Ardent's Cafe Bar & Penang Road Cafe.

First of all, happy birthday to Gladys! To celebrate her birthday, we went for "brunch" at Ardent's Cafe Bar. The cafe is a small and cosy place that can sit approximately 20 odd peeps? They do have seats outside too but the weather warned us not to. It was like 31 degrees celsius for a moment and before you know it, it rained cats and dogs. Yes people, it's 2012 now.

.Exterior of Ardent's Cafe Bar.

.Eggs Montreal. $16.80.

.Eggs Blackstone. $14.80.

.Mexican Style Burrito. $16.80.

.The Three Minis. $15.80.

.Ardent's Big Breakfast Part I. $22.

You can choose any 5 items from eggs (any style), rosti, baked beans, sauteed mushrooms, smoked salmon, snail sausages, veal, ham, bacon.

.Blueberry and Peanut Butter Pancake. $12.80.

.Stuffed Blue Cheese Burger. $16.80.

.Flor Patisserie's Very Berry Cake.

The birthday cake for our pretty birthday girl.

Nanas! All 8 of us. (From Left) Amanda, Rayson (Ah pa), me, Yong Shen (Maria), Gladys, Ze Lin (Er ma), Boon Tat (Da ma), Jia Ying.

After our late "brunch", we wanted to get a second round of dessert. But Bonhour Patisserie was closed for a macarons cooking class and we couldn't find our way to Glace Patisserie cos iPhone maps decided to play a prank on us. We settled for Maxwell market in the end. Some of the hungry peeps got themselves another serving of the famous chicken rice while Gladys and I found the popular Horlick's soya bean milk. Cheap and yummy! The soya bean milk was fragrant and thick, the sad thing was that the Horlick's taste was not as distinct as we expected though. But, the cute uncle at the stall was charismatic enough to keep the customers coming :) According to my friend, that stall is usually packed with long queue or it's closed. Lucky for us, there was no queue at that hour. 

.Horlick's Soya Bean Milk. $1.30.

After our round two of food, it's time to do some work. We ended up at the Coffee Club at Tiong Bahru Plaza to mug and also indulge in some sinful moments.

.Raspberry Choco Symphony. $7.90.

The waiter was nice enough to explain to me what I was supposed to do with the little jug of hot melted chocolate and what the real "raspberry choco symphony" is supposed to be like. You are supposed to pour the hot chocolate onto the chocolate shell to reveal the treasures in there.

Upon melting, the "symphony" raspberry granitas, chocolate mousse and some crunchy bites revealed itself like as if the curtains on the stage were drawn apart to introduce the band. Totally loved the idea of an interactive dish :) and p.s. the hazelnuts were really yummy!

Round 4 of the day marks the final lap of my "once-in-a-while indulgence" (although some of my friends commented that my indulgences are not so once-in-a-while). Anyway, this is another rare gem that my parents found. Being picky eaters from Penang, especially when it comes to Penang food, this char kway teow made the mark to be called a Penang Char Kway Teow. 

As the shop was closing (I reached the place at 9.30pm), I finished the whole plate in a record time of FOUR minutes. Other than "YUMMY and fragrant", I can't really comment much. Didn't have the time to slowly enjoy the food. But I will definitely return to this place for another round of tasting again.

.Penang Char Kway Teow. $6.

Ardent's Cafe Bar
80 Neil Road Singapore
Tel:  6325 7077


Nan Sun Horlick Soya Bean Milk
1 Kadayanallur Street
#01-04 Maxwell Food Centre S069184

The Coffee Club
302 Tiong Bahru Road #01-54
Tiong Bahru Plaza Singapore 168732
Tel: 62785284

Penang Road Cafe
275 Thomson Road
#01-08 Novena Ville Singapore 307643
Tel: 62563218

Papa's simple birthday dinner

It's my dearest Papa's birthday! After he picked me up from school, we went for a simple dinner with my family to a restaurant in Bedok, Jin Long Restaurant. It is just a small restaurant in the midst of a HDB estate that offers quality food at a reasonable HDB price :) 

.Crispy Eggplant with French Bean. $10. 

The eggplant was really fragrant and crispy and when stir-fried with french bean and a teeny weeny bit of chilli padi, the combination was just lovely.

.Taiwan Style Pork. $16.

Unfortunately, I am not so much of a 东坡肉lover, I didn't really have much of this. The sauce was rather fragrant and the lean meat that I picked out was tender though :)

.Scallop and Banana with Bak Kwa. $15.

Something unique that I have not come across before. It turned out to be not bad! Just that you can't have too much of it, fried stuffs tend to be quite "ge-lard" when you over-consume them.

 

.Close up.

Note the combination of scallop, banana, prawn, banana, scallop, with a slice of bak kwa and wrapped with a crispy dough that makes a loud and irresistible crunchy sound with every bite.

.Bean Curd with Crisp Turnips. $10.

The thing that fascinates me most about this dish is the smooooothness of the egg tofu. It can simply slide down your throat! The crisp turnips were fried to perfection and not overly salty too!

.All our dishes.

Despite having some minor accidents during the meal, I still enjoyed the meal and the attentive service of the staffs there. This is not the first time we have our meals in this restaurant, doubt it will be our last time here too :)

Blk 412 Bedok North Avenue 2 #01-052

Tel: 64429398

Lunch is served.

School is busy. I haven't had a meal of home cooked food for ages... Since it's the beginning of our supposedly "recess week" (which we still have to go back to do lab work, type report and study for tests after the so-called recess week), I made a wonderful decision to stay at home and prepare a wonderful meal for myself. Looking into the fridge, my eyes stopped to stare at a whole box of scallop, prawns, meat, sausage, EGGS and the best thing is, there is overnight cooked rice! The perfect type of rice to cook fried rice.

