Mother's Day Buffet @ Carousel

DS treated all of us to a buffet dinner at Royal Plaza on the Scotts for Mothers' Day.

I have read some good reviews on this place, so I was looking forward to it.

It was a very good spread - sashimi counter, chilled seafood counter, dips and salads counter, 2 hot food counters (local and international), soups, cooking stations - pasta, meats (lamb and beef) and noodle station.

I can't remember eating the above - so I dont know what it is. Looks like some kind of oyster shooter though. Maybe this wasn't from the buffet but a remnant photo from Tasmania?

The selection of chilled seafood was very good - included 2 types of crabs (flower crabs and normal crabs), prawns, yabbies, mussels, oysters, scallops etc. I only liked the above though - prawns, sweet clams (nice chewy texture), and scallops.

My grilled meats - beef prime rib and lamb chops.
And prawn noodle soup.

Our Happy Faces after a yummy meal!

Poison Ivy Bistro @ Lim Chu Kang Road

This is my gift from DS, for mother's day! We had a dinner buffet at Carousel, Plaza Royal on the Scotts, very very nice... (thanks for the treat DS) and she bought a gerbera each for Por Por and I.



Isn't it happy and cheery?



Poison Ivy Bistro @ Bollywood Veggies Lim Chu Kang Road


Have you heard of Ivy Singh Lim, the rather flamboyant and outspoken lady hockey player? She is quite a character because she speaks her mind in reticent Singapore. Anyway she owns this vegetable and fruit farm, with a little bistro.



My company recently organised a tour of this organic farm, with refreshments after.



Here is a review of the refreshments served.



The little air conditioned bistro serves up local delights, with ingredients sourced from its own gardens, so you can be sure that it is fresh. They also sell things to bring home, such as bananas and banana cake.

Fried Carrot Cake - very home made, steamed carrot cake dipped in egg and deep fried. Nothing very special, I think my mom makes it better.

Colourful Pomelo Salad - well this was more interesting, see the pretty petals? They are morning glory petals, and are of course edible (but tasteless). The salad is refreshing and quite tart - the pomelo sacs were juicy and sweet, and the toasted peanuts were crunchy.

Fried Bee Hoon with bean sprouts and long beans - nicely fried, quite tasty. I like fried bee hoon in general.

Gado Gado - This was another salad of sorts - its tofu, cucumber and cabbage in a savoury slightly spicy peanut sauce. It was nice, I liked it because i think the lady added some lime before serving so it was a little tangy. Nice.

Roti Prata - a little oily, I didn;t touch this much. I wonder if it is made on the premises or whether it was from a frozen packet.
The chicken curry was made with frozen chicken, and was ordinary.

Dessert Platter of banana cake, steamed tapioca cake and kueh kosui (made of gula melaka and tapioca flour) - all quite nice, not too sweet.

We rounded off this very filling meal with a cup of hot sweet fig tea.

If you want to come by and try it out, here are the details. Do speak to Ivy, she is really a very interesting character.

Various Random Meals at Different Places

Porridge Breakfast

My friend from the office usually eats at Maxwell food market before coming to the office... and today he kindly bought chicken porridge for me... from the famous stall with long queues - Zhen Zhen porridge!

The porridge was smooth and slurpy and the preserved veg on top made this very tasty.

Lunch at Banquet Food Court, Harbourfront Centre

When I eat at Banquet, I almost always eat the nasi padang, which is the best stall there because of its wide selection, tasty and freshly cooked dishes and reasonable prices.

The above costs just SGD4.50. I usually eat the exact same thing: beef lung, chili eggplant and chili cuttlefish. It's spicy, but not overwhelmingly so and the gravy is different for each dish, so there is a variety.

Paktor Dinner at Old Airport Road Food Centre

DH and I went for a paktor dinner, but I cannot remember why. Maybe we just decided to go for an impromptu one. Anyway this was some time back, before the Tasmania trip, so I think it's high time we had another one.

Maybe this friday, but I am a little stretched at work right now, so I am rather grumpy and not very good company.
I couldn't decide what to eat because all the good / famous food stalls seem to have closed. I guess it's because their business is so good they are sold out by lunchtime.

This is Lao Fu Zi Char Kway Teow. Also rather famous I believe. I liked it but I really don't enjoy eating one plate of char kway teow to myself. I prefer to share it with a few others and eat something less heavy and oily but no choice. DH doesn't really care much for this.

DH queued up for wanton mee from Hougang.

I thought it was ok only. The sauce was sweetish and the noodles were not that springy.

He bought extra fried wontons (SGD2) which we couldnt finish. I don't like deep fried things much. These were very crispy, because there was little filling, and so the wonton skins were crunchy.

I bought ngor hiang (SGD2) gto share also. We both like the white cracker best, but didn't care for the sausage thing.

Meals in Tasmania - Day 8

Day 8 - Hobart - Richmond - Hobart

Richmond is about 30 - 45 min's drive away from Hobart and it is a really lovely town, quite quaint and tiny and is like a little English countryside.

This is St John's bridge, the oldest bridge in Tasmania.

Miniature Historical Town

Then we walked over to the Miniature town, where the entire town of Hobart is replicated in miniature. It is not really very big, but it was quite lovely with lots of attention to detail.

