Sunday, March 30, 2008

素食林 Su Shi Lin

Located at level 3 of Pearls Centre at Chinatown, this traditional vegetarian restaurant had been around for decades. They serve nice chinese dishes, still considered reasonably priced dishes so you won't really mind their ambience (traditional 70s? simple decor) and service level:P

I like their fried rice, is simple yet nice with a homely taste. Their Longevity noodles comes with generous shreds of mushrooms, carrots, season beans & bean sprouts. It is abit plain to my taste but flavour greatly enhanced if you eat it with the Assam fish gravy.
Although the Assam fish is not spicy enough but it tastes good. I prefer their small slices of bean curb skin fishes to those frozen big "soya" fish pieces at the supermarket which is widely used elsewhere. :-)
This is our family favourite: Sweet & Sour Lotus Root Rolls (莲藕付卷), also one of their popular dishes there. The lotus root being rolled with the well-sauced bean curb skin greatly enhances one's appetite to eat more. :-)

It is located at: 100 Eu Tong Sen Street, #03-16 Pearls Centre, Spore 059812
(The building near Outram MRT)
Tel: 6222 6141

Friday, March 28, 2008

一心素食, Chinatown

Another visit to Chinatown & I decided to try their Dumpling Noodles.
It was served with generous portion of mock-meat & vege, they used "Jade" noodles (白玉面) with hand-made fried dumpling. The dumpling was quite nice with smashed toufu & mock flour prawn which would have tasted better if not soaked in the gravy. Generally, I would prefer this to their La Mian.

Located at a coffeeshop at 39 Temple Street, 一心素食 is behind 德宝点心, De Bao Dian Xin. Just near centre of street opp Lucky Chinatown.
Opening hours: 8am to 10pm Daily.

Eastern Highland Healthy Cake House (Rocher Centre)



Moved !

Another visit to our favourite vegetarian cake shop:-)
This time, we tried the mini Fruit-cakes. Although they looked like those traditional buttery cakes which does not look soft to bite, surprisingly, they actually tasted very smooth & soft. I am always amazed how they managed to do it:-)

The missing cake at right corner was in my mum's stomach before I could take the whole picture:P

It is located at 1 Rocher Rd, #01-510 Rocher Centre
(Opposite Bugis OG) Tel: 6294 6932
It has moved to be neighbors with Kwan Inn Vegetarian Food, at Blk 134, Geylang East Ave1, #01-227, S'pore 381034.
Tel: 67475580

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Forest Dew Vegetarian Restaurant

Sadly, Forest Dew had closed and fortunately replaced by another vegetarian eatery but I will always miss their Fried Kway Teow!
----------------------------------
Terrific!!! Very nice, if not told, you may not have guessed that the Fried Kway Teow is the vegetarian version. I guess the sweet sauce is being excellently mixed with a special ingredient that makes one wonder how they managed to give it a "Cockles" taste. I would say that its standard, the noodles & the sauce is even better than some of the actual pork lard version. It's so far the best vegn version I had tried. :-) For those who like the sweet Fried Kway Teow version, should try!!!
Cedar Shoot Fried Rice
Not sure what is Cedar Shoot but we guess it is the tiny shreds of spices leaves found in the rice. We find the taste abit weird & I find it abit too oily:P
Thanks to Dreamy for recommending the Fried Kway Teow in her blog, I now have another vege outlet to consider when dining out. Though it is an air-conditioned shop, the price for local delights like above dishes are quite reasonable, generally $3.50 (foodcourt prices) with no service charge & gst. I recall that their Local ala carte stir-fry vege dishes are also around range of $4-$5. Only their Western, Jap & Korean sets costs is abit steep, $7 & above.
I guess I will visit it again when I am around the region.:-)
Forest Dew is located at Blk 23, #01-523 Bendemeer Rd, beside Kallang community centre & nearest MRT is Boon Keng MRT, open daily to 10pm.

Friday, March 21, 2008

一心素食, Chinatown

That's the traditional Pumpkin cake & Yam cake ($0.70 per piece) that I had earlier mentioned. Soft & creamy & the tiny mushroom cubes added flavour to it. Not to forget to add their nice chilli paste too:-)
Mini Sweet & Sour Pork Buns at $0.80 per piece. Nice!!!
Located at a coffeeshop at 39 Temple Street, 一心素食 is behind 德宝点心, De Bao Dian Xin.
Just near centre of street opp Lucky Chinatown.
Opening hours: 8am to 10pm Daily.

慈缘轩 (Ci Yan Xuan) Chinatown

I gave a call this morning at 11.30am to find out the menu & it added to my motivation to visit Chinatown. I originally intended to try its Burger but when I went down & saw their other menu of the day: 炸酱面 (Zha Jiang Noodles), I decided to try it instead.

With a generous portion of bean curb & mushroom cubes & sauces not too spicy & salty, I easily finished the whole plate of noodles. A good choice that I had made.:-)

Still craving for burger, I packed back its hamburger of the week: Black-pepper steak wheat bread burger. It's hugh like Subway burger, & because of the cheese, its bread tasted abit like Roti-John too. Though it does not look beautiful in picture, the mock meat patty is well marinated with black-pepper sauce. The taste is nice. Thank goodness, now you can eat nice hamburger without having to sacrifice an animal. I really think that it's the cooking skill that makes the food nice to eat, not the meat.:-)

I was told that they had started the theme of "Burger of the week", so every week, they will come up with a different type of burger. Even if you did not see Burger as their menu of the day on their Menu board outside the shop (bec it is written using white chalk & may fade as time passes), just walk in & ask the owner what's their burger of the day/week. I wish they could come up with nice creamy soup soon too.:-)

Address: 8 Smith Street (shophouse near end of Food Street)
Tel: 6225 9026 (If you want to confirm menu of the day:P)
Usual Opening Hours: 12pm-9pm?

