Restaurant Week, 2013 edition: Violet Oon's Kitchen

It was Restaurant Week once again in Oct. Even though I had my priority booking, I wasn't keen to try out any restaurants. Then itchy fingers me decided to try my luck when booking was made available to the public. I wasn't looking for anything in particular - more of browsing and if anything fits my slot, then it must be fate! Before I knew it, I had made reservations for 3 restaurants, oops! 

Our first stop was Violet Oon's Kitchen. Nestled along Bukit Timah Road, locating this place was a breeze (all thanks to my trusty google map on iphone!). We arrived earlier, but were promptly ushered into the restaurant with a smile.

 Violet Oon was known as a food columnist before being appointed as a food ambassador by Singapore Tourism Board. Through her travels, she brought home a rich knowledge of cuisines discovered aboard and married those gems with her beloved native Singaporean cuisine. 

While I was expecting a more traditional Peranakan decor, I was surprised to be greeted with a clean black and white decor instead.

Drinks selection, which we didn't try :( The Ka Gua sure looked  interesting :)

I love it when there is fresh flower on every table! I have always contemplated on getting fresh flowers for the house, but never got around to doing it. Haiz, must procrastinate less so I can get more things done heh.

Leecher with the ala carte menu, when we are ordering from the set menu - extra leh! 

Say hello to the new Mrs Lim - his new Samsung Note 3. I think he was more excited over getting a new phone than marrying the REAL Mrs Lim, lol! Kept showing me the new functions while I just rolled my eyes as I find it extremely difficult to use.

We started with Vietnamese Prawn Summer Rolls served with Chilli & Hoisin sauce. The skin was chewy BUT beansprouts tasted raw. I was expecting spicy chilli, but it tasted mild in reality.

Leecher ordered Kuay Pie Tee ($18) from their ala carte menu. My my, these were extremely good! Julienne of bamboo shoot and turnip poached in a rich prawn bisque served in a deep fried "top hat" patty, topped with prawn. This was quite a different rendition from the usual kuay pie tee that are sold outside. Recommended!

 There were 3 options to choose for main course - we settled for Buah Keluak Pasta & Beef Rendang. Buah Keluak Pasta was fried with garlic and chilli tossed in spaghetti. This was da-domb! I'm still not a fan of Buah Keluak, but the spiciness was a tad overwhelming for me. This was the kind of spiciness I was looking for :) Leecher was debating b/w having Beef Rendang or Kerabu Fish, but eventually settled for beef rendang. Beef was soft and tender that it simply melts in your mouth - nothing spectacular though.

With newly crowned Mrs Lim again once we finished our main course. 

 

Testing out Leecher's camera on the new phone. 

Ended the meal with desserts - kuay beng kah (tapioca cake) and bubor cha cha panna cotta.

The sky turned dark by the time we left the place. I would love to be back for their brunch menu if time permits :) 

Violet Oon's Kitchen

881 Bukit Timah Road

Singapore 279893

Tel: 6468 5430

Opening Hours: 11.30am till 10pm, closed on Monday.

Fukuichi Japanese Restaurant

 Tier-1-friend-Boss-Khim "mandated" us to head out for a dinner session, so we were coerced to meet for dinner @ Orchard. Yaozu kindly made reservations at Fukuichi Japanese Restaurant, located at TripleOne Somerset. I seldom go to Orchard nowadays, so I tend to get a bit confused with TripleOne/313/Orchard Central. At times, I would mixed them up and ended up walking in circles just to locate the shop.  

 Reservation booked for 8pm, but as usual ... you'll only spot 3 early birds

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Leecher & Yaozu plus me behind the camera. If we were to have a fine for latecomers, I'm pretty sure we know who are the biggest contributors, heh.

The restaurant has a 150 seating capacity that encompasses a Sushi Bar, Tatami Room, VIP Room and a Sake Wine Bar nestled in an outdoor terrace overlooking a tree-lined boulevard. We went for al fresco dining as we couldn't get a table inside.

Kenneth dear finally arrived! 

