Food – Page 11 – Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Kopi Alley (at Downtown East)

August 16, 2009 Bradley Farless4 Comments

One of the best things about Singapore, to me anyway, has been the food. Also, as a coffee lover, it didn’t take me long to try the Kopi that you can find at most every hawker center in Singapore. There are people that hate it, but somehow I got addicted to the stuff and love to have it after dinner whenever possible. I won’t go into the details of how it’s prepared, because I honestly don’t know them, but it’s well worth trying if you ever get the chance.

There are plenty of places you can go to get Kopi. Like I said, you can get it from hawker centers, but there are also fancier looking restaurants set up in malls that sell Kopi. Some of them call it coffee, like the place on the bottom level of White Sands in Pasir Ris (Kayakun Toast I think?), but it’s still the same, and it’s still good.

Here are some photos of Kopi Alley at Downtown East:

I really like the design theme they went with for Kopi Alley, and I was a bit surprised, considering what they sell. It looks nicer than a lot of so-called fine dining restaurants I’ve been in. By the way, the total cost for the items in the last 3 photos was only 5.30 SGD. That’s not too bad at all, and it was overkill. We went there after dinner and we wound up not finishing that chocolate spread toast, so we could’ve done without it. It was a bit too sweet too, but… what did I expect, ordering chocolate spread toast?

Buddy Hoagies at Downtown East

August 12, 2009 Bradley Farless4 Comments

The first time my wife and I saw this place we kinda scoffed at the name. It sounds pretty lame right? So, we didn’t bother trying it out. We didn’t even bother looking it up online.

I was really in the mood to try something new, though, so when a Friday night rolled around and we couldn’t decide where we wanted to go, I said, “Well, how about that Buddy Hoagies at Downtown East?” My wife couldn’t think of anything she’d rather have, so that’s where we went.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The first thing I noticed was that the place has a nice ambiance.

Buddy Hoagies at Pasir Ris White Sands / E-Hub

The place is really relaxed. The lighting isn’t too bright either, though it seems that way in the second photo. That’s just a bad shot! I think it helped that there weren’t too many other people in the place at the time. It gave the whole dining experience a relaxed feel and was conducive to conversation.

The place also has a fun look to it, with nifty little pictures up on the wall, a cafeteria style bar, and (though you can’t see them in the photo) a section of seating with nice, cushioned seats that help you relax.

The service was pretty good. I got the impression that our waitress wasn’t having a good day, but she still forced a smile and was passably polite, if a little brusque.

The food itself was another surprise. For what we paid I wasn’t expecting a miracle, but you definitely get a lot of value for your money. I was so happy with our food in fact that at the time I snapped these photos on my phone and put them out on Twitter. Some of my Twitter followers were quite jealous of my meal that night!

The Sirloin Steak

The veggies were crunchy, the meat was well cooked, and I was actually kinda shocked to see baked potatoes. I think this was the first time I’d had one in over a year. Too bad there was no sour cream, chives, and bacon bits to go on it, but hey, can’t have everything right?

Overall, Buddy Hoagies was a great dining experience. The food was fantastic and the value for the food was great too. We’ll definitely be going back.

The Search For Great Pizza in Singapore Continues

August 11, 2009 Bradley Farless11 Comments

One of the things I’ve been unable to do since moving to Singapore is locate a great pizza. I mean a great pizza that tastes like a slice of pizza I could get in New York City. I know that’s not likely to happen, but man, I was hoping for something close at least.

There are Pizza Hut franchises here, but they’re just not the same. They use a different type of tomato sauce and they use a lot of weird ingredients that you’d never find on the menu in the US. I never liked Pizza hut anyway, since it’s so greasy. The last time I ate at a pizza hut was in Alabama and I literally used a napkin to sponge the grease off of it before I ate it.

In the US, my preferred pizza, as far as franchises go, is Papa John’s. That stuff is just plain good!

Here in Singapore, I’d take just about anything.

There’s a Sbarro’s in the Philippines that I ate at. It was great! There’s another restaurant there that looks good too, an Italian place, but I just can’t remember the name of it. I haven’t been able to try it yet, but hopefully the next time I’m there I will. I have a craving for Mexican food too, so hopefully we’ll get to stop by Mexicali. Not sure when that’ll be though, since my next trips are lined up for Phuket and maybe Bali or Sabah.

