Buckaroo BBQ & Grill

Time flies fast, today 31st December marks the last day of year 2009 and almost everyone is preparing for the countdown to welcome another brand new head start of the year 2010. In order to avoid the New Year crowds, we decided to have our celebration dinner one day ahead. Since we prefer to eat at somewhere nearer instead of going to the town, we decided to settle our dinner at Buckaroo BBQ and Grill.

Had about this place a few years back when my mum used to patronise their food with her boss and colleagues. Buckaroo is sort of a typical American restaurant that is located at Andrews Avenue near Sembawang Park. You can take Bus No. 882 from Sembawang Bus Interchange which you can drop at the bus-stop near Sembawang Park around 1st Car park Entrance. They opens from Wednesday to Monday from 4.30pm to 10.30pm.

Since they have a very good reviews from magazine and media on their special Buffalo Wings, we decide to get it a try too. Base on the recommendation of the waiter, we order half dozen of Grade 2 spiciness wings with 1 normal for the kid. According to the menu, they have 3 different level of spiciness for their Buffalo Wings. For your information, Buffalo wings are often fried chicken wings that are coated with special sauce. This sauce can be made with a variable amount of spiciness corresponding to the level of heat, such as mild, medium, or hot. The main ingredients in the sauce are a vinegar-based cayenne pepper hot sauce and butter.

This is the Grade 1 Buffalo Wing which does not have any sauce coated onto it. The outer skin of the wing is very crispy and overall the chicken is very well marinated with the herbs and spices. From what we see, we guess that the different between each Grade of spiciness might be due to how much sauce the wings have being coated with. Which means, the more sauce, the more spiciness it is. The price of this Buffalo Wings might be slight higher at S$18.80 for half a dozen which mean around $3 per wing, but if this suits your tastebud, I am sure it will be worth for the cost.

Look at this, isn't it gorgeous! It has always being in our thoughts to try Escargot after our last taste many years back. And so happening, when we saw this appetizer appears on the menu list, we decided to order without much hesitate. To our delight, this appetizer is great with the combination of butter garlic sauce and addition herbs and mashed potato. This is indeed worth the price of S$16.80 for half a dozen.

After the appetizer and finger food, here comes our Main Course for tonight. We are having this Medium Well done Beef Tenderloin with Mushroom Sauce that served with Bake Potato and Mixed Vegetables. The Tenderloin is juicy and nicely done to our liking and it really taste great with the Mushroom Sauce which infuse with a little buttery taste when you eat it.

Afterall, we think the food served in this restuarant is of their standard depending on what you ordered and what is your preference of liking. If you want to find a new and cosy place for gathering, drinks and maybe have a try of those Buffalo Wings. Maybe you can give this place a try, but the price of the food and drinks might be a bit towards the higher side even though it is not a High class restuarant. So do take note when you place your order :)

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Ichiban Sushi @ Plaza Singapura

Ichiban Sushi has a about 8 branches around different parts of Singapore. They provide fresh sashimi, sushi from Nigiri, Temaki handroll to the unusual Kaminabe paper steamboat, hot-pots and other palatable varieties that sure to capture the tastebubs of you and your family members/friends.

Since it is during lunch hour, I ordered one of their lunch special called "Nikotofu Gozen" at S$16.90 per set. This set consists of Beet & Tofu in Hotpot, Teriyaki (Honey Sesame) Chicken Don, Assorted Seafood Tempura, a bowl of Miso soup and slice fruits.

Their Teriyaki Chicken Don that comes with the above set taste great and the chicken is not overcooked and too dry when consumed. The teriyaki sauce is goes well with the rice and it's not too sweet/salty.

The Beef & Tofu hotpot is being cooking in flavourful broth with tender beef slices, tofu and egg. The mixture is being cooked over a small flame below the hotpot and the dish is kept hot to maintain it's flavour. Em... but personally, I find the broth a bit too salty if it is to eat alone without the rice.

Lastly we choose this for our dessert...... I remember clearly during my late teens to early twenties, Fiesta is one of the early pioneer Japanese restaurants established in 1991 that introducing sushi on conveyor belt. As most of my classmate and I are a big fan of their Fiesta cheesecake we will always get together to patronise their restaurant to eat their cheesecake. And today, Rey and I are so happy to see the new version of this "Mini Fiesta" Cheesecake which is fluffy and light to it's taste and it is available on Ichiban Sushi conveyor belt @ S$2.10 each.

