Rendezvous Restaurant Hock Lock Kee- Central

Hello friends! How was your Deepavali? I hope you guys had fun, or had some well needed rest! 

I spent my Deepavali celebrating my Grand Dad's 81st birthday, and it was alot of fun!

Upon my Grand Dad's request, we made a reservation at Rendezvous Restaurant for some authentic Nasi Padang! I've always thought that Rendezvous was a weird name for a Nasi Padang Restaurant!!! I think the restaurant was originally called Hock Lock Kee, but because it used to be situated at Hotel Rendezvous, hence the name Rendezvous Restaurant? Am I right? 

So anyway, my whole family (or at least those that are still left in Singapore) headed down to Central (hate the Central layout btw) for lunch!

Here are some shots of the restaurant:

I suppose this was their first building, because it says Hock Lock Kee in front.

Argh, why was standing in such an unladylike manner!?

Our table, 12!

Cool, old school tiles line the walls of the restaurant. 

All the information you need to know before ordering!

Mmmm, looks good!

While waiting for food....

Max, GD and Ben!

Cute grandparents! (:

My Dad and Grand Dad!

Ben and Mallorie playing "scissors paper stone"

Okay! Our food has finally arrived! (:

I didn't know what this is called, so I googled and its Begedil! I've always loved these potato patties and I was really looking forward to having it, but I was slightly disappointed because it wasn't as tasty as I remembered it to be (when the restaurant was still at Hotel Rendezvous). It was still nice but it tasted much better last time!

Curry Chicken - Crap! I forgot to try this yesterday!

Sambal Brinjal - My grand dad's personal favourite! Not my kind of thing though. When I asked him how it was, he said that it used to be better as well. SIGH. 

But if any of you love Brinjals you can try it. I suppose the sambal's not very spicy, because my grand dad doesn't really take chilli but he still eats this.

Cabbage - I like! It was not spicy so I like to eat it with some curry sauce.

Chicken Rendang - I ate this and it was good!

Fish Sambal - I really really like this one because it was spicy and I love fish! (:

Curry Veg - Lots of ladyfingers! Awesome curry, I ate my cabbage with this curry! YUM!

Beef Rendang - Very popular with my family, we had to order an additional portion of it because it was gone SO FAST.

Sambal Sotong! Nice nice! It wasn't too hard so it was easy to eat. 

Sorry I forgot what this is called, or rather, I never did know what this is called. Some veg and tau hu thing I think! I didn't eat it because I don't like tau hu. Hehe

Assam Fish! It was quite nice, but I would have preferred curry fish head or smth! That's my personal taste because I'm not really into sour food, so I'm not that big of an assam fan.

Digging in already, but rice has not been served yet!

And so we ate... and ate.... and ate....

... till the food was all gone!

After lunch we hung around at Central, and bought some bread from Barcook Bakery, bubble tea from Gong Cha, and candies from Sticky. Then we headed home to this! :

Lana Cake! It's our family's favourite cake! I've had it for my birthday since I was 1 (:

It's delicious! I love how light and fluffy the sponge cake is and how the chocolate frosting is also light and not too sweet! I'm sad that it's standard has dropped as well because I remember it being more moist last time. But I still love it no matter what!

Family photo! 

My grandparents are so cute!!!

♥

Price:

Meat/Poultry/Fish: $4.20 - $9.20 depending on type/parts etc

Side dishes: $3.60 - $12.60 depending on size

The Meal:

All I can say is that although the meal was nice, the standard of the food has dropped from what it was a few years ago. 

The Ambience:

Large, spacious and well-lit, good for big gatherings. I would have preferred a round table instead of a long table so that everyone can see each other and talk to one another without having to shout from one end of the table to another. But I suppose the long table is very Peranakan. When I watched "Little Nonya", I saw that they always had those 'Long table dinners' or something similar to that, so I guess it's part of their culture!

The Service:

Average service. The boss was there, and he was quite smiley and friendly!

Overall:

I feel that it's such a pity that the standard dropped! I know my grandparents were quite disappointed with it because they remembered it to be soooo amazing, and my grand dad was so excited to go there for lunch! But all in all, they still serve good food, and I would go back for selected dishes.