Before his buttocks even touched the seat, he ordered us to order sake, heh! Alcoholic at heart - the large bottle that Boss EK insisted to order, claiming that it will only take us awhile to finish. Thankfully, this bottle lasted us the whole dinner.

We started with sashimi & salmon sushi. Thick slices of salmon that simply melts in your mouth, yummy! 

 Tomorokoshi Kakiage ($15), my fave since I love anything that comes with corn. Almond Ebi Tempura ($22) was coated full of almond and fried to perfection. The only grouse - tempura was too tiny! Fugu Mirin Boshi ($15) is actually blowfish seasoned with sweet sake - this tasted just like cuttle-fish. Add in a dip of mayonnaise for the added taste.  

With Priscilla :) Meiqin had to work, so she couldn't make it for dinner. 

From clock-wise: Hotate Garlic Yaki ($32) - Scallop with butter and garlic, Gyuniku Fagura Sauce ($35) - Grilled Beef with Foie Gras Sauce, Ebi Shitake Tempura ($12) - fried shitake mushrooms (my personal fave!) and Gyuniku Hoba Yaki ($38) - beef served on a "hoba" leaf.

EK has developed the habit of photo-bombing nowadays, lol! 

 We were pretty full by the time we finished dinner.

I wanted to take a selfie outside the restaurant, then these 2 guys insisted on squeezing into the pic with me, haha. 

Not to be outdone, Pris & Leecher had their "couple" shot across the corridor. 

We then adjourned to Mac @ Scape, for I was still craving for french fries and a cuppa of hot tea. Meiqin came over to join us after closing shop. We lingered for a while more to chit chat & the usual parting pics :) 

Fukuichi Japanese Dining

111 Somerset Road

TripleOne Somerset #02-11/12

Singapore 238164

Tel: 6271 5586

Junior Chefs @ Work II - Aug Edition

This has got to be the shortest Junior Chefs @ work edition. Leecher was in-camp for almost 3 weeks & I had to rely on packed food or home-cooked food from our parents to survive. Gosh, I sure miss Leecher whipping out meals in the kitchen! Thankfully, he gets to book out on Fridays & weekends, so I won't starve to death, heh.

We used to have our dinner at the dining table, but over the months, it was filled up with all sorts of stuff that there wasn't enough space for eating, lol! I'm guilty of this mess, unfortunately. Thus, now we'll have our meals at the coffee table in the living room. Though the area is small, it was enough to the 2 of us.

Mummy dearest provided us with fresh fish from the market & told Leecher to steam it. Being a teochew, I love steamed fishes - the fish tasted so sweet & fresh that we had to fight over it, lol! Leecher's first attempt at making 卤肉. Though it was abit salty, it was good enough for his virgin try :) 

 Since there was leftover 卤汁, we headed to the supermarket near our place and bought some ingredients to put in - my fave 3-layer fatty meat and beancurd. The 卤味 tasted better every time we added new ingredients in.

Eggs for breakfast :) Whenever we stayed at home during the weekends, Leecher will make breakfast (at my request!). The simplest dish would be eggs and Leecher will always combine it with whatever he can find from the fridge. Sometimes, you get egg+prawns omelette while on other days, you get scrambled eggs with mushroom.

We normally get our supply of soup from mummy dearest. Recently, Leecher also attempted brewing soups, yay! I always welcome it whenever Leecher tries something new since it'll normally means more food, lol! However, he still couldn't grasp the techniques of brewing soups :( His fave ingredient for soup - onions & potatoes! We ended up with a lot of potatoes at home, which lead him to put on his thinking caps and came up with the below 

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Home-made rosti! He painstakingly cut the potato into slices using a knife for we don't have a shredder at home. I helped out for a while before calling it quits, lol! I requested for rosti with mushroom & the dearest made it come true *throws confetti into the air, yeah*

 We had rosti over 2 weekends for there were too much potatoes in the house. Now that I'm blogging about this, I actually missed eating these rosti. Maybe it's time I put a bag of potatoes into the grocery basket, heh.

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