Colonial Club Signatures at Paragon Orchard

Colonial Club offers cuisine of fusion expatriate and local ingredients, resulting in a delicious merger of foods. One could savour on a delectable mix of heritage cuisine, including Nonya dishes, Hainanese food and local food with British colonial flavour. 

Located at the basement of Paragon, this cosy nostalgic looking restaurant is tended by many friendly local staff. Self ordering is done by writing on the paper and the staff will key in your orders. We love the cosy colonial feel of the restaurant. Food was promptly served within 10mins upon ordering. We had 2 of their recommended main dishes and 1 vegetable.

1. Nasi lemak tower ($16.90) - bluepea nasi lemak rice stacked with otah, egg, cucumber and beef rendang. It is accompanied with archar and sambal chilli. The beef rendang was tenderly stewed and the overall combination was awesome as a whole. Loved the sambal chilli! Rating: 4/5

2. Hainanese chicken chop ($15.90) - huge pc of chicken cutlet battered with housemade crumbs and topped with tomato sweet sauce. The cutlet was a little dry on the outside and the sauce wasn't tasty enough. Portion was huge but was lacking in taste. Rating: 3.2/5

3. Nonya chap chye ($8.90) - expected to be a small bowl but it came by surprise a huge portion of awesomely stewed cabbage, black fungus and carrot dish. Taste was good and will go extremely well with sambal belacan dip. Rating: 3.8/5

Overall, Colonial Club offers quite a wide range of good local fusion cuisine for locals and expatriates in very comfortable environment. Highly recommended dish will be their nasi lemak tower.

We have yet to try the rest but given a chance, we would be back to try their other Nonya and Hainanese local cuisines and probably save our tummy for their dessert and drinks as well.

A summary of what we had:

Nasi lemak tower

Hainanese chicken chop

Nonya chap chye

My overall ratings:

Food: 3.5/5

Price: 3.2/5

Service: 4/5

Ambience: 4/5

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You can locate them here:

Colonial Club Signatures

290 Orchard Road, #B1-43, Paragon, Singapore 238859

Tel: +65 6219 35925, Opening Hours: 11am – 10pm

Restaurant - Western

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Oven & Fried Chicken at Komtar Johor

Our food exploration continues to our neighbouring city Johor last weekend. We decided to join in the crowd fun during this mid-autumn festival as the shopping malls often offer great deals for mooncake etc at 1/3 the price with the exchange rate to SGD. 

There are many restaurants around City Square Mall and Komtar and being fried chicken fans, we decided to try their Korean fried chicken restaurant. Oven & Fried Chicken has great reviews in SG, so this has heighten our expectations a little. 

 There aren't many customers during dinner time at the restaurant and we could comfortably find seats and eat at our pace.

We ordered 4 dishes in all:

1. Original fried chicken (abt $20sgd for whole chicken) - awesomely fried chicken. Crispy on the outer skin and so tender and juicy inside. Very close to the ones we had in Korea. Goes so well with their mustard and sweet chilli sauce. Rating: 4.2/5

2. Jambalaya fried chicken (abt $24sgd for whole chicken) - another thumbs up dish. Fried chicken marinated with sweet garlic sauce. Could taste the fried chicken even with the sauce. Very very nice. We simply love this dish. Rating: 4.2/5

3. Cheese tteokpokki (abt $10sgd) - sweet and spicy tteokpokki covered with loads of gooey mozzarella cheese. Deliciously good for those who love cheese. Rating: 4/5

4. Kimchi beef stew (abt $7sgd) - with the price, expected a small bowl but was surprised at the huge portion loaded full of ingredients. Very appetizing with the sourish kimchi taste. Definitely one of the recommended dishes to try :) Rating: 4/5

Overall for the price and quality, its definitely very worthwhile to try this restaurant in JB as compared to SG. Other than the immigration factor, do drop by a visit if you have craving for fried chicken. Besides price factor, service is awesome as well.

A summary of what we had:

Original fried chicken

Jambalaya fried chicken

Cheese tteokpokki

Kimchi beef stew

My overall ratings:

Food: 4.1/5

Price: 4.2/5

Service: 4.2/5

Ambience: 4.2/5

You can locate them here:

Oven & Fried Chicken

Lot 202C 2nd floor, KOMTAR JBCCC, 80000 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

Restaurant - Korean

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Ramen Champion at Bugis Plus

Ramen Champion features several award winning ramen at one station and provides customers with the opportunity to choose different flavours of ramen at one instance. Each customer will be given a card for ordering and bill is to be settled upon checking out. 

