Casa Verde @ Singapore Botanic Gardens

Casa Verde means green house in French. And this is a most suitable name for a cafe restaurant situated at the visitors centre of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which celebrated its 120th anniversary this year.

Casa Verde is a collaboration between the Les Amis group and Buko Nero restaurant. The cafe here serves popular food from both western and local categories. Cafe is pretty small especially when full, and the temperature may get a bit unberable if one chooses to go al-fresco.



There is a very unique circular magazine racks which had the latest food and lifestyle magazines for diners to browse while eating their food.

A point to note is that diners will first need to queue up infront of the counter to order their food and drinks. After that, then the food is served by the waiters at your table. So it is like a semi-self service cafe.



Notice how cute the little glass of grass looked on the table? haha

Now on with the food!



Casa Verde Salad - A combination of fresh green leaves and seasonal fresh fruits. Always nice to have fresh vegetables to go with the heavier meat dishes.



Sfilatino Casa Verde (House Specialty) - Mozzarella, Ham and Mushrooms a la Spring roll style. Served with Tomato Salsa dip. It is tasty when served pipping hot, but may get a bit too heavy after having a bit too much, so is better to share this dish. Love the mozzarella cheese.



Spaghetti Marinara - Tossed with prawns, squids, crab meat, salmon, olive oil and parsley with white wine sauce. A lovely medley of seafood and pasta. Quite a fail-proof dish.



Italian sausage with onion and red wine sauce, served with mashed potato. Sausage is of good quality. The mashed potato is warm and quite buttery.


Casa Verde
Visitors Centre
Singapore Botanic Garden

Brotzeit @ Vivocity

Oktoberfest is Germany's most famous festival, and loads of beer and pork knuckle would be served to guests during this period.

Singaporeans got a slice of Oktoberfest at Brotzeit too. A German band was specially brought in for this festival. This was the first time I see everyone in the restaurant dancing and running around like children!



Worth mentioning are the pork knuckles with Sauerkraut, and the assorted grilled sausages with mashed potatoes. These food goes very well with their inhouse beer.

I love the atmosphere and the food. Definitely warrants a revisit!




Brotzeit (by Paulaner Brauhaus)
1 Harbourfront Walk
#01-149/-151 VivoCity

Wakashachiya @ Central Clark Quay

Wakashachiya is a popular curry udon chain in Japan and it originated from Nagoya city.

A specialty is their cheese + curry. Upon hearing it, most people will feel that cheese + curry is a bit too heavy for local taste.

I was hesistant when I tried it first. But I was sold because the cheese goes very well with the Japanese curry!

It made the curry thicker and also more fragrant. I don't know how they do it, but the 2 ingredients go very well together.

Wakashachiya
#03-93/95 The Central,
6 Eu Tong Sen Street

Yan Ting @ St Regis

Whenever the restaurant Yan Ting is mentioned, most people who reads The Sunday Times will never forget the 2 reviews written by food reviewer Wong Ah Yoke.

The first review was terrible, and I think it was the worst review ever given to any classic chinese restaurant.

However, the restaurant revamped its food and the 2nd review was definitely much better.



Yan Ting is situated on the 2nd floor of the 5 stars hotel St Regis along Tanglin Road.

It now serves a sunday brunch during the afternoon lunctime session to all diners.

There were lot's of choices, from Dim Sum to Cantonese cooked dishes to desserts.

Decor is pretty classy.



Ordered assortment of Dim Sum such as Prawn Dumplings, Char Siew Bao and Duck Egg and Cream Bao. Like the Duck Egg Yolk and Cream bun the best due to unique sweet and salty taste. The skin was also fluffy and soft.



1 serving each of Shark's Fin Soup. Pretty good and intense.



Here is the double boiled soup. Notice the waiter already seperated the ingredients such as the pork ribs and peanuts at a side.



Roast Meat Trio - Roast duck, char siew and crispy roast pork. The cha siew was really flavourful and tender. Roast pork was crunchy too.



Lobster pan fried - Fresh lobster meat with savoury gravy. Very fresh and sweet.



Cereal fish. Quite special as this is the only place which sells cereal fish. It basically taste like cereal prawns, but minus the prawns and replaced with fish.



Pan Fried King Prawns - I am a prawn lover, and love anything with prawns. The prawns are pan fried with some mushrooms and tangy kung pao sauce. Prawns are very fresh and crunchy.



