Food: Menya Musashi Kodou

Food:

Had quite a few pretty good eating outings recently and decided that I should be a bit more regular in my reviews and share with people about interesting places to eat at.... or not! Since I have the opportunity to eat out while some people might want to make a more informed choice, I feel that its good to make full use of the information I have garnered and perhaps help you manage expectation or even save your trip and time. So here is another pretty unique place that I have eaten recently.

This shop is recognizable by their samurai drawings on the outside as well as inside of the store. I believe he is supposed to be Musashi who is famous for using two swords at the same time?

So lets get down into the review.

Food

We ordered a single side dish to share and a main dish for each of us and you can see the pictures below

Tempura mushroom! 

Besides this side dish, there were other sides like steamed or fried gyoza and tofu amongst other choices. It was pretty nicely fried and very crispy!

The standard Ramen with your choice of meat

Same Ramen, different choice of meat!

The unique point of this place is that they have 3 different type of soup bases namely the white, black and red soup base. The white is the usual Tonkatsu type which is pictured above. The black is apparently more garlic based but none of us purchased that choice. Mine was the red base that you shall see below which is supposed to be spicy and if you order it in this separate form it is apparently thicker then the normal soup.

This was my order, char siew separate from the soup base cause I am brave!

 The next interesting draw of this place is that the choice of noodle that I ordered whereby the ramen is separate from the soup/gravy, you can actually upside the noodles up to 5X the original. The original is about 120g which should be the usual for the soup ramen. Then you can get up to 600g of ramen. However, they do not add extra soup or gravy for free though which is probably the issue we have over here that i will discuss further. Make a guess of how much I ordered since it was free :)

Side view of my ramen

Top view so you can make a better guess

As you continue to guess here is what other issues we have. As you can see, basically all the meals are just about 2 or 3 slices of meat with bamboo and also half an egg. You basically can only choose between the soup version or this version where you can add more noodles. There are some other dishes they serve but i suppose this is what they are suppose to be special in.

So as you can see, it was pretty difficult to finish eating up everything and it was pretty clear i over estimated my abilities. Note that the amount of noodles can increase but there is additional charges if you wanted more sauce/gravy. The biggest problem is that the noodles are served slightly cold or at least towards room temperature. After dipping it into the sauce many many times, you will have a situation whereby the sauce is just cold.. This made the dish a bit harder to finish and I think it is safe to say that if you choose more then 2X the normal noodle amount you will experience this. They should really just consider putting the gravy on sort of a heater or like a steamboat style so that the gravy and hence the noodles will be eaten piping hot.

I personally love to eat my noodles hot.. So this made the experience and taste of the food a bit less tasty then I would have liked. That being said, the normal soupy ramen choices are all fine but they do not have the additional noodle options. The noodles are slightly more unique then what i have tasted before and they are quite QQ or chewy in a good sense.

All in all, the food  is different from your usual ramen shops, has a bit more expensive feel, but if you going for the soup separate from the noodle option, it will not be nice for anything more then 2X of noodles.

Food 3/5

Atmosphere 3.5/5

The staff is pretty attentive and the ordering is done via a tablet which gives you pictures and the like. However the traditional menu is still given to you. The little probably that i have is that all the dishes such as the meats are given in their traditional japanese styled english spelt names so you will see stuff like Tontoro and have no clue what meat it is.

Adds some authenticity to the food but not non-japanese friendly. The seats are big and they serve water freely so that is some plus points to the place. Overall, the atmosphere is pretty ok, slightly noisier as the place is slightly squeezy but thanks to the location of the seats, the waiters and staff will not be getting into your way very often.

Price 3/5

Its not expensive, but i would say it is neither cheap too. For someone like me who cannot really tell the difference between quality meat, I can't really tell why the usual choices are more expensive when the portion of meat is lower. You actually have one two ramen dishes with the same type of meat but you need to add extra 2 or 3 dollars for a additional slice of the meat and everything is the same.

Its good they dont really charge extra for the separate noodle and gravy choice if you want to add extra noodles. But note that it already costs 14.90 - 18.90 for that choice as opposed to 12 - 15 for the normal Ramen when in essence it is somewhat identical.in content to the normal Ramen.

Side dishes are also averagely priced from 4.90 to about 10.90 depending on what you get.

Our total for 3 persons for 3 mains and 1 side was about 60+ dollars just for your information

Accessibility 3/5

This place is located in Jurong and as far as it seems I think it is currently the only one of its kind. But its location near to the MRT is pretty good although all staying at the north and east would probably find it a chore to get there. There was actually a queue at about 7 plus so I suggest that you queue earlier to avoid. Its more due to the small size of the outlet and possibly cause it might be slightly novel.


