Empire State Restaurant @ Iluma – An Update

Had lunch there on Wednesday, 30 Sep 09 at 12.45 pm.

There were more people dinning there compared to two moths’ ago when I was last there. (Please read my previous post on this Restaurant here.)

I had the Baked Salmon again and it was just as good as before. But the portion of salmon and mashed potato were about 10% less than previously. However this time round they throw in a free soup and I had the Mushroom Soup which was thick and filled with plenty of mushroom, which I enjoyed.

As the portion was quite large previously, reducing the portion and substituting it with a free soup is an excellent move, which will benefit both the diner and the restaurant.

ICE3 Café

That’s Ice Cube Café with two outlets in Serangoon Garden and Upper Thomson. I have not been to either outlet. I think the main reason is because they are only opened for business from 4 pm onwards till 1 am. On Sundays and Public Holidays they are opened from 2 pm.

On an ordinary day, my usual eating habits do not call for desserts during those hours. And this is also the reason why I have yet to dine at 2am:dessertbar at Holland Village and The Cheesecake Café at Siglap because they are also opened for business from 4 pm onwards; though I have ordered cakes from them for take-out before.

So the next best thing was to order online for delivery. There are 21 flavours of ice cream on the online menu which is different from the in-store menu. I ordered Apple Cinnamon, Soursop Sorbet, Mango Tango and Mocha. They come in 473 ml pint and cost $12 each. Delivery charge of $18 applies if your order is below $40; free if it is above $40.

The ice cream were delivered in a small styrofoam box with plenty of dried ice in it and tied with a ribbon. That was a nice touch.


I had ice cream delivered from Ice Cream Chef and Awfully Chocolate and none of them packed the ice cream in a styrofoam box with dried ice. If I wanted a styrofoam box from Ice Cream Chef, I would have to pay $10 for it, though it was a huge size one which seemed only appropriate if you are ordering for hundreds of people.

I had actually wanted to comment on the ice cream sometime back but didn’t do so because I don’t seem to be able to come up with words to describe the taste as I neither like nor dislike them. The taste is just “unique “, for want of a better word.

The Apple Cinnamon tasted strange at first because I could not taste the apple. I think it is because they use red apples. I would think green apples would be a better choice. My cousin thinks that it was because they didn’t cook the apples. Another reason could be too much cinnamon was used though I didn’t feel it was overpowering.

The Soursop Sorbet tasted like the ice shavings that comes with the soursop jelly from those desserts shops in food court.

The Mango Tango tasted good on first try. It was smooth and you can taste the mango. However with each subsequent taste the mango flavour wasn’t that strong and I suspect no real fruit was used.

Mocha was the only flavour my mum and I liked mainly because it has always been a flavour we enjoy in chocolates or ice cream. But it wasn’t super duper good.

The in-store menu looked interesting and promising. I believe the in-store ice cream will taste better especially since they are mainly chocolate and strawberry which I like. Well, will one day try to actually go to the Café and find out.

The 50 Best Things to Eat in the World, and Where to Eat Them

The Observer UK solicited the help of several well-known people in London and a couple from New York to come up with a list of the 50 best things to eat in the world, and where to eat them.

Here are some of the selections which I am interested in:

Best place to eat Hamburgers – Little Owl, a small Greenwich Village bistro in New York
Best place to eat Macaroons – Laduree in Paris
Best place to eat Strawberry Tart - Restaurant de Bacon, Antibes, France
Best place to eat Peking Duck - Quanjude, Beijing
Best place to eat Sushi - Daiwa Sushi, Tokyo
Best place to eat Ice Cream - Corrado Costanzo, Noto, Sicily
Best place to eat Chocolate Cake - Pierre Herme, Paris
Best place to eat Dim Sum - Luk Yu Tea House, Hong Kong
Best place to eat Ramen - Ramen Jiro, Tokyo; especially the branch near Keio University

The article, which was published on Sunday, 13 Sep 09, has since drew many comments challenging the selections. You have to read those comments as well.

New Katong Beef Noodles @ East Coast Road

You don’t see any notice saying that this shop will permanently close for business this Sunday, 13 Sep 09. The owner told me that there is no point in putting up a notice. Nonetheless, regular customers were told by word of mouth so that they won’t go there after 13 Sep 09 and be disappointed.

There is nothing wrong with the quality of the food. In fact it has been recommended by many foodies. And it is now pointless for me to tell you what are on the menu.

I was told that they are only busy during lunch time on weekends. That stretch of the road is “practically dead after 9 pm” even on weekends.

