Wood Restaurant @ Vivocity

It’s ED’s birthday and I decided to give him a lunch treat @ Wood Restaurant at Vivocity. Food and ambience was pretty good.

Here’s the menu for the set lunch

We ordered a bottle of sparkling mineral water as they do not really give you water FOC.

Sparkling Mineral Water cost $8++. A bottle can fill approx 4 glasses. Tasted pretty refreshing

I had the Wood Roasted Asparagus Soup. While ED had the House smoke salmon, buffalo mozarella with lemon dressing.

The soup tasted great. It’s creamy but not overpowering.

Pita bread tasted really great even on its own. Dipped it with some olive oil to enhance the flavour of the herbs in the bread. It complements the soup very well too. I had 2 servings of it

For Main course, I had the Sea Bass and Ed ordered the Steak.

I find the sea bass was a bit fishy. It comes with Jap rice wrapped with boiled cabbage and cut into 2. Looks like sushi to me. but the rice tasted really nice. I expected it to be bland but it’s not. Slightly salty and the juiciness of the cabbage complements the rice realy well.

ED had the steak with roasted mushrooms and asparagus. He dun really eat mushroom and this is the first time I see him eat it. He said they mushrooms are so nicely roasted that he can stomach the mushroom taste (for once )

There’s a mixture of shitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, straw mushrooms and button mushrooms. All nicely roasted. The steak was very very tender too (from ED feedback cos i dun take beef)

Decor of the restaurant. Looks very nice and cosy. We were sitting on very very nice and comfy sofas. As you dine, you can hear very nice Bossa Nova music being played.

So wat’s the total cost for the lunch?

2 set lunches @ $35++/pax = $70++

1 glass of white wine = $14++

1 bottle of sparkling mineral water = $8++ (UOB card discount for this item)

Total = $104 (approx). Discount for UOB card members is only applicable for items ordered from the ala carte menu.

The ambience is really nice. The couch is so cosy too. I think it would be even more romantic at night when the place is dark and lit by candles. The food is not cheap but it’s good and you are paying for quality and ambience. Can splurge and give your special someone a treat there once in a while for special occasions.

1 Harbourfront Walk #01-53 VivoCity
Singapore 098585
Tel: 6375-9663 (6375-WOOD)
info@woodrestaurant.com

Open daily
Lunch 11.30am – 2.30pm
Dinner 6.30pm – 10.30pm
Bar 11.30am – midnight (weekdays)
11.30pm – 1am (weekends)

Bosses Restaurant 黑社會 @ Vivo City

Had a great dinner with my family at Bosses Restaurant 黑社會 @ Vivo City. Reservations had to be made earlier as the place is always packed with people. We ordered the dinner set instead of ala carte.

Instead of the usual peanuts where most restaurants serve as tidbits, Bosses serve a type of nuts coated with honey and sesame. They tasted really sweet and crunchy

The waitress asked what sort of tea do we want to order. She said each pot serves only 2 persons and recommend that for a table of 10 persons, we could order 4 pots to share. We order a pot of white chrysanthemum, a pot of Dragon Pearl Tea, a pot of Bi Luo Chun and a pot of Tie Guan Yin. Amongst them, I love Bi Luo Chun the best. It has a very nice fragrant smell and refreshing taste.

A pot of white chrysanthemum in a nice glass pot

Here’s what we ordered

First dish: Lovers Platter. A nice refreshing mix of fresh mango, honeydew shreds mixed with roasted chicken, roasted duck shreds and crispy you tiao (fried dough fritters) bits drenched with tangy sweet sauce that has a tinge of sourness in it. Simply refreshing. Loved it so much

The sharks fin soup came with lots and lots of sharks fin. Wow.

Add some pepper and red vinegar to your sharks fin soup before eating. It really enhances the taste of the soup.

The baby abalone was succulent. Every bite is so soft and nice.

Loved the deep fried goby fish. A pity that I found the fish a little too small. It’s so nice I I wanted 3rd helpings :p

I did not really like the chicken as I felt the garlic taste is a bit too strong

This beancurd skin with xiao bai cai with papaya dish is too salty for my liking. If only they reduce the saltiness of the dish, I think it would taste really great. The fish soup is nice but too bad it’s too salty.

