Le Chine, Macau

Le Chine is located on 6th floor of the Eiffel tower. We just felt compelled to try, it is the only restaurant in the tower and we just had to experience dining there. They offered French - Chinese fusion dishes. The service was good, some of the food were great, but a couple were not really, including the noodles with lobster down below. . 

Starting the evening with a drink called French Kiss. The restaurant brought us amuse bouche, which unfortunately I can't remember, but it can be seen down below after the drink.It was not explained by the server and when asked, it was still not clear what it was. they were quite nice and cold, it's some sort of sherbet.

Amuse Bouche

Crabmeat tartar

Crispy chicken, it's really crispy and worth the calories.

Braised bean curd

Sea Cucumber

Complimentary matcha cupcakes. (that's my guess of what they were, the serves did not and could not explain what they were)

Pineapple tart tatin with coconut ice cream. Definitely needs more ice cream, a lot more than presented. The balance of the flavor was of because of that.

Sushi Tei, Ngee Ann City, Again!

We went back to the same Sushi Tei with an extra company. This time we tried their Avocado Salmon and Egg Roll with Wasabi Mayo which they call Penthouse Salmon Roll.

We also had Ootoro (tuna belly) again and this time the Croquettes that I had were Cream Corn.

 

We shared Kani Avocado Salad with Sesame dressing and tried Zuwai Gani Chawanmushi (further below). And we still had some more ... Probably we were very hungry that day...

The above is Garlic Fried Rice with Chicken and Salmon Mentayaki is in the picture below. It was quite a lot for three people and some of them, maybe most, were actually mine. Surely #dietfail. 

Sunday Dim Sum!

We went out for Dim Sum yesterday, I don't know why but I longed for it. We went to Vivocity and had no reservation anywhere, thinking that it should not be a problem to get a table for three over there. Of course we were wrong. The first place that DH wanted to dine in was Crystal Jade Dining In, and we were informed that we had to wait for around 45 minutes. I asked him to leave our phone number anyway. The second place we tried to go to was Tunglok Signature. There was a man (staff) on the table looking down at the appointment book and ignored us. I asked and he looked up to us and said that the place was fully booked. "The whole day?" "Yes!" Hhmmh... no wonder he was snobbish.

So we went to look again, there were so many restaurants there, it just happened the first two that we picked were booked. It's a bit unusual. We walked and walked and suddenly got a phone call from Crystal Jade, informing us that there's a table for us. We went there, and yes, there's a long table shared by a party of two men and another party of three adults and two little girls with runny nose.  We were seated in the middle. Beggars can't be choosy! We took it.

We had roast pork, the first picture above. Miss K who was full to begin with, ordered Egg Tarts (above) and Lo Mai Kai. We also had Char Siu Soe (below), which is  pastry filled with barbecued pork and Shao Mai. I guess, we were quite hungry, we ordered Fish with long beans and Penang Fried Kway Tiaw (see below) too. Thinking back, that's a lot of food for three people. one of whom ate so little because she was stuffed from late breakfast!

Lunch At Da Paolo Pizza Bar

I had a late lunch on Saturday at Da Paolo Pizza Bar in Holland Village. It had been years since we ate there and I can't really remember whether we had been there or not. To begin with, I have to say that I was there with Miss K and it was very unusual that I picked a Pizza Bar for lunch. We were in the neighborhood and I was so terribly hungry after visiting a store there. It was around 2:30Pm and I only had a small breakfast many hours before that.

 

We agreed on Colazione Americana for starter, it was a salad with romaine lettuce, oven-baked or maybe poached egg , mushroom, shaved parmesan. By the time the salad came, DH came and joined us. The salad was simple with simple dressing that we liked. 

The pizza was called Bosco D'Inverno, it had Mozarella, Mascarpone, Mushrooms and Black Truffle. The pizza has thin crust with  slight char at the edge. We enjoyed the pizza too. Simple and not complicated taste but delicious.

With little space left in my belly, I ordered Valrhona Chocolate Cake (warm) with Vanilla Gelato for dessert. It's yummy too. A place that I could return indeed.

First 2012 Family Dining Out!

The first restaurant meal we had as a family in 2012 was at Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck.  Miss L, who was on holiday in the country for only eight days, made reservation for the five of us the day before and we only got the slot for 1:45PM, which we figured would be fine anyway. It sounded late, but on Jan 1, I would think that everyone would get up later than usual and had a later breakfast too. A later lunch would be good, subsequently!

The restaurant was packed and the service was rather poor because of the heavy crowd. I took very few pictures, nothing was impressive. We had Beijing duck, of course and the rest of the duck was requested to be cooked with noodles. We also ordered some dim sums and a plate of spinach with garlic.We were stuffed, happy and more importantly, we were together with our loved ones, something that is harder to do these days!

Prosciutto Overload....

