KEK (Keng Eng Kee) Pandan Gardens [Closed]

The name KEK could have been quite familiar for some to those who knows a fair bit about Cze Char in Singapore. Just recently, the siblings of KEK Seafood had been interviewed and aired on one of the local Television programs.

Having been to their Flagship Cze Char place in Bukit Merah, I can't deny they are classified as one of the popular and recommendable Cze Char in Singapore suitable for families. However, the unit in Pandan is of a smaller scale and serves modern Cze Char to its patrons even though their menu items are of slight differences.

KEK Seafood

The sitting capacity of KEK in Pandan are limited with not much major changes from the last tenant, Sedap! Chairs and tables are simple and portable with not much designs or decorations in house.

Entrance of KEK

Just a start, we had already had our eyes all fixed on the Salted Egg Squid! Each ring was evenly coated with thin layer of sinful Salted Egg Sauce exuding the savoury flavour with cut bird eye chilli and curry leaves spicing up the dish. Simply irresistible and worth all calories!

Salted Egg Squid 咸蛋苏东 - $12 /24

Loving home style cooking? Try these bite size pieces of Marmite chicken and reminisce the flavours of home cook food. Chicken was deliciously marinated and deep fried with evenly coated Marmite paste!

Marmite Chicken  妈味鸡 - $10 / 20 

Signature Moon Light Hor Fun came in two sizes and we order the bigger portion to share among ourselves. Noodles were wok fried to its aroma and coated with sweet dark sauce topping up with 2 raw eggs, resembling Moon Light. Other ingredients includes, sotong, vegetables, beansprouts, fish slices and chinese sausages. Mix them up with the raw eggs to obtain a silky smooth serving of  Horfun.

Moonlight Horfun 月光河粉 - $6 /12

Since KEK proclaims its Mod "C" (Modern Cze Char), its time we should give their Wok-fried Spaghetti a try! Spaghetti was tossed in the creamy and grainy salted egg yolk sauce given the silky pasta a textural touch. Adding on the pasta with delectable deep fried soft shell crab, the pot looked dangerously addictive!

Salted Egg Yolk Crab Spaghetti 咸蛋软壳意大利面 - $15

We were all cracking our heads on what could be the dragon beard that the menu was referring to when we were reading it. Well, it was actually none other than fried cod fish strips that we often had as tidbits during childhood. The greens were great with minced garlic and gravy of subtle sweetness. Kai Lan was succulent and crunchy.

Kai Lan with Dragon Beard 龙丝芥兰 - $8 / 16

Though sinful, KEK in Pandan Garden has definitely satisfies the criteria of market requirements with salted egg yolk style of food in the trend. It's glad to know how traditional Cze Char is willing to open up new ideas and incorporate fusion dishes into their menu.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

KEK
Location: 200 Pandan Gardens #01-12 Singapore 609336

Ladurée Champs Elysées

Ladurée, the popular name that you may hear somewhere for their macarons. Though we have this located in Singapore's Takashimaya, I never get the chance to go there thus I took this opportunity to visit the shop in Paris. Laduree is a chain stores in Paris and I had visited one of their store in Paris's famous shopping Street, Champs Elysées.

Ladurée Champs Elysées

I was kind of surprise that it is actually housed in a big building and there was a very long queue. Fortunately the long queue for those who wants to dine in and for those who are taking away may join the queue inside next to the counter. Likewise, before entering, we have to pass through a stringent security check by the officers.

Add caption

Items were all spread out on the Marble table top and with patrons lining up in the snaky queues waiting to be served. While waiting, I was sweating due to the amount of heat generated in Laduree as I have my winter clothes on. Nevertheless, I was more excited over the items and it did not really bother me much.

Lining up for an order

Food items like the pastries looked elegantly designed and stunning while the croissants, muffins were just simply tempting.

Do you want some bakery stuff?

The way how pastries were packaged looked classy however, this also means that the price paid for the pastries had perhaps factored in the price of the packaging. Maybe this is what up-scale pastries is all about?

Packaging

Eclair was yummy! The choux dough was about 20cm in length and with a semi-bitter chocolate that coats the top part. That's was kind of surprising as I expected it to be more on a sweet side.

Eclair Chocolat - 5,00 €

Having the Carre Chocolat was indeed a therapeutic one. The luscious amount of chocolate with alternate layers of chocolate cake as well as crispy and crunchy bites of chocolate was simply irresistible. Felt very happy having it.

Carre Chocolat - 6,10 €

There were alot of flavours of Macarons to select from and we had picked 12 different kinds. Shells of the Macarons are soft, sandwiching the delicious flavoured ganache filling. I was expecting Macarons was more for the sweet tooth but surprisingly it was not that diabetic sweet as I would have thought.

Mini Macarons - 2,00 € x 12

Although I'm not someone with sweet tooth, having visited and tasted Ladurée was a total new experience to me. I was quite lucky watching tourists rushing out to the nearest bench right in front of the store sharing the joy of Macarons purhcase with their group of friends and each biting off one part of it, screaming for joy that they have actually tasted it!  

