Hoshino Coffee (星乃珈琲店) @ Plaza Singapura

You will not miss Hoshino Coffee, it's located on the third floor in Plaza Sing's swanky new extension. There is this really eye catching display of their food items at the entrance that draws potential customers in.



The decor is very similar to the Shibuya outlet I went to. Lots of wood, warm lighting and even the furniture- the red leather seats and wooden tables are similar. (Even the coffee cups are the same!) I guess it's their trademark image and it's all faithfully replicated here in Singapore's first outlet.

I believe this coffee joint is well known for their hand drip coffee and their fluffly pancake souffles. First off, I had a hot cup of Hoshino Blended Coffee ($5.80)



They claim that their coffee beans are specially selected and their coffee are specially "hand-dripped". First off, this coffee blend is tailored to Asian tastes, so it's less acidic/sour than western coffee but nonetheless, pretty potent in the caffeine department. It's a really aromatic blend and it provides some very intriguing lingering aftertaste. Some may compare this cup to their usual kopitiam coffee and wonder if it's overpriced. Well, many people actually pay a lot for their starbucks coffee. Also, I realised the coffee is actually much cheaper here compared to the cup I had in Shibuya (about SGD9 there!). It's of the exact same portion, same cup, I think it tastes similar but memory fails me here. And you can get a second refill for 50% off here! So whether you are willing to pay $5.80 for a cup of premium coffee, well it's really subjective. They also serve a variety of tea (their matcha teas look really good but be prepared to pay more!)



This is Hoshino Spaghetti ($14) and it actually looks very impressive and big at first sight. It is served al dente with a curious mix of ingredients: eggplant, bacon, shimeji mushroom, sausages, tomatoes and ONSEN EGG, sprinkled with copious amounts of sesame. Well yes, the portion is generous and there is a nice mix of fresh ingredients, but no offence I think this could be the pasta I will make with my dinner leftovers from last night, except perhaps I won't be able to make that perfect onsen egg. It still makes a wonderful and tasty dish, but I might want to try something else the next time.

For dessert, I decided not to go with their souffle pancakes; I decided it is more worth it to eat with friends, since a double serving costs $12, compared to $9.80 for a single piece. BTW, there pancakes souffle style and pot-baked souffle are freshly baked on the spot and will take about 20 minutes to be served. So I ordered their tantalizing looking Matcha Souffle ($9.80):



It was served fresh from the oven, and was still warm when I sunk my spoon into it. The top had a nicely burnt crispy brown layer. Venture further into the core of the souffle and you will find a rich, soft matcha custard oozing out. This dessert isn't overly sweet and there were hints of matcha flavour, which I would have preferred to be stronger. The insides were a bit like molten egg custard, and it really goes well with their coffee. For a moment, I was tempted to get a coffee refill.



Service wise, it is clear they are severely understaffed. I visited on a weekday evening just slightly before dinnertime. There were only 3 waiters to handle the entire dinnertime crowd, and the kitchen became noticeably slower. The food items took some time to churn out the mains and desserts and I noticed many diners had to wait. But it's their first week here in Singapore, and I guess they will iron out these problems in future. I will be coming back for pancakes the next time!

(UPDATE)

So I went down to Hoshino Coffee a second time with a friend to try their Souffle style pancakes. As mentioned earlier, one pancake costs $9.80 while two pancakes cost $12. Not sure why they priced it this way, but it's definitely more bang per buck to get two pancakes!



You will need to wait at least 15 mins for this dish to be served, because it's freshly made on the spot. The pancakes are really fat and thick! They are also immensely enjoyable, since the insides are really fluffy but the outside edges are baked to a nice crispy golden brown. You can choose to have your pancakes served with maple syrup, honey or brown sugar syrup. I had maple syrup and found the pancakes especially the fluffy, cake-like insides easily soak up the maple syrup and goes really well with it!

Hoshino Coffee, Plaza Singapura, #03-84, Singapore

Selfish Gene Cafe

Walk along Craig Road and you might actually miss this cafe. Located at number 40, it's the last grey coloured shophouse at the quiet end of the road. We visited on a Sunday afternoon and although it was deceptively calm and quiet on the outside, the cafe was actually almost packed to the brim inside.

At the door, you will be greeted by this vintage converted sewing machine, where you help yourself to the menu, water and find a table (if any).



Generally, the cafe is really warm and cosy, but since it was a full house Sunday, noise gets trapped inside the boxy shophouse. Don't expect a quiet sunday brunch here. But surely there's a reason why people flock like bees to honey to this place right? Apparently, Gene (the cafe's owner) is selfish because he will not serve food that he would not eat (hence the cafe name, get it?). Perhaps this is a strong signal that the food has gotta be DECENT and people really like quality food whipped out here.



