Dragon-i, Authentic Shanghai Cuisine

Dragon-i (龙的传人) when translated literally means the descendants of dragon and its name had conveyed the significance of serving authentic cuisine from ancient China. Perhaps those who frequent Johor Bahru (JB) City Square mall had known them well as this is one of the few restaurants that had been drawing the hordes.  Dragon-i is serving a decent fare of Shanghai Cuisine with each delicacy prepared by  chefs from mainland China.

Dragon-i shop front

Dragon-i

It was on a Saturday evening and we were early for dinner, there was no queue at all, compared to its other outlet, Canton-i. We were seated and presented with their traditional reddish brown Menu with dragon embossed at the bottom.

Menu

 The dinner crowd after 7pm.

Crowd

Just like a number of chinese restaurant, they had their shop name indicated on their chopsticks.

Wet Towel is chargable at RM 1.00 each. For those who want to avoid additional charges, they can return that to the servers.

Utensils

 La Mian, 拉面 Hand Pulled Noodles was part of Chinese Delicacies and was known as "dragon beard" in ancient days to reflect the importance of food to the emperor. The braised red beef noodle was average on its overall. Broth was tasty and bowl was filled with portions of beef briskets as well as the smooth noodles. During serving, the server had prepared a pair of scissors and would ask if we like to have the length of the noodles shorten.

Braised Red Beef Brisket Noodles - RM 18.00

 Corn Juice was the unexpected, not the usual taste we had, their is of lighter taste. 2 sides of the sweet corn was used to make the drink and then ice blended. Dragon-i was actually the red dragon fruit juice and comes with a thin sliced of plain dragon fruit, too much sweetener was included I felt.

Corn Juice & Dragon-i - RM 8.00 & 12.00 (Left to Right)

 Chilled Drunken Chicken in Hua Diao Rice wine was served in a semi small ball shape. Although it was soaked in the rice wine, I find that the chilled chicken was still lacking of infused flavour. However, this is still their signature's dish.

Signature Drunken Chicken - RM16.00

Every Xiao Long Bao was hand made with 18 delicate folds and had its filling come with a 
mix of minced pork shank, ginger and natural pork skin gelatin, which after steaming, melts into a tasty, delicious soup.They were best served with shredded ginger and vinegar. Overall, still do-able but not the best I had tried so far.

Signature Xiao Long Bao - RM 10.30

Being one of the recommended dishes on the menu, XO Radish Cake was run-of-the-mill for me. Big cubes of carrot cakes were served in the mixture of beansprouts, prawns and eggs. Beansprouts were rather raw in taste and this dish tasted of garlic bits which may be uncomfortable for some. The radish cake was somehow lacking in texture and taste was rather bland, no sweetness or XO.

XO Radish Cake - RM 13.80

Brocolli with Scallop was tasted fine. The brocolli flowers were soften added with carrot, mushrooms as well as scallops with light tasting gravy drenched over them.

RM 32.00

Total Cost about RM 130.05 for two person after 10% Service Charge and 6% Gov Tax.

All in all, the pricing is quite close to what we had in Singapore. Given the choice, I would still prefer the taste of our chinese restaurant back home.

Rating: 3 / 5

Dragon-i
Location: Lot No. J3-36, Level 3
106-108 Jalan Wong Ah Fook
80000 Johor Bahru, Malaysia

My Affair with Thai Food

.Fancy for some Thai food around Clarke quay area? Check out Thai Affair located at one corner of the basement. Thai Affair offers a decent variety of dish from noodles to soup at a reasonable pricing. 

Thai Affair

A number tag was given upon ordering as each plate was whipped up from the kitchen based on order only, thus Food will be served to us whenever they were ready.

Number Tag

Utensils, sauces and serviette were self help over at this counter just beside their kitchen.

Self Service Counter

Lemongrass drink tasted standard. For those who like Thai beverages, they do sell Thai Ice Tea too.

Lemon Grass Drink - $2.00

Egg Fried Rice (Chicken) had packed the traditional taste of their home style fried rice with good prominent tastes of the fish sauce. Comes with a slice of cucumber and tomatoe. Pretty decent but would be better if they had control the amount of salt usage I the dish.

