Lunch @ Majestic Restaurant

This afternoon, I went for lunch with my mum and aunt to the Majestic Restaurant at Cantonment Road. I had previously visited this restaurant for a company function and was very impressed with the food. Hence decided to visit again to try their a la carte menu.

We decided to try a few of their dim sum items as well as their mixed platter and a couple other dishes.

The below is the Char Siew Pau. It was quite good.

The next item was the scallop dumpling.

The har gaw was excellent as it was full of prawns and very flavourful.

The siew mai was also another excellent dish.

The next dish is the Peking Duck. The version that was prepared here was very good. The skin was very crispy and flavourful. The sauce that accompanied it was one of the best that I had. Highly recommended.

Majestic Platter. It consists of 4 of their popular items. There is the roast pork, deep fried soft shell crab, wasabi prawn and stirred fried crab meat with bean spouts served on the lettuce. All the dishes were excellent. Special mention for the soft shell crab and the wasabi prawns.

Pan Seared beef with sesame sauce. This is their signature dish. My mum and aunt loved it. It was so well prepared that the usual beef smell was completely removed and the texture had a melt in your mouth sensation.

The below is the Honey Glazed USA pork. This dish was the best. The meat was tender and juicy. It was so full of flavour and the two sauces that accompanied the dish gives the meat an additional dimension.

Brocoli stirred fried with garlic. It is a simple dish but the taste was very good. The service staff informed me that the brocoli was brough in from Mexico. Hence the unusual shape. The vege was crunchy and the combination of the fresh vege and the fried garlic was lovely.

This is the stirred fried duck meat from the Peking Duck with the Ee-fu mee. It was very well prepared and it had a bit of gravy unlike some places where it can be quite dry. 

The last item was the chempatek fried ice cream. The outer shell was a very thin crisp and inside of it was the ice cream. I feel the essential skill for this dish is that the ice cream inside must still be cold and not melting when you consumed it. They were able to accomplished it and the ice cream was also very rich. Super delicious.

The overall food experience was really superb and my mum and aunt were very impressed and will let their friends know about this place. The service was also very good.
This is one place where I highly recommend to visit if you really want to spend a bit for quality food.

Dinner at Soht & Baay at Orchard Ion 4th floor ( Thai food )

Last week I had dinner with my mum and aunt at a Thai restaurant at Orchard Ion level 4. It is a new place for us have not visited it previously. We went to the dining hall which was actually located at level 5 as level 4 is actually all the private dinning room. The stairs to the dinning hall does not look impressive. However the setting at the dinning area is very impressive. There is a pianist playing soothing songs.

We decided to try the following dishes: Mixed platter of appetizer, seafood tom yum soup, chicken stirred fried with basil leave, deep fried fish thai style, black pepper soft shell crab and oyster sauced kang kong.

Picture of the rice serving. Cute design :)

Seafood Tom Yum Soup: Soup was sufficient spicy with the lemon grass flavour. Seafood used was also fresh

Mixed platter of appetizer. It consists of 7 different appetizers. The stand out items were the Thai Style fish and the fried fish. The only disappointment is that the Thai style otak otak was not spicy enough.

Black Pepper soft shell crab. Fantastic. My personal favourite. The sauce is super tasty and go well with rice and the soft shell crab were deep fried to a crisp and the sauce makes the dish stand out even more.

Fried fish with Thai style sauce. The fish was fresh and tasty. However did not really liked the thai sauce. Hence this dish was a bit of a disappointment.

Chicken stirred fried with Basil leaves. This is a typical Thai dish. This was another excellent dish and complimented well with the rice.

Oyster sauce fried kang kong( morning glory) . Usually we always have it with chilli, however the version on offered there was with oyster sauce. The kang kong is very fine and surprising this style of prepartion goes well with the kang kong. Enjoyed this dish as well. 

We finished the meal by ordering two Thai dessert as shown below. Both were very good.

The dishes in general were excellent and the ambience of the place was also very good. The only downside is that it is quite expensive.

World Cup Quarter Final matches Update

As it is, we have witness 3 quarter final matches with two unexpected results. Both South American giant nations (Brazil and Argentina) have been eliminated at the quarter final stage. The other team that has made it through to the semi final is Uruguay.

For Brazil, they actually played well in the first half of the game and was dominating the game and Holland looks like they were out of it. Only after the mistake made by the Brazil defence that led to the own goal before Holland started to force themselves back into the game. In general, Brazil elimination was caused by two defensive errors on their part as well as the stupidity of the defender Melo to stamp on the dutch player.

