Lunch at Angus Steak House (Takashimaya)

These days fusion food is getting more popular as it seems people are more willing to experiment the various cooking techniques across different culture with existing/new ingredients. A good example is the use of Wasabi in Chinese cuisine.


Angus House can be considered as a fusion food as their menu offering is mainly based on American and Italian dishes but there is a fusion of Japanese cuisine in the preparation of the dishes.


The decoration of the place is classy and spacious. The place has a warm ambience created by the background music from the auto-piano shown in the background of the below photo as well as the warm rays of light gently propagate from the exterior.





The below photo is the table setting.

We ordered their set meal to try out. Their lunch set meal consists of a soup of the day, a salad, a main dish and a dessert.

The first dish to arrive is the Japanese theme salad. It is a bit different from the normal salad in the sense the dressing instead of thousland island dressing, they used a soy sauce based as the dressing. Guess it will be more healthy :)

The next item is the day soup which happen to be mushroom soup that day. It was creamy and very rich in taste. Loved it

The soup also came with some toasted bread as shown below.

The below are some of the main courses that we tried.

The first one is the fish and chips. The fish was very tasty. The only downside is the portion is not so huge. Would have been better if there is one more slice.

The second one is the black pepper steak. As I am not a beef eater so not able to comment about the taste but like the arrangement.

The next one is the seafood platter. The seafood were really excellent but the serving is really too little :( The seafood were grilled and then a very excellent sauce is used to tied the dish together.

The last main dish was the Japanese style spaghetti with scallop and crab roe. This is my favourite dish. As I am not really a cheese person, this dish is perfect for me. The stock of the spaghetti is really light on the palate and it fits perfectly with the seafood in the dish.

Recalling this dish is giving a urge to go there and have it again.

The last item is the day dessert. It is a slice of a cake with some custard cream if I recall correctly.

The taste of the dishes were excellent and the service was also quite prompt. It is quite a nice place to have a quiet dinner. The only downside as can be seen is on the portioning.

Jumbo at Dempsy

The following review is about Jumbo at Dempsy. The below is the photo taken at the entrance of the place. You are able to choose to dine in the air con dining hall or the outdoor area.

When we arrived at the place, due to the high number of reservation, the only seats available are in the outdoor section. We decided to order a couple of dishes to try out.

The first dish was the deep fried squid with honey. It was fried to a crisp and it was very crunchy. If you loved sweet and crunchy stuff, you will really loved it.

The second dish is the fried boneless chicken. It was quite good as well as it was not too oily.

The third dish is the deep fried prawns with cereal. It was very fragrant and the prawn is also big and juicy as can be seen in the photo below. It was an excellent dish.

The last dish was a home made tofu dish with mushroom. The tofu is mixed with spinach to give the top surface the greenish appearance. The tofu is very smooth and the vege compliemented with the taste of the dish.

The food was good and the service was also not too bad. It was an enjoyable meal.

There is also a lot of other nice eateries in the Dempsy area.

As anyone tried some of the eateries there, do share your experience :)

Recent trip to Phuket

This is about my short trip to Phuket about 5 months ago.

It was a free and easy trip and was an opportunity to laze about and enjoy the slower pace of life there :)

We arrived in Phuket in the late afternoon and had our dinner at one of the seafood restaurant along the seaside. We had a couple of seafood dishes and a vege for dinner.

Pineapple Juice in the foreground

Chilli squid, grilled plain lobster and grilled prawns

Closed up view of the lobster. It looks plain but the lobster was grilled very nicely and the taste of the meat was wonderful.

Closed up view of the grilled prawns. It was not that good. Felt that it's taste was a bit too blend.

Stired fried squid with chilli. This dish was very good. Favourite dish :)

Stired fried kang kong with chilli. It is not spicy enough :(

For the next 2 morning breakfast, we had the buffet spread provided by the hotel.

It was quite a good spread as it was a mixture of local food and international breakfast.

Hot items selection which range from sausages/ham/pancake to fried koay teow (thai style) and some stired fried local dishes.

Fruits and desert selection. The pineapple were super sweet. Yummy!

Cold cuts/cheese and cerel selection

Bread selections. Me prefer the one I had in Holland.

After which we went for a day tour around phuket island. We were brought to some of their local places of religion as well as to the highest point on phuket island. The picture below was taken there. We also managed to go to a cashew nut factory to observe the manufacturing process for the cashew nut.

After the tour, the local guide brought us to a local coffee shop for lunch. We had their local noodle dish which is a stired fried noodle as well as pork satay and pork intestine satay which are shown below.

Stired fried noodles with fish cake, sotong and prawns. It was ok.

Pork satay and Pork intestine satay. This was a favourite of mine and really enjoyed it. The only downside is that the pork was too thinly sliced hence it was not so juicy.

After lunch, we proceeded to walk the various street stalls and the shopping areas along the beach front. We had our dinner at one of the more modern shopping belts. The below photo is the water display in front of the restaurant that we had our dinner.

It was a quite well done up Thai Restaurant. We ordered some appertizer and main dishes to try out. In general, all the dishes were quite good though I had a few favourites.

Prawn toast. I loved this dish it was crisp on the outside and the interior is full of the prawn flavour.

