Mia's Review: Pies & Coffee

Remember during my review of Group Therapy Cafe, I mentioned about the yummy pies from Pies & Coffee? Yup, this is one extremely overdue post, but still, here it is! 

I remembered my first visit with T was an unplanned one. We wanted to drop by The Ground's, which is actually a few shops away, but turned out it wasn't opened. So, Pies & Coffee it was! 

It was a pretty small outlet, with the interior seating of probably around 15 to 20 pax, and even though they're named Pies & Coffee, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they do have some pretty looking desserts as well, just that their pies were indeed filling and on both occasions I dropped by, I didn't have sufficient stomach space to try out any of their sweet treats. 

Even though not exceptionally affordable, all their pies are still reasonably priced at $10 ish or so.

Chicken Cheddar Pie
The pie crust is crumbly crisp with a hint of buttery toasted fragrance, and the pie filling so moist with generous amount of gravy, yet doesn't soften the pie crust that much.

A snap to show you just how moist the filling was. It was almost like a soup bowl, no kidding! The filling was packed full of cheesy goodness with quite a generous chunks of chicken that was cooked till it has soaked up the cheesy savoury flavour of the gravy.

Other than Chicken Cheddar, I've also tried their Lamb Shank and Chicken & Mushroom Pies, out of which the latter has paled in comparison as compared to the other two.

Hot Honey Yuzu Tea

Frankly speaking, I have no idea why they served a piece of chocolate cookie along with my honey yuzu tea.
And on a side note, Pies and Coffee uses Toby Estate's roasted coffee beans, so all coffee lovers out there, do remember to get a cuppa coffee when you're here!

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: The Group Therapy Cafe

Once again, this shall be a 2 day combined review. I first came upon this cafe during my staycation at Katong V hotel, for it was located at the ground floor of their 'shopping and restaurant wing' smacked in between NTUC Fairprice and the hotel lobby area. If you're coming in via the NTUC side, you got to walk through the supermarket to find it.

As you can see, this is a pretty small cafe, hence the usual long queue during lunch/dinner hours. We were there at 3 plus, nearly 4 (or perhaps even later) and managed to snatch the last empty table available. Shortly after, a small queue was developed. 

A cute (and ugly) Gingerbread Man hanging on their menu board. 

And this is pretty much how big the sitting area is. Really small and limited seats available.

And showing some cute corners of the cafe....

An order made at the counter will give you a cute numbered red tin with all your cutlery and napkins inside. 

They have a cute and environmentally friendly way of keeping their sugar packets. Recycling the egg tray! 

T's Latte and my Mocha. 

Hmm, nothing fantastic about their coffee. I even find mine pretty weak, so did T. The pretty horrible latte art on my mocha wasn't helping much, either. 

Dark Chocolate Pretzel

Yeah, I know. It's like, "Huh, are you sure it's a pretzel?" 

But yeah, it is stated as a pretzel. First bite from the ends and I disliked it. It was very hard (even harder than the scone I ordered along with this), tasteless and no chocolate filling at all. But gradually moving towards the centre, the runny and rich dark chocolate filling did gave this croissant-looking pretzel some saving grace. 

Cranberry Scone

This is good! If you've tried out the highly raved seaweed scone at The Little Prince Cafe and liked those, you gotta try these! Albeit not very moist, this scone is still less dry as compared to the homemade scones at TLPC, and definitely has the 'baked' fragrance in every bite. The amount of dried cranberries isn't exactly generous, but sufficient. The outside is baked dry and slightly (biscuity) crisp and the inside dense yet relatively soft. The taste is just awesome and I didn't even need much of the butter (actually not at all) and jam that came along with it.

Fried Chicken Wings

Sa and DS got these and offered me one. I have no complaints against a well marinated, fried chicken served hot from the frying oven that is crispy on the outside and tender on the insides. 

The 2nd time I dropped by was a huge disappointment, for their kitchen closes at 8pm and I reached at 810pm. :(

But being the ever so determined me (only for food cravings), I dropped by the very weekend for lunch again! 

This time, I got a much prettier latte art on my Mint Mocha, but as usual the taste of the coffee failed to impress me. It even tasted pretty 'grainy', not smooth at all. 

T's Hunter's Chicken, which was surprising good! The chicken was pretty well flavoured with the generous drizzle of sourish, tomato-ish sauce. However, the meat wasn't tender nor succulent enough for a grilled chicken. We believe that it was only partially grilled to leave the grilled marks and then subsequently cooked in the microwave. The olive rice, on the other hand, was pretty tasteless and not fragrant at all.

My Chicken & Mushroom pie was a bigger disappointment. It does look very yummy on the outside...

But not that so on the inside. (My apologies for the blurry picture)

The insides were pretty dry, actually too dry for my liking and the pie crust pretty thick and wasn't that crispy at all.

Sorry for making this comparison, but I've had much better pies at Pies & Coffee a few bus stop down the road at Tanjong Katong. 

