Zaffron Kitchen - Katong

Hi guys!!! I can't believe its Sunday again!!! I hope everyone has had a good weekend!

I'll be doing a review on a Northern Indian Restaurant today and I'm pretty sure all you Northern Indian food fans will be happy with this review. For those of you who has never tried Northern Indian food, I encourage you to give it a shot, because its fabulous!

Tiff and I met at Katong this time round (we agreed to alternate the locations of our dates between the East and the West since I stay in the West and Tiff stays in the East-I really like that idea because we get to explore more food places). So anyway, we headed down to Zaffron Kitchen along East Coast Road. 

We were both pretty hungry when we arrived (what's new right? lol) so it didn't take long for us to place our orders. I let Tiff do the ordering because she has been there before and knew what was good. 

They also do weekday set lunches, but we didn't order that.

Some photos of the interior:

A modern twist to a Northern Indian Restaurant.

See that little hut at the end? Its a kids play area, very cute!

Spices on display.

Round tables for families. 

Popcorn for the kids! How awesome is that? 

Be NAAN the wiser (:

The service crew wear aprons with crazy phases on them such as....

"The devil wears PRATA"!!! 

Laugh out Loud right?

Too bad I didn't manage to take a picture of the aprons!

Our order.

Our drinks came first - Ice Limau ($4). Yup, I just realised that I've forgotten to take a picture of our Ice Limau. It must have been because we were busy talking!

After a short wait, our food arrived (YAY!!!)

Butter Chicken ($13.50) - Chicken Tikka marinated in a delightful yogurt and spice mixture, and simmered in a rich tomato, cashew nuts, butter flavoured gravy accented with dry fenugreek. It was SOOOOOOOO Good! *Salivating*

Fish Masala ($13) - Fresh fish fillets marinated in tumeric, chillies, and lemon juice and fried till a golden brown and sauteed in an onion-tomato masala. 

It was absolutely divine. 

Garlic Naan (Can't remember how much) - It was very good too. Love the garlicky taste. Perfect with the butter chicken and fish masala. 

Tiff with the butter chicken!

Our huge Paper Dosai! Well, the paper dosai wasn't really up to our expectations initially because it wasn't crispy enough. It was kinda soggy at the edges too. So we requested for a new one and the service was great. The staff was very friendly and immediately replaced our paper dosai. The second one was crispier (:

Tiff and all our food!!!

We had a fantastic meal! *Thanks Tiff for bringing me there!!!* 

Some random photos here:

They have a toilet just for kids! This place is really kid-friendly. 

A scary drawing in the kids toilet.

Damn cute mini toilet bowl!!!

US (:

*The restaurant was pretty empty when we were there. But I guess that's because we went in the afternoon. If you are planning to go there for dinner, I'd recommend making a reservation first! 

Price: 

Around $13 for the curries and masala. 

The total bill came up to $48.50 for us. 

The Meal:

Awesome food - I'm definitely going to bring everyone I know there!!!

The Ambience:

Love the concept, furniture, decor!

The Service:

Fantastic service! The service crew was friendly and attentive. I really do feel that service is a major part of any customer's dining experience and I always appreciate the effort put into providing good service. TWO THUMBS UP for the staff at Zaffron kitchen!

Overall:

What more can I say? The number of donuts that I gave out today says it all!

Address:

135/137 East Coast Road

Singapore 428820

Tel:

+65 6440 6786

Website:

http://zaffronkitchen.com/

Opening Hours:

Mon - Thur: 11.30am - 10pm

Fri, Sat & Sun, eve of PH & PH: 11.30am - 10.30pm

That's all for today! I hope you've enjoyed reading this post!

Do leave us some comments because we'd really love to hear from you!

And if you have any recommendations for good eating places, do let us know as well!

Have a fruitful week ahead!

Love,

Huiyi 

Forty Hands- Tiong Bahru

When one of my friends told me that Tiong Bahru was becoming the place to be in Singapore, I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical at first! But after visiting Tiong Bahru recently, I have to agree that it has become the new Ann Siang, with the residential neighbourhood slowly becoming the home to many quaint little cafes and shops. 