Tom Yum soup in the background and squid cooked with garlic. I liked the squid dish but not so keen on the Tom Yum Soup.

Egg stirred fried with pork.

Kang Kong fried with garlic

Deep fried fish with curry sauce. This was surprising good.

Pineapple Rice. It was not very good as I felt the rice did not have enough of the pineapple flavour.

Dinner at Thai accent ( Vivocity lvl 2)

After spending the day at Sentosa, we decided to proceed to vivocity for dinner. At the recommendation of one of my friend, we decided to have Thai food as he told us it was quite good and the price was quite reasonable.

When we reached the place, there was a slight queue in front of us which is a relief as I was hungry and was not looking forward to having to queue a long time to go in.

Anyway we were ushered in a short while and actually the dining space available there is quite a lot.

The below are the dishes the group ordered:

Basil leaves stirred fried with chicken

Fried koay teow thai style.

This dish was very well prepared and it was delicious.

Pineapple rice with seafood.

I find it very tasty and enjoyed it a lot.

Green curry chicken

Stirred fried beef
Seafood tom yam soup which was very nice.

In general, the food was very good and the service was also quite prompt for a busy saturday. I also liked that they also took time to answer any clarification that you may have about their dishes. It was quite a pleasant experience.

Recent visit to Holland

This is a pictorial summary of the various dishes I tried during my recent trip to Holland. It was a 2 days 3 nights visit to Holland. During the duration of the visit, we stayed at the Hotel Amstelveen which also include the morning buffet.

The following photos are showing the offering for the morning buffet.

Various selection of breads

Some fruits and cereals

Cold cut selection as well as bacon, sausages, baken beans and egg in various style

Variety of jams and spreads to go with the bread.

What I had for breakfast.

There were so many variety of breads on offer but my favourite is not the dutch bread but the croissant. It was light in touch and crisp on the outside. For the spread, there were also a lot of variety but did not really fancy it as still prefer bacon and sausages.
I really enjoyed my breakfast during my stay at the hotel.

For the first day lunch, we had it in the town centre of Amsterdam after our morning guided tour of the city. Amsterdam is a lovely city with a rich history and the building architecture is very lovely.

The below photos are some of the pictures of Amsterdam on a Saturday morning.

For lunch, we went into one of the local cafe. The slight problem is the menu were all in dutch but thankfully, they are able to communicate well in English. Hence we just ordered without reference to the menu. We ordered the day set which includes a soup and a main dish.

We tried the vegetable soup and the tomato soup. The vegetable soup was not nice as the base of the soup was not very strong. My aunt was jokingly said it was just like boiled vegetable. For myself, I had the tomato soup. It had a strong flavour of tomato. Maybe too strong for my liking as I did not really fancy it. The garlic bread was nice though.

Hence for the starters, it was a bit disappointing. However the main course is different. It was very good and the portion is also quite big. My mum mention the beef steak is excellent. For the grilled salmon, it was nicely prepared. The amount was so much till we were not able to finish the fries and the mushroom.

Grilled chicken at the top of the picture and chicken burger with a generous amount of melted cheese.

Beef steak and grilled salmon with accompaniment of grilled mushroom.

For dinner, we also had it in the city centre so that we can continue our shopping after our meal. At least the shops there close later than in London.

Some salmon appertizer. (Forgot the name) Very delicious though

Too creamy and cheesy for my liking though the bacon was nice.

For the next day tour, we went to Volendam and a few other places. For lunch, we had it at Volendam which is famous for their seafood as it is a port town.

For the meal, the stirred fried prawns was very delicious. However for the fish and chip, they prefer the version in England which is beer battered. For the one they had, it uses another form of batter. For desert, we tried the dutch pancake. It is very thin and crispy and you can place various types of sugar and syrup on top of it.

Dutch pancake

For the dinner, after all the travelling, we decided to visit the nearby restaurant 'TGeregt. We each ordered a set meal each which comprises of an starter of your choice, a lobster and shrimp soup, a main course and a desert. ( Quite expensive though about 30 plus Euros)

Once we arrived, they gave us a complimentary appetizer which is shown below. It is a spread on a bread crumb. It was quite tasty.

The first starter to arrive is the sauteed mussels which is shown below. This dish was excellent. The mussels were very nicely done and there were so many :)

The other starter we ordered is the veal meat with some fruit based sauce. The veal meat is at the base of the plate and it is very thinly sliced and well marinated. Some more the presentation is also quite visually appealing.

The below is the lobster with prawn soup. It was not thick enough but in terms of the taste it was really good but the prawn was more like shrimps but it was plentiful.

The next 3 pictures are the main courses. The dishes were very well prepared and they were delicious. The only downside is the quantity is really quite small. Another interesting thing is for the accompanyment, it is served separately as can be seen in the last of the 4 photos below.

Lastly the below are the deserts that we had which is the creme brulee and apple strudel as per shown below. For the creme brulee, they did the carmelisation in front of you as can be seen in the photos below.

Apple strudel with whipped cream.

In general, the trip to Holland was really enjoyable and also managed to try some of the European style cruisine which is quite different from what is found in Asia.