Song Kee Fried Oyster 松記蚝煎

Their food was commendable. At least we won't feel short-changed by the amount paid against the number of oysters given. Generous with Oysters was our comments. Besides that, we were surprised by the amount of egg given thus more fragrant. Though the Oysters may be slightly wet and raw but they went well with the spicy chili that packed a good punch with the chopped Chinese parsley.

Oyster Egg - $6 (Small)

Packed with Eggs

Song Kee Fried Oyster is listed as one of Singapore top-rated foods in 2017 by Singapore Best Foods and they are also being recommended in the Michelin Guide. Looking at the queue after we were done with our dinner, we felt relieved as we do not have to queue earlier on.

Stall of Song Kee Fried Oyster

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Song Kee Fried Oyster 松記蚝煎
Location: East Coast Lagoon Food Village, 1220 East Coast Parkway #01-15, Singapore 468960

Gram Cafe & Pancake

Before Gram Cafe & Pancakes has even launches in Vivocity, there were already many good comments going around about the texture of this heavenly wobbly Japanese pancake.

As usual, whatever there is new stuff, Singaporeans will be curious to find out, thus its normal to see the snaky queues lined outside the cafe waiting for the right time slot for their pancake. Yes and you won't be surprise that some of them queue 4 hours just to have a taste of it.

Gram Cafe & Pancake

We had their all day breakfast. There is a choice of pancakes or croissant served with fluffy eggs in Japanese style as well as the crispy bacon. Crossiant was note worthy. I love its flakiness in the outer layers and its pillowy soft interior.

All Day Breakfast (Bacon & Egg) - $16.90

Soup of the day was Cream of Mushroom, it was reasonably starchy with chunk of mushroom in it.

Soup of the day - $4.90

We had the Matcha with whipped cream top with some Matcha powder. Drink was refreshing with the some mint taste.

Xmas Matcha Mint - $6.90

The star of the cafe is none other than this premium 3 stacked pancake that was the talk of the crowd over the Instagram sometimes back. These beautiful pancakes are made to order and is only available at certain time slot of the day with 30 servings each time. Ingredients used were premium and imported all the way from Japan.

Premium Pancakes - $17.90

Each pancake was about 3-4cm height and was serving with butter, special homemade whipped cream and honey. The fluffy and cotton candy texture of Gram's pancake is outstanding.

Pancake's Closeup

Overall experience was pleasant and like most patrons, I got sold by the fluffy texture of Gram's Pancake.  However, having said that, it still boils down to dollar and cents. The amount paid for the experience was reasonable but I don't see myself going back so soon as price is steep. Moreover, with the wait in the queue (if any), I'm willing to give this up for other food in the mall.

With Butter & Maple Syrup

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Gram Cafe & Pancake
Location:  VivoCity, 1 Harbourfront Walk, #02-110  Singapore 09858
Nearest MRT Station: Harbour Font (NE1)
Website

Seletar Western Food

Looking for old school western food? Have you heard of Seletar Western Food that is located in a run down coffee shop among the private housing estate? There is no fanciful menu with attractive food pictures to attract diners. What they do have is a list of food items printed in red and blue against a yellow board. Ironically, with such down to earth menu and environment, there are still many die hard fans waiting about in the stuffy hot environment for their food.

Seletar Western Food

With the price at $6 and comparing its portion, I guess one may not find such Western food elsewhere even from a coffee shop. Portion is about 1.5 times more than a usual portion outside tucked with my favourite fried bun, baked beans and crinkle cut fries as sides. While I'm expecting some coleslaw here, it left me disappointed as the old school western food serving only contains slices of cucumber and some lettuce in its plain form without any dressing. On the other hand, the slab of chicken chop was tender, crispy at some parts and coated with the traditional brown sauce. Overall the taste was simple and straight forward which is nostalgic.

Chicken Chop 鸡扒 - $6

Lamb Chop, Pork Chop, steak, sausage and egg if what you will get from a mix grill apart from the fried bun, crinkle cut fries, baked beans as well as the vegetables. Pork chop was tender and you can hear and see them malleting the meat as part of the preparation.

Mixed Grill 什扒 - $12

Although the taste was not the best that we had all tasted but its many of our childhood favorites. One thing for sure we know is that we can never get such a decent portion for $6 outside and this will definitely guaranteed you leaving the place with a full stomach. Treasure it as old school Western Food is hard to come by.

Rating: 3 / 5

Seletar Western Food
Location:  2 Jln Selaseh, #01-04, Singapore 808433

Social Place

Social Place which is originated from Hong Kong, has its first branch in South East Asia. She has taken the seat in Orchard, The Forum Shopping Mall.

