AOne Claypot House (Causeway Point)

This was a random discover that I ended up liking. The hubby and I were at Causeway Point to get something from Metro. Looking around for dinner places, we spotted a few vegetarian options in AOne Claypot House's menu. Partly because of a mistake on my part. I had assumed that they serve all claypot rice, and seeing the mushroom and tofu I had imagined a vegetarian version of our standard chicken claypot rice. It was only after we were seated that I realise its just mushroom and tofu, no rice. Hubby was fine with it though, so we stayed.

So yes, we ended up ordering the claypot mushoom and tofu. Plus a few more dishes that the hubby can eat. He went for rice, I spotted a congee option so I ordered that. The server seemed shocked that we want rice on top of congee. I was surprised by her shock, but I stuck to it, because the congee contained silverfish and scallop so the hubby can't eat. He's not a very congee person anyway. It was only upon serving that I understood her shock. When I saw the congee option, I had thought it was just one bowl. Turned out it was one pot. And its a pot comfortable to be shared by 2, thus explaining the server's shock. Because we ordered one pot of congee plus TWO bowls of rice (for him).

Silverfish and scallop congee

But anyway, I loved the congee. The consistency is perfect. It was a thick and silky congee, yet the rice are still visibly whole not disintegrated. The pot kept the congee hot the whole time, and despite the duanting thus of having to finish the entire pot alone, I did it. This congee alone makes this place go to my 'like' list. Especially when I'm sick, or having a bad stomach, or on a rainy day. I love congee during any of those scenarios. Oh wait. I love congee any time actually.

Claypot mushroom and tofu

The claypot mushroom and tofu that tricked us into going in the restaurant in the first place is very normal braised tofu and mushroom with some veggies. It wasn't amazing, but wasn't bad either. The Caipo egg was done nicely. A good brown to the outside, salty preserved radish mixed into the egg. What can possibly go wrong with caipo egg right?

Caipo egg

The three egg spinach ended up with a small unexpected topping that I had to clear before the hubby can eat. They sprinkled silverfish on top. So I picked off all of them before he tucked in. We always liked this rendition of spinach so it was finished off quite quickly.

Three egg spinach

I subsequently dragged my colleague to the Chinatown Point branch because I wanted to eat congee for lunch. We tried the ginger onion frog leg, which was overcooked and a little too tough. But the sauce was very nice to go along with congee. This time round we went for the congee with more stuff cooked into them. Very nice!!

Onion ginger frog leg

A wasn't into congee so he opted for hotplate noodles. The mushroom pork noodles actually looked not bad.

Mushroom pork noodle

I'm biased because of the congee consistency. But subsequently went to the Junction 8 branch with the hubby and found all the vegetarian options disappeared from the menu. Whether it was a branch specific menu, or was it a general reduction in menu across all branches, I haven't checked it out. Lynn rarely have congee craving, she's more a fried rice kind of gal. So I haven't been back to AOne despite me liking it so much. Moreover, there are more tempting things at Chinatown Point such as Laiyulai, haaa. That said, I will still love to go back there to enjoy their thick yummy congee. Maybe alone.

Platypus Lobster Shack

It was E's birthday celebration, well, much belated. She didn't have any craving in particular, and S's friend has a share in this lobster roll joint, so we decided, why not? It turned out to be restaurant/bar kind of joint, and E usually disliked noisy places. So with the loud music and all, she was getting a headache. But since we had already made reservations, we decided to just quickly eat and go elsewhere to chat.

So as the name suggests, this place specializes in.... Lobster! Mainly East-Coast style lobster rolls. But even their non lobster rolls items have a lobster theme. That said, they do have a few non seafood items if you have friends, like me, who are allergic to seafood but would love to just come here with others who love seafood. There are things worth coming for here, we'll see.

We ordered a urchin and lobster bisque to share. I tot the urchin was just going to be in the name, but no, you do get a faint taste of the urchin in the creamy soup. It lends a very Japanese touch to an otherwise very Western soup. Interesting fushion, I like!