Overall 

Food: 3 (It tries to be premium and feels premium in some sense, but taste wise it is just slightly lacking especially for my choice)
Atmosphere: 3.5 (Its a nice place to sit and chat, not too messy)
Price: 3 (Not entirely worth the price but if they do some improvements it might be more worth)
Accessibility: 3 (Has queues and is all the way on the west side, but least its near the mrt)

Overall:  3.125 (Overall, I would say this score is a good reflection of my feelings which is a place you can eat once, you wont regret it at least for the experience sake, you may come back but most likely wont feel any particular strong feeling to return. There is too little pulling factor to eat here more then once, but on your meal here, you won't feel cheated or anything either.)

I took slightly longer to post this up because its name was not in the westgate directory cause it was probably too new. Nonetheless, I should have some reviews coming out soon... in actual fact I actually currently have an excess of things to review so hope I can get it done soon :)

BTW for those who were wondering, I ordered the noodles X3 and I am proud to say, I should have managed to finish about 2.5X of the noodles before i gave up... of course one reason was due to the lack of hot gravy.. Hopefully they will take this into consideration and do something about it!

Its website is over here http://www.menyamusashi.com.sg/ for more details and stores

Food: Paradise Dynasty

Food: Paradise Dynasty

For those who do not know, there is this large chain of eateries that sells various genre/categories of food and this is the Paradise group. This paradise chain generally can be identified with some Paradise word inside for example, Paradise inn, Kungfu Paradise, Canton Paradise and other more obscure names like My Nasi. Dont ask me how did they come out with their naming convention but its a pretty strong group as you can see from their reach in Singapore. You would probably choose Paradise dynasty for their noodles and their xiao long bao although they do offer other foods like fried rice and the like. It is like an alternate Ding Tai Fung. So lets look at what we ordered!

Heres their own plate with their nice branding

Their choices of Xiao Long Bao

In real life!

As you can see here, this is probably the main driving factor of why you would actually go to Paradise Dynasty to eat, which is their multi colored xiao long baos that is infused with various flavors. The middle one is the usual xiao long bao, while from the green clock wise, it is ginseng, garlic, truffles, crab roe, sze chuan, cheesy and foe gras which is the brownish one.

All xiao long baos are pretty well made and sturdy enough and they do have their distinct flavors when you eat into them. I would personally say that it is a fun experience to order the entire set but you actually can order 6 or 10 of the same flavor of xiao long bao, but they cost up to 13.60 for 10 of the same colored xiao long bao. Do personally feel that it might be slightly too much to eat it 10 times.

The problem you probably might face here is that if you are gonna share this with your friend, you will only have one flavor to try out so you probably have to divide them with your friend. Buying two entire sets might be slightly too filling also.

By the way, xiao long bao should be eaten as soon as possible (but dont get scalded by the soup inside) cause when the xiao long bao is cold it is not as taste to eat.

This was the other two dishes that we ate

La Mian with Marbled beef (SPICY)

This is my personal favorite from Paradise Dynasty and actually i believe this is currently the only place i know that serves this. Its kinda like MA LA la mian and I like how it makes my lips sore after eating due to the spiciness. Its fun and if you like spicy, you should try it.

La Mian Hot and Sour

 This is the second dish that we ordered and it is the traditional suan la tang, the hot and sour one. This one can be found in many other places such as Lao Beijing and Ding Tai Fung and to be honest, I would say that all these places have different tasting Hot and Sour soup. It is generally so different that you probably would feel that it is different dishes. Lao Beijing has a slightly more peppery taste to it, Ding Tai Fung is not that spicy. This one was reasonably spicy and pretty nice.

Overall, I would say that Paradise Dynasty has a good mix of food for all customers and unlike DTF, their individual rice and noodle dishes are actually sufficient as a meal itself. For DTF, you almost always have to order some additional food such as xiao long bao or meat dishes or veggie to have a filling meal as DTF has noodle choices that are devoid of meat. Most choices of food are pretty nice tasting and their portions are very very sufficient!

Food 4.5/5

Atmosphere 4/5

One good point about Paradise group is that their tables are big and well spaced, and their decor has some type of ambience to it. Their staff is also very quick to respond and I even saw one of them accept the customer complain pretty sincerely. Its probably a company that would make amends should they have wronged you in anyway.

