Anjappar Chettinad Restaurant – Better than Muthus Curry!
Recently, I was with my colleague and boss to Anjappar. Having already been here before in June with NTT and Malique, I thought that the food was nice, my only qualm was that many of the items that I wanted to eat on the menu were not available when we went there in the evening.
Thus I was extremely thrilled to see the range of food available there when I was there the second time.
The place
Anjappar was situated along Racecourse Road slightly off the hustle and bustle of Serangoon Road where the heart of Little India is. Searching for parking area might be of a problem for motorists though as even at 11.30 am when we reached there, there were few empty slots on the road.
Dont worry, its not always this crowded
We entered the restaurant where one staff welcomed us and ushered us to our table. I looked around and the same as in June, – there were a simple and rustic decoration with its Tamil styled artwork on the wall and the wooden chairs and marble tables.
Then something struck me about the place. Didn’t this place used to be Muthu’s Curry about 2 years back? The shape of the restaurant and the location seems to be it. I remember that Muthu’s Curry was nice, but it just wasn’t hot and flavourful enough for me.
The Service
The menu has changed since the last time that I’ve been here. Glancing through the menu, the prices costs slightly more but at the same time, there were more items in the menu compared to before. I took a while to decide what to eat and we munched on the papadum while reading the menu.
In the end, the boss decided to order for all of us and called out for the staff. The staff were very attentive. In no time at all one popped out and took our order in his nifty PDA.
It was such a funny conversation. The boss likes a variety of food while he eats so he ordered quite a large number of food. After a while, the staff got a little concerned and said, “I’m not taking any more orders from you!“. He was worried that we would not be able to finish the food.
That was the first time in my life that any restaurant would not take more order!
The Food
The food was prepared pretty quickly and before you know it, was on our table in no time at all! And in front of me were food with a an attractive range of colours and really lovely smells of spices. I couldn’t wait to pounce on the food.
I love Indian food!
I love the exhilarating feeling that I get after eating chilli – your mouth will be begging for mercy, your nose will water unglamorously. But after that, the heavenly feeling begins.
This was the Sura Puttu.
This is an interesting dish made of scrambled egg with shark. The boss said that in Southern India, Shark was not common and thus a delicacy and would usually be prepared in this manner.
I couldn’t really detect the egg from the spices and herbs but the unique taste of the shark was there. It was really delicious. I liked it a lot.
This was the Chicken Tikka Masala.
Oh my gosh. I love this a lot! This was delicious with the roasted chicken chunks cooked in tomato gravy. Such a delight. It was not too sour and it was full of flavour – just perfect.
If I am not wrong, this was the Mutton Masala.
I’m not big on eating red meat, but this was really tasty. Knowing how challenging mutton is prepared made me appreciate how the meat was tender and melts in the mouth.
This was the Chicken 65
I liked this a lot. Chicken 65 is chicken cubes, marinated in Masala and then deep fried. The taste is just wonderful and bursting with flavour.
I was curious about the name Chicken 65. Why 65?
It was then when the Boss mentioned that traditionally, when the chicks hatched, 65 days later they were then taken to be used for this dish. Upon hearing that I was a little sad for the chickens but he added that most restaurants here just used the recipe with regular chickens.
Next in line is one of my favourite food. Naan!
I love love love Naan. Naan is leavened white flour dough which is cooked in a clay pot. Ever since I’ve been to Penang and had tasted the most delightful Naan there, it was hard to find Naan here that matched up to it.
Till now.
This was my Stuffed Chicken Naan. Just smelling it when it arrived whetted my already excited appetite. I love the smell of freshly made Naan! And the Naan having cottage cheese, with chicken and onion and herbs. It was really delicious I tell you. One bite and you’ll fall in love.
I’m still thinking of my naan at this point of writing.
We also had the Mutton Dum Biriyani as well as the Chicken Dum Biriyani.
