battle of the steamboats

I finally figured out how to upload pictures onto my blog without Hello! GOODBYE HELLO! hahahah...

Anyway, Moon and i decided to try the Tian Tian Steamboat at Bugis on Friday cos we remembered we wanted to eat there once before but they were crowded and we didnt want to wait 30mins for a table. This time we were there at 6.45pm so we managed to get a table, though not inside with air-conditioning because to get that we'd have to share a huge table with some other people and being typical Singaporeans, we were anti-social so we chose to sit outside.

So the verdict? TOO EXPENSIVE and not very fantastic. The price on the board says $16.80+ but when you sit down the waiter comes to you to tell you that they have 5 speciality soups and you get a choice of 2 for $10. And they dont tell you what options you get if you dont choose their speciality soups. So what do you do if you dont want their soups? you just get served the raw food? We had the corn and pork soup, and the fish soup. They had Spicy Satay, Tom Yum and one more that i dont remember. hmmm... admittedly they have quite a big spread of food but their chicken was rather tasteless without any of the sauces, and a bit too big in size so by the time it was fully cooked the outside was tough. The fried fish had bones and wasnt fantastic. The lotus root was too thick so it didnt get nice and soft when you cooked it. The wantons were just weird cos they were stuck together and the skin didnt cook well as a result. While the soup was rather nice, the variety of sauces satisfactory and certain dishes like the sliced fish, pork slices and beef slices rather nice, after a while you didnt feel like eating anymore even though your stomach wasnt too full. That was the sign that it wasnt a satisfactory meal.

The bill came up to $24.30 per person which we so totally didnt feel like we ate enough to make the meal worth it. The mango ice that we had at Bugis Junction's Food Festival ($4.90) was more satisfying than the steamboat.

With that, i felt like i HAD to eat steamboat at the place i love. Tian Fu Huo Guo at Tiong Bahru, near the old Tiong Bahru market site which is currently under renovation now. It's on the corner of one of the old shophouses, with very unpretentious decor and a place that is really crowded on weekends and even drawing a sizeable crowd on weekday nights.

For $16, it is an ala carte buffet with one serving of their slice beef and homemade 'treasures' - one shrimp ball, one fish ball, one pork ball and one beef ball, all handmade from fresh ingredients without all the starch that goes into industrial ones. You get to order as much as you want from their rather wide selection (i recommend their pork belly slices, fried yams, chicken - which isnt tasteless, fish slices and fish paste) and they have 4 types of soups - house speciality satay sauce (which can get a bit jilat - like you feel sick from the richness), scallop, fish and Ma La (which translated is 'numbing spiciness'). And i love their chili sauce because it has that sour tinge to it which accentuates the flavour of the food. There isnt any service charge and water is free!

Sorry there isnt a photo but when i am in Singapore i dont have the habit of carrying my camera around to take pictures of food like i do when i am on holiday.

But now that i have figured out how to upload pictures, i can finally put up a picture of me and Moon from Sentosa day! hehehe...

Me and Moon listening to our Creative Zens (or rather she to hers and me to my dad's)

Moon and i couldnt really take nice pictures of us 2 since there was only 2 of us and i was only good at taking self-portraits. So next time we are going to have to rope someone in to go tanning with us...