There is the occassionally random tiny flies flying under light at times and this is not the first place i seen it, i seen it before in pizza hut too but not sure why they appeared. Seems like a totally random issue and it dissipates in a while but just letting you all know it.

Price 3.5/5

This is the breakdown of the food that we got

As you can see, it ends up to about 43 to 45 dollars for two pax which is 20+ per pax. Given that we ate till we were pretty full, it is a above average worthiness kinda price. You can see that the 8 Xiao Long Bao costs us 13.80 and if you actually just wanted 10 of the normal xiao long bao its about 9.60 SGD. 

The rest of the dishes per person should range between 9 dollars to about 16 dollars so it is a pretty OK price overall :)

Tea is served immediately but note it is chargeable

Accessibility 4/5

The store sizes are really big which allows quick turnover which means even with long queues, they should move fast. However, like DTF, these places will have significant queue on weekends and friday nights. When we ate that day however, we left around 6.30 and there was already a growth of a small queue of maybe like 5-7 sets of people there. It is also very near Jurong East MRT located inside Westgate.

Overall

Food: 4.5 (Food is filling and its pretty unique and good tasting, there is also quite a good variety)
Atmosphere: 4 (Big store with very good decor and spaces. Seats are big)
Price: 3.5 (Good price for the food, obviously can always be cheaper but overall its pretty worth)
Accessibility: 4 (Easy to go but has the occassional queue)

Overall: 4 (A score of 4 is pretty good indication of a place that you would visit again and again when you have the craving. It is also pretty worth the price and there is good variety that will not let you be too bored with the food choices. I would recommend this as a place to bring your friends for the above average type of meal on a regular basis especially if they have not tried the multi colored bao before. Even more so since you probably cannot try all the baos in one setting if you are eating with your friend. I personally will go back there whenever i got the xiao long bao craving)

Share your experience here if you eaten at these places before :)

This is the company website here : http://www.paradisegroup.com.sg/

Movies: Police Story 2013

Movies: Police Story 2013

A very strange title for a show, with an additional 2013 added at the end of the movie title. This is because there seems to be another movie released previously called Police Story that seems to not be related to this movie so the 2013 is added to highlight that it is a different movie. This movie is produced by none other than Jackie Chan and gang and of course involves Jackie and his kungfu antics.

As per his usual style, its a action, thriller flick that includes cops. So is this a show that you should see alongside the slew of other cop related shows such as firestorm and the white storm? Or does this movie pale in comparison? Is it too similar that there is no novelty of watching this movie now? Lets read on and find out

Storyline 3.5/5

This movie is presented in a rather unique manner, using the main storyline which is the hostage situation that the star cop gets himself into, as the backdrop into explaining how did this cop actually get into this situation in the first place i.e. why he was targeted to be a hostage in the first place. 

As a result, the whole story only comes together at the end of the movie where you will realise oh this is the whole trigger for the entire movie. In more obvious terms, this movie is basically a hostage situation that adds more fluff to the movie by including the story telling of the reason for the hostage taking in first place.

Because of this however, the early part of the show is actually slightly confusing as to what is happening and does take a bit of effort to try to link everything together. Not entirely a relaxing effort if you ask me.

None the less because of this, the two hour movie has enough substance to remain interesting and compelling but it overall it takes a bit of effort and even at the end when everything is reveal, the storyline is just at best above average. Will cover this further in the character section.

Character 3/5

This is where this movie is slightly lacking. Besides the main character played by Jackie, all the other characters have very minor and slightly confusing roles. However, one aspect that this movie wants us to try to experience is to empathize with the villain in the way he does things or the reason behind them. However, I personally feel that there is too little effort put into trying to flesh him out maybe cause of the time, or cause of the way the movie is presented and in the end there is little pity or whatever you are supposed to feel for him.

There are also too many characters that merely just appear to help drive the story slightly but they just seem randomly added and add little extra value but might have added unnecessary complexity to the story.

The main character is also probably supposed to be emotionally messed up in some way or other due to the history of things that has happened to him. However, because of this, the things he does are sometimes rather confusing and strange which would sometimes make the movie slightly unbelievable.

Cinematography 3.5/5

This movie does some aspects of cinematography well, and some not so well which overall averages out. It does good slow motion scenes and improve excitement and action level. However, the scene of the movie is generally dark and sometimes hard to follow since the star actor is moving around in the pipelines which is supposed to be dark.

