Authentic Italian Cuisine @ Pasta Inc

Wow! It's been awhile didn't hunting for a nice food as couldn't found a good deal and also I'm packed with a lot of personal matters. Well, recently finally got the opportunity purchase a deal S$38 per pax for a 4 course set meal deal (worth S$80) offer from StreetDeal.sg and enjoy it with my best friend last night.

The restaurant was located at Keong Saik Rd which is only 3mins walk from Outram Park MRT Station. Stepping in, the decor was classy and posh with nicely furnished and the waiters are friendly. What I like is the lighting of the restaurant which is quite easy on the eyes.

The voucher set-menu (S$38) includes:

For the starters:

BISQUE DI ARAGOSTA

Homemade Lobster bisque soup 

The soup was taste good with few small pieces of lobster meat.

 PROSCIUTTO CON MELONE

Parma ham wrapped around wedges of sweet rock melon

First time eating a parma ham wrapped in melon and I must say it was taste a little strange personally! The combination of the soft saltiness of ham and sweet rock melon melted into each other like lock and key.

For the main course (pasta):

PENNE SALSICCIA

Penne with Italian pork sausage in spicy tomato sauce

 For my friend, she choose this penne pasta with spicy tomato sauce which is not really spicy at all. The penne pasta was chewy and the sausages was tender.

FETTUCCINE CARBONARA

Fettuccine with bacon and onion in cream sauce with egg yolk

As for me, I had the fettunncine pasta with cream sauce and the sauce was creamy, rich and mouthwatering. The pasta was done just right, soft enough but still bouncy.

 

For the side course (meat/fish):

FILETTO DI SALMONE

Pan seared salmon in lemon pesto sauce

The salmon itself is truly fresh! Taste amazing with the lemon sauce.

POLLO ALLA PARMIGIANA

Pan fried breaded chicken topped with parmeson and mozzarella

The chicken is very well-done and the meat is juicy.

For the dessert:

Almond Vanilla Ice Cream & Tiramisu

Finally, came to the dessert! The tiramisu was too soft and moist but the alcohol was evident throughout the entire slice. For the vanilla ice cream, it taste refreshing with the almond chips.

Overall, the food was fantastic, the ambience was cosy and great, good for dates and gathering, and the service was helpful.

Dim Sum Buffet @ Bugis Junction

So, after months of craving for Dim Sum, plus I'm about to fly off for a week to visit my family in my hometown, my hubby & I decided that its time to go for our favourite food of ALL TIME!!! Wait for it.....DIM SUM!!!

The place at Bugis is called Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant. It's really quite easy to find. Its on the 2nd level in bugis junction itself, where all the restaurants are located. The seats are quite limit, so if you are not going there with a voucher (like we did), its going to be quite hard to find a seat/table. I recommend making reservation at least 1 day prior.

First impression, the service was rather bad! We were there for 10 minutes, waiting for our seats, and the front desk lady, a.k.a also the waitress, didn't even bother to help us find a place to sit. Instead, we had to wait till about 90% of the restaurant was emptied before we could go in. It was really odd, perhaps because of the limited space.

So, we decided to look at the menu, and wanted to order something different. That's the point of food exploration isn't it! It's to trying something that you cannot find some place else. And the Pork Ribs with Apple Juice was absolutely mouth watering! From the picture above, you notice the small cubes of apples, and it tasted absolutely marvelous!

Some of the more standard dim sum includes the pork ribs in preserved bean, which is also one of our favourites, but not the most! We'll leave the best for last. Moving on....

The Steam Siew Mai definitely tasted different from others we ate from many places we have been to! Seriously, I'm not sure what they have put into it. On the outside, it looks the same, but when you put it into your mouth, the flavours just explode!

And on our second round of orders, we decided to order this glutinous ball with wild mushroom. We have seriously never seen anything like this before. My hubby even made a funny comment that the entire thing looked like an alien egg! Lolx!!!

On the very first bite, we can't really figure out what we were eating, as it tasted rather strange. BUT....from the 2nd bite onwards, it tasted like heaven on earth! It's definitely a must try!

You must be thinking, why the hell would we order this Pan-Fried dumpling, which we can easily find at any hawker centre for $8/plate, with 20 pcs! And this is only 5!!!

But, before you jump to any conclusions, we will tell you this. The inside is not made of vege & minced pork! Rather, it was chicken! And we were totally surprised by the new take on the food!

Finally, on to our favourite dish! My favourite dish!!! I decided to order the chicken feet!!!!! I never eat dim sum without ordering one of this!! And my oh my, this chicken feet looks huge! Bigger than many other normal restaurants! And juicier as well! I had like 2-3, and my hubby had the rest!