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Sakae @ Orchard Central

Christmas is a wonderful time to spend with friends and family to enjoy a feast while at the same time admiring the Christmas decoration and lighting along Orchard area. This year there are a lot of interesting design Christmas Tree in or outside the shopping mall of Orchard road. Today we are going to have our dinner at the newly open Sakae outlet at Orchard Central. As usual this outlet brings out an fresh and bright outlook which brighten up the whole dinning atmosphere.

From the menu, we order Root Beer which to our surprised comes in glass bottle form which is almost obsolete compare to the usual can drinks that we used to see nowsaday. Seeing this drink serves in glass bottle really brings back some of our childhood memories....... And before we went back, Rey also grab another new "Froggy Cushion" from Sakae which he used it as his supporting pillow......

For the starter, we had Asari Miso Soup which is just nice and cosy for the raining weather outside. The soup is nice and full of flavour while the Clams are just nicely cooked which brings out it's sweetness.

These Renkon Chips (lotus root chips) is one of Rey's favourite. But the chip that served in this outlet seems to be a bit different from the other outlets. As you can see from the photo, the chips seems to be a bit soggy, and it doesn't taste light and crispy from those that we had tried before. I think it is either being soak in the oil for too long or the quality of the lotus root is different.

Although Ebiko Sushi is not a must in our list, we will still pick it up on and off whenever we find that it is fresh from the conveyor belt. I am sure you will get to fall in love with those tiny, bouncy and juicy egg roe that is served on top of the wrapped sushi rice.

The Potato Salad at Sakae is always one of my desire choice whenever I feel like having some cold Salad dish. The mashed potato is smooth and tasty with some addition of carrot cubes. It is served together with some salad green as well as some crispy deep-fried "Salmon Skin" if I am not wrong.

Lastly, we sure can't go without Rey's favourite Ebi Tempura, but today we have ordered the Tempura Moriawse instead of all prawns. Tempura Moriawse consists of a mixture of Prawns, Imitation Crabstick, Mushroom, Capsicum and etc. The combination of the mix vegetables will varies from time to time depend on the availability.

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AZUR @ Crowne Plaza Hotel

Christmas Season is around the corner, and this is always a wonderful time for family members to get around together to have meal and at the same time update on each others latest progress. Since this weekend, Church service is at Indoor stadium, we decided to go for an High-Tea Buffet at Changi Airport, T3.

Azur is located on the 2nd level of the Lobby Lounge of the Crowne Plaza at Changi Airport Terminal 3. It has two show kitchens with chefs serving the best of the Eastern and Western international cuisines. The environment and layout is great for family gathering of food and chat.

The High-Tea Buffet starts from 12.30pm to 4.00pm. You can choose from finger foods like deep-fry fish fillet to spices chicken drumlets to Japanese Ramen. Or you might fancy some of their cold seafood like prawn, crayfish and mussels.

I am those who will always go for the dessert section in any buffet instead of the main eatery. I love to try out all kind of their special in-house dessert. Since now is festive season, they are having some Christmas Pudding and Pumpkin Logcake. Out of the local Singapore Kueh and dessert, we love the Durian Pengat(which is sort of like durian puree mixed with coconut milk and coconut sugar). This is sure a great dessert for the day for those Durian lover like us. Other than Durian Pengat, there is this Mango & Passion fruit gel/jelly that caught our attention. It has a very light and refreshing taste and Mum alone can take about 5 portions of this.

Since this is a High-Tea Buffet, you can see a lot of different kind of Nonya Kueh in the pictures. But personally I still perfect the western cakes and pudding, especially during this Christmas Season.

We also managed to take a few shots of these cute little Christmas Cookies and Gingerbread Man house. My son was so thrill when he saw all these cute goodies. I think this is really a good time for kids to enjoy with food and gifts.

Overall, the food served at Azur is of their standard and with Citibank Credit Card, you will still enjoy a 20% discount over the total bill.

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The Pasta Shop By Sakae

The Pasta Shop at Wheelock Place branch is one of the sister company own by the popular sushi chain restaurant - Sakae Sushi. Since we are at Orchard area doing our last minutes Christmas Gifts shopping, we decided to pop-in and to try some of their chef recommended items.

As readers of my blogs, you will know that I simply love all kinds of soup. So whenever I visit any restaurant, I will sure order one of their soup. For today, I ordered their Clam Chowder soup which cost around S$7.90 per bowl. The texture of the soup was great and i not over powder by the taste of the clam chowder. And the bread sticks goes just well with the soup so I guess this is worth trying :)

We ordered two plates of pasta dish, one is the TPS Carbonara served in Wafu cream sauce with crispy bacon and sunny-side up egg. The taste of the sauce was great, it was slightly infused with the fragrance of the bacon and left it with a kind of smokey taste. The sunny-side up egg is so nicely done that it adds extra points to the dish as well as the overall appearance.

