Marina’s Bloggariffic

After trespassing a number of institutions, my consensus is that university students are very well fed.

Last friday, I joined Myztika, a fellow blogger for lunch at the newly opened Mega Bites Cafe at NUS.

It was not difficult to get there. Thanks to streetdirectory, I was able to find my way down to the science faculty in lower kent ridge road without any problems at all.

By the time I reached there, it was about 1pm. I met Myztika and after looking at the menu on top of the wall and made our decision on what to eat. I still craved for a nice plate of Chicken Chop, even after what had happened at NIE. Henceforth, I decided to get that, while Myztika ordered Chicken Cutlets.

We queued up and told our orders to the crew who will be preparing our food on the spot. Unfortunately for me, Chicken Chops was already sold out (so fast?!) so I had to settle for Fish and Chips. We paid at the other end of the counter.

At an affordable $3.90, my fish and chips was actually pretty good. It was nice and hot, well coated and wonderfully crispy and tasted fresh. The portions were very generous! It was much more than I anticipated that in the end, I could not finish my meal. I felt bad for being so wasteful.

The meal also came in a set with fries and coleslaw. As I don’t really fancy eating fries, I found them to be rather ordinary. But the mushroom soup which was nice and thick, which I quite enjoyed.

Myztika enjoyed her Chicken Cutlets, which like my set, came with fries, coleslaw and soup. It was her second time eating the chicken cutlets in a week, so I suppose that the chicken cutlets must be really good :)

Like my fish, the chicken were hot, being freshly cooked and crispy. The bbq sauce on top of the chicken was tangy and the portions were very generous. My eyes nearly popped out when I saw the amount of food on her plate. For this price, even hawker centers could not hold a candle!

In the end, both of us were extremely stuffed and satisfied. It was a pretty good meal.

Myztika, lets come here again! Next time, I would love to try their pizzas and hopefully if I’m lucky, a plate of chicken chop. Anyone wants to join us? :)

Here is a quick clip of our lunch :

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Mega Bites Cafe

• S16, Lower Kent Ridge Road, NUS
• Mon - Fri 7.30am to 9.00pm
• Sat 7.30am to 3.00pm
• Click here for menu

Other campus eats :

• Western Food in NIE
• K. Gourmet cafe in NUS

Sidenote : In about 12 more hours, he’ll be here. I cannot wait :)

Zingdo is yummy!

My colleague, Zarina and I decided to head to Jurong East where we were wandering around, wondering what to have for lunch. And thats where I suggested to have lunch at Zingdo.

I ate here for the first time last year when they were newly opened and already I enjoyed eating the food here.

The Place

Located in Jurong East Entertainment, it will be hard to miss this place. The bright orange decor makes it prominent and a really cheery place. Almost everything was orange! Right to the square wooden tables and stools that we were sitting on.

The Service

When I first came here, I had to order and pay first at the counter. So I was a little surprised when the waitress, with her cute orange outift and black aprons ushered us inside and handed us the menu.

Nevertheless, the staff here were friendly and patient and were more than willing to explain to us what the different menu was and did recommendations on the popular food there. Can you imagine having to serve people all day long answering the same questions again and again?

The Food

The manager tells me that they have just started on new menus since last week and I was pleasantly surprised to see more varieties on their menu. Previously, there was only a limited amount of food, whereas now, there were two full pages of them.

The pictorial menu was helpful, although we still needed the waitress to explain to us what the food was as we were both not very familliar with Korean food.

For appetizers, we had deep fried assorted mushrooms ($3.90) It might not look pretty in the picture, but believe me, it was good. It arrived hot and when we ate it, it was juicy and flavourful. It was so tasty! Interestingly, it tasted more like meat than mushroom.

I had my favourite, hotplate beef bulgogi ($8.90) It arrived steaming hot and part of the fun about this meal was the tossing about the marinated meat and vegetables to cook. After about 10 mins of tossing, the meal would be ready to eat. The dish was accompanied by a bowl of rice an a bowl of lovely, kimchi soup.

Comparing it to the first time when I had this dish, I felt that the fare has dropped a little bit, mainly because the meat turned up a little raw. It would have been improved should the meat be cut more thinly.