I offered another reason – lack of parking lots.

The shop has been taken over by some China nationals and when it reopens in mid-October, it will offer some kind of steamboat.

Café Oliv @ East Coast Road

I have been to Café Oliv on a number of occasions but the first time was sort of a chance accident. I had originally wanted to have hainanese pork chop rice for lunch but the shop was closed. So I walked by Café Oliv and perhaps because it was early, around 11.30 am, the shop’s lights were not on but the sign did say “Open”. I went in and as the saying goes, the rest is history.

The pictures of dishes in the menu were vividly attractive, looked appetizing, and representative of the end products that were presented on the table in front of me.

One of the appetizers that my colleagues and I like is the White Button Mushroom Fritter ($7.90). They are basically battered whole white mushrooms coated with bread crumbs and fried to crispy. The inside is still soft as tofu and moist.

A 3-course set lunch of a soup, entrée and a drink costs $10.90 plus 10% Service Charge (that’s $12.00). I believe they didn’t have service charges when they first opened the Café as it was a selling point then and their website still say no service charge.

The soup, which comes with the set, is always mushroom soup, which I enjoyed. I don’t mind if there isn’t any other choice.


I usually do not have cold drinks after lunch nor do I go for tea or coffee. As such I usually tell the service staff that I don’t want any drink even if it is included in the price. The second time I was there, I asked whether I could have more soup instead since I don’t want the drink. I said it was perfectly alright if they cannot accede to my request. The service staff said no problem and told the kitchen staff to give me more soup. She did have to explain to the kitchen staff why. Now I don’t have to ask as she could remember me though on my following visit after the above incident, she only remembered when I told her I don’t want any drink when she asked me for my choice. I guess not many people, or perhaps no one, ever said they don’t want any drinks that are part of a set meal.

There are eleven choices for the main course. One of which is the Parmesan Cheese Chicken Cutlet with Coriander Dill Cream.


If you like crispy food, then this is the choice. It is crispy outside but the chicken is still moist and soft inside. I liked this so much that I had this consecutively on some of my subsequent visits.

Another main course is the Braised Half Spring Herb Chicken (in?) Brown Sauce. The menu does not have that word in parentheses.


The chicken was well braised and soft. I felt that the herb was not strong enough and was slightly overpowered by the brown sauce. This is just a personal preference. Overall, not bad.

A single scoop of ice cream is just $2 and it was a huge scoop. We even asked whether they have erroneously given us a double scoop instead.


I tried the crème burlee ($6). Not creamy and soft enough and too sweet for me. The sugar coating was not done well either.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, desserts are half-priced.

Overall, not a bad place, in terms of food quality and pricing, for a simple meal. Click here for menu.

Awfully Chocolate

Awfully Chocolate does not sell chocolates. I guess most people know that by now since they have been around since 1988. They sell three types of chocolate cakes (All Chocolate, Chocolate Banana and Chocolate Rum & Cherry), which most people know, and they sell chocolate ice cream, which some people don’t know.

Back then their first shop at Joo Chiat, which had since closed, made headlines with their all white minimalist décor with just a counter. You will be forgiven if you thought it was a reception counter for an aesthetic clinic or consultancy firm because they do not display their cakes at the shop front. All their cakes are kept in the cooler at the back of the shop which is cleverly condoned off. They still maintain this design concept for all their stores. When shown a video of my cousins’ children running around in the Awfully Chocolate shop in Cluny Court, my cousin’s Filipino domestic helper thought that they were at someone’s house.

Back then when you think of chocolate cakes, you think of them and the Chocolate Etoile by Temptations. I, and I think many people as well, have outgrown them as they are many choices nowadays. I still enjoyed them but I will not deliberately go all the way to their stores to get them.

I am writing this because I was there several days ago; because I like to recommend their ice cream; AND because they scoop their ice cream from the display tub! No mention of NEA regulation! (read my earlier post on Andersen’s Ice Cream).

Their ice cream, Hei (黑) or Black, is pure dark chocolate ice cream and very bitter as if you are eating frozen dark chocolate. Highly recommended.

It costs $3.80 for a single scoop or $11.80 for a pint. If you want them delivered to you, you can order online but there is a minimum order and a delivery charge of $10.70.

Andersen’s & Subway’s Food Logic? (At Parkway Parade)

I was given two ice cream mangoes from India. I was told to put them in the fridge and eat them with vanilla ice cream. As I only have chocolate ice cream in my fridge, I went to Parkway Parade yesterday to get the vanilla ice cream.

