Laiyulai Three-Sauce Simmer Pot (来御来三汁焖锅)

I love it when a random find restaurant ends up being delicious. And this was one of those times. Lynn and I were going to have dinner at Chinatown Point because I wanted to get something from Daiso. She was having one of her monster bugs and had been sick for weeks, so heaty food such as Korean BBQ is out. I suggested a long list ranging from Din Tai Fung to Genki, all supposedly lighter food, and she rejected every single one of them. Then she said there's a new Chinese food shop that smells fabulous. I know which shop she was talking about since I've been attracted by that smell before. So in we went to try it out.

Their concept is very cute. Three sauces doesn't mean they dump three sauces into your dish one shot. It's a simmer pot concept, as opposed to a hotpot. You start with stew instead of a broth. That is the first sauce. Then after finishing the stew, you request the staff to add broth, transforming the pot into a hotpot. So here's where they 'cheat' a little in the name. The second sauce is the hotpot in which you cook more meats or veggies. The third sauce is the soup you drink. So sauce 2 and 3 are essentially the same thing. Haaaa. But never mind the cheating. The food is GOOD!!!

So let me walk you through the process the way we went through it. First, we start with an empty deep pan:

Then they came along an added a lump of fat. Lynn initially thought it was lard, but upon asking, we were told it was 药材油 (Herb oil). I don't know how that is made but it sounds good for me. Lol!!

Then came along the veggies. Every pot by default comes with this base of veggies, no matter what dishes you ordered. This mixture comprise of carrots, corns, LOTS of onions, LOTS of garlic, celery, capsicum, lotus root and sweet potato. Because it's our first time, we didn't realize how big the pot will be. This pot is best shared comfortably among 3 pax. 4 pax can order more things to add on. For 2, it's leaning heavily on 'too much'.

With the veggies as a base, the staff then layer your order on top. We went for the combination pot, and chose our own dishes. Minimum of 3, which explains why it's a little too much for 2 pax. The variety is pretty good, we were spoilt for choice. We took chicken wings, fish and pork chop in the end. The fish was a parallax error on my part. I meant to tick bullfrog but apparently missed. Oops! So at this point, they cover the pot and let the whole thing stew slowly.

They returned about 10 minutes later, and added the sauce of your choice. They have several options. Original, which is not spicy. Then they have 香辣 (fragrant spicy), in three different levels of spicy. Then they have 麻辣 (numb spicy), also in three different levels of spicy. I was leaning towards original, in light of Lynn's cough, but she insisted the 麻辣 probably will help clear her airways. So we took the lowest level spicy of the 麻辣 sauce. After adding the sauce, they stir up everything nice and thorough, and then cover the pot again. So we waited some more. Then it's finally time to eat!

By this time the veggies were nice and tender. The sweet potato!!! It's to-die-for!! All the other veggies were nice too. The onions were translucent and sweet. Much later we discovered that the garlic were awesome too. Our meat choices were nice, though subsequent visits I discovered others that are nicer. The wings are chopped so there are small bits of bones that are quite annoying. So I would recommend the thigh meat instead. The pork chop had cartilage in them that didn't quite soften in that short period of time, so pork belly is actually nicer. The fish had a lot of pin bones so it was quite troublesome to eat but that's my mistake so I can't complain.

The sauce went really well with rice. The 麻辣 is really quite spicy. We were sniffling in no time. I would recommend the 香辣 more. Now I usually order the medium 香辣, and it's more comfortable to eat than the 麻辣. Even the original is yummy, I've tried that before too.

After we finished the bulk of our stew, we asked for the soup. The broth mix up with the remaining sauce and the resultant soup is pretty yummy. And we ordered beef and lamb (because we didn't know how big everything is going to be that first time) to cook in the hotpot. Subsequent visits we found that the luncheon meat and pork belly slices for the hotpot are delish!

I've brought everyone back here already. Colleagues, hubby etc. Yes, their sauces and broth are vegetarian friendly. So we ordered the vegetarian pot with mushrooms and beancurd skins etc. The hubby liked it too! Oh and did I mention? Their pig ear starter is something worth trying too!

