Z is for...

...Zion Road.

We did it! We made it to Z before 2011 ran out! I had a fancy option for Z thinking we could end the year on a high but the boy opted for good 'ole hawker fare. Not that we could eat much after a KFC breakfast barely 2 hours before.


Ben and Wendy took the kids off our hands and brought them to the airport while we made our way to Zion Road from East Coast.

Couldn't decide what to eat and we ended up ordering from the same stall, old-school prawn mee that was just $2.50 for a small bowl. He had sugarcane lemon juice and I had soursop with lemon, real refreshing after the heat of the beach.



We parked at Great World so before leaving, I popped in the Zara sale (another Z!) and then we went to Cold Storage to get stuff.


I'm so glad we completed A-Z, nothing like setting a goal and accomplishing it. Though there was some delay and it was hard to commit to fortnightly, we started what we finished and next year is a whole new cycle. Might change things up a bit and do the alphabets randomly, see how. Any suggestions?

Y is for...

...Yong Tau Fu.


As you can tell, I am in a mad rush to complete the Alphabet Dates before the year runs out and we just did Y today. 25 down, 1 to go!

Since the boy has been clearing leave, we have been clearing the backlog and drove all the way to Upper Thomson to have Ampang Yong Tau Fu. It's been ages since we'd been and it was his preferred choice over all the other Y options.

For 2 persons with wonton soup and drinks, it only cost us $11.30. We had extra tau kee in place of bittergourd and while it still tasted good, the gravy was a bit salty.




After lunch, I popped by Great World for a bit to pick up some ingredients for the quiche I made for dinner whilst he attempted a car wash. Alas it rained and he was thwarted.

The dopes came over for dinner and we had a bacon, zucchini and mushroom quiche with canned minestrone and a side salad. I think nothing beats bacon in a quiche!

X is for ...

...Xmas eve lunch @ Xi Yan.


Xi Yan is one of those places I've been meaning to try since they opened but never got down to checking them off my list, till today. I think they've been around for at least 6-7 years, first heard about them back in SingTel where one of the directors was always raving about them.

It's a private dining restaurant at Craig Road so reservations are a must, as they need advance notice to prepare your selected menu. I made the reservation only a couple of days in ahead and was given the week's menu to pre-select my mains.

I knew it being a Saturday, the place wouldn't be crowded but I didn't anticipate being the only diners! I think they cater to the business lunch and dinner crowd mainly so weekends are not profitable.

But that meant that service was attentive and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. There was a personalised menu awaiting us at the table, that was a nice touch plus the waiter would explain the dish and ingredients each time he brought a course out.



We kick-started with cherry tomatoes soaked in organic apple cider vinegar. The tomatoes were juicy and sweet but slightly tart with the cider, and they did a good job of whetting our appetites along with the sugarcane jelly accompanying the dish.

Next up was an angel hair tofu and mushroom soup. The silken tofu was hand-cut into fine shreds, they were thinner than mee-sua! The base was chicken stock and the soup was the perfect starter for a cold and rainy day...it was pouring outside while we were snug and warm inside listening to Chinese jazz and Christmas-y tunes.



Stir-fried prawns with salted egg yolk was next, am a sucker for anything coated with salted egg yolk and the prawns didn't disappoint. They were crunchy and buttery and I licked every last drop of gravy. The prawns were served together with a black truffle and Chinese ham fried rice. The truffle taste was subtle but evident, Nick thought it was good fried rice.

Last main was an oolong tea smoked chicken with mango salsa. Another fine dish with the subtle flavours of the imparted oolong, coffee and rock sugar and I think lychee that the chicken was smoked with. The skin was crispy and the meat tender, couldn't ask for more.



For dessert, the waiter brought out a whole lychee ice cream log cake. For a moment I thought they were serving us the whole thing, but it was just for presentation and photography's sake, he noticed I had been snapping pictures and brought the whole cake out for me to take a picture before he cut us some slices. How thoughtful.



The meringue cream around the lychee ice cream was too sweet for me, so I only ate the ice cream bits but Nick ate most of his.

Overall, it was thoroughly satisfying meal, at $48++ per person, I think it was worth it based on the exclusivity and service, and the food was good too. Finally a place that Nick actually enjoyed and approved of, will regularly check their website for updated menus and go again when I see dishes I want to try!

After lunch, we popped by Alexandra car showrooms for a bit, taking a peep at Volkswagen and Peugeot. COE prices are really high but the boy is in the mood for a change, was this close to buying a Volvo S60 earlier in the week but the COE exceeded his maximum budget by a little bit and the deal fell through. But change is imminent, I will miss Pierre!

W is for...

...Wah Kee Big Prawn Noodles.


This stall is supposedly home of Singapore's best prawn mee according to the I Eat, I Shoot, I Post blog and ever since reading about them, I've been wanting to try. Had to recover from my bout of flu from last week though, else I wouldn't be able to taste anything! Was so sick, missed a whole week of work, and coughed up blood too.

The boy picked me up from work and duly drove to Pek Kio Market near Kent Road. He started queuing immediately, it didn't seem that long, only 5-6 people deep it but still took a good 20 mins till we got our food.

The old couple dishes them out slowly, and it didn't help that just before Nick's turn, some young boy was allowed to cut queue and order 5 bowls...think he knew the aunty behind the counter! I could almost see the steam coming out from Nick's ears! LOL!