It was also very informative, as it told stories about the various buildings and historical events of Tasmania.

Cutie was very animated in the Miniature Town, and the girl at the counter was probably very enchanted by him... she went into fits of giggles every time he walked by... and kept saying how cute Cutie was...


Then we walked over to feed the ducks in Richmond.

DH and Cutie decided to take a break and play in the playground for a while...

Then we fed the ferocious ducks... Some of them couldn't wait for us to throw the pieces of bread... and audaciously pecked them out of our hands! Cutie and I both got nipped! Luckily they had no teeth and Cutie is a brave little fella who is not easily intimidated.

It was actually very windy and cold... but we stayed for quite some time because Cutie really enjoyed feeding the ducks...

We ran out of bread soon enough... but the ducks were still hungry... so we gave them our cornflakes...
Hee hee...



LUNCH AT BARILLA OYSTER BAY RESTAURANT

Our long awaited lunch.... we weren't able to eat here yesterday so we made reservations for today...
Our oyster starter platter (AUD68 for 3 dozen oysters): fresh and cooked oysters... doesn't it look lovely??? Yums! DM, is every so good at making sure we get our money's worth... so she counted and realised that there were only 34 oysters! 2 missing!! we mentioned this to the server and I think she added 2 more oysters to our lunch platter...

Our seafood platter (SGD88): which contained serving portions of all the restaurant's specialities... doesnt it look impressive?

Top layer: serving cups of seafood chowder, oysters and salad...

2nd layer: chili mussels, curry salmon, grilled fish, croquette, seafood lasagne, grilled lobster on potato patty...

We also ordered another serving of the curry salmon.. as it was served with rice and some Chinese veg.. and we were worried that Kong Kong was missing Asian food...

This was our best and classiest and nicest meal in Tasmania...

I miss Tasmania... sob!

Meals in Tasmania - Day 7

Day 7 - Port Arthur to Hobart

Good morning! We are leaving our serviced accommodation at Port Arthur and heading for Hobart, one of the 2 big cities of Tasmania.

We had a filling breakfast of banana pancakes - no photos cos the pancakes actually were very ugly, but I blame the pan! The pan was heating up inevenly!

From our bedroom window, we could see lots of cows in the adjacent field, so we walked out to visit the cows...

This is Cutie, still in his pajamas! He said he wanted to bring a brown cow home.

So cute!

Sorrell Fruit Farm

We went drove to Hobart via a little place called Sorrell, and diverted into Sorrell Fruit Farm and whoa, happily, they had strawberries for us to pick! We are so glad!

Cutie was really good at picking out the red and ripe ones, and he had a very good time!
Each of us paid AUD6 for the plastic punnet, and we could pick as many as we wanted.

See, they are very large and red!

Our loot!

Cutie wonders if the strawberry will taste sweet...

He takes a tentative bite....

And he likes it! look at his smiling face!

Lunch at Barrilla Oyster Bay Cafe

Barrilla Oyster Bay is a very very popular and well-regarded landmark near Hobart. We stopped here for lunch because all the guides recommended the food here. Fresh oysters, good food.

Unfortunately, the restaurant on the 2nd floor couldn't seat us because the kitchen was full, so we went to eat at their sister cafe downstairs. (and made a reservation to return for lunch the next day.... so watch out for the next post!)

1 dozen Fresh Oysters - AUD 10.50. They sold oysters, abalones, mussels to go as well, but we weren't really interested. In terms of fresh oysters, these tasted the best because they were well-cleaned, succulent, and not salty. Yums.

We each had a soup of the day - SGD8.50 - which is quite expensive. Can't remember what it was.

We also each had a sandwich - and I think the toasted turkish bread sandwich was the nicest. No photos, we were too busy gobbling it up.

Dinner at Mures Seafood Restaurant

Mures at Elizabeth Pier, is one of the famous landmarks of Hobart. Everyone, and I mean everyone, comes here for seafood.

We were contemplating whether to go upstairs to the 2nd floor - Mures Upper Deck for dinner - which was classier and more private, but in the end economic sense took over and we opted for the Mures Lower Deck (1st floor) which also serves seafood but is more bistro-like and we order at the counter and collect our food when it is ready.

Mures Seafood platter - collection of cold seafood and pates. I think the platter cost about AUD38. We couldn't finish it and kept the cubes of fish for the next morning to eat with porridge. and that was really quite nice cos the fish was salty.

Our half dozen fresh oysters - AUD 5.50. They were nice, but the oysters at lunch were better.

Our cooked oysters with garlic butter - forgot how much they cost but these were quite nice too. the oysters here are very large, so they are very juicy.

Chilled rock lobster with fries - a bit small, and nothing great.

We also shared a grilled salmon.

And a tasmanian blue cod? Not quite sure what this fish was but it was nice and oily and tender and it was supposed to be the most expensive fish on the menu.

We ordered a bottle of sparkling wine but didnt finish it. We brought it back but didnt drink much either. Cutie likes to participate whenever we clink glasses though. We dont want him to be left out so he uses his water bottle instead.

Oyster Shooter! I bought this for DH as a surprise because he mentioned that he had never ever had one!

Never?! oh that must be rectified! So I bought this for him.

Hee hee.