Qi Le Boneless Chicken Rice 祺乐起骨鸡饭 - Chicken rice and Soup lover must have!

• Operating Hours: 24/7
• Address: S11 Foodcourt, 51 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3, S569922
• Total Cost: $7 for 2 person

Recommended by a few of my friends staying at Ang Mo Kio, we decided to try this stall since we were at this area. Located at the S-11 opposite AMK Hub and besides McDonald's, it is a place you won't miss even if you don't stay around this area.

We were quite surprised to see the queue as it was already 8:30 pm when we reach. 

As mentioned by my friends, this stall is probably the only chicken rice stall that serves a big bowl of soup with every plate of chicken rice purchased; and the type of soup you will get is actually very similar to those boiled soup 炖汤 stall you see at various food centre! 

We paid only $7 for the above. Yes! It's only $7 for two plates of chicken, two bowls of rice and two BIG bowls of chicken feet with peanut soup!

The roasted chicken breast is tender and soft, and personally, it really suits my taste even though I don't really take the chicken breast.

From what I see, most of the patrons bought the steam boiled chicken instead of the roasted ones. For those who fancy chicken with a thick layer of fats underneath the chicken skin, you will definitely like this. Overall a decent dish with the skin that is tender and springy!

Not sure about other customers but for us, this is the main reason why we were here. Very generous with a number of peanuts given, this bowl of soup also includes 2-3 chicken feet and some boiled chicken (which we believe they use them to boil the soup) that you can also eat it on its own. The soup is light and not oily, and the hours of boiling using chicken bone and peanut make the soup flavourful just by its own, without much seasoning / MSG needed.

I also like how they replace the boring cucumber with bean sprouts, especially after the bean sprouts was evenly mixed with the soy sauce and sesame oil. 

Over all, 祺乐起骨鸡饭 is a stall often patronized by people who stay within the area that wanted a decent, comfort meal. With their generous portion of rice, chicken, and soup given, it is definitely one of the key factors for their continuous good business despite there are many good food nearby.

McCafé Kueh Salat Cake - Nonya inspired delicacies transform into a cake (Ongoing Promo)

As per the previous post on McDonald Nasi Lemak burger, McCafé had pushed out their own desserts - Kueh Salat Cake cost $5 for a piece.

Inspired by the rich culinary stories of Nonya delicacies, Kueh Salat Cake consists of pandan mousse, pandan sponge cake, a layer glutinous rice with frozen coconut cream and topped with coconut flakes. The layer of glutinous rice was frozen ice which makes it difficult to cut a piece out. The cake very much tastes like the real Kueh Salat, the only difference is not oily, unlike the authentic nonya kueh.

Now, this is the first dessert I had at McCafé, and I would return for any special desserts or beverages they had in future.

McDonald's Nasi Lemak Burger Meal - Nasi Lemak without Nasi?! (Promo Over)

While this isn’t the first that one of the famous fast food restaurants innovated local flavors (e.g. Kiasu, Rendang beef and salted Egg burgers). In conjunction with Singapore Food Festival 2017 and upcoming National Day, McDonald has decided to recreate one of Singapore’s most iconic dishes which is nasi lemak.

Commonly eaten for any meal, Nasi Lemak is a fragrant rice dish cooked in coconut milk and accompanied with a range of side dishes such as egg, cucumber, anchovies and most importantly sambal chili.

Their promotion includes Nasi Lemak Burger, Bandung McFizz, Criss Cut Fries, Coconut Pie and Chendol McFlurry, which we are going to review all of them here!

So let's start off with Nasi Lemak Burger, their box is a picture of the banana leaf which normally acts as a tray for Nasi Lemak, let's open up the box!

The burger consists of fried chicken coconut marinated meat patty, fried egg, two cucumber slices, bits of caramelized onions with sweet and spicy sambal sauce in between the semolina buns, but something is missing out from Nasi Lemak - Ikan Bilis, peanuts, and rice! It is just not nasi lemak without them.

Our favorite parts of the burger were the chicken and fried egg, they taste just like the ones you would get from any hawker stalls that sells Nasi Lemak. However what we could not taste is the sambal chili and the egg as the cucumbers and chicken had overpowered them. But the first few bite of the burger will make you think of Nasi Lemak! Must try! but a precaution to share with a person as it might get a bit too full cause of the oiliness of the chicken.

Next is criss cut fries, it is not a stranger to Mcdonald fans, Despite being thicker and larger than normal fries, the Crisscuts had a crispier texture which is sure to please those who preferred non-soggy waffley chips.

This was supposed to taste like Bandung that rose syrup added with Sprite. And it was really spot on, Bandung with Sprite, and it's quite refreshing and new to me! The only con is this is a small cup! Not enough to share around. 

Moving on to Chendol McFlurry, this dessert contains cendol green jelly bits with brownish Gula Melaka sauce with the returning vanilla soft serve! To me it was not cendol-y taste to be named cendol mcflurry, all I tasted is Gula Melaka sweetness, but it was a decent dessert.

Last is coconut pie, my first thought that it might be filled with nata de coco jelly inside the pie like how their apple pie is.

The coconut cream with bits of nata de coco was warm and smooth, you could even bite on coconut meat slice even! So overall, Mcdonald did something right with this promotion. We will look forward to more fancy creations in the future!

McDonalds' Minion Special! - Limited Time only! (Promo Ended)

-=Promotion is over=-

Item I had: Minion set ($7.90), banana Mcflurry oreo ($2.90)

No Introduction needed for this famous fast food restaurant, the letter M with the yellow colored font, even my mom who does not know a single English word know how to pronounce this restaurant so fluently.

