Hoshino Coffee @ Plaza Singapura (星乃珈琲店)

 

My order... lol

Came across this place when I was shopping for some clothes for work at Plaza Singapura. The tantalizing display of the menu items on the table at the entrance of the cafe definitely caught my attention.

Although it was about 2.30pm when we got there, the place was packed and it had a line of people outside waiting to go in. But we were seated in about 10 minutes and our food arrived quickly once we were seated. There were quite a number of Japanese families and couples dining there so we knew that this place had to be good.

Interior of the restaurant.

Service button so you can easily get the attention of the servers.

Pot-Baked Curry Rice ($15)

Double Pancake Souffle ($12)

Blended tea with milk ($6.80)

We ordered the pancake souffle that they are supposed to be famous for (observed that nearly every table had ordered this item) and the server informed us that it would take 40 minutes to be ready and asked if we would be ok with them starting to make it first.

The pot-baked curry rice was one of the best curry rice I've had. The curry was thick and flavorful and had a nice, beefy aroma and it tasted even better once we mixed the runny egg yolk on top in. I liked that they baked and served it in the pot as it kept the rice piping hot.

The blended tea was a nice little palate cleanser before the highly anticipated pancake souffle came. However, it tasted like a typical red tea, not much to rave about, so I felt it was slightly overpriced.

Finally, it was time for the pancakes. My mouth was watering at the mere sight of it, I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into it.... and it did not disappoint. It was light and fluffy, kinda like a souffle, but not as soft and creamy since I guess it is supposed to be a fusion of the two. But it was perfect. Although the maple syrup given was pretty pathetic, it didn't matter cos the pancake souffle was already pretty damn good on it's own. I really like the whipped cream on top, it tasted kinda buttery and went well with the pancakes.

Despite being seated in a corner, service was really attentive with the servers clearing our tables whenever we were done with the food, bringing us side plates and new utensils and filling our iced water. Definitely plan on revisiting soon.

Sunday Brunch @ Oriole Cafe

Available from 10 am - 3 pm on Sundays!

Thinking that there might be a lot of people there today, we tried to go down earlier for some brunch. Tried being the operative word here. Ended up reaching at 12 pm but there wasn't a crowd anyway which was great. Got shown to a seat once we got there.

And then I realized that I left my camera's battery at home. I took it out of the camera to charge it last night in preparation for today and then I forgot to put it back in when I was tossing the camera into my bag #FML

So yeah, here's some iPhone pictures.

BIG Breakfast ($24): minute steak, egg, ham, sausage, mushrooms, potato wedges and tomato relish.

You can tell from the capitalized 'BIG' that they mean srs bsnss. This mega breakfast item was served in an iron pan. This is the first time I've had a steak served with my breakfast. It was kinda dry by itself but tasted pretty good together with the tomato relish which was awesome!

Buttermilk hotcakes ($9.50): served with bananas, caramel and fresh cream.

As someone whose preferred way to eat pancakes is to have them soaked, to the point of oversaturation, in syrup, I was not a big fan of this. Or maybe I should have just asked if I could have extra syrup.

Chilli Chocolate Mocha ($6): Double ristretto, fresh chilli juice, chocolate & steamed milk.

I don't usually drink coffee, it has the opposite effect on me that it has on most people. But it doesn't seem right to come here and not try their award winning coffee so I decided to order this. They served it with a cinnamon stick to use as a stirrer. It was pretty damn good :]

Aloha Ma Maison

Serving food from this little place called Hawaii, don't know if you heard of it... In case you didn't know, here's some info for you to read while waiting.

Ordered the loco moco set lunch ($15) to try. Loco moco is a native Hawaiian dish, I've never tried it but have seen the pictures on the internet, it looks like a Hawaiian version of nasi lemak or something. The dish is typically rice served with sunny side up egg and a hamburger patty, drenched in a brown sauce. The restaurant offers some variations of it as well, like salmon and I forget what else since I was mainly trying to decide between the salmon and the beef lol.

It was nice that they offered the option of either having white rice or multi-grain rice. But otherwise the dish was nothing special. Sauce didn't really have much flavour to it and the hamburger patty was also kinda bland. Don't really recommend this item.

We also tried the escargot with coconut garlic butter ($10) cos it sounded interesting. It was well... interesting. I'm not in love with it but it was worth a try, had a pretty strong coconut taste, kinda drowned out the garlic.

Toppings: maple syrup, coconut and guava.

And finally, for dessert, we had the pancakes with whipped cream and banana ($14). It was the whole reason why I wanted to give this place a try and it did not disappoint. When I saw the picture in the menu, it reminded me of the pancakes that I tried back at Eggs N Things (also a Hawaiian eatery) in Japan.

For comparison:

Well, obviously the one served at Aloha Ma Maison had less whipped cream, when it came over to our table, it was already on the verge of falling over. But no matter, cos you don't really need that much anyway. It's just more aesthetically pleasing.

It had five small-ish pancakes, topped with whipped cream, bananas and powdered sugar. They had 3 different syrups for you to choose from and the coconut one was the best imo. Drenched each one with the syrup and a dollop of the fluffy whipped cream, YUM! Instant bliss, almost went into a diabetic coma.

Would definitely return for the pancakes.

Also, I would like to congratulate Bugis+, formally known as Iluma, for it's super successful makeover. The place was packed when I went over, a complete 180 from what it used to be. Shows you how important it is to get the right anchor tenants.