Monday, August 29, 2011

Staycation: Quincy Hotel Singapore @ Mount Elizabeth, off Orchard Road

Fancy a staycation in Singapore? Staycation seems to be getting popular for many people here in Singapore. Every now and then, you hear of people having staycations in one of the hotels or resorts here in Singapore. Being a tourist in your own country can quite fun!

The wife and I got invited to have a vacation in Singapore, courtesy of The Quincy Hotel. (Arranged by Far East Hospitality and Dice Studio)

The Quincy Hotel? Where's that?
It's a boutique hotel by the Far East Hospitality Group and it's located at Mount Elizabeth, just a few minutes walk from Paragon Shopping Center at Orchard Road! It has been rated the Trendiest Hotel in Asia and Seventh in the World by the 2011 TripAdvisor Travelers Choice Awards!

Let me share with you what Momo and I think of this hotel.
The hotel stay will costs $318++ a night. The unique thing about this hotel is that the price includes EVERYTHING! Yes, things that other hotels will charge you extras for, it's all included in the price.
For example, the following are all included:
  • Yoga or baking class and movie night by the pool (Registration required. Subject to availability.)

  • Daily buffet breakfast, set lunch & dinner

  • Unlimited broadband Internet access

  • Local telephone calls

  • Complimentary cocktails from 6pm to 8pm nightly

  • Complimentary minibar, replenished daily

  • Complimentary bottle of red wine

  • All day coffee and tea

  • Late check-out till 3pm (Subject to availability)

  • T&C apply


*** THE ROOM ***

Quincy Hotel - Room

Momo and I checked in The Quincy Hotel on Friday, 19 August and stayed for a night.
We had our luggage all packed and went checked in to the hotel right after work!
We stayed in the Studio Room. (There's Deluxe Studio, that includes Nespresso machine as well).

That's the bed we slept on. A King size bed and 400-thread-count sheets. Yes, they were comfortable. Down feather pillows with micro fibre pillows as well. We had a good night sleep.


Quincy Hotel - Room

If you are into gadgetry like me, you will like this place. iPod/iPhone chargers,  a huge flat screen TV and guess what? Automated blinds in the room! What you see is the day curtains. There is a total black out blind that comes all the way down behind the day curtains with a push of a button by the bed side!


Quincy Hotel - Room

Many hotels are having the 'transparent' or 'see thru' bathroom design, and Quincy has it too!
For couples, this can be quite ahem 'interesting'! You can lie on the bed and watch your partner shower.

Quincy Hotel - Room

The view from inside the bathroom out. You might feel like a fish in an aquarium!


Quincy Hotel - Room

I like the WC! It's a modern toilet from Toto! They were really quite comfortable to sit on!
Yup, it comes with a bidet. :-)

Quincy Hotel - Room

Oh yes, they use Morton Brown bath amenities here.

The Morton Brown bar soaps and shower gel's excellent! Nice fragrance and non drying too.
(Momo and I think the shampoo's no good though, it dries out the hair, so BYO shampoo!)


Quincy Hotel - Room

The mini bar was stocked with beer, pepsico's softdrinks and yeo's packet drinks.
It's all included in the price and replenished daily. Drink them all!

Quincy Hotel - Room

When we travel, we usually don't touch the snacks and drinks because it costs a bomb to have them.
But here, just eat and drink!


*** DINNER ***

The room rates includes 3 meals. Our first meal after we checked in was dinner on the 1st level.  The food's prepared by the chef from Modesto's if I remember correctly.

Quincy Hotel - Dinner

Dinner was a set dinner. We order the mains that we wanted from the menu.
Momo had the spaghetti.

Quincy Hotel - DinnerQuincy Hotel - Dinner

I had Curry Chicken and Rice. We both ordered from the Today's Special section. The chicken curry was more delicious than the spaghetti. ;-) But we spied at other table's steak! They looked even better!


Quincy Hotel - DinnerQuincy Hotel - Dinner

There's free flow of soup and also a slice of a slice of delicious Tiramisu to end the meal.

Since it's so near Paragon, Momo and I strolled down to Paragon after dinner. Oh no, the wife saw  shoes on sale and bought a pair. Come to think of it, that money spent on shoes would have been air fare if we travelled overseas!


*** YOGA ***

The next morning at 8 AM, I went for the Yoga workout. Stretching and breathing exercise so early in the morning. On vacation, I don't usually wake up so early, but some exercise will do me some good!

