Two Chefs Eating Place At Blk 116 Commonwealth Drive

To celebrate Ashley's birthday, we went to Blk 116 Commonwealth Drive to have Zhi Char on a Saturday.. It was my first visit to this Zhi Char place called Two Chefs Eating place, located in a coffeeshop..I remember this place was featured in Channel 8 Sizzling Woks (煮炒来咯) show. 

The place was quite packed and there were also many people queuing up... Luckily Mike called in for reservation so we do not have to wait quite long.. Although there were many customers, food were served very fast, the staff started to serve us the dishes around 10 minutes later. I guess all the customers ordered more or less the same dishes, so the chefs cook in bulk, or that they have many many chefs in their kitchen ...

The popular dish is the butter pork ( which was also featured in the Sizzling Woks) but it failed to impress some of us.. but Mike and Yuhui like the dish alot, they came here a few times already... We find it quite sweet to our tasting.... the white milky stuff is like milk powder.. ( I dont really fancy this dish, maybe the normal pork ribs will be better) 

We had baked salted prawns which tasted like chilli tapioca chips. ( Imagine eating prawns coated with a gravy that tastes like chilli tapioca chips!) I also dont find it nice, think it will be better if we order deep fried oat prawns. We even asked the staff if they had served us the wrong dish, how can baked salted prawns taste like that?? The you tiao also so so, just that they scattered some pork floss on top of the you tiao before serving to us..

Heard that the cold cockles are very popular..It is served cold,as the chefs already seasoned the cockles in some special sauces and garlic, to neutralise the bloody taste and add some exciting flavors to the cockles.. I prefer my cockles to be well-cooked, I tried one piece but do not really like..Yuhui ate the whole plate by herself since the rest of us do not take cockles.. she was very happy and kept raving about how nice the cockles tasted, even if its 2 plates, she also can polish off... (LOL) Maybe if you are a cockles-lover, you will appreciate the dish!

Out of the 7 dishes we ordered, what I like most is the curry fish head, sourness and spicyness just nice...we even ordered 10 man tous to eat with the gravy.. The aunt served us the wrong tofu dish, but we just accepted it...

There is really nothing special about this popular Zhi Char stall, except that the prices are reasonable.. The 6 of us paid $80 for the above 7 dishes,10 man tous and 6 bowls of rice. I will not travel all the way down to Commonwealth to eat at this zhi char stall. Nothing really wow me, or made me want to eat again..

By the way, the hawker centre besides Blk 116 serves very nice desserts like the traditional green bean soup with coconut and sago pearls, and cheng teng..but its like open in the mornings/early afternoons only.

Here is part of the menu, can see that the prices are quite cheap..




















Two Chefs Eating Place is located:

Blk 116
Commonwealth Drive
#01-129
Tel: 64725361

Celebrating Jeffrey's Birthday @ La Zi Mei & The Mind Cafe

Last friday (29th Jan), we celebrated Jeffrey's birthday (quite last min I should say) . first we met at Vivocity but all the steamboat restaurants (the one besides Daiso and Jpot) were all full house.. I was telling them confirm need to book as these 2 always full house .. Jpot seem to increase its set menu prices)

Anyway, we went to bugis since Jeffrey seem like he wanted steamboat... the guys reached first and they chose this shop called la zi mei ( just opposite Shaw)

I ate a lot of sliced beef and sweet corn.. We chose fish, chicken and tom yam soup as our soup bases.. Personally I prefer the tom yam soup base out of the 3, because it just taste right like tom yam... Ingredients nothing special.. but they have quite a number of sauces for us to mix, abit like Jpot concept.. of course the sauces are not displayed in nice bowls and does not come with any special instructions on how to mix Jpot special sauce... ( Of course, the ambiene at Jpot is much much better even though we were seated in the air-conditioned section at La Zi Mei)

It cost $18 each, inclusive of $3 free flow drinks ( can choose fruit punch, lime and water chestnut) One jug of drinks cost $6 and we had 4 jugs .. so still ok..

Conclusion: La Zi Mei is just average for a steamboat buffet..

Next we proceed to The Mind Cafe at Purvis Street.. This was my second time visiting such a cafe.. my first visit was at Settler's cafe about 1-2 years back.

We ordered the package A which considered of 1 drink ( free flow) and 1 hour of games ..with additional hour charged at $3.50.

^ Ah Guan told the staff to recommend easy to play game for the 9 of us.. and he recommended us Saboteur .. All the 9 of us never played this game before but we tried playing since the staff was there to guide us through the whole game.. think without the staff's explanation, it was really pretty tough to understand how to play the game..

Actually its really a simple game, and quite fun to play ... I find it more interesting if we draw a Saboteur card ( the bad guy) The role of the saboteur is to prevent the good guys from laying paths to find the gold.

All the good guys will corporate and lay the paths to find the gold.. (hidden in one of the 3 cards at the other end) while the bad guys (saboteurs) will team up and try all means to explode the pathways and block the good guys to lay the path...

We all had fun playing this card game.. but we were quite disappointed with the staff because they purposely served us the free flow drink after 45minutes .. He said the 1 hour of game started when he took our order at 11.50pm.. but the drink came at 12.45am.. we were telling him that its not fair for us, how to have free flow drinks within 15mins.. then he said he will start the time at 12am.. then in the end, he said 12.15am.. but because we were hooked on playing Saboteur that we extended another hour.. and left at 2am..

