Beaulieu House

It was our ROM anniversary, so hubby and I arranged for dinner. It was a pretty last minute decision to do dinner, since he was initially supposed to be out of town. So although I had initially suggested trying out Ocean's restaurant in RWS long long ago, it was too last minute to make a reservation there with one day notice. Most likely we would have ended up with the non-window seating defeats the purpose. So I hunted for a quiet, fuss-free place, preferably near home. And turned up with nothing.

So I asked Lynn for ideas, and somehow she managed to google this place. Beaulieu House, at the end of nowhere at Sembawang park. Their online menu revealed that there were vegetarian options. And really, the photos looked nice. And it's right beside the beach. Sounded like we could have a nice walk after dinner.

The place in actual looks...... not as glamorous as the photos. Still, it had a very rustic charm to it. Very laid back. Hubby said he felt that we were on vacation in some Indonesian islands or something. The servers were friendly, and the ambience relaxed. Which hubby likes, since he's not really into fancy eating places. It's also not too crowded, so we weren't surrounded left and right by people and we didn't have to feel the need to whisper.

They have a good selection of grilled stuff. It was going at 3 types for a cheaper price, so I wanted tender beef kebabs, and chose mushrooms and tomato with cheese for both of us. The beef kebab was yum. Tender as expected, and juicy, and had a nice charred flavor. I liked it very much. The mushrooms were a little plain, no sauce or anything. So we asked for some salt to eat it with. The salt took awhile to arrive, as the first waiter didn't seem to really understand what I was asking for. But with the salt, the mushrooms were much better.

Grilled Shiitake mushrooms and tender beef kebabs

The tomato with cheese, well, when I read it and ordered it, I was expecting grilled tomato quarters smothered in melted cheese. It turned out to be a grilled whole tomato with a small square of cheese on top. The tomato wasn't grilled quite enough to release its sweetness, so it's pretty much eating a semi-raw tomato with that teeny bit of cheese. Hubby dislikes raw tomatoes whole. He only eat them in slices. Then when its in between raw and cooked like that, he absolute hated it. And refused to eat more than 2 mouths. So I had to finish both tomatoes.

Grilled tomato with cheese

For mains I had the grilled chicken with garlic and lemon sauce. The sauce tasted more like the typical brown gravy. Not a whole lot of garlic or lemon flavor. Still, the chicken was tender, and the sauce goes ok with it. What I thought to be a hill of mashed potatoes (which I intentionally saved for the last) turned out to be a few slabs of baked pasta of some sort. Nice surprise, but I really wanted to finish with mashed potatoes, so was a little disappointed my last bite wasn't mashed potatoes.

Grill Boneless Chicken with garlic and lemon sauce

Hubby had the Spaghetti Al Fungi. As usual for him and cream sauce pastas, he started off ok, saying it's nice. Then get sick somewhere along 1/3 of the plate, and get even more sick of it at 2/3 and really struggled through the final 1/3. He was so gelat by it that he said no to my dessert suggestion.

Spaghetti Al Fungi

On top of the western and grill menu, they have a full Chinese food menu. Talk about Jack of all trades. We didn't try the Chinese food so I can't comment. But I do like this place for its fuss-freeness. And the lack of crowd, most likely due to the inaccessibility - it isn't easy to get here by public transport. And parking wasn't too impossible to find. And we really had a nice little walk people watching along the very small beach. I think I may come back here, when I want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. It's only 15 minutes from home.

Beaulieu House

117 Beaulieu Road
Singapore 759837
(Sembawang Park)
Tel: +65 62579234
Fax: +65 68537638
Email: enquiries@beaulieuhouse.com.sg

Lao Si Chuan

I love this place. Period. We saw it before when we went for chicken rice, just next door. But Lao Si Chuan doesn't seem to be opened for lunch. So we were curious and returned for dinner one fine day when a few of us happened to stay back for dinner, and wanted to try something new. It was YJ, XP and me. They both don't take very spicy stuff, so it's an interesting group to have dinner at a Sichaun restaurant. Still, we managed to order not too spicy stuff.

