Tanuki Raw, Orchard Central Singapore

I were at Singapore again last week for some restaurant hopping and catching up with my BFF, Sean. It was a fruitful trip as I managed to sample some delicious food plus catching up with old friend. Singapore is so near to Malaysia that you basically can fly there every week :P

Orchard Central is quite a new shopping mall along Orchard road in Singapore. My bff brought me to this delicious Japanese place called Tanuki Raw. They served fresh and premium Japanese food where they take their raw food seriously and heavenly I would say.

They have indoor and outdoor seating and we were at the outdoor sofa seating as there's ample light for an Instagram worthy picture. Another reason I love this place is that they do have 'lunch menu' or what we called 'lunch set' here on weekend. A lunch set on weekend? I rarely see that back in my own country - normal lunch set are only valid for Monday to Friday.

Their affordable lunch menu starts from 12SGD is available daily from 11.30am to 3pm. And you can opt for a complete set of drinks, salad and miso soup at 2SGD (if I'm not mistaken - or is it 3 SGD?).

Salmon Don

 Their Salmon Don comes with perfectly cuts of raw salmon, little ikura (fish roe) on a bed of healthy sushi rice. Their salmon is fresh and one word - Oishii.

Chirashi Don

 If you love premium sashimi, you gotta try their signature Tanuki Raw Chirashi Don. You can get all your beloved sashimi in one bowl. Be prepared to feast on premium cuts such as tuna, salmon, seabream, swordfish, scallop and salmon roe on a bed of sushi rice.

I'm lovin this place. Must thanks my bff for this lovely lunch. The next time you're dropping by Orchard road; be sure to visit this place! The nearest MRT station is Somerset which is connected to Orchard Central mall.

 Healthy, delicious yet affordable lunch at Orchard road ~ only at Tanuki Bar.


Tanuki Raw
181 Orchard Road
#02-03 Orchard Central
Singapore 238896

Nearest MRT station: Somerset

The Han Room Restaurant, The Gardens Mall

The Han Room Restaurant which is located at The Gardens Shopping Mall had recently relocated to the Third Floor of the mall from its previous Ground Floor location. It is currently located right next to Borders Bookstore as well as opposite Fong Lye Restaurant and Sushi Zanmai.

Was there with my pig few days back for dinner and it's our first time dining at its new location. As usual, it has the wow factor of a banquet Chinese restaurant with properly folded napkins, elegant chopsticks with the restaurant name carved on it as well as the courteous servers at your service.

Not sure about the size of its new location compared to its old one; but its new location do caters to birthday or wedding banquet judging from the stage area as well as a three-tier cake replica displayed. It also has many private VIP rooms for more private and quiet dining session. 

All the must-have for a Chinese dinner - minced garlic, chopped chili and soya sauce.

We started off our meal with a Yin Yang Vegetables Soup (RM20 per pax) where half spinach and half corn soup formed the Yin and Yang symbol on a bowl. I quite like the soup where it's well seasoned and you can taste the chunks of crunchy corn and spinach. This is a Chinese style starchy based soup where you need to drink it while it's still hot. If you're sharing your dishes with your dining partner, do consider order one or two pax portion to share. For us, we ordered 1 pax portion at  RM20 and we got this big bowl of soup (pic below) to share. Luckily for us; we did not ordered 2 pax portion which we initially thought was a tiny bowl of soup which is the reason they put a per pax price.

After browsing through their long pages of menu, we ended up with 3 main dishes to accompany our white rice. We had this Smoked Farmed Chicken (RM45 for half chicken) and it is known as 烟 口 水 鸡 in Chinese. According to the waiter, the colour and texture of the sauce resembles saliva and hence in Chinese it's called 口 水 鸡 where 口 水 means saliva. I love the yellowish-white sauce and the smoked chicken is rich in flavour. It does resembles a bit like the salted chicken taste due to the high amount of saltiness in it. 

I was quite excited about the Thousand-layered Bean Curd (RM33) when I browsed through the menu. It consists of thin slices of silky and smooth bean curd resulting from a highly skilled chef's knife skills. The thin slices of silky bean curd is arranged beautifully on the plate which is regarded as a piece of art. The bean curd is silky and smooth but I think the sauce could be better as I would like to have more sauce to accompany the bean curd.