Ladurée Champs Elysées

Location: 75 Av. des Champs-Élysées, 75008 Paris, France

Nearest Metro: Line 1 - Georges V

Website

Du Du Cooked Food

Du Du Cooked Food has been in operations more than 20 years and this stall is special in the sense that in the day time you will get to see them selling Wanton Mee while during the night you will see a man manning the stall selling just only Du Du Kueh. This practice has been there throughout the years and both business has been seen reasonably good.

Du Du Cooked Food

Wanton Mee from this stall is my childhood favouite and always seen with a long queue. Having increasing competitors operating in the same Hawker Centre over these years, even though they may not be the outstanding ones, the style of Wanton Mee can be distinctively differentiated from the rest.

Wanton Mee - $3

I love the fact that the noodles were all consistently drench in the midst of the dark sauce. The style of Char Siew rekindle the memories I had during school days where canteen stalls were instructed to reduce oil and fat, thus you can almost see none of the fats in the char Siew pieces. Instead of having roasted Char Siew, the slices were steamed ans sliced to thin pieces with chewy texture.

Look at the Char Siew Meat

Wanton may be ordinary but the soup gave hints of soy beans.

Wanton in Soup

Overall, it makes a very simple breakfast and don't forget to patronize their Du Du Kueh in the evening.

Rating: 3 / 5

Du Du Cooked Food
Location: Jurong West 505 Market & Food Centre, Blk 505 Jurong West Street 52 #01-19 Singapore 640505

Menya Musashi

With more and more Japanese Cuisine appearing in the Food Industries of Singapore, having a delicious bowl of Ramen in Singapore will not cost you much hassle to travel as most of the malls are likely to sell them. Take for example in Jurong and in line with the upcoming CBD plannings, food is no longer a concern. In fact, there have been alot more varieties and consumers are just simply spoilt for choices.

Menya Musashi

Frankly, ever since Westgate had opened, this was my first visit to Menya Musashi there beside having tried once in Bouna Vista and didnt have much impression about it.

Interior

The ramen were mainly group into 3 category, white, black and red where white consists of the original pork soup base, black with garlic oil and red featuring its spiciness.

The IT Savvy users can straight away place their order via the IPad chained to the table and shortly after a while, a stuff will come placing an ordering slip on your table.

Make Your Own Order

Menya Musashi took additional steps towards servicing of customers by offering paper bibs on request, so do approach their staff for further assistance.

Do you Need?

The hungry or ramen craving patrons may want to try out Tsukemen where free upsize is available up to 5x of its original version. With 2x at 240g, 3x at 360g, 4x at 480g and 5x at 600g.

Cha Shu Tsukemen - $14.90

Besides the 3 category of broth, you can also choose tomato broth for your Tsukemen. The style of having Tsukemen is different as it requires additional step of dipping noodles into the additional bowl of soup. Texture of Ramen were soft and ingredients were nothing out of the normal with spring onions, bambo shoots, onsen egg.

Tsukemen

However the pieces of Cha Shu did left some impression. The edges of each piece of Char Siew was served charred and lend a crispy bite leaving the interior meat being soft and tender.

Cha Shu

Bowl

Having the White Original Tonkotsu soup (Pork Soup Base) with recommendations of their Yakibuta Ramen was filling. Ingredients of Ramen comes with seaweed, egg, bamboo shoots, spring onions and a fantastic slab of Yakibuta. Pork was coated with sweet marinate, roasted and cut into cubes. You can even feel the wobbly texture formed up by the layers of roasted meat. Soup tasted on a salty side and was not really in my flavour.

White Yakibuta Ramen - $20.90

Rating: 3 / 5

Menya Musashi
Location: Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive #02-07 Singapore 608532
Website

Ah Meng Delicious Food

Ah Meng Delicious Food Stall is one of the few stalls that was opened during dinner hours if you have visited the small scale hawker centre in Clementi Ave 2. If not for the guy's craving, I would have gone else where as there was limited food choices for dinner.

Stall is manned by a couple in the 40s with the man taking order and lady doing the cooking. If you take a look, majority of the dishes listed have prawns as their ingredients. Surprisingly they are also selling Fried Kway Teow and Crayfish Noodle.

Ah Meng Delicious Food

We ordered the largest fried hokkien. It had a good mixture of white bee hoon together with yellow noodles. Sotong was sliced to its thinnest that I had mistaken them as Kway Teow. Sotong was translucent, quite different from the ones we had. Fried Hokkien Noodle tasted light and did not have over powering use of prawn stock. I enjoyed the loaded amount of wetness from the dish as well as the generous use of eggs increasing a pleasant taste in it.

Fried Hokkien Noodle - $3 / 4 / 5

Though cooking style may not be similar to the mainstream plates of Fried Hokkien Noodle we had, ingredients used were relatively the same with beansprouts, prawns etc.

