House @ Dempsey

Date: 21 August 2012

Address: 8D Dempsey road

Opening hours: Mon - Fri 12 pm - 10:30 pm, Sat 11 am- 10:30 pm, Sun 9am - 10:30 pm

Nearest MRT: Queenstown MRT

House is one of the many restaurants at Dempsey and has quite a large seating capacity. 

I wanted to try something off their brunch menu but they only serve brunch on weekends (a little strange) but oh well. 

Honestly, the food was average but i liked the decor of the place. 

Squid Ink Paella -S$29
A friend suggested having Paella because she'd just come back from a long trip in europe and missed having paella. This one did not meet up to her expectations at all, which was quite disappointing because I really wanted to taste how authentic paella should be like. Guess this isn't the place for them.

It's a little like risotto except it's less creamy because paella is cooked with all the liquids in and little stirring, while risotto is cooked with constant stirring and portioned additions of liquids. They also use different grains, i think the risotto one releases starch with constant stirring so it has a "stickier" texture.

This paella was cooked in squid ink (a first for me) so I have nothing to compare it against. I'll just say it was rather bland. I mostly tasted cheese and a slight squid flavor with the zesty accompaniment of the tomatoes. The prawns were very fresh and good though i must say!!
The portion is rather big, I wouldn't have been able to finish it on my own. 

English Breakfast Skinny Pizza - S$24

Let me just say this cannot, in any possible way, be compared to my favorite pizzas from Peperoni Pizzeria. It looked aesthetically wonderful but it just didn't deliver taste wise. Huge mega disappointment. 

Firstly, there was too much going on. 

I could hardly see what I was eating. The huge chunks of tomatoes were really not a big help at all because if I wanted to eat a tomato on its own, I would've have ordered a tomato on its own. I expected my tomatoes sliced and placed nicely on top on my pizza and not have them rolling around while I try to cut into them. 

Secondly, the gravy was way too thick. It made the crust soggy and unappealing. 

Thirdly, the cheese they used could have been better. It tasted like the ones you would use for a sandwich and not a pizza. It barely blended with anything else on the pizza. It just stood out on its own. As did the tomatoes. 

Even the bacons came in full strips and not pieces. 

SERIOUSLY, It was as if they served english breakfast on dough. What's the point??? 

Thankfully, this wasn't a morbid disaster. The warm chocolate toffee cake (S$9.50) was rather small but it tasted just as a chocolate cake should, warm, moist and chocolatey. 

My cup of latte saved the day. It is so far, my favorite cup of latte in Singapore. It's dense and rich, with just the right amount of milk and goodness. 

Despite being thoroughly annoyed by the pizza I tried, i still wanna come back for their vintage tea party thingy. Will let yall know how it goes when that happens! 

Peperoni Pizzeria

Date : 13 April 2012

Address: 56-56A Zion Road

Opening Hours : Monday- Sat 12pm-10:30 pm, Sun 11am - 10:30pm  

Nearest MRT: Tiong Bahru (take buses 16, 5, 195 and alight at the Boy's brigade house) 

WOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I was crazy excited when I found out about Peperoni's new outlet because instead of having to travel all the way to bukit timah i now get to enjoy their pizzas by just taking a bus a few stops down from my place! 

There are many seats outside along the corridor and i love that they have high tables! 

Peperoni's serve a wide range of pizzas, from meats to vege, seafood to plain cheese (which is always good) 

They also have pasta, lasagne and the best of all, dessert! 

The interior of the restaurant has a warm and friendly soft ambience, there are quite a few tables and i love their red/green chairs. 

So first up we had Frutti di Mare (mixed seafood in tomato sauce) - S$23 

We ordered the large, 12 inch one. 

Prawns, clams, scallops, squid rings and fish on top of a tomato based. 

I'm a meat lover, so seafood will always pale in comparison to it. But i must say their ingredients were very fresh and it was not bad. Not bad. But not my favourite for sure. I just don't really like seafood pizzas. 

Our next pizza was a half/half of 2 different kinds. You can mix the flavours up because all of the pizzas are of the same price - S$23

We choose to try a classic, hawaiian and Prosciutto Crudo di parma which just means parma ham and rocket salad) 

For both pizzas, the crust was crispy and thin and slightly burnt at the edges, just the way I like it. I usually don't finish my crusts because it gets cold and hard after a while, but their crusts remain crunchy even after leaving it for a while so that's great. If you like thin crusts this is the place to be! 

NOW COMES MY FAVOURITE PART- DESSERTS 

You know, i would love to just have desserts for my mains, I could honestly just sit and go through every kind of dessert and then be full. 

