Unique buffet at Inter-continental Hotel

This is an article which has been on hold for too long. Actually I had went there a few months ago. It was in the intercontinental hotel and my fren mention that it was not a bad place to go for buffet.

Anyway the theme of the buffet is mainly seafood buffet and the style of cooking is more towards the European style of cooking which is a bit unusual. The name of the cafe is as shown below: Olive Tree.

The below is a picture of the cold cut selection. The carving of the Christmas Tree using ice was an interesting concept and on the ice bed below, there were cold crabs, rock oysters, poached prawns, scallop in shell with olive oil and some other shell fish as well.

The photo below, is the bread selection which will go well with the lobster soup available. See the many variety of breads.

The following 3 pictures are some of the appetizers that was available. Personally, some of which I dare not try as it looks very unusual from what I am usually accustomed. Guess must be European style cooking.

The next section will be covering the main course items. The below pictures are some photos of the various main courses.

If you are wondering what is the above picture, it is actually stewed venison meat. It was very rich in flavour and the meat was very tender.

The above picture is a whole salmon that have been sliced open and you could pick which part of the salmon you would like to try. A very interesting presentation hence using it as my blog opening picture.

The above is the Spanish speciality rice which is rice cooked in a seafood broth. In this dish, they cooked it with prawns, crab, mussels and other seafood. I have watched a documentary about it before, they put the seafood in first to simmer to create a very rich stock before the rice is entered and it is left to boil till it becomes relatively dry. It was very flavourful and quite a good first impression of the dish.

They also have one section where there a few fresh seafood items which you could choose from and the chef will prepare it on the spot. They use white wine in the preparation. Excellent dish.

The below is the lobster soup which I mention earlier.

The below is a sample of the items which I picked from the cold cut section.
The below are some of the sweets available. Actually there was a round table in which all the various sweets are placed. They had someone available to prepare crepe on the spot for you as well as hot chocolate. There were also many cakes and fruits available. The cakes in general were ok but not really outstanding though. However I love the crepe !

The last item below is the complimentary coffee.
It was a really interesting experience and maybe in future would like to have something unusual and willing to splurge a bit, this could be a possible location.

Dinner at Bottle Tree Village

The below is a review of the Bottle Tree Village in the Sembawang Park. You can take a bus and alight of at the entrance of Sembawang park and walk in, although it is not recommended.

It is about a 15 mins walk from the main road to the place. The below picture is the picture of the food place and the next picture is the view facing out to the sea. Such a smoothing view.



My friend and I decided to order a few dishes to try out since it is our first visit to the place. The below pictures are the dishes that we ordered.

The first dish is the satay. It was ok but nothing really outstanding. The meat was grilled to quite tender. The only downside was the meat on the satay was not really a lot. Personally I think I have tried in my opinion better satay at other places. Eg: Fisherman Village at Pasir Ris or the satay at the Beach Road Market.

The above is the sambal Kang Kong. My fren found it not spicy enough. Personally I concur with his opinion. It did not have the spiciness.

The above is the fried cuttlefish. This is a dish not likely found during new year as the direct cantonese translation of the name of the dish is to be fired from work. My fren found it a bit tasteless which I agree. However I found the texture of the dish to be ok. It would have been better if the batter used had a stronger flavour.

The above is the fish maw soup which was the best dish of the night. the soup was tasty and the fish maw was also very nice. The soup was a bit too peppery.

The last dish is the prawn fried with salted egg yolk. It was an unsure interpretation of the dish as the normal one that I had usually have the salted egg fried with the prawns. As per the picture, the egg yolk is placed right in the centre and surrounding it is the prawn which is coated with a batter. The batter also could do with more favouring.

In general, the experience was not bad although the price would be steeper than the typical zi char stall mainly due to the fact that you can have your meal near the sea.

Opinion on Grand Slam Sunday in the EPL: Manu vs Liverpool and Chelsea vs Arsenal

In two days time, it will be what is term as Grand Slam Sunday as the top four teams in the EPL will battle it out against each other which will have a huge bearing to where the championship will be heading to.



