茶淵

Sorry for being MIA last week. The laptop which had been loyally by my side the past five years has finally passed on. If you find the colours of my photos in this post a tad different from my usual ones, please bear with me for the time being while I try to get used to this new uncalibrated monitor which appears to make things more blue-ish and saturated than they should be.


Anyway, my last Sunday saw me at Tea Chapter to seek inner peace after a hectic week coupled with many sleepless nights.









There is a bit of waiting if you order hot food here. It would thus be a good idea to order some readily available snacks like the Tea Egg ($1.5) to keep the mouth occupied.



The Set B ($7) on the menu comes with one Lor Mai Kai (Glutinous Rice in Lotus Leaf), 2 x Siew Mai, 2 x Shark Fin Dumpling and a Lychee Tea Jelly. Quite worth it in terms of both quality and quantity.





The Oolong Sweet Potato ($3) here was another winner. Baked sweet potato was perfumed with the alluring scent of oolong tea. The ideal comfort food for a gloomy day.









The minimum charge of $7 per person on tea could be quite expensive for some (think for the family of 6 next to my table). But if you treat tea appreciation as a form of art, the experience is simply priceless.


茶淵
9A Neil Road
Daily, 11am – 11pm
6226 1175

Chu Dao Chinese Cuisine @ Joo Chiat Place

Was reading a local magazine which recently reviewed this fairly new restaurant located in Joo Chiat Place. The owner and chef of the restaurant is a celebrity chef, who had appeared in many MediaCorp Channel 8 variety programs. I am not sure who it is, but decided to give it a try as we were around the area.



It's a small restaurant, so I can imagine it being very crowded on a weekend evening. But it was fairly quiet on weekdays. They are opened for both lunch and dinner.



The specialty here is Peking Duck, and many who have tried agree that it is one of the best in Singapore. The chef apparently has worked in many top Chinese restaurants in Singapore, such as Raffles Hotel, Raffles the Plaza, Marina Mandarin and Tung Lok.



Many of the dishes here used pumpkin as a "container". One of them is the Pumpkin soup in Japanese mirin and lobster meat (S$16 for one). Enjoyed the pipping hot soup with all the seafood goodness.



We came here for the Peking duck (S$38 for half), and indeed it was one of the best we had eaten in Singapore. I think it is comparable to those good ones at Imperial Treasure Super Duck restaurants. The meat is juicy and the skin is crisp without being too oily. Highly Recommended.



The Homemade egg bean curd with shrimp paste, crabmeat and roe in pi pa style (S$16), is basically calling out for white rice to go with it.



Some opts for the duck meat from the Peking Duck to be fried with noodles or spring onions, but here the restaurant recommends doing a roast duck soup with salted vegetable, beancurd, mushroom (S$10 for one big pot on top of Peking Duck). It's really yummy. Of course, you can have the roast duck meat on its own too.



Another pumpkin dish - Stewed soft pork ribs with pumpkin and mantou (S$12). Only one mantou was given, but by now, we are really full that we didn't even finish that mantou. The pork ribs were tender.



Cream of almond with bird's nest (S$38 for one). Not much bird's nest inside. But the almond cream was thick.



Also had the Chilled rosella flower jelly with diced mango (S$6 for one) as the 2nd dessert.


Chu Dao Chinese Cuisine
45 Joo Chiat Place
#01-01