Egg Fried Rice (Chicken) - $6.50

Moo Ping (Thai BBQ Pork satay) comes in a plate of 4. An appetizer to kick start our dinner. Pork on the stick was evenly grilled and was tender. The chili dip was a good compliment to the satay.

Thai BBQ Pork Satay - $6.00

Phad Thai on the other hand looks tantalizing. Basic ingredients of a Phad Thai were all found on the dish. It does really smell of the Thai culture!

Phad Thai - $7.00

Pad Kee Mao (Chicken), a Thai version of stir fried Kway Teow that comes with a good amount of spice that keep the lips tingling. The dish contained a variety of vegetables, carrot, onions, corn, mushrooms, lime leaves etc. Tasty but a bit oily for me.

Pad Kee Mao (Chicken) - $6.50

Considering it price and location. Thai affair is a fuss free dining and worth a try if you want to have simple meal like this in the mall. They are running 15% off ala carte items for UOB card holders, therefore do present them if you have one.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Thai Affair
Location: The Central, Eu Tong Sen Street #B1-48 Singapore 059817

Li Xiang Curry Fish Head

We specially made a trip down to Li Xiang Curry Fish Head during our lunch time to check out its popular curry delicacies. There was a number of permutations that Li Xiang offered. From curry fish head, fish meat, chicken, drum stick, vegetables , mutton to pork ribs. Boy! I thought this was quite a lot. These dishes can be paired with either rice or bread.

Li Xiang Curry Fish Head

Li Xiang was quite reputable and had been featured on the local TV program, "where the queue starts". I went ahead ordering chicken curry with bread and was told that pork ribs were sold out. Bread was toasted with the crispy crunch on the outside and fluffy in the inside.

Bread - $0.50

Curry was thick, quite special to me as it was non oily and attention drawing with its hot orange curry. Portion was rather generous with good visible chunks of chicken meat and a big potato. Surprisingly, it was very soft and a little press on them would have just smashed it.

Uncle was quite friendly during serving and although the queue was quite long, it was cleared within a short while.

Chicken Curry - $3.00

As you see I had dipped a bite size portion of bread entirely into the curry gravy, it didn't went out of shape and still maintain its chewines, not turning soggy.

Curry Bread 

Curry tastes varies depending on the type of dish order. Level of spiciness might be difficult for some to handle but I find it shiok! Unfortunately, for those who wish to patronize they will be shifting their stall to Bukit Merah view Hawker Centre coming November. Do visit them!

Rating: 3 / 5

Li Xiang Curry Fish Head
Location: Blk 20, Ghim Moh Road, #01-46, Singapore 270020

Thosai

Come to meal times, Alif Restaurant is always packed and finding a place to sit is an issue. Visited its prata stall on a sunday morning and the seats were almost taken. We didnt have a table to ourselves but to share with others.

Alif Restaurant

To ensure its quality, Alif has every prata or thosai made freshly on spot which easily catches one attention as we walked pass their shop seeing the master, tossing the prata in the air and hearing the banging noise of the prata's dough on their stainless steel worktops.

The plain thosai was crispy thin served on the classic metal plate with 3 kinds of dips. The refreshing tartness of the thosai had been enjoyed together with the rich and spicy flavourful dips.

Plain Thosai

The masala thosai is a more popular variation, acommpanied by smashed spiced potatoes and different kinds different types of sambar (vegetarian curry). Simply Divine!

Masala Thosai

Masala

Total Price with 2 cold Beverages: $6.60

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Alif Restaurant
Location: Blk 374 Bukit Batok St 31 #01-204, Singapore 650374

Let's Have Chicken Tonight

Given a number of choices for dinner as we drove along the stretch of shop houses in Upper Thomson Road and out of all, we had decided to go for a healthier version of chicken rice, Chicken House, which was lauded for its luscious delicacies.

Shop Front

Look into the restaurant and you will see there are still alot of empty seats as we are rather early for dinner on a weekend. Helpers are all dressed in white polo tee with "Chicken House" in red on their back.