Social Place

The Causal restaurant serves classic Cantonese food with a modern twist and most of all, menu is interesting and reasonably priced.

Social Place at The Forum

We were greeted with a spacious and comfortable interior that illustrate a modern casual dining environment. Tables are marble top, the elegant gold and blue as well as vintage tile flooring had given us a mixture of traditional feel but in a modern setting.

Dining Environment

The bright environment is welcoming. With big tables and comfortable chairs, such place is suitable for groups gathering.

Dining Environment

Social place also adopted a open concept kitchen where diners can look through into the kitchen on the right side as they entered into the restaurant.

Can you spot the Dim Sum Trays?

Serviettes, wet tissue and even gloves are provided for your dining experience. As a first timer in the restaurant, the server was friendly with recommendations of food and some explanation of dishes.

Dining Essentials

I almost got tricked and wanting to get the servers to change our bowls till we realized that these are the imprints of the bowl.

Ants in bowl?

This is one of the recommended dishes to try if you are in Hong Kong and its not a common sight here in Singapore. I contemplated to order as I had awful recall of its taste and smell back in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, I went ahead and order. Luckily, there is no foul smell.

Roasted Quail 蜜制鹌鹑 - $9.90

The roasted quail was infused with more than 10 herbs and spices. It tasted abit dry to me. Its tough to eat without being hands on but not to worry as the restaurant had provided disposable gloves.

Quick eat it up before the ants carried them away!

Tofu was skillfully sliced into uniform size and surrounded by a generous pool of Japanese Sesame dressing with century eggs, spring onions and diced capsicum.

Special Century Eggs in Silken Tofu 雪花糖心 （皮蛋豆腐）- $8.90

Close up of the dish

How the dish was presented had definitely lured our attention. Our eyes followed the server as such dish passed by our side when it was dished out from the kitchen to other tables. Since its the first visit, we began to tally what we saw and scan through the menu, asking ourselves if we had ordered similar dish.

Deep Fried Lobster Glutinous Puff 非常山竹 - $7.80

These mangosteen shape puff was made up of glutinous dough decorated with a part of our childhood favourite chocolate stick, Poky. The exterior glutinous purple shell gave me a new experience in food even though it wasn't that ideal looking. Nevertheless, it still give you a crispy feel.

Mangoes

Each mangosteen was placed upright with the help of bitter gourd rings as its coaster.

Bitter-gourd as its coaster

The fillings threw a surprise to me. The heady lobster broth was satisfying even though there isn't any lobster meat but only crab meat found. The layer of mochi like layer had cradled the star of the dish so well and biting on it was enjoyable. 

Fillings in Glutinous Lobster Puff

The platter comes with 5 types of dim sum and each individual item has its on tray apart from the main tray. They looked & tasted pretty ordinary to me.

Dim Sum Platter 点龙聚聚 (5 Pcs) - $12.80

Normal dim sum dish of a red bean bun may seem boring to one but have have it aesthetically changed it into Rose shape bun with red bean fillings.

Steamed Rose Floret Bun 玫瑰花包 - $1.80

The cutie piggy that captivate most of our hearts when it was showing in the social media feed. To be honest because of this dessert, I visited Social Place. The pig was wobbly and bouncy swimming in a pool of coconut milk. Well, would you even bear to eat this up? 

Small Pig Pudding 得意小猪 （1 件） - $6.80

6 blocks of Mahjong jelly were served on an icy cold glass plate. Every block has an edible piece of paper with the Mahjong wording on it.

Mahjong Jelly 麻将果冻 - $6.80

We are not expecting much from the taste of Jelly but if you ask me they are sweet, I find that the level of sweetness is okay.

Another Mahjong Piece

Huat Mahjong

I believe that the presentation and creativity on the food will sparks some interest in curious diners at the beginning. It's an Instagram worthy place to visit for foodies. However, with an average taste on food and without much wow factor, its inevitable that novelty may wear off soon.

Rating: 3 / 5

Social Place
Location: Forum The Shopping Mall, 583 Orchard Road, #01-22 Singapore 238884
Website

Whitley Rd Big Prawn Noodle

Whitley Rd Big Prawn Noodle is one of the "To-Eats" if you are in Old Airport Rd Food Centre. A long time ago before they move here, they operated under the Whitley Rd flyover in the 1970s. Subsequently, they were at Farrer Park Food Center. The Food Center was demolished in the late 90s to make way for the construction of North-East MRT Line and they were here at the current location since 1996.

