Beef Tenderloin Medium Rare Senso

Senso, established in 2000, is a fine dining restaurant at club street known for its authentic Italian cuisine, sophisticated atmosphere and ever changing menu. Kelvin brought me here because the entertainment app allows us a one-for-one main course so that we can still keep the meal at this atas restaurant within our budget.

Senso Table Setting Photo

The setting is perfect for a romantic dinner - colonial architecture, warm candle light on spacious round white table with a window view to the courtyard.

Complementary bread assorted menu

All atas restaurants comes with a complementary basket of warm assorted bread, presumably handmade. To eat with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The presentation and the variety of the bread was impressive. They tasted warm and soft, like normal bread but better.

Australian Beef Tenderloin Senso

I ordered the Australian Beef Tenderloin, $44 - Australian grain-fed Beef Tenderloin with Shallots and Barolo Red Wine sauce, young Vegetables and Senso puree. It comes with mash potato, some baby cabbage, baby carrots, asparagus and baby onion. I love the beef, its cooked just right to the medium rare that cuts out easily with all the juice intact. The baby vegetables tasted really good also, it seems that the baby version of veggies are sweeter and crunchier. The mash potato is also creamy and melts in your mouth. It's like a normal mash potato but 10 times nicer and doesn't need the gravy. - 10/10

Veal Rack Senso Menu

Kelvin ordered the Bobby Veal Rack $42 - ‘alla Milanese’ with Senso mashed Potatoes, ripe Tomatoes, Rucola Salad and Gorgonzola Cream sauce. Always thought veal is deer meat but turns out its cattle meat, aka baby cow. Didn't know cow meat can be deep fried. The veal rack didn't really taste my beef to me but it did go well with the cooked cherry tomatoes, eruca sativa (rocket veggie), lemon and blue cheese sauce provided. - 9/10

Veal Rack Price

I like how the beef is still fried till medium rare, leaving it juicy and chewy on the inside. 

Fine Dining Italian Senso

The serving size is quite generous for such a fine dining restaurant. 

Senso menu

The waiters were aware that we are sharing the dishes, they kindly placed everything in the middle and provided us with spare plates.

senso club street

The meal was quite filling with the mash potato and the bread basket. But we made room for desserts.

Creme Brulee

We ordered the Creme Brulee $16 - Traditional bourbon vanilla and coffee with fresh strawberries and homemade strawberry sherbet. I liked the vanilla creme brulee and the sherbet, but honestly this isn't much nicer than normal creme brulee. I expected atas creme brulee. Maybe we should have gone for the tiramisu since it's more Italian  - 5/10

Semifreddo

Kelvin was feeling adventurous and ordered Semifreddo $14 - Italian Pistachio and Macadamia Semifreddo with Rhubarb Compose and Chocolate Crumble. Bascially we had no idea what it was and still don't. The textual is interesting, like a in-between of cream, cake and ice cream. It tasted interesting too but it didn't wow our taste buds. - 5/10

Senso Entrance

Our total bill added up to $87 nett with the one-for-one main course discount from the Entertainment App. I'll probably return to enjoy the rest of the one-for-one coupons for the pasta and risotti, but not for the desserts.

Senso Ristorante & Bar
21 Club Street, Singapore 069410
Tel: 6224 3534
Website: senso.sg
Weekday: 12 - 2.30pm, 6 - 10.30pm
Sat: 6 - 10.30pm

Song Fa Bak Kut Teh

Song Fa Bak Kut Teh is easily the most popular stall in the newly opened Seletar Mall. Other Song Fa branches are at New Bridge Road and Changi Business Park. Basically Song Fa started selling Bak Kut Teh 1969 and was graced upon by many celebrities over the years. And this is Song Fa's first mall outlet.

