wanhelou chinese restaurant, maude road

upmarket good home-style cooking at this small, but nicely-furnished restaurant in maude road. this place is located just next to ming chung restaurant, but seems more out of place than the latter: the neighborhood is pretty old – and shall we say, slightly run down – but wanhelou is air-conditioned, done up in a modern chinese style, and rather classy in a homely sort of way.

the kitchen churns out a good mix of dishes that are best described as classics done right (and with a twist), and is famous for lobster porridge, flavored with that crustacean you see peeking out there above.

tatsu teppanyaki, asia square

guys, I’m sorry for the photos – the restaurant was dark and done up all in black – but the food here is pretty good, and worth a visit if you’re into teppanyaki. singapore has a dearth of these fry-in-your-face places, and the places that dodo it range from the very cheap to the very expensive.

this one lies somewhat at an upper-middling price point – but my hypothesis is that price makes little difference to the eating (it’s mainly just fresh ingredients with garlic, which is difficult to go wrong with). what you’re paying for instead is that entire package of ambiance and show – the latter really up to the skills of the chef in throwing foods up to unnecessary height and setting things on fire.

so tatsu is, as with its price point, a good posher-than-average joint that doesn’t have its underpants in a wad – with pretty delicious food off an extensive menu.

town restaurant, fullerton hotel singapore

lobsters, yes. I see I’ve got your attention.

if a photo speaks a thousand words, and we divide that by the number of lobsters and multiple it by the number of plates – we’d have an essay to rival paradise lost. plain mathematical gibberish, really.

but what I mean to say is, decent buffet, alright lobsters – and we all know that as long as lobsters are adequately edible, and free-flow, you’re going to go for it.

the market grill, tanjong pagar

fantastic food at hipster prices in the central business district. I hopped on the hipster bandwagon in coming to this restaurant – but I couldn’t resist. the myriad reviews coming out were too positive and too curiosity-inciting for me to ignore, and I’m glad this place more than lived up to the hype. the food was delicious, the ambience cosy – I only wished the prices were a little less on the high side.

but I suppose one can’t have everything, eh?

burger and lobster, london

(no real camera on hand at this meal, but I hope you still manage to see how it impressive the portions are!)

great diner in soho. so there was massive hype about this restaurant that opened in mayfair with only three dishes, all going for £20. I’m usually of the opinion that the fewer dishes a place has, the more likely they are to be good – so this was not a bad start. also there have been a gazillion reviews out there in the blogosphere about b&l, so I was pumped to get going when their new soho branch opened. the soho branch is located on dean street, an amazing foodie lane with vaunted new restaurants like cay tre and ducksoup and many more, so that’s a competitive place to have a restaurant – also a very smart move I fancy since overspills give each other business.

anyway, enough prelude. the restaurant was relatively unoccupied at 6.30pm on a monday night, though it filled up plenty towards 7.30pm. our waitress recited our choice of burger, lobster or lobster roll – but really as proud seafood-hungry asians with unhealthy obsessions for proper shellfish, there was nothing we could order but the lobster. the dishes come with fries and salad, and they also happily changed my fries to another salad, so kudos for good service.