Thursday, March 20, 2008

园香素食 Yuan Xiang Vegetarian

Ceased operation :-( Look for its other outlets such as Boon Keng...
The stall is located at the food centre just opposite Bras Basah Complex. I almost thought it had moved but luckily it had just shifted a few stalls further down after the renovated food centre reopened.
The fish soup is the version that you can see with some oil floating on it. The taste is ok but I feel that its mee hoon & ingredients seemed to have shrunk in size after the renovation, with just 2 pieces of mock fish divided into half & a few pieces of vege. Most likely inflation cum rental increases after renovation played a part. :-(
Nevertheless, I will try its other ala carte dishes next time.

Bras Basah Complex Food Court

Looking for warm soup variety? The stall serves Plain soup & Tom Yam version.
The Soup meehoon (top) is abit plain in taste which could be enhanced with the chillies. The Tom Yam meehoon is sour enough though not spicy. Still nice to have in cold rainy days.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Pine Tree (Food Junction at Bugis)

I am certainly glad to come across the 1st Food Junction branch to have vegetarian stall.:-) The Food court is located at 3rd level of Bugis Junction, and the stall is just beside the centre escalator.
The noodles has been given a nice name: 书香面汤 (Fragrant Book Soup Noodles).
It is a generous bowl of soup with red & white carrots, mock meatball, mock cuttlefish, Sichuan Cai, black fungus , Lettuce & Xiang Cai sprinkled on top.
The noodles is a special type, I think it tasted & looked like plain, soggy Jap Ramen 拉面:P which I don't really like. Fortunately when eaten with Sichuan Cai, Sichuan Cai helped saved the taste.
Actually, the stall had a newspaper cutting that recommended its 书香米粉汤, the mee hoon version. I wonder why the noodles & not the mee hoon is on its menu instead. Maybe next round I will try the mee hoon version as recommended on the papers.

Fried Kway Teow, Nice in look & taste!! Using the slim Kway Teow version, it was well fried with sweet sauce & taste good with its chilli sauce. The lime, a good portion of vege & generous cucumber slices helped to reduce the sinful oiliness.:-)

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Bras Basah Complex Food Court

This is a good stall to visit when you are hungry or you want to share food with someone of small appetite. As usual, the portion is big with generous portion of vege. The gravy for Hor Fun is abit plain so adding the quite salty chilli helped to complement it..
Talking about Hor Fun, I really miss the corner Vegn outlet that used to sell Vegn Hor Fun at Suntec City's Sky Garden. I vaguely recall the name is Kingsland? The Hor Fun was so well-fried that it was really fragrant & smooth. I wonder where the chef had moved to:P

八仙素食 (Marina Square FoodCourt)

The curry noodles looked spicy but was not, just nice for someone who don't usually take spicy food. Its gravy is more diluted like Longtong and also served with generous portion of vegetables. I like the long turnip slices. It would definitely taste better if the gravy is boiling hot & vegetables cooked softer.

It is located at Marina Square Foodcourt, at the Centerstage, 3rd storey, just beside the escalator.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Nature Vegetarian (Sin Ming Ave)

I finally had a chance to try its roti prata this afternoon after always hearing compliments about it from Sil. I had always missed it during last few trips when I went there after lunch hours.

It sells a variety of version from plain at $0.70, with egg $1.20 to Mushroom prata $2.50.
I tried the plain version & indeed it is worth the compliments from Sil who is quite particular about food.
The prata is crispy and the curry is nice & fragrant, I would say nicer than most other non-vegetarian prata stall's curry too. Yes, I agree with Sil that indeed the stall serves the best plain prata tried so far. Maybe next time I will try its mushroom prata & see if it is as nice.

The coffee shop is located at 409 Sin Ming Ave, #02-01 (Opp Bright Hill temple)
Opening hrs: 7am to 9.30pm but the Roti Prata stall is open only until lunch hours.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

一心素食, Chinatown

I love the stall's specialty: home-made traditional pumpkin cake & yam cake but it is always sold out by evening.
This round, I shall introduce its La Mian 拉面, which is a popular dish ordered by its patron. The noodles are the flat type, like those served in Lor Mee & its gravy tasted like the more diluted version of Lor Mee gravy too. The noodles & the gravy are quite nice. They are served with a variety of ingredients like mock meat, mushroom, bean sprouts & also some funny fried strips that resembled mock salted fish which I do not really like the taste. I noticed that its Dumpling La Mian is also another dish being frequently ordered.
Just beside 一心, is a new small stall selling only 3 specialties: Vege Roll, Rojak & Sushi Set. Its Vege Roll as shown in picture below contains raw vege, red & white carrot, beetroot, the sweet ingredient used in Yusheng which I cld not recall its name. Very nice & refreshing taste, like seaweed wrapping Yusheng ingredients. Its Sushi set which contains a few variety was not available today but from picture it looked nice. Its rojak with alot of peanuts looked nice too. I shall try next time.
It seems that with the opening of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum, there are many new vegetarian stalls/cafe/restaurants around the area. I just noticed that the Grand Court Vegetarian Restaurant also opened a new branch at the shop house besides this coffeshop. That's good news to Vege-lovers. Cheers :-)

Located at a coffeeshop at 39 Temple Street, 一心素食 is behind 德宝点心, De Bao Dian Xin. Just near centre of street opp Lucky Chinatown.
Opening hours: 8am to 10pm Daily.