Mia's Review: J's Restaurant

Just recently, during yet another team's dinner with D, YN and A, we very last minute headed down to J's Restaurant (discussion was all on Straits Cafe vs Badoque) for a pre-planned 'impromptu' dinner. 

 I wanted to take a picture of the restaurant, but it was full house! Didn't want to snap pictures of innocent diners, so that's all I have of the restaurant interior. The restaurant is not exactly very small, yet not exactly very spacious so reservation in advance is really recommended. 

With a strong Latin-American influence, there's also an addition of a more refined modern European cuisine. J's menu not only caters for Vegetarians and also removed pork/lard and alcohol for Muslims. A great choice for gatherings with individuals of different dietary requirement! 

And now, let's get on with the food, shall we?

Poppers - $17

Breaded jalapeno peppers stuffed with mozzarella, fried till golden brown. Served with salsa sauce and guacamole sauce.
I was hoping that I can get some spicy kick from this appetizer, but it was more of a sour shock instead. A little way too vinegary sour for my liking, though generously stuffed with cheese that was melted till molten in the process of frying till crispy golden brown.
I didn't eat with much sauce, because out of the two I'll prefer the salsa sauce and I really need no more sourish tangy taste added to this poppers.
Caution: The molten cheese are scalding hot. Bite into these poppers with care!

Chipotle Meatballs - $17

Brasied beef meatballs in spicy chipotle and tomato sauce, served with crispy corn tortilla chips.
I can't comment on this, for I do not take beef. It did look delicious, though.

Paella - $39 (for 2 servings)

A traditional Saffron rice dish, with marinated chicken, salmon and tilapia.

One of my favourite food, 'Spanish fried rice'. The rice was cooked till pretty hard, yet drenched in flavourful  savoury moistness, and topped up with generous amount of chicken, salmon and tilapia. At just $39 for 2 pax, as compared to $28 for 1 pax, this is a definite steal!

Fatijas (Chicken) - $29

Grilled chicken breast with sauteed onions, capsicums, cabbage and mushroom, served with warm tortillas and an array of sauces.

Of course, you don't expect grilled chicken breast to be juicy and tender. But they're still nothing short of being flavourful and tasty. Mushrooms seemed a little sparse as I hardly ate any, but they're obviously (as you can see from the picture) very generous with not just the chicken but also the onions and capsicums. I guess the correct way is to wrap the dish in the tortilla and eat it as a self made wrap with your preferred sauce(s), and so I did. I find that the meat itself is flavourful enough and there's really no need to add on any sauces to further complicate the taste.
However, D was literally piling her serving plate with both the salsa and guacamole sauces. So I guess, to each it's own? :)

Churros with Bananas & Mangoes - $12

Churros, served with salted caramel bananas, fresh mangoes and coconut infused mascarpone sabayon.

The churros are pretty well done, served piping hot right out of the fryer. The outside, dusted in icing sugar and drizzled with yummy chocolate, was crispy and the insides were soft, fluffy and slightly moist.
However, I'm not feeling much for the jar of bananas, mangoes, coconut mascarpone cream though. It was way too creamy and heavy on the tastebuds, and I got pretty sick of it even before I could dig out the salted caramel bananas. Gave up on it after mouthful and mouthful of coconut mascarpone cream with bits of mangoes inside. :(
Other than D, who tends to like richer, creamy and more flavourful food, none of us really like the jar of mascarpone sabayon.
Would have enjoyed this dessert a lot more if it's served with a pot of rich chocolate dip instead!

J's Restaurant is located at 7 Purvis Street.
For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: Le Petit Paradis

If you didn't know, I'm a serial Katong hang-outer and Le Petit Paradis caught my eye one of those days as I was walking aimlessly along the street houses, while they're still under going their very final stages of pre-opening preparations. 

"Hey, isn't this the French food stall from the Ali Babar kopitiam?"