YJ loves stir-fried potato, and so do I. So we ordered the 青椒土豆丝, which is stir-fried julienned potatoes and capsicum. The potato were cooked until just tender, with a wee bit of crunch left. Perfect. Next was something I requested, because I love beef. 水煮牛肉. I love love love love this dish. It means water-boiled beef. A misnomer actually, since it gives people the idea that it'll be something very clear and light, and this red bowl of goodness is anything but. Essentially it's tender beef slices, bean sprouts, soy bean noodles and glass noodles in a bowl of spicy and numbing (麻辣) broth, with it's accompanying layer of oil. The beef is oh-so-tender. And the bean sprouts and the noodles really soak up the fragrant goodness of the broth. We ordered it to be slightly spicy (微辣), which I recommend. Even if you have high tolerance for spicy food, because of the very hot (temperature) broth, it can be quite unenjoyable to be sweating buckets from both the heat and the spice. And this level of spice is manageable. Even YJ could handle it, after washing off the chilli oil with a bowl of water.

青椒土豆丝

水煮牛肉

zoom in on the beef in the 水煮牛肉

鱼香肉丝,  literally translated to fish fragrance pork shreds. Another misnomer. There's no fish in this dish. Apparently the fermented chilli used in this dish resembles fish taste, hence the name for this Sichuan dish. I actually don't remember it very distinctly, so taken I was to the beef. Really, I spend the entire time digging to ensure every last bit of beef, sprout, and noodles are out of the broth and in my tummy. Although care had to be taken to avoid the ambush of the Sichuan peppers.

鱼香肉丝

On a separate visit, I fell in love with another dish. 酸辣土豆丝. Stir-fried julienned potatoes again, but this time in vinegar and dried chilli to give a fiery and sour treat. Very appetizing. Very spicy. Very shiok. Love. I painstakingly picked every single dried chilli to the side, so that not one shred of potato goes to waste.

酸辣土豆丝

We also liked the 陈皮鸡, orange peel chicken. Deep fried chicken pieces subsequently stir fried with orange peel and a sweet and sour sauce. We liked it. Perfect crisp, perfect balance of sweet and sour, goes super well with rice.

陈皮鸡

This next dish was a miss. 芋香鸭方. Crispy fried yam with duck. Over-fried. Too dry, can't taste the yam, can't find the duck because it was deep-fried to nothingness. Don't waste your time on this.

芋香鸭方

We also liked their 辣子鸡丁, which is chicken cubes stir fried with an insane amount of chilli and Sichuan peppers. It wasn't quite as bad as the one at Old Chengdu, because we ordered a medium spicy version. But because of the less spicy, we were able to enjoy it more. Moreover I think it was more fragrant than Old Chengdu's one too. And the best part? The cost. The average for each person is typically less than $20 each time I went. I love this place. Really. I think I've said that a million times in this post alone. Love it. 

But note the slow service. The waitress's attention are quite hard to catch. And their air-conditioning is on the weaker side. So be prepared for a very hot meal.

Lao Si Chuan

249 Outram Road

Singapore 169048
Tel: 6561 1518

The Chop House

We love Wooloomooloo. So when we found out that the group was opening a new restaurant at Vivocity called The Chop House, we were thrilled. And when we saw it's menu, we were even happier. It's a more casual concept compared to Wooloomooloo, hence more affordable menu. We planned it on a day we went to RWS for the Sea Aquarium. The thing is, we did shabu shabu buffet for lunch, and munched on snacks in Sentosa, before heading here to dinner. So needless to say, we weren't very hungry, but everything still looked good.

In the end we settled for a soup, a mixed platter and a dessert. I wanted mussels, but we weren't sure we could finish. That's how we decided to settle for the mussels soup. It was creamy, with pieces of mussels and some fish. It wasn't wow, but still nice. Some of the mussels were a little overcooked and tough though.

Mussel soup

Then our mixed grill platter arrived. Beef tenderloin, lamb sausage, pork sausage and lamb cutlet. On the side we were given a little rack of three condiments, all homemade. Mustard, beetroot jam and caramelized onion. I don't care for beetroot to begin with but Lynn liked it. I went totally bonkers with the onions and mustard. These are perfect for all the red meat in the platter!! And the onions were very nicely done. Meat wise, the beef was tender and perfectly done medium. Look at the juicy pink interior. Sausages, well, who can do sausages badly? The lamb was also delicious. Marinated just enough to ensure the muttony taste doesn't overwhelm, but still enough for the lamb lovers. The portion was comfortable for the two of us after all our nonsense earlier in the day. For a hungry day, we'll probably need sides.

