SINGAPORE: Fika and 320 Below Nitro Cream Cafe

SUP LADLES AND JELLYSPOONS~

Jia here~ As with most of our posts this is one that is looooong overdue, and I thought I'd pick up the slack a little since the mid-semester break has started. This post is from way back in January-ish when we were in Singapore. 320 Below Nitro Cream Cafe is a icecream place that makes their icecream with liquid nitrogen. It is located in several locations(Geylang, Paya Lebar, and in Tampines) and claims to be the only Nitro Cream cafe in Singapore. The one we decided to go to was located all the way in Paya Lebar's OneKM mall and we wanted to go with our friends so it took a while to organise. Eventually we decided on a good time and met up at the Paya Lebar MRT(mass rapid transport) station, then walked to OneKM mall.

Our lovely companions Amanda and Louise

Of course, by the time we got there we were pretty hungry since it was lunchtime, and we walked around the mall trying to think of a good place to eat. Eventually, Fika Swedish Cafe and Bistro caught our eye and we went in.

Fika Swedish Cafe and Bistro

It was a bit odd, like a little piece of suburban neighborhood just plonked in the middle of the mall, complete with hanging pot plants, lampposts, a white picket fence, fake grass and other homely decor.

Atmosphere

As I said, the decor was really suburban neighborhood, which was cute I reckon. This is probably rather novel because Singapore is a very urban city and majority of the housing is in flats and those with houses have a rather different sort of neighborhood; beautiful houses all crammed together with usually very little garden space if any, and high security imposing gates and such, nothing like the typical American Dream white picket fence house type. It was also very.. white, which made for good photos when the food came. 

 "Jia Wen, go behind that fence and look through it""Like some creepy stalker?""Yeah"

Food

 

We didn't want to be too stuffed when it came to dessert time, so we only got 3 dishes between the 4 of us. This turned out to be quite enough, as we struggled to finish it all. 

The first dish was the Smoked Salmon Salad. I don't know why but this year I've really been getting into the whole smoked salmon and cream cheese and salad kind of thing, I just find it absolutely delicious. I wasn't too keen on the random hard rye crispbread as I was more focussed on the salmon. It was pleasantly tangy, with the mixture of feta cheese, cucumbers, lemon, cherry tomatos and mixed greens. I'm not too sure what dill mayo is but it tasted like normal mayonnaise to me. 

The second dish was the Meatball Melt, and oh my gosh  they were good. I'm writing this review like 8 months later and I still remember it. On the other hand I was really hungry at the time and let's be honest, any combination of meatball and cheese is a winner. And that is exactly what this was. The only gripe I'd have about this dish is that ciabatta bread at the bottom, it was a bit of a pain to cut up. I'll admit when the dish first came I looked at Songie and like "Really? this is what you ordered?" but I definitely enjoyed it.

The third dish was the Pasta Bake which was apparently a family recipe. This consisted of melted cheddar cheese, creamy sauce and pasta, minced beef and those little cherry tomatoes on top. It's a lot smaller than it looks in the picture but still pretty filling, and I liked it but probably not as much as the meatballs? The pasta was a bit too creamy and cheesy and I honestly had no stomach for it in the end.

Presentation

It's pretty hard to dress up pasta, salad and meatballs so there's not much to judge here.. it didn't look awful, I can say that at least haha.

Service

Service was fine, food was fairly prompt and the staff were friendly enough. We didn't have much interaction with them beyond ordering, really.

Price

The salad was $19.90, the meatballs also $19.90, and the pasta bake was $17.50. It is quite pricey but that is generally the price range of Singapore cafes when you're out of the hawker centres. Average pricing, in general I guess.

Overall
Pricing aside, I found this place to be quite nice. Due to it's location and the abundance of cute cafes around Singapore, however, I probably would not find myself travelling out to eat there again.

OK back to the main point of our expedition, we located 320 Below near the entrance where we walked in, and quickly made our way down.

320 Below

I discovered this place because my friend raved about the coconut ice-cream and chocolate lava cake(shout out to Kerry!) It was really awesome because you got to watch the ice-cream being made right in front of you, and the cooling sensation of the nitrogen was a  nice contrast to the hot weather(albeit in the mall you don't feel the heat). 