I don't have any photos as I was exercising!
But you can see the photos here by the 'official photographers' ;-)


*** BREAKFAST ***

After some exercise, I was really hungry and with the rest of the people who exercised, I ate quite a bit! It's a buffet breakfast. Not a huge spread, but there's enough variety to stuff you up!


Quincy Hotel - BreakfastQuincy Hotel - Breakfast

Had eggs, hash brown, sausage, pork bacon, and fried rice too! I saw some pastries and took a chocolate roll and a croissant.


Quincy Hotel - BreakfastQuincy Hotel - Breakfast

Picked a few items from the salad / cold meats / cheese section. Can you imagine I ate some roti prata after eating the more western cheese and hams? The prata was really crispy and delicious though!


Quincy Hotel - BreakfastQuincy Hotel - Breakfast

I wanted to try more stuff, and had some porridge. I did not have the cereals though. I stole a snap from someone else's breakfast! More photos of the juices, buffet tables on my Flickr album.


*** NAP and EXERCISE ***

Oh too much food made me really sleepy! I went to have a nap a short while after breakfast!

Quincy Hotel - Gym and Pool 

Around noon, the wife said, she's going to exercise. She has missed her gym sessions earlier that week and after all those food, it's time to burn them off. OK, I joined her at the gym upstairs.


Quincy Hotel - Gym and PoolQuincy Hotel - Gym and Pool 

Beside the gym, there's a swimming pool too!
If you like water, swim! Look how cool the pool is!


*** LUNCH ***

Quincy Hotel - Lunch

We had a late lunch because we went to exercise. So after exercising, we tried to have a healthier meal.
Eating salad alone will be too extreme right? There's free flow of salad.

As it was a set lunch, just order the mains. The drinks, sides and ice cream are all free flow!

Quincy Hotel - Lunch

Momo had the Club Sandwich. Looks good ya!
It tasted as good as it looks too!

Quincy Hotel - LunchQuincy Hotel - Lunch

That's the complete plating of the order on the left. On the right, is showing you what's inside. Chicken Sausages.


Quincy Hotel - Lunch

I had the beef burger. I saw a few persons around me order it too!
It's not huge, but it's big enough for me. The potato wedges were really nice!



*** BAKING LESSON ***

For the package that they are offering now, you can either choose a Yoga Session or a Baking Class for the staycation.

Quincy Hotel - Baking Class

Our baking instructor, Zeti A David! She has a shop along Shenton area I think.
She's taught us how to make cup cakes!

I heard on some weeks they will be making Tiramisu. There were mamy couples and families at the session, and it is quite fun! We made everything from scratch!

Quincy Hotel - Baking ClassQuincy Hotel - Baking Class

Sugar, Butter and Eggs. We had to cream them first. Oh, it was a big workout! We were just given whisk and not the electrical ones! We had to beat till it was creamy. Hard work!

Oops, who was the silly person who put the whole egg without cracking into the mixing bowl?!

Quincy Hotel - Baking ClassQuincy Hotel - Baking Class

After creaming it with all our might, the instructor finally said OK to consistency of our mixture. We added in the flour and cocoa powder and folded the ingredients till they combined. Next was to put them into cupcake holders! It's that simple!

Quincy Hotel - Baking ClassQuincy Hotel - Baking Class

Our instructor putting our cupcakes into the oven. Just like on TV, while our cupcakes are in the oven, cool down ones appeared! It was decorating time!

Quincy Hotel - Baking Class

We enjoyed decorating. We had a few designs and since we had time, we took 4 extra cupcakes to decorate. We called it the Presidential cupcakes! When we showed the cupcake to friends who happen to visit our home when we got back, they wanted to throw away 3 of the cupcakes above! It's just cupcakes! Many people are very very serious about the Presidential Elections!

After baking, we checked out and went home. We still kind of miss the short little staycation we had. It's been about a week and we still have good memories of it.

Do you want to enjoy an all-inclusive staycation at The Quincy Hotel for only $318++?
You can fill up this form below provided by the hotel and get a free upgrade to the Deluxe Studio. (We stayed in the 'normal' Studio) The hotel will get in touch with you within 2 working days.

If you can't see the form below, click here:  http://bit.ly/nPBn0Z
Have a great stay!

For more information about Quincy Hotel, you can surf on to: http://www.quincy.com.sg

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Sunday, August 28, 2011

Woorinara Korean Restaurant @ Lorong Kilat / Upper Bukit Timah

Last week, we were at home, deciding what to have for dinner. The ladies at home were left to decide. There were so many choices and the ladies finally decided on Korean and then narrow it down to Korean Fried Chicken.