"Moonlight" Beef Hor Fun - Quite good, but unfortunately not much "wok hei" in the kway teow.



Pan fried pork slices - I think they must have marinated it with some marmite or special vinegar, which gives it a special taste.



Sweet & Sour pork - The usual taste. But is one of my favourite dish in any chinese restaurant.



Mango and Pomelo Sago - Cooling dessert after a heavy brunch.



Food is good, service is also good. Reservations highly recommended.


Yan Ting
2nd floor, St Regis Singapore
Tanglin Road

Pine Court @ Meritus Mandarin

On a sleepy weekday afternoon, we went to Meritus Mandarin for lunch. Till now, I am still confused with all the Meritus and Mandarins. There is a Meritus Mandarin (formerly Mandarin Hotel), Meritus Marina and Mandarin Oriental (formerly Oriental Hotel). It was only in recent years when I start to go to these hotels for meetings, that I finally get all their names correct.






Pine Court, an established Chinese restaurant in the heart of Orchard Road, has recently undergone a revamp. They now serve a buffet brunch on weekends, but standards seem to go down when they are serving brunch buffets. So perhaps it is better to come on weekdays where only the ala-carte lunch is offered.




Complimentary appetizer of oyster porridge. This got to be the best porridge I ever tried. It is sweet, savoury and full of dried seafood goodness. Pity that it is available only in a small appetizer bowl.



Crispy pan fried carrot cake



Steaming hot Crystal prawn dumplings - prawns are crunchy and sweet



Prawn and pork Siew Mai with roe - Lot's of prawns goodness!



Fluffy char siew bao - Really fluffy skin. This is the "open end" version of the Char Siew Bao.




Pan fried lobster



Sharks Fins Dumpling soup



Har Gow with asparagus



Special duck meat dish



Desserts


Pine Court
35th floor, Meritus Mandarin, Orchard Road

Hai Tien Lo @ Pan Pacific

Hai Tien Lo is situated at the 37th floor of the Pan Pacific Hotel. It serves a buffet brunch on Saturdays and Sundays afternoon which is quite popular with families. Of course, everyone comes here for the view too.



The view is spectacular. On a clear day, you can even see even further than the Singapore Flyer!



Didn't take much photos of the food that day. The food was pretty average. Ordered items like sweet and sour pork, assorted dim sum, single serving of sharks fins soup, pan fried beef, cod fish, etc.



There is also a buffet table with desserts and appetizers.

Overall, a good place for brunch with your family. But food is pretty average.

Hai Tien Lo
37 Floor, Pan Pacific Hotel Singapore

Prosperity Kitchen @ Mohamed Sultan Road

Prosperity Kitchen was opened last year by 3 Hong Kong TVB stars with much fanfare, and is situated along Mohd Sultan Road inside a shophouse.

However, Prosperity Kitchen is also your typical Hong Kong cafe. Serving Hong Kong treats such as thick toast with peanut butter, Yuan Yang drink, and other tze char dishes.

Had dinner there not too long ago.





First dish is the roast duck with mango. The roast duck is pretty tasty and juicy. Goes well with the fresh pieces of mango and the sweet and sour sauce. Do order this dish with either fried rice or noodles, because it is quite weird to eat this with plain rice.



Black Pepper Pan Fried Beef with crispy onion rings. Beef is tender, and onion rings always go very well with beef and black pepper. A great dish to go with plain white fluffy rice.



Crab meat fried rice in Korean hot stone pot. Quite tasty as the rice is filled with crab meat. The restaurant was considerate enough to serve the fried rice in a hot pot, as fried rice can become pretty oily when cold.



One of my favourite vegetable dish. Stir fried beans with minced pork and chilli.


Prosperity Kitchen
15 Mohamed Sultan Road

Quiznos @ Far East Square

Had Saturday lunch at Quiznos @ Far East Square. Quiznos is basically Subway's competitor, with 5,000 stores worldwide and the 2nd sandwich chain store in the US. Price is similar to that of Subway and you get to choose the type of bread, fillings, vegetables and sauce toppings. Most will also go with a full meal with either a soup or salad.

We tried the beef sandwich and chicken mesquite sandwich. The soup is terrible so don't bother ordering their soup. Salad was average. What surprised me was there they have a condiment counter with lot's of condiment to go with your sandwich and salads. But actually it is not necessary as the sandwich itself is already very flavourful.



Close-up of the roast beef sandwich. I prefer the beef to the chicken one. But I think Subway is much healthier as Subway is more generous with their vegetables.