I went to Andersen’s Ice Cream and asked for a pint of vanilla bean ice cream, which happened to be the flavour of the month. The guy checked and said there wasn’t any. I went, “Can’t you scoop a pint from here (pointing to the full tub on display in the freezer)?” He replied, “No. It is against NEA regulation.” Various thoughts crossed my mind then. One of which was: if you are not allowed to scoop from the tub then how come you can do so for customers who just wanted a single or double scoops? Or did NEA say one can only scoop no more than twice at any given moment or from any given flavour?

I have bought ice cream from Haagen Dazs, Hokkaido and others, and none of them had told me they were not allowed to scoop from the display tubs in the freezers. I didn’t bother to rationalise with that guy and went to Cold Storage to get a pint of, yes, Andersen’s Vanilla Bean ice cream.

Several weeks back I decided to try the sandwiches at Subway at Parkway Parade. One of the signs said something like “add $1.50 for a salad” if you ordered a 6-inch sandwich. So I told the guy serving me that I would like to have the salad as well. He went on to explain that unlike other establishments where “add $X amount for Y” meant when you buy a particular first item you just needed to add an usually lesser amount to get a second item (in other words, upsizing, or value-added meals) “here” (Subway) it meant if you didn’t want the bread then you just needed to pay another $1.50 for the salad. In other words, exchange your bread for a salad and pay another $1.50 on top of what you were paying. I asked what sort of logic was that and if that was what it was supposed to mean than the sign was misleading. He went on to justify that “at Subway we sell sandwiches, we don’t sell salad”. I didn’t bother to rationalise with him further.

Would anyone want to buy and eat a sandwich without the bread? You might as well just ask for a scoop of tuna fish. And if you are so proud of your main food item then why bother selling other “secondary” food items? Anyway, the sandwich was nothing great – just plain simple sandwich. And with that kind of pricing, it was not worth it.

Empire State Restaurant @ Iluma

Went to Iluma on Tuesday, 21 Jul 09, at around 12.45 pm. Surprisingly it was not packed at all considering that it was lunch hour. Perhaps the building is new, having just opened about four months ago and not fully-tenanted yet. Perhaps the building is so ultra-modern and high-tech looking that people think it is an expensive shopping mall. I reckon there will be more human traffic towards the end of the year when the complex is more “developed” and be the entertainment centre it is intended to be.

Decided to eat at the Empire State Restaurant which is on the 4th floor. I was the third customer. Subsequently, eleven others came in four different groups. The restaurant is quite large. The staff are quite young and all of them wore t-shirts with the face of an ape in front and different one or two-liners on the back, such as “I didn’t trained so hard to be a vegetarian.”

The Restaurant has quite an extensive menu. There were twelve different groups of food, drinks and desserts. Just for pasta, there were eleven choices. You will need some 10 to 15 minutes to finish reading the entire menu.

As I wanted something light, I ordered the Baked Salmon, shown here.


This picture, which was hurriedly taken, doesn’t do justice to the food. I meant the amount of food. I didn’t expect the portion to be as large as what you usually will get in US. There was another piece of salmon about half the size of the front one you see, which was lying on top of a bed of mashed potatoes. The serving of mashed potatoes was easily equaled to 1.5 large KFC mashed potatoes. The salmon, mashed potatoes and greens were not salty and blended well, just nice for my taste. At $16.90 it was worth it.

I will definitely go back there again, if not sooner, then at the end of September.

(I did go back, read my update here.)

Mizkan Creamy Golden Sesame Dressing

On my last trip to Tokyo I walked into a restaurant in Shinjuku and ordered lunch. I can’t remember the name of or where exactly the restaurant was as, unlike dinner, I usually would just eat at whatever place I happened to be and felt like eating. And anyway, that was supposed to be my last trip to Tokyo and since I didn’t plan on returning I didn’t bother to take note of the name or location of the restaurant.

On the table was a mini pounder and you placed the roasted sesame seeds into the pounder and grinded them into powder form. As you grind the seeds, the aroma from the roasted seeds would be released. You poured this powder onto your rice or whatever food you fancied. On the table there was quite a large and long bottle of sesame seed dressing. This was for the free-flow fresh cabbage salad. It was the best sesame seed dressing I came across. I refilled my salad twice and almost finished that bottle of dressing. I had actually wanted to ask where I could buy the dressing or whether they would sell the dressing. But since I couldn’t speak Japanese, I didn’t. I have searched for the dressing in Japan and Singapore but nothing resembled it. I suspect the dressing was made in-house.

