Carne & Caipirinha [Invited Tasting]

Carne & Caipirinha is an ideal place for meat lovers and someone who enjoy authentic Brazilian cuisine. Better known as a Brazillian churrascaria, a restaurant serving grilled meat to as much as one can take.

Carne & Caipirinha

Therefore, if you think the title of "Meat Lovers" suits you, do indulge in this All-you-can-Eat Brazilian Churrascaria located at Sunset Way in Clementi.

Carne & Caipirinha

Dining concept is pretty simple with tables and chairs placed in front of their restaurant on the raised wooden flooring like the rest of the eating places beside.  The 74 seater restaurant offers an alfresco dining experience and ideal for people who love such dining style.

Dining Environment

They are the one and only Brazilian churrascaria in Singapore that adopt Charcoal in their roasting method. The slow-roasting process allow meat in getting rich and smoky flavours. A key highlight of importing meat from Brazil is not only about their quality but that their flavour of beef tastes differently from American and Austrialia's thus look forward to this different gastronomic experience. 

Roasting Process

Other than serving roasted meat, the restaurant also offers a buffet counter consisting of salad, pastas, rice and even traditional Brazilian Feijoada (black bean stew).  Let's have a look at some of the dishes on the buffet counter.

Buffet Counter

Up keeping its authenticity, this black bean stew is actually a National dish in Brazil and can either be served with pork or beef. In fact most part of the pork can be found in the stew and they were boiled till soften yet retaining its original flavours. If you don't mind eating innards or parts of pork, give it a try!

Brazilian Feijoada (Black Bean Stew)

Its good to indulge yourselves with some vegetables as sides before the real meaty challenge kick start. Egg plants were baked and was rather spongy with spices and condiments at its top.

Baked Eggplat

Even during mid way if you find that you need a break from those slow roasted meat, head back here to have some greens. In my opinion, I find that these sauteed mushrooms with onions and celery were good.

Sauteed Mushroom with Onions

Another side dish you may be interested is their butter corn on the cob. They are slightly charred on the outside yet retaining its juiciness.

Buttered Corn on the Cob

However if you want to make money worth while, it will be good to plan the use of your stomach space efficiently. Focus more on the skewers meat than the counter buffet items.

Cold Pasta Salad

These baby potatoes come good as side dishes to complete your meaty meal. Do be mindful as it contains starch and will fill your stomach easily, have a few but do not overeat ya!

Roasted Baby Potatoes

Describing these items as the Palms' Hearts but in layman terms this is the bamboo shoot that we have on most Ramen dishes.

Palm's Hearts

Ta-Da! Here's a bite of everything from the buffet counter.

My Selections from the Buffet Counter

Using the original and authentic recipe from Brazil,  Caipirinha is in fact one of Brazil's finest invention and signature tipple. Its refreshing and tangy flavours together with a bite of citrus infused with a shot of the finest liquor made this beverage outstanding.

Caipirinha - $12

Teetotalers, grab yourself a can of Guarana Antarctica, the first ever soft drink produced in Brazil. This soft drink is produced in only 3 countries and is now available here. It uses some kind of berries and is definitely refreshing but not too sweet.

Guarana Antarctica - $6

A popular snack and breakfast food in Brazil, Pao de Queijo (Cheese Bread). They were cute and small in size, baked and served warmly.

Cheese Bread (Pão de Queijo)

Just take a good look at the cheese Bread. Beware, they are really addictive.

Cheese Bread

They are actually quite malleable and fragrant in which reminds me of Japanese Mochi. However if you are preparing to eat more meat later, you must control yourself on this as they are actually make up of starch and cheese are really very filling.

Its Filling

The servers cum chefs also known as passadors, were smartly dressed in the traditional gaucho outfits. They are professional in service and never fail to smile at the diners even though they were sweating all over with a hot skewer on hand.

Happy Passadors

They will go around the restaurant from tables to tables bringing their skewers and carve the portion of meat right on diners' plates.  This concept of serving known as rodizio is very popular in Brazil.

