Bangkok Winter still hot! - Eat Tom Yum Kung at Tom Yum Kung

Khao San Road was the first place we visited in Bangkok, because we had to go there to book our half day floating market and railroad market tour. Khao San Road is a popular ang mor place in Bangkok, with lots of budget hotels and tour agencies to cater to the backpackers. The only thing I don't get is, why isn't there any BTS or MRT station near this so-called backpackers heaven har? I thought backpackers travel by public transport one?

Anyway, after we managed to locate the tour agency and booked our tour, we had our early dinner at a restaurant called "Tom Yum Kung", which is famous for their... erm... Tom Yum Kung.



The restaurant is hidden in a little alley away from the main road, but you should be able to locate it by the huge red signboard they put up. Just open your eyes when you walk. The setup of the place is more European than Thai, which gives you a hint of their target market, and the price of the food. Ok lah, the price is not really that expensive, but I'll say it's above average in Bangkok lor.



Yup, for our first meal in Bangkok, we ordered the typical Thai food we usually order in a Thai restaurant in Singapore - Tom Yum Kung, Pandan chicken, Green Curry Fried Rice.



The Tom Yum Kung is not bad, not too spicy for me and just sour enough. I really like the prawns. They are big and juicy fresh!



But my favourite is really the Pandan Chicken. These are so different from those we get in Singapore! You can actually taste the pandan in the chicken! It is so fragrant and tasty!

Bangkok Winter still hot! - Staying at Grand Millennium

We searched through all the prices and pictures and comments of the ever-growing number of boutique hotels in Bangkok, but ended up with the hotel chain Grand Millennium. Well, there're a couple of reasons for us choosing Grand Millennium Sukhumvit Bangkok.

The price
We managed to get like SGD130 per night for a spacious room, which is not too expensive as compared to the smaller rooms from some of the cheaper boutique hotels. Okay, our room rate doesn't include Wifi and breakfast. But I'm getting a local SIM card anyway and I don't really fancy those mundane hotel breakfast buffets of toasts/omelette/juices and almost always cannot-make-it local delights.

The location
I know lots of Singaporeans are staying at Siam area, and for some, as near to Platinum Mall as possible. But I'm not really into shopping and don't fancy all the chaotic crowd upon stepping out of the hotel. I like that the Grand Millennium is tagged away at a quiet corner in Asok area. But still, we can walk to the Asok BTS and Sukhumvit MRT stations in less than 5 minutes. The new Terminal 21 shopping mall is nearby too for sudden shopping urge, and a 7-11 store even nearer for even more emergency food and drinks. So yes, its location works for me.

The room


The service
As an international hotel chain, of course Grand Millennium provides good service! Some more in Thailand the land of smiles! But my favorite guys are the doormen. On the first day after checking in, we wanted to go to Khao San Road, which we know is not served by any BTS or MRT. So I told the doorman to get me a taxi. Instead of follow my instruction blindly, he advised us to take a MRT to a nearby station then change to taxi instead, due to the long jam time on the road he was expecting during that time of the day. I've also noticed that whenever the doormen get a taxi for us, they'll instruct the taxi driver to go by meter too! Helpful guys, they are!

Porn's Thai food at Star Vista

Pornsak has opened another Porn's (wah big business wor!) at the new Star Vista, so we decided to check it out during lunch. Luckily we were there early because the whole place was packed by 12:30pm! Seems like Star Vista is attracting lots of lunch-goers from the surrounding offices!



Like seriously, how can you go to a Thai restaurant without ordering green curry or green papaya salad right? Porn's green curry is really nice - fragrant and rich. I think I can come here alone and order just this curry and a bowl of rice!

I'm someone that don't really like sour food and I've had some bad experience with very sour (at least to me lah!) Thai papaya salad. Luckily, the green papaya salad here is not that sour! I like the nice touch of that crispy bean curd skin (I guess!) which adds some texture to the salad. I think the salad will taste even better if they add some pomelo as well. After all, this salad is not cheap wor!