Urchin and lobster bisque

We also ordered a starter size Crustacean Bowl to share. With Uni creme, poached lobster, some rice, and a ton of other seasonings that are again, very Japanese in nature. A little reminiscent of salmon roe cream (mentai) with cheese. Rich, seafoody, fresh, and yummy.

Crustacean bowl

Lobster roll! I ordered the Piquant Garlic lobster roll, which doesn't have mayo. Trying to make some efforts at cutting down on my calories. Anyway it is seasoned with lemon marinated garlic. All lobster rolls are served on a tray, with a fresh salad on one side, and truffled chips on the other. The chips are nice!! That's what I meant by the non-seafood people have something worth coming for. Although a tad oily, but that's only because it's home made chips. The truffle flavour is strong. The lobster rolls are yummy too. The lobster was sweet and juicy, nicely done. The bread was soft and fluffy, just the tiniest bit toasted to give it a nice soft crust. But I think, I will not try to act clever and go mayo-less again. Lobster roll without mayo tastes... lacking. Hahahaha!!

Piquant garlic lobster roll

Zoom in to the roll and chips

Actually the serving isn't huge. I mean, it's a lobster roll, so you can't be expecting huge portions. From their website they claim that each roll contains the meat of a 4-500g lobster. I just discovered that they have a Platypus Restaurant at Bugis Junction which serves pasta and such on top of lobster rolls. Maybe that's a better option for more variety, especially for the non-seafood people. But I spotted mac and cheese and a duck roll in Lobster Shack that looks friendly enough. May just bring FQ there yet. 

Platypus Lobster Shack

China Square

3 Pickering Street
Nankin Row #01-31

Singapore 048660
Tel: 6438 7961

Trattoria Capri

It's our 5 year anniversary, and lazy us... Neither of us planned anything for that day! It was only at somewhere around 5pm, that we started discussing where to go. I just got him a wooden wine rack for our Wood Anniversary, so I wanted to swing by ToTTs to get the wine glasses to go with the rack. So my solution for shortlisting locations was by going on to HungryGoWhere, and searching for "romantic" and "Bukit Timah" area. Then found this Italian place known as Trattoria Capri. Looked up their website to check out their menu, saw some vegetarian risotto and pizza options. Hubby say looks ok, and so there we went.

Parking was quite a nightmare, because it was actually in a corner of a landed property estate. They do provide valet service, though hubby refused to use it. In the end we managed to find a parking space a distant away and walked to the restaurant.

The service staff were friendly, although for some reason our table was slightly neglected. We had no spoon on the table setting (which, by the way, wasn't a table a staff brought us to... more of hubby just sat down upon walking into restaurant). Then we weren't served bread until I saw the table next to us being given bread then I asked for it. But the waitress was very nice and apologetic about all these, so I couldn't find it in my heart to fault them.

Very pretty oil and vinegar bottle

As you can see in the background, the bread only appeared after my starters have been served. Which wasn't exactly in the correct order of things but I only noticed the next table's bread a period of time after we ordered our food. But anyway, these are the crusty type bread. More of the soft, fluffy, herb-y bread, which soaks up the oil and vinegar very nicely.

Bread

The soup of the day was pumpkin soup. I seldom can resist pumpkin soup. Actually, I seldom can resist soup, full-stop. Warm, hearty, not overly creamy. I liked it, and was happily dipping my late bread into it. Late has it's benefits too!

