Busy Orchard Road outside
Went to run errands in town and found a breakfast place! The queue system was similar to Grub @ Bishan, and hubby was pleasantly surprised that the system knew his name after he keyed in his mobile number to join the queue. Turns out that both Wild Honey and Grub are under the same management!
Very prominent noren
Since we were around the area, having just had coffee at Group Therapy, we decided to go check out that very famous Teppei restaurant in Orchid Hotel that we failed to make reservations for… The restaurant had opened up dinner reservation slots earlier on 2 Jan 2014 and the phone line was jammed up on the very first day with all slots from Mar 2014 to Jun 2014 taken up by the end of first day!
We were quite surprised by the number of Japanese restaurants in the area, and at Orchid Hotel, there were also a ramen place and gyoza place that had super long queues! There was no queue at Teppei, because you had to make reservations for dinner at the 21-seater… Haha! So we were just looking at the menu and a very friendly lady sitting outside the restaurant was giving us recommendations on where else to check out, and that we should come queue for lunch instead.
Since we weren’t hungry yet, we decided to heed the lady’s advice and stroll to 100AM next to Amara Hotel to check out Ramen Keisuke Tori King… Which also had a long queue… Pengz!
Complimentary!
The month is ending and so is our Ichiban Rewards Card, so we are here at nex to spend it away at Kabe no Ana!
This Japanese pasta and pizza restaurant is part of the RE&S Group of restaurants and this outlet at nex is part of its Japanese Food Street called Shokutsu 10. The restaurants/cafes here in the food street are Green Pumpkin Japanese Bakery, Green Pumpkin Japanese Bakery Café, Kabe no Ana Japanese Pasta, Tontei Pork Restaurant, Shimbashi Soba, Ichiban Boshi Japanese Restaurant, Men-Ichi Japanese Ramen, Yaki Yaki Bo Teppanyaki Restaurant, and Kuriya Japanese Fresh Fish Market. We often had a hard time deciding which one to try.
Today we let the complimentary items in our Ichiban Rewards Card decide and those on offer at Kabe no Ana looked more pleasing to us at this moment. 🙂
All noodles are handmade
Marutama Ramen shifted out of United Square and it’s premises was replaced by Bari Uma Ramen and Tamoya Udon. We chanced upon this shop while looking for late dinner and decided to give it a try!
This restaurant was newly opened on 3 December 2013 and there were not many patrons as yet (or maybe it’s because it’s almost 9pm when we arrived, haha!). A big signboard (which says that all the noodles in the restaurant are handmade) sits above the see-through kitchen, and the list of various ramen is written vertically on wooden boards beside the signboard. Seats are spacious enough and the waitresses were helpful and prompt in their service (again it may be because of the time).
However there was a group of diners beside us in the other corner who were laughing their lungs out, and the acoustic of the restaurant seemed to echo the already-loud laughter even louder. Not so conducive for 2 very tired persons who just want to have a hot, comfy noodle soup.
Bloody cockles
It’s the last day of 2013 and we were looking for a place for lunch. Ended up in Toa Payoh, and since we were looking for some light food, we strolled to Toa Payoh garden and visited Oasis Taiwan Porridge!
It has been quite a while since we visited and we have always been a fan of the Taiwan porridge here because it serves cockles! This bloody (literally) shell delicacy goes so well with the plain smooth porridge! And also because this place is never crowded, has a great view of Toa Payoh Lake, and most importantly, has air-con! You see, when you eat piping hot porridge, you don’t want to be in a air-con-less place because that makes you sweat profusely and its uncomfortable.
This place has a great ambiance and the tables are not cramped together, which gives patrons enough ‘breathing space’. There are not too much parking space though so for those who drives, you may have to park at the nearby Toa Payoh Stadium, and take a short walk.
[Here is the photostream of Bhutan 2013 Day 10, for those who prefer pictures to tell a story. 🙂]
Packed breakfast
We woke up at 04:00 in the morning to prepare for check out… I was feeling so cold and couldn’t get out of the bed, as usual 😛 So we had a super quick and hot shower, and I remembered to heat up all my clothes before wearing them (that’s about the only usefulness of the electric heater that was located so far away from the bed), so it was all good.
By the time we left our room past 05:20, Dorji and Milan were already waiting for us, with our packed breakfast 🙂
[Here is the photostream of Bhutan 2013 Day 7, for those who prefer pictures to tell a story. 🙂]
Different breakfast everyday
Breakfast today was rice porridge with cheese (slightly salty taste to it and quite smooth, nice!), brown bread (slightly dense, but not as dense as the pancakes), white toast, Greek yoghurt (sour) and fried eggs (difference between fried eggs and omelette here seems to be that fried eggs have runny yolk while omelette are fully cooked with the yolk and egg white slightly mixed together). Gotta say that the food here was the best we had out of the 3 hotels and we had something different each day 🙂
[Here is the photostream of Bhutan 2013 Day 2, for those who prefer pictures to tell a story. 🙂]
Indeed peaceful
Woke up bright and early to have breakfast at 7:00 so that we can some time after breakfast to check out the rest of the hotel. We liked the beautiful flowers that were blooming in the little gardens! Then we realised another advantage of arriving at the beginning of breakfast time – we would definitely get hot food! However, breakfast was only ready around 07:15, so it might be a bit difficult if one was in a rush…
Dinner spread
Very late night dinner in town and we HGW-ed Lucky Plaza and found Ayam Penyet!
We haven’t been to this place since when we first started dating 😛 But bro mentioned this place last week, so we thought that we could come here as an alternative to the getting-pricier Quality Hotel porridge buffet.
Eat.Eat.Walk.Walk . 吃吃走走 