Condiments

Mix grill platter

Juicy pink meat

On a separate occasion, I went with XP to try their mix seafood grill. I found the salmon to be a little on the dry side, and the squid, although perfect texture, were a little bland. The shrimps were nicely done to bouncy perfection. Maybe because seafood tends to be milder flavored than meat to begin with, we needed the sauce it came it. Very oddly, we were given the same three condiments that seemed more apt for meat. Turns out the first blur waiter put it down for some unknown reason, and the other waiter didn't want to disappoint us by removing. So I just dug into the caramalized onions anyway, but ignored the mustard and the beetroot.

Mix seafood grill

For dessert on the first visit, Lynn and I decided to share a cheesecake. It was a nice cheesecake, although I found the sauce suspiciously tasting like coffeeshop sweet soya sauce. On a third visit, my dinner buddies insisted it was maple syrup and on sampling, I agreed it was. But I so distinctly remember both Lynn and I thought it tasted like coffeeshop sweet soya sauce. Was it me, or did they mix up their sauces on my first visit?

Baileys cheesecake

On separate occasions, I had tried their Mussels Mariniere. The mussels themselves were deliciously cooked. However, if you're a broth drinker like me, be warned. The mussels broth was incredibly salty. Saltier than any other mussels I have tried. And I've also tried the Sirloin steak, while a friend tried their Australian Lamb chop. I preferred the lamb to the beef. It's not that the beef wasn't good. It's just that the lamb was better. Or maybe I was simply in a lamb mood that day.

Ebisu-tei Japanese Restaurant

We're always curious about new lunch places. So when this Japanese restaurant popped up at Kampong Bahru Road, we were very curious and dropped in one day for lunch. They had lunch menu sets that were pretty affordable. There were set meals at two different pricing, and add-ons were at special prices too.

It took us awhile to decide, and then a very long while for the food to be served. It was apparently a one-chef restaurant. A single Japanese old chef preparing all the food. So we were chatting a very long time before we finally ate.

All the sets come with chawanmushi, miso soup and fresh fruit. Most of us got the full sets served up, but XP's set, which came last, had a missing chawanmushi. We were told that the kitchen ran out and his will be served later as soon as the next batch is cooked. Turned out his was the better one. Both batches had the same low volume (I guess they were trying to cut cost for set meals), which was roughly only about a quarter the cup full. Ours were not smooth, pathetic looking chawanmushi that had uneven surface and rough texture, and the mushrooms looked shrivelled. His turned out beautifully smooth and silky. Even the mushrooms looked brighter! Could it be ours were leftovers from the day before?

First batch chawanmushi

Batch two chawanmushi - so much better!

We ordered a set each and some random stuff to share. Teriyaki chicken set was a chicken chop served with teriyaki sauce, some lettuce on the side, and a bowl of white Japanese rice. The Bara Chirashi don was fresh assorted sashimi atop Japanese rice. Their sashimi were quite fresh and E totally enjoyed his lunch.

Teriyaki Chicken set

Close up of the chicken

Bara Chirashi set

I ordered Maguro and salmon belly negitoro. I was somewhat surprised because negitoro was supposed to be chopped up tuna belly. The bowl turned out to be tuna sliced sashimi, with chopped up salmon belly. For a moment I thought was my own misinterpretation of negitoro. So I just googled, and yes, toro is generally referred to tuna belly. And negi refers to spring onions! Which is sadly missing in this bowl! So the entire dish was named wrongly! It wasn't a big portion, but since salmon belly is quite fatty, this was a nice portion. I would really have loved some spring onions in the chopped up belly though. But still, I liked this dish in general.

Maguro and salmon belly negitoro don

Although we came away very happy with our lunch, the long wait is a huge deterrence for future visits. We saw many bottles of sake with customers names tagged to them, and a lot of them are Japanese names, so I'm guessing this place is quite popular for some drinking in the evening.


Ebisu-tei Japanese Restaurant
59 Kampong Bahru Road
#01-01
Singapore 169367
Tel: 68361039

Foong Kee Coffeeshop

We have coined this the Legendary Char Siew place. This was discovered by our student, A. He found out about this online, and had been there on several occasions with his friends, and sometimes alone. Comfort food to him when experiment failed, he said. It was quite a walk for us, and by the time we reached, I was grumbling. It better be good I said. But after the food came, I shut up and ate.

