The pre-50th post

The next post is the 50th post for simplefood!!!!

So its decided that i will be posting something special.

Just a short introduction for the next post.

It will be a short cooking competition. I will be revealing the ingredient to use to create a cuisine. Be it steam, fry, or bake. Simply take a minimum of 5 pictures and a description of the procedures and send it in to hirokoyu21@hotmail.com to participate. There will be attractive prizes to be won.

So stay tuned!!!!!!

Miss Ong's bday at orchard area

To celebrate Miss Yu fan's Bday, we had a small lunch at Somerset 313!



They are having a set lunch promotion now. Prices are over here. Each set is inclusive of a ceasar salad and coffee or tea.

The interior was fine. Woody woody de country homely style.

They served us complimentary food. Bread with some tomato dips. Was normal.

First up we had mushroom soup. A tad too salty. Mushroom bits were visible and it was fresh and creamy yet not too thick. The yellow trail is actually olive oil. Effort put in.

Ceasar salad was ok, fresh greens, crunchy and moist. Dressing was not too thick. But a pity that too much cheese was added. Slightly on the salty side.

The best we had for the meal was calamari. The calamari was similar to fish and co's. Well marinated with flavourful batter. Coated evenly and fried till crispy. Effort seen from the greens added to the calamari even though it had totally no business to be there.

I had tea definitely. Aromatic.

Another good dish, the garlic bread. Looks hard and burnt. But tasted great and soft! The herbs added blended well with the garlic. The butter was fragrant and well roasted till flowy.

We had this weird curry puff looking thing. It is another version of a pizza. The crust tasted like normal crust of a normal pizza.

Cut it open and loads of surprises.

Ham, Mushroom, Cheese and some chicken bits.

New and fresh way of eating but not much taste. like can taste the flavours of the individual ingredients seperately.

Miss Loong had Allo scoglio. Which is actually seafood spag with cherry tomato sauce. BUT! why only got sotong? Plus, do you see tomato sauce? We clarified with the staff and they confirmed with the kitchen that we had the right order.

The spag was al dente, the herbs was a good match to the seafood. Something puzzling is that the pasta is spicy. No mention of it being spicy on the menu at all.

Mine was the Maiale Linguine.

Pork chop was hard like rubber. Very difficult to cut.

Tomato sauce was salty and nothing delicious.

The meal was ok, nothing much to wow over.

Service was quite slow as it wasn't even half filled on a weekday afternoon. We had to ask for our plain water 3 times before it came. But staff was friendly and served us smiling.

Auntie note: If you want to try the food here can come during lunch time for their promotion. Other than that not worth your penny.

313 Orchard Road #01-16/17/18 http://www.hungrygowhere.com/search_results.php?f_name=313 Singapore

We proceeded to ION after that for some shopping and finally Ice cream!

Gusttimo at ION.

Rather expensive for an ice cream cafe. 3 flavours in a cup ranges from $6.60 to $7.20 depending on whether you order their premium or seasonal flavours.

We had on the left:

Vanilla cake: Sweet tasting vanilla with a tinge of alcohol after taste.

Tiramisu: coffee taste a bit strong to my liking.

Strawberry milk: tasted like strawberry milk. Smooth and silky with strawberry aroma floating through your nose.

Flavours on the right:

Dark chocolate: Very bitter

Green tea and red bean: Nice combi. Green tea was concentrated and brought out by the red bean's husky taste. They even added some choco chips in it

Panna cotta with macademia: Panna cotta perfect. Sweet and milky but i don like nuts inside my ice cream!!!!!

Yummy loves after a long walk.....

And lastly, the 3 of us.

Auntie note: We were happily chatting over ice cream when a drop of water fell from the air con and landed in our ice cream. I went to the counter to feed back and they gave me a new cup. (the manager wasn't very happy though)

Gusttimo di Roma ION Orchard

2 Orchard Road #01-17 ION Orchard

Sinho the best neighbourhood tzi char

The next day right after Long Beach i went to a neighbourhood tzi char that produces much better quality and quantity. Service was fine, we didn't have to ask twice for bowls, didn't have to bear with moody staff.
Treat from boy's uncle was great, with loads of dishes that we try to squeeze into our stomach.

First up: Fish maw soup with crab meat.
There were loads of other ingredients: Tofu, Carrots, Black fungus, Eggs Plus fish maw and crab definitely.

Crab meat was plentiful, i had approx 7 crab meat this size in my small bowl.

The table had 8 people and each had 2 servings.

It was as good as shark fin's soup, seafood freshness and smooth.....



2nd dish: 五香and sotong 油条 appetizer

the youtiao was better, crispy on the outside, sweet mayonaise, bacon bits to bring out the 咸香of the fillings.



The 五香lost its appeal because the batter wasn't thick enough to be crispy, the meat was not tender enough and wasn't compact enough to give the bite.

Roast chicken was good, crispy skin, not too fat. The meat was well marinated with 五香 powder. Yes, it is crucial to add that to roast chicken if you do not know. The meat was tender and juicy. Well cooked as even the breast meat wasn't too dry. They even put in effort to place some crispy keropok on top. Good job.

Exact same dish as Long Beach but a neighbourhood stall manage to do a better job.

Baby squid was well fried till crispy but perhaps it was bigger in size, it wasn't as dry as LB's. The colour of the sauce is lighter and most probably it was less charred and didn't taste burnt. Slightly on the sweet side. Sauce was lighter and more aromatic.

My fav dish: I call it the "ORH KUAN" which means yam ring in dialect

The yam was smooth and wasn't too dry, manage to fry it without leaving a tinge of oil. (to do this the stall must be very careful to change the oil used for frying the yam ring very often as the yam soaks up the oil very easily)

The vegetable: Sambal Kang Kong

The very common veg to order. Not too spicy, even suitable for children yet the sambal is very fragrant. Goes well with rice. You can also taste the little dried shrimps added. Good effort.

