Guestbook trial. This is pretty cool

Photoshop + bored Danny = wu liao posters

*Wry smile*

He's been around the world, baby.

The Danivore

Seven servings of topside beef, Four pieces of char-grilled chicken, Three pork sausages, Two slabs of honey-glazed ham, Two slices of grilled pineapple, One chunk of salmon later, I emerged from the Carnivore - A Brazilian meat buffet place at Vivo - $50 poorer and a whole lot happier.

Carnivore: Can you handle it?

Yeah, I most certainly can.

I went for their lunch buffet, which is definitely worth the $19+++ per person. But I wouldn't pay any more, because other than the grilled meat (which is really the only reason to visit), the salad bar really isn't up to standard. No effort, lah. Just put all the chapalang dishes onto one table spread makes it a salad bar meh? No theme, no creativity, no point. Might as well just advertise it as a meat buffet and spare us the tummy-space.

Anyway, the food, the food.

Far and away the best of the afternoon: topside beef.

Awesomeness.

That's a green olive stuck on my fork.
I didn't realise how different black and green olives taste. Hmm.

I was told that there were different cuts of beef, but then turns out the full range is only available for the dinner buffet. Darn. And I was looking forward to beef rump.

No worries, topside is pretty decent already. It is an incredibly decadent feeling to have carvers hover around your table with chunks of glistening topside beef, and other tasty morsels. The surface cuts were certainly tastier than those closer to the centre of the roast, owing to the generous amount of marinade each roast receives.

Oh, and beef fat is certainly much better tasting (in my opinion) than other types of animal fat, especially when roasted on a spit. The strong, rich flavour that bursts in your mouth with each bite leaves you wanting more, while knowing your growing tummy can hardly afford it. You succumb anyway.

Yep. The missus likes her Capirinha just fine.

The chicken also deserves a mention, though. The texture is fantastic, the flavour locked in due to the slow-cooking method employed by the owners. The chicken skin is crisp and flavourful, and is well basted in marinade for that extra oomph.

And, and, the roasted pineapple was damn good! I know you're probably going "Huh, pineapple also can roast one meh?" The answer is a big, fat, YES. Succulent and sweet, you know that it's not your average pineapple when the carver's knife slides effortlessly from top to bottom of the juicy fruit.

Honey glazed ham and pork sausages were decent, but nothing to blog about.

Now, one thing you should note if you're planning to go to Carnivore is that while they have a bunch of waiters, they only have two designated "carvers". For a restaurant that seats about 60 - 80 (I estimate), it's certainly insufficient. As a result, you have to wait about 5-7 mins for each serving of meat.

Also, you should try to grab a seat on either extreme of the kitchen. We sat somewhere in the middle, and ended up mostly getting third or fourth cuts of the meat, which usually resulted in some medium rare cuts. Not that I'm complaining, as the texture of medium rare beef is exquisite to say the least, but to miss out on the roasted beef fat (only found on the surface) is cardinal.

To clear up any doubts about the cost of lunch, I paid $58 all in, including a $12 Capirinha. $19 per person for a weekend lunch is pretty decent if you ask me, even though they reserve the prime cuts for dinner.

Carnivore VivoCity
1 Harbour Front Walk, #01-161/162, Singapore 098585
Tel: 63769939

Taste: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Ambience: 4/5

Yeah. I like it. I'll be back.

Corduroy Cafe, Ayam Penyet

Chocolate Royal, $6.80

Chocolate chip cupcake had weird silver ball-bearing lookalike topping

Water is served free - in a stylo vase, no less

So we were at Vivo yesterday and we came across this very stylo-looking cafe which has a great view (well, they all do at vivo), and went in to have tea.

Turns out, this place is really very nice, but price also very nice - $26 for two drinks and two pastries, +++ some more.

I guess it's a really good place to meet up with that friend you haven't met up with for years, as the chairs are very comfortable and the decor tastefully done. It reminds me of menotti's at Raffles City, if only for the similar standard in pastries and devotion to detail.

I had the cupcake, which was really pretty, and pretty good too (ok, lame attempt). The cream was fresh, not those overly jelat type that you have at those neighbourhood pastry shops. It was light and the cupcake was moist. The best part was it wasn't even hot and had been left there for quite some time it seemed, but hey, it still tasted ok.

The missus had the oreo chocolate milkshake which was oh-so-good; smooth and milky - she said too milky - and with oreo chunks at the shake-bed. I thought it was pretty darn good, and I've had some shakes. As for the Chocolate royal, not too bad, but nothing really royal (argh, there I go again).

So I went surfing hoping to find the website for this ultra-chic yet laid-back cafe and that's when I found this ....

.
..
...
....