The below is the screenshot of the current table as of the 22/3/08. Currently in first is Manu with a 3 point lead. They are followed closely by Arsenal and Chelsea and slightly further back is Liverpool who has regained their form over the last few weeks.

The first match to preview is the Manu vs Liverpool game. This is in normal times a very intensive game but to add on to the intensity of this game is the timing of the game as well as the gap at the top.

In recent weeks, after a mid-season slump, Liverpool has hit the road and is back in a big way. They have recently went on a run of 7 successive wins and are in buoyant mode as they are scoring for fun with the new front pairing of Torres and Gerrard as the free role attacking midfielder. A win at their bitter rivals Manu would provide an additional boost to the Liverpool players that they may come out of nowhere and win the League title.

On the other hand, Manu in the last few games have developed a worrying wastefulness in front of goal which led to the elimination from the FA cup and the narrow wins against Bolton and Derby which in all honesty are quite fragile in terms of their defence. Only the individual brillance of Ronaldo is driving the team towards the Championship.

Therefore in a way we could say this could be one of the worst time for Manu to meet Liverpool. The situation would have been much difference if the fixture was a month ago.

The below is my opinion on what are the potential problem that Manu could face .

1. If Manu regular center half pairing is not able to recover in time for the game, Torres could have a field day in attacking Manu if he is on the ball as the replacement will have a harder time coping with the brilliant running of Torres and Gerard.
2. In recent games, Fergi has been trying out a number of combination for centre midfield. If the combination is not selected with utmost care, Liverpool which has an abundance of talent in centre midfield ( Javier Mascherano and Xabi Alonso) will dominate the center midfield. If that happens, Manu will be in big trouble.
3. Another area of concern would be the choice of the wingers. If they choose both Nani and Ronaldo, there is a high chance that these players will take the ball and charge to opposition territory. This is more of a direct route and will lead to less intricate passing in the midfield which is something useful to help remove the attention of the opposition players. Another potential weakness about the direct route is that a lot of the manu midfielders will go up and support and if Liverpool are able to take the ball of the dribblers, it will lead to a rapid counter-attack which Liverpool are very good at.
4. In attack, Manu stiker has hit a lean spell with the exception of Ronaldo, Liverpool could mark Ronaldo out and Manu would effectively be toothless in attack as they lack a finisher upfront. ( Someone in the mold of Ruud)

The below are the potential problem that Liverpool could face:

1. Ronaldo. He is the main threat that they have to watch out and they cannot afford to give too many direct free-kicks from 25 to 30 yards out.
2. If for some reason, Gerard and Torres are not on top form, it will be hard for liverpool to sustain attacking pressure on Manu defence. These two players performance will likely determined the performance of Liverpool.
3. Rafa himself. He has to decide on his team setup and the mentality they approach the game. A wrong choice in midfielder could be critical to Liverpool.

Based on the past history, Liverpool has not beaten manu in the league for a few years already and their last win was 2 years ago in an FA cup tie. However this game will be very close and to be honest during the last few meetings with Liverpool, Manu rode their luck and won games with a very late goal from John O'Shea last year.

As a Manu fan, I am hoping that we can continue the winning streak against Liverpool but it will be a very tough matchup. ( Doubt that there will be many goals)

For the second game between Chelsea vs Arsenal, it will be another tight affair. Chelsea has not lost at home for a very long time. It is a fortress for them.

In the recent matches, Chelsea defence has not looked so solid as evident from the last outing against Tottenham which they considered 3 goals from set play which previously Chelsea was fantastic at defending it. However their attack is still very strong and with Joe Cole and Frank Lampard in hot form, they will cause any defence problems.

Arsenal in the last few weeks with the exception of the Milan game has not been outstanding. They have drawn 3 times in a row against opposition that they were expected to beat. The surprising thing is that in these 3 games, Arsenal did not manage to dominate the games for long period and also need not create their usual array of chances for their forwards to finish.