After defrosting and preparing the ingredients and a bit of ching ching chiang chiang on the wok... Tadaaaaa, lunch is served!

Fried rice with scallop, prawn, sausages and three whole eggs. Topped with pan-seared scallop.

Cost: $0 :)

Life's good when you have the luxury of time to create your very own bowl of creativity, with all the extra ingredients you want to add into it (without worrying about the price), whether it tastes good or not, you will still be satisfied and awfully proud of yourself. Thank goodness, this fried rice turned out really yummy and fragrant. 

Flor & Strictly Pancakes

It's a Sunday morning! A perfect day put all the work behind you to enjoy a good meal and company. My darlings and I were supposed meet at Ardent's at 80 Neil Rd to indulge ourselves in a sumptuous brunch but unfortunately, the place was fully booked, all the way till 3pm. I was there at 12pm. But fortunately, Flor was just around the corner. It wasn't a wasted trip after all.

I ordered a cake and an ice cheese tart to be taken away to our next destination for brunch. The desserts will make its appearance after our main meal!

Strictly pancakes, our destination for our long awaited lunch.

.Maple syrup and butter.

Their butter was rather special. We were given 4 choices to choose from: Salted, Unsalted, Garlic and Herb, Rum and Raisin. They served the maple syrup and butter first, the food was served quite a while later.

.Benedict the Theif. $14.

 Finally, my Egg's Benedict arrived. Two poached eggs atop ham and two extra-thick pancakes served with hollandaise sauce. The food was not bad, just that I was quite busy thinking of which sauce I should add to my food. There was the maple syrup, the butter, the hollandaise sauce and also, the YOLK.

Egg's benny with the fresh yolk flowing onto the plate.

.Potatoes leeking cheese. $12.

The usually plain pancake was cooked with potato, leek and cheese to create an enhanced taste and this was complimented with sauteed mushroom and sour sauce. The mushroom's taste was a tad too strong though. But the "yummi-ness" of the sour cream pulled the score of the dish back up. One of the best sour cream I have tasted.

 . Salmon Run. $14.

Three slices of plain pancakes served with three premium smoked salmon rolls and sour cream with a wedge of lemon. The salmon was not distinctively smoked and relatively raw. Even so, it didn't hinder the fact that the salmon still tasted good.

 .Waguri Millefeuille. $6.80.

A pleasant treat for the weekend and a good way to end of our brunch. Delicate strands of French chestnut cream carefully piped over a sandwich of crisp, flaky puff pastry and pastry cream, topped with sweetened Japanese chestnuts. The sweetness was just right and the three of us finished it in no time.

.Ice Cheese Tart. $3.20.

Another sweetie that will put a smile on your face, especially if you are a cheese lover. The ice cheese tart simply melts in your mouth with a burst of cheese flavour and a fragrant cookie base, making you yearning for more.

.Pear Fruit Tea. $3.50.

On the way to Marina square to get Wenhui's present, we decided to get a drink from Agantea, another Taiwan based bubble tea shop. Totally loved it, the white pearls especially and the chunky bits of pear with the fragrant pear fruit tea. 

Besties since primary school: (From left) Wenhui, Aiwen, me :)

Flor Patisserie

#01-01, 2 Duxton Hill, Singapore 089588
Tel: 6223 8628

Strictly Pancakes

44A Prinsep Street, Singapore 188674

Tel:63334202

Baci & Obolo

After a long day of work in school, I met up with some of my JC friends to check out the new I12 Katong Mall. As usual, I went online and looked for some new restaurants that I could try and I found this restaurant, Baci (pronounced as bachi).

The exterior of the restaurant looks pleasant and the pricing of the food was reasonable too. 

.Honey Glazed Pork Loin. $16.50.

The sauce went sweet and slightly sour sauce went quite well with the pork. But the disappointing thing was that the meat was way too tough for even the strongest jaws around.

 .Pan Roasted Fish. $13.50.

My friend had this and I managed to try it too. It seemed to me like it's just another fish infused with herbs and topped with lemon caper sauce. 

.Wild Mushroom Pizza. $13.50.

The restaurant has a few choices of pizza and apparently their pizza is not bad. Thin crust. Hand made. Fragrant and yummy! Shall try more of their pizzas if I am visiting the place again.

 And so, after dinner, we went to a place with desserts (by default). There is a new Obolo in this mall and I managed to get a 1-for-1 voucher for a la carte desserts. 

.Creme Brulee. $12.

The caramelized sugar was well done and wonderfully pleasing to the nose. But the the custard itself was a little too rich and the raspberry sorbet honestly was an odd match to the creme brulee. 

 .Sticky Toffee Pudding. $12.

Another odd match of the pudding that was disappointingly dry with chocolate sauce instead of caramel sauce. And it was served with rum and raisin ice cream instead of vanilla ice-cream. Well Done.

 .Sea Salt Caramel Cheesecake. $7.50.

My friends thought that this tasted a little funny but I guess it was ok. Couldnt really taste the caramel and sea salt though. The taste of the cheese was strong enough to distinguish that this is really a cheesecake, but somehow i felt that the texture of the cake could be a little smoother to make it better.

The price of $7.50 is a little steep for a slice of cheesecake of this size too.

.Lemon Meringue Tart. $6.50.

Didnt get to try much of this tart. It seems quite well received by my friends though.

Besties in JC: (From left) Hui Wen, Yi Jie, me, Li Wen, Pei Zhen 

Baci Italian Cafe

112 East Coast Road, #01-07 I12 Katong

Tel: 66360376

Obolo @ I12 Katong

112 East Coast Road, #B1-11/29 I12 Katong

Tel: 6636 1073