Overall. worth a try.


Quiznos
47 Pekin Street, 01-01, Far East Square
7.30am to 8pm, weekdays,
7.30am to 4pm, Saturdays,
closed on Sundays

Website: http://www.quiznos.com/

Limon @ Purvis Street

Fusion food is such a "1990s" term here in Singapore because it was very popular back in 90s. Many restaurants serving fusion of east + west food sprouted all over Singapore. Some were good while others were not so successful when merging the east with the west. Subsequently, quite a number of restaurants selling fusion food closed down as the taste buds of diners shifted to authentic and organic wholesome meals.

Parkway Thai, a very popular Thai food restaurant in Singapore, launched a relatively new restaurant named "Limon" serving Thai + Spanish fusion food. It's been a long time since a "fusion" restaurants opened in the heart of the city.



First impression of Limon is that the service staff is courteous and warm. Although the entire restaurant looks dark from the outside, it is actually quite cosy.

Once inside, we were served the complimentary appetizer made of some Thai herbs and vegetables which is suppose to excite the taste bud. There is also a plate of complimentary bread slices with 3 dipping sauces - A ball of butter, olive oil & this special Thai garlic and chilli dip.



There is an ongoing discount for wines, and we had a bottle of white wine. It was not bad, but was also not very good either. I believe the discount was like 40%?



As this was also a spanish restaurant, the highlight of the meal was a variety of Tapas for 2 to share. There were grilled bread slices with cheese and seafood, which was absolutely delightful. There were also mini servings of crunchy prawns with Thai spices, and beef curry. On the right is a mixture of seafood with Tom Yam spices. I had no complaints with the seafood as they were extremely fresh.

There are many tapas to choose, so be adventurous when you dine there next time!



A surprise awaits us as the restaurant's name was prominantly displayed in their pumpkin soup.



Grilled Pork Chops with hints of Thai spices. Pork chop was juicy and tender. The grilled red capsicum were surprisingly sweet, and goes very well with the grilled chunks of pork chop. Yummy!



Spanish Seafood Paella (rice) with Tom Yum stock. Initially was afraid that the rice would be soaking with the Tom Yum soup, but luckily most of the flavourful stock were already absorbed by the rice. Seafood is fresh, but I still prefer the grilled pork chop than this Paella dish.

No desserts as we were too full.



LIMON
7 Purvis Street #01-01
Singapore 188586
Tel: 6333 9004
Website: http://www.limon.com.sg/

Czzar @ Great World City

When I first spotted Cz'zar in Great World City, I thought it was a new Russian restaurant as the name resembles that of the Head of the Imperial family in ancient Russia. But it was through flipping the menu that it is actually a "Stir Fried" Chinese Singaporean food restaurant.

Cz'zar (pronounced as Tze-Char 煮炒 ) is the first attempt by the Kuriya group of Japanese restaurants to serve local Singaporean Chinese dishes in a "Crystal Jade" setting. The first and only Cz'zar restaurant is located at Great World City, where a few of the Kuriya group of Japanese restaurants are located too.

Service is prompt and friendly. However, dishes tend to be slow during peak hours. So if you are catching a movie at Golden Village in GWC, remember to ask the waitress which are the dishes which can be served as fast as possible.



Their new offering includes the Curry Chicken bread Golden Pillow. First invented by the 933 Roas Duck stalls, a few restaurants have now come up with their own versions of this dish. The version by Cz'zar is quite good. Bread is soft, curry is not too spicy and I like that the use only chicken thigh and drumstick instead of dry breast meat. However, we did reflect to the waitress that the bread and curry is lukewarm. It would be better if the curry is served to us pipping hot. However, the curry gravy is good.



Cz'zar does a mean version of the Sweet and Sour Pork. The pork cubes are juicy and flavourful. They use cuts of pork which are not too fattening. The sauce is also not overwhelmingly sweet or sour.



Cod Fish with Teriyaki Sauce. No complaints about the cod fish as it is my favourite fish and it is fried till crispy. Only imperfection is that the teriyaki sauce is a little too sweet for my linking.


CZ'ZAR RESTAURANT SINGAPORE INSPIRED CUISINE
Great World City #01-371 Kim Seng Promenade
Singapore 237994
Tel: 6836 2520
Daily: 11.00am - 10.00pm
Website: http://www.res.com.sg/restaurants_view.php?v=9