The fried la mian is very nice too. Noodles has a certain bite and not too chewy nor soggy. But again, too much salt to this dish and it spoilt the taste. We suspect the chef might be too busy cos the last few dishes are too salty.

The noodles were individually served to us. Same goes for the sharks fin soup where they also scoop out the soup into individual bowls before serving to us. Also the waitress changed our plates before every dish served. Service is quite prompt and good.

The last dish is the famous Custard Bun dessert.

The small fluffy buns has very thin skins and the custard with salted egg filling would ooze out once you break open the skin. Be careful .. the filling is piping hot

So what’s the total damage for all the nice food. It’s approx $1200 for 20 pax.

Verdict: The price is ok (comparable to other chinese restaurants). Food is quite good too except the last few dishes. My aunt suggested ordering ala carte instead as the dinner set do not allow us to choose our own dishes.

Bosses Restaurant 黑社會
#02-156 Vivo City,
Tel: 63769740

Lunch @ White Dog Cafe

It’s my niece’s 1 yr old birthday and we had a celebration for her at White Dog Cafe @ Vivo City. Ordered some appetizers to quell our hunger while we waited for the rest of the guests to arrive.

We had this mixed fry seafood platter. ED told me the fried prawn and calamari tasted great. Too bad I can’t eat them as I am allergic to seafood. They really looked so delicious

Mixed Fry Seafood Platter

We were given a choice of either mushroom or chicken soup. I chose mushroom while ED had chicken soup as he hates mushrooms

The mushroom soup was rather filling as it contained lots of chopped mushrooms bits. I was feeling a bit full after finishing the whole bowl of soup.

Chicken Consomme

Mushroom Soup

For Main Course, ED had deep fried fish with buttered rice while I had Grilled Fish with Spicy Tomato Sauce and buttered rice. I liked the rice. Fragant and not too buttery.

Fried Fish with Buttered Rice

Grilled Fish with Spicy Tomato Sauce and buttered rice.

White Dog Cafe
No. 1 Harbour Front Walk
#02-131/132 Vivo City
Singapore 098585
Tel: 63769970

Dinner at Akashi Japanese Restaurant @ Vivo City

Had dinner with my family at Akashi Japanese Restaurant at Vivo City. We were totally famished and decided to order some side dishes to eat first.

We ordered pan-fried gyoza (8 pcs/ plate), a plate of spider-crab maki and grilled king prawns with miso sauce.

The gyoza had quite a thin skin with lots of fillings inside. It is nicely pan-fried till brown on its bottom and tasted great when you dipped it in a plate of vinegar.

Want some soya sauce and chilli powder for your food?

The Spider-crab maki was very delicious too. The inside was crispy and full of bite. Simply yummy.

We also ordered 2 grilled King prawns with miso paste. When grilled, the miso melted and turned golden brown giving it a sort of a bbq with tangy miso taste. This used to be my personal fav until I developed allergies to seafood. Each plate of Grilled King Prawn comes in 2 halves. The restaurant is very nice to place each half of a prawn on a plate so that the 4 of us would have half a prawn each. I gave mine to my SO.

The 4 of us ordered 4 set dinners each. I had the grilled gindara with miso paste set dinner. It is actually cod fish grilled with miso sauce. Each set dinner comes with rice, miso soup, pickles and fruits.

Grilled Gindara Miso Sauce Set Dinner $20

Grilled Gindara with Miso Paste

Tori Karage Dinner Set $18

Gyu Teriyaki Dinner Set $18

This dish is not on the menu. We asked for it separately. It’s stired fried pork with onions on hotplate. It’s also a set dinner and the price is $25 per set.

Soft Fluffy Jap Rice

Miso Soup

Also order a bowl of chawanmushi too. It’s very smooth and really glide down your throat.

Total Bill came up to approx $147 (include 7% GST and service charge) for 4 persons.

Akashi Japanese Restaurant have 3 outlets. Do call to make reservations as it can get pretty crowded in the evenings and during weekends.

Tanglin
19 Tanglin Road, #B1-09,
Tanglin Shopping Centre, Singapore 247909
Tel: 6732 4438

Orchard
290 Orchard Road, #B1-01,
Paragon Shopping Centre, Singapore 238859
Tel: 6735 8887

Vivo City
1 HarbourFront Walk, #B2-07,
Vivo City, Singapore 098585
Tel: 6376 9972