Saturday, January 29, 2011

MELLBEN SEAFOOD @ AMK

Our 2nd visit in a month. Crab overdose.. not :P

YuSheng
Our starter, Lo Hei!! They added mandarin sacs (and I thought I tasted pomelo sacs too), combi was great!

Sambal Kangkong
For chilli-lovers, ordering Sambal Kangkong has quite become habitual, ya? The fiery spice in this dish won't disappoint.


Braised Toufu topped with floss & mushrooms
Oh, this was very nice (pardon me, forgot to shove the toppings aside for a better pic of the toufu). I absolutely love toufu, and I am sure I can polish up the whole plate.


 I have no idea the name of the above fish, but for all steamed fishy dishes, freshness is the key to yums. And this definitely didn't fail us.


Salted egg coated pork ribs
This was highly recommended by my sis L and though it does not look very appetizing, it sure was finger licking good. Wish they had used meatier ribs instead, I was practically chewing through the bones into the marrow.

Butter Crabs
Tadah #1.... Mellben's signature Butter Crab! We duck away from the usual chilli crab and drool over this dish instead. The sauce was seriously sinfully delish. I was happily slurping the oh-so-buttery sauce and sacrificing my waistline in the name of good food .


Claypot Crab Bee Hoon in Milky Broth
 Tadah #2.. Their other signature dish, Claypot Crab Bee Hoon. Seems like every table at the coffeeshop had 1. After hearing all the raves & woo-ahs about this dish which seems to have gotten everyone bowled over, I went with very HIGH expections. But alas, the result was not quite what I had in mind.
I am not saying the bee hoon is not nice, it just didn't not give me the oomph feeling.
I felt it was like a very milky laksa minus the chilli. The soup tasted nice but just not robust enough.
And the crab we got that day was a bit under nourished.
In a nutshell, I like it, but not love it.


Icing Room DIY cake
Ash adores The Icing Room.. and at every little opportunity we get, she wanna head there for the DIY cake.
We made this in celebration of a birthday + CNY (see those mandarin oranges?) and though the taste of the cake doesn't quite score, it was the decorating process that the kids enjoyed (:

Sunday, January 2, 2011

MANPUKU JAPANESE GOURMET TOWN @ tampines 1

I deem this as a Japanese foodcourt, though the tagline is Japanese Gourmet Town. Didn't have many pics coz everyone ordered and ate before I was back to get trigger happy : S
I ONLY manage to snap my sashimi + the fruit tart.

Fruit Paradise Tart Shop
This looks so good yet so intimidating to cut. The tart is assembled with a biscuity tart base holding, a layer of sponge cake, custard cream, cheese cream, fresh cream and heaps (really heaps) of strawberries. Just looking at the list of cream in the ingredients, one might think anything more than 2 scoops of this tart will result in revulsion. I am not exactly creamy-cake incline, and hesitated when I was offered a slice. Everyone had 1, I can't say no, eh?
I was.... pleasantly surprised, and I had a second slice for brekkie the next day.


We ordered the whole tart, had the guy at the counter cut it up for us and he actually served us each wedge on a porcelain plate (not plastic or paper) decorated with choc/strawberry syrup swirls.
ps: Its no big hoo-ha, but I was surprise at the service rendered from a "foodcourt" but then again, this was a $80 tart, so I guess they better leave a good impression :P

This was the sashimi I had, which made me wait a good 20mins. It was nice, but nothing that wows me though.