We dined at a newly opened restaurant right down below, it is called Limoncello. There are so many Limoncello restaurants around the globe, I don't think it is related to any of them, but I might find out something different later. Among lots of dishes that we had, we ordered a 13-inch prosciutto pizza served with rocket leaves and parmigiano regianno. To our surprise, they were so generous with the amount of prosciutto served, covering the pizza. With one of the anti pastis that we had, also had so much prosciutto, I think I have enough prosciutto for a while......

Samsui Chicken

I got try a new dish at a new place for my first meal outside, this year. We dined at Soup Restaurant in Vivocity. DH suggested their set menu which was priced at $45 for 2, before tax & services, it consisted of soup, their famous Samsui Chicken, sliced fish and vegetables. That sounded like a nice balanced meal and we were very hungry too, so we went with the selection to try as many.

The soup was herbal chicken soup served in a tall bowl while the Samsui chicken was served on a large plate with a bowl of roughly minced ginger sauce in the center. A plate of lettuce was presented with that, supposedly to wrap the chicken that is put in there with the sauce and sliced cucumbers. Of course, you can it eat it in whichever you wish as well. It was flavorful, I love the sauce the best. The rests of dishes are alright for me. I am glad we tried.

Tower

We spent a couple of hours at the Universal Studios, Orlando before we headed out and had lunch at Bubba Gump at the Universal City Walk. We had this tower of onion rings as appetizer. We thought they were presented interestingly, don't you think so too?

Sushi Girl Gets Her Way

Back when we were still enjoying our holiday in the USA, my little sushi girl and her partner in crime, DH, made plan on going to Sushi Tei to get their first lunch once we arrived home. But we were so physically exhausted after a very long flight that I vetoed the plan and postponed it to another day to make sure that we felt better and our car that was asleep for a month, was back in prime condition.



So came Thursday and off we went. Just the four of us, P had a Summer Job after her trip. Miss K had her regulars Salmon Mentai. Miss L opted Gyoza and a couple of sushi. We ordered fresh salad, some other sushis and a plate of salmon sashimi. They satisfied our cravings!

Pad Thai Number 8

If we had the choice, we would like to have a home-cooked meal by now. It was only our second evening in Orlando, time for dinner again. Thai food was our next best thing to eat, although that only meant that we had eight Thai meals within 23 days of our trip. I am glad that DH has stopped his obsession on Chinese foods here, that are catered more towards the liking of people here. We love Pad Thai anyway!!! So bring it on!

Orlando has many Thai restaurants and many of them claim to have won some sorts of awards. We picked this restaurant because we had no choice after we were misled a number of times in one evening. We were lead by our new GPS friend to places that are not there or closed and finally were surrendered at the first one that really existed and opened for business, Ayothaya Thai Cuisine on West Sandlake.

This restaurant has a nice Thai traditional setting and the waitress was courteous. She let us know ahead of time that it might take a little longer to prepare the food because they were having a big party. We appreciated the honesty and didn't mind waiting even though we were starving. The food didn't take too long to arrive as it turned out.

Our typical order was fish cake, Thai Green Curry, Pad Thai and some sort of mixed vegetables. Why bother looking looking at the menu if we almost always order the same ones??? We do anyway, to see what they offer and DH normally takes his own sweet time to look at the dishes one by one and in the end decided on having whatever the rests of us want.

The food was great, their Pad Thai was excellent. The prices are a little higher, but they are still reasonable compared to their serving size. In most cases, we all agree that Singapore prices are higher than those here. If the economy is not so bad right now, I would almost say that it's a near bargain. But since stock markets all over the world are plummeting crazily, I should stop at that! Ha.

(I miss my kitchen, my pots and pans. And baking the bread......)

Tasting Little Saigon

DH's pick for the dinner last Monday was Vietnamese food, pointing down specifically to Little Saigon in down town Orlando and a back-up of Pho-Hoa in case we were not able to find Little Saigon. We had a bad experience with our search for Thai food the night before when the GPS kept on leading us to non-existing places. The one that existed was closed and we ended up with a fifth or sixth place that was not even originally came across upon.



This Vietnamese restaurant has a very good reputation, having won many awards from Orlando publications in the past years. We found many other Vietnamese restaurants along the same roads as well as some other Vietnamese shops as well.

For appetizers we had Summer Rolls and Spring Rolls.






I had been craving for this type of noodle soup for a while and was quite pleased that we had the opportunity to satisfy my craving. DH and I were planning to share a bowl of Pho Dae Biet (Rice Noodle Beef Soup with Sliced Rare Beef, Tendon, Tripe, Brisket Beef Balls) but upon seeing how it looked, he decided to order one bowl for himself and left me stranded with a big bowl for myself. What a guy!


L, who originally didn't intend to order anything, changed her mind and went for Pho Bo Vien (Beef Balls over Rice Noodle Soup). K had some from both her sister and from me.


It was a good dinner, we were pleased with the food and the prices were reasonably low.