Also 90% of the movie is confined to that single one place which does not help to retain the attention of the audience. (The feeling of 1 and a half hour into the movie and you are still in the same place)

It does try to use the alternative vision method to keep the movie interesting i.e. the movie will play out a possible scenario in the thought process if the person takes this action, while in the end he will decide not to take that action and do something else after considering the possible outcome.

Music 3.5/5

There is actually visible emphasis on the music in this movie and overall it does support the overall feeling of the movie. Nothing to spectacular but its effect on the movie is definitely there.

Spectacle 3.5/5

For a action movie, it is above average but definitely not one of Jackie's best work thus far. Storyline wise is pretty unique, but slightly too simple overall with no final OH SO THATS WHAT HAPPENED feeling. When everything in the end is revealed the feeling is rather muted and not entirely a big deal. The movie doesn't really play on twists and turns of the mind but rather just adds complexity by purposefully omitting details to be revealed later. Hence the audience does not really feel that they were misled or misunderstood anything which takes out a lot of the fun factor of plot twists.

Overall

Storyline: 3.5 (Somewhat unique, but complex and not that enticing)

Character: 3 (Too little drawing of the audience to empathize with the characters, also too many characters that seem to just randomly be added to minor effect)

Cinematography: 3.5 (There is visible effort but not above the top yet. Also has some not too great cinematography portions)

Music: 3.5 (Visible effort but not too fantastic.)

Spectacle: 3.5 (At best it is just merely above average for both aspects.)

Overall: 3.4 (Its not above 4 so its safe to say that this is not a must see movie honestly. You probably will still enjoy it if you like the genre and are pretty interested in the story telling method. However, you won't particularly be impressed by any aspect of the show. Given its 2 hours long, its ok if there are no other movies that interest you as long as you manage expectation. Note that for a Jackie Chan show, this movie does not have particularly much fight scenes.)

Its the last day of the year so safe to say this will be the last review for this year. Hopefully for the new year I will be able to consistently review more things and do more reviews :) Thanks for the support for this year and see you all next year :D

Movies: The White Storm

Movies: The White Storm

Its been a while since I last caught a chinese movie, and I had the opportunity to catch one recently. The nice part about chinese or actually Hong Kong movies in general is that they love to do action flicks involving gangsters and policemen and they generally do it pretty well. In fact one popular game called "Sleeping Dogs" uses Hong Kong as the backdrop of the game itself and its like GTA with Kungfu and Asians.

Sorry this its the game! not the movie.

Look at the KungFu GTA right there!

With the usage of these 3 actors whom seem to always work together, will we have a combination that would be a hit in the box office? Take note that the title totally does not make any sense. Its not a racist movie dealing with white supremacy, neither is there a hurricane or storm involved in the movie. Nope, its not a hurricane that came from some western country either... GEDDIT!??! WHITE STORM?!?!?!

Now this is the movie!

Plenty of guns here.. pretty useless against... (WOOPS nearly spoilered! ^_^ )

Ok enough of that. Lets see how the movie fared!

Storyline 4/5

Whoa whoa whoa really? That high a score? Yep.. to be honest this show could deserve even a 4.5 if Hong Kong didn't keep doing cop shows that has explored almost every possible angle and way of doing the cop genre, this movie would be pretty high on the creativity chart.

What this means is that basically, from the start all the way to the end, you will be drawn in by the evolving storyline, confused (positively) in certain areas and then it all gets clear again. The way the show is shot and its focus on 3 different cops plays a very important role in keeping the audience interested. Whats more, this show allows a long time budget, which means they do have sufficient time to do every scene properly and flesh out the movie appropriately. Little screen time is considered redundant.

The movie also changes from Hong Kong, to Thailand for a fair bit of the show which prevents monotony of seeing the same scenes and people.

In fact, given the amount of plot twists in this show,  and how it managed to keep me interested all the way, I shall go ahead and score it as 4.5 for overall scoring and you will agree with this point especially if you havent seen a Hong Kong cop show for a while.

Storyline 4.5/5

Character 4.5/5

The character development in this movie is pretty astounding considering that they had to focus on 3 main characters throughout the movie and yet all three are distinct people with varying backgrounds and yet good and fair screen time. It is their chemistry that greatly adds to the enjoyment of the movie and during one of the movie's quiet time you will appreciate the relationship that these 3 actors have actually built in their acting careers and see how the movie directors have put this into great effect. All in all, you will be concerned and realise how different people think and relate, but the end of the movie sums out everything very nicely and you should be pretty well pleased.

