Though it's Monday, there's still many kids running about, teenagers trying to ride in Singapore's pathetic waves and parents running after their kids. I guess, it's the school holidays and I have to expect this. I almost cycled the entire stretch of East Coast Park, gave the side towards the hawker centre I pass because the bicycle seat was so very uncomfortable. My buttocks were numb and pain after 2 hours of cycling. I'm pretty impressed by the newly renovated East Coast Park hawker centre. It looks so nicely designed, unfortunately, the designer didn't consider that Singapore is all-year sunny and hot because he placed some translucent shelters for the seats. What's worse is that he didn't leave a pathway between those shelters and I have to walk a big round before I could reach the stall that I want. Oh yah, guess what I spot next to the hawker centre!? A cable ski area!!!!! So similar like the one in batam. But most probably it's going to be expensive because it's the only cable ski in Singapore and Singapore is crowded and ....... You know the rest.
ANYWAY, time for another episode of
HO JIA EHTM
Well, it's the holidays for me, so that means there's more time for me to go around places to find FOOD again. So most definately, there'll be more of such episodes in my blogs for this month and so until school cycle returns once again.
Kartini Indonesian Restaurant
80 Marine Parade Road
Parkway Parade
#02-31
Singapore 449269
One SPECIFIC thing I must say is that, though their dishes seem cheap and all in the menu, they really know how to charge stuff from other miscellaneous stuff. My bill was supposed to be around less than 30 bucks but due to mineral water, towel, appetizer, rice, GST and Service charge, it added up to abit more than that. I ordered three dishes only. It was WAY enough to fill my stomach. Firstly, the appetizers which came even before you ordered anything. It consists of some really agar-agar-like kuay and some crackers which I shall name it as bitter-crispy crackers. These small amount of appetizers were really a good start as I look through the menu. Please note that they charge money for these appetizers too. :( (cunning people eh?)
Something I thought was just a simple salad came out rather tasty and amazed me. Somehow like rojak, it's a mixture of smaller pieces of the bitter-crispy crackers, cucumber, potatoes(they were nice), bean sprouts and a generous amount of satay sauce. Okay, I must admit that those crackers really go extremely well with the satay sauce. Yummy.
Tahu Telor Jakarta
If you have tried the normal indonesian tahu telor, you should never miss this one. A special version of tahu telor(maybe from jakarta only), the tofu is fried so crispy that as you used that spoon to slice it apart, it can hear it cracking just like breaking some potato chips. Mixed with the sauce just like the normal tahu telor, the crispy tofu really makes all the difference.
One word of warning, since this is an indonesian restaurant, most of the dishes that they whip out are spicy. Those dishes that I ordered were so spicy I had to be forced to drink the bottle of mineral water(which they charge money again and the only water that they offer) that they placed on the table together with the appetizer and towels. However, they were really kind enough if you do not want to drink the water, use the tower or eat the appetizer, they would not charge money for those. Ambience there is great, cosy with a minature house on the table with a candle. Music they played on that day was classical and they even have a fake coconut tree in the middle of the restaurant. Most of the customers there were malays, so it could only mean that the restaurant is quite authentic. :)
Labels: Food
8:30 PM.....ILWXB
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Oh yah, back to the Settler's Cafe. The place was kind of cosy WHEN I first arrived and sat down with my friends before pondering upon their very interesting BUT absolutely messy menu which looks exactly like a monopoly board game. It really took us quite some time to figure out what the menu is trying to convey after turning it 180 degrees right and left plus some explanation from the waitress.
They really have what they stated, almost 120+ board games and card games for anyone old or young. However, we had a really hard time finding a 7-player board/card game for ourselves. Most of their games only restricted the number of players to 5. So during that 4 hours we had in the cafe, we only got to play 3 games of which only one was more entertaining. Service was bad after 2 hours in the cafe as more people came in and ambience went straight down to zero with screaming working-class ladies at the next table. We got so bored with our third game that we kept pondering what they were playing. -_-"
Overall, I think it's best to visit the place during weekdays. Weekends seems like a no no as there will be so many people going and due to their lack of manpower, the customers will be due to suffer. One thing I had to respect is that the waiters and waitresses really have a broad knowledge of every game they have in the cafe. I mean, it's 120+ board/card games! How to remember everything? I guess maybe they went on a crash course and played every single game available. Another thing to comment is that the guy who explained to us the three games that we played simply doesn't know how to use a digital camera. He pressed the button so sharply and didn't even wait for the camera to focus! I mean, analogue cameras also use double-pressure buttons! Man, the group photo he took was really blur. :( One more thing, they seemed really poor at keeping track of our orders and miss a couple of things in the bill. LOL Heard from ZR that they always do that. Wonder if that's on purpose.
Had a REALLY cosy steam boat buffet in Chinatown after Settler's Cafe. How to explain to cosiness..... Hmmmz, I think this picture should explain it better than a million words from me. Well, you see, I am really poor at writing stuff. So here it is.
The place is the upstairs of the steamboat restaurant. It just looks so much like as if we were eating at someone's house(in this case, Mr anonymous's house because throughout dinner we were asking whether he could on the hifi and tv in his house which was just next to the table). The food was okay, some meat balls, tofu skins, prawns and occasional usual stuff which you always find in steam boat buffets. Drinks like chinese tea and cordial were free-flow, but I must warn you to add more ice because their cordials are so damn sweet! We have yuan yang steam boat, which was a simply two different soups in one pot, namely the Ma la(really spicy stuff) and the chicken soup. The auntie was rather nice to us, mixing seven bowls of her "SPECIAL" sauce (which tasted spicy sour, which was nice)for us. Only after which she exposed her fox's tail for her "special" treatment when she tried to persuade us to eat the fried ice cream which she was earning commission for in the restaurant. 7 of us as kind-hearted souls of course didn't reject her offer and order 6 assorted flavours of the fried stuff as dessert. Well, since there were 7 of us, the moment dessert came, we armed ourselves with forks and plunged into a fried ice cream battle. One thing really funny is when ZR tried to poke AND slice that yam flavoured one. The moment he poked it, the melted yam ice cream oozed out from what looked like the A** of the fried stuff. It was so funny that the 7 of us laugh so hard our bloated stomaches were about to burst. Chinatown has never been the same anymore. There were many tourists around and even techno music filling the streets. For a moment I thought I was back in boat quay. But nevertheless, it still has the shophouses outlook and some nice sceneric to take photos of.
7:23 PM.....ILWXB
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7:10 PM.....ILWXB
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8:21 PM.....ILWXB
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