Jia Wei Chinese Restaurant @ Grand Mercure Roxy Singapore

Earlier this week, I was invited to a tasting dinner at Jia Wei Chinese Restaurant together with Maureen from “misstamchiak blog”. This Chinese restaurant is at level 2 of Grand Mercure Hotel which is located in the heart of Katong that is just 15 minutes away from Changi International Airport. Within the hotel itself, there are two restaurants and bars that serves different varieties of food range from fine Chinese cuisines to authentic Singapore's Traditional Buffet dishes and Western delights.

Jia Wei Chinese Restaurant has being operating in Grand Mercure Hotel since December 2007, which will be coming to its 4th years of operation this December. This Chinese restaurant offers an exquisite and oriental fine dining experiences with its fusion Chinese cuisines created by its award-winning Chef, Lee Tuck Seng (李德胜).

Chef Lee brings with him over thirty years of culinary experience culled from his various postings in various renowned hotels and restaurants. His is specialised in Cantonese cuisine where he always continuously refines the art of cooking through improvisation and experimentation. I love what Chef Lee’s has code for his philosophy towards his work; “Put your whole heart in it and your plates will reflect it”.

To start off with the dinner, we each have a bowl of “Hot & Sour Soup” as starter before the main dishes are served. The taste of this soup is just nice for our liking as it is neither too spicy nor sour compare to most of the Szechuan Hot and Sour Soup. According to Chef’s Lee, he actually used “white peppercorns” that makes the taste mild instead of the usual “Szechuan Peppercorns - 花椒 “ which gives a more numb and spicy taste to the soup. And I must agreed this is quite an appetising soup to stir up our appetite for the upcoming dishes.

"Grilled Cod Fish with Chef's Special Sauce" is my favourite pick out of the 5 tasting dishes from the menu. From what Chef Lee has shared, he actually used some salted plum (水梅), tomato sauce, chilli oil and etc to create this sweet sauce which I think it has a quite similar taste towards Teriyaki sauce. With this suace, he used it to brush on the cod fillet before and during the baking process in order to achieve the attractive golden brown colour on the surface of the fish. There are also some side vegetables such as baby corn, mushroom and broccoli that makes a great combination with the drizzle sauce too.

This “Roasted Chicken with Garlic” platter comes with a few pieces of roasted chicken and Mock Goose (素斋鹅 - usually you will find this crispy bits served on top of the vegetarian bee hoon) that tops with some crispy fried minced garlic. The chicken has a very crispy outer skin and surprisingly the meat is still very tender and juicy when bites. If you prefer, you can eat this with their special chilli sauce which I think goes pretty well with the chicken.

For vegetable dish we had this "Stir-fried Scallops with Asparagus" which you can still enjoy the fresh and crunchiness of the thick asparagus slices.

Homemade Fried Mee Sua is also one of my favourite noodle dishes other than Braised Ee Fu noodles. I have tried this similar fried mee sua dish in a few restaurants before and the one served at Jia Wei has definitely more “hidden” ingredients. Bad sad to say, this is not the best fried Mee Sua as compare to what I had eaten before, perhaps too many ingredients adds complexity to the taste of this dish.

Having a cup of this wonderful "Chilled Aloe Vera with Lime Sorbet" is definitely a good choice from the array of desserts on the menu. This dessert consists of 3 different textures such as the Aloe Vera cubes at the bottom of the cup that gives you crunchy bites, middle are some soft and silky jelly follow with a scoop of Lime Sorbet on top. The Lime Sorbet was kind of sour but it actually blends well with the jelly and Aloe Vera, which made this a very refreshing dessert after those dishes.

While chatting with each other during the dinner, I was sharing about my passion towards using Durian as an ingredients in my recipes blog when Jennifer suggest that in this case we must try their special Durian desserts which is available in their Ala Crate Menu known as "Deep-fried Durian Ice-Cream" and "Durian Paste" from Feast @ East Buffet Restaurant that is located at level 3.

This is indeed a special Durian dessert where the Ice Cream is coated with a layer of batter and deep-fried till golden and crispy. This must be done in a skillful way in order to achieve the right crispy texture for the outer wrapper and yet retain the ice cream from melting in the parcel. The ice cream parcel is then served with mango puree sauce together with some pomelo in it which you reminds you of the Mango Pomelo dessert(杨枝甘露). Overall the taste of the mango sauce goes pretty well with the ice cream parcel, but if you don't wish to mix the two flavour, you can mango sauce and just enjoy your durian parcel where the ice cream will starts to ooze out when bite.