When I was in Perth I kept thinking how great it would be if Singapore had more cute cafes for us to try out instead of the usual chains that are found in every mall in Singapore...and I'm glad that my wish is coming true with more and more cafes springing up all over Singapore, all with their own distinct feel and image.

I was going to meet my friends for lunch one day and one of them suggested trying Forty Hands. I had never tried it before and I LOVE trying new things, so I was really excited to see the cafe!

Forty Hands is located within walking distance of Tiong Bahru MRT station and is small and easy to miss. However, when I stepped inside the cafe, the place was packed and the waiter could only offer us outdoor seating. There is outdoor seating both in the front and back of the cafe, but both aren't exactly very pretty and I think that could be an area for them to work on. Thankfully, one of my friends spotted a table inside so we moved in! 

We initially wanted to have a hot dog when we saw the list of different hot dogs on a board, however realised with disappointment that it was only available after a certain time! :/ 

In the end, we decided to order a drink each, 2 sandwiches and truffle fries to share. 

Xindi's drink- I think it was a Hazelnut Latte?

The little bottle of syrup that came with her Latte! Ultra cute! 

Val and I both ordered a Flat White

I really love having coffee in Australia and this was one of the best coffees that I had in a while, since I don't think there are a lot of places with good coffee in Singapore. However, after recently trying other cafes that serve very good coffee, the coffee at Forty Hands may not be as good as I thought! 

Val!

Xindi!

The counter where you have to go and order your food

Truffle fries and both our sandwiches

We ordered a lamb and a pork sandwich. We started with the lamb sandwich, and although I'm not a fan of lamb, I would say that the lamb was not as bad as I thought it would be! 

We were so full from our first sandwich that we barely touched our other sandwich which was a pork sandwich. I think the pork sandwich was actually the nicer sandwich, but because we were so full, we didn't manage to finish the sandwich! :/

The truffle fries that we ordered were nothing spectacularly as well. Not bad, not great! 

Both of us! 

Three of us outside! 

Anyway, forgot to add that the cafe is called Forty Hands because it requires an average of Forty Hands in the production of coffee - from plant to cup! 

To read more about Forty Hands, do check out their facebook page:
 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Forty-Hands/132302986797069

After having lunch at Forty Hands, we really wanted to try Drips at Tiong Bahru as well! However, when we walked there, it was CLOSED!! But thankfully, I have managed to try Drips and will be doing a review on it very soon! :)

Price:

I'm not too sure how much each item was individually, but our total bill amounted to about $50 for everything

The Meal:

After visiting Forty Hands, I realise that there has been a lot of hype about this cafe, but food wise, I definitely did not think there was anything spectacular. 

The Ambience:

Quite cute and cosy, but as I mentioned before, they could work on their Al Fresco area to make it a little more comfy and cute instead of making it look like it was just an afterthought.

The Service:

Some of the staff were quite nice and friendly, whilst some of the others were not, so the service was a little bit inconsistent. But overall, it was pretty average! 

Overall:

As you can tell from the donuts that I have given in each category, Forty Hands is consistently average. The food, ambience and service is average but it still is quite a nice place to just go for a casual meal or for drinks with friends. 

Address:

Blk 78 Yong Siak St #01-12, Tiong Bahru Estate 

Tel:

62258545

Opening Hours:
Tuesdays: 8:30am – 6:30pm
Wednesdays & Thursdays: 8:30am – 10pm
Fridays and Saturdays: 8:30am – 11pm
Sundays 8:30am – 6:30pm
Closed on Monday

I do hope that you've enjoyed reading this post! Please leave us your comments as Huiyi and I would be more than happy to read them! :)

Love,

Tiff 

Ricciotti - The Riverwalk

Hi guys! I hope you all had a great weekend! Sorry for the disappearance once again - Tiff and I are trying to get back in the flow of blogging consistently again! 