Address:

6 Eu Tong Sen Street, #02-72 to 75/77/92

The Central

Singapore 059817

Telephone:

+65 6339 7508

Website:

http://www.rendezvous-hlk.com.sg/

Opening Hours:

11am-9pm daily!

That's all for today! Hope you had fun reading this post!

P.S. The weekend is almost here, so hang in there!!! (:

Lots of love,

Huiyi

Burger Shack - Bt Timah

Hi, welcome to Burger Shack!

So last week, GD and I headed down to the Burger Shack for dinner. I've always wanted to try the burgers at Burger Shack but I've never gotten round to it. But, last Friday, I finally did! 

Fun fact! : The Burger Shack is opened by the owners of Island Creamery - an ice cream shop that my family loves (will blog about it next time)!

The inside of Burger Shack is not very big, but there are picnic benches outside as well! We sat outside because every table inside was occupied.

The Burger Shack operates on a self-serve system. So we place our orders at the counter, pay up, and wait for our number to be called! It's like the bubble tea system.

You'll be able to know if your number is called even if you are seated outside because there is a monitor (?) outside too!

When your food is ready, head to the pick up counter to collect your food! At the Burger Shack, salt is not added to the fries, you have do it yourself so you'll have the choice of adding how much salt you want. You can also choose to sprinkle some chilli powder over your fries (yay!)

So here's what we ordered!

Fried calamari! Doesn't it look good? It was really excited to eat this because I love fried calamari! However,  it wasn't crispy! (WHY LIKE THAT!!!??) :(

We still finished it all up because despite the lack of crispiness, it was still tasty! 

Now, the burgers! By the way, the burger patties in Burger Shack are all freshly made, so they were really fresh and juicyyyy!!!

This is GD's Ramli Burger ($5.70)! He really enjoyed it! I took a bite of it and I really liked it too! 

I've never tried Ramly burgers at pasar malams so I had no idea what it was going to taste like, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was! I would definitely go back for it! One thing I like about their burgers is that they aren't too oily, which is fantastic!

We ordered a set meal with the Ramli burger, so it came with fries and a drink. A set costs $3 more for regular people, but with a student pass, you can get a set for just $2.50! (: 

This is mine, the Mushroom Suisse ($7.70)! Did you catch the wordplay here? (Mushroom SUISSE, and RAMLI) Hehehe.

Well I love cheese and mushroom burgers so everytime I'm at a new burger joint, the first burger I'd try is the mushroom burgers. The mushroom suisse is nice, but it wasn't fantastic. I've tasted better mushroom burgers elsewhere (e.g. The burger bench and bar that used to be at cineleisure, but it closed down right??? damn sad!!!!) . But I have to say that the burger was fresh, and the buns were soft and nice!

Us and our food! I hate harsh flashes! They magnify flaws!

They serve desserts too, but there weren't many choices to choose from. 

We were both very satisfied with our dinner and I'm sure that we will go back there again in the future!

Prices:

Burgers: $5.70 - $7.70

The Meal:

The food was good, I would go back and try the other burgers. 3 donuts instead of 3.5 donuts because the mushroom suisse did not meet my expectations. 

The Ambience:

It was a nice little place, but I think more could be done to make it look nicer.

The Service:

Well, not much service since it's self service. The staff behind the counter could have been friendlier though.

Overall:

Good if you want to have some affordable, freshly made burgers (instead of those dry and flat beef patties from Macs or burger king). Great hang out place for students too.

Address:

559 Bukit Timah Road

#01-01 King's Arcade

Telephone:

6466 3477

Opening Hours:

That's all for Burger Shack folks! Hope you enjoyed this post! 