There are tubs available for takeaway, which I will probably try to get next time, but this time I just had a scoop, being too full from the lunch. I tried the Earl Grey flavour, Songie tried theapple cinnamon icecream and the chocolate lava cake, and A and L got apple cinnamon and coconut.

They had their menu on these screens

 The Earl Grey one was nice, having the faint taste of the tea without being bitter. I actually really enjoyed the texture of the icecream, it was rather like frozen yoghurt but a little more brittle than that, if cream can be brittle... then it just melted away in your mouth with a refreshing feeling, perhaps similar to shaved ice? We all sampled each other's and I must say I wish I'd gotten the Thai coconut one too because that was really nice, capturing the essence of a sweet coconut without being overpowering.

Songie's Lava cake looked reeaaally good I have to say, and it had a rich, dark chocolate tinge to it, which was enhanced with the ice-cream. I liked the fact that the apple cinnamon had apple bits in it too, rather than just the flavouring.

Now I don't remember the price but I do know it was definitely under $10, which is pretty normal for icecream. Songie didn't find it too amazing but I would probably head back to 320 Below to try all the flavours and maybe take a tub or two home if it could last the train ride home in the blistering heat of Singapore. 

Cheers for reading this long post!!

Just the one Lamb

SINGAPORE: Icecream sandwich

Hellooo ladles and jelly spoons :D

Joke time(got it off the net):

The young man entered the Ice Cream Shop at the amusement park and asked, "What kinds of ice cream do you have?"

"Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry," the girl wheezed as she spoke, patted her chest and seemed unable to continue.

"Do you have laryngitis?" the young man asked sympathetically.

"Nope," she whispered, "just vanilla, chocolate and strawberry."

This post's topic is ice-cream sandwiches. I know, doesn't seem like an actual thing but it totally is! You can probably find it in some cafes in Singapore too but most often its found on the street in a busy area in a cart and an umbrella over it. (Song here. Most often found frequently along Orchard Road if you all don't want to go hunting for this)




Bro queuing. was a hot day so everyone was in line haha

It seems you can order up to 20 sandwiches, or perhaps more but on the paper the largest amount I saw was 20 (But honestly who on Earth would order 20 sandwiches, unless its for a party obviously. I mean, they're really good but..20??) It can come in between biscuit or bread, and it's $1.20 SGD for one. The line seemed pretty long at first, but over time it got shorter. I suppose people got many sandwiches at once, since the owner is actually quite efficient for an old man, and our sandwich was done in less than 3 minutes. (Okay I disagree with this. 3 minutes is considered efficient for an ice cream sandwich? It's literally chopping a block of ice cream and putting it between two slices of bread or biscuit.. Let's face it it's not fine dining haha)

The owner cutting up the icecream

Songie being greedy with his two sandwiches. Jk he shared the vanilla with me.

 It's a childhood treat for me and Songie, and I think it could be the same guy with his wife that I had my first one from years ago, also on Orchard. Totally possible since people seem to retire pretty late around here. There's a range of flavours like classic vanilla, mint, chocolate and stuff like mango, yam and durian. The bread they use is the usual Asian bread, which if you guys haven't tried its softer and has a hint of sweetness in it even without any spread.



durian



vanilla

Overall this is a delectable treat that is so refreshing(not to mention super affordable) on a hot day(which is pretty much everyday) in Singapore.

A selfie just cos'.

Cheers,
The Lambs

SINGAPORE: Tampopo

Greetings ladles and jellyspoons,

While we have been talking about hawker centre food a lot, we do eat at other places, such as this time when we ate at Takashimaya, a popular shopping mall on Orchard Rd. This .. restaurant I suppose, is called Tampopo, which I believe means dandelion in Japanese. (Song here: Off topic, there's a pretty good manga called Tanpopo, quite old, good though..)