Based strictly on form, Chelsea should have the upper hand since they are also at home. However Arsenal is one team you do not write off as can be seen from their performance against Milan on their day, they are nearly unplayable.

Therefore I have a sneaky feeling that this match will be a draw. ( Maybe because I am a Manu fan and the best result is a draw :)

Anyway it will be a great Sunday evening of top class football although goals could be a premium.

Pictures taken on last day in Hong Kong

This will be my last post with regard to my trip to Hong Kong. ( Long time writing this last article due to lack of time )
It is mainly the dim sum that we had for our breakfast before going off to the airport. In my opinion if you are in Hong Kong, there are a few things you must try. They are their roast items like their roast pork, roast goose or Char Siew. They are all excellent. The next item is their dim sum. You can see a lot of people in the dim sum restaurant or tea house having their dim sum while reading their papers or having a meeting of friends or relatives.

The below is a snapshot of the menu of the dim sum items which were on offered at a restaurant near the hotel that we stayed. They had about 100 plus items to choose from!! In addition, the pricing of the items differ based on what time you settled your bill.

Somthing that is unique and at least I have not seen such a pricing arrangement in Singapore or Malaysia.

The below pictures are the items we had at a restaurant located near our hotel.

The picture above is the mushroom with steamed chicken. I think

The above is a close up of the char siew bun with a golden coating. See the shiny surface. The bun is super soft and the char siew is wonderful.

The above is the century egg porridge. This was the only dish which was disappointing as I think the one I had during the night was better.

The above is the meat filled fried dumpling. The filling is a bit sweet and goes well with the outer coating which is a bit sticky.

The above two pics are the chee cheong fun. The first one is the prawn chee cheong fun and the next one is the dough fritter chee cheong fun. The cheong fun is very smooth and soft and it goes very well regardless of the filling and the light sya sauce keeps the dish the extra flavour. Personally, I prefer the dough fritter as the dough fritter was very crispy and it keeps a contrasting texture to the dish.

Guot Tie shown above. ( Another style of meat dumpling)
Chinese style pancake. It is filled with dao sao. I think it is spell like that.
Glutinous rice with filling in lotus leave. This dish was outstanding. The rice was light on the touch and the taste was fantastic. First class, had never tried one so good.
Some fried sweet dim sum. Forgot the name.

Braised spare ribs. Typical dim sum item but it was very good as well.

Siew Mai

Shark Fin dumpling in clear soup

Beancurd wrapped with prawn filling. It is crispy on the outside and chewy on the insert due to the compact nature of the filling which is full of the prawn flavour.

This is the last of my review of the food that I tried during my visit to HK last year. I encourage anyone who wish to try cantonese style cooking to make a trip to Hong Kong.

Picture taken of delicious food on third day of HK trip

The below photos were taken on my third day in Hong Kong. The below are what we had in Disney Land. Actually the food in there quite expensive in my opinion. However guess that it is expected in a tourist location.



The first two pictures was actually advertised as ramen but after it arrived and we tested it, it seems to be more chinese than japanese in terms of the style of cooking.

The below two noodles was quite good as the soup base was very tasty and the noodles had the right texture.

The next item is the chicken chop. Nothing outstanding.

The following two pictures are the dim sum set. It consists of a contianer of four steam items and four fried items. Eah consisting of 2 items. It was not that fantastic though.
The last item was the spare rib rice. This was very good, the spare ribs was tender and juicy.

The next series of photos are what we had for dinner. The name of the restaurant is the Taiwan Beef Noodle restaurant. Although it suppose to be specialising in beef noodle i guess from the name but actually they sell a variety of items other than beef noodle. It seems that they are a chain of restaurant guess something like Crystal Jade in Singapore.

The food in general was quite good. Anyway as they said a picture speaks a thousand words so I will leave with the screenshot of the dishes we had.