The Provision Shop

LF suddenly asked me if I wanna join her and SH for lunch one day. Considering I finished my breakfast at about 11am, her lunch invitation at 11.30am was a little early. But I decided that sure, I can tag along and see what small meal I can get.

It was a good 10-15 minutes walk from our lab to the Provision Shop. The cafe is a very small place, with limited seating capacity. So in a way it was good we went early before it became crowded. The menu is pretty small, with a few sandwiches, a few brunch food, and a few pastas. Both of them opted for Eggs Benedict with salmon. The bread, though what I would call 'square bread', was thick and crusty and seemed homemade. The eggs were poached beautifully, and smothered in the hollandaise sauce. And they were really generous with their salmon. All for a pretty affordable price.

Eggs Benedict with salmon

Because of my late breakfast, I was too full for a full lunch. So I opted for a Perogie. With ham, onions and cheese, what's there to not love about it? But it was really quite small, so I think I was hungry in about 2 hours. But that's my own fault for having a late breakfast.

Perogie

I was so happy with the meal that I mentioned it to E when I returned. And another fine afternoon, when we happened to be free for a longer than usual lunch, a bunch of us trooped over for lunch. This time, many of us went for their pastas, which are homemade! I love homemade pastas!!!

The lagsane was a little sadly small. But since it was HY who ordered it, it's ok, since she's not a huge eater. And that mountain of greens piled on the lasagne suits healthy her fine. The carbonara looked a little pale, in my opinion, and a little too watery. AF didn't comment much on it, so I wasn't sure if he liked it or not. I vaguely remember him saying it wasn't filling enough....

Lasagne

Carbonara

I actually liked my beef ragu pasta very much. The ragu tasted fabulous, and I loved the texture of the homemade pasta. And I guess with the beef chunks inside, this plate was a lot more filling than the watered down carbonara and the small lasagne, so I must say I was pretty satisfied.

Beef ragu pasta

If I return, it's most probably for the pasta. I'm such a sucker for the homemade stuff. But then, I'm such a sucker for so many things. Haha!! But do take note of the small capacity, and the fact that you will leave smelling like the cafe due to not so impressive ventilation.


The Provision Shop
Blk 3 Everton Park #01-79
Singapore
Tel: 6225 9931

Riccioti (Star Vista)

So it was Commencement Day! And because I've been allocated to the evening session, we decided to go Star Vista for dinner before the ceremony. Because the hubby is vegetarian, I decided on Riccioti. There's always vegetarian options in Italian joints.

Lynn and XP met us at the restaurant, because XP was graduating too! Because of time constraints, we decided on our orders pretty fast. In fact, I went ahead and ordered for XP even though he hadn't arrive yet. We've eaten together often enough that I know what he likes.

For starters, we went for mushroom bruschetta. Nice change from the usual tomato, served on crusty bread with slices of parmesan. We found out these aren't easy to bite into two, so we just shoved the entire thing into our mouths.

Funghi bruschetta

Lynn and I decided to share a pasta and a main course. So for pasta we chose Linguine al granchio. I liked it, alot! It was a mixture of cream and tomato based sauce. Richness from the cream, tartness from the tomato to balance out the rich, and voila, you have a delicious winner that doesn't overwhelm you with too much richness. And the shreds of crab meat inside the sauce was a winner too! I really liked this dish, as it appealed to my cream+pasta+crab craving all at one shot.

Linguine al granchio

For XP I ordered him a salmon pasta. Because he like fish in general. It was served in the same tomato+cream sauce, making it an equal winner. With flakes of salmon, he enjoyed it very much as well.

Tagliette salmone

The hubby got Spaghetti Pomodoro. Spaghetti in tomato based pasta sauce. No frills. It was in reality the best way to taste the original flavors of the sauces, although I tend to be swayed by frillier alternatives. He liked it fine, so I guess Riccioti's tomato sauce agrees with him.

Spaghetti Pomodoro

The main course that Lynn and I shared was the boneless grilled half chicken. I was amazed. It was really boneless except for the wings. The meat was tender, juicy and well seasoned. The lack of bones made for an exceptionally easy to eat meal, with little need to dissect anything. The dissection part is what turns me away from most roast or grilled chicken so Riccioti scored with their boneless verison. The mash potatoes, however, were a little on the dry side.

