Homecooking - Aug 09

Some of my weekday home sweet home dinner by Aunt...

Marina Barrage - A Pictorial

Sunday - 23th Aug 2009
A day at Marina Barrage

7th Storey Restaurant at Marina Barrage

Last Sunday, went with my uncle to buy his dream camera (DSLR) - Canon EOS500. My next target... After that we went to Marina Barrage to try out his new gadget and surprise that there's only one restaurant and a snack bar cafe only. Left with no choice, we settled our dinner at the 7th Storey Restaurant.

We ordered an ala carte standard charcoal steamboat (S), a claypot dish and chicken rice. The food was generally not impressive and rather expensive but service was good, very attentive.

Charcoal Steamboat

The stock was too bland for my liking as I'm so used to rich and flavourful stock.

Standard Set (S) - S$58.00

I think it was quite expensive with the kind of stuff we were getting. The set include fish balls, slice fish (tasteless), chicken thigh meat (taste like frozen meat), assorted mushrooms, prawns (fresh), beancurb skin, yam, cuttlefish, 2 eggs & a plate of veg. I think we were paying for the scenery too.

Claypot Frog Leg w/Beancurb Skin

This was very nice, with good wok hei and the sauce was fantastic. I literally dipped all the steamboat stuff into the sauce since it was so bland.

Chicken Rice

Their signature dish, chicken was smooth and tender with nice sauce. The chilli was quite good too. But, been having a lot of chicken rice recently so a bit tired of it.

The total bill was S$120 plus for the just the above items which I think it was overpriced and I don't think I will go back again.

7th Storey Restaurant
260 Marina Way
#01-05/06 Marina Barrage
Singapore
Tel: +65 6333 5787
Operating Hours:
Sun-Thu: 11.30am-2.30pm, 5.30pm-10.30pm
Fri-Sat-Eve & PH: 11.30am-2.30pm, 5.30pm-1.00am

Start baking again...

Started to bake again... here's some of my bake last week!

Blueberry Yogurt Muffin (recipe adapted from Do What I Like)

A very moist and not too sweet fresh blueberry muffin.

Orange Chiffon Cake (Recipe)

Use back my old recipes instead and glad that it came out so well.

Valerie's Strawberry Shortcake

Just learnt this cake from the workshop and really like it very much. My family love it too and all conmented the cake was very soft and light though it was a bit overbaked. (This was a recent workshop's recipe so can't share the recipe.)

Kevin Chia's Banana Chiffon Cake (Recipe)

Left with 2 banana from baking my dog's mini donut so finished it up by making a banana chiffon. Love this recipe, it was so soft and cottony.

Nakhon Kitchen

Last Friday, we were having dinner at Nakhon Kitchen, a corner non-aircon shop in the heartland of Hougang near Kovan Central. They served cheap and nice Thai food. The food generally was competently done and we liked most of the dishes that we ordered. We had a total of 9 items and total bill only came up to S$76.00 for the 4 of us. It's pretty value for money.

Appetizer - Homemade Thai Prawn Cake (S$12.00)

The prawn cake is one of my fav thai appetizer. Always ate this in Bangkok. It's a patty with minced prawn and squid paste coated with breadcrumbs to deep fry. This was quite good, especially the peanut sweet sauce dip really enhance the prawn cake.

Salad - Thai Vermecilli Salad w/Seafood (S$6.00)

This was another must order dish. Very appetizing and spicy too. Blanched squid, minced pork & vermecilli in stock and tossed w/bird eye chilli, sliced shallots, spring onion, parsley, fish sauce, lime juice & sugar. Yum...

Soup - Clear Tom Yum Seafood (S$6.00)

Not bad but would prefer stronger lemongrass & Kaffir lime leave fragrant.

Seafood - Crispy Grouper topped w/Thai Chilli Sauce (S$22.00)

The fish was a big one and the most expensive among the rest of the dishes but still consider rather cheap as compared to zi char stall. I like the sauce, very flavourful w/bits of mango added but the fish was not fresh that day.

Pork - Stir Fried Minced Pork w/Hot Basil Leaves (S$6.00)

This is my all time fav dish especially nice when it was served w/piping hot rice & top w/ a sunny side up. Really a comfort food for me, simple and delicious.

Curry - Chicken Green Curry (S$8.00)

The green curry was rather authentic and quite a popular dish there. I remember I learnt this at Forest Leong's class and she mentioned that an authentic green curry should be soupy. The next time I will ask them not to drizzle the coconut milk in as I prefer a lighter taste.

Vegetables - Stir Fried Kailan w/Mushroom (S$6.00)

My aunt felt that the sauce was a tad too sweet but the rest of us were fine with it.

Rice - Pineapple Fried Rice (S$6.00)

Quite nicely done up too and still had a bit of "wok hei".

Dessert - Red Ruby (S$3.00)

I like this, very refreshing & soothing after all the spiciness and it was not overly sweet.

Overall I enjoyed the food and it had met my expectation. Note that the rice was quite expensive at S$1.00 per plate though it was a big portion, can be shared by 2-3 paxes. Service was competent and fast even though was crowded. Definitely going to revisit them when I crave for Thai food.


