Owl Cafe [Closed]

I still can remember how the aroma from the brewing Owl Coffee stirred me awake every morning when my parents never failed to have a cup of them for breakfast. I always relate "Owl" to their coffee until I discovered their cafe in Bouna Vista.

Owl Cafe

Dining Interior

Owl Cafe is the first straits Asian Cafe in Singapore. With various blends of authentic Straits Asian-inspired coffee and after 50 years of roasting and blending coffee in its name, having a a cup of coffee in their Cafe will just never go wrong.

Owl Cafe Menu

Besides just coffee, they are proud to serve their Straits Asian Food from snacks to main courses as well as desserts.

In Pursuit of the Perfect Cup of Coffee

 Fish Noodle (Yu Mian) was rather special to me as its not common in Singapore. Thickness of the noodles are larger than the thick bee hoon and very soft as I bite on it. These fish noodles were served in rich fish broth with seafood like prawns, fish, fishballs and crabstick. The broth is creamy in color and rather tasty.

 Seafood Fish Noodle - $7.80

Bawan Kepeiting Broth is one of the recommendations on the menu. The meat balls are a good mix of chicken and crab meat served in clear tasty chicken soup. You can pair this broth with steamed rice, glass noodle or macaroni at additional $1.

Bawan Kepeiting Broth - $5.80

Close Up on Bawan Kepeiting

Slices of duck with sauce was cradled by the crispy spring onion prata. Stuffing like cool juvenile cucumbers added had given additional refreshing and crunchy bites to the roll!

Crispy Duck Spring Onion Prata - $5.80

 Otah on the toast was not bad. The dish featured a traditional toast with tasty Otah spread with slightly burnt taste.

Otah Otah - $2.80

 Moving on to the desserts, we have traditional chendol made from shaved ice, coconut starch noodles and gula melaka. Instead of having chendol the usual style, syrup over shaved ice, they have it served the reverse way which makes having chendol dessert enjoyable.

Chendol - $3.80

Washing down our food with the Malaysian style Gula Melaka Teh had also make the dining experience different. Instead of having conventional sugar over our beverages, palm sugar syrup was used.

Gula Melaka Teh - $3.20

Gula Melaka Kopi - $3.20

Having been to a number of cafes in the same line as what Owl Cafe are selling, e.g. Old Town,  papparich, I find that Owl Cafe standards are better and the uniqueness of food served make them stands out on their own. Ambiance was relaxing and unpretentious, a perfect choice to keep yourselves away from the bustling weekends crowd. What's more if you want to be closer abit to the nature, they have wooden theme alfresco dining.  My trip was Owl Cafe was satisfying indeed.

Alfresco Dining

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Owl Cafe
Location: The Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green #02-10/11 Singapore 138617

Kyo Roll En

Special thanks to my Thai pal,Nan, for making the meet up successful by pulling some of the time out of her busy schedules.

After our heavy lunch, we went ahead with what most of us like to have - desserts. I was introduced to Kyo Roll En, a unique Kyoto Lifestyle Cafe over to After You Cafe. Just like the latter, Kyo Roll En was packed with people  and was fullhouse.

Kyo En Roll

Kyo Roll En presents the lifestyle in Kyoto and their Japanese contemporary dessert. Interior was theme Zen with artificial bamboo forests giving patrons a relaxing and cool environment. They serves over 60 varieties of artistically-plated dessert.

Momo Tennensui - 95 Baht

Gion Roll was spongy on the outside filled with matcha green tea flavour with luscious fresh cream fillings of mix berries in a light faint pink color. I'm not really a swiss roll lover but I would say this is good!

Gion - 89 Baht

I couldnt take my eyes away from the Valrhona Roll set as it was artistically crafted and served in a stone heavy platter. Presentation was way above my expectations, elegant and beautifully done.
It consist of 'Valrhona' Chocolate Roll, 'Nama' Chocolate with fresh fruit platter , 'Kuromitzu' (black honey) sauce and charcoal vanilla soft ice cream. The soft ice cream was Thailand's first and only black ice cream made from rare 'sumi' bamboo charcoal.

Valrhona Roll Set - 169 Baht

Presentation of Yubari Melon totally sweep my feet away. It was love at first sight. The cup of dessert was completed with musk melon jelly, fresh milk ice cream, fresh musk melon granita and of course the world's finest melon, Yubari. On top of that colors presentation scored, it was soothing to the eyes.