And yes, it is. And apparently, this kopitiam really has some awesome fengshui, for its previous tenants include Aston's (after which they started 20 over franchises) and then Saveur. Le Petit Paradis has obviously, followed their footsteps and expanded just a few shops down the street. 

The restaurant is actually pretty small, yet not crowded on a Sunday evening when we visited. Interior decor is also kept simple and chic.

Just showing off my pot of tea. xp

Sous-vide Lamb Leg - $21

62 degree Celsius slow-cooked lamb leg, served on top of creamy basmati rice and topped (or in a literal sense, surrounded) herb vinaigrette.
Sounds yummy? Yes it is! I love the lamb leg! It's not exactly moist-slimy kind of tenderness you find in chicken or duck, but it's definitely tender yet with a chewy bite. The meat still remain much of the natural sweetness and juices, brought out and complemented with a strong flavour of spices that I reckon, help to mask out the distinctive 'lamb smell' commonly feared by many.
As for the creamy basmati rice, it's pretty average and taste just like a mediocre risotto. The rice remains hard and generously covered in creamy cheesey sauce, albeit not as flavourful as I will like it to be.
And lastly, the herb vinaigrette didn't go too well with my tastebuds. Too.... herbal?

Steak and Fries - $23

150 days grains-fed Angus Sirloin with thick crispy fries and caramalised onions.
T commented that the steak is too thin to be deemed nice, but later on changed his mind in relation to its affordable price. It would be a decent choice for a cheap steak & fries fix.

Le Petit Paradis is located at 95 East Coast Road
For more information, visit their FaceBook page HERE

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Review: Mordecai Skin [Sponsored]

Recently, with thanks to Street Directory and Mordecai Skin, I experienced my very first facial IPL!
Started out as a franchise of Face of Men, Mordecai Skin still mainly targets male youth, who faces embarrassing facial problems. Yes, they're actually a men's facial parlour, however, also welcomes ladies. In fact, as according to their management, they do have a substantial number of female patrons, who placed themselves as 'guinea pigs' for their partners.
And frankly speaking, after my session, I am indeed contemplating to drag T over for one as well. If only he's not so against facial. T.T  

Located at Ang Mo Kio, 5 minutes walk from Djitsun Mall, my first impression as I made my way over slowly from AMK Mrt station was, 'Wow, is this some facial parlour heaven?' As I walk along the shop houses, facial place after facial place just came into sight. I totally lost count of how many facial beauty parlours I saw before I came to Mordecai Skin. With this crazy amount of competition in just the neighbourhood, much less to say against the big franchises, I was filled with nothing but respect for their beliefs and ideals of doing proper business.
Now what's that about? We'll get to it in a while.

If you didn't know, Mordecai was the cousin and guardian of Esther, Queen of King Xerves, who taught her the meaning of both inner and outer beauty. And by adopting his name, Mordecai Skin shows their belief that beauty runs deeper beyond the surface of our skin and their ideal in treating their customers' skin issue from inside out.

Using only Eve Taylor's products, which do not contain Lancolin, Mineral Oil Artificial fragrance or SC alcohol, and are natural and gentle to the skin,

And let's get back to the proper business I've mentioned earlier, shall we?

I believe many of us (me included) is always hesitant or even shun such beauty facial parlours all because of one fear. 

Hardselling of packages. 

Some hardsell tactics are so unethical, they even resort to lying to get customers to top up for better, more expensive treatment. Halfway into your 10 sessions package, and they'll start goading you to sign on another set of 10 sessions for a better treatment, telling you ala carte prices will be $300 per session but with 10x package, 1 session is only $150 etc. And if you take 20x package, you get free mask every session! 

I'm sure most of you will know the painful annoyance of such hardselling tactics. 

And guess what, at Mordecai, you'll never need to undergo such stress at all. With strong beliefs in not just doing good business, but also to do good in business, Mordecai decided to do away with those special per session pricing of large packages and strongly recommend that patrons stick to a pay-per-session ala carte system, by making the cost of an ala carte session exactly the same as a package session. Their trusted therapists also do not go on a commission based remuneration package, which totally eliminates any tendency of pushing for any sorts of packages, ever. Rejoice, men... and ladies! 