P.S. Thank you for supporting Fab and Famished, and if you know of any good food places (restaurants/cafes/food courts/hawker centres etc), please let us know, so that we can give it a try too! Please leave a comment on our blog or email us at:

fabandfamished@gmail.com

Have a FAB week ahead! (:

Love, 

huiyi

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The Secret Garden Cafe- South Perth

I've been wanting to go to the Secret Garden cafe for a really long time but never ever got a chance to. But I finally managed to a few weeks ago when Cass and I decided to meet up for a nice catch-up session! :)

I didn't really manage to get some pictures of the exterior, so I had to steal some photos from the Secret Garden website! The cafe is located in South Perth and is really fast/easy to get to from the city. There is another Secret Garden cafe on Murray Street in the city, so don't be confused! 

Photo credits: Secret Garden Website 

Photo credits: Secret Garden Website

The outside of the cafe! 

The place looks just like a small, regular cafe from the outside...but it's a totally different story once you step in! 

Photo credits: Secret Garden Website

The doors that lead towards the garden! 

Photo credits: Secret Garden Website

The garden!!!

I was honestly quite shocked at how big the garden area was! I mean it wasn't like acres and acres of land or anything close to that, but the cafe really looked so small from the outside and suddenly there was a whole garden filled with lots of people everywhere! On top of that, it was a weekday afternoon so I was quite surprised to see so many people and how crowded the cafe was, especially because it wasn't even in the city.

Cass with the drinks that we ordered!

Cass's drink!

I know it looks really gross because so much of it overflowed out of the cup! haha. At this cafe, the ordering is self-service and you will get a number to bring back to your table and then the waitresses will serve the food and drinks to your table. So anyway, we kept seeing this lady carrying THIS drink and some piece of cake and she was looking HIGH and LOW for the table to serve it to. So we were looking at her and saying to one another how difficult it must be to find the table to serve it to because the garden is pretty big and there are so many different areas!!! We kept seeing her walk everywhere and she kept walking PAST our table, countless times and we were wondering, WHERE ON EARTH is she going with that cup of coffee (this whole time we didn't even know it was ours) and we were saying how we wouldn't want that cup because she was spilling it everywhere...then the next thing you know, she put it down on our table -_-!LOL.

My yummy chai latte!!!

The drinks and food took pretty long to come, so when it finally did come...I was absolutely famished and ready to gobble down all the food!!! :) But of course, not without taking pictures first! :D

:) 

Chicken sandwich! Haha. Honestly, I CANNOT recall at all what this was! 

Ok, have just checked their website...and this is a chicken foccacia that has char-grilled chicken, avocado, sun-dried tomatoes, cheese, lettuce & mayo! However, I think that the description was nicer than the actual thing! But it wasn't bad, just not fantastic. 

Our second dish...the caesar salad with calamari. Really liked this! Loved how much salad AND calamari they gave! The calamari was really tasty and nice and chewy and not too hard. 

The Secret Garden Cafe also serves breakfast all day, so I will definitely go back one day to try their breakfast! 

The Price:

$12-$18 for mains

Foccacia: $12

Calamari Caesar salad: $18

The Meal:

The food was nice but not very spectacular

The Ambience:

The place was very relaxing and inviting and there was a nice buzz around the place because of the crowd. However, the cafe really has a lot more potential for improvement and they can just add a little more to the garden to add to the "wow" factor

The Service:

I would say that I was a little dissappointed with the level of service because they really took a very long time to deliver both our drinks and food and as mentioned above, when Cass's drink came a lot of had already overflowed out of her cup. It would have been better if they had assigned table numbers so that the waitresses knew exactly where each table was so that they could serve the food faster and more efficiently.

Overall:

Although there are a few areas that I feel were lacking, I still had a very nice time at The Secret Garden Cafe. The place was unexpected and had a very nice, casual vibe to it. It was definitely something different from other cafes that I have been to and given the chance, I would definitely head back again, this time to try some of their breakfast items! :) 

Address:

64 Angelo Street, South Perth 

Tel:

(08) 9367 5597

Opening Hours:

Monday- Friday: 7.30am to 4.30pm

Saturday & Sunday: 7.30am to 5.00pm

Website:

http://www.secretgardensouthperth.com.au/

Hope you enjoyed reading this post! :) 

If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment or email us at:
fabandfamished@gmail.com

Love,
Tiff