Jewel Cafe & Bar

It's been awhile since I last went for a food tasting session, and boy, I'd forgotten how generous these restaurant owners can be :) Not that I'm complaining though. I'm perfectly happy to stretch my stomach in occasions like these to stuff myself with any food that is placed in front of me. I often surprise people with the amount of food I can ingest if I'm in the mood to do so, and tastings are usually the time where I just EAT, no holds barred. Anyways, big thanks to Wan Swen from Cafehoppingsg for inviting me along this time! (: 

The owner of Jewel Cafe, Adrian, was too kind, really! He had a menu planned for us, with a total of 3 appetisers, 4 mains and 3 desserts :O For three people. We were literally exploding by the end of it. Let's get on with the food, shall we? 

First up was the French Onion Soup ($8). It came topped with a crust of three cheeses - Swiss Cheese, Parmesan and Emmental - which I absolutely loved. I was evidently in the mood for cheese that night, and there were several dishes that were in place to satisfy my craving. The soup was a beef broth that was filled with a generous serving of croutons, which was flavourful, but perhaps not onion-y enough. 

Next two dishes were salads that impressed me thoroughly. Being a salad girl, I'm always looking for ways to spruce up my homemade salads. Not that I would typically put parma ham into my salad, but that's why I would have it in a cafe, I suppose ;) The Butter Poached Asparagus ($14) was one of the tastiest salads I've ever eaten. It had a base of asparagus and mesclun that was piled with a good portion of parma ham. The asparagus, having been poached in butter was tasty on its own, unlike its usual raw flavour, though that would be a healthier option. This was drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette, and I do mean drizzled...because I felt that the sauce was too little. Apparently Adrian got feedback previously that there was too much sauce though, which could be why the amount was reduced. Unfortunately for me, I like my salads DRENCHED in vinegar hahaha.

The Red Mullet ($15) was a mesclun salad topped with fresh mullet fillets, which was a really interesting dish! I hesitate preparing salads with fish because I wonder whether it would give my salads a fishy flavour. This dish proved me wrong though, as it was well executed! The mullet fillets were lightly grilled, I believe, and paired with an egg vinaigrette dressing. I liked how the chef incorporated oranges into the dish (really sweet ones too!) with a tanginess that helped to liven up the fish.

And that was just the appetisers. Whoa. I was probably 30% full by then? Still going strong haha, but wait till the mains came. First up were the tacos - Fish Taco with Sour Cream and Beef Taco. I've been a fan of spaghetti bolognese since I was a kid, and I'm someone who can never resist a hearty beef bolognese, especially when it comes with some gooey cheese on top. The beef tacos hit the spot with me easily, and I polished it off promptly. What came as a surprise was how tasty the fish tacos were!!! I was quite sceptical about it because the combination sounded a tad strange to me. But this dish was executed fabulously and is something that I would return for, because of how uniquely awesome it is. The golden fried fish was light and fluffy, dressed with sour cream and given a zing with a squeeze of lemon juice and jalepeno shallots. LOVED the jalepeno - it immediately took away any heaviness of the dish, and was the perfect match to the crunchy tacos.

Following that, we had the dish that tipped the scales towards the point of fullness. The Foie Gras Mushrooms Medley Risotto ($23) sounds unimaginably filling, simply by looking at its name. It's creamy, it's sinful, it's for someone who wants a huge, heavy meal. I thoroughly enjoyed it in a tasting portion, but I wouldn't be able to get past a quarter of that dish by myself. Fresh mushrooms blended to a smooth puree, in which the risotto was cooked to a lovely creaminess. It was thick and gooey, and came with a slab of pan seared foie gras to increase the level of decadence.

The OMG! ($21) is a whopping burger that has graced many instagram feeds due to its appearance. Taste wise, I found it lacking, though guys would probably enjoy guzzling the meat. Bacon, luncheon meat and a beef patty, with cheddar, lettuce, tomato and a beautiful sunny side up on top. I felt the beef patty was a tad dry and didn't have much flavour to it, but it could have been to balance the other processed meats, otherwise the dish would be too salty. Overall, I found it average though. The fries that came with it, on the other hand, were one of the best fries I've eaten!!! According to Adrian, these fries are one of the best available, and they didn't disappoint! Crisp on the outside thanks to a sprinkling of potato powder, and delectably fluffy inside - and this incredible texture was sustained even after they'd turned cold after half an hour!

