Saturday, 25th July

Celebrated XWZ's bday with Jo & 2 of his friends
Went to this restaurant @ Upper Thomson for steamboat dinner
It's called Ma Po something something..
Quite nice!

A favourite of many, I'm sure.

Fried mantous with condensed milk!

Chicken broth & preserved veg broth
Very nice ^^

The guys ordered so many plates of this garlic pork

Conjested with food!

Sunday, 26th July

ION with Cai

Queuing up to dine @ Watami

There's always a long queue for this restaurant. We waited a good 20-30 minutes for it

Mango yakult drink ($5.80)

Not bad if you're a mango lover like me

But i didn't really taste any yakult in there.

Complimentary salad with goma dressing

Pork katsu set

You're supposed to drizzle the egg on top of the pork and let it cook

Like this

Damn.. It tasted so good.

Hotate (scallops) with butter

This was okay, but I'm fairly sure I won't be ordering this again.

Brought Cai to explore the place.. I'm like the tour guide hehe ^^

Then we went to Cedele @ Wheelock to chill

Black sesame cake with tahini frosting ($6+)

This was delightful, I love anything with black sesame/almond/chestnut/pumpkin and the list goes on..

But I really don't like the ambience @ Cedele Wheelock

Their staff service is really bad & the whole place looks so gloomy

Headed to Paragon as Cai wanted to buy something

Stopped for a break at The Soup Spoon, my legs hurt so badly!

Had this Roasted pumpkin soup to share.

It's such a big and hearty bowl of soup, and that's my kind of comfort food.

& we headed to Clark Quay next
Bought this black sesame ice-cream as we strolled along the river in the evening

Had our dinner a Chinese restaurant called Grains @ Central mall

We had the 1-for-1 set meals @ $50++

Definitely value-for-money, the standard of their food was good as well.

Prawns in salted egg yolk

Poached spinach with wolfberries in superior stock

Spinach tofu

Braised sharks' fin with crab meat & golden mushrooms

I love the fact that they added crab roe, which brought out the umami flavour

Black chicken soup

I love this!!! Very very fragrant & very nourishing for ladies..

Guys pls don't take too much of this!

Grains fried rice, no wonder its their signature dish.

I love how generous they were with the ingredients

I particularly loved the scallops and crunchy prawns.

And also the addition of wolfberries, which gave it a slight taste of sweetness.

The rice wasn't too oily either.

Sweet yam paste in osmanthus syrup

This was very nice, and their rendition of this popular dessert is rather different from the common ones, which tend to be smooth.

This had a rough texture and you could taste the chunks of yam in there.

Really good! It contained gingko nuts too.

Mango sago with pomelo

This on the other hand, fared poorly. It was too watery.

But they were rather generous with the ingredients.

There were lots of sago in there.

And needless to say, I finished both desserts within seconds.

Grains is a good bet if you're around Central area and want to have good and affordable Chinese cuisine.

Not to mention, one that emphasizes on healthy eating!

Buffet Part II (warning: do not read this if you're feeling hungry)

Continued from the previous post

Poolside at Ritz Carlton

The pool looked so enticing, we felt like diving right into it.

@ Greenhouse, Ritz Carlton

We had their Sunday Buffet Dinner

There's Cai beckoning me to go over

Desserts

This was so tasty!!

Fruits section

Seafood section

Cheese section

Live section (Meats)

Seafood section

Vegetarian section

Indian section

Tiger prawns, deep-fried garoupa and assam fish

Soba

Chilli crab

Lobster bisque

Smoked salmon, fresh scallops, mussels, asparagus, and some kind of smoked beef

Sushi & roasted duck

Oyster omelette

Pasta, fried dory fish fillet, sauteed veggies in cream sauce, braised duck, kung pao chicken, and italian meatball

Lobster salad shooter, Unagi, and Cold crab

Papadum, Naan, Vegetable Korma, Red Duck Curry, Butter Chicken, Mutton Curry, and Briyani rice

Some smelly cheeses

Blue cheese, feta cheese, fontina cheese, and brie cheese

Assorted nyonya kuehs

Cheese fruit tart (my favourite), chocolate mousse cake, and assorted chocolates

Some macha cake, tiramisu, blackforest and a white dessert which I couldn't identify

Dessert shooters

Cheesecake, creme brulee, and a chocolate pyramid (self-named)

Chocolate fondue with cookies and marshmallows

(the choc fondue tasted funny)

Pistachio & choc chip ice-cream

2 buffets in a day? My first time :D
We started the buffet at 6.30pm and ended the meal only at 9.30pm
Gosh.. We took 3 hours to eat?? Seems like a really long time
Well, we certainly ate a lot. Never underestimate the power of our stomachs!

If we're talking about variety, Greenhouse definitely satisfies.
We tried almost everything they had to offer, some of which pictures were not taken as we were busy eating.
But quality-wise, it was a real LETDOWN
For the price we're paying, we certainly expected better.

I do know for a fact that buffets tend to compromise a little on quality for the variety provided
But the food wasn't even satisfactory.
There's definitely lots of room for improvement.
One thing for sure, we ain't coming back no more.