I shall state it upfront that this is the best Bak Kut Teh place to be in Singapore with cheap prices, free flow soup and air-con. Yes the Seletar Mall Song Fa is air-conditioned! Take that Clark Quay Song Fa. So proud to be a North-Easterner recently with all the good food popping up in the neighbourhood :)

Seletar Mall SongFa

My parents and I managed to get a table for an early Saturday lunch after Dad queued for 30 mins while Mum and I shopped at Uniqlo. As expected the queue is insanely long because it's a new mall and it's Song Fa.

Song Fa Menu Prices

We ordered reasonably for 3 people and almost covered all the best dishes in the menu. Let me start off with the sides - Dough Fritter 油条 Youtiao $2.20 (basic for soaking in the Bak Kut Teh soup) & Braised Peanuts $3


Pork Ribs Soup Bak Kut Teh 排骨肉骨茶

Pork Ribs Soup Bak Kut Teh 排骨肉骨茶 Big $9. Soup is the peppery kind, and free soup refill is my favorite part of the meal. I love the pepper kind of Bak Kut Teh soup that warms you up on a rainy day in the air-con restaurant. The pork ribs were cooked until they are fatty and tear easily off the bones, perfect to eat with soy sauce - 10/10

Braised Pig's Trotter 卤猪脚

Braised Pig's Trotter 卤猪脚 $7. My second favourite dish at Song Fa. The trotter is cooked until soft and chewy, fully soaking up the braised soup flavors. - 9/10

Braised Pig's Trotter photo

And it's my favourite because it's full of collagen so I don't feel guilty eating all the fatty parts. Ok, so that fatty parts are still fats and not collagen, whatever, go away.

Braised Chicken Feet with Beancurd Skin 焖凤爪与腐竹

Braised Chicken Feet with Beancurd Skin 焖凤爪与腐竹 $4. I never liked chicken feet because they are so boney but I actually liked this one! It must be the meatiest chicken feet I've ever eaten and the bones were so tiny, it was manageable. The beancurd skin was really nice too as it soaked up all the flavor and has 0 fats. Ok, maybe a bit of fats. Who cares. - 9/10

Vegetables - Cai Xin Price

Vegetables - Cai Xin 油菜- 菜心 $4. To balance the meal, we ordered some green veggies. Not bad actually, the veggies are cooked till its easy to chew and made us felt like we didn't eat so much meat.

In total, we spent $32 nett, which was only about $10 each. After finishing all the dishes, we stayed a while more to enjoy another soup refill, making it all even more value for money.

Song Fa Bak Kut Teh - First Mall Outlet with Aircon!
33 Sengkang W Ave, The Seletar Mall, Singapore 797653
#01-39/40/41
Website: http://www.songfa.com.sg/index.php

Other Branches
11 and 17 New Bridge Road #01-01, Singapore 059383
Business Hours: 7.00am - 9.30pm

Last Order: 9:15pm
(Closed on Monday)
Tel: +65 6438 2858

UE BizHub East (North Tower Office)
6 Changi Business Park Ave 1, #01-38 S486017
Business Hours: 10.30am - 9.30pm
Last Order: 9:15pm
(Open Daily)
Tel: +65 6694 8098
Tom Yam Nahkon Seafood

Nakhon Kitchen was one of the most hyped up heartland Thai food restaurant a while back this year. I gave it a pass previously because the queues were insanely long. Now that the queue is reasonable (about 15 mins wait), Kelvin and I headed down to the branch at Hougang to find out if it can live up to our expectation (spoiler alert: it didn't). 

FYI, also located in Hougang neighbourhood just down the street are up and coming cafes where we had our desserts - Hatter Street & Lola's Cafe.