I have tried several sesame seed dressings that are made in Japan. The one that I like most is Mizkan Kin Gomadare Baisen Arabiki (Mizkan Creamy Golden Sesame Dressing). It is made not from black or white, but golden sesame seed. Golden sesame seeds are high in protein, vitamin E, calcium, and other minerals. They contained large amount of sesamin, which is an antioxidant.

The consistency of this dressing is just nice – not too liquid nor too thick. As there is vinegar in it, there is just a slight sourly taste that goes well with any salad or cutlets. It is available at Cold Storage for $7.90 for a 250ml bottle.

Here is a suggestion. Buy half or one red cabbage from Australia and keep in the refrigerator. They stay fresh and last longer than lettuce. Whenever you feel like eating it, too lazy to stir fry vegetables or need an extra dish, simply cut the cabbage into strips, wash and drain them, pour and mix in generous amount of the dressings and serve - you will have a very appetizing and nutritious dish. If you find the texture of raw red cabbage a bit too chewy, boil them in hot water for a couple of minutes first, let it cool and then pour the dressing.



The purple color in red cabbage comes from a class of pigment molecules called anthocyanins which may provide cancer protection, improve brain function and promote heart health.

Lunch at Old Hong Kong Kitchen, Square 2

Had lunch at Old Hong Kong Kitchen (Square 2 #02-76/91) with my mum on Tuesday, 5 May. As in my past four visits, I ordered the Pan Fried Carrot Cake with Bean Sprout in XO Sauce ($5). I think I can just eat this by itself though it’s a bit spicy for me (I have the lowest spicy tolerance quotient amongst people who know me). My mum liked it too.

Since this was supposed to be a light lunch as we were going to have dim sum hi-tea later in the afternoon, I ordered the Sliced Chicken with Mushroom Congee ($6.20). The Congee, as expected of Cantonese congee, was smooth and velvety with each rice grain broken. Some say one of the secrets is to add fu chuk (dried bean curd slice). The chicken was not sliced, as in being shredded, but in pieces, which complemented the smoothness of the Congee. Came with just three tiny but very crispy pieces of yu tiao (Chinese dough stick). A side dish, in a small bowl, of crisply fried fish skin was provided too. Enjoyed this Congee as it was not only a nice change from the usual century egg congee with pork, it was actually good. Had they given me more yu tiao, perhaps as another side dish, it would have been excellent.

My mum had the Fresh Shrimp Wonton Noodle ($6.80) which I thought was average.

Ended the lunch with a refreshing iced cool Lime Honey Jasmine ($3.80).

Sorry, no pictures - still not used to taking pictures of food prior to eating them! However, here is a picture of one of the restaurant's wall features.

High Tea at Zhou's Kitchen, Square 2

Was at Zhou’s Kitchen (Square 2 #01-73) with my mum, two aunts and my cousin’s daughter on Tuesday, 5 May for dim sum high tea buffet. Didn’t expect it to be packed on a weekday. I did make a reservation and that was because I wanted to sit at one of their round tables (5 or 6 only) with cushioned seats by the side.

(unadulterated and better resolution photos in my Facebook account)

There are 30 items on the weekday menu and you just place your order and the food will be served at your table.

The dim sum was as good as the last time we went there for lunch and paid regular prices. The Pansit “Xing Hua” Wanton Soup which we enjoyed previously seems saltier on this day. Wonder whether it is because the soup was kept hot from lunch till hi-tea time; you know the soup evaporates and hence becomes saltier?

We didn’t ordered any desserts when we had lunch there because we were full, but the desserts we had that afternoon, Sesame Cream and Chilled Mango Cream with Sago and Pamelo, were amongst the worst I have eaten. Sesame Cream was sweet (for my taste, but should be OK with the rest) and diluted with no sesame fragrance. And it was like, “uh, you called this mango cream with sago & pamelo?”

Overall: a good and satisfying hi tea but without a happy ending.

Hi Tea is from 2.45 pm to 5.00 pm with last order at 4.45 pm. Weekday Hi Tea is priced at $12.80++ for adults and $9.80++ for children between 3 to 10 years old. Weekend Hi Tea, with 4 additional items on the menu, is priced at $16.80++ for adults and $10.80++ for children. Tea is chargeable at $1 per person. So theoretically you should add $1 to the prices.

There is currently a promotion for UOB Cards holders where for every three paying, one dines for free.

Zhou’s Kitchen, where you can have “causal Chinese dinning” is part of the Tung Lok Group.