For the elimination of Argentina, they were torn apart by the incisive passing of the youthful German midfield. It looks like Ballack injury which rule him out of the world cup is a blessing in disguise. Due to his injuries, they were able to use the outstanding Muller together with Mesut Ozil and Bastian Schweinsteiger which gave the midfield more energy and cutting edge. Germany has been outstanding in the elimination phase by trashing England ( old rival) by 4 goals to 1 and against Argentina the score was an emphatic 4 nil win. Looking at the age profile of the German team, this could be a team which will be a major force in World Football for the next decade.

For Uruguay, they were lucky to make it to the semi final. If it was not for the striker who intentionally blocked the goal bound shot, they would have been eliminated as the attempt came close to the end of extra time.

The last quarter final will be played later this evening between Spain and Paraguay. Based on form guide, Spain should have this match wrapped up without too much of a hassle. However based on the recent results throughout the world  cup, anything is possible.

  

World Cup 2010 End of Group stage

Now after the group stages are over, we are in the business end of the world cup. Elimination time !
Some of the big name countries which have not made it through the group stages are Italy, Serbia and France as well as some of the African teams such as Nigeria and Ivory Coast.

Out of all the teams which were eliminated, France is really a sorry sight. They had infighting within the team and the management as well as players who were not motivated to play their best. For Italy, the main reason they are not through to the next round is mainly because they could not beat New Zealand as well as their normally water tight defence did not come to fore. It could be due to the lost of influential keeper Buffon in the first match which hurt them quite a bit. Another problem that Italy suffered is due to in-sufficient creative midfielder who could break down tight defences.

For Serbia, they were not consistent throughout the group stage hence were eliminated.

Two of the second round games have been completed and both Uruguay and Ghana has made it to the quarter final at the expense of South Korea and USA respectively. South Korea were close to eliminating Uruguay as they had two excellent one to one chances with the keeper before Uruguay scored their winning goal. Uruguay seem to be contented to sit back after taking the lead and were lucky to win this game as a team with a better poacher in front of goal would have taken one of the 2 chances on offer. For Ghana, they managed to be the flag bearer for the African continent by beating the USA who unfortunately were not able to come back a second time after their equalizer at 1 -1.

For tonight game, it is a crunch match between two European rivals, England and Germany. There have been many memorable games in the past and should be a high intensity match. This is a match that is difficult to call as we do not know which England team will show up. Germany will play their attacking football against the English. This match should be a cracker. I think it will end up a draw.

Hopefully the games will get more exciting as there is no benefit playing for a draw now.

World Cup 2010 South Africa ( Group Stage)

It is now about the mid-way point in the group stages of the world cup. This world cup has been quite boring in general with the exception of a few games such as matches involving Argentina and Germany. The average goals per game is about 2 goals maximum.

In general, a lot of the teams seem to be happy to sit back on a goal lead and hope to win on the counter. This led to a lot of the games meandering to draw or low scoring games. I wonder if it is due to some of the teams are still adapting to the altitude and weather condition that some of the games are been held.

It seems that the goal keeping errors have been leading to a number of goals. Example are the goal conceded by Robert Green as well as the Japan GK error in the match against Holland. I wonder if it is partially due to the new ball used in this world cup as a lot of the mistakes seem to be due to a misjudgement of the ball trajectory or after bounce.

In general, the European teams have been quite a letdown in terms of their performance especially the big teams. France and England come to mind. France seems to be on a downward slide for a couple of years as now the team looks very disjointed and a lot of infighting within the team. For England, their performance against USA and Algeria has been dismal. It seems that England has lost their qualification form and making it very difficult for themselves to qualify for the next round. For Spain, after their unexpected defeat to Switerland, they will need to buck up else they may not make it to the next round.

A pleasant surprise has been the performance of teams from Asia and Central America. Both Japan and South Korea managed to get their first world cup win on foreign soil. North Korea had a good match against Brazil. Mexico and USA has performed quite well in their 2 games.

Argentina has been playing some of the most gung ho soccer in the tournament. The only worry that they may have is their defence seems not very solid and both Nigeria and South Korea could have caused more grief for them if their finishing was better.

Hopefully as the tournament proceeds to the knock out phase, there will be more excitement and brillant goals and less of goalkeeping errors.

Dinner at Mellben Seafood

Yesterday I met with some of my ex-colleagues for dinner. We decided to try the famous coffee shop which specialized in the preparation of crab. I understand from my friend that only on weekday that they accept advance booking. For weekend, no booking allowed and the waiting time for a seat is on average 45 minutes to an hour.

We ordered a selection of seafood dishes as well as two crab dishes to try the various style.