Thai Tea Milk

We were first served with traditional Thai Ice Teh $3. Not sure how authentic this is as its my first time drinking milk tea thai style. I would say the taste of tea and sweetness was more intense than normal milk tea and I liked it. Also, it's good to have to cold drink to save you when eating spicy food. - 10/10

Kapow Beef Rice

The first dish that came was the Kapow Beef Rice $6. Stir fry minced beef with long beans, red chilli and soya sauce, sunny side up egg and cucumber at the side. Overall nothing thai or special about the dish.  - 5/10 (don't order this)

Image Picture of Tom Yam

Next up came our Tom Yam Seafood Soup Clear $6. Pretty decent tom yam standard, the clear soup wasn't too spicy and came with a generous amount of soup ingredients like mushrooms, prawn, fish and sotong. - 8/10


Phad Thai Photo

And lastly, Phad Thai $5. Phad Thai is basically thai fried noodles with bean sprouts, tofu, leek, peeled prawns and peanut crumps. - 6/10

Phad Thai Menu

The Phad Thai was only served 20 minutes after the tom yam soup and it was such a disappointment. How can fried noodles turn wrong? Apparently at it can when it was served after all your other dishes had turned cold and tastes kind of tasteless. In it's defense, the Phad Thai did came with one or two freshly peeled prawns, which in my opinion is the only saving grace of the dish.

Nahkon Menu

Squeezing lime onto the Phad Thai didn't help enhance it's tastelessness. The point of this picture is Kelvin's squeeze lime face :P

Nahkon Picture Menu

Overall, the meal was still pretty worth it. We only spent $20 nett for the whole meal as prices at Nahkon is very reasonable. Probably will return to try our others on their menu as what I had wasn't worth having again.

Also check out the cafes just down the street where we had our desserts - Hatter Street & Lola's Cafe.

Nahkon Kitchen Hougang
Address: Block 212 Hougang St 21, #01-341, Singapore 530212
Phone: 6286 8785
Opening Hours: Mon - Sun, 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm, 5:30 pm - 10:00 pm
Facebook / Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nakhon-Kitchen/
Hatter Street menu

Eating good food and going cafe hopping forms a huge part of our daily weekly dates. There has been a steady increase in nice cafes and restaurants popping up in the heartlands and for this week, Kelvin and I decided to head down to Hatter Street Bakehouse & Cafe which is just a couple of units down from Nahkon Kitchen which was where you go for value for money Thai Food. Hatter Street is just a stone throw away from Lola's Cafe and could be a good place to chill at while waiting for your seats.

Hatter Street Bakehouse & Cafe

Hatter Street is named after Alice in Wonderland with inspirations from the Mad Hatters. However, the staff were (sadly) not wearing any goofy looking hats. Just like most cafes in the heartlands, the cafe was small and quaint but the wide variety of deserts coupled with the homely ambiance and decor proved to be a very popular choice with the customers living around the area. Kelvin and I reached around 3pm and the place was packed.


Hatter Street Interior


Here are a couple of photos of the interior of Hatter Street.


Hatter Street photo


The ready made cakes and deserts were on display and they looked like they were all freshly made.


Hatter Street dessert display


Kelvin attended a friend's wedding solemnization party the day before and tried his first rainbow cake (without me! ><). Since I have never tasted a Rainbow Cake before, it was the obvious choice to pick .


Hatter Street Rainbow Cake
We picked a cosy corner window seat in this heartland cafe. My off-shoulder flower print dress ($21 from Zalora) matched well the Alice in Wonderland theme of the cafe. 

rainbow cake

It looked very pretty but I was very skeptical of the taste. How good could a Rainbow Cake - $6 taste right? 


I was pleasantly surprised how good it tasted. The icing and cream on top and between the different layers complemented the taste of the cake very well. 8/10


Flower print shoulder dress

The Pandan ice-cream with Gula Melaka Sauce - $8.90 is another famous item in Hatter Street. I was quite apprehensive of what pandan ice-cream was going to be like.


Panda Waffle

We waited around 10-15 mins for the waffle to come and as you can see its a LEGIT waffle because it's freshly made and beats any kind of frozen waffles that most cafes that I can't be bothered to blog about usually serve. The Gula Melaka sauce was the highlight of the dish and went really really well with the pandan ice-cream. The homemade waffle was light and fluffy and Kelvin and I wasted no time devouring the dish. I personally felt that the blue berries did not complement the sauce nor the ice cream and was probably only for decorative purposes. 9/10

Hatter street prices

I'm definitely coming back to try the other waffles on the menu.