For the greens, we had Stir-fried Hong Kong Kailan in Two Styles (RM28) where the leafy greens are chopped and deep-fried to crispy like chips state and the green stems are stir-fried with minimal sauce. 

We were supposed to have an appetizer dish but was only told it was unavailable halfway though our meal. We then ordered a sweet-ending to replace the appetizer dish. For dessert, we had Chilled Snow Pear & Seaweed Ball in Teapot (RM18). The presentation was quite amusing with a porcelain teapot sitting on a bowl filled with dry ice and hence the lovely mist spurting out. The tiny teacups comes with a little fish in it - it's part of the cups not an additional prop into this dish.   

All you need to do is to pour the dessert drink into the tiny teacups and then enjoy your dessert - voila! It does looks as if the fish is swimming in the teacups when your drink is sitting in it.

If you're ordering White Rice, it's priced at RM2 per bowl and do present The Gardens Card if you have when paying your bill because you'll get 10% off the bill with the card.

Service charge of 10% and GST of 6% applies.

The Han Room is under the same umbrella as The Oriental Group of Restaurants. Do check out their FB page for more on their latest promotions.


The Han Room
Lot T-216A, 3rd Floor, 
The Gardens Mall
Mid Valley City,
Lingkaran Syed Putra  59200,
Kuala Lumpur.

TWG Mooncake 2015 (Snowskin Series)

I'm excited to share with you on the mooncakes which I bought from my shopping session at Takashimaya Shopping Centre few days back. I go back to this fair at Takashimaya Square every year to fetch my lovely mooncakes home!

TWG Mooncake is always the top item in my shopping list whenever I fly down to Singapore. It's because I couldn't get their Snowskin series back in KL. If you are flying down to Singapore; you can actually purchase the mooncakes from their TWG outlet in Singapore Airport when you're flying back Malaysia. However, if you're flying back in the evening; they might run out of stock though. Purchasing them at their airport outlet is slightly cheaper compared to their outlets in the city :P

For this trip, I bought a box of 4 pieces from their mooncake booth at Takashimaya Outlet and another 2 pieces from their airport outlet at Terminal 1 transit area. 

I L-O-V-E TWG's Snowskin mooncake a lot because it taste very different from those common ones which emphasize on the flavored lotus paste filling. This year, TWG is offering 4 types of tea-infused snowskin mooncakes which guarantee to bring snowskin mooncakes to another whole new level.

Their theme for this year is the Autumn Celebration Tea which announced the arrival of fall in deep violet, setting the tone and the flavour of the season. Their gift boxes are customized to match the theme of the season on the outside but still maintaining the golden glam on the inside.

The 4 flavours for the TWG Snowskin Mooncake series are Pure, Illumination, Dragon and Celebration. A box of 4pcs is priced at SGD60 per box while individual piece is priced at SGD16/each. 

Dragon

The rose among the thorns in the box is the Dragon which is indicated by the red coloured snowskin on the outside with a layer of edible gold foil sitting on the top of the mooncake. This delicate and stunning piece of masterpiece is embellished with a 24ct gold leaf, filled with Red Balloon Tea infused nashi pear mousseline and a refreshing and crunchy blueberry marmalade white chocolate heart in the middle.

One of my little red Dragon survived the long journey home but I accidentally swing my paper bag while walking and the 24ct gold stuck flat on the plastic cover. Well, it's ok; since it's an edible gold foil; we licked the cover clean. Muahah!

Sorry for the bad quality picture below, but the mooncake is so delicate as it's made from soft mousse that it look a bit of a disaster when I cut it. But do ignore the look of it after you cut the delicate mooncake because the taste is absolutely delicious that you might want to lick those crumbs which stuck on your fingers. It has a very soft skin and filling which do not make you feel bloated like the ordinary lotus paste fillings do. I even got feedback from my eating partners that it taste as if they are eating an ice-cream mooncake! And I do love the authentic blueberry filling in the middle - they are not flavouring but pure blueberry compote encased in a white chocolate ball. It's heavenly!

Celebration

With the violet theme leading the Mid Autumn season, we must not missed the fun and laughter leading to towards the festive day but to celebrate it throughout the weeks to come. This Celebration snowskin mooncake is crowned with a splendid purple snowskin, filled with a dainty chestnut mousse infused with Autumn Celebration Tea around a mango marmalade white chocolate heart.