Mutton Dum Biriyani
Chicken Dum Biriyani
I love seeing the colours in Biriyani. I always find the yellows and orange cheerful and attractive so this was no exception. With that whole hardboiled egg hiding insouciantly, it was kind of cool.
Their Biriyani were paired with these two gravies :
Their delicious and flavourful mutton curry which was just lovely to be eaten with the biriyani.
As well as their onion Raitha which is a yogurt dish. This was surprisingly tasty to me considering that I’ve been other other Indian restaurants where I’ve tried their Raitha and I didn’t like it as it was just too sour. But this one was good. It was sour but not unpleasantly sour like the others that I’ve tried.
By this time I was already feeling as stuffed as my stuffed naan. The boss and colleagues were feeling like they were bursting too. The staff jokingly asked, “Would you still like your chappati sir?”
We washed our food down with hot coffee and tea – I found the taste unique.
It was thicker than fresh milk and but not as sweet as condensed milk. I just could not put a finger at it.
At the end of it all, as stuffed as I was, I was feeling very contented. Happiness! Forget about diet, happiness comes first. In fact, you know what? I want more! MORE!
Who wants to eat Indian food?
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Sidenote : Dont forget to pop some of these in your mouth at the end of your meal and as you leave. These are usually placed at the counter to give you a fresher breath after your fiery meal.
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Ramen Ten – Yummy Japanese Food
I’ve always liked Japanese food, hence when I found out that a colleague liked to eat Japanese Food, she recommended me to Ramen Ten. Thus recently I was at Ramen Ten with fellow blogger Mintea, and all in all, we liked our lunch very much!
The place
Ramen Ten is situated in Far East Plaza, a popular hangout with youths in Orchard Road. It can be a little disorienting being surrounded by youths donning the latest fashion trends there.
Regardless, when we reached Ramen Ten, it was a bright and cheery place – the walls were decorated with modern urban themed murals. The furniture was pretty simple with white plastic chairs and wooden tables.
There were a number of people already there, mostly groups of friends, couples and families.
The Service
Prepare to be greeted very loudly as you step into the restaurant itself – every time a customer walks in, the staff will shout out an energetic “Arigato Gozaimas!” – for me, I thought that it brought a sense of bustling energy about the place.
As we sat down by the friendly waitress, we poured over the menu and took a while to decide what to order. I looked at the glass panel across me and saw the cooks busy at work, tossing and frying their food over the fire.
For some reason, the food that we ordered took much longer than usual, which alarmed Mintea and me. We saw other customers that arrived later than us getting their food earlier. Mintea informed me that she’s never had such an experience before, having eaten here several times.
Thankfully, a helpful waitress noticed us and ushered the cooks to hasten our food for us.
The Food
But the food was worth waiting for! For appetizers, we had sushi.
The one on top was my spicy fried ebi maki ($3.90) deep fried prawn sushi which was really hot – being covered with chili flakes. But it was really tasty to me and I liked it a lot. The ones at the bottom were deep fried maki ($2.90) which were like my sushi, without the chili flakes – Mintea liked it very much 😀
After our appetizers, we had our main dish. This was Mintea’s Tempura, grilled salmon, Chawanmushi bento set ($15.90)
Mintea said that she enjoyed it. For someone who doesn’t usually enjoy eating salmon, she liked it as it was not as fishy tasting. She also enjoyed her tempura as well as the chawanmushi – which was basically steamed mixed egg.
However, Mintea thought that it was the soup that marred the bento set, with it being sweet rather than salty.
This was my Super Spicy Ramen ($7.90)
This was really tasty to me. It was a unique taste of seafood stock, cream and chicken meat and a whole load of heat! My mouth was tingling with each bite and I finished my bowl of ramen.
About a week ago, bro and I went to Ramen Ten and ordered for ourselves :
Beef Ramen which bro loved very much. Again, it was an interesting taste of milky, seafood stock with cooked, marinated beef ramen. It was a unique and tasty at the same time.