Pumpkin soup

We both love caprese, so we ordered caprese salad. I know I said I have a new favourite cheese, but that doesn't mean I'll stop liking Buffalo mozzarella. They do have Burrata cheese, but unfornately, it's served with parma ham so a no-no for the hubby. The classic fresh cheese + juicy tomatoes + peppery rocket combination just CANNOT go wrong. I spotted the next table finish their starters leaving all the wild rocket behind. What a waste!!!! *facepalm*

Caprese salad

For main I ordered a Baccalá alla caprese, baked cod fish. Ooooohhh... It was SOOOOOOOO nice!!! In fact, the hubby summarized it when he saw the happiness on my face upon the first bite: "Is it skin crispy crispy, flesh soft soft, sauce nice nice?". Coming from a vegetarian, I think I trained my hubby well. But yes, that's essentially the gist of this dish. The skin WAS crispy, and the flesh WAS perfectly done, nice and flakey. More of fish juices than a sauce, the liquid WAS really very yummy, fragrant without overpowering the natural milky flavor of the cod fish, which was really the star of this dish. The baked veggies alongside were bathed in the same yummy juices. I especially loved the mushrooms, which absorbed the flavours of the juices. And yay! More wild rocket for me!

Baked cod fish

Look at how nice and flakey the fish is!

He ordered the Tartufata pizza, which has porcini mushrooms and truffle cream. It's nice! But cream based pizza tend to be more rich than the tomato based ones, so he got a bit sick towards the end. I helped him with 1 slice.

Tartufata pizza

And since it was a special occasion, how can we not order a dessert? I ordered a lava cake to share. Theirs was served with flaming Grand Marnier. So pretty! The result is a nicely crispy surface, which we broke through to find a soft cake encasing the oozy filling. YUM!

Lava cake

Maybe the cod fish skewed my bias, but I really want to return here, if not just for the fish. But that said, I saw on their menu a lobster pasta for two. And spotted some other table ordered it. They weren't joking about the lobster, it was one entire lobster on the plate! Now that's something try-worthy. So yeah, I wanna bring Lynn back. But I'll be sure to use their valet parking service, available on Fri to Sun evenings. Haha!


Trattoria Capri
3 Binjai Park Singapore 589819
Tel: +65 6468 4886
reservations@trattoriacapri.com

Crust (Upper Thomson)

The hubby and I were thinking of dinner place, and he said he wanna eat pizza. Since I couldn't think of any decent pizza place nearby, I suggested why not we go search the Upper Thomson stretch of eateries and see if we can find something there. So there we were cruising along Upper Thomson, and spotted Crust. And just nice, a car eased out of it's lot right in front of Crust, so we happily parked and got ourselves an outdoor table.

The trouble with outdoor table is, the staff didn't really notice us much. So service was pretty limited, which annoyed the hubby (even though he's the one who wanted to sit outside). So after a long time waiting with nobody attending to us, he went in to inform them we are outside, and grabbed some menus, and told them to get us ice water.

He said he was hungry enough for one whole pizza, plus I didn't really want to eat vegetarian pizza when there were so many yummy sounding options on the menu. So I greedily decided to go for one whole pizza by myself. Each pizza is roughly an A4 size paper. I thought it sounded manageable...

Turns out it was manageable by itself, if we didn't order anything else. I actually quite liked my pizza, though I had expected more avocado than the few slices it came with. Chicken and avocado has always been the perfect combination, so what can go wrong with throwing them on pizza and smothering the whole thing with cheese right?

Avocado Chicken

He ordered the Wild mushroom pizza. It had a variety of mushrooms buried in it, and was topped with asparagus. It looks like a combination I would have liked too, but I didn't try because I was worried about not being able to finish my own pizza. He finished it, without much comment.

Wild mushroom

The trouble with finishing the food came with our order of truffle wedges. It was a pretty huge bowl of wedges. Then as it is, my pizza is already carbo-laden. So add another carbo, I was stuffed! Hubby gave up on the wedges midway through. I slowly struggled through my pizza, then picked through the wedges, and finally gave up leaving maybe about 4-5 behind.

Truffle wedges

The hubby didn't like the place, more because of the lack of service than the food. I thought it was ok, so I wouldn't write it off completely. It can be a back-of-the-mind location the next time his pizza craving hits. But I will learn from my mistake and share one pizza with him instead of trying to be a greedy pig and order one all by myself.


Crust
215R Upper Thomson Road
Singapore 574349
Tel: 6456 1555