We did not want to travel too far because we were already quite hungry! So off we went to Woorinara because we like the crispy fried chicken here. That place is also usually not very busy.

Woorinara

They don't have the best selection and varieties in the banchans. It's still decent and edible.
Simple stuff. We ate it all up anyway. Kimchi's nice though.


Woorinara

The Fried Chicken! Crispy and crunchy skin fried chicken always delight us!
It was good that the pieces we ate were also moist. 

We had Honey Soy this time. The sauce is kinda addictive! Sweetish and saltish thick sauce that was dribbled over the chicken.

We controlled ourselves by not ordering the whole chicken. Half a fried chicken for 3 persons already have enough calories! Not having too much also prevents us from getting sick of it. :-)



Woorinara

We wanted to have something else as well, so we had the hot plate spicy pork.

Yes, it's very oily but because of the oil, the meat was sizzlingly delicious! The ladies were comparing it to another Korean place that uses very little oil and use water to cook them. This is more fragrant but oily!

We also ordered a beef bibimbap (photo was too blur) and ate it with the pork.
It was a satisfying, oily and calorie ladden dinner!


Usually this place is not busy, but because of the group by coupon offer this place is having, we realised this place is suddenly so busy! So we had to wait longer than usual for our food.

Woori-Nara Korean Restaurant
19 Lorong Kilat
#01-02
Singapore 598120

Tel: 6464 9282

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Just for fun - Cooking Curry Day Singapore

Just for the fun of it, we had curry tonight for dinner.

We don't really care about how 'the incident' about how it came about after we found out that it happened more than 6 or 7 years ago! Cheh!

We are just curry lovers!

Curry Chicken

The Sakura Chicken Curry.

I used a curry ready to cook wet premix instead of making it from scratch. But added extra ingredients to make it better. (chinese celery roots, 1 tomato, curry leaves and 1 onion.) I used Sakura chicken because it has less fat to remove when you cut it up. It also taste nicer.

I added only half the amount of coconut milk that's required and substituted it with milk.


Vegetable Curry


Curry Vegetables

The wife made curry vegetables. She also used a ready to cook wet premix. Added brinjals, long beans, okra (lady's fingers), tomato, cabbage, curry leaves. We forgot to put in carrots! Realised it only half way.

Portioned it into two portions. We cooked like 1 kg of vegetables! The second portion will be for tomorrow!


Seafood Green Curry

Halibut Green Curry with mushroom

Aunt cooked halibut green curry and brought it over in a thermal pot. Two families cooking and bringing food together is more fun and there's more variety. Aunt cooked it from a green curry paste that her friend brought back from Thailand.


We had it with hot steaming rice and a baguette from Delifrance (from the petrol station down the road).
We finished off with cupcakes, tea and ice cream for dessert.

Happy Curry Day!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Jade Garden @ Chevrons Club

The Chevrons. Other than chalets and "eMart" that most people associate it with, do you know there's a nice elegant Chinese Restaurant called Jade Garden located on the 3rd floor?

Jade Garden's opened by a brother and sister team, Chris and Jenny Eng. Jenny has 20 over years of experience in managing restaurant operations and Chris Eng also with 21 years of kitchen experience is the Executive Chef. Together they have come together to come out with a nice team serving good food with good service.

Jade Garden @ Chevrons Club

It's not the usual dull Chinese restaurant, Jade Garden joins the club of classy elegant Chiense restaurants. Looks like a place to have business lunches or a cosy family meal. As the restaurant is in the main clubhouse building with a ball room next door, the ceilings here are high and feels airy and welcoming.

They have a no pork and no lard policy here.

Momo and I were here together with Camemberu, hosted by FoodNews, the PR company for Jade Garden. Here's what we ate and what we thought about it:

Deep-Fried Yam Stuffed with Minced Chicken

Deep-Fried Yam Stuffed with Minced Chicken ($3.80 for 3 pieces)
We are used to have the this dish with minced pork, but the minced chicken version was quite good too! I did not know it was not pork until later when I was told.

Fluffy, crispy and light on the outside, and the yam-my sticky and moist texture of the yam with minced chicken filling inside. Can you imagine the crispy sound as you bite into it?


Siew Mai

Siew Mai ($4.20 for 4 pieces)

These Siew Mai were also made without pork! The Siew Mais seems to have more prawn bits with some chicken meat. It had the chewy/QQ feel to it, when I like.