Each of us ordered from different stalls and I personally prefer the spicy x10 ramen the best as it provides awesome noodle texture and spiciness kick to the noodles. Noodle prices are ranged from $13.80 onwards. For pork lovers, once could go for their king of pork bowl @ $20.

Other than ramen, the rest of the dishes like mentaiko gyoza did not provide a wow factor. For non ramen lovers, there are other food to explore like tendons.

Ramen Champion as the name defines are good for their ramen which was very much preferred as compared to the other dishes. Recommendation would be to go with a group of friends so that different ramen could be ordered from different stalls for comparison.

My overall ratings:

Food: 3.6/5

Price: 3.5/5

Service: 3.5/5

Ambience: 3.5/5

You can locate them here:

Ramen Champion

Bugis+ #04-10, 201 Victoria St, Singapore 188067

Restaurant - Japanese

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Spring Court Restaurant at Chinatown

Spring Court started back from 1929, serving delicious Chinese food to all the their old and new customers from generations to generations. Spring Court is proud to be the oldest family-run restaurant in SG today. 

Just located across Chinatown Point, we were there for a family gathering with our distant relatives from China. We had 3 tables of 10 in total. The restaurant manager was friendly but they lacked of the experience of what was good for recommendation. We ordered 9 dishes in total, namely as below.

1. Spring Court traditional popiah - priced at $7.80 per roll, it's a very pricey roll of popiah that was rather disappointing. The skin was soggy and the ingredients tasted salty. Rating: 3/5

2. Fried rice - simple traditionally fried fried rice that is rather fragrant and the kids love it! Rating: 4/5

3. Yam basket - this is an awesome highly recommended dish! The crispiness of the yam ring was very well done with the generous seafood ingredients. Rating: 4.5/5

4. Roast chicken - sincerely did not find the chicken too good as the skin was lacked in seasoning taste and not as crispy as we thought it would be. Rating: 3.5/5

5. Braised vinegar pork ribs - instead of pig trotters, this black vinegar dish is braised with pork ribs. The pork ribs are so tender and the flesh falls off so easily. Awesome dish. Rating: 4/5

6. Steamed grouper - fish flesh was a little tough and and rubbery. The braised hongkong style sauce wasn't fragrant enough. Rating: 3.2/5

7. Fried kailan - ordinary vegetable dish that was a little tough. The vegetable was a little bitter. Rating: 3/5

8.  Crab bee hoon- very disappointing dish as the crab tasted bitter. Very strange for a crab dish as usually crab flesh should be succulent and sweet. When feedbacked to the staff, it was sad that we were brushed off and had to accept the bitterness of the flesh. Rating: 2/5

9. Cereal prawns - not very well done as the prawn shell sticks to the skin. Seems like the seafood wasn't too fresh. Rating: 3/5

Through generations, it would really not be easy to sustain on the food standard. The food quality fluctuates and hopefully they are able to reach a consistency for all. Prices of food can be found in the website below: https://www.springcourt.com.sg/

A summary of what we had:

Spring Court traditional popiah

Fried rice

Yam basket

Roast chicken

Braised vinegar pork ribs

Steamed grouper

Fried kalian

Crab bee hoon

Cereal prawns

My overall ratings:

Food: 3.2/5

Price: 3/5

Service: 3/5

Ambience: 3.8/5

You can locate them here:

Spring Court Restaurant

52-56 Upper Cross St, Singapore 058348

Restaurant - Chinese

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Eighteen Chefs at Bukit Panjang Plaza

Adding to my Eighteen Chefs food review previously done for Orchard Cineleisure branch, we were at their Bt Panjang Plaza branch for family dinner yesterday with my mum. 

As usual, I opted for my teriyaki chicken with 2 sides, buttered corn and coleslaw ($10.90).

The portion is a little smaller as compared to the Cineleisure branch. Kevin went for the Angus beef burger ($11.90) which he was very pleased with. Runny sunny side up egg on top of beef patty and burger. The beef patty looks a little dry but overall with the runny egg still ok.