Corduroy Cafe

01-106 VivoCity
Tel: 6376-9895

After 9pm on weekdays only, pastries and desserts are sold one-for-one. Items include apple rhubarb crumble (usual price $6.80), panna cotta with wild berry compote ($6.80) and assorted cupcakes ($2.50).

WAH LAO!!!(*&#(@*&)(#$&(*#&$ waste money

Anyways

Corduroy Cafe
Taste: 4/5
Value: 2/5 (well, 4/5 after nine on weekdays)
Ambience: 5/5

Had the much-vaunted ayam penyet with the bates people

Hmm. Well, it's not bad, but not very worth it price-wise. It's $5.50 for a plate of fried chicken, blanched kangkong, deep fried tofu and extremely extremely hot sambal. Really, the sambal is the star here. Chicken and others are not bad, but not worth it also.

Ayam Penyet House
Taste: 3/5
Value: 2/5
Ambience: 3/5

Cavana chicken rice, Geylang beef kway teow

Fried chicken wings and chicken rice

Ever since it was at Funan Centre, Cavana chicken rice (formerly known as Corona i think) has consistently produced their tasty take on a local favourite - Chicken rice. Nothing much has changed since those days, except maybe for the price, which is now almost double the original, at $4.50 a plate. Overall, this is one of the evergreens.

Geylang Beef kway teow

The beef tastes rather rubbery, almost synthetic, and the kway teow lumpy and undercooked. Suffice to say, this certainly isn't worth the hype. Unless, of course, it is 1130pm and you've just seen Singapore beat Malaysia on penalties. Then it tastes just fine...

Yeah baby, they like it too

As always, the princess's taste buds are hard to please, haha

Peranakan food, muthu's curry and donut factory

Satay was pretty good

Clockwise from left: Sambal prawns, Tauhu Goreng, Mee Goreng

Went to this quaint Peranakan eatery in this ulu part of Thomson. Not bad lah, reasonable prices, no crowd on weekends, I don't mind. And the satay is pretty good too...

I forgot the name of the place though...

Taste: 3/5
Value: 4.5/5
Ambience: 4/5

Mr Yeo looking through the menu at Muthu's curry thinking
"how am I going to avoid the calories??"

The much-vaunted fish head curry. Nope, no way to avoid the calories.

One and a half hour donuts from the donut factory

Sigh. Yes, they look nice. But seriously. One and a half hours for donuts?? Thats just...nuts...

Donut Factory (Raffles City basement)
Taste: 3/5 (Donut itself is not particularly tasty, toppings taste like they look, nothing special)
Value: 4/5 (Not counting the waiting time, $11 for a dozen flavoured and topped and glazed donuts is pretty decent)
Ambience: N.A.

World of Warcraft burning crusade launch at Suntec with crazy geeks queuing overnight

View from the office table.

Is it me or does something sound wrong with "Why not bring your spouse for a great bargain" coming right after "Buy/Sell/X-Change (New/Used)"?

Made Jole wear "Birthday girl" badge on her birthday last week

Bali Thai

Tauhu Telor, Tom Yum Goong

Ayam Pengang

The food at BaliThai is pretty decent, with some hits and misses. First, the good. Tauhu Telor is one of the restaurant's recommendations, and rightly so. The dish arrived slightly colder than I imagined deep-fried beancurd and egg to be, but boy did it taste good. Especially with the peanut sauce, heaven.

The Ayam Pengang also deserves a mention. So far the best version of this dish I've tried (though I've not really tried alot, about 4-5 stalls) is at Plaza Sing foodcourt. Balithai's version is really pretty good. The chicken is tender, the marinade is tasty and the bird is grilled to perfection. What's not to like?

Now the bad. Good Tom Yum soup surely is the hallmark of a decent Thai restaurant/eatery. Even if it's not authentic, so long as it tastes spicy/sour and has fresh ingredients, most people (including me) won't really mind. But their version is way too sour. Like...cringe-worthy-sour.

Didn't finish it. (I NEVER EVER NEVER FINISH FOOD)

Another thing to note: THE SERVICE SUCKS. How can any restaurant afford to have nobody jaga the main door during peak hour? Waited like 10 minutes before a waiter looked at us... then turned away like never see us... wth.

Then, when we were finally ushered in (actually herded is a more accurate word), we saw a whole bunch of tables...empty. *up yours*

Bali Thai West Mall

Taste: 3.5/5
Value: 3 (Total bill for 4 dishes - $47)
Ambience: 3/5
(Service: 1/5 the one point is for the waiter who served us.)

Goodbye Ann, hello Toysrus

Goodbye, Ann

Fellow intern Ann-Katrin left yesterday to climb her mountain. They threw her a little going away party! Poor girl sounded like she was going to cry while giving her going-away speech. Aww... we'll miss your chirpy-ness at the media monitoring table!