My dad says I am a waste of money, not just that I waste money but that i am a WASTE OF MONEY because I always just go for the dessert section during buffets and I disgrace them because they would have like "fruits, salads, mains, then desserts" and i would just be like "dessert, dessert, dessert, maybe a bit of mains and then dessert!" So he thinks i am a bad investment. 

Hahaaaaaaaa, but what can i say! I love desserts. 

THIS IS THE BEST CREME BULEE I'VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. And its only S$9!!!!!!! 

I say "only" because most of the places i go to sell them for above 10 bucks and they aren't even of the same portion as this (which is quite big)

If i weren't conscious about my weight....which i am, i would have this evvvvvery day. I am one of those people who would just go to the restaurant for a single dish of dessert. And THIS CREME BULEE is one of those desserts I would have all day and all night. 

Tiramisu- S$11 

I'm not a big fan of tiramisu so this is just "meh" for me. My friend says it's apparently really good but I don't eat alot of tiramisu so i can't compare. I generally don't enjoy light fluffy cakes unless they are cheesecakes. I prefer my cakes dense and more textured. But this was a good size of tiramisu and I guess if you're a big fan of them you can come and try and see what you think of it! 

Overall, I would come back to Peperoni's as and when the agreement among the crowd is to have pizza because they have the family sized option which is XXL -21 inches. It's S$50 for any kind of their flavours so it would be a good place to share a nice dinner with a bunch of friends. The bill is easy to split, the food is fun to eat (visually as well cos it's so huge you just wanna take a billion pictures with your face in comparison) and it is now located at a convenient place! 

Da Paolo Pizza Bar

Date : 21 March 2012

Address : 44 Jalan Mera Saga Road

Opening Hours : 

Mon–Fri: 12pm–2.30pm, 5.30pm–10.30pm, Sat–Sun: 9am–10.30pm 

Nearest Mrt station : Holland Village 

Pizza, Pizzas! Everyone loves pizzas. I, for one can't wait to make a list of my Top 3 favorite pizza places. This time, my friends and I ventured to a place tucked in the neighborhood of Holland Village. It isn't in the area where all the hustle and bustle is, so it's a lot quieter. 

For our appetizer, we started off with a Caliprawnia salad  S$20 

It had baby spinach, shrimps, cherry tomatoes, avocado and mango. 

This was probably my favorite dish because it was well flavored and the shrimp was extremely fresh. 

You'll also realize why this is my favorite when I talk about the other dishes later. 

Thanks to my friend, J,  who was writing for a paper for her school, we got 2 pizzas free! 

We chose one Red and one White (As segmented on their menu) 

For the White, we went with a Bufala e Crudo. S$28

This pizza had Buffalo Mozzarella, Parma Ham, Sliced Tomatoes and Basil. 

It looks fabulous and it tastes just as it looks. You have the tomatoes and ham which always complement each other and then cheese, which makes everything taste better. 

And our choice of Red was a Meat Lover  S$27

How bad can you go with meat on dough right? 

It's easy to make it taste good, but difficult to have it be excellent. 

And this was just it, great but not i-would-die-for-it. 

Bolognese Sauce, cooked ham, Iberico Chorizo (no idea what this fancy name is, probably stands for something simple)

I could get a regular meat pizza from one of the chain stores like dominos, have it served the same way as this was, on a nice plate with fancy cutlery and you wouldn't be able to tell which one came from a box and which from a fancy restaurant. 

So yes, good but not great. Plus for a student like me, I wouldn't pay 27 for something I could get at 19 or whatever. Ok maybe 2 bucks for the ambience. 

We couldn't leave without trying at least one item on the dessert. We picked the Warm Valrhona Chocolate cake with Vanilla gelato. S$14. As seen, it was drizzled with chocolate sauce, (the ice cream was on the other side of the cake - my bad). 

I'm not a huge fan of gelato but I am a huge fan of chocolate cake (Who isn't?) and I must say I was rather disappointed. It looked better than it tasted. Perhaps I have too high a standard for chocolate cakes but once again, for the price we paid, we could've gotten 2 equally satisfactory cakes somewhere else. 

With all said, I wouldn't really come back to this place again because I personally prefer thin crusted pizzas. The pizzas here had rather puffy crusts but not soft, instead they were hard and tasted like overnight pizzas. I must say the ingredients were very fresh. Perhaps i should've tried the tiramisu that this place apparently, is famous for. But till then, this is an average place for pizzas. The service however, is impeccable and I must thank all the staff for giving us such hospitable service. 

For more information do check out : http://www.dapaolo.com.sg/