The minced chicken with basil leaves is overwhelming with basil leaves fragrance, so yes, another dish that needs another bowl of rice! But it does get kinda boring after chewing on the minced meat for some time. Maybe some vegetables added will be nice.



We ordered a small portion of the Tomyam soup which we heard is the authentic Thai kind, the kind that looks innocently clear but actually super spicy! And boy was this soup spicy! What we like is that it is not oily at all, but what we didn't like is that there are too little seafood in the soup. Could be a little bit more generous lah!

Overall, the food at Porn's is good, but for the three of us, it turned out to be about $16 per pax. So I don't think I can afford to lunch there everyday lah!

Old school dim sum at Red Star, Chin Swee Road

I really like dim sum. I'm a Cantonese so I guess it's in my blood. And sometimes I just want to break away from all those ATAS dim sum at Wah Lok or Min Jiang and simply go for something old school. Like Red Star.



I know porridge is one big bowl of carbo that will fill up half my stomach immediately and leave no space for the others, but I have to eat porridge when eating dim sum, and it has to be century egg porridge (皮蛋瘦肉粥). There is not much meat and egg in this porridge, but the taste and texture is good. Tasty and silky.

The popiah (春卷) is not bad too, with lots of ingredient in it, even shitake mushrooms.



These two dishes are supposed to be the new Chef's Recommendations. The durian pancake is nice in the way that they are quite generous with the fragrant durian paste. But feel kinda weird to eat this as part of dim sum.

The chicken is good though. It has a really high class name too - Golden Dragon Chicken (金龙鸡) - sounds like the chicken pieces will jump up and kick White-chan any time. It is actually sotong paste and chicken wrapped under those crispy chicken skin. White-chan said this is really a must-try!



After that we had some classics like shrimp dumplings (虾饺) and chicken feet (凤爪). The shrimp dumpling was not really that good, not really the standard that I've expected. The skin was not Q enough and too bland. The chicken feet was really tasty though.



We had planned to have egg tarts to end our dim sum but when the aunty pushed a cart pass our table with egg custard bun (流沙包), we changed our mind. Their egg custard bun is quite nice, with rich, sweet and salty custard flowing out of the bun as you bite into them!

There're still lots of other dishes that we didn't order because there were only two of us with limited stomach space. But if you're ever going Red Star, do try their mixed beef internal organs soup (牛什汤), big bao (大包) and feng chang (粉肠), among other goodies!

Set Lunch at District 10 at Star Vista

With the opening of Star Vista, we've got more lunch options now, but only when we feel rich lah, since the restaurants there are not really considered cheap. So this time round we made a visit to the District 10.

They have this set lunch during lunch time, but still not cheap, mind you. The Grilled Black Angus Cheddar Cheese Burger is about $19 and the Hoegaarden Battered Fish and Chips is like $24. The set lunch includes a soup or salad, and a drink. And yes, the mains are much smaller in the set lunch. For example, you get one fillet of the fish for the set lunch instead of the normal two. But no surprise lah, since they're not the only one doing this cheap act for set meals.



The soup of the day was mushroom soup and most of us ordered that. Heng I chose the salad instead. Just look at the photo! I was not playing with perspective here. The salad was really so much bigger bowl than the soup. My friend finished the soup in three mouths. But maybe that was not that bad either because they didn't really liked the soup. Some said it was "powder-ly". The salad was actually good though, with good amount of dried tomatoes and nuts, and the vegetables were fresh.



And we should have eaten our soup and salad slower. Much slower. Because we had to wait more than 30mins for the main course to arrive at our table. Not very lunch-time-friendly for people like us who need to rush back to the office.