The first dish is the fried beancurd which is one of their popular item. The beancurd was quite tasty.

The next dish is scallop in yam ring. The yam was done quite well. It managed to maintain some of the moisture hence it is not too dry to the palate. However I found the scallop quite bland in taste.
The following dish is the cereal prawn. The prawn is big in size and fresh and it was fried quite well. However the cereal was a letdown. It was not crispy. To me for cereal prawn the cereal must be crispy and compliment the prawn dish.

The next dish is salted egg spare ribs. This was one of my favourite dish. I found the spare ribs was tasty and the salted egg brought the flavour out. I will order this dish again if I visit the place again.

The next dish is dou miao stirred fried with mushroom. This was very good. The taste was excellent.
Below is fried mantou. Normal
The next 2 dishes are what the place is famous for which is their crab dishes. We tried 2 types. One is the chilli crab and the other one is cream crab.

The first one is the chilli crab which is shown below. I quite like the taste of it. It was a bit spicier than the few I have tried.
The next version is the creamy crab. The sauce is quite well prepared. It was not too creamy.

In general, the food was not bad but will stay off the cereal prawn. It is a place that really need to make advance booking before going over else you have to wait for a seat before waiting for the food.

First experience of a Wine Dinner

Recently I was invited to attend a wine dinner which was held at the Bistro Amigo. Bistro Amigo is both a wine shop as well as also a French Bistro. It is located in Funan DigitalLife Mall on the second floor.

A wine dinner is where they try to match the wine with the food that will be served. I am really a novice in wine so it will be an interesting experience. The theme of the dinner is to feature a selection of Bordeaux second wines. What it meant are these wines are the second wines from some famous Chateau such as Mouton Rothschild, Montrose and Beaucillou.

The dinner start first with a serving of french bread with some dip and a serving of Champagne. The Champagne is really very good. ( Only later I learnt that it is Pol Roger which is a good Champagne)

The below is a screen shot of the menu.


The first dish served is a cold dish which is Jade Tiger Abalone with Cavier with a passion fruit sauce base. The abalone is surprisingly delicious as usually I thought that the only way to enjoy an abalone is by braising it. This dish was paired with Clarendelle Blanc '06.

Truth to be told, I am still not sure what they mean by the wine match the food? Is it you have the food before the wine or you have the wine before the food? ( Hopefully someone can enlighten me about it)
The next dish is Pan Roasted Barramundi with melted leaks and crispy onion with the fish red wine sauce. This dish was fabulous. The fish was so full of flavour and the sauce compliment it perfectly. The onion was so crispy. This dish was paired with La Dame De Montrose '06.

The third course is the Pan Roasted Foie Gras paired with Grilled Cep Mushroom. The sauce is Port Wine Reduction. The Foie Gras was roasted to perfection. It has a slight crisp outside but the interior is still moist and full of flavour. It has a melt in your mouth texture. The mushroom was also very delicious. This dish was paired with La Croix De Beaucaillou '04. ( This wine was my personel favourite among the red wines presented on the day)
The fourth dish is oven roasted lobster accompanied with moral mushroom and sauteed savoy cabbage with a prawn bisque sauce. I loved the sauce which was used for the dish. It was perfect with the lobster. Ah the meat of the lobster is so so delicious. Sometimes the lobster meat is a bit dry but this one was so well prepared that the natural flavour of the meat is brought out to the fullest. This dish was served with La Chapelle De La Mission Haut Brion '07.

For the last of the main dish, it was supposed to be a beef dish. However as I do not take beef. They substituted it with a pork fillet dish. I had placed both the photos of the beef dish as well as the pork dish.

The pork was really tender and taste was great. Would have been better if got more pieces of the pork. The last of the main course was paired with Le Petit Mouton '04. For the majority of the guest to the dinner. They really enjoyed this wine. For myself, I found it had a bit tannic and did not like it so much.

For desert, it was veloute of chocolate, mixed berry and ice cream. They arranged a surprise wine to go with the desert. It was a late harvest hence it has quite a bit of residue sugar in the wine. This make the wine of a sweeter variety. I personally liked sweet wines.

Though I was told recently, what makes wine enjoyable is to taste the various subtle taste ( fruitness of the wine, the finish). As the person told me, sweetness is the easiest taste to create. ( still learning how to appreciate wines)

The food were all excellent in terms of taste and presentation. I highly recommend this is a good venue to enjoy good food and wine. The ambience of the place is also not bad as there is live performance on Friday evening. If there is only 1 small improvement :), it is in the hope that the portion of the food can be bigger.

It was my fist experience with French Food as well as a wine dinner. Have to say it was an eye opening experience.