Hand Burger @ Raffles City Shopping Centre

two fridays ago, we visited and waited to be seated at Hand Burger. There were 4 of us and when a table was cleared finally allowing 4 hungry peepz to be seated, we were told that they had only 3 buns left by that very cute i guess, store manager.

relentless, we revisited on the friday which just passed. We felt lucky coz we reached at 7.45pm an hour earlier than the last time we reached there. lucky we were, there was no queue and the diner 'turnaround' was quite fast. we were told to wait and i asked if we waited would there be any buns left. the same cute store manager smiled a little embarrassed cited that there's definitely enough buns to last the night away. guess it's prolly coz the next day was deepavali and they expected a bigger crowd? anyway, we were happy that we would be getting our buns!

the menu was presented in a very interesting manner. for me, the fonts are pretty unique and i liked it. what caught my eye were the origami items which were used to 'accentuate' the food. the concept is pretty unique. though the idea of the menu being displayed with a clipboard was not the most functional, nevertheless, it is unique of sorts.

Us 4 girls ate lots. ordered calamari, but it was blahh.. we had 3 different kind of burgers. Parm prawncake burger, pulled pork burger and tea smoked duck. the burgers came with straight cut fries (must be the in thing now as to how you like the cut of your fries to be) which tasted damn good when dipped in the garlic onion mayo sauce and very fresh leafy green coral lettuce and couple of tomato slices. if you don't want fries, you can order coleslaw put into a tomato cup. Elise and me ordered pumpkin and crab bisque which was super uber thick and i really liked it. for that portion, for that price and how THICK the 'soup' was, it's definitely worth it! the sweetness of the pumpkin, the familiar seafood flavour of the crab bisque blends equally well together. for that portion, it didn't feel too jerlat. i'd order it again the next time!

Des and mine tea smoked duck burger was done really nicely. though if the skin has been more crispy, it'd definitely taste even more like eating peking duck!! but, it's good enough and the thai sauce used was yummy!

Sook's parm prawn cake burger came in 3 generous huge patties. topped with cheese and tobiko. i wonder where the people get the idea of making such burgers. definitely interesting and i wouldnt mind paying more bucks to dine here as compared to EWF. And i love the buns! crispy, sweet and healthy sounding :D

i am sure going to go back again and maybe soon. just hope the next time, buns will still be available.

*ps: now i have problems uploading pics. will upload again another day. Blogger is not very friendly these days.

D & D @ 1 Caramel

today's the return visit to 1 Caramel in less than a week. went with Cece for a major catch up sesh which was partially overdue. we stayed there for 5 hours. from 7 ish to 12 ish.

customised cupcakes selling @ $6 per cupcake and min order is 12. very pretty!

thought i saw a family having pizza the other time i was there and told Cece that yes, they served mains. however, after studying the menu for like countless times, we didn't see any pizzas! in the end, we resorted to asking the waitress if they served other savories. surprisingly, they did. 3 kinds of pizzas: Margarita, hawaiian and parma ham. so we opted for the parma and mushroom soup. we didn't order cakes at the point in time coz we were going to revisit the display fridge after the mains.

the mushroom soup arrived first and had two slices of crispy toasts. i like the just nice richness of the soup. it's thick with generous bits mushrooms blended to just the correct size adding a good texture to the soup. unfortunately, the were bits of leaves (i think dried basil leaves? Dunno) in the soup and it sort of marred the last few moments of drinking the soup. overall, i'd order it again coz it's savoury enough and not overly creamy!

the pizza arrived thereafter and it's quite big. divided to 8 slices, it can feed at least 3 people or even 4. it's definitely not as good as the one i had in Skinny P coz the toppings weren't that generous and the dough was not exactly fantastic. it could also be because we had too much. we didn't finish the pizza. 2 slices were left behind though we finished the rocket leaves and the parma ham.

if you don't want to visit the fridge, which is something you should do, they also have a menu. i counted, there were a total of 27 different kinds of cakes!

we ordered tea too. mine's the fruit mountain. not too strong, it's quite light but not as light as Cece's Geisha something. the butter cookie is yummy too!

by then we were pretty full, took a walk to the gigantic see through fridge to finalise the cake of our choice for the night. initially we were pretty optimistic, that we will be able to eat 4 cakes in total, but we ordered 2 different cakes first, just in case.

cece ordered the Chocolate Praline Cake. As described in the cakes' menu, quote: '1 Caramel's Cocoa signature with varying layers of chocolate mousse and hazelnut praline feuilletine.' when i ate the cake, i thought it was sweet. cece didnt think it was. i guess we have different levels of sugar tolerance. to me the cake tasted like kit kat again. i very much prefer the CBL coz of the balance of tart and sweet.

i ordered the Nid d'abeilles. Don't ask me how to pronounce it, but quote again: 'Layers of honey chiboust cream and strawberry jelly sandwiched with crispy almond dacquoise.' hmm yet another cheem description. i thought the cake was quite sweet as well. Though the strawberry jelly is sour, it's still sweet. overall, sweet. i didnt taste much honey but the cake was really soft and the chiboust cream was light a fluffy. almond dacquoise is also sweet. hmm.. everything sweet.


i think we had a bit too much sugar that we went on a sugar high and was hyper for a short 30 mins and started to seh for the next 30 mins. we got back to our original state by drinking lots of water that coupled with lots of laughter as we chit chatted. it was so therapeutic and i missed her company. it's always nice to chat with her when there are things i find it hard to understand and needed someone who bothers to analyse and unafraid to tell me her thoughts in a evaluative manner. she didn't need to provide solutions, it's just great to hear what she has to say.


food though not as amazing as the first experience, company was great and the place was so nice to nuah!! i didnt feel like moving from the long bench with that huge fluffy brown pillow. felt damn shiok! it was a wonderful friday night and i look forward to meeting up with my dear friend soon :)!

Din tonight

so i said my blog is getting boring coz it's lacking pics.


show you all what i had for dinner today.

pumpkin

golden mushroom
woodear mushroom
cabbage

and this shoyu soup stock which is damn super duper good!


chop and slice everything, it's done within minutes. the only chore is cutting the pumpkin, it's very tough but worth it entirely after you taste that sweet and soft flesh which gets cooked within like 10 mins surprisingly!. this is the first time i cook pumpkin. i like the taste.


still have a big wedge. need to think what i can do with it.. hmm...