So you place your counter located inside the cafe and they give these cute yellow paper cups containing your number, receipt and change. A really nice idea to cut down waiting time (for payment that is)

I had the B.O.B. ($15.80) all day breakfast set, which is only available on weekends.



Not sure why it's called BOB (reminds me of a certain singer), but this is a delightful dish served with perfect runny poached eggs slapped atop Norwegian smoked salmon, creme fraiche and multigrain bread. I really enjoyed this dish; the salmon wasn't overly salty and I was quite content munching on the yolk soaked salmon and bread combi. The salad is served with tangy lemon vinaigrette dressing, which really completes the meal.

For other scrambled egg lovers/ deluxe breakfast set lovers, do try their Breakfast Plate ($15.80), which has a little of everything: eggs, sausage, ham, mushrooms, tomato, brioche:



I had a cuppa Chai latte ($5) to go with my breakkie set. I would have preferred a slightly more spicy version of it, but for those who like their milky chai latte teas, you will probably get a nice balance in this cup.

AND FOR DESSERTSSSSS;



You have to try the Banana cake ($5.80) here. Each bite is chock full of banana flavour, it's really not something you can get elsewhere, unless you blend a sack of bananas and bake your own. It has a nice warm and extremely moist texture and it goes so well with their crumble and peanut butter sauce topping. The only downside? It's really really small. If not for my lunch partners, I could have popped the entire loaf in one mouth.



The other dessert item we had was the Lemon Tart ($5.80) also only available on weekends. The lemon curd inside was really well balanced- not overwhelmingly one sided sweet or sour, but a really nice refreshing balance of both. The slightly italian meringue went really well with the lemon curd tart and again, the dessert is unfortunately really small. (Photo was zoomed in!)

We came to the conclusion that Gene is indeed really selfish, for only serving certain good stuff on weekends and also shrinking their desserts to nano-bite size. But for small eaters and people cannot resist the allure of desserts (and their associated calories), the mini desserts and a nice cup of coffee/tea is something you would want to grab at this cafe. Plus, the small dessert size really forces you to take small bites and slowly savour the every bit of goodness.

Homemade Chilled Soya Beancurd Pudding

I am a big fan of Lao Ban soya beancurd, and it appears this food fad isn't going to die off anytime soon, especially in Singapore's increasingly sweltering climate. A bowl of nice, bouncy chilled beancurd pudding is just such a perfect dessert/snack any time of the day. Tired of queuing to obtain a decent bowl of beancurd pudding, I set out to replicate Lao Ban's creation at home. I searched for the recipe online and I was absolutely amazed at how SIMPLE it is to churn out a bowl of Lao Ban.

I got my receipe from Hardwarezone (see link for more details!), and this recipe is really idiot-proof. There are just three main ingredients:

1. Vitasoy Soya milk


2. Phoon Huat Instant Jelly Powder


3. Coffeemate (optional)

• The recipe recommends a certain mix of organic soya milk powders, but being the lazy person I am, I just took the shortcut and got a pack of Vitasoy. Vitasoy lovers will appreciate the "Vitasoy" flavour in the beancurd.


• Instant jelly powder was a little hard to find; they were for a period of time out of stock in Phoon Huat stores and I only recently managed to get my hands on one of the last few bottles left. You don't actually use much powder, so this small bottle can last you a long time (unless you decide to mass produce)


• Coffeemate is supposed to give a slightly malt taste to enhance the flavour of the beancurd pudding, but I thought the Vitasoy flavour more or less overpowered it, so I doubt it made much of a difference when using Vitasoy. So it's really up to you if you want to add more calories to your pudding.

So to make this, you just warm the soya milk in the pan, (DO NOT BOIL. Curdled soya milk is YUCKS^10). Add the right portions of powder and STIR. Best to stir with a whisk to ensure the powder is evenly mixed into the warm milk mixture. Let the mixture cool awhile before pouring them into plastic bowls. Let them sit awhile more before inserting them to the fridge and serve chilled.

Here is my final product:

The texture is almost similar to Lao Ban's- semi solid silky smooth pudding that bursts into soya milk in your mouth. Lao Ban wins taste wise- nothing beats their fresh soya bean taste and they have a certain nice fragrant, malty taste to it. This recipe produces soya beancurd that is perhaps more similar to what 51 Soya Bean serves.

I just can't believe how ridiculously easy (and LOW cost) it is to make beancurd pudding that so many people crave and queue for. You can easily get your soya beancurd fix from home!

Ellenborough Market Cafe

Thank you Jasper (Six&Seven) for bringing us here to enjoy a scrumptious dinner buffet spread (and for finally breaking my months long streak of going buffet-less). I lose control at buffets, yes I am one of those inconsiderate people who pile their plates with everything in sight, unless the food is exceedingly underwhelming. Fortunately, the food and spread served here are definitely decent!