It's ironic that I found I liked the cafe's crowd favourites the least. The Chilli Crab Pasta ($20) was an interesting twist on our local dish, with linguine tossed in a homemade spicy chilli crab sauce. Adrian placed a strong emphasis on having ginger in the sauce, as this is apparently a key ingredient in chilli crab. I found the ginger too overwhelming though, such that it took away the "chilli" in the chilli crab, flavour-wise, despite the fact that it was really spicy. I liked the crispy mantou that came with it though! But sadly the sauce wasn't something that I wanted to mop up.

Pardon the really long write-up :P But when the time came for desserts, I was already 99% full!!!! OMG. I couldn't resist though. I'm so greedy like that. Jewel's Homemade Apple Crumble ($12) is one of the best I've ever tasted! And I've got to caution you on the portions of the desserts, because they are almost the size of a main course :O Save a large space in your stomach for it if you're interested. You have been warned....Haha. And you should! Because it was really great. The cafe does a deconstructed version of apple crumble, with crumbles and piping hot caramelised apples mixed together as a base, and topped with a massive scoop of New Zealand premium vanilla ice cream. The pairing is impeccable, and the flavours came together beautifully.

I can't comment much on the Orange Chocolate Creme Brûlée ($10) because I'm not a fan of it. But it was a nice idea having the orange within it to balance out the heaviness of the cream. Would have been even better if the flavour of the orange was infused into the dessert, rather than just having orange slices though. Also, the texture of the cream was rather watery, which is a kink they are still trying to work out.

And finally, the most indulgent dessert was the Chocolate Brownie ($12), which was so super duper moist it was almost unbelievable!!!! Not sure whether I'm allowed to share the secret here, but you just wouldn't want to know the amount of sugar that went into that. I didn't even dare to think :P It was so rich, and incredibly tasty, and again, loved the combination with the vanilla ice cream.

I was full to bursting at the end of the meal! But it was satisfying, and such great fun (: Check out cafehoppingsg for a second opinion if you're interested ^^

Jewel Cafe & Bar
129 Rangoon Road
Tel.: +65 6298 9216
Tue-Thu & Sun 9am-10pm
Fri-Sat 9am-11pm

PARK

Yet another "Finally I've tried this place!!" eatery that I fell in love with ^^ So glad that it's just steps away from where I work. Haha I suppose you can guess where I work now, and I'm super happy to be working in such a foodie area. It's exactly suited for me! Sam tried out this place even before I did, and he seemed pretty satisfied with the food! Glad that I had the chance to try it out one of the days after work, and I was really impressed! 

Sam ordered the same dish he had the previous time - shows how much he like it :P That was good for me because I was really curious to find out what the draw of this place was! He had the Linguine pesto alls Genovese with sundried tomato and mushrooms ($15.90). I really liked how the generous shreds of cheese atop the pasta gave it a sharpness that pulled the creamy flavours of the pesto together. Alone, the pesto was a tad mild in my opinion (would have liked it to be stronger!!), but the addition of the cheese gave it sufficient punch. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my Thai Thigh Burger ($16.50). Actually had quite a hard time deciding what to order because quite a number of dishes sounded really awesome!! But I'm really glad that I chose this ^^ The honeyoat bun was a surprise with its really crisp texture - very different from fluffy burger patties that I typically prefer, but it was good in another way! I really liked how it added a crunchiness to the dish, which complemented the tender and juicy chicken thigh. With a tomato salsa and sweet thai chilli dressing, the burger was super flavourful! It comes with a choice of two sides and I decided to go for the healthier choice of mesclun salad and pesto tomato salad. The tomato salad was refreshing and had a rather interesting taste! 

Definitely would like to come back sometime since it's so convenient :) It was surprisingly crowded early on a Friday evening! Guess everyone was there because....TGIF ;) 

PARK

281 Holland Avenue 

Tel.: +65 9721 3815

N.O.M. No Other Meaning

Rainbows make me happy, when skies are grey ~

Haha wheeee I finally tried an awesome rainbow cake! This craze has been going on in Singapore for the longest time but I'm really quite deprived of these pretty eye-candies! The only other rainbow cake I've bought so far is the one from The Coffee Daily, which really didn't bring out the rainbow-ness with its colours more geared towards pastel tones. I was so happy with the Rainbow Cake ($7.90) at NOM though!! :) It was gorgeous ^^ Just look at that!!! It comes in three flavours for the "cream" (or whatever you call it) - salted caramel, oreo and chocolate. Perfect excuse to go back for more, because I want to try the other flavours! We tried the oreo, and it was soooo yummy! The cake was perfectly moist, with just the right amount of cream, and it was so so tasty. We also had the Peanut Chocolate Cake ($5.90) which was really decadent. Loved this as well.

