Plain Vanilla Bakery - Staircase to cupcake heaven

This is my second time visiting Plain Vanilla because the first time I climbed the flight of staircase up to the bakery at 6+pm, every single cupcake was sold out! This made me even more determined to try the cupcakes and here I am on a scorching Saturday afternoon, taking the same flight again and crossed my fingers that I was not too late...

Was grinning from ear to ear when I see not one or two but many many cupcakes displayed nicely at the counter! Woots. So worth the climb!

Happiness comes in a box with 2 round and moist cupcakes to make the heat more bearable!

What I like about the red velvet cupcake is that the cake is moist and dense, yet not to the extent which you want to stop after a few bites. But I find the topping too sweet! Although I have a sweet tooth but this was wayyy too sweet for my liking.

As for the other cupcake, I like the subtle white chocolate taste in the vanilla-based cake, and there's fresh strawberry fruits inside the cupcake to add a burst of freshness to the cupcake.

For $3.50 a piece, I would definitely not mind coming back for more for the portion and the moist cupcakes. Can't wait to visit their Yong Siak branch though and hopefully there's tables and chairs to chill the afternoon away.


Since I'm sucha fan of cupcakes, I'm thinking of rounding up all the indie cupcake shops in SG into 1 post! Let me know if you are a fan too and which are some of the places you have tried and are good too! :)

Plain Vanilla Bakery
34A Lorong Mambong
Holland Village
(above El Patio Mexican restaurant)
Singapore 277691

1D Yong Siak Street,
Singapore 168641

Plain Vanilla Website
Plain Vanilla FB Page

Standing Sushi Bar II

Finally tried other kinds of food at Standing Sushi Bar besides the $3 salmon sashimi! I think the standard of the food has improved quite a bit though I still find their ala carte items slightly expensive. But definitely worth queuing up for dinner. Shall not bore you with words and let the pictures do the talking!

Not sure if you noticed the difference, but the salmon are bigger and thicker than the last time we went there!

I can't wait til the next time I have my fill of salmon sashimi and salmon maki and unagi again. Oh and maybe the sukiyaki too. Remember to make reservation early to avoid the queuing!

And awesome food should be enjoyed with awesome company. ;)

Standing Sushi Bar
8 Queen Street
(Just besides Food for Thought)
Tel: 6333 1335

Standing Sushi Bar FB Page

French bakery & patisserie @ Tiong Bahru Bakery

Pardon my ignorance, but I thought that Tiong Bahru Bakery (TBB) was an old-school bakery like our friendly neighbourhood bakery Swee Heng when I first heard of TBB. Soft and buttery buns' aroma floated to my nostrils and the images of old-school sugary doughnuts immediately appeared in my mind when I picture the 'old school' name with bakery. Boy, was I wrong or was I wrong man?!?! Well, after some good reviews from die-hard fans of TBB, it was quite a coincidence that we chanced upon the bakery when we were walking around Raffles City Shopping Centre one Saturday afternoon.

Although I'm pretty sure all the bread and pastries are awesome in TBB, but curiosity got the better of me when I saw the black bun sitting among his pretty friends and despite my partner's raised eyebrow and a doubtful 'Really?', I went ahead and ordered the sandwich, together with a mini croissant and a huge strawberry croissant. Not forgetting our much-needed coffee.

Squid Ink Sandwich ($8.50)

In all honesty, there wasn't much of the squid ink taste in the buns. However, I do like the slightly chewy texture of the buns and it went very well together with the salty smoked salmon and ham and the fresh burst of wild rocket taste when you take a generous bite.





Lemon Curd tart ($6.00 ish)

The sweet and zesty custard really hit the spot... for a few seconds and then the sweetness just lingered and refused to go away! I would have preferred the curd to be less sweet a teeny bit and less of the tart. I was recommended to try Lemon Curd tart at this other cafe and I shall check it out soon.

TBB is definitely a place to be and be seen. Noticed a lot of hipsters hang out at the cafe, taking pictures (to instagram) and also a lot of families having brunch with their little kids, who by the way, are real lucky to have fond memories of TBB as the placed they grow up with. The prices are not exactly cheap, but reasonable for the quality and location they are in.

This place is so not old school and yet so hip with quality bakery and pastries. It's definitely a place I want to go back to and try all the pastries.

Tiong Bahru Bakery by Gontran Cherrier
56 Eng Hoon St, #01-70
S160056

252 North Bridge Road, #B1-11/12
Raffles City
S 179103

Tiong Bahru Bakery Website
Tiong Bahru Bakery FB Page

Ambush! @ J8

Needed a good meal after the exhausting Carnival sale over the weekend and settled at Ambush at Bishan Junction 8 for dinner. I had Mussels in a Pot (Small) ($14.90) cooked in Vin Blanc style and I swore I made the rightest decision ever. The mussels were quite big and cooked just right, not too soft nor chewy and the broth is slightly salty but very savoury with little bacon bits. I would have held the small pot to my face if there weren't so many people around, it was THAT good.