The supporting cast in this movie is also very entertaining although in some way they are slightly a bit more bland due to lack of screen time. Nonetheless, during the little moments that they appear, they do make a very good impact and the actors chosen from the role do perform very convincingly.

Do look out for the famous actor/ess from Thailand that really spices up the show because of the person's background. Its a good way to make use of or even exploit the person's off screen personality for the benefit of the movie and the person.

I'll just put the person's picture here and let you find out the rest

Its the one in the middle of course.

Cinematography 4/5

From the eyes of action, it could be slightly more pronounced but all in all, there are very good shots in this movie, from close up and even from high above. Its well done, adds a lot of value to the movie, they even use black and white shots to highlight and invoke certain emotions. Its done well, but there is room for improvements!

Music 4/5

Its not a musical, but this movie is smart in its utilization of music to bring about and highlight a theme about their friendship throughout the movie. Very smart way to incorporate this in and it is done to great effect on the audience. You will appreciate it when you see it.

Spectacle 4.5/5

In terms of action show, it does it well and even has a good storyline to boot! In terms of thrilling, it has enough twists and turns throughout the movie to really place this movie high up amongst the other movie in its two focus area. In terms of character development, this movie takes its time and highlights everyone, using all of them and showing all their strengths and vulnerabilities. It even throws in a few comic relief here and there in very intelligent manner to keep the show entertaining.

All in all its very smart way of doing a movie by focusing and doing well in as many prominent aspects as possible such as action, character development and storyline.


Overall

Storyline: 4.5 (Intriguing, well done and entertaining all the way)
Character: 4.5 (3 main characters all fleshed out, important supporting characters also fleshed out and well used)
Cinematography: 4 (Action flick could be further improved, but its already above average)
Music: 4 (Good use of musical aspect for the friendship theme of the movie)
Spectacle: 4.5 (Definitely above other movies in the same genre in terms of action, storyline and character development)

Overall : 4.3 (The only possible flaw that is clear in this movie is that it is not in english! Besides that, its an action show, that remains interesting despite its long show time, has sufficient plot twists and turns as well interesting characters all the way in the movie. There is no reason that someone will dislike this show, as it has the best of every possible aspect in the movie. If you are looking for something to do for like 2 hours of your time and you like action movies, this movie will work out fine for you.)

Should be catching another movie that just came out which is "Last Day on Mars" so sit tight and I should get a review up soon!

Cheers! and as usual leave your comments below if any!

Movies: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Movies: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Hi all, was fortunate again to have the chance to catch a movie soon after its release, and as a result, felt the need to review it so that people can actually read up and have a better expectation of the movie before going to see it! To clarify though, I have actually read all three books after seeing the first movie which was called "The Hunger Games". I would have to say that this movie follows the book pretty well in terms of its starting point and its end point but will this work to the movie's benefit or not? That is the main question to be answered here.

For those who don't know about this movie yet, this movie follows the life of a girl called Katniss in an alternate world scenario whereby the world is divided into various districts with a single capital city. The various districts all live a life of forced labor to produce all the products and things that the capital needs, while the capital enjoys a luxurious and more loose type of life style. Every year, they will have this hunger games whereby two people from each district are chosen to battle out in a free for all battle royal style in a specially designed arena.

This is the arena for the 75th Hunger games... wanna participate?

These are the participants... still wanna participate?

Katniss in the previous movie was the winner of the 74th Hunger Games which you can probably see on your own computer these days, and this continuation movie follows how her life or has not changed after winning. The catch is however, that she offended some very powerful people in the 74th Hunger Games and hence these people are taking it out on her as well as other people in this 75th Hunger Games. I shan't reveal anything more about this movie to not spoil it for others. So lets break it down and see how did it perform in the categories!

Storyline 3.5/5

This is a movie that is supposed to be rich on story line given that it is a new world with new laws and regulations and the way things are supposed to be. The main issue it has here is that this movie focuses less on the new world but rather tries to focus on Katniss' new life as a Victor of the previous games but doesn't do anything particularly interesting or striking.

Without any focus on telling the audience any new things or information about this world where this movie is based in, it does little to attract the attention or intrigue the audience resulting in a lack of appreciation for the things that are happening.

This is even more pronounced because this movie is a continuation to the previous and things that are happening in this movie actually were quite similar to the previous, and you could actually say that this movie is too similar to what happened to the previous movie. Hence for those who saw the previous movie it is really hard to like it as much as the first when the producers did not do anything more to flesh out this world.