To balance out the sweetness, we ordered a serving of Sweet Potato Fries ($5.90). Hmm okay, maybe "balancing" is not really the right word to use xP hahaha. But it was still a savoury dish! Really liked it!!! The fries came piping hot, nice and crisp on the outside, and soft inside. They were addictive. And knowing how I actually like savoury food more than sweets, I couldn't help reaching for this in between mouths of rainbow cake. Hehe.

So far we were really satisfied with everything we'd ordered. And I've heard that the mains at NOM are pretty good too! Tried a bit of Linwei's NOM Orange Duck Salad ($7.90), and I'm so inspired to come up with something like this for my own salads too! It was a scrumptious salad with mixed greens, smoked duck, orange slices and a really tasty goma sauce. No idea what that means but it was delicious! (: 

This cafe is situated in MacPherson Community Centre, which is a really random place to have a cafe. Lucky easties!! It was really hard to get to though - a zig-zag 15min walk from the train station through an HDB estate. But I'm already thinking of my second visit for my fill of rainbow cake... ;) Oh yes, and prices are nett!!! Which makes this cafe really affordable :) 

N.O.M. Cafe

MacPherson Community Club Level 1 

400 Paya Lebar Way

Tel.: +65 6747 3839

Mon-Sun 11am-11pm

Sunday Market

I've been having a dearth of suggestions when it comes to dinner places. My list of cafes is never-ending, but most of them hardly seem suitable for dinner considering the recommended items are usually brunch-type foods or dessert. While I adore brunch, I can never have it as a replacement for dinner, and it's been pretty hard trying to uncover good dinner venues that are wallet-friendly. Which is why I was so excited when I found out that Sunday Market was known for its main dishes, on top of the Bangkok Toast that has been flooding my instagram feed. Haha.

I'm so proud of ourselves for ordering all the cafe's signature items without even knowing it at that point in time. There were really quite a number of dishes that caught my eye and I spent the longest time poring over the menu. Went with the Roasted Duck with Hoisin ($12.90), which was an interesting twist on pancakes! Somewhat like an east-meets-west dish, which seems quite the theme of this restaurant. Think peking duck, but housed inside a fluffy pancake, with the sweet-savoury garlic hoisin sauce drizzled over it. I wished there could have been more of the yummy sauce, but the dish was pretty tasty on its own anyway. 

I sorta convinced Sam to get the Sirloin Rendang Toast ($15.90) and yay, he did! ^^ The rendang came as a luscious bowl of tasty gravy that was the perfect dipping condiment to the buttery brioche. The both of us exclaimed with pleasure when we bit into the brioche, which was fluffy and had a beautifully creamy flavour. However, we felt that the rendang was a tad too sweet! We would have preferred if it was a bit more savoury to provide a better balance. The beef was stewed till it was almost melt-in-the-mouth tender, which is incredible by cafe standards! 

While the portions of the main dishes we had didn't look remotely big, they were surprisingly VERY filling!! Perhaps it was all the carbs that expanded in our tummies. Still, I couldn't resist ordering the Bangkok Toast ($10.90) because it looked soooooo good. And it didn't disappoint! Three elements to it, that complemented each other to great satisfaction. The toast was generously-sized, crisp on the outside and deliciously soft within. It came topped with slightly tart berries that helped to cut through the sweetness - much appreciated for a decadent dessert like this! The matcha green tea custard was creamy and light, but had an unmistakably distinct flavour, and the Thai milk tea ice cream was simply perfect!! Though I was worried about the whole dessert being too overwhelming with the cacophony of flavours, they all came together in a beautiful harmony that was pleasant to the palate. 

Overall, I was really satisfied from this meal, and despite it's rather obscure location, this is one cafe I would come back to if I've run out of ideas for dinner! 

Sunday Market

22 Lim Tua Tow Road

Tel.: +65 6287 8880

Mon-Fri 1pm-10pm

Sat-Sun 11am-11pm