It's a roast specialty shop. They only have four kinds of meats. Soy sauce chicken, roasted duck, roasted pork belly (sio bak) and bbq pork (char siew). Then you can opt for white rice, oil rice, or noodles. I love noodles, so noodles it is. Some of the rest took rice, but I forgot the pictures. E loved loved loved the oil rice. He always go for a noodle and a oil rice. The birds are nice but not out of the world. The chicken was tender, and well flavored. The duck was roasted very nicely, with the skin nicely crisp. Duck wise, I think I prefer Yee Kee Roasted Duck. But overall, I prefer here, and I'll tell you why.

The porks. We call it Legendary Char Siew place for a reason. The star of the place is really the porks. The sio bak is beautifully roasted to crispy perfection, yet the meat remains moist and oily and sinfully good. The char siew. Oh my. Perfect balance of sweet and savory. Good mix of lean and fatty bits. I could pick out my lean ones for health reasons, while the boys could attack the fatty ones for yummy reasons. But even the lean ones were tender. The fatty ones, they were to-die-for. Melts in the mouth. Drool. I miss this place.

The the other reason for preference to this place. The chilli. Yee Kee have a half-hearted sub-standard chilli. The one here is chopped chilli and garlic and coriander in vinegar. That's the best dip for roasted meat I'm telling you. Then the springy noodles. I love. They offer wanton noodles too, for those who just want a plate of noodles to enjoy the char siew with.

Soy sauce chicken and roasted duck

Noodles

Sio bak and char siew

We've been there several times now. And still love it. And Lynn had been nagging me for telling her all about it but not bringing her there. In fact I think she's going to nag me again after this post.

Foong Kee Coffeeshop

6 Keong Saik Rd, 089114

Open Door Policy

We came across this place totally by chance. I had suggested going to Forty Hands because I hadn't tried it before. But to our disappointment, it was closed on Mondays. So we roam the area abit and found Open Door Policy opened and interesting. So we decided to try it out. Boy oh boy, were we impressed.

First thing that caught my attention upon being seated was the specials menu. Black truffle menu!! But it was quite pricey, and I didn't really want to subject my colleagues to my level of expenditure on food. So I tempted Lynn by sending her the menu instead.

Browsing the regular dinner menu, quite a few items caught my attention. So here goes... Broccoli and Stilton soup. I love blue cheese remember? So stilton is soo tempting. It came as a not too thick cream-based broccoli soup, with bits of stilton cheese in it. So you have to scrap the bottom of the bowl to fish out the cheese pieces, and that mouthful of creamy broccoli and pungent blue cheese had me sighing with pleasure.

Broccoli and Stilton soup

We decided on a red meat feast that day. Two beef one lamb. And all met and exceeded our expectations. The 48 hours braised beef cheek was tender and flavorful. Even J, who actually doesn't like beef, managed a small portion. We loved the sweet radish too. The slow braised short ribs was also very tender. J really loved the mango salad. It was very refreshing, in the midst of our otherwise carnivorous meal.

48 hours braised beef cheek with master stock quinoa and organic black radish

Slow braised short rib and red curry jus and green mango salad

What I really loved was the lamb cutlet. Three pieces! Just nice one for each of us. It was done perfectly. The lambiness wasn't overpowering, very nicely balanced by its sauce. The potato and pea stew was more of a mashed potato with peas, but worked very well. It was so good that I texted Lynn and said they were to-die-for.

Roast lamb cutlet with potato and pea stew, and fresh mint

When it came to dessert, we couldn't really decide but settled for the apple crumble and a souffle. The apple crumble was oh-so-good. So good that we actually ordered a second one after the first. J really really really loved it. It was hot, and the crumble crunchy. Beneath that crunch was a apple stew that wasn't overpoweringly sweet. With the vanilla sauce provided, it was divine. For the world of me, I cannot remember the flavor of the souffle. On their website's menu, the only souffle is a mango souffle with a bitter chocolate centre. I don't remember ours being mango so I'm not sure if the menu had changed. I remember it to be a nice souffle, but didn't make as huge an impression as the apple crumble.

Apple crumble with vanilla custard

Souffle

Open Door Policy is a nice cosy restaurant with attentive staff. The prices are a little steep, but worth the dollar for the quality of food given. I still wanted to bring Lynn back for the truffle menu. Upon checking with our helpful waiter, I was told it was a while-stocks-last menu. So guess what? I had already planned for a second exactly one week after. The place gets quite crowded later part of the evening so reservations recommended.

Update

As mentioned above, we had a second visit planned. J and X enjoyed the first so much that they decided to join Lynn and I for our truffle mania. CW came along too because he happened to be in town and wanted to meet us for dinner. He had never met us again since. I wonder whether I scared him off with the price of dinner? Lol...

