A Rainbow created using 'Xiao Long Bao'(小笼包)

Probably everyone in this world had eaten a normal 'Xiao Long Bao'(小笼包) at a Chinese Dim Sum restaurant before. But have you eaten a red or a yellow or even a green colored 'Xiao Long Bao'? There is a chain of restaurant in Singapore that serves Rainbow colored 'Xiao Long Bao'.

Although I had spend an hour waiting and queueing up to get into this restaurant, I love both the authentic feel and the atmosphere of this restaurant. Similarly, there have provided 3 different kinds of seats and if it wasn't for the rain, I wouldn't mind dining in the outdoors. :D

Dumplings in Spicy sauce(红油抄手)
Although the size of the dumplings were very big, but I personally feel that the taste wasn't spicy enough. I expect something more spicy and tasty from you. :(

Deep Fried bun made of multiple thin layers(炸-银丝卷)
Upon seeing this bun, I thought that it was just an ordinary bun. But I was wrong. The bun was actually made up of multiple thin layers of bread and the chef has deep fried the bun after spending some time making the bun. Note: The restaurant not only provide a deep fried version of this dish. They also provide a steam version of this bun. :D

La Mian with Sliced Pork in Signature Pork Bone Soup(猪骨汤鲜肉拉面)
Being a crazy fan for Noodles, I will never miss the opportunity of eating Noodles. They also provide the Chinese La Mien at this store. So what's the difference between the Chinese La Mien and the Japanese Ramen? Well the noodles were very different. The noodles used in the Chinese La Mien were much softer as the Japanese Ramen. Soup wise, it would depends. Especially with the up rising of the number of Japanese Ramen stores and the number of Chinese Restaurant in the SIngapore market, it's already very hard for you to tell the difference between the soup.

Signature Dynasty Xiao Long Bao(皇朝小笼包)
So what are the different colors of 'Xiao Long Bun' stands for?
The following will be the table used to assist you in linking up the colors with the different taste of 'Xiao Long Bao'.

White	Normal 'Xiao Long Bao'(原味小笼包)
Bright Orange	'Xiao Long Bao' with Foie Gras(鹅肝小笼包)
Black	'Xiao Long Bao' with Black tuffle(黑松露小笼包)
Orange	'Xiao Long Bao' with Crab Roe(蟹粉小笼包)
Green	'Xiao Long Bao' with Ginseng(人参小笼包)
Yellow	'Xiao Long Bao' with Cheese(芝士小笼包)
Purple	'Xiao Long Bao' with garlic(蒜香小笼包)
Red	'Xiao Long Bao' with Szechuan taste(麻辣小笼包)

After trying all the 8 different kinds of 'Xiao Long Bao' at one go,
I think I still prefer eating the normal kind of 'Xiao Long Bao'. :D

Note:

• Better make a reservation in advance, if you want to dine there
• Waiting time for walk-in's can be as long as an hour

* Click here for the website of 'Paradise Dynasty'.
^ Click here for the company behind the chain of 'paradise' restaurants.

Have you tried eating Hainanese Chicken Rice for supper?

When you think of supper, what will can you think of? You will probably think of food that were smaller in size. For example: prata, porridge, dim sum... etc. But have you tried eating Chicken Rice for supper before? As for me myself, as long as I have the appetite, I don't mind eating steamboat, murtabak... etc for dinner. Especially after a long day at work, you will be amaze how big my appetite can be. :P

Here are the pictures I had taken at the Chicken Rice restaurant:

Nothing special here, just the usual rice that goes with chicken rice.

Golden tofu, which is actually Deep Fried Tofu.
Not too soft neither its too hard. This is just the correct touch.

Oyster sauce Cabbage
This isn't something special but one shouldn't be eating meat all the time.
Should try mixing each and every meal of the day with a bit of vegetables. :D

This is the main dish of the day. How can you step into a Chicken Rice Restaurant
without trying different slices of Chicken meat? In fact, I prefer eating slices
of white chicken as compared to any other types of chicken slices. :D

This is the store behind the photos of delicious looking food I have pasted
in the above. The name of the store would be 'Five Star Hainanese Chicken Rice'

Some of the branches of 'Five Star Hainanese Chicken Rice' open until 4 or 5am in the morning. So if you have a craving for 'Chicken Rice' in the middle of the night, you know where to get them. :D

* Click here for the website of 'Five Star Hainanese Chicken Rice'.