Now, let's get on with my first facial IPL treatment experience, shall we?

I was ushered into a comfortably dimmed, clean treatment room and immediately asked to lie on the bed. First thought, "You forgot to pass me my robes to change...?"

It turned out, as Mordecai Skin mainly caters to males, they do not provide shoulder and back massage like other facial parlours do. They decided to extend this exclusion to the ladies as well, due to the thought that it will probably cause inconveniences to the ladies dressed in skimpy robes in the rooms while other male patrons are walking about outside. Well, you do understand that the therapist do exit and enter the treatment room many times in a single session, yeah? 

Thoughtful indeed. 

And after putting my hair out of my face, the therapist removed all traces of make up and cleansed/exfoliated my skin thoroughly before putting me under the steamer to open up my pores for a very thorough extraction. 

See how red (and swollen) my face was, right after the long extraction! I personally wouldn't term the extraction pain as okay, but it's definitely bearable for me, having survived my usual home facial therapist for years. 

And of course, after extraction was high frequency to kill all the bacteria...

Then a layer of cooling gel was applied onto my face and a pair of eye protection was placed on my eyes, and the IPL session commenced! Initially, I was bracing myself for the pain but was pleasantly surprised to know that actually facial IPL are at much lower degree to prevent burning of the skin and hence, there's no pain at all! Just a slight warming sensation coming from the part of the machine that's in contact with my skin. 

After the IPL, the therapist did a acupoint facial massage for me to 'detox' the skin and melt my stress away, coupled with an ampoule that smelled strongly of tea tree oil. 

And finally, the mask was applied, which was pretty cold (to further soothe down the redness) and smelled of apple and yogurt, a pretty yummy scent actually. 

Looking really nerdy intelligent in my favourite (actually is one and only) pair of thick black rimmed glasses.
But that's actually not the focus. See my face, no signs of redness or swelling at all! Pictures were also taken under normal lighting and I've not done any sort of filtering to make my skin look any better than how it looks on the mirror.
Even though facial IPL, other than to rejuvenate the skin, also helps to gradually shrink our open pores, I was obviously unable to see any visible changes in my pores size after this one session. However, my skin definitely felt softer and smoother, and the effect was pretty lasting. I was truly amazed at how smooth my skin felt when I was washing my face in the showers when I got home, and the soft and smooth feeling actually lasted even up till now (been 1 week!).

And you know what, Mordecai Skin only charges $130 for the entire IPL treatment session. The management actually very humbly admitted that they're not exactly very cheap when it comes to their treatment prices, even though they've tried their best to give customers the best price possible. But after checking with a friend, who has been doing facial IPL treatment at a home salon, I realised that prices at home salons can go up to $110 per session!
With just $20 more, we get much more convenience of not needing to head to a stranger's home alone, better services, and promises of NO hardselling.
Why not?

Mordecai Skin is located at
Blk 728 AMK Ave 6 #01-4214 Singapore 560728

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Review: Alive Museum [Sponsored]

Just recently, two Korean 3D entertainment attractions, the Alive Museum and Trick Eye Museum, opened their Singapore branches separately at Suntec City and RWS. And needless to say, my facebook page was momentarily flooded with albums and albums of head-scratching, 3D vision illusion photographs uploaded by friends.

And all thanks to omy and Alive Museum, I was able to enjoy a fun evening at the museum on a Friday night after work, with T!

Alive Museum first opened in June 2009 at Jeju Island (I've been there in October 2009!), and is the original 3D visual illusion museum from South Korea. They currently has 8 branches in South Korea, 3 in China, and 1 each in Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey and Singapore, with the Singapore being their 15th branch and standing at 10, 000 ft, the largest of such 3D museums here so far.
Alive Museum also boasts of its own dedicated R&D team, who studies different techniques and paints for the best quality masterpieces. All the artworks are hand-painted and handcrafted by their own talented artists from South Korea to exact standards, so as to ensure unparalleled quality.
What's more, the Alive Museum in Jeju even appeared in an episode of the popular 2011 Korean drama, Heartstrings.