My mum opted for their heart attack fried rice and grilled chicken ($13.90). She enjoyed the rice quite a bit as it was buttery.. that's probably why it causes heart problem if eaten too much?? The grilled chicken was tender and the special chilli sauce given was good.

For sides, cheesy fries ($4.90) is definitely not something to wow about.

For students and senior citizens, they are entitled $2 off for main course ordered except heart attack rice dishes. All prices are subjected to GST but no service charge. Would say Eighteen Chefs serves economical western food for the young and old.

A summary of what we had:

Heart attack fried rice and grilled chicken

Angus beef burger

Cheesy fries

Teriyaki chicken

My overall ratings:

Food: 3.2/5

Price: 3.8/5

Service: 3.6/5

Ambience: 3.6/5

You can locate them here:

Eighteen Chefs

1 Jelebu Rd, #02-19, Singapore 677743

Restaurant - Western

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Food Republic at Somerset 313 Orchard

Piao Xiang Mala is located at one corner of Food Republic on the 5th floor of Somerset 313. With lots of seating capacity available, many flocked to Piao Xiang Mala to enjoy their delicious food in comfortable environment. Prices at Piao Xiang is above average, ranging from $1.50 per 100g for vegetables to $3.20 per 100g for meat and mushroom. 

We opted for the slightly spicy version. 1 ingredient that we enjoyed most was their springy maggi noodles. Very well good to the right texture. The base pot was very fragrantly fried and tossed in fried nuts and spices. Average price per pax is about $10 to $12. Rating: 4/5

Another stall to mention is Yoshinoya. Yoshinoya is usually known for their sliced beef and salmon dons but this stall offers Yaki soba and hot plate dishes. They even offer hot plate soba dishes with rice set. Prices range from $6.90 onwards. The black pepper chicken hot plate is rather delicious and goes very well with a bowl of plain rice. For different Japanese dinner concept, try Yoshinoya at Food Republic Somerset 313. Rating: 3.8/5

A summary of what we had:

Mala

Black pepper chicken hot plate

My overall rating:

Food: 3.9/5

Price: 3.6/5

Service: NA

Ambience: 3.5/5

Food court/stalls

You can locate them here:

05-01/03 FOOD REPUBLIC @ 313@SOMERSET, 313 ORCHARD ROAD, Singapore 238895

FoodCourt - Chinese

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Mitsu Sushi Bar at Duxton Road Tanjong Pagar

Mitsu Sushi Bar serves contemporary Japanese food, using the finest quality ingredients from Japan. The cosy restaurant has a bar concept on the 1st floor whereby you can see the chef preparing your sushi. Else one could opt for their cosy table dining on the 2nd floor. There are 2 rooms for more private dining and the rest are just tables. 

With reservation made via Eatigo again, we are entitled 50% discount on all ala-carte menu. We ordered 6 dishes in all and fortunately they are not extremely big.

1. Tomato salad ($13) - very fresh crunchy vegetables lightly tossed with japanese dressing. The thing to highlight is their tomato which was extremely sweet. Could be eaten like a fruit on it's own. Super delicious! Rating: 4.2/5

2. Aburi spicy tuna maki ($18) - awesomely delicious maki roll that can do even without wasabi. One of the best makis that I have eaten so far. Rating: 4.3/5

3. Ebi mentaiko cheese yaki ($16) - prawns were fresh but nothing too much to wow about. Not too worth it for the price. Rating: 3.5/5

4. Tori karaage ($9) - well marinated fried chicken pcs  that goes so well with beer and mayo. The juiciness of the chicken pcs are retained in every bite. Rating: 4/5

5. Soba ($8) - the soba was cooked to the right texture and the soba sauce was sweet and deliciously good. Rating: 4/5

6. Chicken teriyaki ($13) - tenderly grilled chicken drizzled with homemade sauce that is not too salty to our liking. We simply love the dish! Rating: 4.2/5

We were definitely not disappointed with any of the dishes and will definitely be back to try others like their omakase set. Hopefully Eatigo discount will be still valid :-p

A summary of what we had:

Tomato salad

Aburi spicy tuna maki

Ebi mentaiko cheese

Tori karaage

Soba

Chicken teriyaki

My overall ratings:

Food: 4.2/5

Price: 3.8/5

Service: 4/5

Ambience: 4/5

You can locate them here:

Mitsu Sushi Bar

21 Duxton Rd, Singapore 089487

Restaurant - Japanese

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