Inside the House

We were directed to a table next to a wall since we are dining in 3 as most of the bigger round tables were in the center of the restaurant. Food serving was amazingly fast, as the lady was taking our order, the plain rice and soup were already served on our table together with the tissues and utensils.

Food serving was made easier through the counter of kitchen in the restaurant. Take a look over at the square opening under the green signage, this is the place where the chef would ring the bell to alert the helpers when food is ready for serving.

Kitchen Counter

Each table in the restaurant comes with a dish of seasoning. Customer will get to have their serving of spicy chicken rice chilli, sweet black sauce and blended ginger with the little saucers.

Condiments

 

However, there was a gentle reminder pasted at the eyes level stating not to let them go into waste and we should take the amount of seasonings we required.

Reminder - Do Not Waste

As the rice was served, I did not take any look as the lady was still taking order. I tried the soup and rice after she left our table. The soup is the essence from the chicken and was exceptionally tasty, we thought it was the magic of MSG but after drinking whole bowl of it, I was not thirsty.

Rice & Soup

The dish that steals the scene is this yellowish plate of half chicken. The shop promises that our meals are low in fat and cholesterol, given that kampong chicken was lean in nature, one can hardly find the layers of fat in them like what you find in a chicken rice stall.

The difference between the non kampong chicken is that they are injected with growth hormones which stimulates the growth for commercial purposes. On the contrary, kampong chicken are fed and reared without these stimulants and was healthier.

Being Kampong grown, they are generally thinner which means amount of meat may be lesser but they are firmer and of course better in serving!

Cost: $12.00 for half chicken

Kampong Chicken

 A simple dish, Ipoh Beansprouts that goes well with a plate of meat (kampong chicken), accompany the smooth and not greasy chicken with its crunchiness bites of the sprouts garnished with fried and spring onions and a little bit of sliced chilli.
Cost: $4.00

Beansprouts

 Vegetables like Xiao Bai Cai are also good to go with a plate of meat. They were drenched with light soya sauce and tastes crunchy as well.
Cost :$$4.00

Vegetables

The Chicken Ngoh Hiang was deep fried to a nice golden brown color and was cripsy on the outside and succulent on the inside accompanied by the sweet tasting sauce.
Cost: $4.00

Chicken Ngoh Hiang

Total of the meal together with 3 cups of cold barley sums up to $31.45 for 3 of us. Average spending is about $10.00 per head and I would say is money well spend for such quantity and quality of food!

Receipt

Note:
(1) To avoid additional costs, one can return those packets of hand towels provided.
(2) There are limited parking lots, parking in diagonal and parallel is required if you are in front of the shop houses. Be early to avoid disappointment. 

Rating: 4 / 5

Chicken House

Location: 255 Upper Thomson Road, Singapore 574382

Heng Heng Eating House

This was my first visit to Heng Heng Eating House and there were only 2 stalls operating at dinner time which is the Zi Char Stall and the stall that sell fried carrot cake. One thing that kept me pondering the night was the coffeeshop's furnishing. Considering the recent new outlook and upgrades of Singapore's Coffeeshop, I wonder why are they still still on the old design. Looking the the Eating House's Door Frame, Heng Heng still has the "remains" of old style kind coffeeshop. Not only that, they had the kiddies ride Machines which colors were already out of tone.

Heng Heng Eating House

Heng Heng looks pretty congested to me with supplies stacking up everywhere and its Zi Char Stall was only made known by the chinese wordings on the white board underneath the Eating House Signboard. In fact, it was hidden at one corner.


Food was surprisingly good and definitely worth the wait. The lady who had served us was rather polite. The plate of crispy noodle was scrumptious and its ingredients was rather standard with prawns, lean meat, egg, fishcakes and vegetables. The gravy had summed up the dish perfectly with its non-starchy natural and rather, it was tasty and soupy.

Sheng Mian - $4

Sin Chew Bee Hoon / Xin Zhou Mi Fen packs the dish with its "wok-hei" taste. Praises to the skillful cook! They were generous with ingredients like Char Siew, egg, vegetables, beanspouts & crab meat added. Bee Hoon was springy!