As there was a promotion of free soda with the bento set at the time, I had the mixed sushi and cold ramen bento set. ($14.90) It was a delight in the mouth. The deep fried prawn sushi were lovely and crispy, although I found it a little strange to have mayonnaise on top of it. The chawanmushi was like an eggy hidden treasure with bits of chicken, prawn and crabstick as you dig into it.
The salmon was extremely tender that I didn’t even need to chew on it much – I slurped it down contentedly.
I did have some issue with my bento set though. I thought that the plate for soy sauce was so tiny. I could hardly dip my sushi in it without my sushi crumbling. And my cold ramen was rather tasteless. Is it meant to be that way? If it wasn’t for the accompanying soup, it would be rather boring to eat.
Regardless, the both of us liked our food a lot. Although I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the food, I really liked the food here and I think that this is a place worth going to.
6 thumbs fingers up!
Here is a quick video review after our lunch :
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El Sheikh Restaurant – Delicious Lebanese food I want to eat again!
It was a little ironic El Sheikh was given a lower rating compared to rival cafe according to a review website. But I really enjoyed my dinner at El Sheikh and I had really good food there.
The place
El Sheikh is situated in the beautiful and historical area of Kampung Glam. Before reaching El Sheikh, Nicole, Mintea and I had a blast of a time exploring the Malay Heritage Center, playing with the props there before reaching the place. Just as we reached there, we met up with DK who just arrived at the same time as we did.
The cafe already looks charming from the outside with the rustic two story shophouse where it was housed. Inside, it looked very cosy and rather condusive with its homely arabic styled decor all around.
The service
There were only the four of us there when we entered. We were greeted by the staff and were lead to our seats where we were given our menus. As it was my first time in having Lebanese food and I was not sure what to eat. We asked for recommendations from the staff.
Finally we made up out minds and ordered the Sheikh Mezze as an appetizer and Shawarma Plate, Mixed Kebab Grill, Riyash Ganam Lamb Chops and El Sheikh Beef.
Suddenly, a huge lively crowd of about 15 people suddenly came in. Things got a little helter skelter with the confusion of where to place them and ordering of food. When the food came, it got mixed up with the other group and they got served first. The staff looked frazzled when they realised their mistake but they remained as composed as they could.
The food
First, we had the appetizer – the Sheikh Mezze which consisted of a generous portion of a mix of most of the cold appetizers. Everything was so rich and flavourful that till now, at this point of writing, I’m still craving for it.
This is hummus, a famous dish made of blended chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice and sesame paste. I like the texture of the hummus and its rustic taste.
This is Motabbel and is an instant favorite for me. Its like the Hummus but it uses baked eggplants instead of Chickpeas giving you a unique taste of sweet, rich and smooth paste. It’s really delicious!
We also had Tabouli which I thought was pretty good. It had a good mix of ingredients with no one ingredient overpowering the other. Although I think it would be better if the parsley were chopped more finely.
This is the Mosaka’ah. It was mainly minced meat in tomato sauce but I liked it a lot.
We were also given a plate of Cheese Rolls which looked very much like curry puffs but had a cheese filling as well as Falafel which is smashed chickpeas shaped into a small cake.
We ate them all together with pita bread. And all in all, it was quite filling. We were actually rather full at the end of ourappetizers.
But we still had our main course to go!
This is Mintea’s Mixed Kebab Grill. It had a portion of each grilled meat so that want to have a taste of each. Nice!
This is Nicole’s Shawarma Plate which is marinated chicken which is shredded into small pieces, eaten with rice. Nicole seemed to enjoy it very much.
This is DK’s Shish Kebab which is marinated beef, cooked over charcoal. It was a strong taste without being overpowering. I saw DK really enjoying his meal.
And this is my lamb chops. I don’t usually eat lamb but this was good. It was probably marinated overnight as it did not have the overly lamby taste and it was tender.
And it was all washed down with :
Mango Ayran – a type of yogurt
Mint tea served in a beautiful pot.
And as I was curiou, I tried their Bavarian Beer. It was a non alcoholic type. But it was quite underwhelming as my beer tasted more like zapple.