Hatter Street Bakehouse & Cafe
Address: Blk 212 Hougang Street 21 #01-333 S530212
Tel: 6988 4591
Website: http://www.hatterstreet.com/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/HatterStreet
Opening Hours: 1pm - 10pm Tuesday to Sundays
Closed on Monday
Chocolate Crepe dessert with ice cream and whip cream

When I first spotted Paddington House of Pancakes in City Square Mall at Farrer Park / Little India, Kelvin was dismissive. "Pancakes can only be eaten as brunch or dessert, not worthy to be a man's dinner" - quoted from Kelvin and his ego.

Paddington house of pancakes

But we combed through the whole mall only to be back here because nothing else stirred our appetite. Kelvin realised that they do serve dinner worthy dishes here and I'm always right. 

Paddington house of pancakes menu

The menu showcased all kinds of pancake inspired cuisine - in a fusion of American, Mexican, French and Russian cooking style. (No pork, lard and beef served btw, choices for meat is only chicken or lamb). We were quite overwhelmed by the choices and ended up choosing whatever that has the biggest picture on the menu.

Paddington house of pancakes prices

This is all we ordered. The wait for food was about 30 minutes as their kitchen is super small, but it was worth the wait.

pancake double decker chicken burger

We ordered a Pancake Double Decker Burger $16 - made from organic wholemeal pancakes, homemade chicken patty, onion, tomato, lettuce, cheese and salsa sauce. - 8/10

pancake double decker chicken burger photo

The chicken patty was thick, dense and meaty, not quite as juicy as the waiter promised but not bad overall. Kelvin loved the pancake which was super savory that tied in well with the whole burger taste. We've always assumed that pancakes are tasteless or sweet like the Mcdonald's breakfast kind, but Paddington House of Pancakes proved us wrong.

nice crepe chicken picture

I got this grilled chicken, grilled mozzarella, chicken bacon, ham, wild mushrooms, prawns, pineapple and topped with mushroom creamy sauce, stuffed in soft crepe called NICE - $14. 

 grilled chicken, grilled mozzarella, chicken bacon, mushrooms, prawns, pineapple and topped with mushroom creamy sauce crepe

The prawns and mushroom were fresh, grilled chicken was juicy and the crepe was sweet in a way that went well with everything else. - 10/10

cheese fries and wedges with bacon bits and sauces

There was this big picture of their cheese fries and wedges with bacon bits and sauces - $7 on the first few pages of the menu. It looked so cheesy I couldn't resist. But I later regretted this impulse order as there was only one layer of cheese on top, there were no cheese on the fries below and the fries are ordinary processed fries. The dips are the same as KFC cheese fries sauce. Meh - 4/10

paddington house of pancakes menu

Overall it was a satisfying and filling dinner. We were full but how can we be in a pancake house without having pancakes the way were meant to be eaten - desserts.

pancake dessert

The house of pancake's desserts all looked super good. We finally chose the Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Jam Crepe Roll with Ice Cream - $14.

sinful dessert

In my first bite, I felt like I went to heaven. The chocolate, peanut butter and jam exploded with every bite because the whole crepe roll was stuffed with those sauces. But after eating half a roll each, we both jelat from the sauce overload. There weren't enough ice cream to go around to dilute the overpowering tastes of jam. Despite having to battle through the second half of our crepe, it was still one of my favourite dessert ever - 9/10


House of Pancakes City Square Mall picture

In total, we spent $65 nett for our meal (2 mains, 1 side, 1 dessert). The setting and decorations is very pretty, almost felt like we were in a quaint shop house cafe instead of a shopping mall.

House of Pancakes City Square Mall promotion

I highly recommend eating at Paddington House of Pancakes if you are at City Square Mall. I know I will definitely return to try out their tacos and more desserts.

House of Pancakes farrer park image

Paddington House of Pancake
180 Kitchener Rd
#02/35 City Square Mall
Singapore 208539
Tel: 66129029
Open 11am-10pm daily

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