Skewers are hot.

We started our meat eating rounds with the smallest items first and they were sausages and bacon wrapped chicken. They came together with a steel plate as its base.

Start of churrascaria

Indicate your interest to the passadors and they will serve you right away at your plate.

Serving Sausage and Bacon Wrap Chicken 

This disc will be very useful as it helps you to give an indication to the passadors if you will like to have more meat. The disc has two sides, the red and green, the concept works like traffic light with green instructing them that you will like to have more meat while red representing to stop serving the food.

Disc

Add a bit of salsa or even crashed croutons / bread crumbs to your meat for additional taste.

Condiments

While the sausages were the preliminary start, these chicken thighs looked enticing. The smoky flavours and the glorious looking lined up thighs were simply irrestiable.

Chicken Thighs on the Skewer

Let's try it!

Chicken Thigh

While the pork belly scored at its crackling top layer with glistening and chewy fat on the skewer.

Pork Belly on Skewer

A simple and close up of the pork belly let us distinctively discover its prominent layers of fats and meat.

Pork Belly

The lamb had a gamey taste which may not be suitable to everyone.

Lamb Leg

One of the premium meat that is hard to find in Singapore. These meat are actually from cow with hump and only found in the humped Brazilian cattle known as zebu. They also contain more marbling than other meat.

Beef Hump (Cupim)

Beef Rump is nothing as compared to the Hump. Meat is tougher here but still the good slow roast brought out the flavours.

Beef Rump

The chunky pieces of Escolar Fish that looked like bread on the hot skewer were cooked beautifully and had a strong buttery fragrance.

Fish Escolar

Though it was chunky and had a good taste, we were told not eat more than 4 pieces as it is high in fat content and rather oily as our digestion system may not be able to take them.

Fish

Another must try by the restaurant would be the chicken heart, it was said that those who do not love chicken offal will end up enjoying this delicacy. They are firm and tender, however still, they are not my kind of food.

Chicken Heart

These grilled pineapple was rubbed with cinnamon power and was sweet. This is the only slow roast item that gave us a break from those overwhelming selection of meat served to our table. Its serves as a very good fruit to have after all the heavy meat we had.

Grilled Pineapples

"The FireBomb" is a seasonal promotion that you might not want to give a miss.

Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese Wheel

Following the food trend, Carne & Caipirinha offers Flaming Carbonara Pasta in cheese wheel too. The freshly cooked carbonara pasta was placed in the large Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese wheel and was tossed. There then the staff would prepare the flaiming cocktail consisting of 3 secret blends of alcohol and pour into the wheel. The pouring process allow the flames in melting the cheese as well as charring the pasta which in turn give out a different kind of aroma. Once the flame dies out, additional cheese will be added from the wheel into the dish before dishing out to the diners.

Preparation of The FireBomb

The FireBomb gave me a different prospection of having carbonara and having carbonara is not just dull with mushroom, bacon and cheese only. Instead, the alcohol had lifted the dish making it more savoury. For those who are interested, FireBomb is available at $10 per serving. However if you prefer just only carbonara, serving is unlimited.

FireBomb

Though Pork Ribs looked delectable and fall-off-the-bone kind, I was way too bloated with amount of food and drinks I had in my stomach.

Pork Ribs 

Thanks OpenRice for the invitation.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Carne & Caipirinha
Location: Sunset Way, Blk 106 Clementi St 12 #01-50 Singapore 120106
Website

Fei Fei Roasted.Noodle 肥肥烧腊云吞麵

What's there to eat at Jurong East's Yuhua Village Market & Food Centre? Besides its fish soup and porridge stall, Fei Fei Roasted Stall is something I'm looking forward to everytime when I was there. Via words of mouth, people commented that their Wanton noodle is a must try but I have no luck as most of the time they were already close or sold out.

Joining the queue with more than 20 pax in front, it took us about half an hour before ordering. We did a take away and the noodles remained springy. Wanton noodle may have the "Gu Zhao" taste (Taste of the old days) but did not manage to leave a big impression.

