Foodfare @ Ang Mo Kio Hub

There are about 6 NTUC Foodfare outlets located at different parts of Singapore such as at Simei MRT, Rivervale Mall, Admiralty MRT and etc. Today the outlet that we went to is located at the 3rd level of Ang Mo Kio Hub. You can find a large varieties of food like Chicken Rice, Korea/Japanese Food, Fish Soup, Wanton Noodles, Dim Sum and a lot more. I am sure you can find something that you like over there.

While roaming around to look for our brunch today, I decided to get a plate of this Chai Tow Kway which is also known as "Fried Carrot Cake - 菜头粿". In Singapore, there is two version of fried carrot cake which is either "Black" or "White". The Black version is usually rice cake fried with garlic, eggs and thick sweet soy sauce. While the White version which shown on the photo above does not use any sweet soy sauce and the carrot cake is fried on top of the beaten egg to form a nice golden crust. Sometime they are served with some extra chilli and spring onion accordingly to individual preference.

Stall No. 06
Thye Hong @ #03-12


While waiting for the Fried Carrot Cake, I was attracted to the Congee stall next to it. Other than selling different varieties of Claypot Congee, this stall also have a few Hot Plate with rice dishes. Since it is brunch, I decided to try their "Hong Kong Style Porridge" which cost, S$4.90 per claypot.

There are a lot of ingredients in it such as fish slices, peanut, ikan bilis, scallop, cuttlefish and fried fritter - 油条. This porridge texture and taste of this porridge is kind of different from the normal Cantonese porridge which those creamy texture. As you can see from the photo, you still can see grain of rice in the porridge and it's very fragrant and tasty due to the added ingredients.

Stall No. 07
Congee/Hot Plate @ #03-12


Due to the hot weather recently, most of the drink stalls are always packed with long queue of people. Even the drinks stall at this Foodfare is also packed with crowds getting their drinks, desserts or toasts. While getting our drinks, I spotted mum's favourite Soupsop dessert which I think she would love to have it for after meal dessert. But I was kind of disappointed that those shaved ice is actually more than the soursop topping which make this dessert kind of expensive for the price of S$2.00.

2010 Taiwan Trip - Day 5

Today we will be visiting a Peacock Garden - 孔雀园 along our trip at "Sun Moon Lake - 日月潭" which is the largest natural lake in Taiwan as well as a tourist attraction. Although we have seen peacocks in Singapore too, but this is the very first time we saw White Peacocks appeared before us. The White Peacock is sometime being mistaken for an albino, but it is a colour variety of Blue Peacock. We all think that its white colour makes it looks really magnificent and elegant.

Em... time flies fast especially during holidays period. Today is already our 5th day in Taiwan and it seems that we have just arrived yesterday. Morning breakfast was served at Nanka Express Hotel - 南嘉饭店 where we stayed last night. Today we are having traditional Taiwan porridge with their local side dishes for porridge.

After breakfast we set off our journey to Sun Moon Lake where we stop by at one of the resting point along the highway. This is the biggest Resting Point - 休息站 that we have come cross during these few days and there is a mini supermarket, food court, cafe and snack shops in it too. Each of us happily grabbed those items that we want before boarding the tour bus. We bought some "Steam Rice Cake - 状元糕" which taste like our Kueh Tutu and peach flavour snow skin cream puff - 冰皮泡芙. The outer skin of the cream puff is soft and chewy and the cream filling is also not too sweet or greasy.

Along the way at Puli, we exit the highway and drop by this famous "Chung Tai Chan Monastery - 中台山佛寺" that is a Taiwan-based Buddhist monastic order founded by the Venerable Master Wei Chueh in 1987. The headquarters monastery itself, Chung Tai Chan Monastery was completed in September 2001 and is located in the town of Puli. The Monastery is mostly made up of stone, which symbolizes the steadfastness of Buddhist belief.

Sun Moon Lake - 日月潭 is situated in Nantou - 南头, Yuchih Township that is in the center of Taiwan which form the island’s largest lake. It is a beautiful alpine lake, divided by the tiny Lalu Island; the eastern part of the lake is round like the sun and the western side is shaped like a crescent moon, hence derive the name “Sun Moon Lake”.

Lunch was at "Jin Sheng Lou - 景圣楼饭店" where they have a wide range of Sun Moon Lake local dishes as well their famous "Aborigines - 原住民" dishes which can only be found in Sun Moon Lake. Here we tried their mountain deer meat cook in hotplate, Aborigines wild vegetables that is only from Sun Moon Lake and etc.