The second Durian dessert is specially taken from Feast @ East Buffet Restaurant that is located at level 3 of this hotel. Personally I will still prefer the Deep-fried Durian Ice Cream than this Durian Paste, as I love the bursting layers of flavour from the crispy outer skin, durian and mango puree.

After the dinner, Maureen and I each received a box of complimentary “White Lotus Seeds with Macadamia Nuts” mooncake as mooncake festive season gift from Jennifer, Director of Sales & Marketing department of Grand Mercure Hotel. Other than baked mooncake, this year Jia Wei also came out with a new flavour snowskin mooncake known as “Moonberries”. With its high nutrient contest and antioxidant qualities, this ruby-red juice is the perfect ingredient for a mouth-watering mooncake selection suitable as gifts or personal consumption. If you are interested to get some as gifts, you can refer HERE for more details.

Recently Jia Wei has also launched an Executive Set Menus, which is specially created for busy executives. This Executive Set Menus (refer to their online menu list HERE) contain 4 separate menu sets, each of which boasts a selection of 4 menu choices. The 4 menu sets are rotated on a weekly basis, which mean you could enjoy a different choice from the extensive choices from each menu set.

But if you prefer something more rest and relax, perhaps you can consider their “Yum Char” High Tea that comes with varieties of dim sum, noodles and deserts. This Yum Char High Tea is available from Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 11.00am to 5.00pm. Despite on the High Tea time, Dim sum is also available on daily lunch menu.

Lastly, I would like to thank Ms Jennifer Narcis of Grand Mercure Hotel, Roxy Singapore and Ms Vanessa Koh of Asia PR Werkz Pte Ltd for hosting this tasting event.


Jia Wei Chinese Restaurant (家味酒家)
Grand Mercure Roxy Singapore
50 East Coast Road
(Opp. Parkway Parade Shopping Centre)
Level 2
Singapore 428769
Telephone: (65)6340 5678
Email: H3610-F01@accor.com
Website: www.grandmercureroxy.com.sg

Operating Hours:

Lunch:
11.30am - 3.00pm (Monday to Saturday)
11.00am - 3.00pm (Sunday and Public Holidays)

Dinner:
6.00pm to 11.00pm (Daily)

Yum Char(High Tea):
11.00am to 5.00pm (Friday, Saturday and Sunday)

Swensen's @ Northpoint

To start off our dinner at Swensen's, we have the "Clam Chowder" soup that is served in a sourdough breadbowl which is enough to feed two person due to it's huge serving. The soup is full of yummy ingredients such as baby clams, diced potatoes, carrot, onion and etc in creamy soup.

Here comes our main course which is the "Seafood Lasagna" with succulent shrimps and crab sticks between generous layers of pasta that accompanied with that attractive jade green creamy spinach sauce and topped with golden fried potato sticks. This dish might look good but it taste rather cold which we thought it might have being taken out from the freezer and just reheat in the microwave or so. And when eating, this cold dish gives us that greasy and odd feeling too.

For dessert, we ordered this "White Chocolate Blondie" and "Sticky Chewy Chocolate". The Chocolate Blondie is filled with rich white chocolate blondie sizzling with maple butter syrup and served together with Ol' Fashioned Vanilla ice cream and a shower of pistachios, peanuts and almonds. This really taste great for after meal dessert and it makes you crave for more after each mouthful.

My boy's favourite dessert which is "Sticky Chewy Chocolate" that he loves so much because the whole cup is full of chocolate! But before eating, he will scoop off all the whipped cream which he dislike the taste of it.

This Swensen's outlet at North Point Shopping Mall has being around since the opening of the shopping mall more than 10 years. And their newly renovated concept do add extra points to the dining environment.

Steam Cod Fish ~ 破布子蒸鳕鱼

Steaming is a method of cooking using steam which is also considered as a healthy cooking technique that is capable of cooking almost all kinds of food. Steaming works by boiling water continuously, causing it to vaporise into steam which carries heat to the food and cooks the food. This method also preserves the freshness of the food and cause non-greasy texture compared to fry or deep-fried stuffs.

To master a good steaming technique, you must learn how to control the heat and timing so that you can easily cook up some delicious dishes without over cooking them. Steaming method is often consider as one of the most pouplar choices among working mother that needs to prepare some quick and delicious dinner within short time after a long day at work.