We also decided to try the Smoked Duck, which has been marinated so that it will taste a little salty. And the slices was generous! The chef made each slice so thick, when you chew on it, you can actually feel the meat slipping in your mouth.

We ordered this Egg white with Crab Meat, but somehow it tasted quite salty, so we didn't really like it that much. Let's move on.

Looking at the signature shanghai style dumplings, they were mouth watering! My hubby was so hungry, when he took his first bite, the soup from within the dumpling splurt out! To really enjoy this delicacy, you really have to eat it with the vinegar! IT is totally amazing!!!!

For desserts, my hubby decided to order something familiar to his taste buds, and that was the longan with almond jelly!

And since I was feeling quite heaty lately, with ulcer in my mouth, I decided to try something that is cooling, which is the doubled boiled white fungus! It wasn't too sweet, and tasted just nice.

In conclusion, my hubby & I aren't designed for buffets. Therefore we didn't order too many things on the menu, but generally, I think this one was considered mission accomplished!

Using the voucher, we managed to save up to roughly $30+, and only end up paying $11.75 for the service charge and GST. If you are dining there without the voucher, you will probably need to spend about $50+ for 2 person, and depends on how much food you order. Try not order too much, as wastage of food is subjected to charges.

Nana's Green Tea @ PS!

Hmm, initially, my hubby & I wanted to try out the new japanese restaurant that served collagen. But shockingly, when we were there, the waiting list was so looooonnngg, the waitress told us we have to WAIT 2 Hours! With not much options available, since its Friday evening, and most places are packed with crowd, we decided to go to Nana's Green Tea instead. It's not our first time dining at this place.

The very first time we tried something at this place was back when it first opened in JCube @ Jurong East. Back then, it was just a small cafe, serving crepes, and desserts. And I absolutely fell in love with the crepes. They were opened for only a really brief period before they shifted to Plaza Singapura. And now, they have transformed their business into a casual dining environment with a change in their food menu as well. At the current moment, they are no longer serving the crepes, but when we last checked with them, they said that the crepes menu is still in their "storeroom" somewhere, and they might bring it back, but not too sure when. My guess is this, if they bring back those crepes, I think no one is going to order the main courses that much anymore! Hahaha! But that's just how I feel.

 

The new setting was really nice! Especially the design of the tables. You can notice the design on the right side of the photo where the lady is seated in the background.

Today, we decided to order something a little different, including the dessert and the side orders. And I must tell you, the side order tasted better than it looks in the photo!

This Prawn & Broccoli Salad was absolutely MOUTH-WATERING!!! I initially thought of going for something else, but my hubby suggested that we go for the salad instead, less fried food since we have been feasting quite a lot lately. And the mayo was not too over-kill, and it tasted just nice.

My hubby was hungry, like REALLY HUNGRY, so he went ahead to order the Chicken Cutlet Curry Don. It was quite main stream, but still tasted nice. The meat was chunky, thick, and generous.

 

OMG! Isn't that delicious or what!

Moving on, I ordered the Salmon & Maguro Don, which is salmon, my favourite, Tuna, and the Nori sauce. Quite frankly, I'm not sure what they put into the sauce, but it tasted amazing! I fed my hubby with all the preserved ginger (because ginger contained a chemical that helps to relieve muscle aches, and he sure looked like he needed lots of it!)

And on to the dessert portion!!! Well, its probably considered a drink, but with the matcha ice cream included, its hard to differentiate anymore! So, my hubby decided today that he wanted to go for something more sinful, but not so sinful! Haha!! WTH.

That's the matcha shiratama float, which contains matcha latte, topped with matcha ice cream and mochi! And when we finished our main course, and I started my matcha float, he already finished his drink/dessert! Haha!!!

Personally, if u ask me, I will say that the drinks are truly the main attraction at Nana's Green Tea! Green Tea contains many awesome benefits, and weight loss is one of them. Besides, Matcha green tea is one of my favourite tea!

Hopefully, they will come out with the crepes again soon! I am dying to go for the broccoli and prawn crepe! And...maybe other choices of ingredients in those crepe as well!

That's all from me! I'm signing off here.

Malaysia Boleh! Boleh??

Finally, after a long week, the weekend's here! We had planned to head to Jurong Point shopping mall to try out food from Malaysia Boleh, composed of authentic & street food from Malaysia! This isn't our first time being there, so we knew we had to be early to grab the good seats. Unfortunately, due to the ridiculous downpour, we only managed to get there around 6pm, and seriously, the crowd was ridiculous as well! But what do you expect? The food there was amazing! So, the crowd is justifiable.

After probably 10 minutes, my hubby & I decided to settle for a table right beside the walk aisle. What we truly loved about the atmosphere there was that it looked like a 1950s coffeeshop, although we weren't actually borned in that era. But the old chinese songs that they were playing in the background, really nice!