A 'Bao' I grown up with

This is probably one of the taste I will never forget. I had grown up with the store that specialised in making various kind of Dim Sum. I will never forget about the fact that I was a ultra super frequent customer of the store. Ever since, I was young, I will never forget how frequent I will pop by the store after class. I personally felt that up till today, they had produced one of the best taste for some of the common Dim Sum. For example: Big Chicken Bun, Fried Popiah... etc.

Let us take a look at the store and some of the Dim Sum they had produced. :D

This is how the store looks like. I will never forget the memories of me sitting at the back of my Dad's lorry and he will park the lorry outside the store. He will step into the store and return with a big packet of Dim Sum. Yummy Yummy.

Here's my personal opinion of a good 'Da Bao'(大包) a.k.a Big Chicken Chinese Bun. A delicious 'Da Bao' should have the following characteristics. It must be juicy, the meat must be tender and the skin of the bun should neither be too hard nor too soft. Most importantly, I love the 'Da Bao' made by the store.

Simple ingredients and crispy on the outside. :D Nice~~~

This is a speciality of the store. I have only eaten this Dim Sum known as the '凤凰蛋' at this store. I don't know how the chef managed to make it but they can actually deep fried minced meat and a boiled egg into a Dim Sum, which makes it even more special. :D

So where is the store located? They have a few branches spreading across Singapore. But most of the time, I would only visit the main branch located near Tiong Bahru. * Click here for the location of the main Branch of Tiong Bahru Bao.

R u ready for the Mid Autumn festival?

R u ready for the Mid Autumn festival (also known as moon cake festival) that is coming in 2 weeks time? Have you bought yourself a delicious box of moon cake? If you haven't, you probably want to get some help in getting a box of moon cake. And I just happen to know a place where you can try moon cakes made by more than 40 over moon cakes makers. And at the same time buy yourself a delicious box of moon cake and prepare yourself for the Mid Autumn festival. :)

This would be my recommendation.
You probably might want to visit the Mid Autumn festival fair that was
organised by Takashimaya shopping centre annually and give it a try. :)

Whao look at the crowd.
You probably want to go there earlier to avoid the crowd.
And if you are lucky or early enough, you might probably get to try and
buy all the yummy moon cakes before they were sold out for the day.

Besides selling moon cakes, some of the stores are selling tea leaves,
snacks, lanterns... etc. As long as it is something that can remind you
of Mid Autumn festival, you probably can get them here at the fair. :D

This is the floor plan for the Moon cake festival fair located at Takashimaya Basement 2.
Look, you probably can find all the famous brands of moon cakes under one roof, isn't it convenient? :D

* Click here to find out more about Takashimaya and the Mid Autumn festival.

A Sambal Stingray that isn't that spicy

Besides having the Carrot Cake and Minced Meat Noodles, we had also ordered and tried the Sambal Stingray of the Fengshan Market located in Bedok.

Probably because I'm pretty used to a Spicy Sambal Stringray dish, I don't like
this dish at all as it wasn't very spicy. But I would recommend the dish to anyone
that would like to try a Sambal Stringray dish and doesn't like spicy stuff.
This store has manage to combine both factors together in one single dish alone.

This is the store behind this unique dish of Sambal Stringray, CHAN B.B.Q.

But where is this store located?
The store is located inside the Fengshan Market & Food Centre located at Blk 85 Bedok North Street 4. The queue for this store was much much shorter than the queue at the Carrot Cake store and the Minced Meat Noodles store, which was both a delicacy also. :D

* Click here for the map of the Fengshan Market & Food Centre located at Blk 85 Bedok North Street 4.

Sometimes it's black and sometimes it's white, and for me I love eating the white ones :D

Question: What sort of food can appear in black sometimes and sometimes it can turn out to be white? My answer: Carrot cake. :D I love carrot cake especially the white ones. Yes, I admit that I used to like the black carrot cake when I was young, but after I had eaten the first white carrot cake that was super tasty, I tried not to eat the black ones at all.

This was probably the 2nd store in my entire life that had prepared such a tasty plate of White Carrot Cake. Besides being a healthy dish, a plate of White Carrot Cake can be very tasty too. And mark my words you people out there, when I am referring to the term 'tasty', it doesn't mean that there is only the taste of the chilli only, there's really something very special about this plate of White Carrot Cake, which makes it very tasty. And a another good point that I would like to raise here would be the fact that the portion of food given by the stall owner was pretty generous.

As for the Oyster Omelette, I find it pretty normal and it wasn't as great as the plate of White Carrot Cake.

This is the store behind the White Carrot Cake and Oyster Omelette. And please take note that there might be a high possibility that you need to wait for around 30 minutes before the food will be delivered to your table.

