Food Blogging (2)

Another food review!

Yesterday was Uncle's Birthday and we decided to head down to Causeway Point Shopping Mall for Swensens.

As remembered, Swensens was up for their name for their Ice Creams. I had Swensens countless time, and this, i have to say, the quality have gone way way down our expectations.

I guess in this post, i have to put on nasty comments about the food.

Bread Bowl Mushroom Soup

This mushroom soup, look nice on the menu cover, and nice on the plate, but awful in your mouth. YUCKS. There is a funny taste to it, and i really can't describe what taste was it, it was like some sourish taste, AHH, its just a ewww.

Onion Rings

No comments to the onion rings. It just tasted like this.

Mozerella Cheese Sticks

I dont know what to say about this. The mozerella have absolutely no fragrance at all, and when you bite off, the mozerella was so rubbery and unbreakable that you could pull it across the table. WAIT, was that even edible?

Fries with Barbecue Sauce and Mayonaise

Used to be my all-time-favourite. The barbecue sauce was a great disappoinment.

Come down to our main courses:

Grilled Salmon Topped with Pesto Sauce
Served with Mashed Potatoes & Vegetables-of-the-Day

Grilled Fish Sambal
Served with Mashed Potatoes & Vegetables-of-the-Day

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

Lets talk about the Aglio Olio first - It was the nicest among all 3 dishes! Haha! Spaghetti was cooked to the perfect timing, and the aroma of the garlic oil is doing its job to flavour the spaghetti. Yums!

Next, Fish Sambal. The sambal was good, but not the fish. The fish was overly cooked, leaving the fish to be so dry. So don't get cheated by the caption of "Oh so good fish....".

Lastly, the salmon. BAD BAD BAD! How does a piece of unfresh salmon taste like? Try that. and the gravy was OMG! It looks like some expired gravy, where it was so watery and you could even see the oil floating above the sauce, and the texture was similar to what a vomit looks like. So in the end we asked for a tar tar sauce to replace that gruesome sauce right on our plate.

Topless Five!

At last our desserts are served. So the flavour we chose for our ice cream was: Macadamia, Supreme Durian, Chendol, Cookies & Cream and Hazelnut.

If you want to give it a try, i would recommend Hazelnnut and Durian. The drurian was good (I love durians!) so does the hazelnut. I am not a macadamia nut fan, but heard that it is not bad.

Never you would want to order Cookies & Cream, it just tasted very normal. Chendol is good, but its a little bit too sweet. Sso if you have a strong sweet tooth, it can be recommended, the taste of the gula melaka is quite strong in it too.

Rating:

Staff Friendliness: 1.5 / 5.0 (Poor staffs attentiveness, that you might just want to approach the counter yourself to place your orders. Oh! and remember to go with a good mood, the sulky face of the staffs wont pleasant your dining there.)

Food: 2.0 / 5.0 (Sorry not my choice of restaurant to visit unless for their ice cream)

Variety: 4.0 / 5.0 (Yes, there are quite a number of varieties. I didn't get to try all, so probably if you have ate any nice food, you can comment and let me know! >.<)

Ambience: 3.0 / 5.0 

Price: $$-$$$

Address:

1 Woodlands Square,

Level 2, #02-08/09

Causeway Point Shopping Mall (Woodlands MRT)

Tel: +65 894 2086 (No Reservations are allowed. First come first serve basis.)

Website: www.swensens.com.sg

I have visited the above outlet, and there are more outlets in Singapore. My reviews are based on Causeway Point Swensen's standard.

Food Blogging (1)

Hello People,

So today i'm gonna do a bit of food reviews based on my own personal experience. No incentives were given to blog on these places.

Spuds and Aprons:

Spuds and Aprons is a casual dining restaurant in The Jewel Box (soon to be named as Mountain of Happiness), located at Mount Faber Road, one of a tourist attraction place in Singapore. The scenery there can be breath taking at night.

This is my view from my seating. I am kinda lazy to walk around taking pictures like other tourist. I was mad hungry for not having my breakfast.

View from my seating. This is a view on my left.
On my right, you could actually see cable cars coming from Sentosa.

I reached there in noon time, and i started my orders with "Wicked Fries & Gravy". It is basically potato wedges with 6 types of cheese and brown gravy.

Wicked Fries & Gravy (Steakhouse Cut Spuds with 6 types of Cheese & Brown Sauce)

It was being served in a metal pan, a portion perfect for 3-4pax. The fries tasted normal to me, if you are looking for a new flavour for potatoes, this is not worth having. Advise: Eat it quick, once it turns cold, your cheese turns cold and becomes rubbery, which is disgusting like having some sort of cheesy-gum. 

Being served next was a Berries Smoothie. It is a blend mixture of mixed berries, yogurt and vanilla ice cream. Not much to my likings because the yogurt taste was too strong that i can't seem to taste the berries sourness in it. Okay~ i like the purple (yay..)

Berry Smoothie

Served up next was my main dish. Pan Fried Salmon coated in polenta.