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Review: Sinpopo Brand

I first visited Sinpopo Brand for desserts with DS, Sa and T after our peranakan dinner at Guan Hoe Soon as it was located along the walk back to Katong V Hotel (our staycation hotel). And immediately the day after we checked out, I dragged T over for lunch again. Wanna know why I'm so intrigued by this restaurant? 

 

 

Having reused the name of a nightspot in the olden days, Sinpopo Brand, however, has retained none of the sleaziness. Instead, this old-school nostalgic restaurant has injected a 'new' feeling of the past 1950s of Singapore, which I believe will be so familiar with the generations of our parents and grandparents.

Other than serving some traditional local food that are close to our hearts, we can also expect to find some 'lost' or 'rare' local delights like the attap chee ice cream (where else can you find this, really?) and Ais Bor, which is the common Ice Kacang served in the form of an ice ball with all the fillings wrapped within. Been hearing about this Ais Bor from my mummy since I was a child, but I've never got to see (or try) it until now. Food prices are also pretty affordable (for a cafe/restaurant) at pretty much nothing above $10.

Even the menu give out such a retro feel. I really fell in love with this seemingly humble looking restaurant, yet actually was pretty much painstakingly decorated, even before I tried out their food. 

 Our Ais Kacang...

In comparison to DS and Sa's Ais Bor.

The ais kacang tasted just like any ice kacang and I wouldn't say that they're exceptionally generous with the fillings/ingredients either... But for the ice shavings, obviously it's a yes. 

One disappointing point to note is about the brown syrup, which I thought is the gula melaka syrup. It was totally salty (like brand's essence of chicken kind of salty) on our ice kacang, and very unappealing to our tastebuds. However, it was less salty and much sweeter on the Ais Bor. So, different syrup or what? 

While we were waiting for desserts to be served, we were wondering just what is a Sng Muay Pop (as shown on the wall decor). 

And I found out for myself the very next day...

 Served in this very old-school, retro metal cups...

 

Sng Muay Pop is really just sour plum with calamansi soda water, filled with bite sized ice ball with a piece of  sour plum flesh inside. A really refreshing and 'fun' drink, for we can suck on the ice ball until we get to the sour plum flesh.

 My lunch for the day was Chicken Curry with Fried Chinese Buns. 

Stated as an authentic Hainanese Curry, I can't be sure of the authenticity even though being a Hainanese myself. *guilty* But it definitely is similar to the chicken curry my grandma used to cook for us when she's still around. The resemblance is hard to miss, with the curry being very much more watery and 'washed down' yet still flavourful but less spicy than the average curry we find elsewhere. 

The fried chinese buns were awesome, for they were served freshly fried, crispy on the outside yet soft and slightly sweet on the inside. I mean, who can ever resist a well fried, piping hot mantou? The fact that this curry is more watery as compared to the other curries also means it's much more easier for the mantou to absorb all the curry gravy as you dip it in. With the correct dipping time, the outer portion remains relatively crisp while the insides of the bun is thoroughly soaked with the curry gravy that oozes out as you bite into it. 

Tell me, even if you're a fan of rich and thick curries, how can you not like a crispy, curry gravy soaked fried mantou? 

Unfortunately, the actual content of the curry pales in comparison. I only managed to dig out a tiny piece of potato from my bowl (I love curry potatoes!) and the 4 pieces of chicken wings inside didn't feel to be thoroughly cooked through in the curry. Don't get me wrong, the meat is well cooked and still relatively tender, but lacking the oomph of the curry flavour that I'll expect to be inside the meat.

T's Scissors Cut Rice.

This popular Singapore street dish is actually an 'economical rice' served with the fixed ingredients of some crispy scissors-cut pork cutlet, curry chicken, and flavourful stewed cabbage, topped up with a fried egg with runny yolk and drizzled with a combination of braised pork flavoured lor chup (braised sauce gravy) and curry gravy. 

T's said it's not bad.... But I have to say that this boy loves everything edible. 

Lastly, our dessert for the day was these Rainbow Soft Bread with Attap Chee Ice cream. Somehow, the soft bread wasn't really soft at some areas, which I reckon that they were frozen from being in close contact with the ice cream. And after one bite of the bread with ice cream, I was reminded of why I always go for wafer whenever I buy some ice cream from those uncle street vendor with the mobile push cart. My mum has always raved about these rainbow soft bread ice cream and will always get one for herself whenever she sees them, but this combination of bread with ice cream is really not my cup of tea. 

The Attap Chee ice cream, on the other hand, was pretty good. A creamy, refreshing sweet taste that slowly turns light as the ice cream melts on our tongue, with whole attap chee stuff within, albeit too sparingly. It's probably the first time I've tried an attap chee flavoured ice cream, and even though the ice cream itself didn't really taste much like attap chee, I still really liked it. 

Sinpopo is located at 458 Joo Chiat Road.

For more information, visit their FaceBook HERE

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Review: Batter Fluffy Flaps (BFF)

A few weeks ago, I was totally attracted by this (weather-hit dirty) cute little thing here.