Yubari Melon - 159 Baht

Perfect when translated from french. The multi-tiered Parfait is a modernized Japanese Sundae, served in tall glass with each layer artisanally designed and crafted to offer the ultimate combination of taste. It does really lives up to its name with such a perfect texture!

Matcha Deluxe Parfait - 229 Baht

Desserts were delightful and presentation of them were definitely scene stealer. After enjoying such heavenly sessions in Kyo En Roll, I hopethey can set up some branch here in Singapore, if not I will definitely return for their desserts if i get back to Bangkok!


Rating: 4 / 5

Kyo Roll En
Location: Central Plaza Ladprao, 3 rd Floor, Phahon Yothin Road, Chatuchak, Bangkok

Thai Gold Food

I chanced upon Thai Gold Food quite a few years back when I was around Sunshine Plaza and had totally forgotten about it. And just sometimes back, I happened to see some of their food posted online by fellow netizens and since I was craving for some Thai Cuisine, I thought it will be good to have my gathering in Thai Gold Food.

Thai Gold Food

Thai Gold Food environment is a rather down to earth and simple eatery without having too much decorations. Instead, the Chinese Thai Food Eatery as hanging paper pineapples and some old looking chinese new year decorations hanging from their chip board fore-ceilings, thus don't expect dining in those fanciful modern Thai Restaurants.

Interior

The menu of Thai Gold Food was long and comes in hard cover form. As you flipped the cover page, you will find that the illustrations of the dishes on the picture was not really clear as the graphics were distorted.

Menu

The taste of lemon grass was too faint till it brought some confusion if that was actually lime drink or lemon grass. However when confirmed with them, it was lemon grass drink. *shrug*

Lemon Grass Drink - $1.50

Thai Ice Lemon tea was a tad bitter and sour. I guess this is how the Thai style lemon tea drink is all about.

Thai Lemon Tea - $1.50

Pineapple fried rice with chicken comes with floss on the top and was pineapple cubes were found amongst the luminous bright yellow rice. The coloring on the rice was quite overpowering and totally not my style. Disappointing.

Khai Pad Sap Pa Ros - $6

The presentation of phad thai was gluey and looked too moist in the serving. I find the dish rather salty and a trick to reduce the saltiness is to squeeze on the lime all over on the dish and mix them well.

Phad Thai - $5

 The Thai Fish Cakes come in a serving of 4, orangy in color and best to pair with their sweet and sour thai chilli. Fish cakes were springy, however there is a strong fish smell which some of us could not really take it.

Tod Mun Pla - $10

We have the clear version to the red version as one of us did not like coconut milk. The seafood version of Tom Yum Soup has prawns, fish slices, fishballs, sotongs and mushrooms in it. It's quite decent and rated one of the best dishes out of all.

Tom Yum Goon - $10

Spice level still fall within acceptable range and not too bad.

Individual Tom Yum Soup

The pandan chicken were well wrapped and seated in the leaves, reminding me of little version of dumplings. Chicken marination was good but not to die for.

Gai Toey -

"undressed" version of pandan chicken

Overall standard is mediocre, it was a disappointing dinner. Perhaps I shall look around for some my Thai Cuisine Fix.

Rating: 2.5 / 5


Thai Gold Food
Location: Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen St #01-14/22 Singapore 189652

Roasted Delight

Roasted Delight is located at the fifth level of JEM, Cook House. Their stall is facing in front of the elevator which is a good location.

Looking at the number of roasted meat left hanging through the panels of the cabinets and having no customer in queue, we pondered a while before making our order.

Roasted Delight

Having ordered our meals, we compared between our plates and was stunned over the difference in the volume of noodles given. One of them was like having 1.5 times more. Instead of having the soups in 2 bowls, we asked for everything to be put together - the wantons and shrimp dumplings.

Noodles texture was quite alright, nothing to complain about. The amount of Char Siew given was adequate and covered in their sweet sauce but was not proportionate to the noodles volume.Lots of vegetables was given in this plate too.

Wanton Mee - $4

Chicken was tender and coated with the same sweet sauce used for the Char Siew. The volume of noodles on this plate looks better.