This Peacock Garden - 孔雀园 has over 200 peacocks and other rare and valuable birds. Over 100 other species live in this park, including the mountain chicken, the Formosan blue magpie, the long-tailed pheasant, the golden pheasant, the ampherst pheasant, and the black coot. The park does not charge any entrance fee too and aside from Peacocks, there is also a butterfly garden where butterflies are kept to breed.

From our 2nd day in Taiwan, the tour guide has been recommending the Royal Jelly from "Mao Wang Ye Zhi Jia - 毛王爷之家" in Sun Moon Lake - 日月潭. When we finally arrived at the shop we are impressed by their products and on the benefits that we are able to absorb from those items such as Royal Jelly which is especially good for children.

A small bottle of Royal Jelly which can last for 1.5 - 2 months cost around S$75++ and accordingly to salesperson, if we keep Royal Jelly in the freezer it will be able to store for a few years compare to 1 year in fridge. Since Royal Jelly has an unpleasant taste which is milky and a stinging sensation when swallow, not many people prefer the fresh type compare to the capsule form. And also because Royal Jelly is very rich in protein we are advice to take only about 1/3 teaspoon each day. Another important point to take note is not to used any metal spoon on the Royal Jelly as it will create some chemical reactions and kill all the vitamins in it.

"Fong Jia Night Market - 逢甲夜市" is the night market which is near by the Feng Chia University. You can find a lot of food stalls selling their local snacks as well finding some low-price clothing and shoes. Entering their food street, we are caught by two long ques on the "Spring Onion Pancake - 油葱饼" and "Sausage with Glutinous Rice Wrap - 大肠包小肠". We bought one of this sausage rice roll which is a must try items from our Taiwan Food Searching list. This is indeed a very nice finger food which they grill the sausage and cooked glutinous rice then wrapped them together with some cucumbers and vegetables that make it look like a sausage burger

There are a lot of interesting snacks like deep-fry sweet potato balls, tempura fries, baked sweet potato and most scary "Smelly Beancurd - 臭豆腐" which makes you either hates it or loves it. There is this stall along the road side of the night market selling all kinds of vegetarian food such as "Rice Noodle - 面线", "Kimchi - 泡菜" and "Smelly Beancurd - 臭豆腐". So upon seeing so many people queuing, we decided to join in and we bought a box of vegetarian smelly beancurd which served with some kimchi and special chilli sauce. To our surprised although it really stinks while waiting for them to fried the beancurd but the smell is not that bad when we eat it. Rather the outer layer was very crispy and inside is so soft and juicy with the combination of kimchi and sauce. Overall it is very nice.

Most of the people will agreed that, going to tour is like eating non-stop trying to try all kind of their local food which we can't or seldom see in our own country. After walking around Fong Jia Night Market for an hour or so, we head off to "Royal Family Restaurant - 皇家御品" for dinner. Today's dinner will be buffet and we will be having a steamboat and western set dish of our choice. Since we have four person, we ordered Black Pepper Steak, Chicken Chop, Pork Pork and Cod Fish. Other than the set meal, each of us is given a bucket of steamboat ingredients for us to eat with their special soup broth which they prepared.

As you can see from the photos, we are still entitled for the fresh fruits, salad, ice-cream(this is Rey's favourite counter) and assorted pudding. This was indeed a very fulfilling dinner where we get to try all kinds of items in one meal. With all these, it only cost about NT$288 for the steak + steamboat set which is about S$12.00 and you can have all the above. Worth it right!

Teochew Ngoh Hiang

In the past, making "Ngoh Hiang - 五香" is always one of my Dad specialty dish. During festive occasion such as Chinese New Year he and mum would make a huge quantity to distribute to our relatives or served it to those who visit us during New Year. But now when he is no long around, we don’t really get to eat this special treat as often as we do.

Salmon Deli @ Sakae Sushi

Last week we happen to drop-by one of the Sakae Sushi outlet at Bishan Junction 8 after our Radio Interview with Daniel Ang. And can any Sakae Sushi fans guess what is the name of this salad from their new Menu? Em.... so why not spend about S$7.99 to enjoy a plate of this colourful and appetising salad to start off your meal.

That weekend we are all very excited and looking forwards for our invitation to do a live radio show with FM100.3 DJ Daniel Ang on Mother's Day food idea. To me, Daniel is a very friendly and humorous person whom I always find him comfortable to chat with. So far this is the 2nd time that he invited me on radio show to share my opinion on food topic with him.

Although that day was kind of chaotic as Rey was not really behaving himself well in the studios but thank God we still managed to get through the whole process till the end. Joyce who followed us to the studios also had a great time exploring the recording studios and we are all astonished by the way Daniel handle all the equipments. That makes us think that being a DJ is actually not as easy as what we think of.