Chef Special Combination Platter

Chef Special Combination Platter ($12/pax)
If you like stylist and modern plating of Chinese food, Chef Chris does it beautifully.
This combination platter served was so beautiful. 

One look and we thought that the strip on the plate was balsamic vinegar, but no. It's something more oriental. It's Teriyaki sauce!


Chef Special Combination Platter

The Chilled Crab Salad was the centre of attraction.
It's a refreshing dish to start your meal here. Inside the tomato cavity was chilled crab with some very light dressing. If you like tomatoes, eat it up like I did. If not, I guess you could leave it.


Chef Special Combination Platter

Drunken Chicken.
Momo thinks it's not strong enough for her. She likes her drunken chicken drunken stupor. (I think I married an alcoholic!)

You know 'white chicken' in Singapore has many styles, some have HK hint, some Malaysia hint and some Singapore hint to it. This one taste more Malaysian. (Very hard to describe lah, I think you all know what I mean).

The ginger and scallion sauce and a single wolfberry was used as a garnish. There was jelly fish below too.

Chef Special Combination Platter

Wasabi prawns.
Nicely fried crispy prawns coated with wasabi mayo with a few black sesame seeds.
The mango cubes below gives it a nice slight sweetish and sour taste. Nice combi.


Braised Shark's Fin with Crabmeat & Dried Scallop in Pumpkin Soup

The next dish, a soup was served in this huge big UFO like platter. It was the Braised Shark's Fin with Crabmeat & Dried Scallop in Pumpkin Soup ($18/pax; $45 [small], $68 [medium], $90 [large]) The centre is rather deep, so you get quite a bit of it.

Braised Shark's Fin with Crabmeat & Dried Scallop in Pumpkin Soup

If you do take Sharks Fin, this dish will be interesting to you. Instead of gooey starch that's the usual method of preparation, Chef Chris serves it in a light pumpkin soup! It has the gooey feel, but not as starchy. This east meets west rendition comes out rather well.

I like the pumpkin soup! I wonder for anti-shark people, they can prepare it without the shark for you to try! It's lovely!


Braised Sliced Abalone, Dried Scallop & Vegetables in Tan Jia Sauce

Braised Sliced Abalone, Dried Scallop and Vegetables in Tan Jia Sauce ($18/pax)
This dish was interesting too. Abalone that's braised just nice and topped with Tan Jia Sauce. What sauce, I imagine you asking in your head?

Tan Jia is supposedly invented in the time of the ancient emperors. It uses the essence of duck, old hens and dried scallops as its base. Interesting eh?


Cod Fish Baked with Miso & Sauteed Edamame

Cod Fish Baked with Miso and Sauteed Edamame ($14/pax)
We really liked the cod fish baked with miso as it was really soft and tasty. It crumbles into soft sections as you cut through it with your knife. It's cod fish well prepared!

When the food was served, I thought the red thing was minced tuna.
No, it's watermelon that had a hollow cavity, filled with mayo.


Fresh Crab Claw with Japanese Somen

Fresh Crab Claw with Japanese Somen ($12/pax)
If you want to wow your guests, order this dish for everyone. It was really tasty and Momo still thinks about this dish and says we should go back and try this again.

It's steamed egg white with ginger, a nice succulent crab claw with silky smooth somen (thin noodles made from wheat flour). The base of the plate is steamed egg that's a similar to chawanmushi but softer. The noodles are nice and the broth that covers it was so addictive.

It no one's around, I would have picked the bowl and poured all the broth into my spoon and not waste a bit of it!


Combination Dessert Platter


Combination Dessert Platter ($12)
Before we were served this, we saw a table ordering it. We then saw other tables asking the serving staff what the name of the dish? Before you know it, we saw the few tables around us all having it!

You can share if you want, but we know everyone has a hidden stomach somewhere that can fill in desserts. Order one each if your budget allows.

Combination Dessert Platter

In the 3 shotglass: Mango Pudding, Cold Lemongrass Jelly with Sherbet and Pumpkin Sago with Vanilla Ice Cream. Mixture of sweets with sourish hints.

We tasted the ala carte items above. If you want something planned out for you, set lunches are available from $38++/pax for 6 courses. An Executive Set Lunch for 4 pax is available at $88++ for 6 courses.



Jade Garden
48 Boon Lay Way
The Chevrons
#03-06
Singapore 609961

Tel: + 65 6862 4931