Red Star Restaurant 红星酒家

Red Star Restaurant is restaurant well-known to many Singaporeans especially my parents generation. My parents told me that they held their wedding dinner over there and at their time it was a popular restaurants for traditional wedding reception.

In the modern days, Red Star still keeps their traditional way of serving dim sum the Hong Kong style where push-carts with or without steamer are pushed around serving piping hot dim sum to the guests.

I have patronised Red Star many times and it never failed to be crowded by people all over the world. For me, it is not the best place for good dim sum now but I think it is the ambience that it retains that makes people still wanting to visit it.
In addition, during the Chinese New year they will still open early in the morning. Visiting Red Star Restaurant during Chinese New Year means that you have to queue up for a long time and you may be annoyed by Singaporeans that cut the queue. Besides the lengthy queue, Red Star will be shot-handed and you might just find yourself serving the food to you own tables. Soon, you will find crowds queuing outside the kitchen waiting to snatch whatever dim sum that delivers out immediately because waiting time for dim sum simply took too long.












I have tried most of their dim sum and if you ask me what is the one dish that I will recommend.
It will be their 'lou mai gai' aka 糯米鸡. I can finish three and still feel like ordering for more, one an never get sick eating these. The glutinous rice is steamed to perfection, leaving a chewy texture, ingredients like the chinese sausages, marinated chicken joints and mushrooms adds wonderful flavours to the savoury glutinous rice. Another dish that is worth trying will their steamed chicken feet in bean sauce.

In summary, I will just order 'lou mai gai' if I go Red Star anytime and not waste a single cent for other dishes. Does anyone feel the same like me?


Red Star Chinese Restaurant

Cuisine: Chinese, Asian
Address: Blk 54 Chin Swee Road, #07-23, Singapore 160054
Tel: +65 6532 5266

Opening Hours: (Daily) 7am–3pm, 6pm–11pm

Ootoya @ Clementi Mall

Travelling to Japan at least twice a year, I am not fancy to visit any Japanese restaurants unless invited. The reasons were because the authenticity, freshness and pricing.
Having heard from a few friends that there is a restaurant that serve home-cooked dishes, I decided to visit it myself on this eve of Chinese New Year.

I visited this restaurant called Ootoya.
Ootoya restaurants can be found in few places in Japan.
The ambience is quite warm, exactly similar to eateries in Japan, the furniture and lighting brings out the appetite.

Time was just slightly before lunch and as I sat down the crowd starts to fill.
I ordered a salad, main and dessert for my lunch.
[Changing white rice to their 5 Grains 'gokoku' is free]

(Left to Right: Tofu Salad, Char-grilled chicken with Basil Sauce Salad Set and Bramanje)

Tofu Salad was served with Japanese wafu dressing and the tofu melts in your mouth leaving a rich aroma of the soya bean. I think they imported the Japanese tofu for this salad.
Char-grilled chicken was tasty, the basil sauce was well-balanced, harmonizing the whole dish together. It was the right choice to switch the white rice to the 5 grains as it tasted so fragrant , giving a chewy and layered texture.
As for the Bramanje, nothing surprised my palate but the green tea ice-cream has a rich aroma.

Overall, Ootoya is a place to visit for a homely cosy Japanese dining experience and the price was reasonable. In addition, I used my UOB card for a 15% discount.

Ootoya Japanese Restaurant (Clementi Mall)

Address: 3155 Commonwealth Avenue West, #03-53, Singapore 129588
Telephone: (65) 6659 2644
Opening hours: 9am - 11pm (Daily)

Friends gathering made Cosy

How many of you actually host a gathering at home? For me, it is a more homely way of welcoming friends for a meal and a relaxing moment. I do it occasionally, usually over a simple home-cooked dishes, home-delivery finger foods like pizzas and some BYO wines.

This BYO wines we have from left: Sun Valley (Ukraine), Chateau Haut Berbad 2001 (Saint Emilion), Mischief & Mayhem 2007 (Bourgogne) and Serge Dagueneau Pouilly Fumé 2006 (Loire, France). The foods we paired are Domino's pizza, Johnsonville smoked sausages and aged cheeses.

The whole evening was filled with laughter and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Introduction

This blog will be about lifestyle, travel, food and wine.

Lifestyle can be anything I chance upon and find it interesting.
Travel is a random category of places that I have travelled.
Food & Wine will be the most exciting one.

Who influence me to blog?
It was my wife who influenced me to blog and you can write whatever you like to share with anyone that know or do not know you.

Why travel?
Sometimes, you just have to see and feel the real thing instead of sitting at home starring at the computer screen.

Why everyone blogs about food and wine?
This is because we live on it everyday which explain its importance, especially to me. [laughs]

When it comes to cuisine, I am proud to be a Cantonese. My mother and grandparents cooked really well. I am exposed to many exceptional home-cooked dishes in my childhood. My main inspiration of cooking is usually European even though I am an Asian. When my grandmother passed away, I feel it was a pity that I did not pick up all her recipes. For me, replicating Asian food is the most difficult. I still cook these days, it can be anything from my mind or from a recipe book.

Wines, I remembered I bought my first wine during 15 years old. [Under-Age][laughs]
I bought a pair of Bordeaux, a white and a red. That time I bought for fun and due to the lack of knowledge I did not store the wines in the cellar. I remembered opening them a decade later, the white was a sweet one and it aged beautifully, the red was a corked one.
Wine was influenced by a very good friend of mine and I was officially serious since then.