After the radio show, Rey suggest that whether we can bring him to Sakae for early dinner. So by looking at the route, we decided to drop by at Bishan, Junction 8 to have our dinner as well as settling down our excitement from the radio show. The dishes that we ordered today are almost all Salmon related because both Joyce and me are salmon fans........ So to kick off we have Salmon Sashimi.....

Next to be served is this new Sakae Salad which consists of salmon slices, lobster salad, avocado, corns kernels , crispy comment that this is just good enough for her as dinner because it is Healthy and Refreshing!!!

I ordered this because it find the combination rather interesting. Tuna with Mango, Salmon with Cucumber and White Fish With Avocado. Em.... this is known as Sakura Trio which cost S$3.99 which we think is worth trying if you are craving for a little each of those. Other than the above, we also have Tamago Sushi as usual and Matcha Ice-cream.

2010 Taiwan Trip - Day 4

Staying a night at the Hot Spring Resort at Chipen - 知本 was another kind of experience for us who come from a modern city where we used to stay in Flats which is so different from them. Today we will bypass "Kaohsiung - 高雄" to "Jiayi - 嘉义" where we will stay for the night since we are not going to "Alishan - 阿里山" due to the closure and repairing of the certain road towards the mountain.

After breakfast we travel our way down to "Kaohsiung - 高雄" where we stop by a town at "Fangshan - 枋山" which is famous for its' Taiwan Egg-Shape Mango(鸡蛋芒果) and Rose Apple(莲雾) plantation . The Mango that they have over there is smaller then the usual one that we have and it's very sweet and juice. You can see the crowds queuing up to buy the freshly made "Mango Ice - 芒果冰沙" which is so cooling and refreshing. At this little rest area, we can sample some of their freshly cut-fruit before buying and I must admit their Rose Apple taste so crunchy and sweet which makes you crave for more.

Lunch was at one of the restaurant known as Man Xiang Yuan - 满香园 at the foot of "Fo Guang Shan - 佛光山". There is a special dish called "Bitter gourd and Pineapple Soup" which most of us like because this soup is not bitter gourd like what we thought but rather sweet and sour due to the adding of pineapple. According to them, this is a very good summer soup that can quench your thirst. If you are interested in this soup, then you must stay tune on my food blog for upcoming recipe which I will replicate this soup soon...

The headquarters of Fo Guang Shan, located in Kaohsiung, is the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. At this place it is filled with wondrous attraction of the monastery with hundreds of gilded Buddha images stand in line. The educational programs of Fo Guang Shan include four Buddhist colleges, three regular college, and various community colleges.

During the days in Taiwan, we agreed that this is the most delicious Baked Golden Sweet Potato among those that we have tried. As you can see, the colour is so bright and golden which make is taste so naturally sweet and fragrant. And I know there is a stall at Suntec near Carrefour known as "Sweet Potato Place - 地瓜村" also selling this kind of sweet potato which they franchise from Taiwan as well as some other special products.

Bread!!! All kind delicious look bread from a bakery called Shinn Bin Bakery which is opposite the "Spring and Autumn Pavilions - 春秋阁". It is a Taoist temple complex located on Lotus Lake in Kaohsiung, Taiwan where you will be amused by gigantic statues of Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. For us who loves Bread it is a great joy to discover a bakery along the journey as there don't seems to have as many bakery shops as what we do in Singapore. So upon spotting this one, almost half of our tour mates went in and grab a big bag of goodies each.

Next we arrived in Tainan - 台南 to take a look at the "Anping Gu Bao - 安平古堡" which is located between Guosheng Road and Castle Street. It is built during Dutch occupation of Taiwan in 1624.

After exploring around the fort, we went down to the food street near it which is known as the "Gubau Street - 古堡街" where there are a lot of night market food stalls selling Anping local delights. One of the special item that we try is this "Deep-fried Toast" which is known as "棺财板". It is a kind of deep-fried hollow thick toast which filled with mixed vegetable, chicken and white sauce dressing.

Along the street, there is a stall selling all kinds of handmade biscuits and pastries. One of it is known as "Soft Tongue Cake - 软牛舌饼" which is something like a thin crispy cracker that makes in different shapes like round, oblong and etc and it wrapped with some black sugar(黑糖).

After the night market, we travel about 30 minutes to reach "Zhen Bei Ping Restaurant - 真北平餐厅" to try their Chinese cuisine and famous "Bei Ping Roast Duck - 北平烤鸭". There are about 8 dishes, 1 soup and 2 desserts for our dinner and most of the dishes are up to our expectation. Personally I love the Handmade Noodle Soup which is tasty and the noodle is very Q. Their Caramel Sweet Potato is also one of the special dessert which I like most. They deep-fried the sweet potato pieces into golden brown then coat it with caramel sugar, and according to the tour guide we need to dip the sweet potato into cold water before eating so that the sugar will not be harden.