Layulai Three-Sauce Simmer Pot

Chinatown Point

133 New Bridge Road
#02-38
Singapore 059413
Tel: 6444 4115

Concetto by Saveur

We walked pass this restaurant several times from our commute to and fro gym and Plaza Singapura. Remembering how much we liked Saveur, Lynn and I made a note to come here for dinner one of the days post-gym. So here we are, finally, very hungry after our workout.

Concetto is a Italian version of Saveur, but remaining on the same principle of affordable, authentic food. Only instead of the French fare that Saveur focus on, Concetto is an Italian extension. I only found this out now, as I'm blogging it actually. I initially thought it was supposed to be an upmarket version of Saveur. Now that I found out it's an Italian counterpart, some stuff makes more sense. I will explain later.

Heads up: like Saveur, the portions at Concetto aren't huge. We learnt this only after the arrival of our initial two mains and we immediately placed order for a third one. But anyway, food taste-wise... here goes. Our appetiser was Buffalo mozzarella. Tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese atop a toasted rye bread. We weren't impressed. The mozzarella was a tad dry and doesn't quite have the freshness usually associated with buffalo mozzarella. 

Buffalo mozzarella

Our first main course was Wagyu tender, with foie gras and roasted portobello mushrooms. The foie gras was very blissful! Melt-in-the-mouth, livery, buttery, mmmmmmmmm. We loved the mushrooms too, they were very juicy and good vehicles at picking up leftover foie gras fats on the plate. The beef was done just nice, even though it didn't have the typical wagyu aroma. We were pretty happy with this dish.

Wagyu tender with foie gras and portobello

Next was the Duck confit, served on pasta pesto. This dish, according to the menu, is by Saveur. And Saveur's duck confit is good! That's why Lynn was tempted by this dish immediately and ignored all other tempting dishes on the menu. However, we were disappointed. It was actually pretty normal. Not at all blissful like Saveur's. Now looking back, I'm wondering why the heck we ordered duck confit in an Italian restaurant. Haaa

Duck confit with pesto

The additional main course we ordered upon seeing our mains sizes was Pollo Allo. Half boneless chicken, with mushroom stuffing. We top-up for truffled mashed potatoes. The chicken is nice! It was very tender and very flavourful. The mushroom stuffing was delicious. And the truffled mash potatoes... YUM! And it's boneless! How easy to eat is that??

Pollo allo with truffled mash add-on

There were hits and misses, we liked two out of four dishes. Pity the portion size is small, so I'm not sure how keen we are to return. But hmm... I do like the beef and the foie gras... Maybe we'll return and focus more on the Italian dishes.... But not the Buffalo mozzarella.

Concetto

The Cathay, #01-11/12, 2 Handy Road
Singapore 229233
Tel: 67351141

Online reservation available

Wang Dae Bak (China Square)

Yay... Finally reach a post which is categorized 'recent finds' in my mental drawers. It was a weekday dinner when hubby wasn't free. J was on leave so I asked the only dinner kaki left, FQ, whether he's free for dinner. He said he was having dinner with his BFF, D, whom I know. Asked me if I mind having dinner with them? I was like, if they don't mind the extra me, who am I to mind anything?

But anyway, we agreed to meet D at Chinatown point, but we hadn't decided on what to eat. I off hand said I haven't tried Wang Dae Bak, which the two of them had recommended me before. So they said, why not? And off we went to Wang Dae Bak.

So Wang Dae Bak is a Korean joint, it serves both cooked food, as well as table BBQ. We opted for table BBQ and in no time, red hot charcoals were set up at our table. Real charcoal BBQ! Cool! And after the grill is set in place, the waiter poured something that is pre-tty unique to this place. Beaten eggs. That's that yellow ring you see around the grill. Egg is FREE-FLOW! I think that's FQ's bias for this place. He loves eggs! The typical korean side dishes were quickly brought to the table, kimchi, cold mashed potatoes, seaweed... etc. We were happily munching while waiting for our orders to arrive, but that wait wasn't very long. Oh well, how long will they need to bring raw food to the table right?

