Tag Archives: osmanthus jelly
Excellent Modern Vegetarian for 13pax RI G20 Dinner @ Sufood on 30Mar2015
we had an interesting italian-inspired modern vegetarian dinner for 13pax RI G20 get-together at Sufood on 30.3.2015. a very good choice by the organiser. ^^
one of the friends used the phone apps to make a mosaic food picture (top photo). very nice!
we had the italian bread sticks with mustard & berries dip. both were ok. i liked the mustard better. 🙂
we kicked off with the chef’s sufood starter – a quite wonderful trio japanese yam with berry sauce, cucumber & cherry tomato plum jelly.
a refreshing start.^^
the healthy ones went for the fruit salad.
a few of us, myself included, took the mushroom salad, a popular dish. it was good. 🙂
another took the summer salad.
& the classic garden salad with a choice of sesame sauce or caesar dressing.
for the soup, cream of pumpkin was a popular choice.
i had the pea soup with oyster mushroom cubes at the bottom. maybe this was the healthy version so it was not an intense cream of pea soup, texture combination was great, with the crunchy mushrooms. it was the same also with the pumpkin soup, not intense & flavourful.
a friend & i both thought we could do a better tasting soup than these 2. 🙂
some had the root soup, and the most healthy among us went for the cabbage & sweet potato stew. 🙂
the calzone came highly recommended. calzone looked like a huge curry puff. the dough was more akin to pizza dough.
i must say after trying a few, i was in total agreement that calzone was the best dish/main course.
i picked the pita pocket though. many of the main courses came with plastic gloves, if you wanted to share your food.^^
the mock meatballs were pretty ok but it was not as tasty & satisfying as the calzone.
don’t really know how the porcini pasta tasted like, but generally the food quality was competent, pretty ok for vegetarian dishes though not spectacular.
i would rate the squid ink as the second best after the calzone. the mushrooms were shaped to look like squid rings.
certainly my own squid ink dish is much more intense & flavourful. 🙂
i tried the star pizza. didn’t think much of it.
did not try the banana cheesecake. guess it should be quite ok.
i had the black sesame penn a cotta. smooth, quite good.
i had the penn a cotta with a healthy ashitaba drink. not sure what to make of it. at least it not bitter like wheatgrass. it wasn’t too sweet so it was ok.
some friends had osmanthus jelly. didn’t try it but that should be very safe, couldn’t go wrong.^^
the company & dinner were very enjoyable. these gatherings came about quite naturally, a desire to spend time with friends & share views & experiences.^^
& wine was marvellous of course. 🙂
doesn’t blow me away for sure, but equally it is a place i am happy to come back a few times.^^
c.h.e.f andy
Restaurant Week 6pax Lunch @ Summer Palace Regent Hotel on 7Oct2013
for october G8 get-together, we decided to go for the S$40++pax restaurant week lunch at summer palace at regent hotel on 7.10.2013. 🙂
i don’t do restaurant week lunch these days as the offers are not great at dining city ‘star’ restaurants (often worse than credit card like UOB offers & more restrictive in menu than cheaper set lunches). also many ‘star’ restaurants do not provide menu so it is a “trust me” deal, when there are so many other good deals to pick & choose from? 🙂
anyhow summer palace provided the menu which looked fine. & we checked at the restaurant the usual lunch menu started at S$68++pax & the restaurant week menu looked better by comparison. 🙂
we had trio of dimsum. the mango puff was ok, har gao with birds nest was good consistent with good dimsum restaurant but bird nest was too small a helping to be relevant. the puffy char siew pao was good too sweet like a char siew soh (the reason i don’t take char siew soh) whereas HK Timhowan’s version was a crispy not puffy dough & less sweet & much better.
the sliced fish century egg tan chai soup was quite strange as 1 of my friends observed. it was quite tasty (though no better than a good lie tong), a bit heavy & confusing in taste & kind of poor in presentation for fine dining.
the 1/2 baby lobster in superior sauce (those small 300g ones), which ought to be the centre-piece attraction, was kind of disappointing to me taste-wise. the meat texture was also not bouncy like usual live lobsters & the superior sauce not flavourful enough.
the 烧肉面线 – mian sian was ok not as tasty as chui huay lim. the roast pork however was a disaster. hard & tasteless. i thought it was a poor dish for such a classy restaurant.
the trio of dessert was very average. the osmanthus jelly was ok but harder jelly not as soft & tasty as HK Timhowan’s or the ones they served at the Lantau Big Buddha vegetarian kitchen. the aloe vera & mango were just ok, average.
water & cashew nuts were free. they charged S$2.50pax for chinese tea, quite fair. 4 of us took the poh lei tea. ambience was great, service professional, but the food standard was kind of below par c/w majestic or even tunglok! there was a 1/2lobster but overall taste wise this specially discounted S$40++pax menu gave less satisfaction than a similar priced 6-course lunch set at majestic. of the menu dishes, actually the dimsum were better items (except for dessert) so maybe dimsum here but it sure would be ex.
one last thing, because it was restaurant week, they gave only 1 complimentary parking coupon for 6pax. there were 3 of us who parked at the hotel & my friends kindly let me have the coupon & i noticed on leaving the carpark that the charge was S$10.75 or something! goodness!
c.h.e.f andy