So, knowing how late we were this time, my hubby didn't hesitate to get the orders, as the queues were piling with hungry people! There were quite a few variety of stalls, from Char Kway Teow, to Chendol, to Claypot Chicken rice, etc.

Since I was having my one a month affair...haha, the ladies affair, don't go thinking something else, my hubby decided to help me order my favourite Bah Kut Teh! The difference between this and the local version is in the soup! It is thicker in terms of the thickness of the herb flavors, whereas Singapore's signature is the amount of pepper in the soup. Which wasn't suited for my taste buds.

The meat was amazing, because it was so soft that it falls right off the soft bones. Furthermore, the dark sauce mixed with garlic is the perfect match for the meat itself. It is both salty and right to the taste.

So, after finally getting my food, that was the easy part. For the next 20 minutes, I couldn't see my hubby, cos he was busy queuing for the KL Hokkien Mee, which by the way looks really enticing when he brought it back to the table. Seriously, when he looks at the photo now, he's still drooling.

When I asked him what was the difference, he said the noodles are thicker, as compared to the flat narrow noodles used by seafood stalls in local coffeeshops or restaurants. And the most delicious part of the meal was the thick dark sauce! It was sticky, as opposed to the local watery type.

And on to our favourite dish!!! But its not really the ingredients we were after, but the sauce! The sauce was both sweet + spicy at the same time. The spiciness doesn't choke you, but rather, it just gives you the right amount of kick, and you will be hooked onto it!

And because the weather has been really NUTS lately, rain, then hot, then rain again, my hubby decided to try the herbal drink from the stall upfront. It has longan, Luo Han Guo (which is good for soothing troubled throats), and brewed with Winter melon. And it tastes absolutely delicious! My hubby did not even leave a single drop behind!

Compared to the Ching Teng that you can order from any hawker centre, this is way way better!

In conclusion, we had a good time enjoying cheap and nice food! When we were about to leave, we noticed that there were more people waiting for seats, than there are enough seats.

Go early if you want to check out this place, reach around 5.30pm, and you should be able to find better seats, and the queues won't be that long as well.

Tony Roma's!

Gosh! Finally the exams are over!!!!! Although I think I'm pretty confident my marketing paper is probably going down the drain, but its over, so I'm not going to think about it anymore! Moving on, I was really looking forward to a dinner date with my hubby, and just the day before, I picked out an interesting deal from Groupon, and it was a $30 Tony Roma's voucher, for the price of just $15!

Now, because Suntec City was under renovations, its actually much easier to locate the place. Once you exit from the Esplanade MRT station through Citylink, the first escalator going down to the basement of Suntec City will bring you to the front entrance of Tony Roma's.

Entering into the restaurant, I was really intrigued by the environment! From the photo above, you can see that the lighting and atmosphere was just perfect! Honestly, if there wasn't an annoying couple talking really loudly, and behaving like they are at some neighbourhood coffeeshop, it would have been a perfect atmosphere! Moving on...

After verifying on how to use the voucher, we understood that whatever you order in a single bill, the total bill will be deducted by $30 from the voucher itself. So for example, in total, my hubby & I spent $84.50. After deducting the voucher, we only needed to top up $54.50. But frankly, after we have tasted the food, we can tell you one thing! The $54.50 was under rated.

The waiter provided excellent service by explaining to us that ordering the combos will be much more worthwhile as compared to ordering ala carte, since we are there to try the food. So, I decided to go ahead and order the BBQ Chicken & Ribs combo, topped with Blue Ridge Smokies sauce. I also had the Corn on the Cob + baked potato as a side order. And my hubby ordered the Steak & Ribs combo, topped with Carolina Honeys, he ordered the French fries and coleslaw as sides to go along.

I have to warn you first, what you see in the photo on the menu, is really down-sized! The real deal was a huge portion. But because I was so hungry after my exam week, and my hubby just had a crazy mid-week training in the gym, we were both feeling so hungry, like we can eat a horse! BUT....wait for it.... The portion was so huge, we couldn't even finish the sides, and I didn't even finish the Chicken drumstick, and the ribs!!! * sobs *

BBQ Chicken & Ribs Combo

Steak & Ribs Combo

Next, my hubby! According to him, the Steak was done with an amazing job! It was thick and juicy! Never dry, and the Ribs was so delicious, he ate it all!! Leaving only the bones for the waiter to clear! Haha!!

Generally, this is how I will rate this place:

Service:
Price Range:
Ambience:
Food:
Will we be back again:

We rated the Price Range as 4.5 because eventhough it might be a little pricy as compared to eating at Aston Specialties, however, because of the service provided by the staff, and the quality of the food, the price is reasonable.