But… my quest for great pizza in Singapore is still incomplete. I thought I might have found a winner at a restaurant called ‘New York, New York’, but it wasn’t quite up to par either.

To start off with, the pizza was really greasy. You can see that in the photo. The second problem is that the sauce was put on so lightly they might as well have just excluded it from the recipe, and what sauce was on there wasn’t very tasty. I guess they missed the whole part about pizza sauce having spices and being more than just tomato sauce.

The worst part is that we had to pay 13 SGD for this disaster and it was only 9 inches in diameter.

Oh, and speaking of ‘diameter’, our waiter didn’t understand what the word meant. He got so confused that he wound up telling me that they only sold pizza by the slice and that the slice was 9 inches long, and cost 13 SGD. I told him to go get a manager and the manager was able to clarify for me. Plus, I just wanted to point out to him that his waiter should at least know what’s on the menu.

So, ya, ‘New York, New York’ was another fail.

The closest I’ve seen so far is that ‘Canada Pizza’, I think it’s called, but it wasn’t good enough to make me want more.

On a positive note, I heard from another person’s blog (An American Girl in Singapore) that there’s a Dunkin Donuts in the new Ion Mall down on Orchard. That’s GREAT news. The donuts at most shops here in Singapore are just… too much I guess you could say. They’re overdone with icing and overdone with fillings and way too sweet to the point they’re not even good anymore. Some of them are so bad you might as well just be eating a big ball of sugar. The mom and pop bakeries here, on the other hand, don’t put enough and you wind up feeling like you’re just eating plain dough. Dunkin Donuts is a franchise though. They should get it right, because it’s a standard recipe. I can’t wait to get down there and check to see if they have Bavarian Cream!

(A photo of the last Dunkin Donuts we had in Kuala Lumpur’s airport a few months ago)

If you enjoy reading articles about pizza, you might enjoy THIS great article about a Singaporean’s search for good pizza in Italy. It’s quite enjoyable and funny!

Would You Put This Joy Juice In Your Mouth?

August 4, 2009September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless8 Comments

Kickapoo, Joy Juice, Product Of Singapore

(Picture taken in Singapore)

It’s actually not that bad!

Singapore McDonald’s Seaweed Shaker Fries

August 4, 2009 Bradley Farless4 Comments

From what I’ve seen, the McDonald’s menu is tailored to the country it’s in, to appeal more to the locals. In the Philippines there is a longganisa (Filipino sausage) and rice meal, for example. Up until today I hadn’t noticed anything too different about the meals in Singapore, except for the choice of drinks. There are different teas offered here, rather than the sweet iced tea you might be accustomed to in the US.

Today though, I saw something that was a big deviation from the norm. Seaweed shaker fries. They give you the large fries and a packet with some sort of seaweed flakes / flavoring in it. They also give you a small paper bag. You dump the fries and the seaweed flakes / flavoring into the bag and shake it up. Then you enjoy your ‘seaweed shaker’ fries. Sounded kinda gross to me, so I passed. I don’t do the whole ‘up-sizing’ thing anyway. The regular sized meal is full of enough calories, fat and grease as it is.

Pocari Sweat

July 21, 2009 Bradley Farless12 Comments

No, a Pocari isn’t an animal, or a person’s name. It’s a drink!

I’ve seen this quite a few times and always intended to snag a photo of it, but I just never got around to it.

Would you drink something called Sweat? When I look at this can I think of the sweat sliding down someone’s back, so … well no. Just not for me!

What this does make me wonder though is who was in charge of naming this product? In today’s world, multicultural awareness is something of a must, and I get the feeling that the company missed the mark when they branded this.

Any idea what the original message was supposed to be here?

Goldilocks Treats

July 20, 2009 Bradley Farless8 Comments

Goldilocks is a pretty well known bakery in the Philippines. You can find outlets all over the place there and the things they sell are really tasty. The first time I was in the Philippines over a year ago I noticed the place and we wound up buying some cakes to try them out. Well, my wife already knew they were good. She just wanted to share the joy I guess.

The cakes were very good, and I’m looking forward to the next time I’ll be able to get something from them. There are bakeries all over Singapore but the things that are produced here aren’t quite as “Westernized” as what I’d like. Generally they’re more bland and it’s nearly impossible to find fruit filled pastries.