Again, heng I ordered the burger because apparently the other main courses my friends ordered were not that good. I think it must have been my lucky day. Should have bought Toto or Big Sweep after the lunch. The burger meat was nicely done in medium rare that I requested, tender and nicely seasoned. The fries were good too. They remained crispy even after I had long finished my burger. I will eat this burger again (ok, probably not for lunch since I don't have so much time to waste).



The linguini with tiger prawns didn't really make it. While the prawns were not really huge, they were not stingy with the quantity. The linguini itself was not too bad either. The only problem, and the main problem, is that this dish was super duper oily. So oily that a pool of oil remained in the dish after my friend finished the linguini. Also, perhaps the chef didn't mix the linguini well, some portion was overly salty and some just tasteless.

As for the Hoegaarden Battered Fish and Chips, I was also told that the fish didn't taste well due to its texture. Guess I don't expect my table of friends to come back to this restaurant any time soon.

Food Trip to KL - The famous Chicken wings at Wong Ah Wah

When people talk about the BBQ chicken wings at Jalan Alor, you can be pretty sure they're referring to the ones by Wong Ah Wah. Apparently they have been there for the longest time and their BBQ chicken wings are the best on the street.

I have already checked and double confirmed on his BBQ chicken wings since the first time I was there years ago, and yes, I still come back to Wong Ah Wah each time I come to KL. So now you know how good these wings are!

Jalan Alor is a rather long food street and very touristy. So to get to Wong Ah Wah, you need to walk pass all the other shops trying to shove their menus into your hands, walk all the way to the end of the street, until you see a Mickey Mouse signboard with the name "Wong Ah Wah". Nope, I also dunno why they like Mickey Mouse so much.



There're two dishes you have to order here. Chicken wings and satay. Both BBQ till perfectly fragrant and super tasty.



In the past few times when I was here, I ordered their fried Hokkien mee, which is really tasty and full of wok-hei and crispy pork lard! Believe me when I say their fried Hokkien mee is the best I've eaten in KL so far!

This time round, we decided to try something else so we ordered the siew yoke mee. And boy we were so spot on! After I ordered the siew yoke mee, White-chan was actually worried that after they pour the dark sauce on the siew yoke, it won't be crispy anymore, but his worry was definitely not called for! I don't know how they do it, but the siew yoke pieces are still crispy in the sauce, all the way till we licked the whole plate clean! The wanton mee style egg noodles is also very tasty and filled with wok hei! Ok, I think this noodles dish has taken over the position of their fried Hokkien mee in my heart!



This last dish that we ordered is definitely not for the faint-hearted. Sotong fried in salted egg. NO! Don't even try to count the calories and cholesterol in this dish! But it is all worth it! Although the sotongs are thickly coated in tasty salted egg, they are still super crispy! If you think fried crabs in salted egg is nice, wait till you try this dish! Our only advice is: order the smallest portion (which is exactly what you see in the photo, still quite a large serving!) and make sure this dish is shared by AT LEAST two people!

Again, we're satisfied with our dinner at Wong Ah Wah. Next time, maybe I'll try their famous BBQ stingray!

Krispy Kreme is coming to town? Orh.

Sure White-chan and I had Krispy Kreme for breakfast in Dubai. Sure we had it for snack in Kuala Lumpur. Had some more in Tokyo.

Sure Krispy Kreme is nicer than Dunkin because the dough is more melt-in-the-mouth, they have more interesting flavours too. But the problem is that, after coming back to Singapore, I don't miss them at all.

But we do miss the Mister Donut old fashion donut with strawberry cream topping that I had in Tokyo. Whenever we see a Mister Donut store in Japan or Taiwan, we just have to go in. They are THAT good. Their dough is so rich and soft at the same time, and you remember the smell of the doughnut even after you are back in Singapore. They are so good you don't even remember whether they are too sweet. Because it doesn't matter.

And how about Dunkin Donuts? Don't even go there.

This is the Halloween special at Krispy Kreme Japan...


And here's the Halloween special at Mister Donut Japan!