Char Siew perhaps is something worth noticing if you prefer a mixture of fats and meat instead of those lean type. If you notice, Fei Fei's Roasted Meat has a good ratio of fats among the meat and the taste reminds me of Char Siew bought directly from the market. Another noteworthy item will be the Wantons which were beautifully wrap in its "tight-fit" skin revealing its shape of minced meat filling.

Wanton Noodle - $3

If you prefer a filling meal, reach out to their plate of rice with roasted meat. In this case, we had Roasted Duck and Char Siew. Roasted Duck was glossy looking and meat was juicy. For those who loves Roasted delicacies, Fei Fei might be one of the better choices among the rest in Jurong East.

Roasted Duck & Char Siew Rice - $4

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Fei Fei Roasted.Noodle
Location: Yuhua Village Market & Food Centre, Blk 254 Jurong East St 24 #01-28 Singapore 600254

San Hou Lei 新好利美食餅店

Finally, we had arrived in Macau after an hour of ride from Hong Kong Ferry Terminal via TurboJet Ferry. Passing by San Hou Lei 新好利美食饼店 and seeing the amount of lunch crowd, we joined in and manage to get few tables for ourselves.

San Hou Lei 新好利美食餅店

Interior was abit run down and reminds me of the coffeeshop we had in the 80s and early 90s. Eating area was rather spacious and occupying 2 shop spaces.

Environment

We don't have much opportunity to drink soft drinks from these reusable glass bottles and this experience is part of the joy of travelling to country like this. As the standards of living improved in Singapore and people are quite particular about hygiene we don't get to see such old bottles in F & B anymore.

Coca Cola

I have not seen Schweppes in glass bottle before and this was interesting.

Schweppes

This chinese style wok fried rice dish is popular in many chinese restaurants throughout the world and ingredients vary from place to place. It consist of mixed vegetables, lettuce, egg and chicken cooked under wok fire to obtain such aroma.

Fried Rice 杨州炒饭 - 32 HKD

Since they were well known for their egg tarts, we bought a few types egg tarts to share among ourselves. They were freshly baked and hot from the oven. We ordered portugese style, bird nest and normal egg tarts.

Tarts Ordered

At least something special over here! Ever tried of bird nest tarts? We ordered some out of curiosity but none taste any close to drinking the real bird nest.

Bird Nest Tart

Portuguese style egg tarts were good. the layers of flaky buttery crust and the fillings with some part burnt were all the characteristics of how one Portuguese egg tart should look like.How to skip getting fat over these Macanese treats?

Portuguese Egg Tarts

The plate looked rather familiar back in Singapore I thought and I recalled it was used by one of the Thai Restaurant. Black Pepper Beef rice was nothing unusual and in fact look typical in Asian Cuisine with ingredients like yellow onions, chilli, spring onions and beef slices cooked altogether with black pepper sauce.

Black Pepper Beef Rice 黑胡椒牛肉饭 - 34 HKD 

Here's at least some decent noodles with something we had all along through out the trip, Pork Chop. Just meat in noodle soup, simple and fuss free dish.

Pork Chop Noodles 猪扒面 - 26 HKD

Having too much pork chop lately, one of us was game was their beef noodles and went ahead ordering a combination with Wantons. Besides having pork chop in their noodle, another common Asian chinese dish is Beef Sirloin Noodles.

Wanton and Beef Sirloin Noodles 云吞牛腩面 - 37

Pork Chop Bun was ordinary an do not have any wow factor. The slab of Pork Chop was rather oily and has a good portion of fats.

Pork Chop Bun 猪扒包 - HKD 25

Such combination of food items may seem so common among the Hong Kee and Macanese, however as a Singaporean myself I would say my Wanton Noodle has kind of downgraded to instant noodle topped with a few Wantons and presentation looked kind of miserable. Nevertheless, the MSG soup and simplicity is already good enough to fill my stomach.

