We decided to explore the countryside this weekend.
There are large tracts of undeveloped land along Lim Chu Kang. Bryan dared me to roll down the windows and breathe in the farm fresh air made up of cow dung and chicken poop. I did it, but I was holding my breath while we went by. So was he. Chicken.
*
We ended up at Bollywood Veggies, an organic vegetable farm run by Ivy Singh and her husband. It promotes healthy lifestyle and sustainability.
*
One of my favourite things to do is take a day off from drudgery and go for a nice long weekday lunch with Bryan. Because he had a day off from school, that’s what we did exactly and popped by Cocotte for lunch, armed with a Groupon deal I got a few months ago.
This was my second visit to Cocotte, the first was with my boss who was impressed with their zao pai cai, roast chicken. My boss, although is about my age and looks younger than he really is, is a coffee shop uncle at heart. His 2 loves are char siew rice (roasted pork rice) and kopi-o (black coffee). so when he’s was waxing lyrical about “roast chicken”, I really expected roasted chicken rice. little did I expect a french restaurant tucked in the middle of Little India.
*
It was lazy lunch time so a quick google search brought us to La Nonna at Holland Village (they have an outlet at Namly Place too). La Nonna is an italian restaurant that prides itself in serving hearty homemade italian food from grandma’s recipes. The restaurant must have been around for years but I never noticed it, since it’s tucked inconspicuously between loud bars and serene spas. What drew us to the place was their lunch time specials. During weekdays, they serve a 3 course set lunch or 50% off ala carte items.
Soup of the week was cream of pumpkin soup. I love pumpkin soup ever since I had it during Christmas dinner at a friend’s house. La Nonna’s soup was a generous serving, good for 2 people. it’s creamy without being sickeningly so and is rather tasty although it lacks a little something to it. still yum though.
The other appetiser we couldn’t resist was the bacon wrapped mozerella cheese. this meets bryan’s list of Bacon wrapped anything. if he had a list of bacon wrapped food to conquer, this would be somewhere on the top. the bacon was lightly cooked so it’s still soft and juicy. tucked inside was the chewy mozerella which hasn’t hardened yet so it was very good. served with a light salad lightly covered with balsamic vinegar.
As usual, Bryan picked a pizza – La nonna’s signature pizza. it’s really margharita pizza (cheese + tomato, no meat) with leeks and an egg. what made this so special is the truffles they sprinkled all over. very yummy. i took 2 bites even though i was stuffed from my pasta.
crab meat linguine in tomato sauce. this was a tad bit disappointing. the good thing is that the tomato flavour wasn’t too overpowering (i hate that) but there wasn’t enough crab bits or crab flavour to make it perfect. I kept thinking of the crab meat pasta that Big D’s used to serve, but that one was more fusion style since it was cooked with spices.
the total bill for 2 was $60. quite a good deal if you asked me!
There are days where we are so lazy we don’t even drive out for Sunday lunches, not even if it’s without make-up. Luckily Bryan recently bought a sandwich maker. He calls it a waffle maker but waffle makers have squares while this doesn’t.
I used to have a sandwich maker at home but I think it’s spoiled now. so for the longest time, I live with the memory of freshly toasted sandwiches with my favourite filling.
This is a Kenwood sandwich maker. you put the pieces of bread in the squares, top up with filling, cover it with another slice of bread and press it down.
and viola! toasted sandwich! better than a regular toaster coz with the filling in between the slices while it’s toasting, the filling gets heated up. Great if you want melted cheese sandwiches. my favourite combination so far is Ayam Bran Chili Tomato canned tuna with Kraft cheese singles. it’s so good I ate TWO sandwiches. this is from a person who professes her abhorrence for sandwiches.
Bryan liked the tuna too except that it was a tad too spicy for him. he stuck out his tongue at me after every bite.
That was lunch. for dinner, he tossed up some squid rings and prawns.
threw the fish onto the grill with loads of butter and herbs.
Threw in a can of Prego’s tomato sauce and viola! Seafood pasta for dinner.
A colleague gave me can of white chocolate powder from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf so Bryan mixed it with fresh bananas and crushed ice and created ice blended banana white chocolate. even Fido approves!
(Fido didn’t really drink it. I didn’t want him puking out banana so he’s just posing).
The power of social media alerted me to the fact that Relish was selling $40 vouchers at $30 only on one of those groupon coupon deals so since Bryan was hankering for a burger at Relish for the longest time, I did the good girlfriend thing and bought the coupon.
Relish, run by the same management who operates Wild Rocket, is tucked somewhere on the 2nd floor of Cluny Court. Parking is parallel along the quiet road on the other side of the court but since I fail at parallel anything, I chickened out and parked at Serene Centre next door instead, to the tune of $4.90. this inability to parallel park is really costing me. But then I tried to parallel park just now at home (my dad did say to practice whenever I can) and there were 2 lots worth of space and it still took me 5 minutes.
The place is a pretty wooden place that can sit about 50 pax. It was Saturday brunch so the place was full, good thing we had reservations. Allergic to noise, I winced at the sound level as there was a birthday celebration going on but the waiter managed to move us to a corner where I could observe at the cafe in peace.
To cut down on time needed to move from kitchen to floor, the owners have installed 3 large cones from the ceiling (seen on the left) to shoot out the waiters or the floor manager whenever a customer waves for attention. pretty ingenious I must say.
There was a table of good looking people in my line of sight so I kept staring at them. I was trying to figure out if Relish was a no make-up place or not because I wasn’t wearing make-up, having had a massage treatment just before lunch but the good-looking people were obviously dressed up for some noon time partying. it was only when they brought out a cake with a 33 candle on it that it made sense. Even I would put on some lipstick for cake.
Cod fish cakes. I like all things cod fish. even though it cost $19. the cakes aren’t that big. I just moved my iPhone really close to the food.