Regardless, all in all, I enjoyed myself heaps there! And I really cannot wait to eat there again! Want to go to El Sheikh with me?
18 Pahang Street,
Singapore
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If you like Fried Chicken, you’ll love Arnolds
One of my favourite things to eat is Fried Chicken. It might not be the healthiest food to eat, but the moment Juli asked me out for Fried Chicken, I could not say no!
The place
Arnold’s is located on the 2nd floor of City Plaza – which is quite recognizable by its very retro sign at the top of the yellow and orange building.
We went up to the second floor where there were already a few people who were queuing up for their food.
The place looked looked nothing extra-ordinary. There was no decoration to speak of, with simple orange plastic chairs and tables. Nevertheless it was full of diners enjoying their meal. This was a popular place!
The service
We queued up for a bit and upon reaching the counter, we took a look at the menu before finally deciding on the 2 person combo meal. We made an order to the enthusiastic crew at the counter.
After waiting for a few minutes for a table to be cleared, we eventually had a table. The food took another few minutes later.
The food
We had the side dishes first. The side dishes were pretty good. I’ve always liked coleslaw and this one was no exception.
As I’m not big on fries, we managed to change it with mashed potato. Juli thought that the mashed potato was very good. The consistency was thick and tasted robust with the flavourful gravy.
I’m not fond of fried potatoes, but the criss-cross fries were pretty good being crispy and hot.
I did not touch the fried buns, so I’m not sure how this tastes like.The idea of eating bread fried in oil was a little scary to me.
But the highlight of the dinner was definitely the fried chicken!
Its not exactly fast food restaurant here, having to wait for at least 10 minutes for your food to arrive. But when it does arrive, you would have been glad that you waited!
My chicken was wonderful! It came out hot and delightfully crispy. The meat was tender and you could taste how amazingly fresh it was.
My only qualm is that our meal isn’t exactly cheap having to spend about $10 per person, especially when the presentation of the food could be be much nicer.
Regardless, Arnold’s was one of the best fried chicken that I ever had.
Here is a quick video response at the end of our dinner :
Arnolds Fried Chicken from rinaz on Vimeo
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Rinaz the accidental coffee genius at the Carte Noire Coffe Event
Bon Jour! Salut! I had zee most lovely time last Thursday night, being with friends over coffee. What better way to spend zee time together? Oui?
I was initially surprised to receive the invitation by EastWestPR but after hearing the Carte Noire commercial on 938live for some weeks, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to attend the event along with my friends, Mintea, Chillycraps and NTT who were all coffee lovers themselves.
I just realised at how multi-racial this picture is
Thus, last Thursday, I attended the Carte Noir press event at the beautiful Old School building at Mount Sophia. Carte Noir is a leading coffee brand in France. Which explains why I’m wearing a beret – for that French feel.
Old School is such a beautiful place. I could not help but to admire how charming it looked with its bold black lines over white washes. If NTT had not mentioned that the place used to be the Methodist Girl’s School, I really could not have guessed it. Now it houses many Art and Design institution. I should really come here again to see the place in more detail.
At the registration counter we saw Aaron as well as Sabrina and after registering, we headed inside where I saw Chillycraps and Mintea already sitting down on a bench which seemed rather curious to me. Why sit there, when there are proper tables and chairs to sit on?
Chillycraps : Thats because we are at a school and we should sit on a bench like students!
In any case, the Managing Director of Kraft Foods, officially started the event with a short speech and the fashion show featuring the Paris-trained Cambodian designer, Romyda Keth started.
It was a little hard for me to see the fashion show though, with the guests and the photographers standing up, taking pictures of the models that we could not get a clear view. Regardless, looking at her dress collections is beautiful, elegant and most definitely wearable.
After the fashion show, each of us were given a cup of Carte Noire coffee for a taste test. Personally for me, I thought that the taste was very light, almost airy like. I preferred my coffee strong but I can imagine how this coffee will be very popular with the masses because of the light taste.