Zarina had a plate of Tang Hoon with seafood ($6.90) which is basically vermicelli and a variety of seafood on top of an omelette. I had this dish before and I liked how fresh and zesty the food was. It was light to the tongue. And yet, it was very filling. Zarina said that she enjoyed the meal alot.

Here is a quick clip of our lunch :

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In a nutshell

If you are anywhere in the west and is hankering to try something meaty, Zingdo will be a good choice.

Zingdo

• #01-15, Jurong East Entertainment Centre
• Click here for menu (PDF)

You may also be interested in :

• K Gourmet Cafe
• Western Food at NIE
• Island Creamery
• Manhattan Fish Market

Updated : As of end October 2008, Zingdo no longer operates at Jurong Entertainment Center due to it being under a year long renovation.

Doesnt my chicken chop and spaghetti look yummy? I love it! I want to go again!

About 6 months ago, after reading the chicken chop and spaghetti post by Sha, I was really tempted and raring to visit the canteen at NIE. But the first time I tried to go there I mistook NIE for NTU and I rode all around the campus wondering where the place was. In the end, I gave up.

I had a craving for western food lately and I remembered about Sha’s recommendation. So, I went there again recently this week. Once I knew the bearings, it wasnt that difficult to go there. Exit from the PIE expressway to Jalan Bahar, enter NTU and at the welcome sign, turn right to Nanyang Crescent and head all the way to carpark 4.

All around your journey, you’ll be accompanied by this cool piratey sign.

What I like about the surrounding area is the amount of greenery here. When I parked my scooter, I could see trees as far as the eyes can see. Its so serene.

When I entered the canteen, it was quite full with the lunch crowd. I spotted the western food stall. Already there were a number of people queuing up. Having already decided what I wanted to eat, I queued up for my food, made my order and got my food shortly after.

I love my Chicken Chop! The gravy is delightfully savoury and the chicken meat itself is freshly cooked and was so juicy. The mashed potato was so smooth. It was such a delight to eat. The spaghetti isnt the best that I had, but its still pretty good. There is a generous amount of basil and a good amount of meat on my pasta. Best thing of all is that it only costs $3.80!

Actually this was my second visit in a span of one week. Earlier this week, I had the grilled fish and butter rice ($3.50). Its pretty good, with the fish being hot and crispy when I had it. The meat was nice, flaky and quite delicious. Yum! I dont really fancy the rice but its not bad :)

I’m still thinking about my meal there. Sigh. I want to eat there again. If you’re anywhere in the west, join me there the next time? :)

NIE Western Food Stall

• 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616
• Click here for daily menu / daily special

Other affordable food

• K Gourmet Cafe

Sidenote : Redzuan is auctioning off his laptop

Update : Western Food Stall will be under maintainance till the 2nd January 2008. Sigh.

Even after many trips to the headquarters, I am surprised that I did not know about about this place sooner. The K Gourmet Cafe must be an insiders secret that there is even hardly any results from a search on google!

I was back at the headquarters today to judge the finalists for a blog competition with mycolleague Joy. It was noontime when we ended. And we decided to have lunch together with our other colleagues, Eka, Weilin and Rou Hui.

The Place

It was just a walking distance from Science Park II. We walked past a couple of condominium looking buildings (which I found out later was the NUS hostels) and then we headed to a white nondescript looking building. Oh, this is a cafe? I honestly would not know about this place at all if my colleagues did not take me there.

But I suppose that this place was not so unknown as by the time entered the cafe, it was already quite full of people whom were having their lunch. We waited for a moment for an empty table and I admired the surrounding scenery of the fountains as well as the bright, cheery and cosy interior of the cafe.

The Service

Being of the lunch hour peak, the service was a tad slow. Nevertheless, the staff were friendly and hospitable. Impressively, despite the crunch, none of them appeared harried at all!

We queued up at the cash register to order what we wanted and paid for the food. There, I was most amazed when I saw the prices. The items here are pretty affordable. There isnt even any service charge! I did not spend more than $10 for my food.