Nakhon Kitchen
212 Hougang St 21
#01-341
Singapore 530212
Tel: 62868785
Fax: 62868741
Email: nakhon.kitchen@gmail.com

Old Swee Kee Chicken Rice

What a long day! After shopping at Centerpoint Robinson, I took a bus down to Sun Lik to buy some baking stuff. Aunt's not cooking that evening so need to buy dinner back. The last time I bought dinner from Sin Swee Kee which is on the left side of Sun Lik. So that day I tried Old Swee Kee Chicken Rice instead. I'm not sure is it the same one at Joo Chiat which was already closed. They are located on the right side of Sun Lik. Whenever I need to buy dinner home, I tend to buy chicken rice because is the easiest...lol!

The chicken was pretty tasty even without any soya sauce & sesame oil. I'm not sure is it serve this way or they forgotten to pack the sauce for us. As it's kampong chicken so don't expect it to be very tender and melt in the mouth type but I'm fine with it. The takeaway packaging was quite nice too.


Ordered one side dish which was the chap chye, well it was rather lousy. Too starchy and too much onions! The rice was not bad and soup was complimentary.

Old Swee Kee serve rather authentic Hainanese Chicken rice very similiar to my MIL's version who's also a Hainanese. However I still prefer the super tender chicken with sauce type so I will much prefer Sin Swee Kee.

Old Swee Kee Chicken Rice Restaurant
Corner of Seah Street

Valerie's Baking Class on 19th Aug 09

Attended Valarie's baking class last Wednesday at Carnhill CC. Heard from Karen, a friend I got to know from attending baking classes. She told me that Valarie's strawberry shortcake was good so decided to take a day leave to attend as the class was on a working day.

2 cakes were taught (only demo):

1) Strawberry Shortcake

Very light and fluffy sponge cake with kirsch whipping cream. Simple and delicious. Going to make this cake soon.

2) Coffee Walnut Cake
Also a sponge cake, used very little flour so is a very light and nutty cake. Quite nice but still prefer the strawberry cake.

Tampopo Deli

I also never forget to get some cakes and cream puffs from Tampopo Deli before heading home. Since I started this food blog, whenever I came across good reviews of any food stuff, I will always make it a point to store in my personal memory. Tampopo Deli is one of them that I want to try the cream puff. However, when I was there last Sunday looking at all the cakes on display, I was more attracted by the various types of chiffon cake with icing instead of the puffs.

The green tea chiffon was yummy, the fresh cream was so delicately flavoured to compliment the green tea chiffon which was so light & spongy with mild green tea flavor.

The puff pastry was rather dry when I ate the next morning but the custard was creamy and nice.

Tampopo Deli
Liang Court Shopping Center
177 River Valley Road #B1-50
Singapore 179030
Tel: 6338 3186
Fax: 6336 2625
Daily: 11am - 9pm

Jade Restaurant @ Fullerton Hotel

Jade Restaurant at The Fullerton Hotel is having Dim Sum Buffet promotion till end of Oct 09 at $28.00++ which is quite a good deal in a 6 stars hotel. It's so popular that reservation has to be made 1 to 2 months ahead. We didn't make any prior reservation at all but it was given to us by my aunt's neighbour who couldn't make it last Sunday. Since it's was so raved about we decided to try it out. Due to it's popularity and rather good review from HGW, of course we went with high expectation.... however...

The Starters/Appetizers

Starting with the appetizers, I only find the wasabi prawn and braised beef were nice.

Steamed Dim Sums

I was rather disappointed with most of the steamed dim sums. Nothing really outstanding and some of the dumpling's skin were too thin and fallen off easily when we picked it up with chopsticks. If I have to choose one fav, may be the sharkfin & scallop dumplings was the best among them in my humble opinion.

Deep Fried Dim Sums

Compared to the steamed dim sums, the deep fried items were much better except for the fried golden cheese dumplings which taste nothing of cheese but just some kind of bland chewy starchy dough in the center. The creative one would be the pan fried dumplings, just the way it was presented already won our hearts. Next would be the Deep Fried Taro Paste w/Truffle & Mushroom. This was my favourite in this buffet and was the only one we ordered 2nd round. It was simply delicious and it was filled with rather strong truffle oil fragrant.

Noodles, Rice, Congee & Soup

As for the soup, most of us liked the spinach & crabmeat soup which was light and flavourful. The hot and sour soup was rather good too as it was rich and not overly sour. The congee was outstanding but the noodles and rice were just ordinary.

Here's come to the end of our lunch which most of us felt that it was not as expectedly good just very ordinary. Most disappointed to know that dessert was not included in the buffet. If you really need some, is at S$8.00++ per serving as side order. However, the ambience was classy and nice. And I heard that it was almost fully booked till the end of Oct 09! If you are unable to make a reservation till the end of the promotion, don't be disappointed as it's really not that fantastic after all in my opinion.

JADE RESTAURANT
The Fullerton Hotel
1 Fullerton Square
Singapore 049178
Tel: 68778188