Red hot coals

Ring of egg, and all the side dishes

Meats! The boys said the 'marinated chickens' is good (That's exactly what is written on the menu. It's not typo on my part.). So we ordered 2 portions of the chicken, and one portion of pork belly, and one portion of boneless prime rib. D found the pork too tough for his braces, and he doesn't take beef to begin with. So FQ and I polished off the whole plate of beef and pork between the two of us. I quite like the beef, and agree that the pork is a little on the tough side. The boys were right, the chicken is good. It was well marinated and tender. Despite me being a beef lover, I had to declare the chicken the winner. *Update: On a subsequent visit, I found that the pork shoulder loin is more tender than the pork belly.

Boneless prime rib (top) and pork belly (bottom)

Marinated chickens

Nice thing about Wang Dae Bak is their adjustable UFO-like smoke vent. U can shift it up to give yourself space to maneuverer the food. Then shift it down to maximise it's venting power and reduce heat and smoke on yourselves while the food cooks. Here u can see the half the egg ring gone, due to our continuous digging.

Meat cooking under the UFO smoke vent

The only cooked food we ordered on that occasion was the seafood pancake. I like it! It was crispy, very fragrant, and yet fluffy inside. There's alot of veggies and prawns and whatnot, and the light soy based sauce it was served with complemented it well. This is a "To-Order" dish I will highly recommend. On separate visits, I had tried their dukboki and japchae. Liked both of those dishes. I've also tried their Ginseng chicken soup. Warm and nice. Mmmmm

Seafood pancake

Spicy rice cake

Japchae - stir fried noodles with vegetables

I liked Wong Dae Bak enough to bring people back twice already. Do note that you'll still come out smelling like BBQ despite their UFO vents. Fear not, they provide Febreeze spray at the counter. Lol!! Lynn wasn't very impressed by their food though. Maybe that's because we ordered the platter on that occasion instead of focusing on the chicken. Really, their chicken is the best dish they have. Moreover she was on a super BBQ crave that day. For a BBQ focused meal, there are other places with buffet based BBQ which are much more value for money - IF you're not an egg addict like FQ. But I will be back. If anything, for their seafood pancake.


Wang Dae Bak
22 cross street (China Square Central)

#01-64

Singapore 048421
Tel: 6225 2646

Toby's - The Dessert Asylum

We happened to be in the far east (Marine Parade) to attend a wake, and decided to hunt for dinner somewhere nearby. I suggested Parkway Parade since it was nearby, and in no time, we had parked and started looking for dinner places. I did scan the website on the ride there to try to find suitable eating places. Hubby rejected most of those I suggested, but he spotted Toby's bright signage from from far away and dragged me over to check it out. Turns out the menu seems pretty alright, something I wasn't able to tell from it's name on the website. I honestly thought it was just a dessert place.

The menu is actually quite playful with cartoons all over, and somehow a little reminiscent of NYDC's format and variety. I was actually tempted by many items ranging from pasta to pizza to pies. I finally decided on what I want, and added on a set meal. The set meal came with a soup of the day, which in this case, was a mushroom soup. Portion wasn't huge, but its nice to see a non-campbell mushroom soup, served with a super well toasted slice of bread (which really, is more like a cookie given how toasted it is.).

Mushroom soup

My final decision was the beef lasagne, which for some reason was served with a buttered toast on it. The toast was totally out of place, but I dutifully ate it before digging into the pasta. The pasta is actually pretty alright. The sauce well flavoured, the pasta cooked right, the whole combination is pretty decent.

Beef lasagne

Hubby was hungry and straight up ordered a pizza and a pasta. The mushroom and spinach pizza had a generous scatter of spinach leaves and toasted almonds. I liked the pizza, and helped eat one, maybe two slices. That's because he was too full from his pasta and couldn't finish the pizza. There was something he didn't quite like in the vegetarian spaghetti but I can't remember what it is. Oh! I think it was the greens in the pasta. I was pretty sure they were spinach but he said they tasted weird and left them all behind.

Mushroom and spinach pizza

Vegetarian spaghetti

Ironically, we had no space for desserts. The food isn't too bad, but wasn't so amazing that I will drive all the way back to the east for it. But if I happen to be in the locality, I will probably want to return to try their desserts.

