Dining With Jewelle

During our first drive out to 1Borneo for this trip (to send a family friend to their hotel there), we caught sight of this restaurant which was a few doors units between the 4 hotels located at this mall.

Being western food lover, we immediately made plans to try this place out and had our chance a few days later.

When we arrived, the place was perfectly occupied by just the right number of other patrons (we detest busy restaurants where we can’t get any attention and empty restaurants where we get all the attentions).

We had our pick of tables and at first decided on their couch type sections until our friend decided to join us and we moved to a bigger table.

For starters, I ordered their seafood chowder and my husband had their oysters. My chowder was delicious enough although I thought it could do with a more varied seafood. I did not try the oysters but my husband had nothing to say about it so I can assumed that they passed his judgment.

Then I had some grilled chicken dish called Portugese which took an amazingly long time to arrive. It’s a good thing I was not too hungry and we were enjoying ourselves with my friends that I was not too bothered that it only arrived after my husband was halfway through his main dish, the lamb rack.

Taste wise, although it was delicious, it was not worth having to wait that long - what more in a near empty restaurant.

While the lamb rack was good looking enough, my husband proclaimed that the Buccaneer’s (Brunei) was more to his palate - which for one thing was not smothered with mint.

One of our friend had the salmon dish which got no complaints from them.

Overall, we were not too impressed and having so many other choices around town, I doubt we’d make our way back here any time soon.

A few days ago when I brought my kids to 1Borneo for a short visit to see the Christmas displays, we had lunch at the “New York New York” restaurant.

Like many of the restaurants in this mall, the NYNY is huge. It can definitely fit more than 100 patrons at one time. However, when we arrived, there was only one other table occupied.

I was pretty impressed with the choices of food and I would have a hard time deciding if I did not see the lamb shank dish straight away.

And their Moroccan Lamb Shank was what I chose with Eu excitedly supported my choice.

The kids liked the vegetable soup although I was a bit surprise when I saw the clear broth.

As for the lamb shank, it was tender and tasty enough but I thought the sauce was too little. Look wise, it did not look as good as the lamb shank in Charcoal Grill in Bandar Seri Begawan which we had last month.

My mother chose the creamy pasta with fish and we thought the pasta was delicious (although both Eu and Qi did not like it at all). They liked the fish though. My brother ordered their roast chicken and prawn combo.

I thought their food was ok but perhaps I’ll only come back here for drinks as the place is nice to hang out with friends and check out their dessert selections.

I guess we are not a family of adventurous diners because after 6 days of Singapore food courts and restaurants, Eu’s remark when she saw our simple home-cooked dinner the first night after we came home summed up our feelings.

“What lovely food!”

It’s not that we didn’t enjoy eating out.

In fact, I had looked forward to checking out our hotel’s in-house dining and on one rainy evening, I very gladly rang Room Service for their “Lamb Chop” and “Fish Congee”.

The porridge was nothing much to look at and the lamb chop was not that much better. As you can probably tell from the picture, it was dry.

I guess with many nearby eateries (2 food courts less than 200m away), room service is not one of their strong point.

But Royal @ Queens was good in all other ways though.

The thing about attending a dinner function where you are served is that you are limited to the amount that the waiter puts on your plate.

It’s much easier for men to demand second or third helpings but for us female, unless you want to appear uncouth or greedy, you have to expect to be left hungry as if there is one thing I noticed about fine dining is that the quantity is pathetic.

So, come prepared.

And that what was we, the fans of NON-fine dining, did before we went for our Saturday night function.

From the privacy of our room, we ordered the Empire Hotel’s beef burger and we were thoroughly satisfied with it.

We were impressed that although our room was on the other side of the hotel, our order arrived reasonably fast and come to think of it, we should have ordered the steaks!

At $22 (inc charges), it is recommended.

Because we are more familiar with the Chinese restaurant next door, we never thought of visiting the RMS Diner until a few weekends ago.

And the only reason was because they were having an irresistible offer of 50% their steaks and burgers.

Because the inner restaurant was relatively very small, it was full and so we had to sit outside - which was fine as fortunately there were no smokers around.