Rey choose this "Japanese Style - Braised Five Flower Pork Burger" from the menu list because he was aiming at the fries and bread......... While I was eying on the "Braised Pork Belly". When the manager placed the burger on the table, we will so shock. The burger was "HUGE", it was about 1.5 times or slightly bigger than the usual fast food burger that we use to have. The homemade bread was soft and nice, but we still find that the braised pork can be more soften as in and full of that special favour that melt in the mouth.

There are really too many selection to choose from the menu, so after much thinking and selecting, we settle for this chef recommendation of the Japanese Style Tsuyu Cream Sauce with Sea Urchin, Salmon Roe and Squid topped with extra shredded nori sheet. The waitress was very kind and thoughtful that she actually let us know before confirming our order that the 3 main ingredients are all RAW. Personally, this is our very first time trying out Sea Urchin(also known as Uni), and the most challenging part is we have to eat this raw........ But at least, we took the courage to try it out and it has a very strong aroma and taste which might not be acceptable by most people.

As for refreshing, we ordered a cup of coffee and this Yuzu Ice Blended. Yuzu (柚子) has an aromatic zest that is used for garnishing some dishes or bakes while its juice is commonly used as a seasoning, somewhat like the way the lemon is used in other cuisines. This Yuzu Ice Blended has a very refreshing and fragrance taste that can "washed" away the grease of those creamy pasta and pork belly that we consumed :p And they also topped this drink with some fresh cut Aloe Vera to enhance the texture.

If love western pasta, you might wish to give this Japanese-style pasta shop a visit and try out their way of preparing these mouth-watering pasta dishes.

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Hup Chong Yong Dao Foo

Those who stays around Toa Payoh Lorong 2, or working either around Yellow Pages Building or Singapore Press Holdings might have tried this famous Hak Ka Yong Dao Foo. According to those friends who have tried, they all comment that the soup is nice and the handmade ingredients are fresh and worth the waiting time. So perhaps next round when you are near Braddell MRT area, you can try this stall at Block 116, #01-148, Toa Payoh Lorong 2.

The stall located at the right end corner in the coffee shop and you can find a range of homemade yong dao foo arranged nicely on the shelf. On and off you can see people queuing up to pick their ingredients and everyone have to wait for at least 20 minutes or so during lunch/dinner hours for a good bowl of Yong Dao Foo here.

I have heard a lot of good review about their soup and their specialty items. The must tries are the deep fried meatball and they special homemade "ngoh hiang". So without much delay, I order a set of Soup with Rice and another set of dry version with yellow noodle.

Overall the soup base is great is full of flavour and kind of sweet due to the adding of Ikan Bilis, Soy Bean and etc. And their special homemade "ngoh hiang" really taste different from those that is serve in other stall as their filling is smooth, soft and tasty.

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New Shopping Malls @ Orchard Road

Recently there are a few new shopping malls coming up along Orchard Road area and the newest is the 313 @ Somerset. Look at the crowds that are gathering outside the mall during weekend evening. Everyone seems to be attracted to this newly open mall and the largest Food Republic outlet including 21 stalls and 5 mini-restaurants which is situated on Level 5.

Within the shopping mall itself, you can see that each level is packed with crowds and just as when we walked past the newly opened UNI QLO (a leading Japan's Number One casual wear) boutique, we are shocked to see a long queue o people waiting to go into the store and grab their desire items.

For just a short walking distance away from 313 @ Somerset, there is another new shopping mall known as Orchard Central. Upon looking at the building from across the street, you can see the outdoor balconies which located at the 11 storey of the mall that overlook Orchard Road and they are mainly designed for outdoor seating of the F&B outlets. Other than the outdoor balconies, they also have special "jewel box" which is a glass-fronted shop that hang in mid-air outside the premises.

I ON Orchard is directly above the Orchard MRT, and it gets its name from the phrase "I ON ORCHARD". It consists of over 300 retail, F&B and entertainment stores, which will include six of the world’s top luxury brands building their signature flagships in duplex units fronting Orchard Road. There is this double-storey observation deck located on the 55 th and 56th floors known as ION Sky.

So if you have not being to the shopping district at Orchard Road for a long while, do pop by one of this shopping mall and join in the atmosphere of this coming Christmas Sale and Holiday decoration.

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