Koi Cafe, bubble milk tea that's worth the wait...

There was a time when every 10 steps you walk there was a stall selling bubble tea. That was the bubble tea craze some years back when these stalls mushroom all over our island. As the craze dies, the stalls that were cashing in on the craze closed down as well.

When we went to Taipei in 2008 for holiday, 珍珠奶茶 (Bubble Milk Tea) was on my to-eat list. Its just so different there, the milk tea was so smooth and the bubbles were so Q. And the chain we frequent alot was 50嵐 as there was a stall near our hotel. We had a cup when we were going out and we had a cup when we were going back hotel. In fact, we drank more milk tea then plain water in Taiwan.

Then last year, we happen to chance upon this trendy place call Koi Cafe in Marine Parade selling Bubble Tea and you should see my excitement when I saw a small print that its by 50嵐. Although it was after the bubble tea craze, it had brought in the crowd with the same yummy bubble teas from Taiwan.

There are currently 5 Koi Cafes (that I know, namely Marine Parade, Ang Mo Kio, Chinatown, Bishan and Toa Payoh) in Singapore and they are all takeaway cafes. The cafes are plays the current popular Chinese Pop songs and the stalls are usually manned by young people. The menu are pretty extensive covering flavoured tea, milk tea, coffee and smoothies. You could also choose the sweetness of the tea. Our usually order is large Milk Green Tea with pearls at 25% sweetness and it cost $3.50. Their pearls also comes in 1 size and its smaller than the usual pearls you get with other bubble tea. But the chewiness is perfect (not too hard and not too soft). The milk tea is smooth as usual and its just the perfect drink for our hot humid weather. Whenever I'm at Marine Parade or Ang Mo Kio, I just had to have a cup to satisfy my bubble tea craving.

Below are the address of two outlets I usually frequent. As for the other 3 stalls, you would have to google for it.

Ang Mo Kio
Blk 704 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8 #01-2545

S(560704)

Marine Parade
Blk 83 Marine Parade Central #01-562

S(440083)

Sidenote: I used two different iPhone photo apps for the above photos and they are both free. You should try them too, its pretty fun. The first photo I used the app call MoreNoel. What it does is it brightens and softens the photo and you can choose to add bubble or stars for the dreamy feel. The second photo I use this app is call Morelomo (by the same company). It gives your photo the "Lomo" effect. For more information about what Lomography is all about, read this and this.

So go out and have fun with your iPhone camera.

Uncle Leong Seafood

Had these photos since Dec '09 and totally forgotten about them. Well it was a Saturday evening when my parents came over after buffet lunch. They were too full from the buffet that they didn't really want dinner. Hence I hatch the evil plan of asking them along for crabs, so that they can help look after Xavier while we satisfy our long awaited and very duly missed crab craving. Afterall, there is no way to bring Xavier along and enjoy crabs if its just the two of us.

Uncle Leong Seafood Restaurant is situated a coffeeshop below the HDB block. And in front of it is a very large carpark. Interestingly at the adjacent corner of the large carpark is another coffeeshop where Mellben Seafood is. I was told before that the owner of both restaurants are brothers but I am not sure if its true or not.

Anyway I have always rated Mellben to be better than Uncle Leong. The food is just better. But the wait is a lot longer and crazier. As we only wanted to satisfy crab craving, I decided on Uncle Leong as the queue was more sane. Afterall, you cannot be waiting for over 1 hour to have dinner when you have a baby with you. The baby will probably drive you nuts.

Ordered the Crab Beehoon, Chinese Spinach with Three Eggs (Century Egg, Salted Egg and Egg), and Wu Xiang. I can't recall how they individually taste but overall it was average, nothing to shout about. Maybe that's why I can't recall the taste as it was forgettable. :P

So would I go there again? Yes if I'm not picky on taste that day and just want to satify craving and not queue for long.

Uncle Leong Seafood

Blk 233 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3

#01-1194

S(560233)

Tel: 65543453

Pine Garden's Cake

So many food blog post and photos I want to do, so little time...

Xavier's birthday is around the corner. We were initially planning on throwing a party for him (like those 1 year old parties at function rooms we been attending quite alot recently). But due to many reasons (Chinese New Year, want something more cozy, the need to time the party to his mood and sleeping time, etc), we decided to celebrate with the very people who are important to him now, our immediate families.

But we wanted to get him a nice two-tier birthday cake (very popular now) since you are only 1 year old once right? Lilian wanted to check out Pine Garden's Cake and we ended up ordering the cake from there.

As we flip through the photo catalogue, I keep seeing these acronyms and a price behind. Being someone from the mountains (when it comes to cakes as I'm never really into cakes since young), I thought that's the price of the cake. It turn out its the "Artistic Charge" for designing the cake and making it pretty and this charge is on top of the cake price. All in all the cake cost just under $100 for 2kg, excluding cake toppers (toys to decorate the cake).

We initially choose a Mickey Mouse design but ended up changing it to Pooh Bear as I could not find the Mickey cake topper in the photo (the other two available were not very nice). Will post photos of the cake after his birthday. If you are looking for balloons and party flavours, I found the following two local sites useful: Kidz Party Store and Babyterror.

Anyway back to Pine Garden's Cake. Its actually a neighbourhood cake shop in Ang Mo Kio but they are actually quite famous with numerous reviews. Their must have are the Blackforest Cake and the Pandan Cake. We actually bought a few small slices of the following cakes to try. Presenting, unique Orange Zest Chocolate Cake, sexy Blackforest, innocent Lychee Martini.

Verdict from the guy from the mountains? The Blackforest is yummy. The cream is fresh and alcohol is well balanced (not overwhelming). Once you start, you dun wanna stop. The Lychee Martini taste like... Lychee Martini. I didn't like the first taste of it but the taste grows onto me. The Orange Zest Chocolate Cake (what a mouthful name) taste like those orange chocolate, nothing special.

If I were to go back again (and I will have to to pick up Xavier's cake), I would get more Blackforest, definitely. Then again, they have so many other flavors that I wanna try too, like Bailey Chocolate Crunch Cake, Raspberry Choc, Pulut Hitam, Hazelnut Crunch, Citrus Drop and many more...

Pine Garden's Cake

Blk 529 Ang Mo Kio Ave 10

#01-2369/2329

Singapore 560529