The Food

This is my grilled chicken pizza ($4.50) Its not the best pizza that I had but its still pretty decent. I love that the crust is flat and the toppings are pretty succulent. The chicken was pretty juicy and the bell pepper and mushroom tasted fresh. I wish the dough was softer and warmer but really, for this price, I am not complaining :)

For drinks, I had ice lemon tea ($1.20) You can tell that this was home made. It was pulpy and I love it! Yum!

This is Joy’s fish and chips. It looks really good. When asked, the only issue that she felt that would make it more perfect was if it arrived warmer and was crispier.

This is Eka’s fried rice with fried chicken. The chicken looks appetizing doesn’t it? The fact that Eka finished the entire plate shows that she enjoyed her meal :)

This is Rou Hui’s beef rice which he said was decent. Judging from the amount of meat on the plate, it looked like a hearty meal which a manly man would eat.

And of course, seeing how affordable the place was, I could not help myself and bought dessert! Isnt my ‘Last Man Standing’ ice cream colourful? My vanilla ice cream has a piece of wafer, slice of strawberry, sliced almond, sprinkles and even fudge! And its only $2?! I am loving this place more and more :D

I’m definitely coming to this place again.

Here’s a quick clip of our lunch :

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In a nutshell

Whats there not to love about it? Cosy place. Decent food. Affordable prices. Go. Just go.

K. Gourmet Cafe

• 33 Prince George’s Park Residence (NUS)
• Click here for menu

You may also be interested in :

• Island Creamery
• Manhattan Fish Market
• Essential Brew

Sidenote : My exams are over!

After a long postponement, my Italian language classmates finally met up on Tuesday evening at La Fabbrica.

The place

As I rode uphill Dempsey Road, I noticed how distinctly secluded and quiet the area was - it wasnt a place I’d be walking by myself as the path leading up was dimly lighted. It was starting to feel eerie, even while riding on my scooter. But it didnt take long for me to locate the next building.

I quickly recognized the restaurant by the distinctive logo outside - already there were a number of people lounging and relaxing about with their friends.

I walked in, saw my friends and sat down with them. While sitting down, I admired the charming decorations and the build - from the lights to the high ceiling. But although the decorations here were modern, the building itself it reminded me of a building built in the 60’s, with its zinc roof and the ceiling fan.

Veron tells me that the entire area in Dempsey Road formerly used to be an army barrack and I was amazed by the revelation. I wonder how the place would be like at that time. Can the soldiers picture that what used to be their barracks is now a posh restaurant?

The service

Both the manager and the (extremely attractive) waiter that served us was patient and helpful - giving recommendations on the food and were quite attentive to our requests.

The food itself took a while to prepare, but that gave us the chance to talk and interact in the intimate environment as well as explore the premises around.

The food

The food list was limited - there were only a few types of food here. I was surprised to see that there were only 4 types of pastas. I made my choice.

For starters, I had the Crabmeat, Apple and Sundried Tomato Salad.

The salad can be shared with another person as the portion is quite large. I think that it was an interesting combination - the combination of crunchy, sour, tang and body. It was nice enough. But I’m not sure if I would order it again the next time.

For the main course, I had Capellini with Prawn and Arugula.

This was nice, with the prawns being juicy and lucious, and the combination of the sharp tasting rughetta leaves and the savoury tomato, even the garlic cloves were butter soft. I could detect a hint of cheese. And most importantly, the pasta was al dente.

Unfortunately, I wasnt too impressed about it. Even though my friends were raving about and loving their pasta, I just couldnt feel it for mine - having tasted really good food with cartcart while in Italy, my standards has gone up. I think its my curse :\

But all was not lost! Fortunately for me, I found love in my dessert - Panna Cotta!

Oh the custard is smooth and delightfully creamy. Yum! I savoured it slowly, letting each heavenly silk glide through my mouth. Heaven! Personally for me, being a sweet tooth, I prefer having caramel over my panna cotta, but the berry sauce was lovely enough - Definitely the highlight of my meal :)

—

We had such a lovely time at La Fabbrica that we forgot the time and spent the night talking and finally left the restaurant at 11pm. I very nearly forgotten that I had to go to work the next day! :P

Here’s a quick clip

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In a nutshell

La Fabbrica is a cosy and intimate place to have a meal with friends and loved ones, with friendly waiters to serve you. If the pasta could duly impress me, this place would be perfect :)

La Fabbrica

18-B Dempsey Road,
Singapore 249677

After hearing CC raving about it for the upteempth time, and seeing so many good reviews about it in so many blogs, the pingsters headed to Island Creamery for a dose of ice cream.