Bryan’s blue cheese burger. I almost threw up coz it’s blue cheese. Well I’d have the same reaction to durian chendol so no offense to Relish. but Bryan couldn’t stop moaning as he ate the burger so I guess it’s good.
I took the safer route and ordered Chorizo Fettucine, aglio olioed with wild rocket and pumpkin. surprisingly full of flavour, a bit like eating organic char kwey teow. reminded me of the wild rocket and pumpkin salad I had at House a long time ago.
Bryan likes Panna Cotta so we ordered this pandan version served with gula melaka. very creamy smooth and tasty. I recommend. I also couldn’t stop shaking the table just to watch the thing wobble like silicon breasts. I have a strange obsession with jiggly things.
you’d think that with a $40 voucher it would seem to make the meal cheaper but 1 cod cakes + 1 blue cheese burger + 1 pasta + 1 panna cotta + 2 beers + 1 coke = $110. not a cheap restaurant for sure, the food is relatively tasty, but for that price I’d rather go Les Bouchons. the toilet at Cluny Court is really clean although it reminds me of a swimming pool toilet for some reason. the shops upstairs are like the ones at Holland Village, dubious fashion and the random nail spa. it also has little boutiques that sells ridiculous things like a plastic cup for $12.90.
Found at 230 Tanjong Katong Road, opposite our favourite June Eating House, is Smiths Authentic British Fish & Chips. I’m not sure what the authentic part is as it tastes like any other fish & chips to me but then that’s coz I don’t quite fancy fish & chips. given a chance, I’d rather eat the fish without the batter, which was what I ended up doing, peeling the crispy skin off and eating and moist flesh underneath, much to Bryan’s amusement. Personally I prefer my fish covered with soy sauce or cooked diao zhang style.
You put your order at the counter and wait for your number to be called. all your fish comes wrapped in paper, great for easy clean up after.
Overall it’s rather good as it doesn’t have the fishy smell or taste, and the batter is nice and light, and quite tasty when doused with generous amounts of vinegar. I got the cod while Bryan ordered the haddock. the haddock was rather dry but my cod was quite moist and tasty. definitely better than fish & co anytime, but I’m not too sure about driving all the way to the east just to eat this again.
My Sundays are always lazy. I’d like to say it’s after a night of partying but unfortunately not as my partying days are over (12 years of partying does wear you down). I guess it’s the thought of the weekend ending that makes me wanna slow down and do as little as possible to drag it as long as I possibly can.
Lazy Sunday lunches are thus the order of the day. Ever since our Sunday lunch at Colbar, I’m now on the hunt for lunch places where I don’t put on make-up and not care about it. The usual searches on hungrygowhere got me nowhere. I tried gooogling “Lunch + Singapore” but all I got were chi-chi recommendations on ladyironchef’s website, which goes against my make-up-less decree. So it is with great difficulty that we found this little cafe at Guthrie House along 5th Avenue.
Simply Bread is a sandwich cafe, as the name suggests. It is a small simple cafe which serves a simple selection of sandwiches from ham & cheese to roast beef, on a variety of bread. One would expect the smell of freshly baked bread in a place such as this but I guess that’s reserved for those who turn up in the mornings. When we got there, the place was almost full with the lunch crowd which was an unfortunate thing as the place is low-ceilinged so the chatter was uncomfortably loud and annoying.
Roast Beef sandwich on Ciabatta. The sandwiches are full-bodied meat stacked between fresh vegetables in between thick slices of bread. All sandwiches are served with a side of coleslaw. You have other breakfast options such as french toast or ham and eggs. Or something simple like toast with butter and jam.
Ham & Cheese sandwich on garlic ciabatta, which I didn’t like very much, but then that’s because I don’t fancy sandwiches much myself. Strangely enough, I cannot eat my meat with bread, although I love them separately. So here I am eating my sandwich in parts; first the top layer of bread, then the greens, followed by the thin slices of ham. by the time I’m halfway through, I was about to give up on my lunch. The garlic was slightly overpowering and I guessed I’d have been better off with plain ciabatta or sourdough. Overall a little disappointing though since Bryan can make a sandwich as this by himself, which he did once for me when I had to pack breakfast to work.
Overall I don’t think I’ll go back there unless I forget how much I prefer not to eat sandwiches. It might be a nice place to hide but go only after the lunch crowd clears around 3pm.
I was introduced to Colbar by Tricia on the day post Halloween. We were all suffering from different degrees of hangoverness and feeling like crap. All we wanted was a quiet place to have lunch before we headed home to sleep.
Colbar, which apparently stands for Colonial Bar at some point, is a quiet single storey building set at Portsdown Road. It is an unassuming place that doesn’t pretend to be a cool cafe that only good-looking people go to. in fact, the interior of the place looked a lot like an old school coffee shop, complete with the tiny square tiles from the 80s. the place was covered with old trophies and pictures from yesteryears. the place is run by an auntie with a few helpers.
The place is patronised by many ang mohs, which in itself surprising considering the layout of the place and the type of food. The food is a mix of western fry (mixed grill, chicken cutlet, etc) and asian (Hainanese pork chop rice, stir fried noodles, etc). However due to the white crowd, the prices of these things are a little higher than usual. The chicken cutlet I bought tasted like any other cutlet from a western food stall at a coffee shop, which would at most go for $5? At Colbar it was $10. Our Nescafe coffee was $1.80 per cup. They also have a wide selection of ales and ciders which makes this place most interesting.
But what I really like about this place is its quietness, apart from the children running around in the adjourning lawn. there are even big dogs lying around looking at the children. You can sit there and stare into space as your weekend ticks away. A great place to recover from a hangover. This place is so laid back you can turn up in t-shirt, shorts sans make-up.