Around a year or more ago, my friends and I chanced upon a cute little Italian restaurant at The Riverwalk called Ricciotti and we had the most delicious linguine with tiger prawns. It was TO DIE FOR. So GD and I decided to head down to Ricciotti for our fifth anniversary dinner. We were full of anticipation because we just couldn't wait to eat our linguine!

We chose the alfresco dining area because I love alfresco dining! It looks pretty cute doesn't it?

It took us a while to decide on what to order because we were spoilt for choice!There were just so many things on the menu that we wanted to order and try. 

Finally, we decided on having a salad, 2 pastas and a dessert!

We ordered the Salmon Salad ($15.50) because I was craving for some smoked salmon.

Salmon Salad - Rucola (or rocket), smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes, red onions, orange and balsamic dressing.

It was awesome! The mandarin oranges were especially refreshing! I'd order it again!

Once we were done with our salad, our mains arrived. The first pasta we ordered was of course the Bavette Gamberi ($19.50).

Linguine with tiger prawns, garlic chilli and olive oil.

I'm getting hungry by just thinking about it! 

It was delicious - but it wasn't as good as we thought it would be. Perhaps we painted too perfect of a picture of it in our heads so we expected it to be much better than it really is. Regardless of that fact, it was still quite fantastic! I would definitely go back to Ricciotti for it. 

We also ordered the Spaghetti Marinara ($23.50) - we're seafood lovers!

Spaghetti with calamari, clams, sea scallops, prawns, cherry tomatoes in light tomato sauce.

It was very good too! Their pasta is cooked perfectly - Al dente!

We were quite full by the end of the meal, but that did not stop us from ordering dessert. 

When we first sat down, I saw this:

and I was very happy because I love dessert pizza! I miss the dessert pizza Tiff and I used to eat when we were back in Perth. If you're new to our blog and don't know what I'm talking about, here's the link to the heavenly dessert pizza from Perth. 

http://fabandfamished.blogspot.com/search/label/Leederville 

So when I saw the menu for the dessert pizza, I really wanted to try one (and I really hoped that it will be as good as the one from Perth) but I was SO DISAPPOINTED with it!

This is the Arancia ($13.90)

Chocolate dessert pizza with almond and oranges. There seemed to be a theme in the food we ordered that day - seafood and oranges. LOL! Anyway, the oranges were nice as expected but the pizza was way too hard! After a few bites my mouth got tired from all the chewing. Very disappointing. I suggest you don't order this. It cannot even be compared to the mudhoney dessert pizza from Perth!

Well anyway, other than the dessert pizza let down, we had a lovely dinner. Please do visit Ricciotti if you want to have some good pasta. I'm pretty sure you'll be happy with their food! (:

Now it's time for some donuts!

Price: 

$16.50 - $24.50 for Pasta

$12.50 - $15.50 for Salads

Here's the menu: http://www.ricciotti.com.sg/downloads/Restaurant_Menu.pdf

The Meal:

Mmmmmmm. Everything was perfect, except the dessert pizza.

The Ambience:

Nice place, we had riverside seating - even though the Singapore river is not the cleanest or nicest river, it was still nice and relaxing by the river.

The indoor seating is good as well because we sat indoors that previous time we patronised Ricciotti.

The Service:

Friendly and attentive service crew. Very good!

Overall:

Try it!!!!!!!!

Outlet 1 

Address: 

20 Upper Circular Road

B1-49/50 The Riverwalk

S 058416

Tel:

(65) 6533 9060

Opening Hours:

10am - 11pm Daily

It's very near Clark Quay MRT Station

Outlet 2

Address: 

3 Pickering Street 

#01-36/37 Nankin Row, China Square Central

S 048660

Tel: 

(65) 6438 8040

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sat: 11am to 11pm

Closed on Sundays

That's all for today guys, have a wonderful week ahead! 

And for those of us who are working, lets all look forward to the next weekend together! (:

Love,

Huiyi