Sin Chew Bee Hoon - $4

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Heng Heng Eating House 兴兴煮炒

Location: Heng Heng Eating House, Blk 506 Bukit Batok St 52 #01-91, Singapore, 650506 

Morton's SteakHouse

Nestled in the heart of Marina Bay area, Mandarin Oriental housed a legendary steakhouse, Morton's. It is located at 4th storey of the hotel, just opposite one of the popular buffet lines, Melt-The World Cafe.

The exterior of Morton's was a classic looking American steakhouse with wood panels as its background and its reputable name shining brightly under the warm orange lightings. 

Morton's The Steakhouse

The ambience was cosy and quiet with the low lights revealing a coolness making a romantic place to perfect a date.

We made our entrance into Morton's and was warmly welcome by a group of servers who dressed in professional black coats.





In addition to their main restaurant, there were 2 private rooms which hold up to 10 pax per room and a dining room catering up to 20 pax.



Reservation was confirmed by a phone called on the actual day and this was the menu prepared on the table, specially printed to the birthday guy which states "Happy Birthday, ______!".

Our menu was further elaborated by the server in a well-rehearsed manner, introducing their popular dishes.

Customized Menu

Yes! If you have heard about Morton's onion loaf, this is the one. This soft, fluffy and fragrant loaf was bigger than my palm's size accompanied by 2 bars of softened butter. It was placed onto our table before the orders. Addictive and a definite must try! However, remember not to eat too much before the mains, unless you had already catered more stomach room for others. :)




Confetti was placed on each table.



And each table was decorated with a little lamp with pepper and salt by the side.




Infused by the aroma of 5 kinds of onions crusted with Swiss cheese, this dish was indeed heavenly for a start. Our portion of Onion Soup was split into 2 based on server's suggestion which I felt very thoughtful.

Baked Five Onion Soup - $28.50

Opted sautéed Brussels sprouts as Side dish for sharing. Portion was more than enough for 2 pax. Though it was a simple dish on the menu, the dish was delectable, added with bacon and shallots.

Sauteed Brussels Sprouts - $22

The plates of the main dish was warmed up before serving. Enjoy the grain-fed beef with done-ness near perfection. Expensive but well worth it. Every slice of the prime ribeye seduces with its succulent and tender meat bringing out a steak's full flavour with its charred outlook. In fact, no sauces was required. It will definitely pamper any hardcore carnivore with such juicy flesh!

Center-cut Prime Ribeye 16oz - $99.50

After so much of its beefy business, let's talk about its Ocean Catch! Its Chilean Sea Bass (Fillet A la Nage) was palate pleasing accompanied by Jumbo Lump Crabmeat, Lemon Butter and crunchy Asparagus. I was rather surprised that the lemon given was grilled and felt warm as i squeeze its juice over the plate of tantalizing meal.

Chilean Sea Bass - $77

These sweet treats was introduced by the amicable waitress after our mains, unfortunately, there was hardly any room left for them. Well, we will be back!

Desserts

Souffle (Grand Marnier), a complimentary dessert from Morton's for the birthday guy with a candle. Eggy with a delicate thin layer over its pillow soft fillings made up of unique blend of Grand Marnier liqueur citrus sabayon (egg yolk and sugar custard). Most importantly the dessert was not cloying. Its amazing how simple thing can be so glorious.

Souffle - Birthday Complimentary

Dining in Morton was really a good experience with its elegant interiors and service was impeccable with special needs well attended. Furthermore they were quite detailed with little actions well taken care of and make us felt close to heart.

We were presented with a hand decorated birthday card with our photo instantly printed which was a pleasant surprise to the birthday guy, making the event a memorable one in Morton's !

Overall, everything was good. My only gripe was that Photography was a challenge as the place was dimly lit. Nevertheless, this had create a very good atmosphere especially for special occassions. I would highly recommend this place if one is seeking for a good steak dinner, service and ambience.

Remember to do your reservations!

Rating: 4.5 / 5 

Morton's SteakHouse
Location: Mandarin Oriental Singapore, 5 Raffles Ave Level 4, Singapore 039797