Today's I am going to share with you a new ingredient that is not commonly found or used in Singapore. Cordia (破布子/荫树子) fruit which can be eaten raw. But the common method of eating this fruit is to wash and add brine to boil, stirring constantly for about more than an hour to let the peel rupture. After the boiling, cordia fruits will be either use together with other other seasonings, frozen or pickled. And the end products can be used in stir-fry, make soup, steam with other ingredients or as a seasoning in sauce. Cordia is normally found in most Taiwan or China cuisine where they are often use to steam seafood such as fish and clam.

Note:

~ I bought this Cordia Fruits(破布子/荫树子)from one of those floating stall in the wet market that is specialist in selling Taiwan food products.

~ Alternatively you might want to check with those food stores at Chinatown area that sell Taiwan or China food stuffs.

Ingredients: (Serves 2)
1 Piece of Cod Fillet, 200g
2 Clove of Garlic, cut into slices
1 Stalk of Spring Onion, cut into sections
1/2 Stalk of Chili, cut into slices

Seasonings:
1.5 Tablespoons of Cordia Fruits(破布子/荫树子)
2 Tablespoons Glutinous Rice Wine
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Sesame Oil
Dash of Pepper

Method:
1. Rinse and pat dry the cod fillet with kitchen paper towel, set aside on the plate.
2. Mixed all the seasoning in a small bowl and drizzle it on top of the cod fillet.
3. Place the garlic slices, chilli and spring onion on top of the fish, cover with clearwrap leaving a little whole or grap.
4. When the water in the steamer comes to boil, lower the heat, place the plate of fish on the steaming rack and steam over medium heat for about 8 - 10 minutes depending on the thickness of the fish. (when the time is up, you can test the fish by using a chopstick to check whether the meat is cooked)
5. Remove and serve hot with steam rice.


As you can see, this dish is so easy to prepare and you can even pre-mixed the seasoning or assembly the fish on plate a day before or early in the morning before you goes to work. So when you reached home after work, everything is ready for you to get the wok for steaming. This dish taste refreshing with that hint of chilli and the sweet and sour mixture from the Cordia fruits.

Kite Festival 2010 @ Marina Bay

Last Saturday, after our monthly food outing at Cafe De Hong Kong, we had a great time of kite flying session at Marina Barrage. Although we have being there for a few times, but this is the very first time we have hands-on flying kite together with so many kite lovers there.

For your information, the once a year Kite Festival is back again this year which is on this coming weekend, 18th & 19th September 2010. This year event is held at The Promontory @ Marina Bay, where you can find more details on the map and information HERE.

But if you can't make it on either of the two dates shown above, you can always drop-by the Marina Barrage and join those kite lovers and enjoy the beautiful sight of the kites flying in the sky. You can access to the barrage by public transport bus 400 or shuttle service by the barrage itself near Marina Bay MRT station.

It's a very fruitful trip for everyone of us and Rey really enjoys himself. Look he can even fly the kite himself without any of our help despite with a little setback that he encounter.

These are two of the lovely sunset and night photos that I have captured. Admiring the Singapore Flyer at opposite end instead of boarding it and look far to the Barrage.

Love this "Postcard" layout photo, even though it might look slightly darker on the buildings. Must brush up on my night mode photo shoot skill now. For more photos of our kite flying trip, you can refer HERE.

Cafe De Hong Kong

Our September Food Outing was held at Cafe De Hong Kong (新天地小橱) last Saturday, 11 September 2010. This Hong Kong style cafe is located at 586 Balestier Road which can be reached by bus from either Novena or Toa Payoh. Our group makes an effort to have food outing at least once a month and last month our outing theme was on Burger Hunt(click HERE for details) and we managed to try about 10 different kinds of burgers from 2 different well received burger outlets in Orchard area. And for September, we are here at Cafe De Hong Kong to try something more adventure...... Can you make a Guess?

Yes!!! Our mission for this month, which we all look forward to, is to conquer our fear on eating "Crocodile Palm".... So let's continue with this post where I will share with you some interesting and yummy dishes that we had.

Upon entering the café, you definitely will be captured by all these lovely drawings and art crafts on both sides of the wall. And according to Alice, all these beautiful drawings are in the café are done by Mr Francis’s kids. From the photo, I feature some of my favourite pick such as the lovely DIY clock, pop-ups drawing on the café menu and spaceship.