 I dropped by at 6:30pm on a Friday night to collect the tickets and there was just a handful of visitors loitering around the counter. By the time I returned with T at 8 plus, there was already a small queue to enter and a mini-jam right at the entrance due to the first art piece that was exhibited right at the entrance.

There are a total of 84 masterpieces, of which 9 are uniquely Singapore. Alive Museum plans to increase the total number to over 100 pieces by early 2015 through the Singapore 50 project, with more details to be released in time to come.

And before I start sharing some of my pictures taken, I have to first apologise for being at one of my cui-est moment, due to a fcial IPL session just hours earlier. :(

Oh well, here goes....

To each art pieces, there will be a 'instructions board', 'pose point' and 'photo point' displayed alongside to guide you the best angle to snap your photographs, or the best way to appreciate the trickery.
The reason why this trick art piece caused a small jam at the entrance, was because we have to stare at the black figure on the right for 20 seconds before quickly shifting your eye gaze towards the blank white head on the young man's hand.
What will you see? Well, you got to try it out for yourself to find out!

Other than trick arts, the musuem also exhibits digital art pieces like so, showing 2 Mona Lisa blowing the scarf towards each other.

There's also object art, which features sculptures and installations that challenge our senses.
ALL HAIL THE QUEEN!
And yes, you're seeing Bruce Lee, Beckham and even Spidey bowing down to me.
HA HA HA!

Seriously, where do you get such a big UNBORN baby girl anywhere else? Fully dressed in a pair of skinny jeans somemore!

That's what T gets for always bullying his dogs at home.... Revenge time for the pup!

And then I transformed into Little Mermaid! Fellow contact lens wearers, beware, for the spurt of air to blow up your hair is actually quite strong. I couldn't open my eyes at all.

He swallowed the guts of a wolf (or maybe another dragon, Toothless maybe?) to find the courage to stick a finger up the nostril of this ferocious-looking dragon.

And then I bumped into the forever throwing up Merlion, and almost got myself drenched in her vomitus. NOoooo!

And yes, while you take these fun pictures, you'll find lots of pesky 'unclaimed' bags lying all over in the background/foreground/whatever.

Or even blur visitors walking straight into your pictures (and staying inside for a good while).
But hey, it's pretty crowded and they will make full use of the space to cramp about 2 to 5 art pieces in a pretty small section, so let's just be gracious about it and wait for a while. :)

And then, we moved on and I found myself on the floating house from UP!

And then, I found a bench to take a rest and look who found me! What an adorable giraffe!

Have I told you that T was a canoeist? *rofl*

Took a blow from Ryu!
Yet another strong spurt of air from the hidden nozzle here to blow up your hair. But this wasn't as bad as Little Mermaid earlier.

Busy catching all the falling penguins while T pours them out.

Well, I'm obviously not going to post all the pictures so as not to spoil your surprises. But other than the types of art I've mentioned above, there's also Experimental art, which combines new technology with various digital art concepts for visitors to actively interact with each other. (hint: look out for The Camera Obscura exhibit. Queuing time might take a while too...)
In addition to the 4 art types I've mentioned, Alive Museum's R&D team is also getting on a brand new development, called the Dark Room, with more news to be revealed real soon!

To stay current and exciting, Alive Museum will refresh about 30% of their collection 12 to 18 months, and special exhibitions will be held during major holiday seasons, such as Christmas Day and Chinese New Year.
What's more, Alive Museum even provides free Wifi within the compound for social medial whores like me visitors who are avid users of social media to upload all their quirky photographs immediately after snapping them!

So what are you waiting for?
Like Alive Museum on their facebook page and get a free meal at Burger King (located next door) with the purchase of a full-priced ticket.
Alive Museum is located at Suntec City #03-372, between Towers 3 and 4 (nearer to Promenade Station). 
Tickets are priced at $25 for adults and $20 for children of 3 to 12 years old.

