Author: Beatrice

&Made Burger (Restaurant Week)

Food Quality: 7.5/10 Value for Money: 7/10 (3-dishes for $35++=restaurant week price; Usual price=$42++) Service: 7/10 &MADE is the first restaurant concept by 3 Michelin Star Chef Bruno Menard in Singapore, so I was quite excited to try the supposed “fresh and high-quality products”  that Chef Bruno calls “Everyday Gourmet” on his site. 1) Nice Salad Fresh ingredients indeed! Served with Tuna, Onions, Bell peppers, Anchovies and Roasted Garlic Oil, this dish is indeed crunchy and fresh. But if this their normal sizing, it’s tad expensive for $16 (their usual menu price). 2) N.Y. Bacon Burger The burger is super fresh and yummy! Would go back to try other burgers after tasting this – traditional dry aged beef patty served with smoked bacon strips, with oozing mayonnaise, tomato, melting cheddar cheese, accompanied with crunchy lettuce and pickled cucumber. A beautiful calorific mess, with a pile of shoestring fries that one shouldn’t try to finish for health reasons; confirm food coma after from all that carbs! 😛 3) LOLLIPOP waffle Fun experiential dish served with caramel, white …

Don’t treat your career marathon like a sprint

Great reminder just before my long weekend! Time to be still before God, and sharpen the saw 🙂 “Because my lawyers aren’t chronically overworked, they have the capacity – in terms of time, energy, and mental focus – to respond effectively to your crisis situations. We are much more able to rise to these occasional challenges because we don’t treat every day like a crisis.” – http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/dont-treat-your-career-marathon-like-a-sprint:

Summer Palace @ Regent (Restaurant Week)

Food Quality: 7.5/10 Value for Money: 5/10 ($55++/pax – Restaurant Week) Service: 8/10 Heard a lot about Summer Palace in many lists of Chinese restaurants to try in Singapore, so was quite excited to be able to bring our family to try it out in this Restaurant Week! Summer Palace in a Cantonese restaurant, whose menus are complemented by a collection of fine Chinese art and antiques. It’s quite a small restaurant with only ~15 tables, and 2 private dining rooms are available for business and private functions. Personally find the service great.  As my parents prefer not to eat beef, we asked them if they could change the item on the menu and they were happy to change it to chicken, cooked in the same style. And halfway through the meal, we found it warm and they also quickly adjusted the temperature for us. Very good service but I guess for the price, they better had good service too! 😛 Restaurant week tasting menu! We found all the servings small (we were still hungry when we …

#Yolu namecard reader

I only just developed this very useful software! Just scan namecard as picture then details will be automatically uploaded which can then be saved as local contact. Also backed up in a cloud. Super useful. Thanks #lifehack

Lola’s Cafe @ Simon Road (Kovan) – New Cafe Review

Food Quality: 8/10 Value for money: 7.5/10 Service: 7.5/10 Among the slew of new cafes listed by Asiaone as cafes high in hipster quotient, I think Lola’s Cafe has the best chance of flourishing in the long term. (Except Butter Studio which I can’t comment as it is the only one on the list I have not been too). On the decor front, its hipster quotient is on par with many other cafes. It has the usual chalkboard mission/vision. It has frames that are organized chaotically on the left wall as you enter, that to me, symbolizes many different windows of opportunities. Given that this vintage cafe is opened by 2 young budding entrepreneurs, co-owners Foo Choo Kiat, 26, and June Tan, 24, I do think they have many windows of opportunities ahead of them if they keep up the cafe quality. These are the reasons I think they are a sustainable business: 1) Great quality food and desserts, and not too pricey with no GST 2) Amazing beer and cider selection for the cafe size …

The Marshmallow Tree @ Telok Blangah Drive – New Cafe Review

Coffee Quality: 6/10 Value for Money: 7/10 (Cuppa for $4.50) Service: 7/10 The Marshmallow Tree has just opened for 4 months now. It is in a very quiet neighbourhood, and I think the low human traffic allows cheaper rental which means a spacious cafe! The owners put in a lot of thought and effort into the cafe decor. When you enter the cafe, there is a swing for 2-3 to sit on to relax and enjoy the drinks. There is a big chalk wall on the left that is now Halloween-themed. On the right, there is a nice antiquey clock with lifestyle/travel shots. Right in the middle is this communal wooden table and benches. Overall, the cafe feels like an indoor chillout camping area on grass with aircon! There are 2 very cute box fake shrubs that welcome you at the door, which I think look like big versions of the marshmallows they will serve with every free drink. The Marshmallow Tree also tried to differentiate their cafe and coffee by serving a roasted marshmallow with …