After dinner we were arranged to stay a night in "Jiayi - 嘉义" before we start off for another day of excitement. Upon settle down at the hotel, most of the tour mates still went out to the night market along the street near our hotel. Whereas we are all too tired to move around especially Rey wanted to sleep early as he was very tired after the whole day program.




p/s: Sorry I knew, I am kind of slow in updating the Taiwan trip posts for those who is interested to read more. Please give me sometime to sort out the photos and I will try to update the rest of the 5 posts as soon as possible. Thanks a lot :)

Ramen @ Men-IChi

Our Mother's Day lunch was a simple one at the newly open Men-Ichi near our area. This shop was always crowded with people and long queue waiting to eat their Ramen and Gyoza. So today after our church sermon, we decided to drop by before the weekend lunch queue begins........

This newly open Men-Ichi replaced the old Délifrance shop that used to be there for more than 10 years. The layout and renovation of the shop looks very Japanese Noodle stall style with it's wooden roof top and white paper lanterns.

Upon searching through the menu on what to order, we saw some Mother's Day set meal which cost around S$25.00 for salmon seafood set, rice, vegetable and etc. But mum prefer to have Japanese Curry rice while I settle for one of their chef recommended Ramen on the list. While waiting for the food to be served, we tried their salted vegetable pickles which taste good with it's light fragrance that is mixed with some white sesame seeds which brings out some extra flavour.

And another surprised while waiting, mum saw one of my best friend Vivian and her boy. We have not met each other for a very long time and since they are alone we invited them to join us for the Mother's Day lunch too. Everyone of us enjoy our chat and updates in life while the two kids enjoying playing and drawing while waiting for the adults to enjoy our lunch.

Both Mum and Vivian ordered this Tempura Curry Set which served with miso soup and cut fruit. I love the presentation of this Tempura Curry and from the look at the curry sauce you know that you will fall in love with it. The prawns and vegetables are coated with a layer of batter and fried till crispy and golden brown. One good point about this dish is, both mum and Vivian agreed that the items are not oily like some of those served in other restaurants. Overall they are very satisfied with this dish but a little setback is their serving speed are kind of slow maybe good things have to wait slightly longer... :p

Finally here comes my Kyofu Tonkotsu Shio Ramen. According to menu, their Kyoto-style ramen soup is light and shoyu based but rich with collagen and kotteri from the long hours of boiling. In Singapore, there are about four popular types of ramen which are shio(salt based), sho-yu(soya sauce), tonkotsu(pork bones) and miso(fermented soy beans). The one that I am having today is a combination of Tonkotsu and Shio which is the salty pork bones soup broth giving tonkotsu ramen its characteristic richness.

I am sure by looking at the photo above, you are already tempted by it's presentation and wonderful flavour of the soup broth and wish to have bowl of Ramen now. Although I am not an expert in eating Ramen but I am sure this is a good choice to try out their wonder soup broth as well as the handmade noodles. A bowl of this Kyofu Tonkotsu Shio Ramen cost around S$16.90.

Men-IChi has two branches @:
Jurong Point #B1-54
1 Jurong West Central 2
Tel: 6794 5125
Daily: 11.30am -10.00pm

930 Yishun Avenue 2
#01-22/23 Northpoint
Singapore769098
Tel: 6755 5719
Daily: 11.30am -10.00pm

Fruit Paradise's Fruit Tart

I am sure some of you have heard about this "Fruit Paradise" tart shop which has a few branches in Singapore with it's very first at Manpuku located at Tampines 1. They also have other branches at Orchard Central and Raffles Place MRT.

Their tarts are decorated with fresh fruit that are selected and handpicked carefully by experienced Japanese Pastry chefs. And the tarts come with 3 kinds of base – custard cream, cheese cream and fresh cream. The tarts range from Chocolate Banana, Mango Fruit Tart, Blueberry Fruit Tart, Orange and Grapefruit Tart and etc. So this is our this year Mother's Day special dessert "Assorted Fruit Tart" is bought by my brother's friend. The fruits are so fresh and appetising to look and taste together with it's colourful combination. According to my brother if you will to buy a slice of each flavour it cost around S$8.00 per slice..... Em... are you willing to spend that amount for a slice of fruit tart?

Here I wish all mummies and mum to be a Happy Mother's Day!!!!!! 3 Cheers!!! for all mummies in the world..... :)