Character 3/5

This is a pretty underrated aspect of the movie that could have been greatly improved, like seriously greatly improved. This movie has many many participants from the other districts but instead of having a bit of focus on how unique these participants are, they are just touched on very slightly. There are some who are not even mentioned although the book doesn't mention them either, but movies do need something fresh and interesting to keep the interest of the audience.

Also, the relationship between the main characters are not new or fresh which is another flaw only because this movie is a continuation. Like I said, you will generally just see what has happened in the previous movie... but even then it is not as interesting or well fleshed out.

In the end, you hardly feel anything for the many characters which is sad as it could have been done so much better.

Cinematography 3/5

Its pretty sad that the movie did not really stand out too much even in this aspect. I would probably say that this movie was not meant to be a action flick but it did have a lot of opportunity to at least do so and entertain the audience on another aspect of the movie. (If storyline is not as good, make the action better) There were many bird eye shots but aside from that, there was little to actually immerse the audience into the movie.

Music 3.5/5

Music was there, but it was nothing entirely special or striking. It did add to what immersive feelings that the show had but I can't really say it helped the movie greatly.

Spectacle 3/5

Sadly, I would say that this movie did not perform well in any of the aspects that it could have done well which was mainly the storyline section or the action section. If it was me, I would have put in extra budget on highlighting and giving the other participants in this hunger games events or opportunities to differentiate themselves from each other to add more character value. I would put in more action sequences just to entice the action loving crowd and use different perspectives to add in the immersiveness.

Storyline wise, it actually told very little or made too little advancement of the story for the time frame given to this movie which might not have been the fault of the movie itself as the story book also was like this and they were trying to stay true to the source material.

However, if this movie carries on to the third installation, I would say the movie can easily redeem itself as the 3rd book does have a lot of potential.

Storyline 3.5 (Too little advancement due to source material, they could have focused on fleshing out the world and its people instead)
Character 3 (All additional people were pretty highly forgettable, really, flesh out the world more, the source material did allow for this.)
Cinematography 3 (It was at best just above ordinary as there was no real epic scenes while some scenes have been seen before in the previous movie)
Music 3.5 (It was fine, adding somewhat to immersion)
Spectacle 3 (Did not do entirely well on the aspects that it should have done well in like storyline or cinematography)

Overall 3.2 (I would say this score reflects the advice that I will give to you, see this movie if you seen the first and you could roughly derive some enjoyment from it, most likely less then the first movie, but as you guessed by now, there will be a following movie to complete the story and if you actually missed this one, its no real big deal as nothing big did happen. You could basically just wait for the 3rd movie to come out first, which will be in a year or so, and see this movie at home in your own leisure. All in all, see it if you want, but if you don't, you can always see it at a later date.)

P.S for the rest of you who are not satisfied at the ending, you can always follow the book to have complete closure while waiting for the last movie to be released. Hopefully they don't split it unnecessarily into two movies though... although it is possible if they so desire.

I have also added genre labels and tags to my posting so next time you can have a better idea of what the post and content is about!

And now its back to studying, so catch ya all later! Share your comments if there are any!

Food: Da Paolo Pizza Bar

Food: Da Paolo Pizza Bar

Hi all, have been working pretty hard these days and with exams coming up its rare for me to get chances to catch movies... however, there is always time to eat and sometimes its good to pamper yourself on food since its a necessity anyway! Like you probably have experienced, there are times when you don't know or cannot decide what to eat, so if you need some inspiration, here is a place that you can consider!

Nested in a nice place down at Holland village, you can go there and eat with a bit of the expat feeling as this Pizza bar is not in Holland village main area itself, but along a private road lined with many other places like this.

Forgot to take a picture of their menu, but this place has its fair share of pizza and salads with pretty ok prices that I will elaborate on further down.Note that their food names are all those italian or some other language sounding like one.. so you probably should read the food description to know what appears in your food. For us, this was what we got!

Portofino which is actually supposed to be crayfish!

The crayfish is the most expensive pizza there probably due to the meat choice, but the content of meat is not entirely plentiful to be honest.

Mari e Monti which is Salmon and stuff!

We got 2 pizzas for 3 people which is pretty much in reality, you could probably feed four people easily as the pizza are all 12 inches. Of course unlike pizza hut, these pizza have thinner crusts so you wont be too filled up by the flour. The cheese also tastes pretty nice and it is all cooked fresh.

Overall, this is the type of pizza that focuses on the quality of the ingredients and they are pretty good tasting. I personally ate 8 slices by myself which was actually one whole pizza and I did not get bored of the taste unlike some other pizza that I have eaten else where.