Everton Food Trail – Just Want Coffee, Traditional Ang Ku Kueh, Audacious Bakery

Everton Park has become quite a happening place since our dear JM opened up Nylons in the neighbourhood. btw, Nylons Coffee is my Hubbubu’s favourite coffee in Singapore, and definitely one of our favourites; we even used them for our wedding! I will write another entry on them on my next visit! Back to today’s post. As our dear friend, Mr D, named it, this post shall be titled the Everton Food Trail because a lot of hippy cool places have popped up there. This trail comprises: 1) Just Want Coffee – coffee place, doh. 2) Traditional Ang Ku Kueh – looks crowded but didn’t try this round 3) Audacious Bakery – one of the best cakes in Singapore. I would tie them with K-ki 4) Grin Affair – looks like ice cream place but haven’t tried! Also not calling this a review because I will write again when I have been back to try everything! The Everton neighbourhood with cool corridors 1) Just Want Coffee  (6/10) Typical hippee cafe with raw, grungy walls and …

Le Chasseur 食乐轩 @ Eunos – Tzechar Review

Food Quality: 8/10 Value for Money: 8.5/10 (~$20/pax) Service: 7.5/10 I must admit, when I first read the food review on Ladyironchef, it was Le Chasseur‘s name that got me! I thought it was some French food and wondered why it was under her Tzechar list. After a while, I realized, perhaps the way to pronounce it accurately in the local way is “Le Char Siew”. So it got N and I curious, so we actually went to New Bridge road to look for it! It turned out they moved and we ended up trying Songfa Bak Kut Teh. Yea, so do note they have moved to Eunos and I managed to get my parents to try it with us in the end! Spacious, bright, clean environment at Eunos, with classical music in background It will look like you are approaching a food centre in the middle of the industrial area. Don’t worry – that is the right spot, but Le Chasseur managed to renovate the place so it looks spacious and clean. There is …

Keng Eng Kee Seafood Restaurant 琼荣记海鲜 @ Alexandra Village – Tzechar Review

Food Quality: 8/10 Value for money: 9/10 (4 of us ate for $50!) Service: 8/10 (Food served in <5mins!) Parents-in-law are finally back in town so we went to try out this tzechar place new to us. This is a very clean coffee shop that spans across 2 blocks. One section has air-conditioning and the other which we sat in is the al-fresco coffee shop style.  This restaurant is also known for its Salted Egg Yolk Crab, but we wanted something simple, so we went for the below dishes which were overall flavourful and very good value for money. Definitely good for bringing parents and grandparents for a family meal. 1) My favourite in this meal – Mingzhu Roll (明珠卷) This is their signature dishes and it is really unique. It comprises salted egg yolk, mushrooms, ham and prawn nicely blended and fried in beancurd skin. It’s richly flavoured and oily, as you can imagine, so I started to “jelat” after 1 piece though it is very tasty. The lady ordering was smart enough to ask …

Makko Teck Neo @ Telok Blangah – Nyonya Food Review

Food Quality: 7/10 Value for Money: 8.5/10 Service: 8/10 It was my dad who first discovered this cosy Perankan Nyonya cafe at Telok Blangah void deck. He said his colleagues who loved Malay and Nyonya food introduced it to him and is very authentic, and apparently, there is always a very long queue for Makko Teck Neo pineapple tarts during Chinese New Year! Makko Teck Neo is a cosy cafe that attempts to re-enact the old Singapore coffee-shop feel, but with aircon. It uses the old school marble-like-table-top and brown bamboo-like chairs.  There is indoor and outdoor sitting and usually isn’t too crowded. Overall for the food, I am not sure if it is because it is Nyonya style, but everything is kind of sweet. So if you like more savoury dishes, probably not your kind of food style. To be fair, I think they are known for pineapple tarts, traditional kuehs and rice dumplings which I see a lot of people buying so you might want to try those on top of the dishes, …