For a limited time, to promote the movie "Despicable Me 3", Mcdonald had been very actively promoting Minions themed, so they have these cut potatoes into Minion-shaped potato bites and had made Banana Pies a comeback, what surprised me is they swap the whole soft serve into banana flavored! 

Minions fans will know how much the Minions love bananas, and these menu items are going to drive Singaporeans' mad for banana too. 

The above is what is included in the Minion set - a box of 6 pieces Minions Potatoes, 6 Pieces of Spicy Chicken McNuggets, a banana pie and a drink. 

Each box of Minions potato comes with 6 of minion-shaped, it's actually bit bigger than I expected, and I was thinking, it's a novelty so the taste might not be that good, so my first bite impression of it, it reminds me of those potato balls texture where outside is crispy while inside is very mushy like I'm eating mash potato. I actually like it!

A closer look at one of the minion potato.

Minions dipped into curry sauce, not a good combination though, it still good to mix with garlic chili sauce.

McDonald’s is striking back by releasing the fiery Spicy Chicken McNuggets! The Nuggets as compared to the normal nuggets, it's on a more salty version but those who do not take spicy food, that spiciness will come after you finished the whole piece.

First bite impression of Banana flavored mcflurry Oreo - it tasted very similar to those Banana flavored milk selling in the supermarket.

Overall the switch of soft serve ice cream from Vanilla to Banana flavored is not a bad move, but I would still rather have the tradition vanilla soft serve, but it still a good taste of Banana flavored once in a while. The must try I would say is the Minion potatoes, even if it does not taste good to you, appreciate of how it looks like is another way to support more of these. 

Na Na Original Thai Food (Golden Mile Complex) 24HRS!

• Operating Hours: 24 Hours
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: 5001 Beach Road #01-51/52/66C S(199588)
• How to get there: Alight at Nicoll Highway MRT (Circle Line) and walk towards Concourse and turn right on Beach Road. Estimated walking time about 5 mins.
• Food I had: Pad Thai (Chicken), Basil Leaves With Minced Pork and Rice, Tom Yum Soup (Seafood), Fried Shrimp Paste, Lemongrass drink.

Golden Mile Complex, also known as "Singapore's Little Thailand, is a place where you will not regret going for authentic Thai food. Ranging from mookata (Thai-style steamboat), Thai themed pubs and clubs, restaurants to Thai Supermarket, Golden Mile Complex is really the best replica of Thailand. In my opinion, Nana Original Thai food is one restaurant that I frequent most, for its generous amount of good food served.

We visited Nana Thai on a random Friday night at about 11 PM. There were still many people having their meals! We were also glad that there were many seats available for us to settle down for our supper.

Their menu placed on each table

 

The food was served almost instantaneously (after about 2 mins) after we ordered. The refreshing lemongrass drink (น้ำตะไคร์) opened up our taste bud quickly, thanks to its lemon-lime and sweet syrup taste with a hinge of mint and ginger. This drink is recommended if you like the lemongrass taste.

Cost: $1.50

We did not have to wait long before our Tom Yum soup was served. They serve their tom yum soup with either the prawn, fish or seafood option. We had the seafood tom yum soup as we wanted to eat it like a local Thai.

All soup were served in a ceramic ancient clay pot, similar to which people used in the olden days. The plus point for using the ceramic clay pot is to keep the soup warm faster and longer, with the help of the fire on candle wax at the bottom of the pot.

There were really lots of spices inside each tom yum pot! They were generous with a number of ingredients cooked in each pot (tomatoes, crab meats, squids, mushrooms, onions, prawns, and fishballs).It is definitely one of the best Tom Yum soup I had ever tasted in Singapore! We felt that the level of spiciness was more towards the mild side, and it is suitable for one who does not take too much chili. If you wish, you can even request for less spiciness to suit your taste bud. With the natural sweetness from the seafood itself, it has certainly enhanced the taste of the soup without too much MSG added. We did not feel thirsty even after we finished the whole pot of soup!

Highly recommend you to try their tom yum soup when you visit this restaurant!

Cost: $12 for seafood/prawn, $15 for fish

The next dish that was served to us is the basil leaves with Minced pork rice. The taste of the minced pork with basil leaves is surprisingly good! We realized that local Thai likes to add fish sauce (鱼露) to most of their stir fry dishes and this dish are no exception. The using of fish sauce, oyster sauce, and chili padi to cook up the right amount of sauce does not take away the natural taste of the pork, and the mixture of long bean with basil leaves further enhance the mouthfeel of this dish. The taste is heaven! Great to go with some white rice! You can also request the staff for least spicy / no spicy option. We seriously believe it will taste equally good.

Cost: $6 per plate.

We love Phad Thai so much and we had to order this everytime we visit a Thai food place. Although with mixed review, we went ahead to order this as we wanted to taste it ourselves. The bean sprout was very raw so we decided not to mix it together in the noodle. You can choose to fry the noodle with chicken or pork, together with their default diced bean curd and eggs.

Like any local Thai restaurant, they also provide condiments at almost every table (Chilli flakes, sugar & peanuts) for their customer to mix it into their pad Thai. We felt that it was a little too dry, and the taste of is similar to our Singapore Char Kway Tiao. It was quite normal overall, and the texture of the noodle was soft & chewy, which we quite like it. However, as compared to the basil minced pork rice, Na Na's Phad Thai was very slightly below average.

Cost: $6 per plate

The last dish served to us was the fried prawn cake. The condiments given with the prawn cake was the sour plum sauce which we find it quite nice. The prawn cake was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Overall this dish is nice and it's definitely recommended.

Cost: $12 for 5 pcs