Thai Express (VivoCity)

Ok, so Thai Express is nothing new, but I haven't been here in a while and on a recent revisit, decided to try something new and it's now my current fav here. Love the Phat Woon Sen Poo Nim Phrik Thai Dam (Claypot Black Pepper Soft-shell Crab Glass Noodles) $13.90++!


It's got glass noodles (tang hoon) stir-fried with lots of garlic, heaps of whole black peppercorns, mushrooms and spring onions, and topped with a very decent-sized serving of deep fried soft-shell crab. I'm not a huge garlic fan so that's the first thing that gets picked out *bleagh* But I love the very peppery tang hoon! And I haven't eaten much soft-shell crab in the last few years (for no particular reason) so it's a real treat to have it again now :)

Another thing which I absolutely adore here is the Khao Niao Mamuang (Sweet Glutinous Rice with Fresh Mango and Coconut Milk) $5.90++ :


Whenever I'm in Thailand, I have mango glutinous rice at least once every day... but I still prefer the one here :D The authentic one you find in Thailand tends to have tough individual grains of rice with a thin coconut milk sauce. The one here, on the other hand, has a mound of sticky, chewy glutinous rice, with sweetened cocunut milk. YUMS! Beats the real thing hands down, if you ask me.

I'm a renewed Thai Express fan - the service is still spotty, but there's some pretty good dishes here and prices are reasonable.


Thai Express (VivoCity)
1 Harbourfront Walk
#B2-30 VivoCity
Tel: 6272 1912
www.thaiexpress.com.sg

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

Siam Kitchen

I was actually planning to go to Marche at Suntec to use up a voucher that I had... but it turned out that Marche was all shuttered up - not sure if it was closed for renovations or if it had closed down. So while trying to figure out where else to have dinner, M & I ended up eating here.

There was a standee on the table promoting an 'eat-all-you-want' buffet that looked quite promising, but under the terms and coniditions, it said that it was only available on weekends. But when the waitress came by, we asked about the buffet and it was available!

And here's the spread :


There were about 20 dishes including most of my favourite thai dishes - tom yum soup, green curry, mango salad. With this kind of buffet, you never expect very good food, which was the case here - it was decent but average. And there was so much food the first time round that we didn't even order extras of anything! I think my stomach is starting to shrink...

At $19.90++, it's pretty good value for you're craving some thai food but can't decide exactly what to have. Try it out when variety is more important than quality :)


Siam Kitchen
Suntec City Tower 4
#B1-055
Tel : 6837 1588