The Cathay Restaurant

My dd and I went to The Cathay for dinner on 12 September 2008. Due to my procrastination, I am only posting up my review on the restaurant in October.

I was there for dinner on a Friday night. Almost half of the restaurant was taken up by a company's dinner, so it got a little noisy during our meal when they cheered and laughed among themselves. Nevertheless, I had quite a satisfactory experience.

Food
We ordered half a Peking Duck ($32.00) and the Duck was skinned at a side table infront of us. It was delicious and half a duck yielded us 8 pieces of duck skin. We chose our duck meat to be fried with assorted vegetables ($12.00) and were given lettuce to serve as a wrap for the ingredients.

The Penang Hor Fun ($16.00) though not as fragrant as those you may find outside, it was still good and they are definately not stingy with the ingredients and the portion is big enough for 3 people to share.

The Captain recommended us to try the Special for the Day, which was Crab Claw in Egg White and Truffle Oil ($11.80). Though the crab claw was very fresh and tasty, I didn't quite enjoy the egg white. It has a slightly chemical taste to it which I didn't quite like. Maybe it is the way it was prepared.

Overall, the taste of the food is good. Portion is reasonable. What we ordered above could very well be shared among 3 people. So you can imagine how full we were as there were only 2 of us. We simply could not order dessert. However, I thought the tea & towel charge of $1.80 per person is slightly on the pricey side.

Service
Service was EXCELLENT! The Captain was knowledgable and patient with us when we were placing our orders, and was willing to make recommendations when we asked her for suggestions. She also periodically approached our table during our meal to gather feedback on the food.

The servers were very attentive and always keep topping up our tea or teapot. They are also prompt in clearing our dishes and replacing with new dishes before our next dish arrives.

Dried Berries Cheesecake Muffins

Took this recipe out of a cake book I have on my shelf. The original recipe is called Dried Cherry Cheesecake Muffins. I made an adjustment by adding in a bunch of other dried berries (keeping the quantity as per the recipe). I used dried cherries, dried blueberries and dried cranberries.

The original recipe only makes 12 muffins, but I needed to make three times the amount. So I had to triple the recipe. I was hesitant at first as I am not sure if the quantities will change. Nevertheless, I went ahead with the tripled recipe. I have never made such a big quantity before and I had quite a challenging time mixing it all.

The muffins came out quite ok. It has subtle savoury flavour due to the cream cheese and butter. I brought some for my colleagues to try without telling them that it has cream cheese (as one of them does not like cheese). They all enjoyed it and did not realise that it contains cream cheese! Only after I told them that they realise it does have that cheese flavour.

As usual.....My dd likes it....That's the most important! (Maybe he is biased....)

Strawberry Hearts

Disappeared from here for awhile. The laziness of updating the blog religiously has slowly but surely crept up on me...

Strawberry Hearts was the "in" dessert last year. It was really yummy and great for those who finds the normal cheesecake too heavy for their liking. Strawberry Hearts is made of a base of digestive biscuits, a thin layer of cheesecake and topped with strawberry jelly and a heart-shaped strawberry.

I looked up the internet for the recipe but found a blog mentioning where I can take the class in making the Strawberry Hearts instead. I contacted the baker and booked myself for the next available class! And below is my first attempt at making the dessert.

I didn't bother to go buy the specific size of the baking container, decided the disposable aluminium type ones will do as well. From the recipe, I made 2 aluminium trays.

Overall feedback...Yummy of course!!!

Cards From My DD

Below are some cards which my dd drew for me during our courtship days. As you can see, not only is he artistic, he can also be quite a poetic romantic. I especially love his quirky poems which never fails to make me laugh.

An Average Lunch @ Bishamon

After collecting my new passport and IC on Saturday, I suggested to my dd that we should check out the newly renovated Bugis Junction basement for lunch. We came upon Bishamon Sappora Ramen and decided to give it a try.

The waitress who served us had good customer service skills. Smiley all the way, polite and I noticed that she was even willing to bring a bowl from the kitchen to show the customer next to us when they enquired about the size of their ramen.

Both of us ordered the Special Miso Ramen ($13.90) and shared a side dish of Pork Katsu ($6.90). We were "forced" to ordered beverages as they do not serve ice water, so we had green tea, which is refillable.

The Special Miso Ramen came with toppings of one slice of char siu, corn kernels, bamboo shoots, shredded spring onions and the Japanese style soft boil egg. Though the ramen was served hot, and we could see steam wafting out of the bowl, it was not HOT enough. It should be served so hot that you need to blow before you can take your first sip of the soup. The ramen was too thick and springy for my liking. Though the egg's yolk was nice, thick and watery, the rest of the egg was not cooked perfectly. My egg was not properly peeled and had alot of "craters" instead of being a smooth oval shape. Bits of the egg white was not set and there were still some of the translucent uncooked egg white as I bit into the egg. Their saving grace in this dish was that the soup was flavourful.

The Pork Katsu came with a side salad and Thousand Island Dressing. Unfortunately, though the top side of the katsu was crispy, the bottom was soggy due to the water from the salad. And the slice of pork was not as thick as we were led to believe from the menu. Luckily, HSBC credit card holders have 50% discount for side dishes, so it only cost us $3.45, so I guess that's quite alright then.

Overall, it is an eatery that serves passable Japanese food. Not a place that I would deem a repeat visit.

Yummy Lunch @ Astons

Astons Specialities (The Cathay)

2 Handy Road, #04-03 The Cathay, Singapore

As my dd and I were deciding on a place for lunch while having out haircut, my hairstylist recommended that we try this new steak place over at The Cathay. Apparently one of his customers was raving about how good and value for money the steak was. Since we are catching a movie there later that afternoon, we decided to check this place out.

Only after I decided to write a review about this restaurant, did I realise that this Astons is the one I read so much about along East Coast Road. Despite being located in The Cathay (which I personally think it’s a dead town if not for the cinema upstairs), Astons enjoys a steady stream of customers throughout the hour I was dining there. Furthermore, it was a Monday afternoon. But I think they do expect a queue during peak hours (ie. dinner and weekends) as there is a queue stand outside the restaurant.

We ordered the Prime Ribeye. For $13.90, we also get to choose from a selection of 2 side dishes (hot/cold). We had the Pasta Salad & BBQ Beans and Coleslaw & Baked Potato. The steak was done as we ordered (Medium Rare), it was not tough and quite juicy. Came with a light brown colour sauce, not sure what it was and it tasted bland and looks diluted so we gave that a skip. The sides were generally alright. Though the pasta salad was more of a pasta than salad as it only has 5 thin slices of green pepper. As we were paying at the Cashier counter, we noticed that they also have an alfresco dining area as well. Overall, we are quite satisfied with the taste and portion of the food. Value for money.

The only gripe I have about this place is that we had to pay 30cents for a glass of water. What’s up with restaurants that still charge for water? The money I spent on food does not even cover one glass of tap water???!!!

My First Blog Entry...

Been procrastinating about setting up a blog for the longest time and I finally did it. This blog will be a space for me to share my experience, thoughts and pictures of the food I have eaten or cooked, special occasions and the nice places I have been to. I just hope I will presevere and continue posting and not give up halfway through.