All in all, in terms of food taste, I would give this a

Food 3.5/5

Atmosphere 4/5

This place has the advantage of the atmosphere. Being located further from the more crowded Holland village, the whole place is open air but we hardly felt hot thanks to the design of the place and how far away the tables are spaced. You could even sit on the outside of the shop which is similarly nicely shaded and the sitting tables and chairs are comfortable looking. It is really a quiet place and you could consider using the place if you just want to have a chit chat session with a bit of drinks here and there.

They also have a very comfortable toilet which does honestly add to the atmosphere for a very clean and orderly place

The staff is also pretty friendly and positive looking which makes the experience more pleasant. Not entirely the type to wait on you constantly but at least they response fast, and you don't need to put in too much effort to get their attention. The food also comes pretty quickly.

Price 3/5

For 3 people of whom I believe all were pretty filled by the food, this meal ended up to about 20+ per pax. So its is above average on the price point. There's no need to spend on drinks as water is provided but when we where there, I believe they were having a 1 for one deal for beer, wine or spirits.

Accessibility 4/5

Interestingly, this place is actually very very easy to get to via car or public transport. For MRT takers, don't get out via the same exit for the usual Holland Village shops. Its the other exit. Once you are out of that exit, it is like maybe just a 3 - 5 mins walk away. There is also a car park at the back of the line of shops and right in front of the pizza bar itself actually. We went there during dinner time and it was hardly packed either which means you can get a seat and start your meal quickly and comfortably. Not to say it was not popular also however as it was about 3/4 filled all the time we were there during a weekday night.

Overall

Food: 3.5 (Food tastes classy and has a good variety of pizzas and salads. Not extremely unique but tastes like what you would expect)
Atmosphere: 4 (Atmosphere here is very good, cooling, quiet, peaceful and the staff are friendly)
Price: 3 (Is in the above average price range but does fill up the person sufficiently and the quality of food can somewhat justify the cost)
Accessibility: 4 (Very very easy to go even on a whim as there should be space and its near the MRT)

Overall: 3.6/5 (Like I said in the previous review, 3 would be a place you wont regret visiting once just for the experience. 3.6 would be a place that you can consider going on the off occasion of trying to find a place to meal and you happen to have a pizza craving. Only issue that it has is that pizza in general, is not difficult to do well and hence there are many similar places and similar prices all over Singapore.This is a good place especially if you want to have a area to just hang out and slowly enjoy a peaceful evening. )

Pay the place a visit and see if you agree with me :)

Food: Tim Ho Wan

Food: Tim Ho Wan

Hi all again! Its been a while since I did an update on food, but after hearing about the hype about Tim Ho Wan, and finding out that there was one in Toa Payoh which incidentally is pretty near where I live, I decided to give it a shot to see whether this place is worthy of the legendary queue that the branch at Plaza Singapura is. Of course this review is on Tim Ho Wan and its food in general although I ate at the Toa Payoh Branch. However, there is no reason to suggest that the standard and style of food is different although there will be adjustments in other criteria depending on the location.

This time I took pictures a plenty of everything I ate :)

Heres the logo for those who still dunno what i am talking about

So here goes the review:

Here is the menu, you can zoom in and take a look

The first picture is basically the menu. It seems like in Tim Ho Wan, this is the entire menu already. As you can see the there is maybe about 20 items at most which I guess is a fair enough variety, although i distinctly remember that if you eat dim sum at other places there is just a bit more variety such as when you eat in Malaysia or Hong Kong. Even some other outdoor coffee shops in Singapore has a slightly larger spread.

Nonetheless lets try looking it as quality over quantity.

Baked Bun with BBQ pork

This is supposed to be their signature dish, alongside their egg cake, vermicelli roll with liver and turnip cake. I only tried the bake bun and not the rest just for your information. Admittedly however, their bake bun was cooked fresh, and has very good texture. Its the first time I ate a bun like that as compared to our usual white colour bao at the other dim sum places. It is also quite filling and the "filling" was nice and hot. If you were to visit, you should go there and try this, but given the choices in the menu I believe you will buy one set at least.

Beef Balls with Beancurd Skin

This was another dish that I never ate before. I ordered it cause it was beef. Cooked in different style with the beef held together by some kinda glutinous goo. Sadly, this one was way off my expectation in that I didn't really taste anything at all, neither was the meat chewy or anything like that. The texture was too unimpressive.

