they asked her if it's possible to shift to a smaller table to make way for the big group. Since she haven't started anything, Lynn was ok to shift. The lady boss was so grateful that she thanked Lynn repeatedly and promised our table free drinks. And yes, we did get the free drinks. And even a free upgrade from shiso rice to garlic rice for our set. I had intended to pay for the upgrade but the lady boss generously absorbed the cost. If there's anything I like more than good food, is the 人情味 (human touch) that comes with it. And did I mention they're open til 11pm? Last order is at 10.30pm. How cool is that?! Reservations recommended.

Yakinikutei Ao-Chan
Concorde Hotel Shopping Mall
100 Orchard Road
#02-22/26 (Ground floor)
Tel: 67356457