The meatloaf with hamburger steak ($15.90) was pretty tasty too, with soft slab of meat and juicy minced beef. The buttery soft mashed potatoes was very delicious! I love Ambush's mashed potatoes ever since I tried one of their set lunches with chicken sausages quite a while back. Definitely recommend the mashed potatoes as a side dish when you are there. 

I like the cosy and ikea-like setting in the restaurant, not to mention the attentive staff. I would say it's not very expensive for the quality and portions of the food, worth every penny spent!

Ambush

9 Bishan Place
#02-19/20/27

Junction 8 Shopping Centre

[Homecooked] Creamy Chicken Pasta

I prefer tomato-based pasta to cream sauce pasta because I can't stand the strong cream taste throughout the entire course of dinner. However, since I received a request to cook this one fine day, I did some research online and tried out this recipe from here! I changed the sour cream to light sour cream and added mushrooms and chicken.

Here are some of my ingredients!

I fell in love with asparagus from the start of this year when my mom introduced sauté asparagus with prawns and scallops to me.

Ta-da! It was a tad watery for my liking, which I contributed to me using Light sour cream instead of Full Cream. So.. Lesson learnt: Wanna eat something good, go ALL the way and worry later. *nods.

I even paired it with salmon as a "side-dish" kinda main dish. Okay, that was a lie. The real reason was that the fish was frozen for a month plus already so we had to clear it before it tastes funny. 

This is pretty perfect if you prefer a light meal that is a deviation from the usual tomato-based pasta, but satisfyingly delicious as well. 

[Food Trail in KL] Die die must try Local food

I just came back from a fabulous work trip and for those who want to travel to KL for a short getaway, here's a short food guide for you!

1. Fried Hokkien mee also known as 'orh mee'

This plate of oily and greasy-looking black noodles is a MUST try in KL. It takes skill to whip up such a mean plate of thick and chewy noodles with loads of crispy pork lard, meat and cabbage that were tossed and infused with the flavour of the wok. You can't help but to help yourself to serving after serving of these sinful noodles soaked in dark soya sauce.

The kuay teow version does not have that strong a wok hei as the above, but it's smooth texture gives a nice alternate to the hokkien mee to balance out the meal! The locals usually mix in the raw egg into the hot kuay teow so that tastes sweeter.


2. Lan Jie's Yi Ren Yi Yu

When my colleague said that we were gonna have a fish each for dinner, all of us were pretty excited because I pictured a big fish in front of me for the entire meal. True enough, even their signboard is named as such - 1 person 1 Fish.

If you have ever wondered what 'melt-in-your-mouth' fees like, you have to try the fish here! The meat is so fresh and soft and the gravy is spicy to the palate, which is very appetizing. I'll never ever forget this fish for the rest of my life. Thank you Lan Jie, for breeding the fishes and opening up outlet after outlet so that it's more accessible to travel to your awesome fishes. So please, order 1 fish for yourself and be selfish for once.

We ordered other side dishes like the egg tofu, four-angled beans and omelete with bittergourd. But the fish still took center stage and we finished them til only the bones were left.

3. Banana Leaf rice

I thought how good can banana leaf be when my Malaysian colleague told me I had to try this stall at Bangsar. But omg I could not be more grateful to her because it was just. Awe to the some. Please indulge in the pictures...

It's located behind Bangsar Village and the banana leaf is best with teh-o or teh tarik. I strongly recommend to eat with your bare fingers to really get the full flavour of banana leaf rice. Finger-licking good.

Bangsar is a really nice place to chill and I would actually recommend a few cafes here, but that will be for another entry! Stay tuned! :)

[Homecooked] Ribeye Steak with mushroom sauce

I'm really thrilled that my virgin attempt in making steaks was quite a success!! Feast your eyes people!

It's so awesome I've to post it again. And check out the pink meat inside! To be honest, everything was done based on my gut feel. Whether it'll be done medium rare or rare or well done was based on feeling, so was quite pleased that the end result was pretty satisfactory. A small tip to share to tenderize meat- Lemon juice!

The mushroom sauce (which was a tad too watery) definitely needs to be improved. I would guess that I added too much cream maybe. So I compensated with beef stock and some corn starch, but in the end I think it would be better with more mushrooms. So point to note to myself: Be more generous with mushrooms the next round. Mmm hmm.

Below's a snapshot of my impromptu recipe scribbled down on a cook list. Have a great week errbody! Go get a steak to chase the Monday blues away!