This round 'fluffy' lamb standing right outside an equally cute and cozy looking cafe must have been pearly white when it first got to where it's now.

Even their menu is oozing cuteness! And yes, the 'flaps' here are actually pancakes! 

 The interior is done up in a cute and cozy style, with their mascot lamb on the wall whereby you can actually take snapshots with your friends.

Erm, no the green giraffe is not their table decor. HA HA HA! 

My drink of the day was (one of) my usual favourites named BFF style- BFF signature Caramel Date (Caramel Machiato) - $5.20
Erm, was really disappointed with the caramel sauce 'latte art' they did, even mc cafe did it better. Taste wise, is decent. Not bad, but nothing worth talking much about. For a coffee addict like me, I'll very much prefer the coffee to be even stronger.

Their pancakes comes in 4 main categories.
1. Simple & Make your own
2. Savoury
3. Sweet
4. Kid's Menu

 My mains for the day: Chicken Kebab Blab (Savoury) - $12.90

The chicken kebab wasn't too bad. The chicken was well marinated and still relatively tender, though not juicy, was rather pleasing on my taste buds. The pancakes were light and fluffy, but a bit on the dry side. However, I wasn't too impressed with the dish, for the kebab and pancakes does not mix well nor compliment each other at all. If you've read my review on Wafflelicious, you'll know that they've done savoury waffles pretty well. But not for BFF's case with this Chicken Kebab Blab. 

Tasty kebab and decent pancakes, served with greens topped up with mini eggs (how cute is that). But sadly, they do not compliment each other at all. I felt like I was eating 2 separate dishes, pancakes and chicken kebabs. Not Chicken Kebab Blab. 

Strawberry Cheesecake Flakes - $12.90

These 2 pancakes were served with their house-made cream cheese, digestive biscuit crumbs, strawberries, strawberry ice cream and sauce. 

If you're a cream cheese and strawberry fan, this will be a much better choice as compared to the savoury pancakes. I probably won't say it's fantastically good, but it is an enjoyable serving of sweet pancakes. However, the generosity of digestive crumbs deemed this dish a messy eat.

Teddy Beary - $6.50

One look and you'll know this is off their kid's menu. It's really just a basic pancake, served in cuteness with butter and a few berries, for little kiddos.

BFF is located at 89 East Coast Road. 

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Review: The Little Prince Cafe

Just last week, I came across a friend's post on FB about this cafe and she shared a really cute picture of the cafe and I was like, "OMG, you gotta tell me where is this cafe. Is it in SG?"even though we really aren't that close. Haha! 

Turns out the cafe is in SG and it's located at Somme Road, within walking distance of City Square Mall. So that very weekend, I dragged T over to try out this newly found chill out spot.

To be honest, I was rather disappointed to find it extremely small, with a max of 15 to 18 pax at the interior. However, the cafe is still pretty cute and cosy, and nicely decorated with many wall doodles and The Little Prince novels in many different languages.

I especially love this little corner of the cafe, that '3D' staircase art is pretty cute!

 And right at the corner of the counter, you'll get to meet The Little Prince himself, all in his true paper self! :)

And after which you'll get to meet his plushie doppelgangers, along with their plushie buddies. 

And among the table of decorations right beside our table, we found this! The Little Prince edition of Solvil Titus watch!

Here's The Little Prince novel in languages I've no idea of....

And if you think that's cool, guess what?

There's a pop up book too! In English, and I believed I scanned a Japanese one in another corner. 

And now to their food. :) Their menu is actually extremely limited, but also very affordable. I couldn't remember anything going over $10 on their menu.

My (usual) Cafe Mocha, served in a glass on a bronzed metal plate. I didn't expect much from their coffee in the first place because there wasn't any slightest hint of coffee fragrance in the tight space (think of Penny University, whereby the coffee fragrance just hits you once you push their door open). It was okay, but just not fantastic. Still beats Coffee Beans and Tea Leaf anytime, though. :p

 Homemade Scones, comes in 2 flavours - Umami (Seaweed) and Rasins, at $4.50 for 2. Needless to say, we got 1 of each flavour. 

Heard reviews from friends, and friends of friends, raving about their seaweed scones, which kind of upped my expectation of it. Hmm, a tad disappointed. The scones were okay, near crispy on the outside, densely packed and not moist at all on the inside. Pretty much like a rock cake, just flakier. 

And in contrary to the raves I was pre-fed with, I ended up preferring the raisin flavour more. More basic, and 'authentic'. 

The scones were also served with some citrus peel clouted cream, which I didn't quite enjoy (never a cream person) but T loved it. 

Oh well, it's really just my own personal preference on creams. 

(Half eaten) Onion & Bacon Quiche.

The quiche is nothing less than tasty, with a well baked crumbly crust and filling filled generously with bacons and onions. However, its texture deviates more towards that of an egg souffle, comparing to other really smooth, creamy custardy quiche I've tried elsewhere. 

For more information, visit their FB HERE

Till then,

Mia

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