It was a little crowded considering it was no longer lunch time but maybe lunch is eaten late in Singapore. It seems to be a family restaurant, and quite popular. It has art on the walls but I wouldn't consider it especially decorated in Japanese things as most Japanese restaurants are. It's a nice, clean and bright area to eat with a nice atmosphere for maybe a casual date or something with friends. It's bright and welcoming and doesn't feel like there's much of a standard for diners to have. The waitress was attentive and cleared the table quickly, and was nice to kids so that's a plus.

I ordered the chef recommended curry, pictured above.

Songie ordered a chef recommended curry too, but a soup type while mine was a pork Katsu one. His had beef and udon. The beef in it was few and far between it seemed like there was some sort of famine happening, but on the other hand, was so tender and just melted in your mouth. I guess the udon was nice too, I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of udon so yeah. They had a good texture to them though. The curry was a bit spicy but bearable, perhaps a result of our Singapore food training ;) It was a pretty filling dish. However, that being said, I could probably get filled up on water alone as well. Just. Not. Enough. Meat. For $20 ish SGD, I expect at least double of what I received. Kind of ridiculous.

so happy haha

Mine was just a huge plate with rice, salad and Katsu, with watermelon on the side. The curry was served on the side in a shallow dish with a cut up boiled egg. It kinda looked like something to dip my katsu in rather than an actual curry. The taste was similar to the curry from You Japanese Dining, so vaguely spicy but not enough to really bother you. It was very mild but it seemed like packet curry, I guess? Was a bit bland to what I was expecting I suppose.

It was definitely filling but didn't seem worth the $21 I paid. Maybe it's just in comparison with hawker centre food prices. Essentially spent almost $50 on 2 dishes though, and that kinda irks me somehow. However I will also consider the fact it was in Takashimaya which seems to up the prices of everything, presumably just because of the cost of being in such an area. So the food is alright and the price is alright if you think about the area, but it's probably not somewhere I would go specially, just on a whim. From this post alone you can probably tell how the eating scene is in Singapore. To eat local food, which to us is exotic, worth it, and satisfying, is cheap because, it's local. Almost every small area of Singapore will serve similar things. However, go to a more modern setting, such as places on Orchard, and you'll find prices soaring and food becoming really similar to what we see in New Zealand. It's great to break the monotony of local food and to rub shoulders with the more wealthy but other than that, I don't think it's worth anything more than an experience.

Cheers,
The Lambs 

SINGAPORE: Artease and Bun Master (This is a food review don't worry!)

Greetings Ladles and Jellyspoons!

Song here, just reassuring readers who may be slightly confused  both Artease and Bun Master are real food places. The latter is not some strange exercise machine. Anyways..

So last evening we got a call saying that we'd be by ourselves for dinner that night (we're usually taken out by our brother and co.) and to be honest, making a choice wasn't something we'd done in a while. After thinking about it for a while we realized, there was simply too much choice and then we decided that we were probably too lazy to go anywhere spectacu... I'm sorry, did I say lazy? I meant that for you wonderful readers, we decided to show you some of the less local stuff that you can try, because we know that even though Char Siew and Fish ball soup may be great, it starts becoming less great if you have it everyday for a month. So let's get started!

For those who have gotten the hang of the train system you can take the Green line to reach Tanjong Plaza and follow the signs for exit A to Tanjong Pagar Plaza which is near to where both places are found.

Artease is a little shop located near the outside Tanjong Pagar Plaza. I suppose they were going for a small cafe/eatery but to be honest it pretty much looks like an upgraded hawker centre stall. From what we saw of their menu they serve two things; drinks and sandwiches. However when I looked at their website they had a range of pastries as well. For more info you can just head over to here for the complete menu.

It's useful to note that they close at 8:30pm on the day we went (Friday) which, is kind of surprising seeing as most Singapore shops don't close till about 10 onwards. But the staff there were real troopers even when we arrived at 8:20pm and didn't complain as we placed our order (yes I know we sound like bad customers but we did order to takeaway!) We only managed to try the honey mustard chicken sandwich, as we both felt like the same one, but to be honest it felt like it was the only one worth getting although the egg sandwich might have been a contender if they didn't make the honey mustard chicken one look so tempting. Actually the rest looked so overly simple like cheese and ham or tuna so the chicken was really the only viable option.

