Royal Copenhagen Tea Lounge

I actually came here once a few years ago for tea and didn't have any strong impression of the place, except for the fact that it was populated by tea-sipping tai-tais. Looking for somewhere to have late lunch / tea with sis and mum and decided to come here...

Mum loves foie gras so we ordered the Foie Gras Salad $19.90++ as a starter -


It was surprisingly good, cooked perfectly, and a very decent-sized portion for that price. Totally melts in your mouth...

I had a very different dish for my main course, Roast Chicken $15.90++. I say it's different coz I don't think I've ordered roast chicken in years!


My main reason for avoiding roast chicken is I don't particularly like being served the whole chicken and having to deal with bones - but this one was boneless, yay! Reasonably tasty, the simple use of baby carrots added a sophisticated touch to the dish.

Sis ordered the Breakfast Set $18.90++ despite having had a breakfast set at Cedele the day before... sounds more like something I would do, eh? I think it's called Pytti I Panna on the menu; at least that's what its called on the receipt :)


It was just ok, not that great value for money I reckon - $18.90 for sausages and egg??

Mum loves salmon so ordered the Salmon and Potato Gratin $19.90++ -


Based on the name, I expected to see a gratin of salmon and potato, but it turned out to be a slice of salmon with a serving of potato gratin :D It was pretty decent, I only had a bite of it... but much better value than the breakfast set.

One thing that's mentioned in a lot of the reviews that I read is the Copenhagen Scones $6.90++ -


They were not too bad but there were the cake-y kind of scone - I actually prefer the biscuity type. The jam and cream were also not amazing. But a nice thing to have during tea... speaking of which, we ordered a pot of Earl Grey Tea $6.50++, how can you go to a tea lounge and not order tea? :D


I also ordered the Green Tea Cake $4.90++ after a long perusal of the cakes in the display case near the entrance -


It really wasn't very good. It was way more dense that I like my cakes... the Japanese tai tais at the next table didn't finish theirs either.

Mum also loves ice cream so she ordered a Sundae $9.90++ -


One interesting thing about this place is that they serve strawberry and mint-flavoured water - yummy and so high class! :D

As mentioned in most reviews on www.hungrygowhere.com, the service here is pretty bad... I would go so far as to call it abysmal. Seating was quick and our orders taken reasonably fast. Food came without incident... but thereafter it went downhill. It was near impossible to get the attention of the waitresses when we wanted to order more things, and we had to ask at least three waitresses, and wait over half an hour before we got our bill! Granted, that's not a bad thing when you are there to have a lazy afternoon tea :D

A good option if you looking for a place to chill out and read a book during afternoon tea. But beware the bad service may spoil what you expected to be a serene afternoon... just remember to be zen about it and chill :)


Royal Copenhagen Tea Lounge
391 Orchard Road
Takashimaya Department Store
2F Ngee Ann City
Tel: 6735 6833

Jia Xiang Kuching Restaurant (VivoCity)

Sorry for the long pause between posts - besides the fact that I'm adapting to a new routine, I've also encountered various technical difficulties :s Will do a quick one for now and hopefully be back in full force by next week.

It's been a while since the Kuching kolo mee fad hit Singapore, and I typically make it a point not to be a total Singaporean and eat whatever's popular (eg. I've never had a roti boy... ever...).

Wanted to try something new for lunch at Vivocity so decided to finally give Kuching kolo mee a try. I ordered the Kolo Prawn Mee $6 -


If you're wondering where the prawns are, they're sitting in the soup with the wantons :D Decent amount of ingredients - char siew, minced meat, veg, prawns and wanton... The noodles itself was pretty ordinary tho. The chilli is available in a container on the table - you add it yourself. It brought the whole meal up a level... but then for me, chilli improves every meal :)

Decent, but doesn't live up to the hype - seems to me that it's pretty much just wanton mee...


Jia Xiang Kuching Restaurant (VivoCity)
1 Harbourfront Walk
#B2-38 VivoCity
Tel: 6272 0000

Lemon Squares

I decided to try baking something new before heading to Karen's place for a girls' get together one saturday afternoon. I got the recipe from here.


Pretty much followed the recipe wholesale except I added the zest of about 1 whole lemon. It was very sour, exactly the way it was meant to be :D Only thing was I should have put some of the zest into the base instead of all in the filling...

Easy and dependable recipe - try it if you like sour stuff!

Oomphatico's

I was actually here twice - once in January and again recently in June. Ok fine, June is not that recent :P When I was here in January, it was for coffee so I didn't think it was worth blogging about. But after I had brunch here, I decided it was enough to make up a proper post :D

The menu here is kinda, well, confused. Besides all the breakfast dishes, there are also salads, sandwiches, pasta, soup, risotto and rice, pizza, pasta and noodles. It's confusing coz the dishes range from western (Spaghetti Carbonara) to Thai (Tom Yum Koong) to Fusion (A Thai in New York Sandwich - light chicken filet with basil sauce topped with a soft fried egg). Hence the many tags for this post...

But we were here during brunch so we stuck to the interesting sounding breakfast dishes. The Gorilla's Breakfast $14.00++ had olive bread, portobello mushrooms, arugula salad, sundried tomato and fresh mozzarella, served with fig jam -


Yup, in case you didn't already know, gorillas are vegetarian :D The bread can't be seen as it's underneath it all. I didn't try the fig jam but the other ingredients actually went pretty well with each other to make a very healthy and light dish.

The Pancake Lasagne $12.50++ is not quite pancakes or a lasagne...


Rather, it was zucchini, pesto and mango chutney between layers of crepes. Surprisingly yummy, yet another succesfully innovative dish! One gripe I had though - we ordered two of this and the second one came more than half an hour after the next one. Not sure if the waitress screwed up the order or the kitchen messed up, in any case, it was really annoying.

We also tried some desserts, Pom Pom (warm apple and raisin bread pudding with vanilla ice-cream) $8.50++ :


and Fragrant Attraction (delicate mounds of sticky rice cakes with spiced mango and coconut custard toppings) $10.50++ :


The bread and butter pudding was not bad but too filling for one person to finish on their own. Didn't like the Fragrant Attraction much, especially since I was recently in Thailand and really good mango sticky rice...

When I was here for just coffee, I had the Cafe Granita $9.50++ :


which I slurped up happily. Mostly coz I don't normally have this type of drinks (so fattening!), so when I do, I really enjoy it :D

Food here is interesting, and those dishes I tried were good. Might be worth coming back to try more dishes. It's got a nice atmosphere - perfect for a tete-a-tete with girlfriends or a family outing with the kids (especially since the staff are known to burst into song and dance and everyone are welcomed to join in). But do watch out for the spotty service...


Oomphatico's
163 Tanglin Road
#01-03 & 01-35/36 Tanglin Mall
Tel: 6733 9088
www.oomphaticos.com