Pan Fried Polenta Coated Salmon
(Norweigian Salmon Crusted with Polenta, Cooked to "Pinkfection"
and served with Arugula Salad & Citrus Salsa)

This can be recommended to Salmon lovers, the taste is good. And i found some potatoes given in this dish too, under the fish. I am not a fan of vegetables, especially Arugula (or the simple name Wild Rocket) is the first vegetable that will not be on my list, i dislike the bitter taste to it. But i guess all vegetables should taste as how it should taste. Forget about the vegetables.

Okay, this dish was supposed to be cooked till medium raw, with only the top being cooked. But i can't stand the taste of raw fishes, so i requested for my salmon to be perfectly well done. The salmon is fresh, with nice salty taste of the crust. The sourness of the citrus salad was a good combination to the pan fried salmon.

This dish will be on my bill on my next visit.

Lastly, DESSERTS. 

Chocolate Cake
(Not in the menu. Apparently nothing much attracted me to
the desserts on the menu. You will just have to go over to the counter and
order from there, you can add a scoop of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream as complement.)

The cake was moist, with rich flavour of the chocolate ganache. The mousse wasn't too sweet as well. 

Overall, this place is a good place for couples, families, workaholic and tourist who is looking for lunch choices (you could just take the cable car up). 

To tourist, you could even try local delicacies offered like Laksa, XO Fish Soup, Hokkien Noodle, Singapore Curry Noodle and etc (but only between 12pm-2.30pm). After your dining, you can take a stroll at the Mount Faber Park, it will be a memorable place for your camera to capture it down. 

Before that, you might want to take a look at their toilet (Awarded as Best Toilet in the World Toilet Category on the French International Website). Haha! I sanpshot with my handphone (pardon for the bad lighting and i dont know how my pictures turned green when it supposed to be on a bright sunny day)

Look! There's a little fountain in the middle of
the hand wash basin. Haha!

That's a fat me with my geek glasses and a bloated
stomach after my lunch. 

Fun Things you could try there!

Challenge their Mountain of Happiness, by finishing 16 scoops Ben & Jerry's ice cream (8 flavours) in 15mins, and you get to go into their Wall of Fame and get a free funky apron!

Rating:

Staff Friendliness: 4.0 / 5.0

Food: 3.5 / 5.0

Variety: 4.0 / 5.0

Ambience: 4.0 / 5.0

Price: $$$

Address:

109 Mount Faber Road,

Level 2,

Singapore 099203

Tel: +65 377 9688 (Call for Reservation to prevent disappointment for night diners.)

Valentine's Day 2014

Starting off my first post on Valentines' Day.

And my present for him is.. 

Tadah! A DIY Chocolate Raspberry Cake.

Trust me, eating a cake is really "a piece of cake". Making one is... tiring.This is my first time making layered cakes. Slept only for 2 hours making this cake to wait for different components to set in the fridge, and JESUS! the mousse was a great failure, so runny that my raspberry confiture started to run off with the mousse.

And the heartpain story is - the raspberries cost me a bomb! $7.50/pkt, which i bought 4 packets, for the decoration and fillings.

THIS! was what i am expecting.. ):

Even though the outcome wasn't as what i've expected, but what makes me happy is still the compliments i am receving from him even though i know the cake tasted "eww?". 

One thing i have gained from this experience, is that i found the perfect way to make a dark chocolate ganache that is so tasty, and it actually makes my cakes taste a little bit better.

I've tried certain chocolate glaze recipes, either it is too runny that my glaze starting to run off my cake and im left with a soggy piece of cake or it turns out to be hard that like i have topped my cake with chocolate chunks. And this glaze i found online is REALLY glazing. You could even see reflection from the cake.

And THIS is the perfect recipe for Chocolate Glaze that you wouldn't want to miss it (and it sure does goes into my little notebook):

Chocolate Glaze (Recipe Used and Adapted from: "Cafe Fernando":

Makes: 1 1/3 Cups

Ingredients:

1. 1/4 Cup Cold Water

2. 2 Tsp Powdered Gelatin

3. 2/3 Cup Caster Sugar

4. 1/3 Cup Water

5. 1 Tbsp + 1 Tsp Corn Syrup

6. 3/4 Cup + 2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder (I use Hershey Unsweeted Cocoa)

7. 1/3 Cup Heavy Cream (I used Millac Dairy Whipping Cream)

Methods:

1. Pour cold water in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatin over the top and give it a light stir. Cover with a cling wrap and set aside.

2. Heat up small saucepan in medium heat and whisk sugar and 1/3 cup water till sugar a completely dissolved. Remove from heat and use a wire whisk and stir in corn syrup followed by the cocoa powder till mixture is smooth and glossy. (Best result is to sift your cocoa powder to remove any lumps of chocolate which can be hard to whisk in the mixture.)

3. Return pan to heat in medium heat, stir in the heavy cream and bring it to boil. Remove from heat and allow the mixture to cool till 60C.

4. Stir in the softened gelatin mixture till completely dissolved.

5. Allow mixture to cool down to 27C before glazing the cake. (You will not want to destroy your cake with a piping hot glaze.)

Happy Valentines' Day People!