Kim Tian LV Carrot Cake

It was a good time having enjoyed an old school plate of Fried Carrot Cake in a humble market & Food Centre on a Sunday Morning. Kim Tian LV Carrot Cake was the only stall seen with long queue. Like most of the carrot cake stall, patrons get to have a choice of white or black version of fried carrot cake.

The Stall

Carrot cake comes in $2 / $2.50 / $3 version. the cutting of cakes comes in irregular sizes unlike those prepacked factory made carrot cake that come with identical shapes

There are mix texture in the bites with edges and top being crispy while the carrot cakes are soft and tasty. Generous amount of egg was used to sweeten up the taste despite the use of sweet black sauce. Sweetness level is perhaps catered more towards the elderly in the area as I find that the sauce can be added more to enhance the taste!

Fried Carrot Cake

Rating: 3 / 5

Kim Tian LV Carrot Cake
Location: Telok Blangah Rise Market & Food Centre, Blk 36 Telok Blangah Rise #01-39, Singapore 090036

Hai Yan Fried Kway Teow Mee

While most of the place sells a plate of Char Kway Teow at a minimum price of $3, it is rare to see any price lesser than that. I was in Telok Blangah Rise Market & Food Centre on one of the weekends morning and was dumbfounded by the number of stalls open at that time - it was merely less than 5. As usually when I was there in the night, they were 99% close.

Hai Yan

Char Kway Teow has a consistent taste throughout even with the strands of noodles. Ingredients like slices of Chinese sausages, beansprouts, fish cakes, cockles were part of it. Sweetness can be improved but it might not work well in the mature estate as there are mostly elderly. Other than that I like the part where water content was well controlled, keeping the Kway Teow moist throughout.

Char Kway Teow

It was good knowing such pocket friendly and stomach comforting food still exist. If you are looking for some old school tastes of food and environment, try visiting them!

Rating: 3 / 5

Hai Yan Fried Kway Teow Mee
Location: Telok Blangah Rise Market & Food Centre, Blk 36 Telok Blangah Rise #01-38, Singapore 090036

Sabpard Thai Food [Closed]

With the recent launch of Thai Food Stall near Bukit Batok Bus Interchange, I begin to patronize the S11 coffeeshop more often. To ensure the authenticity of Thai Cuisine, the chef behind the fire and the one who took orders are Thai Locals.

Thai Food Stall

While I was having my Pad Thai and sharing table with a stranger, we strike a conversation and he came comparing my food with the Fried Kway Teow Stall in S11. He was trying to weigh the differences between Chinese version and Thai Version of "Char Kway Teow" against the pricing. Well, in my opinion, both have its traits. Noodles are sweet and tangy with 2 big prawns given.

Pad Thai - $5

Ingredients for the Thai Fried Vermicelli was identical to what I had in their Pad Thai, beansprouts, eggs, fried Taupok, spring onion and 2 pieces of big prawns. However, given the choice between them I will choose Pad Thai as this tasted a little bit bland.

Thai Style Fried Vermicelli - $5

The smell of turmeric fragrant fried thai rice together with cashew nuts, raisins, eggs and pineapple cubes make up a decent plate of Thai Pineapple rice. Meat floss was generously scooped and placed at the top of the rice too.

Pineapple Fried Rice - $6

Although it was supposed to be an individual dish, the portion for the noodles as well as rice is generous and is good for 2 fact. These are very good for sharing if you are not eating alone and can order other sides to complement the mains.

Rating: 3 / 5

Sabpard Thai Food
Location:  Blk 640 Bukit Batok Central #01-40 Singapore 650640

La Petite Cuisine

La Petite Cuisine serves a decent French Cuisine, authentic and unpretentious. They are humbly situated in one of the old school malls in Bukit Timah Area and are known for its affordability and quality.

La Petite Cuisine

By chance, we were there on one of the weekday nights and decided to give it a try since we have pass by the place so many times and the crowd in the restaurant was rather convincing.

Furnishing was not really modern but still presentable in its own style. They have black board mounted on to the "bricks-lookalike" tiles indicating the specials serving of the day.