A toast to the singlish-speaking German lass!

Things you can do at Suntec during lunchbreak

• Walk aimlessly around carrefour
• Play arcade at the Star Factory
• Go shopping at G2000 for the shirt you need because you spilled laksa all over your old one
• Watch a movie...trailer
• Challenge your office mates to a hula hoop contest

J: Hey, I know how to hula hoop!

A: Really ah, challenge ah!

J: er...

A: Ready, one, two, eh where you all going?

New year, new food

This Cheng Tng stall is damn popular

I had to wait about 15 minutes for this...

A whopping 22 ingredients go into this little bowl of heaven

The texture of this stall's version of an all-time favourite local dessert is incredible. In one spoonful you may get bits of sweet potato, barley, white fungus, dried longans, preserved persimon, ginko nuts, dates, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can't name.

At $2 a bowl it's not your cheapest hawker dessert but it sure is worth it. Even malays are joining the queue to have it! The taste could be slightly less sweet, but then again I was having the hot version so perhaps the cold one would do just fine.

Where: Chomp chomp-styled food centre opposite Bedok camp (I travelled 1 hour from town on bus number 14 for this)

Taste: 4/5
Value: 5/5
Ambience: 3.5/5

There's also a famous hokkien mee stall next to this one but that really wasn't worth the wait. Not nice lah, so so only.

Mai siao siao ok. The ART of Mee Pok

40 mins of waiting for this...

Ok, to be fair, it really is THE best mee pok I've tasted. Ever. Every aspect was perfect, the noodles, fishballs, prawns, lard, only the soup was too sweet.

5 stars for this. No, wait, 4.5.

Where: The Art of Mee Pok Ptd Ltd, near Tanah Merah MRT

Taste: 4.5/5 (minus 0.5 for the soup so if you don't mind it's a full score)
Value: 3.5/5 (Top-grade ingredients, but at 4 bucks a bowl is nowhere near value)
Ambience: 2/5

Duck and Char Siew rice

Finally, we walked last friday from suntec to liang seah to have this. The duck at this place is pretty good, but the char siew is the star. If you love your char siew very burnt and slathered with thick, calorie-laden black sauce, (like I do) then you'll like this place.

Where: Opposite Shaw towers, by day it sells roast meat, by night turns into budget steamboat place.

Taste: 3.5/5 (If you're a weight-watcher, don't bother)
Value: 4/5 ($4 a plate for charsiew + duck rice)
Ambience: 2.5/5

Well, it's been back to work this week. A few new faces, a couple have left. 23 funky fridays to go!

Tell me, what is the point. Put poster outside big big some more.

Himalayas from the plane

Himalayans from the plane, originally uploaded by ireallylovedanny.

For all Indian trip photos, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/41669868@N00/sets/72157594448071363/

Mai siao siao

Kuali High Tea

Have always wanted to try this buffet at Suntec just opposite the roti prata, and last Sunday, we finally did. Can't fault them on variety, but at $25 pax, the quality just didn't cut it.

Tossed salad

Fettucine with pork ribs

Assorted fruit tarts

They have a pretty decent spread, but everything just seemed rather obligatory. Like, there was Hainanese chicken rice (Asian/Oriental), smoked salmon (Norwegian/Icelandic), Cheese and chocolate fondues (European/American), a crepe station, fruit station, etc.

Sigh. Somehow it just wasn't enough for me. Classic case of quantity over quality.

Kuali (Suntec City)

Food:2/5
Value: 2/5
Ambience: 3/5

9,000 species of birds in 4 hours

I've never been to Jurong Bird Park, so we decided to pay 16 dollars to do just that today. There were these tame looking birds that could be fed for 2 bucks.

Tame...

Tame...Argh...

WAH LAO EH GET OFF ME!!

Stupid birds look harmless but actually damn fierce in getting the food ok.

Conqueror of the red lory

The Bird Park's contribution to this food blog:

Bongo Burger!

$11.80 for a super thick beef burger, thick fries, jug of coke. Okay lah.

Bongo Burger
Taste: 3/5
Value: 3.5/5 (considering it's at a tourist destination)
Ambience: 4/5 (The staff were all in cute safari uniforms)

World's highest man-made waterfall

Nice lah, but nothing to shout about. Man-made after all.

For all birdie pics:http://www.flickr.com/photos/41669868@N00/sets/72157594410864195/

Momma's fish n chips

Homestyle cooking rocks

So we had a few guests over the other day and mumsie decided to whip up her style of healthy fish and chips (without the chips and a whole lot of other stuff).

Fish, corn, tossed salad, grilled chicken, mushroom soup (non-campbell), garlic bread and red wine make Danny a happy boy.