The mango marmalade in the middle is a bit sourish and matches the overall taste and the oumpph texture of the chestnut mousse. You gotta try it for yourself!

Illumination

Do you love TWG's signature Black Tea? This stunning Illumination mooncake is made to satisfy its loyal tea lovers. This exquisite black snowskin mooncake comes with a light nutty praline infused with the signature TWG 1837 Black Tea and an oriental burst of glowing orange marmalade in a white chocolate heart.

I tried cutting one of my Illumination mooncake into half to showcase the golden treasure enclosed inside this black beauty. This is one of my preferred flavour too and surprisingly that the orange marmalade paired well with the praline filling.

Pure

This satin white snowskin mooncake comes with a smooth dark chocolate mousse which is infused with fruit and flowery notes of TWG 1837 White Tea, with a heart of tangy blackcurrent marmalade enclosed in a white chocolate ball in the middle. I'm loving the dark chocolate mousse filling which is not too sweet and the tangy blackcurrent marmalde gives a kick to the chocolate mousse. Chocolate lovers must not missed this and you'll come back for more!

This is one of my must-have mooncake every year during Mid Autumn celebration; the exquisite TWG Snowskin mooncakes. Do note that TWG snowskin mooncakes can only last for 3 days in the fridge and it will turn bad after that even though it's sitting in your fridge. I tried to keep them in the freezer and it's still ok on the 5th day. Do not keep longer than that (even though it's in the freezer) or you'll be wasting a nice piece of mooncake to savour. I did that last year (6th day) and end up sending the one last piece to the bin.

My last box of TWG mooncake for this year and need to wait another 365 days till my next TWG mooncake ;(

Happy Mid Autumn 2015!

Mooncake Shopping in Takashimaya Square, Singapore

Few days back,  I flew to Singapore for a day trip in conjunction with the Malaysia Day public holidays :) Was there for a mini mooncake shopping session at Takashimaya Shopping Centre.

Check out the participating retailers at their website. The above poster is from Takashimaya's official website :) 

Every year, they have a huge mooncake fair at the Takashimaya Square, B2 where you will get to sample and purchase mooncake from participating restaurants, local retailers as well as local and international hotels. It's one of the largest mooncake fair which I've been to (let me know if you found something more than this one yeah). In fact, I flew to Takashimaya to buy my supply of mooncake every year as I love their unique mooncake! You can also expect to see overseas brand like The Peninsula Boutique, Mei-Xin and Kee Wah from Hong Kong as well as SunnyHills at Raffles Hotel from Taiwan.

If you are flying to Singapore for mooncake shopping like me; do take note of these few items as you may not buy mooncake the same way like you did back home. Back home; you can walk to a mooncake booth and select the individual piece which you would like to purchase because it comes with individual packaging. Well, do expect to bring a box of mooncake with you from one booth to another if you are purchasing them overseas like me. Most booth have their mooncake priced per box of 2 or 4pcs instead of individual pieces. Thus, if you would like to have only 1 piece of that particular mooncake from that particular booth, do inquire whether they sold in pieces of 2 per box so that you don't over purchase. But some retailers (which I find quite rare) do sell them per piece instead of per box; thus do walk and inquires a few rounds before making your purchase.

And you can also see mooncake baked fresh from the oven at some of the booth in Takashimaya; do walk over to taste some sample from their booth as they are quite delicious - they are usually in my shopping list as they are freshly baked and taste good! And do note that some of the mooncake sold can only last for 4 days to a week even though you keep them in the fridge (trust me, I wasted some previous years although I kept them in the fridge), thus do inquire on how long can they last in the fridge or under normal room temperature. This shows that their mooncake do not have preservative compare to those which can last for 2 to 3 months. And I usually bring a cooler bag with me so that the delicate snowskin mooncake can survive the long journey home (although it's only an hour flight :P).

Here's some of grabs from the mooncake shopping session at Takashimaya Square...

The No.1 must-buy in my list (every year without fail) - TWG's Snowskin Mooncake.

My favourite Walnut mooncake from Amethyst Pastry & Cakes

I also bought some special custard mooncake from Kee Wah Bakery HK. 

Takashimaya Shopping Centre is located along Orchard Road and is accessible by Orchard MRT station and Somerset MRT station. And do check out the Food Village which is located on the same B2 floor too; lots of interesting Japanese goodies for you to shop!