The snack pictured at left is called ‘polvoron’. I’d never heard of it before, and found the following information about it when I looked it up (source):

Polvoron is powdered milk candy, made of flour, sugar butter and powdered milk. The flour is toasted, all the ingredients are mixed and shaped into round or oval-shaped molds. It is believe that making polvoron started during the American occupation to use up the huge amount of powdered milk brought in by the Americans. Polvoron over the years has become one of the most loved sweet Filipino delicacy.

It has a sweet taste to it, but it’s mild. It’s not something that will make your teeth feel like they’re rotting out of your head with every bite. Also, it’s dry and has a tendency to stick to the teeth and gums, so it’s best to have a drink handy while eating this.

Spinach Bacon OmuRice From Manpuku

July 14, 2009 Bradley Farless2 Comments

Lunch on Sunday was Spinach Bacon OmuRice from the Manpuku restaurant in Tampines 1. I didn’t remember seeing the stall before and the dishes looked interesting so I thought I’d give it a try. I was later told by a friend that it was added recently.

As you can see from the picture, this dish is a big tasty omelet covered in a white cream sauce with bacon and spinach. I was actually disappointed with how little spinach there was on the dish. I was hoping for more. There was a nice amount of bacon, but it wound up not being enough either.

You see, I had sort of expected there to be a more interesting filling in this omelet, but instead it was filled with just plain fried rice and a very small amount of mushrooms. I think I sifted through the rice and only found 5 tiny pieces of mushroom total.

It was tasty, but as soon as the sauce, bacon and spinach were gone, the rest of it became rather bland. A good dish introduces a lot of variety, to keep your mouth and tastebuds happy. This one just didn’t do the trick for me and I don’t think I’ll order it again.

Strangely enough, we wound up meeting friends later in the evening at this same restaurant and one of them ordered the exact same dish. She didn’t finish it either and commented on how it wasn’t very good after the toppings were gone.

Banana Caramel Crème Crêpes

July 13, 2009 Bradley Farless4 Comments

Not much to say here. I just wanted to share the photos and make you drool!

On Saturday night (yes, that was a busy day for us!) our last stop before heading home was Plaza Singapura (another mall). On the bottom floor there was a small Japanese Food Fair set up. Well, that’s what the signs called it, but in reality it was just two stalls. One was selling sushi and one was selling crêpes.

After eating the sushi (which came with free green tea by the way) I had an urge for something sweet and we tried out one of the Banana Caramel Crème Crêpes. I took some photos while it was being prepared:

What’s missing from these photos is that the batter was first poored onto a flat black metal pan. I call it a pan but it had no sides. Perhaps a reader can give a name for it? After the ingredients were added it was rolled up into a paper and handed to me like an ice cream cone.

The flavor wasn’t overpowering. I mean, the crème wasn’t exceptionally sweet. The flavors all augmented each other well and the final product was delicious! I could’ve eaten another one by myself after the one we shared!

Craving Food From Home

July 8, 2009 Bradley Farless9 Comments

Lately I’ve had the weirdest craving. I really want a can of pork ‘n’ beans. Ya, weird right? Sometimes I crave NYC pizza (‘cuz no other pizza comes close), sometimes I crave my grandmother’s homemade biscuits and gravy (yup, made from scratch). Lately though, it’s just plain old canned pork ‘n’ beans.

I suppose it’s just a symptom of my having been outside the US for such a long amount of time. A couple of other expat bloggers I’m familiar with have also been expressing similar sentiments recently. Sometimes, no matter where you are, and no matter how good the food is, you just want to eat something that reminds you of home.

Luckily, Singapore is fairly well modernized and most grocery chains like Cold Storage, Fairprice, and especially Giants carry a fair amount of imported products. They do come with a higher price tag, but occasionally I feel the need to indulge myself and get that bottle of Aunt Jemima’s pancake syrup, that box of Bisquick buttermilk pancakes, that bottle of Season All, or a can of Campbell’s Chunky Soup.

Imagine my surprise though, when I found this:

I haven’t seen this for sale in a grocery store in a long time. I haven’t exactly looked for it actively, but the last time I made it was 8 years ago and I remember it being very good! This Hurst’s HamBeens Brand “15 Bean Soup” comes with 1 pound of beans and a seasoning packet. You’re encouraged to add pork or smoked sausage to it, and the last time I made it I tossed in some jalapeños which really added to the flavor. When it’s ready to eat, it’s a very thick soup that can be eaten by itself and is very filling. Though, after living in Asia for so long, I have this weird craving to eat it over rice.

Sometimes, small things like that make all the difference.