The Ellenborough Market Cafe is located inside the Swisshotel Merchant Court Hotel, just walking distance from Clarke Quay MRT (take exit B!) The restaurant has a nice colonial style decor- very nice and homely. There are two buffet stations- one near the entrance serves fresh, raw seafood, desserts and the other main station inside the restaurant offers the rest of the spread. Here are some highlights:

Japanese/ Korean food counter- There's free flow sashimi, freshly cut slices of salmon and tuna that are perpetually swept off the serving plates by eager sashimi lovers. Be prepared to face hoardes of hostile uncle and aunties bent on removing every single sashimi slice from the place. A sushi chef also furiously prepares various sushi pieces which are also constantly swept off the plates. I don't envy the sushi chef's job; if he is not cutting up sashimi, he's rolling up sushi, or being stared down by impatient uncles and aunties. There was also some korean salad served with hints of kim chi which was rather meh.

Cold seafood counter- There are raw oysters, mussels and steamed prawns to choose from. I was suffering from a severe oyster craving, hence the pile of oysters on my plate. Oysters were quite fresh- didn't have any stomach upset the next day hehe. Prawns were big, juicy and succulent.

Nonya food counter- A wide variety of authentic nonya dishes like Ayam Buah Keluk, Chap Chye, fish, Nonya otah. There is also a Kong Ba Pau counter where the chef will prepare the soft steamed buns with braised pork on the spot. There is also a Nonya dessert counter which serves out an assortment of mini bite size kuehs kuehs placed in erm, bird cages.

Hot food counter- The two must try dishes are Butter Fish with Broadbean Sauce and Stir Fried Slipper Lobster in Black Bean Sauce (above). The fish is an excellent dish with great texture and flavour, and its quality is comparable to those served out in expensive chinese restaurants. No wonder the fish meat is quickly polished off the plate once it touches the table. The slipper lobster is also another dish that is not exempt from diners' relentless stomachs. The lobster meat is very fresh, retains QQ texture and goes really well with the black bean sauce that is not overly salty. Do examine the lobster shells carefully; you would want to pick the piece with the meatiest section (like the one shown above) and not some random shell part with no meat. This uncle in front of me actually took his time digging into the catering dish to locate the fattest, juiciest lobster meat (like digging gold in black sauce) and ended up hogging the queue. (He obviously didn't care what people behind him thought). And if you can't do without your greens, do grab some Stir fried seasonal vegetables in abalone sauce, also available here.

Durian Pengat- The famous, MUST TRY durian dessert served here. It is essentially thick, luscious durian cream, pureed from high quality durian flesh. Each mouthful is bursting with fragrant, bittersweet taste of durians pulp and cream. Durian lovers would TRULYMADLYDEEPLYABSOLUTELY adore this. I was somewhat tempted to haul the whole vat of durian pengat back to the table, but I managed to restrain myself.

Dessert counter- Sorry, I was too lazy to arrange the items nicely on the plate, but you get the idea- this place serves an assortment of cakes and pastries. I was too full to stomach everything by then, but there were also local desserts and ice cream available!

BTW, they do serve coffee/tea, just ask the friendly waiters around. I also thought the waiters were quite prompt in clearing the plates; by the time you return from another round of food stacking, the dirty plates from your table magically vanishes!

The price of a buffet dinner for one adult is about $60 (after the addition of GST and service charges), which can be a little steep. But considering the spread of good, fresh food available, it's worth the occasional food binge fest.

Oriole Cafe & Bar

Oriole Coffee launched its 3C's Promotion: Coffee, Caramel and Chocolate. It's a collection of drinks and desserts made from this particular trinity of sin. This special menu is only valid from May 14 to July 15, and will help take you to the next level of indulgence (and weighing scale too).

I popped by their HQ outlet wedged between 313 Somerset and Pan Pac Service Apartments, the small outdoor street outside 313 Somerset where you can find many other al-fresco dining places and watering holes. This is no Starbucks; it is a cafe and bar which also serves main courses, finger food and alcohol and it's a nice place to catch up with friends or just watch the world outside go by. This is also not a self service joint, so prices are subject to additional service charge and GST.

This is part of their 3Cs menu- Bernini at Sea ($10.50++). It is a brownie served with a macadamia sea salt ice cream garnished with caramel sauce and a shot of Baileys. The brownie is not bad- it has a nice crusty, crunchy, almost cookie like texture that isn't too dry. Pairs very well with the fabulous macadamia sea salt ice cream which contains lots of crushed macadamia bits and biscuit crumbs. I wasn't sure what the shot of Baileys was for actually, and I speculated it could be an after dessert drink included to justify the $10 price tag or to satisfy alcoholics. I actually had both brownie and alcohol separately and thought the brownie dish could do without the extra shot of Baileys. It was only after talking to Jasper (Six&Seven) did I realise what the Baileys was for. You're supposed to POUR IT OVER the brownie! Absolutely DUH right? Wished the service staff had told me how to enjoy this dish properly; I pay service charge one hor.