But where is this store located?
The store is located inside the Fengshan Market & Food Centre located at Blk 85 Bedok North Street 4. The queue for this store was much much shorter than the queue at the Minced Meat Noodles, which was a delicacy also. :D

* Click here for the map of the Fengshan Market & Food Centre located at Blk 85 Bedok North Street 4.

A Genuine Minced Meat Noodles?

Been a crazy fan of noodles and probably I cannot survive without eating Noodles once in a week, this is probably the first store that change my impression of how a Minced Meat Noodles should look and taste like.

My jaws almost dropped after waiting for a few bowls of noodles after 30 minutes.
Where are all the ingredients??? The mushrooms, pork liver, minced meat ...etc
Don't tell me that there is only a bowl of soup with Meatballs and a bowl of noodles only???

The only bowl of ingredients with meatballs.
Hmmm.... after eating, actually this isn't so bad.
The meatballs were pretty tasty and the taste of the soup is pretty good.
Unlike some other Fishball Noodles and Minced Meat Noodles out there, the taste of the soup is actually pretty good. At least I didn't waste my trip down to this market tasting these delicacies. Well and this bowl of Minced Meat Noodles was rather similar to my motto in life, where 'Simplicity can be the best'.

This is the store behind this interesting bowl of Minced Meat Noodles.

The Minced Meat Noodles store is located inside the Fengshan Market & Food Centre located at Blk 85 Bedok North Street 4. Look at the crowd, despite of the fact that it was a Saturday night and the time was around 9pm, this can still be considered as a very big crowd of people dining or hanging out at the market. =.="""

Note: one of the better ways to get to the market would probably includes the step of taking a MRT ride to Bedok Station and taking the bus No. 14 from the Bedok Interchange located near the Bedok MRT Station.

* Click here for the map of the Fengshan Market & Food Centre located at Blk 85 Bedok North Street 4.

Famous Chinese dessert store @ Liang Seah Street - Ah Qiu Dessert Store

As I used to hang out at the Library near Bugis. Once in a while after having my dinner in Bugis area, I will start looking for delicious dessert store located in the same area. This is probably one of the better find located in that area.

Here's the photo of the food taken in the shop itself.

Top Left: Red bean with Ice cream (Cold)
Top Right: Black Sesame Paste
Botton Left: Mango with Pomelo
Bottom Right: I'm sad to say that I don't remember the name of this dessert

My personal favourite would be the Red bean with Ice Cream dessert (Cold).
If you have been following my blog, you will know how much I love Red Beans :D

Too bad I am sitting in the extreme corner of the store.
Otherwise if I was sitting in the other side of the store,
I can take and upload more exciting photos of the interior of the store itself. :(

Basically here are some of my pointers if you want to try the desserts of this store:

• Turn up at around 6 ~ 7pm after your dinner for a shorter waiting / queueing time as the store is not big enough to accommodate the crazy crowd
• Try not to turn up at hours between 8 - 11pm, as this would be a test for your determination and patience
• Try not to turn up at hours after 10pm as most of the desserts might already have been sold out

* Click here for the location of the store :D

Only restaurant in Singapore that serve Japanese Vegetarian Food

There are all sorts of Japanese food restaurant in Singapore. For example: Izakaya, Ramen shops, Shabu Shabu restaurants... etc. However, there is only one restaurant in Singapore that serves 'Shojin Ryori'. But what is 'Shojin Ryori'? The ingredients for making 'Shojin Ryori' are vegetables only. The chef will only be using vegetables to create all sorts of food items. For example: vegetables meals that look and taste like Unagi Don or Tempura, various types of Tofu set meals... etc. Basically, there are all kinds of 'Shojin Ryori' available in Japan.

The following photos were taken at the restaurant 'Zen' that is also the only restaurant that serves 'Shojin Ryori' in Singapore.

Unagi Don Set Meal

Udon Set Meal

I'm so sorry that I had completely forgotten the name of this set meal.

	Paper Claypot and Soba Set Meal It seems that food in this place never fails to amaze me. This is probably my first encounter with a claypot full of vegetarian ingredients. Example: vegetarian prawn, fish cake, etc... :D

The above were photos of the interior of the restaurant.

Note:
This restaurant is

• slightly a bit costly
• the set meals were delicious
• it is highly recommended to eat a lot of vegetables for a meal or two
• Lunch: From 12noon ~ 3pm
• Dinner：From 6pm ~ 10pm

* Click here for the map of 'Zen' restaurant.
^ Click here to find out more about 'Shojin Ryori'.