I think to be fair for customers, I think the 1 hour should start when the drinks are being served and not when the order was taken. The service was pretty good ( because the staff was patience and friendly in explaining and teaching us how to play the card game).. but just that they purposely served the drinks at such a late hour, so that we would extend playing time .. Is it their strategy all these while??

The total bill came to $110++ for 9 pax.. ( including a brownie ice cream which was pretty good to be honest...but we just not happy why the drinks were served so late, although in the end, we left after 2 hours from the time the staff took our order)

And after we foot the bill, there was a dice game ( the total number out of 2 dices) to determine our prize for the next visit, prizes include free munchies, one hour of free games, 15% off, $5 off etc... then for a total of 13, the prize is 1 year of free games at Mind Cafe.. we asked the staff how can 2 dices totalled to 13 and guess what he said.. he said its a joke!! KNS.. I dont think its funny!

Think we can just go and buy a pack of Saboteur and play to our hearts' contents at Jeffrey's place..

Tao's Resturant @ Paradiz Centre

19th Dec ( Sat) , noon..

My friends celebrated my birthday ( in advance) at Tao's Restuarant @ Paradiz Centre. I was asked where I wanted to celebrate, and I chose Tao's Restaurant.. My very first time eating at Tao's Restaurant...and I should say its pretty value for money for the quality and selection of food/drinks, we got to choose 1 item each out of the 6 categories ( except the starter which is the bacon & mushroom gratin).. Most of the food were quite nice...

Starters:

 

 ^ Bacon & Mushroom Gratin

^( Gratin is served with nice warm toasted bread)

Salads:

^ Smoked Salmon ( I ordered this, but I think the rest of the salads were better..coz there was nothing special about this)

^ Fruit Salad ( A few us had this.. and I find it quite nice. although its a fruit salad, it was topped with a layer of crab meat)

^ Prawn Roll With Pork Floss.. ( this was quite nice)

Soups:

^ Cream of Mushroom ( this was thick, creamy and very mushroom-ey taste.. nice! definitely not those can type)

^ Double boiled shark fin melon herbal soup ( This soup may not look nice, but its surprisingly not bad.. although I did not find any shark fin, its still a nice and flavourful light soup )

Main Courses:

^ from top ( clockwise): Spicy Stingray ( this was quite a big serving, and the stingray was indeed quite spicy) , marinated lamb cutlet, grilled snapper with japanese sauce, eel served with a small bowl of rice.. The 12 of us like got ordered all the main dishes... and I chose the grilled snapper with japanese sauce.. quite nice, will be better if there was more teriyaki sauce, I also had a bit of the rest, all quite nice.. and their award winning pork ribs was indeed nice, the meat was quite tender and yummy.

Beverages:

All the ice teas we had were quite refreshing, I also had a sip of all the teas.. the ice teas were served in pots so we can easily shared our teas.. I like the most is ice summer peach tea.. It gave me a summer feel after drinking! ( I think it was chamomile in it) .. The staff said their most popular tea was ice rose apple, it tasted more of rose than apple.. not bad, a light refreshing drink...

Desserts:

I ordered Tiramisu which I find the biscuits/cake in it should be soften.. the creame brulee was smooth and sweetness just right ( not very sweet type)

A big thank you to all my friends who celebrated my birthday with me,.. thank you for the nice treats and special birthday cakes... I enjoyed all your company and had a wonderful day!

National Day Preview - 1st Aug 2009

After fr3b event, I went home to put my stuffs and slept.. it was quite tired as I did not sleep the whole night.. My aunt came to fetch us and parked her at Marina Square, luckily we managed to find parking lots.. We were seated around 5pm+ .. and it was already 80% filled with people..


It has been a couple of years since I last watched National day live.. but this is my very first time watching it at the floating platform.. My mum, aunt and a little cute boy were also their very first time watching.. Overall I do dine this year's performance quite good, as in they made use of the surroundings ( like the waters) to do some performance, like how the police track down criminals in the sea etc.. There were also marina wave challenge against Subaru STI racing car and Harley Davidson bikes..

I enjoyed most parts of the show, but of course I like the fireworks which started to explode in the air around 8.20pm..

The last massive burst of fireworks..

Had a wonderful evening watching the national day preview! (",)

This year goodie bag, I meant the bag itself, is actually quite versatile, we can even pull off the sponsor logos and make it into a plain bag.. ( at first I did not know that the bag is so versatile because as I was walking down the stairs, I saw all sort of combination colors, yes the bag can even inter change colors.. but i saw a few with plain looking bags, at first I thought they brought their own bags, then later realise how come so many more brought their own plain bags, then I noticed even my goodie bag can be transformed into a plain bag. ( good to use when you go travelling, swimming to the beach.. ) If they put logos, think most of us wont carry out right??.. but if we are able to take out the logos, its still not to bad, at least the bag look much better without the logos.. think next time they should make such bags so that people wont chuck them one side after the National day..

Haha, I even saw 1 man ( he was one of the staff though) carrying a pink goodie bag, but pink color quite rare, maybe its Limited edition colors .. I did not see any red, also no white.. Got light blue, dark blue, green, orange, purple, pink, yellow, ( cannot remember what other colors)