Boy's fav: Salad prawn

This simple dish can be done at home. Deep fried prawns tossed with mayonaise.

But the mayo sauce is different. It has a sweet and sour taste that is more intense than those off the shelves.

The voted best dish: Hot plate tofu

The hot plate tofu here is wonderful, home made tofu, it is not so eggy like egg tofu and much more flavourful than plain tofu. The tofu is soft and silky, moisture filled. The sauce is "mushroomy", with minced meat and even pork lard! What's more there were even prawns! Best for those who like to eat rice. Like me.

Fishy dish: Deep fried fish with sweet and sour sauce

Fish was normal. Not much taste. But the sauce was fine. Just very common sweet and sour sauce. Nothing special.

They even have a website. I'm amazed!

The pictures are clear.

Auntie note: The prices here are reasonable. On the cheaper side. Except for the fish.

There is a daily promotion that is worth going.

I ate 1 crab with boy the other day and it only costs $20. Good deal because it is on a friday when crabs are only selling for $28/Kg!!!!!!!

Please make reservations during special occassions.

Blk 515 #01-181 Bedok North Ave 2
Tel : 6445 7798 HP 9693 8265

Long Beach Seafood

This is where the originator of black pepper crabs came from.

Visited Long Beach at East Coast for father's day and my papa's real Bday.

There are 2 branches located at ECP.



The father's day set menu that we avoided because normally they have weird combinations. Plus the cheaper sets don't come with crabs.

We went to the one at UDMC. Which is near all the rest of the other seafood restaurants. There is another near Burger King.

First dish for the dinner is Deep fried baby squid.

The Baby squid is fried till crispy and stirred with a sweet sauce.

A pity is the over fried squid. The sauce taste good but after chewing you feel the rough and dry squid in your mouth with a slight burnt taste.

The chef recommendation dish

With a slight resemblance of salted egg crab, this dish is passable because its a tad too salty.

Prawns are fried till crispy and you can easily bite of any part without difficulty.

Can see some salted egg yolks in it but the rest i really have no idea.

It was fragrant and went well with rice. Portion of large came with about 30 prawns which is quite worth it.

Vegetables selection was pathetic. No special effort to design some more creative vegetables. Just the usual kangkong, kailan. We order 奶白 stir fry in garlic. Nothing special just to get our daily fibre intake.

Finally the crabs. My family can't really take spicy food so we wanted salted eggs but they didn't have it.

Thus this is butter crab.

Crabs at $38/Kg

The sauce is sweet and smelt good. Something i felt out of place was an artificial after taste that was similar to mango flavourings. The sauce weren't exactly enough for us to dip our mantous in.

Steamed crab with chinese wine and chicken stock.

This is a more chinese way of eating. The wine gave a pleasant aroma and brought out the fresh seafood taste. There was a layer of egg white similar stuff at the bottom of the plate to keep the crab in place. Good idea.

The crabs for the day was ok. Not too big because we wanted 2 to be cooked in different sauces.

The meat was sweet, texture also fine. However i think not meaty enough. But it is already lucky given that this Long Beach don't seem to serve very delicious food.

We had some dessert after dinner. During dinner we saw some amazing looking dessert and thought we might want to give it a try because the dry ice is so attention grabbing.

Desserts at $4.50 each.

We ordered and realise the dry ice is only for decorative purpose. Doesn't contribute to the taste at all. It was simply placed in a bowl of coloured water with your dessert on top.

We had 3, Black glutinous rice with ice cream, mango pudding and durian paste.

The best was the black glutinous rice. I had eaten it with loads of coconut milk but never will you ever discover that it taste best with vanilla ice cream. Creamy and smooth, the cold dessert melts in your mouth and gives a special texture of the rice husk. Perfect.

The other two was normal. Even when the durian is the specialty it failed to make it worth mentioning.

Overall dinner was bad, the restaurant was obviously understaffed. Servers and waiter, even the Manager had no smiles on their face. We had to wave vigourously before they took notice of us. Had to ask 3 times before they pack our left over. Had to wait for the baby chair. Some waiters even turned away upon seeing your hands (its very obvious they saw me)

Auntie note: no credit card discount, no seats even after you reserve, no smiles, no service, no delicious food, no free parking. Have to pay for tea, have to pay for towels, have to pay for peanuts, have to pay for GST, have to pay for service charge (even though its bad service).

I suggest you visit their neighbours.

Ready mix for the busy people

Was bored at home and thus needed something to do.
My all time passion will be cooking. So a pack of ready cookie mix will do the job for a lazy person.

Betty Crocker is good. Tested and Proven. Look at the packaging, it says "over 300 chips"
But ready in 20 minutes? not really......


The mix requires a stick of butter (half cup) and an egg.
The stick of butter is dependent on the size you want to buy. For me i added 1 stick of 250g butter and choose not to add the egg.
SCS has so far been the best butter I use for baking.


The flour looks something like this. With all the 300 chips inside.

Simply mix it up and you will get a dough of this "density" It should not stick to your hands.


Place it on the tray wrapped with aluminium foil (for the lazy people).
Preheat oven till approx 180 degress. (The directions on the wraper is in fahrenheit so i ignored it)
Bake approx 15 minutes till you see the sides of the cookies turn slightly brown.

I have some of them with sides burnt cos of uneven oven heat :(

But nonetheless, goodness cookies by me. Friends and boy says delicious. Even though its cheat.

Manage to store them in 1 huge tupperware. Can last for long long long time...... Yums.

Auntie Note: The cookies made are comparable to Famous *****. Try it!

The total cost is only less than $9 for i think at least 500g of cookies.