The place

Located in Serene Center, Island Creamery is a very cosy and a great place to chill out with friends. One of the thing that struck me was how cheerful and inviting the area was, as seen from the walls decorated with personal photos. You could request to print a photo here using your camera’s memory card.

I looked at the pictures on the wall and by sheer coincidence, I spot out a picture of the Vesporeans during one of their outings last year!

As the place is popular gathering place, it is quite vibrant and can be quite noisy at times, thus it isnt a recommended place for anyone to do their studies! *hint hint*

The service

The folks running Island Creamery was very friendly, ready with a smile and quick to assist you. No surly faces here! There was this pretty waitresses who was more than willing to help Paced and me while we requested for a printing paper even though it was a very busy day for the staff.

The gentleman who were serving us ice cream was even kind and patient enough to wait while we pondered on which ice cream to get for our table.

The ice cream

A single scoop is $2.50, double scoop is $4.00 and a 500ml tub is $8.00. We shared among us four tubs of different types of ice cream - namely Nutella, Reverso, Burnt Caramel and the very popular Teh Tarik. I digged in and had my taste.

It was a divided camp with Paced, Dhope, Malique, Ethan, Claudia, Aaron, CC, Arzhou enjoying their ice cream while NTT, Attilio and I think that although it was nice, but it didnt meet our expectations. As we’ve tasted good Italian gelato before, our expectations were higher. Thus we found the ice cream a little overrated, judging from the reviews from many blogs. I would have liked it better if their ice cream were more flavourful.

However, I do have to give credit for the rather tasty teh-tarik ice cream - my favourite out of the four. They actually managed to make it taste just like the actual teh tarik tea!

Here is a clip of the pingsters at Island Creamery

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In a nutshell

Island creamery is a great place to chill out with friends to have nice ice cream at affordable prices with friendly and helpful staff to assist you. A highly recommended place to visit.

Address: 10 Jalan Serene, Serene Centre #01-01
Tel: 64688859

Links:

• Claudia
• Arzhou
• CC recap and pics
• Malique
• Aaron

My favourite dinner partner, Geri, recommended me to head to Pasta Cafe at Takashimaya. She recommended me this place after raving about how wonderful the pasta was here before it underwent renovations.

When reached there on wednesday night, the place was already quite full of diners. We queued behind a group of roughly 6 people.

The place

It was a nicely decorated place, clean and bright, it looked like an American styled diner. I observed the waitresses manning the area. They all looked pretty and young.

The service

We had to wait for a significantly long time for an empty table. Geri noticed that there was an empty table that were left for about 10 mins and that the group queueing before us had to finally request the waitresses to sit them there.

After waiting for another 10 minutes, I asked Geri if she wanted to have dinner at another place, when we were finally led to a table.

The food

Geri and I decided to have the $22 set meal consisting of soup+pasta+gratin. For the first course, we both chose mushroom soup

The mushroom soup wasnt bad. It was thick and full of mushrooms. But it was slightly bland and I had to add pepper to it. I always believed that good meals should not need additional condiments to it.

I then had the Seafood Pasta with Tomato. I thought to myself, “No one could ever get a Tomato Pasta wrong. It is such a simple dish”. I took a bite. And then two. And then three. And I blinked my eyes. Nothing.

The pasta sauce was so diluted that you can see the watery sauce in the picture. It wasnt satisfying at all. It would have been significantly nicer if the cook would have drained the pasta and used better sauce. I chewed listlessly at the prawn and crayfish.

Finally, I had the Salmon gratin which was slightly better than the Seafood Pasta. But to me, it wasnt anything special as it tasted similar to the baked pasta at Swensens or Amirans (which has since ceased operating)

After our dinner, we asked for the bill, and to our horror, we found out that it totalled to $63 with the 10% service charge and GST. My mouth almost reached the floor.

No. We wont be going to this place anymore. For that price, we’d have a nicer and lovelier and more genuine pasta dishes at La Forketta.