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

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