Mr Paris Arnold, the Managing Director for Kraft joins us for a chat session, where he seems genuinely interested in knowing more about us bloggers. I think that companies are starting to open up to bloggers which I think is great as it is a direct way of getting feedback from the very people who consume their products.
Sabrina started asking Paris, why a fashion show for a coffee launch. And with enthusiasm he replied :
“The French embodies style and sophistication and a fashion show brings that to our coffee to reflect that especially with a Paris trained designer”
Ah!
Later on, we proceeded to enter a room where we saw our favourite barista! Danny Pang! Danny was there to do a demonstration on how to create coffee as well as how to make coffee art. He makes it look so easy to make that perfect blend of coffee and with his extremely sexy, manly voice, I could just go on to listening to him for hours!
Later on we went to our seats to have our own go at creating coffee art. At first it was quite daunting as I’ve never done anything like this before and I had the feeling that my coffee art is going to turn out bad.
But I gave it a try anyway and swirled the milk foam and it turns out that the outcome wasn’t bad – it was quite decent actually considering that it was my first time. Maybe I’m a coffee genius without knowing it! 😛
Its not perfect but its not bad right? This makes me want to learn more about coffee 🙂
Here is a short video on the coffee demonstration :
Making Coffee Art from rinaz on Vimeo
We had so much fun talking about coffee that before we knew it, it was already 8 pm! Time really does goes by really quickly when one is having fun 🙂
And at the end of the day, we were given a door gift consisting of Carte Noire Coffee as well as their beautiful gold trimmed cup and saucer for us to continue enjoying a cup of coffee-love 🙂
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Taj Samudra – Affordable Indian Food
I’ve always enjoyed eating Indian food. So when Daphne suggested a ping outing to Taj Samudra last Sunday, I just could not pass it off.
The Place
Getting here was quite a cinch as I’m familiar with the area – it was in the same main road as my favourite Indian Restaurants like Ananda Bhavan and Komala Villas. With the restaurant being close to Mustafa Center, makes it very easy to spot – especially with its distinctive orange signboard.
But being on a Sunday, the area was extremely crowded and the roads can be quite scary with the vehicles squeezing and honking. Trying to get parking can be quite of a challenge – I had to risk parking illegally next to the already fully occupied motorcycle lot.
I entered the restaurant and I liked the cosy environment. On the walls were some interesting looking decorative tiles and there were some attractive hanging chandeliers. There were modern glass tables and chairs. The entire combination made the place appear quite classy.
Unfortunately for us, the air-conditioning was not working on that day and we had to suffer in the heat.
The Service
The entire affair was pretty much a self service as it was a buffet. There were two tables with food that you could help yourself to unlimited amounts of food.
The staff were pretty friendly and full of smiles when we were dining there. However, they need to be more attentive. Ironicgamer had to wait for 30 mins for his drink to arrive and I noticed that the staff tends not to notice Malique and Chillycrap‘s request. Personally for me, I did not have any problems and the staff were very attentive to me.
The Food
Can you believe that you can have unlimited Indian food for about $12? This was most impressive to me. Here are just some of the foods that I had. I’m not very familiar with the names, my apologies if I got the names wrong :
Briyani Rice – Wonderfully flavourful and fluffy rice
Mixed Vegetable
I guess this is the special vegetable?
Daal – I prefer if it was thicker, but this was good too
Rasam
Mysore mutton
Masala Chicken
Sweet and sour fish – I like this one a lot! Tasty!
Papadam
Payasam
Thats a lot of food for $12 right? Where else in Singapore can you get this much food at that price? My only qualm is with most of the food is that its a tad salty for my taste and I’ve had better Indian food than this. The rest of the group seemed to like it very much though.
Here is a quick video of what pingsters think of the restaurant :
In a nutshell
Very affordable Indian Food Buffet
Taj Samudra Restaurant
117 Syed Alwi Road
Singapore 207685
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Sidenote : My voice is still raspy in the video as I’m still recovering from my sore throat.