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Recipe: No Bake Nutella-Oreo Mini Cheesecake

Yes, I know it has been ages since I last did a baking recipe post. So here am I with another one, a very simple one.

Aren't they cute? :)

So let's get on with the ingredients so we can get started. 

You'll need:

283g Oreo cookies (you may replace it with digestive biscuits) 

368g Nutella

5 tbsp. Unsalted butter, melted

3/4 cup toasted nuts (depends on how much toppings you want for your cheesecakes)

454g  Cream cheese

62.5g Icing sugar

2 tsp Gelatine, dissolved in hot water. (my cream cheese layer turned out still pretty gooey, so you might want to increase the gelatine amount)

It's so easy to make these yummy mini cheesecakes that I feel embarrassed even doing a recipe post about it. >.<"

First, mash up the cookies into fine crumb and mix in melted butter until the consistency resembles wet sand. 

Distribute it into the cupcake liners/glass jars and pack them in to the thickness you prefer. 

Chill in the fridge to set.

In a clean bowl, beat the soften block cream cheese till 'creamy' and then add in icing sugar. Beat till well combined. Then, add in nutella and beat until combined.

I'll suggest you use a stand-mixer or a hand-held mixer instead of a hand whisking as the addition of nutella kind of 'clump' up the mixture and even using a hand-held required some strength to control the beaters. 

Lastly, pour in the gelatine mixture and beat till smooth. 

Distribute the cream cheese mixture into the liners/glass jars according to your preferred thickness. 

Sprinkle on as much/as little toasted nuts as you'll like.

Chill in the fridge overnight to set. 

I did half of the recipe and got 6 mini cupcakes, and 3 glass jars. As you can see, I prefer thick, thick crumb layer. xp

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Food Tasting Review: Wan He Lou (萬合樓)

Last week, I was really honoured to be invited for a bloggers' food tasting session held by Wan He Lou via Street Directory. And I also got Oyhz and Finaldust along to share the calories yummies!

 Located at the heart of Jalan Besar, and conveniently right opposite Jalan Besar Plaza (Fret not, drivers! There's ample parking spaces! Per entry in the evenings too!), Wan He Lou is actually quite easily accessible on foot from both Lavender and Farrer Park MRT Stations. The restaurant management advised that Farrer Park will be a more straightforward (hence, 'safer') choice, but we actually strolled back to Lavender Station very easily in about 15 minutes' time.

We were actually the first to arrive, on the dot at 11am sharp when they open, and just went on a crazy phototaking spree!

 A feature wall of the photographs taken when our local artistes visited the restaurant.

And I love these bird-cage lanterns so much! 

Okay, let's get on to the food, shall we?

Fresh Vegetable Juice - $3.50

I know, this vibrant shade of green with almost half the glass of 'pulpy remains' aren't exactly the most appealing drink you'll find. But believe me, this is the yummiest green drink you can ever find. Oyhz loved it so much, she went for a second one! 

A yummy blend of pineapples, sour plums and cai xin, you'll actually taste the pineapples and sour plums in spite of the strong green colour. A really icy refreshing drink that tickled my tastebuds and boosted my appetite.

 Crispy Lotus with Salted Egg (S) - $11.90

Each piece of the lotus is sliced till nearly paper thin, deep fried till golden brown and then generously coated in salted egg. If you're a fan of both fried lotus chips AND salted egg yolk flavour, you definitely have to order this! This dish is more of a light snack instead of a main dish and I strongly recommend that you try to finish it up as soon as it gets served, for as the dish gets cold, it loses some of its crispiness as well.