Oriole is also famous for its blend of coffee and I had their Piccolo Latte ($5.80++) from their regular menu. So here is a mini crash course on coffee: Cafe Macchiato is espresso with small amount of milk. Cafe Latte is espresso with lots of milk. Piccolo Latte is somewhere in between, where 1 part steamed milk (or more) is mixed into 1 part espresso, perfect for anyone who wants a balance of coffee and milk flavours. I favour this concoction as I was able to detect the fragrant coffee notes which were not overwhelmingly diluted by milk. I should have asked them to serve the coffee after the dessert as the coffee is best enjoyed when it's freshly brewed, not after it's left to cool while I attacked the dessert.

There something for everyone here. Satisfy your inner alcoholic/coffee-holic/chocoholic/sugar junkie with their 3C menu. Coffee is definitely the main draw of this place and with so much care that goes into the preparation and presentation of coffee here, it serves up one of the best cups of coffee in SG.

Matsugen (松玄), Azabu-Juban

We had dinner at Matsugen, a restaurant known for its soba. It's located in the neighbourhood of Azabu-Juban, near Roppongi, and might be a little difficult for unfamiliar tourists like us to locate. Thank goodness for Google Maps. Thanks to Wise Guy from RERG for bringing me here! Do look out for his review (shall shamelessly post his links here too), for greater insights.

It's a nice cozy place, with a charcoal grill at the end of the table where they whip up their grill items on the spot. And in anticipation of the great food, we got a mini jug of Hakkaizan sake recommended by the waiter:



Here is our order of Kinki fish being charcoal grilled on the spot. Kinki fish is a seasonal fish that is only found in Japan. Although this may cost a bomb (almost SGD45), it's a once in a lifetime thing ya?

The fish is incredibly FRESH- the skin has been grilled to crispy perfection but the white flesh underneath is smooth and succulent. We polished most of the meat off the fish! (Probably becos we were also rather hungry!)

Here is the next grill item, Anago (eel). Unlike most japanese eel served marinated in brown teriyaki sauce as we are accustomed to, this was just plain grilled eel meat and strangely it does not have a overly strong fishy taste. Just fresh, soft, succulent meat.

I had hot Kake soba- just plain buckwheat noodles in hot soup broth. It was a decent simple dish, but for something more visually appealing (and exciting!), do look for their cold Matsugen soba sets.

This has got to be the BEST ice cream I have ever tasted. This is Brown sugar ice cream in all it's creamy, milky goodness. Wise guy tells me good ice cream don't melt easily and this scoop of ice cream didn't liquify as quickly as in should with the heat (generated from the charcoal grill) in the room.

Impressed by their ice cream dessert, we went for the other item on the dessert menu- Warabi mochi, which was very decent chewy mochi pieces dusted in fine peanut powder, served with brown sugar. Not as mind blowingly good as the ice cream, but still able to hold its own.

Add: Azabu Juban 3-11-12, Minato-ku.

Torte

I have been reading rave reviews of this place and how affordable and good their weekday lunch sets are, so decided to head down for some risotto!

This place is located in Bugis in the SCWO building. It's close by along the Guan Yin temple, along Waterloo Street. It's run by chef Jason, who not only cooks but also takes orders and serves the food. The food menu is not fixed here, but I gather that the risotto, chicken and fish main dishes are available most of the time.



I had their Mushroom Risotto ($10) which was a delightful risotto dish cooked with generous portions of white mushrooms, cheese and a touch of truffle oil. The creamy broth which the risotto is cooked in is fragrant. The rice is really moist and flavourful. The dish also comes with fresh greens drizzled in dressing and cheese.

The desserts were probably the highlights of the meal for me.

Their signature dessert: Chocolate Torte ($4.50) served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A torte usually refers to a rich, dense cake made with little or no flour. The chocolate torte served here definitely lives up to its name. It is sinfully made out of dense rich chocolate which will definitely win over any chocolate lover. Although the torte is dense, its texture isn't overly hard at all. Also, it isn't cloyingly sweet, in fact it has a nice bittersweet taste that we will expect out of any dark chocolate. The vanilla ice cream goes very well with the every spoonful of chocolate torte.



The Apple Pie dessert ($4.50) is also another awesome dessert with layers of cooked warm apple bits drizzled in rich caramel sauce and topped with a scoop of ice cream. The warm apple filling has been cooked with an alluring mix of cinnamon and raisins. This is an apple-licious comfort food!

The best part is, these awesome dessert will only set you back by $4.50! I particularly like the chocolate torte, so for a small affordable piece (square) of chocolate heaven and affordable food, do visit this place!