Anyway, the chor bee hoon I had was very fine, thinner than the usual chor bee hoon. The soup was quite flavourful, I would call it power stock. It was sweet, almost buttery with a dash of spice and tiny bits of lard and I finished all my soup. The prawns were fresh and succulent, however I could still get a bit of freshwater taste as if they were not boiled in stock so I didn't quite like that fishy taste.


Overall, it was a pretty darn good bowl of prawn mee, though my boy begs to differ...he was not impressed, the queuing left a sour taste in his mouth but he did it anyway...he says only for me! Awww...

V is for...

...V Hotel and vinyls.


Tucked away on the 4th floor of the new-ish V Hotel is 12-inch Pizzas & Records, a pizzeria by Timbre and venue for this evening's dinner. Today is also our 11th year as a couple.

I thought the boy would appreciate all the vinyl records on display, but alas, I was wrong. He wasn't taken with the place, I suppose the fact that the restaurant was empty on a Friday night didn't help first impressions.



But nevertheless we went ahead to order some soups, a hoisin duck pizza recommended by the waiter and some ribs. They had cute menus in the shape of records, and there was a record player in the corner that I'm sure Nick would have loved to get his hands on.



I had a corn soup and he had seafood chowder, my soup tasted very fresh with generous kernels of corn. The pizza was a disappointment, a bit jelak to eat after a while because the sauce is sweet plus it was quite oily so I think I will stick with tomato-based pizzas from now except for those from Skinny Pizza.




The ribs were tangy and refreshing with a citrus sauce and sliced oranges, but they weren't like melt-off-the-bone soft and were served lukewarm so there's definitely room for improvement.

I think it will take a while for the restaurant to gain a following, they've only been open for a couple of months and being on the 4th floor is not conducive to walk-in customers but they do provide room service for the hotel guests.

Before leaving, Nick needed to use the loo and what we saw surprised us. The unisex loo cubicles were right in the middle of the outdoor seating section and not in any enclosed area. They are surrounded by tables and chairs and the whole world can see how long you might use the bath room and guess if you're peeing or pooping. Not to mention the smells wafting through the air!


My own opinion is that it's not hygienic to locate bacteria-infested loos so near F&B service areas, even though the loos may be kept clean. Ugh!

U is for...

...Uncle Leong.



It's been a while since I had butter crab and have been craving for it. Met Colin and Debra for a doubledate at Uncle Leong in Tebing Lane, Punggol.

Have been curious to check out Tebing Lane since hearing about it, there is a Popeye's there, a large pool hall, prawning and a bunch of other restaurants and cafes. For somewhere so ulu, it sure was crowded...Nick had trouble finding parking.




We shared 2 crab dishes - their signature shimmering sand crab and a chilli one. Prices are going up, the crab cost $45 per kg but aside from the crabs, the other dishes were just so-so. We had coffee ribs, scallops with brocolli, salted egg prawns and fried beancurd. The salted egg prawn dish at Jumbo is better. But still I was a happy camper with the shimmering sand crab which essentially the creamy butter crab with cereal.

After dinner, we had a drink at a cafe called Frienzie. I don't know how they do their pricing, their mocktails were more expensive than their cocktails but generally other prices were ok. Might go back one day and bring the kids, since they are situated next to a canal and have a kids menu.

T is for...

... Tanjong Pagar.


Not my first choice but the boy was free for lunch so we just met at the hawker centre above the market. The tonkotsu ramen I wanted to eat had too long a queue.

He came in his Trafalgar shirt (that’s T!), and I deviated from my usual Lucky Wanton Mee to try prawn mee from a stall called The Old Stall. They had newspaper clippings and reviews plastered around the stall and I had high hopes but it turned out to be disappointment.



The broth was very ‘prawny’ and the prawns weren’t even fresh and a tad mushy.


Remind me never to eat at this stall again!

Nick was feeling flu-ish in the evening but had promised to bring the kids to Vivo for the giant Xmas tree, so I brought Nat instead. There were some elephant statues on parade which Nat and Gigi couldn’t keep their hands off.



We got to see the laser lights and fireworks on Sentosa, the girls were thrilled. I love fireworks!

By the way, it was the 11th of November 2011 today, hence 11/11/11. This kind of thing only happens once in a lifetime, next year it will be 12/12/12 and then there's no 13th month. But it just occurred to me my 10th wedding anniversary will be 1/3/13 and when Sasha turns 4, it will be 1/4/14...must buy 4-D on those dates!

S is for...

...Supper in Serangoon Gardens.


We were supposed to have dinner at Samy's, but because I was still full from lunch and had already been to Dempsey earlier in the day, we decided to do supper instead.

Left right after Nat slept, this is only the second time he's leaving them alone at home with Wendy and we were gone just over 90 mins.

It was a cool rainy evening and Chomp Chomp was packed. Managed to find a table in the back and I ordered Hokkien Mee, sambal stingray and chicken wings to share.




He was busy on his Blackberry practically the whole time responding to work issues, hardly any conversation!


I busied myself with the food. The Hokkien mee was not too bad, but nothing beats my Hong Heng. The stingray had no oomph, the taste did not linger. Very happy about the chicken wings though, very rare to find $1 chicken wings these days!