When we got our food, they came in a paper bag, so it really felt like a packed lunch, nice touch. When I opened mine though, I kind of thought that they might have given me the wrong order because it certainly looked nothing like the picture, nor did it look anything like chicken. It resembled a tuna sandwich and was about to complain but my sister had the exact same thing. So false-ish advertising but to be fair it probably wouldn't have fit in the sandwich if it was a whole piece of chicken, and they'd probably have to use more to fill the sandwich so.. smart move Artease. The taste was, nice, can't really taste the honey or the mustard, more like a slightly bland mix of the two. Don't get me wrong, it's not like the sandwich had NO flavor it just wasn't what I thought it would be like. The texture of the sandwich was well, pretty much like tuna. The grilled sandwich toast was nice though, albeit kind of oily but that just added to the experience.

We also ordered a strawberry green tea milk tea (that's a mouthful I know), a standard milk tea, and a hazelnut ice chocolate (starting to sound like a Starbucks yet?). The prep time was pretty standard so nothing special to comment about it (so why I'm still typing about this I have no idea). Another interesting thing about this place is that you can choose the percentage of sugar, from 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and then 100%. I'm not sure how you'd manage to make a caramel milk tea 0% sweet but maybe I'll find out one day. The hazelnut ice chocolate was a tad bit disappointing, you could taste a real subtle hint of hazelnut but when I buy something that has hazelnut IN the name, I expect it to be able to taste it in at least 75% of the product. Basically tasted like a Milo with a dash of hazelnut thrown in.

The strawberry milk tea was confusing to the tastebuds, to say the least. On one hand it had the bitter flavour of green tea that was quite strong, and yet at the same time there was the taste of strawberry milk in the background that you had a better impression of with the aftertaste. Also there were little strawberry seeds at the bottom, that was yum. Also, there's a 2 hour time limit to drink it, presumably so the flavour stays the same.

Moving onto the Bun Master.

Didn't get to try it :(

Aside from it's weird name this place is actually really decent. They only have a few products to sell but most of them, if not all, are notable. So if you ever get a chance to try this place out I would recommend it. From what I see on their Facebook page, they have two stores. One, in Tanjong Pagar, the other in Toa Payoh, but if anyone knows of any others or realizes that I didn't read it properly, feel free to let me know in the comments below. We'll just review the really notable ones because well, they're the ones you definitely have to try, but at about 0.90 cents a bun, you can pretty much grab one of everything without feeling the burn in your wallet.

One of the buns you absolutely HAVE to try is the HK style Polo Bun. They make it so the top is crispy, and this combined with the soft bun and the warm char siew inside makes for a pretty darn good bun for 90 cents.

The next one would have to be the Golden sand bun. I know this sounds super weird but hey, you're buying from a store called the Bun Master so surely you didn't expect it to be normal. It's not sand, but custard inside. Though I can't really explain it, it's similar to the Crystal Jade steamed egg custard bun, so its a more liquid-like custard. Either way it's delicious when warm (and note I do say when warm because when it gets cold it becomes kinda weird to eat. You could always reheat it if you wanted to bring it home though). They supposedly have this amazing bun called the magical milk bun but we didn't see it that day but if we do get to try it we'll update this, or someone can, again, leave us a comment on how it was. Do NOT confuse  with the standard polo bun and come after me with pitchforks and torches saying I didn't warn you. (I'm totally not saying this from experience or anything..ha...ha.. it's not like I ordered 6 of them only realizing when we got home that they were the wrong ones)

So these two stores are something to add a little variety to your Singapore experience. I would probably just recommend Artease for it's friendly staff, I think it's products still need a fair bit more work but if you're craving a sandwich then head over to there (After typing about sandwiches, that's exactly what I'm craving right now, so you'll be sure to see a post about sandwiches soon) but I think there'd be a ton of other places to have a sandwich that would probably open till a later time too. I definitely recommend heading over to Bun Master to check out the buns I talked about, it would be well worth the trip.

Cheers,
The Lambs