First we have these lovely "Fortune Seafood Roll - 如意海鲜卷" as starter to excite our taste buds before the "Star" dish appears. Although this might be some deep-fried food but it is not that oily at all, the fresh and crunchy ingredients are wrapped with Vietnamese nested rice paper, deep-fried till golden and crispy, then topped with extra fish roe before serving. I think this is an ideal finger food to be served as starter together with cold beer before dinner.
Price: S$7.00 for 2 pieces

After the seafood roll, here comes our long waited "star" dish of the menu, “Stewed Crocodile Palm - 红烧鳄鱼掌”. Everyone was very excited about this dish when it is served and we thought at a certain angle, it looks sort of like black chicken feet.

Surprisingly this stewed crocodile palm is so soft, juicy and jelly like texture that is similar to sea cucumber. Most importantly it does not have any of that “fishy” smell or taste compare to those crocodile soup or stir-fried crocodile dishes that I have tried before. If you are just being served with a bowl of the flesh parts, I can guarantee that you can’t even tell this is crocodile meat. Overall this dish comes with one Crocodile Palm, green leafy vegetables, roasted pork and etc. Most of us agreed that the chef has done a great job on this dish too. From the menu, they also we spotted crocodile soup which perhaps we can give it a try next round.
Price: S$50.00 per pot (best is to pre-order ahead)

“Braised Duck with Sea Cucumber - 港式海参扒鸭" is the most expensive dish in our menu list due to the good quality of sea cucumber and cooking process and time taken for this dish. The duck is well cooked and the meat so soft and fragrant which required less chewing, and the sea cucumber is cut into thick chunk which makes it taste bouncy and yummy on each bites. The dish goes well with steam rice because of it's excellent gravy.
Price: S$78 per plate

Next interesting item on the list is this “Stewed Lamb Brisket - 枝竹羊腩煲”. It is piping hot when served so this will make a great choice for rainy days or year-end dinner where the weather is much cooler For those who dislike mutton/lamb because of it “scent’ you will be surprised with this dish. The chef used a great combination of spices that mask up most of the unpleasant scent of the lamb leaving it only with soft and tender meat. From the recommendation of the Francis, this dish goes well with little bit of fermented beancurd sauce(豆腐乳) and extra topping of thinly shredded “Kaffir Lime Leaf”.
Price: S$20.00 per pot

Talking about Fried Rice, which is your favourite choice? Although I am not a fan of fried rice because I often find it too oily or dry for my liking, but if I have to order I will always go for “Yang Zhou Chao Fan - 扬州炒饭” which I love it's special fragrant. For our last item on menu, we have this special fried rice that totally changed my view towards fried rice. This is also one of the chef recommended dish of this cafe which is known as "Fragrant Fish Roe Fried Rice - 太子炒饭". If you take a closer look at it, all those orange little dots are actually fish roes. Each mouthful that you eat, you will be able to taste all those popping fish roes in your mouth. Does it sounds great to you!
Price: S$10.00 per plate

After all the yummy dishes, here comes our dessert of the day, which is their popular “Hong Kong Style French Toast”. Look at the height and thickness of this toast, does it look sort of like “Deep-Fried Beancurd -豆干/豆腐“ to you? This taste really different from what I used to have from the local toast café. The bread is so soft and fragrant inside leaving a little crispy crust on the outer layer and most importantly it don’t gives you that greasy taste at all. It also goes pretty well with a cup of Hong Kong Style Milk Tea.
Price: S$5.00 per piece

For the lunch, we have enjoyed 10 wonderful dishes plus French Toast and fresh cut fruits as desserts and we are very thankful to Mr Francis Mak, whose specially design this set of menu for our food outing. We really appreciate his warm hospitality towards each one of us and his kitchen crews for whipped out all these yummy dishes. Lastly, I would like to thanks Alice and Maureen who helps to do all the co-ordination in order to host this food outing successfully.

For more photos of the dishes, you can click HERE.

Or you can also drop by to these websites on those who attended the outing for more read up and photos. Misstamchiak, Lobsterpaints, Camemberu, CalvinTimo, The HungryCow and The Hungry Photograper.

Cafe De Hong Kong
586 Balestier Road
#01-01 Eastpac Building
Singapore 329898
Tel: 6255 3865
Email: cafedehongkong@gmail.com
Web: www.cafedehongkong.com

Opening Hours:
11.30am - 3.00pm, 5.00pm - 12.00 Midnight
Closed on MONDAY, except Public Holiday(then the next day after PH close)