Interior

Without looking much into their ala carte menu, we decided on the Weekday Set dinner at $24 which we thought was pocket friendly as there is no GST and service charge. Plain water are self-service and are reachable from the drinks counter. The dinner  set is rather straight forward with 2 choices of appetizer, mains and desserts each.

Dinner Menu

Getting the best of both worlds we order 2 sets and tried everything for the set dinner during that day.

My first try of Orange Carrot Soup was pleasing, it tasted sweet more than of a citrus taste that I would have expected. They were served tongue burning hot and goes indeed well dipping the mini baguettes.

Homemade Soup

Mini Buns

The stomach comforting Ravioli of spinach among the light creamy sauce was a good reminisce of my France trip. The straight forward dish without much fanciful creations in the dish is somehow what I'm looking for. Decent and down to earth.

Ravioli of Spinach in light lemon creme sauce

One of the set was served with rice, spinach and Salmon Filet in cream sauce. Cream sauce is light and taste is identical to what was being used in the Ravioli dish. Salmon was cooked perfectly with crispy skin and pinkish on the inside.

Salmon Filet Pan-Fried Served with Baby Spinach & Creme Sauce

Comparing this main course to the salmon, I would have prefer this dish more. The steak was chewy and tender. The mushroom sauce reveals some hints of wine in it gave a perfect match to the Sirlion Steak. The stomach fillers in the dish will be the potato grains.

Sirloin Steak served with potato gratin & Salad

Sirloin Steak

The wobbly panna cotta as our desserts was a sweet ending to the meal. I don't have a sweet tooth, thus the caramelized top layer isn't really for me.

Assorted Dessert Palette

Overall, La Petite Cuisine is a commendable place and for sure I will recommend to my friends who wants to have some authentic french cuisine without breaking the pocket.


Rating: 4 / 5

La Petite Cuisine
Location: Serene Centre, 10 Jalan Serene #01-02 Singapore 258748

Springleaf Prata

I was quite excited when one of my ex-colleague mentioned that there is a new eating place in Rail Mall that is worth a try out. Springleaf prata is tuck in the quiet corner of the mall facing the abandoned railway tracks. I came to realize its existence recently even though it was opened since last Novemeber, serving an extensive, unique and delicious Indian Cuisine in its menu.

In fact, this Halal Certified Indian food Chain has opened up one more food option to the Muslim pals staying nearby.

Drinks accompany our food will be none other than Teh O Limau Ice & Rose Syrup.

Teh-O-Liamau & Rose Syrup - $1.80 & $1.40

Being curious with alot of unfamiliar item out of the usual Indian Cuisine Menu, we ordered the Murtaburger which name sounds like Murtabak and Burger to me.

2013 Murta Burger - $7

Taste was amazing and I only come to know about that this is actually a good marriage of prata with our well-liked "Ramly Burger".

Ingredients

Ingredients include mutton patties, mayonnaise well hidden inside the usual squarish egg prata. It was a moment of joy to see plenty of my favourite sticky mozzarella cheese while tearing up the prata. Not only was it delicious,  its crispiness of the prata had make me feel delighted.

Cheese

Patty

Filling up part of our stomach with Maggie Goreng that looks plain and uninteresting. Taste wise, it was nothing out of the ordinary but the dish came with generous chunks of chicken cooked together with eggs, beansprouts and vegetables, couple with cucumber and chilli as appetizer on the side.

Maggie Goreng with Chicken - $5

$1.10 for a piece of prata? What's the market rate nowadays given for the price from a air-conditioned shop in a mall? I bet this pricing is relatively acceptable especially when its plain prata is so crispy and goes well with the curry gravy. Yummy!

Plain Prata - $1.10

Service and food serving speed is acceptable. With a few well known prata places in the vicinity. the stood up among the rest with their specialties. I forsee myself coming back for more.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Springleaf Prata
Location: 396 Upper Bukit Timah Rd Singapore 678048

Colbar

Hearing so much about Colbar for a long time, I have finally been here to Whitchurch Road. I must admit it is not an easy task to travel all the way into Wessex Village square as it is quite remote from the public transport system and even if one is driving, we have to go through some narrow roads.