Toby's - The Dessert Asylum
80 Marine Parade Road, 

#02-68/69/70 

Parkway Parade
Singapore 449269
+65 6346 2435
enquiry@tobys.com.sg

Verve Pizza Bar (Marina Bay)

My family and I went for the Cavalier show at Marina. After the show, we wanted a simple dinner before heading home. Since we all parked at the open carpark beside the show stage, the most accessible place to dine was actually Verve Pizza Bar, right beside the carpark. Moreover, it seemed to be vegetarian friendly enough, so we settled for there. Since all the seating is alfresco, and it's pretty late at night, and I didn't bring my camera and had to rely on my phone camera, I apologise for the poor photos.

First up, french fries. No truffles, no garlic. Just good ol' fries. Ordered more for my nephew's benefit than ours, but he didn't eat alot of it so we gained from him. Regular fries, not much I can comment on.

Fries

My mom and I shared a somewhat interesting sounding pizza. Enzo - peking duck pizza. How fusion is that? Turns out it wasn't very Chinese flavoured after all. But the influence is there. Sweetish sauce, duck meat pieces, and topped with cucumber and spring onions. My mom enjoyed it, I found it not bad.

Enzo - Peking duck pizza

When there's my bro and me, there's always fried chicken wings. We CANNOT resist. But their's were so-so. Crispy, yes. Seasoned, yes. That's about it. It wasn't those super nice ones. But it's not bad. It's very hard to make bad fried chicken wings... agree?

Fried chicken wings

The hubby went for the Franucci, a tomato, mozzarella, basil pizza. It looked good! He polished the entire pizza off alone, which is impressive by itself. Then he amazed us further by ordering a pasta, and finished that too! I tried a mouthful of his pasta, which I forgot to take a photo of. I like it! Their pasta are homemade fresh pasta. The texture is nowhere like those dried kinds we get in supermarkets and find in almost 90% of the restaurants in Singapore. I love fresh pasta!

Franucci - tomato mozzarella basil pizza

And of course I managed to forget to take photo of my sis-in-law's pasta before she mixed it. But here's a look at their yummy fresh pasta. Urgh, the poor lighting is soooo not helping the food look nice. Ok, and my poor photography skills.

Aglio olio linguini

I like their pizzas for the thin-crusts, and love their homemade pastas. Overall, we liked it. In fact, so much so that the hubby asked me a few weeks later where else got sell pizza and pasta like the one we ate after Cavalier one. You see, he doesn't remember places very well, so it's no surprise he forgot the name. For him to actually remember the food he ate after Cavalier, it goes to shows how much he enjoyed it. 

Verve Pizza bar

11 Marina Boulevard
Ground Floor
Marina Bay City Gallery
Singapore 018940

Ikoi Japanese Restaurant

This post is a place highly recommended by JK. This post doesn't have a lot of pictures. Because this post is about Ikoi Japanese Restaurant, which was serving Japanese ala carte buffet. And it was 11 of us visiting. So, with 11 pax and an ala carte buffet, you can imagine the speed at which we were ordering and wolfing down our food. But I will do my best to describe some of the favorites from my memory.

Sashimi. Really, at $38++, free-flow sashimi is a deal. We started with three plates of mixed sashimi. That meant it came with Salmon, Tuna, Swordfish and a few others. The few others probably included octopus and mackerel, but because we didn't enjoy those as much, they didn't stick in my brain very well. THE SWORDFISH IS AMAZING!!!! Cold, juicy, sweet. I was inhaling swordfish like nobody's business. Even J, who usually don't take sashimi because she dislike the 'fishiness', could try and liked the swordfish. She did ask my opinion which sashimi she should try, and I told her very pointedly, only the swordfish. N, our Dutch intern, loves salmon and tuna. She said back in the Netherlands, Japanese buffet will never include sashimi, so she was going to town with the salmon and tuna. Somehow, all the sashimi lovers were seated at my end of the table. The other end had a few who don't do raw fish or don't do fish in general. So as one of those at the other end observed: "it was entertaining to see sashimi disappearing down your end of the table".