Boneless grilled half chicken

For a place I randomly picked off the mall directory, I was actually very pleased with the food. I really liked their pasta and their chicken, and I believe I will be back to try their pizza. They have another branch nearer to my workplace. I may very well end up there soon enough.

Riccioti

1, Vista Exchange Green,
#01-33 # 01-K2,
The Star Vista
Singapore 138617
Tel:(65) 6694 4101

Fax:(65) 6694 4102

Sumiya

Lynn and I had to go to Orchard Central to collect our race pack for the Garfield Run. So after collection, we browsed through the mall directory to find a dinner place and decided to give Sumiya a shot.

Located on the top storey (or was it second top?), Sumiya is a Japanese restaurant serving mainly sumiyakis, ie Japanese BBQ skewers. It wasn't incredibly crowded and we got a table immediately. Their menu are presented as a rolled up newspaper, pretty cute. They have a very cute system for edamame. You pay a fixed amount of money for (drum roll.....) as much edamame you can grab with a single hand as you can. We didn't try that as we felt both of us didn't have very large hands. I'm not kidding with the drum roll, they really have someone beating the drums as you grab the edamame. We heard the commotion several times during our meal. As we browsed the menu, we were attracted to way too many items at one go. After a lot of contemplation, we settled for these:

Raw cabbage served with spicy miso paste. This is something I've had at Kazu, and liked. So we both thought it would be nice, and it was! Fresh cabbage, dipped in that lightly spicy miso, slightly juicy, slightly salty, totally yummy.

Cabbage with spicy miso

For sashimi, we discovered that their uni is going for only $15. Quite an affordable price for uni, so we ordered it, alongside salmon sashimi. The salmon was normal. The uni was creamy and fragrant. The seaweed served alongside the uni was a very nice complement. The portion wasn't huge, but with uni, too much is actually not a good thing as you will get sick of it. So I felt that the portion was just nice. Would have liked more seaweed though.

Uni (bottom) and salmon (middle) sashimi with nori

Then we had a snow crab tempura, which sounded very unique. Turned out it was actually quite normal. The crab legs weren't super sweet or anything, so we decided it was a can-be-passed dish, and that we won't order it again.

Snow crab tempura - spot the crab

Then we move on to the main dishes - sumiyakis. First off, wagyu beef and beef-wrapped foie gras. These were blissful. The wagyu beef skewer was tender and fragrant. The foie gras was oh-so-melt-in-the-mouth, and the buttery livery goodness was soooo blissful. It was leaving its fats everywhere we placed it, and we were happily trying to absorb it up with whatever we could.

Wagyu beef (left) and beef-wrapped foie gras (right)

The 6 piece omasake had chicken, pork, beef, prawn, sweet potato and mushroom. All three meats were tender, juicy and nice. The sweet potato was a little on the dry side but we were using it to absorb foie gras fats so that was ok. The mushroom was pretty normal, but grilled mushrooms are always nice anyway. The prawn. Oooooohhhhh. It was soooo nicely grilled, with just the perfect touch of char, then the flesh itself was juicy and sweet. We ordered a second set just for the prawn, because unfortunately, they don't have just prawns on the menu.

6 piece omasake

The garlic fried rice, we didn't care for. It tasted like what we call 'rice cooker fried rice'. As in, it felt like it was fried up as one huge batch, then kept in the rice cooker and scooped when someone order. Very similar to those birthday buffets fried rice. Very insincere, lukewarm fried rice. The taste was't very garlicky, the rice wasn't very sticky like the usual Japanese rice. It was just overall not impressive.

Garlic fried rice

The whole meal speaking, we liked it. It was pricey, for sure. But the skewers quality were impressive, and we were quite blown away. I will definitely return when I have a sumiyaki craving.

Sumiya
ORCHARD CENTRAL
#12-02, 181 Orchard Road,
Singapore 238896
(formerly known as Kuriya Penthouse)

Tel: +65 6509-9618
Fax: +65 6509-3886