Walking Path into Colbar

One thing that I is worth the travel is the nostalgic feel that really gave us the feel that we were back into the past. Walking deeper into the pavement, I felt that as though there was a tweak in the time machine, bringing us into 60s, 70s and all we saw was some foldable wooden shop doors with the rustic looking signboard. Not only that, as we entered into the cafe, we were welcome by this old school analog weighing scale.

Cafe Colbar

Over at the counter, you will notice a road sign with "Jalan Hang Jebat". That was actually its original location before moving to witchurch road.

Jalan Hang Jebat

Even the menu looked so old school.

Menu

Forget about air conditioned dining as Colbar offers dining just like time had stopped back in the 70s where such cool environments are still not so common.

Serving Number

With the drinks accompanying the meal, I find that the amount was relatively on the high side given the pricing.

Lime Juice - $4 & Strawberry Milkshake - $5.50 

They serve good breakfast items. Even though we were having dinner, we decided to order sides like Tomato Omette for sharing. Egg was fluffy with slices of tomato.

Tomato Omelette and Chips

Pork Cutlet was lean and easy on the jaws with mushroom gravy that was on a salty side. However, such style of preparation are lesser seen in the Western Food Serving nowadays and I totally enjoy having this "home-style" cuisine.

Pork Chop, Chips & Mushroom - $11

Food tasted nothing extra ordinary but such food combination was nothing like what we had outside. Besides the chips, the chicken cutlet comes with a sunny side egg and Goreng Pisang (Fried Banana) which we thought was rather unusual.

Chicken Maryland - $16.50

Having dine in a peaceful with laidback environment,  I don't mind coming back again to escape myself from the city lives.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Colbar
Location: Wessex Village Square, 9A Whitchurch Road Singapore 138839

New Manlee Bah Kut Teh

Introducing an addition to the basement of Clementi Mall will be this Malaysia Style Bak Kut Teh stall which has taken over Ajisen's premises. Though we bid good bye to Ajisen, New Manlee Bah Kut Teh belongs to the same Brand as Ajisen, Japan Foods Holding Ltd.

A little joy over here is that New Manlee offers Black Herbal Soup for the Malaysia Style and White Peppery Soup as the Singapore Style.

Quencher - Hoji Tea ($1.90), Kum Quat Nectar ($2.50), plain water ($0.30)

Though the white version is a more popular version in Singapore which uses premium peppercorns and garlic, alongside other herbs,giving the broth a distinguished comforting peppery warmth

Ordering makes easier to the tech savvy us with ipad attach to every table and you can simply place your ordering via this device.

Ipad Ordering

Comes in 3 sizes for different number of pax and this herbal soup base includes vegetables, golden mushroom, button mushrooms and fried bean curd skin with choice of topping.

Herbal Soup Hotpot for 3 - $17.70

The hotpot was kept warm throughout our dining session with a burner below,

Ingredients revealed

Topping up the herbal soup with another set of Premium Pork Ribs at $6.90, they are tender with meat falling off from the bone.

Premium Pork Ribs - $6.90

Also besides having those tender loving pork ribs, we had pig's stomach to complement the soup. Unlike the premium pork ribs, these stomach are not braised.

Pig's Stomach - $2.90

Dough Fritters are the NOT to skip items in Bah Kut Teh as they were so good in soaking up the Herbal soup and tastes good.

Dough Fritters - $2

Being the usual us, we ordered the greens to balance out the meat intake. Texture of You Mai was crunchy and well prepared.

You Mai - $7.90

You can choose to order half or a whole for this delicious Fried Tofu. The thin layer of crispy top later covering up the wobby nutritiously good beancurd.

Fried Tofu - $5.90

All of us tend to be quite thirsty after the meal. With so many Bah Kut Teh stall increasingly launching in the neighbourhood malls, I will say that I'm still in the search of good herbal Bak Kut Teh in Singapore.

Rating: 3 / 5

New Manlee Bah Kut Teh
Location: The Clementi Mall, 3155 Commonwealth Ave West #B1-34/35 Singapore 129588