Our table some time in the middle of the meal

They also served a soup in a little tea pot. I'm actually not sure what soup that is, but it's a delicious soup. They also served chawanmushi in the cutest little cup. When placing order here, you pretty much don't need to worry about portions. Because one portion is for one. So for example, grilled salmon. We were expecting the usual restaurant size piece, so we ordered two portions to try. Ended up it was tiny two-mouths slices each. You get the gist.

Things we loved: grilled saba fish, grilled salmon, yakitori, shishamo, soft-shell crab handroll, sushis (that's what the colleagues said. They disappeared so fast I didn't even know we ordered them).

Things we didn't love: tempura were generally so so

We totally ignored the noodles and rice.

We loved this place, and returned with a huge food coma. Needless to say, it was a very unproductive afternoon that day.

Ikoi Japanese Restaurant

Hotel Miramar Singapore
401 Havelock Road
Singapore 169631

Lobby, Main Wing
Phone (65) 6887 3788

Ristorante da Valentino

It's my birthday!!! And the hubby and I arranged to have dinner together. But he didn't mention where we were going. Knowing how bochap he usually is, I was expecting one of the usual places we go. To my surprise, he didn't say anything, just asked me to get in the car when he picked me up. I fell asleep, and woke up to find myself in The Grandstand. Still he kept mum about where we're having dinner. He couldn't find the place and we were staring at the directory. I asked him which restaurant he still kept quiet. Just dragged me all around the Grandstand, until we found the restaurant at some ulu corner with it's main entrance from the outside of the mall. And no signboard. It was until he spotted the menu with the restaurant name on it then he was sure he got the right place.

So here we are at Ristorante da Valentino. A quaint little Italian restaurant hidden at one corner at a mall in the middle of nowhere. He actually found it by random search online. After we browsed through the menu, the server came by and gave us a verbal commentary of the specials, of which I understood only parts of. But one of the recommended starters was something he described and sounded like 'mozzarella with tomatoes'. Hey, that sounds like Caprese salad and I like that! So we went with that (without even knowing the price actually).

When it arrived, the waiter let me take a photo of the whole plate, before he divided it into two side plates for us. And that's the moment that I was blown away, and HAD to immediately google what I thought I heard the dish is called. And I found it. That's a Burrata cheese. Something I've never heard of before this point in time, but something that replaced Buffalo mozzarella as my favourite cheese from this point forth. Imagine the freshness of Buffalo mozzarella. Now, keep that same taste in your head, but imagine a creamier, richer version. That, is Burrata. It was sooooo creamy... I looooove it. Totally. And the accompanying cherry tomatoes were so sweet and juicy, complementing the Burrata so well. I was totally in love with the whole dish.

Burrata cheese

I wanted a mushroom soup so we got mushroom soup. Theirs was served in a cup, and it was the velvety, mushroomy kind. As opposed to chunky or creamy kind, if you get my drift. Nice warm start to the meal. But pales in comparison to that amazing salad I just had. And what's Italian food without good crusty Italian bread? We were given three crusty rolls to go with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Hubby stopped at one so I polished off two. Yum. I love bread.

Mushroom soup

Crusty Italian bread

The hubby went for a Spinach lasagne. It's creamy and fragrant. I tried a bit of it and I liked it. The pasta was perfectly cooked, and the sauce perfect. But it was a little to rich for the hubby and he struggled through the second half of it. He never really did well with cream based food.

Spinach lasagne

I greedily went for the Carbonara. This was a REAL carbonara. Made with mainly eggs and lots of cheese, very little (if any) cream. It was RICH! I did enjoy the 'realness' of it, but I found the pasta a little too al dente to my liking. I would have preferred the pasta be cooked that little bit longer. So actually, I found myself liking my hubby's dish more...

Carbonara

Overall, I enjoyed the dinner. I'm not sure if the Burrata totally skewed my impression of this place to a highly positive bias. That may well be, because now as I'm writing, I remember I didn't enjoy the Carbonara. But it's a nice cosy place for that special occasion. In fact, we were almost the only Singaporeans in that restaurant. Almost all other guests were Caucasians! Guess that speaks volumes about its authenticity.

Ristorante da Valentino

200 Turf Club Road, #01-19
Singapore 287994
Tel: 6462 0555
Email: ristvale(@)singnet.com.sg
SMS - 9463 8033