Pan Fried Kurobuta Pork (S) - $14.90

If you're still a stranger to kurobuta, it's actually Japanese for Black (kuro) Pork (buta). The main reason why kurobuta is much more 'raved' and popular as compared to their pink counterparts is due to the fact that the meat is actually much more tender and has very much less of the commonly hated (in individuals who doesn't enjoy eating pork) 'pork smell'.
I really love this dish, even though I myself is also a pork-hater, for the meat is really tender and it has a savoury-sweet flavour, a perfect dish to go with a bowl of piping hot rice! :)

Qing Long Cai / Green Dragon Vegetable with Dried Shrimps (S) - $9.90

I know, $9.90 for such a small servings of vegetables sounds kind of pricey. But this is actually not just any vegetables you can find in the supermarket. These Qing Long Cai are specially brought in from Cameron Highlands, and grown in limited sunlight by having them covered in nylon nettings after their first cut at about 6th week's growth.
They look a lot like garlic chives, but is crunchier, sweeter and more succulent in taste. It does have a mild 'typical chive smell', but I didn't taste the distintive 'chive taste' as I ate these greens. Perhaps the dried shrimps have masked the dreaded 'chive taste', or it's just how the Qing Long Cai is supposed to be. Nontheless, the addition of dried shrimps really complemented this dish really well. The strong salty flavour of the dried shrimps really brought out the crisp sweetness of the greens and the perfect combination of both sweet and savoury taste just made this vegetable a must try of the restaurant.

Hokkaido Scallop with Hawthorne Sauce & Asparagus (S) - $20.90

Yup, there's 5 big fat Hokaiddo scallops you see there, drenched generously in sweet hawthorne sauce spiced up with cut chilli. I abosolutely loved the asparagus (yes, an asparagus-lover here). Unlike many other restaurants, which tend to mix young and old asparagus together, this entire plate only has young, tender asparagus that was cooked till just the right time to keep its soft crunch and natural sweetness, yet absorb enough of the hawthorne sauce's flavour. Sounds complicated, eh? Well, you just have to try them out for yourselves.

And finally, how can we miss out Wan He Lou's specialty?

 Signature Lobster Porridge - $29.90 onwards (serves 2)
According to the restaurant's management, each order, which serves 2, comes with 1 lobster (halved).

And the first thing that the server did while serving us the porridge was to remove all the lobsters from the hot porridge onto separate plates so as to prevent the lobsters from getting overcooked.

And as you can see, the porridge is in Teochew style with the rice still maintaining their grain forms and all the essence from the lobster locked into the thick, flavourful soup. I know the Cantonese congee is commonly more popular than the Teochew muay due to the perception that the congee is more flavourful and rich, having to cook the rice with all the ingredients for long hours. But tell you what, having been fed Teochew muay since young, I really do appreciate a good one when I find one.
This is definitely not those 'short-cut' kind at the hawker centres with just hot tasty soup poured over ready cooked rice and served straight away with the rice still tasteless and hard (at least it didn't taste like so to my tastebuds), but really cooked in the flavourful soup until the grains further soften, which allows flavour to develop not just in the soup but also in the rice itself. This is the kind of Teochew muay my mother and grandma has been cooking for me since young! But of course with only ikan billis or a few pieces of dried scallops, duh.

(The lobster is too big for my bowl... T.T)

The soup is simply awesome! This just has to be the best comforting food you can ever find that is rich yet not overpowering, and enhanced with the fresh sweetness of the lobster roe that complements the overall savoury flavour of the porridge. The soup was so delicious, that we kept refilling our bowls with the soup and leaving lots of the grains behind. The lobster was also fresh and well done, the meat thick and chewy from the freshness.
An award winning dish indeed!

To end the food tasting, the restaurant management also served us some desserts, Beancurd & Lychee pudding with Ice Cream, to refresh our tastebuds.

 And guess what? Wan He Lou is also having a weekday Lunch Buffet promotion (as featured in Cheap and Good Ep 7) with 14 items on the menu for you to eat to your heart's content at just $17.90!
Their Signature Lobster Porridge was also featured in Stules: Check-In S3 Ep 10.

For more information, visit Wan He Lou's website HERE and their Facebook HERE

Till then,
Mia

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