Because there's more of us, we decided we could order more variety. For starters, we had the Jamon Iberico ham. It was served with a nice little salsa on the side. The ham wasn't too salty, and the crusty bread contrasted very nicely with the thinly sliced ham. 

Jamon Iberico ham

For mains, I ordered what I've been eyeing since the last visit. The wagyu burger with foie gras, truffle mayo and fresh black truffle. My three favorite items packaged into one single ginormous burger. I was hopping with anticipation. Upon its arrival, I carefully dissected it into 5. It was a huge effort but I did it. Sadly, the wagyu didn't have the classic wagyu aroma. The foie gras was blissful, but after dissection, each of us only got a small piece. The truffle flavor wasn't strong. We could smell traces of it, but it wasn't very obvious when we were eating the burger. Still, we were happy to see black pieces of shaved truffle on the fries. It was a decent burger, but we were definitely disappointed as we expected more 'wow'.

Wagyu foie gras truffle burger with a mountain of fries

The burger was huge!

Cut out view of the meaty burger

We ordered the same lamb and one of the beef, but somehow, they weren't as good as last week. Whether it was due to our initial disappointment from the burger, or did the standard really deviate, I can't tell. We also got a roast salmon, which was tender but not dry. A pretty good fish dish, I must say.

Roast Akaroa salmon with crushed potatoes, grilled baby leeks and brown butter jus

Maybe we were fuller from all the food we consumed. Or maybe the sense of novelty is gone. The apple crumble didn't impress us as much as the first visit. But bear in mind it WAS the first visit for Lynn, and she wasn't as wow'ed as we were with the lamb and the apple crumble. She did love the blue cheese soup. So I guess the restaurant doesn't hold up too well on standardisation. Which was really disappointing, making us unsure about a third visit.


Open Door Policy
19 Yong Siak Street
Singapore 168650
Tel: 62219307
Fax: 62219032

A&I Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice

This is another of those food I ate growing up. No, they aren't my relatives. They did, however, operate at my void deck for a good number of years, maybe about 10, before they were forced to move to their current location when the old place stopped being a coffeeshop. So you can imagine how often we patronise them as teens, because it was so convenient to buy. But convenience aside, we love it so much that even after they moved away, we still drive there to eat their chicken rice. I can proudly say this is the best chicken rice I've ever eaten.  In fact, we love it so much that my cousins can finish one whole chicken between the two of them... If I didn't remember wrongly.

I missed it terribly after I moved away from my mum's. Because they operate mainly for lunch, I rarely get the chance to eat it as I'm rarely in the area during lunchtime. So this post was made possible only because I happened to be on leave, and dragged my family there for lunch.

Their rice is a generous heaping bowl of rice, not the measly small plate that you often get nowadays. Not that this helps my diet, but you do feel happier knowing that the seller didn't scrimp on your lunch. The rice is fragrant, but not overly greasy. I like. 

The rice

Their chicken is none of those fancy kampong chicken. No coloring to make it artificially yellow. Just plain, tender, well-seasoned chicken. The breast meat is sooooo tender, which is a rarity in itself as most places serves dry breast meat. And they drench it in a great soya sauce cum sesame oil mixture. My favourite part is actually picking those small detached pieces of meat left behind in the sauce after all the big pieces are gone. They soak up the flavor so well. The chicken skin is very 'Q' (best translation I can give is bouncy?', so chicken skin lovers, rejoice! I'm not a drumstick lover, but I do know of someone who love their drumstick so much he used to request for an unchopped drumstick so that he can bite it off the bone. Just looking at the chicken breast meat now is making me hungry.

Juicy and tender chicken

Zoom in on the chicken. Look at that tender looking breast meat!

The star of their stall is actually not really the chicken. It's their chilli. Fiery hot, well flavored. It compliments the chicken and rice so well. We are such frequent customers (at least my family is. I'm a rare customer.) that they gave us extra chilli and sauce on the side.

The extra chilli and sauce

But do be warned. They do overdo either the MSG or the vinegar. You get very thirsty after the meal. But I'm willing to suffer that for that delicious chicken. And chilli. And rice. Occasionally. Their soup is pretty blah so forget about it. And their pricing remains reasonable too. How I miss this place.


A&I Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice
Blk 907  
Jurong West St 91Singapore 640907