Gogi King, Solaris Mount Kiara

Few days ago, to reward my piggy partner; we went for a Korean Cheesy BBQ dinner at Gogi King located in Solaris Mount Kiara. We drove past this shop few weeks back on our way to another Korean restaurant nearby and saw this interesting concept of Cheesy Korean BBQ.

Their menu is simple with BBQ dishes, noodles, stews, side dishes and drinks. 

We had their Set A (RM55) which consist of Grilled Pork Belly, Pork Shoulder and Skirt Meat.

Their set comes with side dishes such as the essential kimchi, fresh lettuce, two ways salad, a bowl of hot soup and some cheese and egg on the grill. 

Here's what you will get for the Set A! Yummylicious pics ahead..

Refillable side dishes!

From the top is cheese, raw eggs, kimchi, garlic and green chillies. You need to wait for the cheese to melt a little before dipping your grilled meat into it. Just eat your grilled meat together with the cheese and it's heavenly. Well, our focus was on the cheese! For the egg, you need to wait till the egg is cooked first before munching it. And it's basically a steamed egg when it's fully cooked. Grilled meat + cheese+egg = YUM!

 It comes with a complimentary bowl of soup too.

You see, we love more side dishes to our meal and thus we ordered more. You might be wondering how these two fellas finished them but it was all wiped clean at the end of the meal. 

You gotta order these Mini Rice Ball (RM9) which comes in 5pcs of rice ball. You can find some chopped veggies in these rice ball and they are delicious.

We love Korean pancake thus a Kimchi Pancake (RM16) is a must-order whenever we dine in a Korean restaurant. It will be great if there's some spicy sesame sauce to accompany this pancake as it taste quite bland by itself. 

 Now, I would love some flavorful soupy dishes to accompany my mini rice ball. Thus, here comes the Seafood Tofu Stew (RM20) which comes with generous cubes of tofu! I think the soup flavor could be more intense ~ it's just a personal preference as we prefer dishes with stronger taste.

Our Cheesy BBQ dinner at Gogi King.

Overall it was a great dinner and something different from the normal Korean BBQ. But their meat could be even better if it's marinated with Korean sauces before being grilled. Service is great and environment is clean - not smoky.  You should try this meat + cheese BBQ!

Gogi King

No.1, Jalan Solaris,

Solaris Mont Kiara 

50480, Kuala Lumpur. 

 

Yishensu Vegetarian Restaurant, Ipoh

Recently, I had the opportunity to sample dishes from another vegetarian restaurant in Ipoh. Having to stay in Klang Valley for more than 7 years, I'm quite familiar with the term 'Yishensu' as they had an outlet in 1Utama - you can order dishes from this 1Utama outlet through Foodpanda too.

In Ipoh, you can enjoy dishes from Yishensu as they have an outlet in Ipoh Garden; situated opposite Tesco Ipoh Garden and few doors away from Restaurant 1919.

 You can snap some lovely selfies with the peacock :)

As usual, you'll be served some chargeable tidbits while you wait for your guest to arrive or dishes to be served.  

During the dinner, I managed to sample a total of 5 types of vegetarian dishes. You might be wondering why there's only 5 types of dishes when it's for a group of people. Now, dishes are not ordered by yours truly yeah.

Dinner started with a giant plate of traditional chinese mixed platter which is also known as 'lang poon'. It consist of 5 different types of appetizer dishes from Japanese wakame, fried mock meat in the form of popiah shape, fried glass noodle with mock meat (taste like fried eggs with crab meat and glass noodle), vegetarian ham secured with satay stick and lastly the vegetarian squid in the middle. 

The highlighted ones from this visually beautiful plate of platter are the Japanese wakame and fried glass noodles with mock meat. They retained the delicious taste of wakame just like how you had it in the Japanese restaurant. Not sure whether it's the ready-to-eat type when they sourced the ingredients but I will be utterly disappointed if it is because a good platter should be made from a chef's specialty - not some readily made instant food. I do fancy the fried glass noodle with mock meat as it do smell and partially tasted like the original fried eggs with glass noodle except that it's vegetarian. Nice work on this one, something decent I looked forward to among the 5. Others could be better as I prefer to have some citrus sauce to give some kick to it especially the one which looked like fried popiah.

The second dish is the braised vegetarian noodle with sliced mock meat and some leafy greens.