Wanton Noodles 云吞公仔面 - 32 HKD

San Hou Lei 新好利美食餅店
Location: 氹仔舊城區地堡街13-14號

Hôtel Mimosa - Paris

In order to minimized the cost of our Europe travel, we have tried to save more on our accommodation as we shared the same sentiments that we were mostly out throughout the day and only back for a sleep in the night thus spending too much on luxurious hotel is out of the picture. Having been to Paris twice, the hotels which I used to stay were cramped and came with old school furnishing. Shops, restaurants and bars are found around the hotel and which Galeries Lafayette is just 1.8km away.

Streets near Hotel

Hotel Mimosa is in the heart of Paris, a good walkable 600 metres from Place de La Republique and 200 metres from Grands Boulevards. The hotel offers a modern furnished guest rooms and most importantly a free Wi-Fi internet access. They also have flat screen TV, electric kettle and wardrobe.

Bedroom

Private bathroom comes with a shower, hairdryer and toiletries were provided. We were very happy as it was very spacious.

Room with toilet

Theme color is black and modernly equipped with shower-heads and anti slip flooring.

Toilet Interior

Breakfast is optional and can be purchased upon check-in. The breakfast area is an open space, modernly designed with faux rocks walls, just beside the check in counter.

Breakfast Area

Our stay was pleasant with friendly services. Like most of the hotel in Europe, there isn't an elevator provided for small scale hotel thus carrying up big luggage along the steep stairways maybe a challenge for some.

Entrance to Stairways

Overall, though it might be little outside of the tourist area, it is still walkable distance within the Metro and Hard Rock Cafe Paris. Throughout the nights stay, area was quite safe and was not rowdy.

Hôtel Mimosa
Location: 16, rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, 75010 Paris, France

Cafe Wilder

If you are visiting Christina, you may want to have your lunch somewhere nearby in the estate at Cafe Wilder. In the rain while we were finding other places for our late lunch, we ended up in Cafe Wilder after several fail attempts in locating the place that we wanted to go.

Cafe Wilder

Immediately we feel warm as we entered the place and temperature was a vast different from the outside. We took off our coat and hanged it on the stand as suggested by the servers. Interior was simple and wasn't too lavish in its furnishings as flooring was plain in its cement screed.

Interior

Lunch Menu

Beating the cold rainy weather, I finally get down with a cup of hot Chocolate to keep myself warm. I was quite thirsty during then and had finished it even before the food was served.

Hot Chocolate

I remember it tasted like Ribena with slice of lime but in its warm temperature. It wasn't a bad idea to have beverage like this in the cold.

Beverage

While in Denmark, you have to try Smørrebrød or they call it Open Sandwiches. In any case it puzzles you, its actually consist of a buttered rye bread, dense and dark brown in color with toppings like cheese, cold cut pieces of meat or fish.

Comparing to Singapore currency, Danish Krone is about 5:1. Even though it might be something small in size that we are eating, living expenses in Denmark is incomparable to Singapore.

Since its my first Open Sandwich, I'm pretty impress by its medium roasted tenderness beri beri duck chest served with cheese, sprouts and shredded red cabbages.

Duck Breast - Kr 89

 Perhaps you might say I have not get enough of herring from Amsterdam but right now in Denmark, Cafe Wilder had it served fried. These home made fried herring from Sagen topped with capers, dill and red onions. It got really different taste when Herring was served in Raw as compared to fried and even such simple bites were make so scrumptious. I like the part where thin slices of apple gave a crunchy touch to it.

Fried Herring - Kr 79

 Beside Open Sandwiches, Wilderburger had caught us. 200g of beef from Himmerland was sandwiched in between the organic brioche bun with tomato, bacon, cheese, salad, red onion and pickles.

Burger

This course was served with fries as side with dipping sauce like chilli mayonnise and ketchup.

Wilder Burger - Kr 149

To be frank, I'm not really a fan of Smørrebrød (Open Sandwiches) but it was a really good experience to have in Copenhagen. Overall, service was good with friendly staff around making us felt comfortable. 


Cafe Wilder
Location: Cafe WilderWildersgade 56 1408 København K Denmark Christianshavn