The menu selections were standard.

Our dish looked very presentable and I enjoyed the garlic bread from my husband’s Caesar Salad. My lamb was good but Eu enjoyed it more and she probably ate it more than me as she kept asking for bites.

Her spaghetti was yummy too but she did not quite fancy it and she did not touch the fried chicken nuggets at all.

Qi, as you may have guessed only consented to the fries and even those were only for her to chew NOT swallow (I fed her packed lunch from home).

Because of the 50% off for both my lamb and the burger, our lunch was reasonable at $30+.

Not a bad place for a change.

Courtesy of some $20 worth of redemption voucher which was about to expire tomorrow, my husband came home and gave me a 30 mins notice to get ourselves ready for a family dinner at the Buccaneer. Despite this near-impossible task, we managed to leave the house only about 5 mins late for our second visit to this restaurant for this year alone!

Today the whole place was nicely decorated for Chinese New Year and when we arrived, only two other tables was occupied.

They were having some promotion for Australian Black Angus Beef and hubby decided to get their $25 Sirloin Steak.

I thought it tasted good and he approved of it too. We also had the Caesar Salad and Calamari Rings for starters and although he said the Salad was alright, I didn’t think it looked very inviting - of course, I’m not a salad eater and I didn’t even bother trying this, so what do I know.

I got Eu the fish and chips from the kiddies menu and she surprised me by finishing both fish pieces, very very quickly! If you know how slow she usually eats, you’d be impressed too. Not only that, she even polished a small plate of spaghetti which I set aside in case she wanted to eat - which she did.

In case you’re wondering, Qi only slightly enjoyed the bun with butter and although she made a big show of dipping her french fries into the sauce, she actually fed her father most of it. She spent more time somersaulting, getting me to take her pictures and tried to attract the attention of the patrons who sat behind us.

Besides us, a few other tables were occupied by mostly Caucasians tonight and I think this has been one of the busiest nights that we’ve ever been here for dinner.

And with the $20 voucher, we ended up paying an extra $30 but since everyone enjoyed their food, I thought it was well-worth the money and as usual, the service was good - besides, how can they not be charmed by my kids who flirted with every single ones who passed within a metre from our table.

When my husband was in Singapore a few weeks ago, I was not surprised when he and his gang went to Tony Roma’s.

For some reason, this place is becoming one of the must go eatery whenever he is in Singapore - although after our last trip there, I think I’ve had enough of it to last me several more years.

This time they went to the Orchard Road branch.

From the pictures that he took, the beef steak did look very succulent. During the days when I could still eat beef, I prefer mine medium rare too.

I thought the sound of mushroom burger was not so appetizing, but it actually looked quite interesting in the picture. And the chicken dish just looked like any other chicken dish.

Of course, being all guys, bottles of beers made an appearance.

But I am still not convinced enough to make my way to this place in our future (and unknown) visits to Singapore. Besides, there is another place called the Hog’s Breath (weird name, I know) which I am more keen to check out.

I found a review of the Hog’s Breath Cafe in Australia by Kokadoodle and although he said that the Singapore’s branch supposedly did not have quite the same standard - who knows maybe my standard is lower?

Last Saturday, hubby suggested that we eat out and I agreed on the condition that it’s not Japanese - before he or his number one supporter get any ideas - which I knew was on the tip of their tongue.

Since the last place I want to go is out of the list, I let him pick and he chose Buccaneer. Luckily I felt like having Western food and I was quite looking forward to having some hearty meaty dish.

When we arrived, the town was quiet and the restaurant only had one other table occupied. Since I can’t eat beef any longer and I don’t fancy seafood, it was either chicken or lamb.

So we decided to have roast chicken for myself and lamb shank for hubby. I ordered beef spaghetti for Eu but unfortunately it was quite spicy and so she ended up eating a lot of the lamb and enjoyed it immensely.

Too bad they didn’t have escargots at that time too.

Qi wasn’t keen on anything and most things prompted a “yucky” or “pu-yau” from this very picky eater.

As usual, it was a satisfactory dinner although someone who’s been having salads for dinner, complaint of mild indigestion after having too much meat!