Noodles are cooked to perfection and the sauce is rich in taste. Would love to have some sliced chinese mushroom to go with it too  ~ just a personal preference.

p.s. I find it a bit weird to serve noodles as the second dish because it's normally the dish to end the meal in a Chinese banquet dinner. 

 Up next is the Sweet and Sour Fried Fish where fried mock fish and mock sausage  (not sure which type of mock meat it is) are cooked in sweet and sour style.

 This dish is perfect to be served as an appetizer before going into other main dishes. The sourly taste of tomato sauce is balanced up by the green pepper bells, onions and chopped cucumbers. Goes perfectly with white rice :)


I think I love this dish the most among all the dishes served. Braised Homemade Beancurd :)

I'm a beancurd person and of course I love this dish. Flavourful, soft and silky homemade beancurd makes you going for more and more. Do order this dish when you're dining there. 

 Last but not least is the Braised mushroom with Beancurd Stick and served with broccoli.

Taste wise is normal and all the elements are cooked well. Great to eat with rice too. 

Overall, it's a great vegetarian restaurant and I would suggest that you order more dishes and add some white rice to your meal too if you have a table of 10. It's because you don't want to leave your guest with a partially full stomach :)



Yishensu Vegetarian Restaurant Ipoh
19-21, Jalan Medan Ipoh 6,
Metro Ipoh Baru, 31400,
Ipoh, Perak. 

Celebrate Hari Raya with Julie's Love Letters

Last month, I was at Julie's 'What's Your Love Letter'event thanks to Miriram :) Now, this explains why I received a Raya greeting postcard which I send to me - myself.

This Ramadhan, Julie's Biscuit launched their 'What's Your Love Letter' event with the aim to encourage you to recall the nostalgia of writing cards and mail them to your loved ones.

Due to the advancement of technology and social medias, I'm sure you received more e-greeting cards and festive greetings on social media rather than physical greeting cards. I still remember the olden days where I used to write letters to my friends and waited for weeks to get a reply. And in schools, our bookshop and koperasi do sell festive greeting cards and we all would check them out during recess time.

This Ramadhan, do send out some physical greeting cards to your loved ones and I'm sure they will be surprised and jumping happily with it.

Back to the launched event which was held at Sime Darby Convention Centre, guests were given a chance to write message on Julie's Raya postcard and Julie's will mail them for us :)

What's more excited than towers of Julie's Love Letter tins greeting you at the entrance hall?

We were even provided with small colourful cut-out shapes to decorate our postcards. 

I wrote some messages on the postcard and mail them to my colleagues too - and myself :P 

Then, just put them into this green mailbox and Julie's Biscuit will mail them out for us. 

Here's Julie, the mascot for Julie's Biscuit. 

There's a special meaning to this launch event too. Julie's wish to share their love with the orphans to make them feel loved and appreciated. 

This event is also attended by more than 60 orphans from Rumah Anak Yatim Shifa' and Asrama Darul Falah Perkim. The children managed to send postcards to their loved ones thanks to Julie's. 

I blurred out some part of the pic for privacy purposes. 

There's also a mini game held for these kids - just find the balloons with the red sign and they get to bring home some Julie's goodies. They were really happy searching for the right ones to redeem their prize.

                                                                         Blurred out some part for privacy purposes. 

Blurred out some part for privacy purposes. 

Lovely Julie's goodies for them :)

There's also a photobooth and they will print the pictures for you. We took a few rounds at this one. 

We were all treated to a Ramadhan buffet dinner too. Food were from Sime Darby Convention centre and they were absolutely delicious. 

"Today Julie's took the steps of encouraging all to foster family bonding and would like to invite all to share the love during this break fast event. Orphans whom are invited as priority guests will be celebrated together with the media and bloggers. This campaign also aim to encourage everyone to touch their hearts of their loved ones in reality by writing their feel of affections to families, friends and lovers during this Haru Raya" said Benny Chia, Marketing Manager of Perfect Food Manufacturing (M) Sdn. Bhd. 

The orphans were treated with Julie's goodie bags and delicious food all night long. The most popular one among the kids was the fried ice-cream booth. I love it too!

The kids also did some performance on stage and I'm amazed with their talent. Thus, if you're free do drop by the orphanage home nearby your place and surprise them with some goodies. They will be very happy with your visit and care. 

More love letters anyone?