Looking closely

Overall, it was a comforty and contented meal to someone who have been missing the dish after shifting out from clementi for a period of time.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Ah Meng Delicious Food
Location: Blk 353 Clementi Ave 2, #01-67 Singapore 120353

The Stone Cafe

Looking through the numerous of Cafes recommended through online research, we had planned our dinner place ahead at The Stone Cafe, one of the unique Cafes known for its view and scenery during dining.

Menu

Stone Cafe is situated in uphill areas that allow diners to dine in a village ambiance with stones and bamboo decors in gazebos, so you can at least forget that you are from the city.

Gazebos

Since it was raining and we are dining in large groups, we headed to the main dining area with tables and chairs. Given its style of furnishing, it looked like any typical Indonesian Restaurant with Wood as the main theme.

Dining Area

To our surprised our driver mentioned that Bandung are mostly rainy through the seasons and we could not get much view from the cafe during then.

Night Scene out of the Restaurant

 Street lights were rather dim and since it was a place with stones and slopes, we did not have the chance to move around the much.

Streets looking out of the restaurant

 Staff was professionally dressed in their uniform.

Waitress

With Indonesia timing 1 hour difference from Singapore, we were already very hungry when we visited the place ~ most of us were dining out of the usual dinner hours. The milk shakes were lovely with chocolate love letters.

Strawberry and Vanilla milk shake

Whereas honey lemon was elegantly decorated with a slice of lime and Avocado Shake was served with whipped cream.

Honey Lemon - 28,000 IDR & Avocado Milkshake

Sate Ayam Meal was more straight forward and a basic introduction to Indonesian / Sundanese food I felt. There were a couple of chicken satay served separately apart from the plate of steamed rice, peanut sauce, pickled vegetables & melinjo / shrimp crackers.

Sate Ayam - 49,000 IDR

Sauce on the satay makes them seems more glossy and yummy. The charred satay sticks were good even if you were to have them alone.

Chicken Satay

Perhaps the signature dish that takes after the Cafe name.  The meal was elegantly served in a plate that resembles a painting palette with holes containing sauces, fruits and sides. Interesting.  Fried rice was spicy which reminds me of "Nasi Goreng Kampong" and was served with fried egg, chicken satay and melinjo / shrimp crackers.

Nasi Goreng The Stone - 58,000 IDR

Even though my throat wasn't feeling that comfortable to consume any spicy and fried food. I'm left with no choice but to comply to the situation as Indonesian food are mostly spicy and heaty. Anyway, this Traditional Sundanese food is well worth the experience. The steamed rice was wrapped in leaves and was spicy with petai as ingredients. It threw a surprise to me as I thought my rice suppose to be plain with no additional items. Other items like fried chicken, bean curd, vegetabkes and anchovy chips were placed on the wooden tray. Chicken was well fried and if you are expecting meaty and plump chicken, this kampong chicken may disappoint you. On the contrary, I felt safer in eating Kampong chicken and if you need additional kick to your meal, dipped them into the chilli sauce given.

Nasi Raos Komplit - 75,000 IDR

Food was an average fare but it was a good experience travelling out from the usual city areas. Given the weather to be good and in day light or even blue hours, I bet that the place will be nicer.

The Stone Cafe
Location: Coblong, Bandung City, West Java, Indonesia

Gayatri Restaurant

Gayatri was highly recommended by my pal who enjoyed Indian Food and during one of the weekends where we were around Serangoon Area, she suggested to show me her favourite Indian Food eating place since young. Out of curiosity, I followed her. I didn't realized that Gayatri is just located by the side of Muthu's Curry Restaurant and good thing about it is that even though the place is crowded, it is less commercialized.

Gayatri Restaurant

We did not make any reservation and was lucky to grab a seat for two. Service was friendly and accommodating.

Chiller

Instead of having plain rice, we ordered Briyani Rice set that comes with 2 vegetables. Empty plates were given to us with chargeable wet tissue.

Empty Plate

Servers will then go around topping up rice and sides (cabbages & gourds). You can let them know the portion to be placed on your plate without wasting.

Vegetables

What's good about ordering like this is that the vegetables are free flow and you are free to request for refill upon finishing them.

2 Briyani Set Meal - $13

We requested for chicken as well as fish curry to pair along with our Briyani Rice.

Gravy for Briyani

Butter chicken was great in its fragrance. The chicken were char-grilled and cooked with garlic, ginger, onion and cashew nut gravy.  Gravy was luscious and yummy, also a good alternative to pair them with the rice.

Butter Chicken - $8.50 (Small)

Comes in two sizes, small or large. They were not too spicy and with excellent texture that give full hints of freshness in their Sotong.

Sotong Masala - $6.50 (Small)

Easing the amount of spice, it will be good to have a cup of Lassi, a popular traditional yoghurt drink. I enjoy the glass of Lassi as they were refreshing and not too sweet.

Mango Lassi - $4.50

With many of my Indian friends mentioning that Gayatri Restaurant is a better choice, I can't agree further. I hope to be back for more food one day.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Gayatri Restaurant
Location: 122 Race Course Road #01-01 Singapore 218583