Whitley Rd Big Prawn Noodle 

The soup was darker in brown-orange in color, though it smelled fragrant, it might be kind of oily for some of us. It tasted with hints of pork bone taste and definitely the prawns head. Interestingly, the prawns came in small, medium and large. They were already half de-shelled which save some of our troubles peeling them.

Prawn Noodle - $4.50

Thankfully the prawns were fresh and plump, no complaints on that. Ensuring freshness, the prawns were boiled in the stock upon ordering.

Biggest in the bowl

They have a few stalls in Singapore, however, the one that is recommended in the Michelin Guide will be from the Old Airport Road Food Center.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Whitley Rd Big Prawn Noodle
Location: Old Airport Road Food Centre, Blk 51 Old Airport Road, #01-98 Singapore 390051
Nearest MRT Station: Dakota (CC8)

Ipoh Curry Noodles

Having visited the Yishun Park Hawker Centre on a Sunday, we were spoilt for choices. The place was spacious and ventilation was good, best of all not very crowded with ample of seating.

There were 6 dishes on the menu to choose from and I took the recommendation.Given a choice of Soup or Dry, I had chosen the former for my bowl of Curry Shredded Chicken Roasted Pork Noodle. It was something I thought special as I had never had such combination of Roasted Pork with Shredded Chicken soaked together with curry noodles. I thought such combination was quite a novel. There are add on, like sea cockles and cheese available at additional cost.

Curry Shredded Chicken Roasted Pork Noodle - $6 (Soup Dry)

The curry was not the usual creamy packed full of coconut taste that I normally had. Instead, its more of spices towards the taste of sweet and aromatic, mild and not spicy. The roasted pork I thought was a good addition to the bowl of curry, however one would not be able to admire the crispiness from the roasted layer as it was soaked up. I beg to differ that these roasted pork are not the usual fatty and salt loaded ones I had from the roasted meat stall.

Ingredients

The Tau Pok on the other hand had swelled up by a fair bit with the curry. Chicken was tasty and I would say that the $6 bowl was justifiable with the generous ingredients in the bowl. What a hearty bowl of noodle on my rainy day!

Chicken

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Ipoh Curry Noodles
Location: Yishun Park Hawker Centre, 51 Yishun Avenue 11, #01-36, Singapore 768867

Porta

We had our dining location changed at the eleventh hour when I noticed the sponsored Instagram feed showing up Pappardelle from Porta while I was browsing. Well, advertising works sometimes afterall ~ they attracted diners like me. Ha Ha Ha.

Porta

Porta is located in Park Hotel Clark Quay serving modern European cuisine. Unlike majority of other hotel dining restaurant, Porta is located at the ground level of the hotel with a Al Fresco dining section.

Porta Entrance

The cosy environment has a space for gourmet retail products used in their dishes. Besides having the products placed on the series of cabinets, there are more products displayed on their island counters.

Link Way to Hotel

Coaster for our drinks

Warm Butter buns were served swiftly after our orders. As it was a cold day I felt quite hungry, thus I quickly spread some of the butter and munch on it while waiting for our food.

Bread

We started our meal with the soup of the day as cream of potato and it was quite ordinary.

Soup of the day - $11

I have been looking around for nice Pappardelle since not many places have it. In fact its this dish that make my trip to Porta. Having tried its first taste, I was rather disappointed. 

Duck Ragout - $24

It was kind of lacking in oomph and was bland in taste though Parmesan sauce and herbs were used. Duck meat on the other hand were generous but too, lacking in taste.

Close Up

As I cut down the pork belly, the knife went through it like hot knife through butter. Maybe I was just exaggerating but certainly the piece of meat was more tender than a piece of Tau Kua. The fat was well rendered and could easily melt in my mouth. The pineapple puree and BBQ sauce had complemented the slab of belly.

Pork Belly - $26

Leaving room for desserts, we had ordered the Black Forest. The dessert served was presented in a creative manner. The dark chocolate lava cake was served with whipped cream topped with coconut shavings. Chocolate shavings has been used in part of the dessert's decoration. Maraschino Cherry was tucked by the side with some coco nibs. It was a bittersweet experience with some crunchy texture.

Black Forest - $14

Yes, its not our usual piece of tiramisu cake. Instead of having them in a whole piece, tiramisu was served in its deconstructed form. Every individual component of the cake was laid nicely on the plate, coffee, lady's finger, Kahlua and Mascarpone Cheese.

Not-Your-Usual Tiramisu - $12

Overall, food quality was not too bad. Apart from that, I find that their service was kind of lacking given a weekday evening. It was slow and perhaps, there is shortage of manpower.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Porta
Location: 1 Unity Street Level 1, Park Hotel Clarke Quay, Singapore 237983
Nearest MRT Station: Clarke Quay (NE5)