Chicken Noodle - $3.50

The soup was rather salty and did not have much flavour in it.

Soup - $3

Wanton

Shrimp Dumpling

Overall, the standard was quite decent only.

Rating: 3 / 5

Roasted Delight - Cook House
Location: Jem, 50 Gateway Road #05-04 Singapore 608549

Sanpoutei

Having been to Sanpoutei latest outlet in Orchard, its time to try out their ramen from the 1st outlet. Sanpoutei in Holland Village is strategically located within 1 minute or less walking distance from the exit of Holland Village MRT Station via Circle Line Exit B.

Sanpoutei Holland Village

Traditions and style are more or less identical to what I had seen in their other outlet, charming with wooden theme furnishing featuring a modern Japanese cosy environment.

Environment

Some of the dining area was partitioned to mid level with grills. I'm quite comfortable with such settings as it enclosed us to an area especially we are on a small group gathering for dinner and we can exchange our chats easily.

The dining crowd has a good balance of Japanese and locals.

Dining Space

With partitioning around, servers have to be extra attentive and have to be on standby by the walk ways in case any customers have some requests.

Looking through the partitioning

The Qoo soft drink perhaps need no further explanation as this drink is rather common in singapore.
Not only that Fuji apple is one of the most famous apple in Japan and this drink is close to drinking a cup of apple juice.

Qoo Fuji Apple - $3

Fujiya Nectar Peach is made from juicy and refreshing peach pureed. The peach flavoured drink was a very good experience to try out it's sweetness from the nectar and richness of the fruit.

Fujiya Nectar Peach - $5

Calpico is a Japanese non carbonated softdrink made of high quality milk. When asked how does it taste like, the server relate me to the popular cultured milk drink, Yakult. Indeed it tasted like one with refreshing sweet tangy tasted with hints of yogurt and citrus flavours.

Calpico - $5

If you have some stomach spaces to start with, do try out their Agedashi Tofu, they are really good!

Agedashi Tofu - $6.80

Having tried their Tsukumen the last round in Orchard which left so much impression even till now, it didn't stop us from ordering the same dish again!

Tsukumen - $14.50

Tsukumen is one of the best choices with 1.5x noodle volume. Being springy, smooth and silky texture is one of the top reasons of be coming back to them. Awww its still addictive!

Tsukumen

The soup is thick and richly filled with sardines. Yummy!

Rich dried sardine Soup

Another value for money meal will be their Maze Soba Aburi Chashu with chicken soup with noodle volume 1.5 times too. Those flat noodles are homemade in the shop using their noodle making machine.

Maze Soba Aburi Chashu with Chicken Soup - $13.50

The fragrant and tender aburi chashu was chopped into pieces after prepared in the stew for about 3 hours and roasted right before serving. 3 pieces of seaweeds were given and paired with their special sauce made of dried sardine oil, spicy and shoyu condiment.

Chicken soup was perfect on the go with the dried flat noodles. They were very fragrant and tasty with hints of chicken and mushrooms. It just wont go wrong ordering this.

Close up of Maze Soba Aburi Shashu

Deliciously rich TORI x MISO Ramen has it broth simmered under the fire about 8 hours with SANPOUTEI original blend MISO. It was served in a metal liked bowl with stir fried vegetables and minced chicken, flavoured soft-boiled egg and Aburi Chashu. Totally yummy!

Rich TORI x MISO Ramen - $16

For those who enjoy spicy can opt to have their Spicy Version of Rich TORI x SPICY-MISO Ramen. Likewise, the broth is rich and perfect with TORI soup stock mixed with SANPOUTEI Original Spicy-MISO blend MISO. We upgraded the dish with extra Aburi Chashu and was really contented  to have 5 pieces of tender charred meat. The feeling when you got the Aburi Chashu into your mouth and tinge of smokiness from them was just heavenly.

Rich TORI x SPICY-MISO Ramen with Extra Aburi Chashu - $19

Having a tried dining at both Sanpoutei Outlets, I conclude that service are above expectations with servers being responsive and attentive. Food wise, it's really addictive and I can imagine heading down for their ramens and sides again.

With so many Ramen joints coming up recently, I hope SANPOUTEI standards can remain or even excel under stiff competition and stands up among the rest.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Sanpoutei
Location: 253 Holland Ave #01-01 Singapore 6278982

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