Siew Mai or Pork dumpling with Shrimp

For people who know me well, they will know that this is the thing I will eat when ever I go for Dim Sum. In fact this could very well be the only thing I eat and I will still be satisfied! This siew mai is a little different from what i am used to as there is a relatively stronger mushroom taste. Coupled with the provided chilli sauce which is not your "Maggie" brand, this was pretty nice. At least above average in taste. Not sure how you would react if you hate mushrooms though...

Vermicilli Roll with BBQ pork

This Chee Chong Fun with BBQ pork is ordinary to be honest. The sauce that is provided as the gravy is not really strong on taste and in the end it merely tastes the way a CCF is supposed to taste. Nothing too impressive but it will do as the source of carbo.

Prawn Dumpling

This one was pretty good. The prawn feels very nice and chewy and even the dumpling skin is pretty chewy with good texture. It is also relatively larger then other prawn dumplings. Its a must try if you were to go there. At least get one basket.... well with a menu like that you will get one basket anyway

Rice with Beef and Fried Egg

 I bought this because I thought i might not have enough food to be full. However this proved to be a mistake. This rice with beef is the same beef as the one above, and the sauce provided is most likely the same as the CCF one. So put rice with tasteless and strange textured beef along side unimpressive sauce you get a clump of beefy rice. Probably not a necessary buy over there unless you really like rice. If you like beef you also probably wont get your fill from here.

All in all for food in terms of taste, texture and variety, I would give this....

Food 3.5/5

Atmosphere 3/5

As far as the atmosphere is concerned, the place is generally cramp both in TPY and PS which would mean its small, and crowded feeling. However the arrangement of tables and chairs do allow a fair bit of space between tables so you don't feel entirely congested kudos to them. Of course this does mean that people will have to queue longer for their food but overall it will probably help the full experience. The staff are pretty fast to respond and in generally good workers, the kind that will attend to your needs and not the kind that will purposefully look away from you. It's a workable arrangement for maximum efficiency and the food will come pretty quickly as  you expect in a Dim Sum place.

Price 3/5

This is where I think there could be some improvements. For two people eating there you would probably expect to spend about 20 per pax. We spent about 50 for two people for the above mentioned dishes. The price for one basket of stuff is about $4.20 although admittedly they do come in stack of 4 instead of someplaces where they come in 3s. Still there are some Dim Sum places outside that charge quite a bit cheaper in those coffee shops. I would say that you will get what you pay for in terms of food quality and the concept that this is something brought over from Hong Kong with a more restaurant atmosphere.

Of course for Singaporeans however, or at least the lay person, it could always be cheaper :) especially when you read the next section.

Accessibility 2.5/5

 The locations of the two branches in PS and TPY are fantastic, easy to access to via MRT especially for PS. The TPY branch needs about 3 mins walk from the TPY MRT but it is relatively convenient. Tell me if you need directions cause in this time and age, you probably could just use the location that I provided in this blog and google map it.

That being said. The queue is probably the main determining factor of whether you would actually want to come here to eat or not. Both sides have excessive queues which will be filled up during peak times like dinner. Probably expect to wait for even more then 1 hr which was what my friend told me when he queued at PS. I personnally skipped all the queue when I went there to eat at 3 pm so this could be a way you can experience THW without this hassle.

The shops are obviously too small for the expected crowd but that being said, expanding the shop without consideration could harm the food or service quality.

Overall

Food: 3.5 (Food has the Hong Kong taste, but not everything is entirely palatable or tasty)
Atmosphere: 3 (Also has the Hong Kong feel, not too crowded but I wont say its very comfortable)
Price: 3 (Noting that things come in 4s and not 3s, there is a slight premium price on its branding and restaurant like status.) 
Accessibility: 2.5 (Queue is the deal breaker in this case and it has a easy to get to location, but once you are there, you need lots of time to GET IN)

Overall: 3 (This score is a good reflection of what I believe you should do. 3 means its a place you should at least go to once, in fact go there during your weekdays off and skip the queue. Had this place have zero queue, I probably would go there more often but factoring the queue and the not too exemplary quality of food, you could coax yourself into alternatives elsewhere. It doesn't seem to have reservations either. Malaysia and Hong Kong would have better overall packages that you could live with. I personally don't feel any extreme urge to eat there again unless I have friends who do want to try it out for experience sake or they are great fans of some dishes. Even then, probably not during the peak hours.)

Ate at Tim Ho Wan before? Wanna share your experience? How was your queue there? Share them with us in the comments below...