Lai Lai Casual Dining @ Jurong Point

Located at B1 of the shopping centre, this is the area where everyone who goes up by the nearby escalator can peep down at you while you eat. The shop has two sections; the 'outer' section where the sun shines on your table in the afternoons or the 'inner' section where it is more enclosed but sometimes there are flies flying around.

interior

paper napkin with cute logo

Not wanting the sun, my bro and I chose the inner section. They have lunch sets of between $12.50++ to above $13++. The set comes with a pre-selected main dish (either rice or noodles), a side dish (choose from a limited selection) and a drink (milk bubble tea). My brother chose the braised pork rice (卤肉饭) set with red milk tea, and a side dish of braised pork knuckles (boneless). I had an ala-carte order of taiwanese rice vermicelli with pig intestines (面线with猪大肠).

our orders

braised pork rice served with braised egg, peanuts and and preserved vege

My brother seemed to enjoy his rice. He's the one that has been to Taiwan, so he said it was pretty authentic.

rice vermicelli with intestines

The mian xian (rice vermicelli) served here, was just alright. Not outstanding. The vinegar wasn't as tasty as another shop that I always patron at Lot 1 CCK. Thankfully, the intestines was as tender as it ought to be.

The star dish of the day? The braised boneless pork knuckles!

not much of a looker, but taste yummy~

Thin slivers of melt in your mouth fats and meat. It literally dissolves on your tongue. Ok, it was pretty oily and a little too salty as well. Hahaa!

red milk bubble tea

The bubble tea tasted pretty nostalgic. This was the taste that accompanied us during our university days and then some. By us... I really meant the oldies. Nowadays, I don't really care much about 'powdered' bubble milk tea. Give me the more natural tea taste with foamy slight saltish milk foam on top. Yums.

There was a 10% discount on ala-carte items if paying via DBS/POSB credit card. All in all, we paid $21 (incl. of taxes and after discount) for two pax.

Etna Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria @ Upper East Coast Road

Located at 110 Upper East Coast Road. There are bus stops nearby (#14 or #197 I think), so it is accessible via public transport. If driving, then turn into Tay Lian Teck Road and park by the roadside. Didn't see any parking places nearby. The restaurant is facing the main road and it is actually quite smallish.

Walking into the restaurant and we were greeted almost immediately. Warm and friendly service. The place felt quite cosy too.

bar and cashier

table setting

menu

My friends arrived earlier, so they've already started on the bruschetta al pomodoro. Mr R has a thing for bruschetta...

bruschetta al pomodoro (toasted bread topped with fresh tomatoes and garlic)

Bruschetta is such a simple thing that it is not difficult to replicate at home. The version here was tasty as well.

Next item that was ordered, Insalata di Gamberi (prawns salad).

Insalata di Gamberi (prawn salad dressed with extra virgin olive oil and lemon)

The salad has a light clean taste. Prawns were fresh and bouncy. Nice but was rather mild in taste when compared to the bruschetta.

lovely prawns

We also had a bottle of white wine, the Montalto Pinot Grigio. It's pretty light and clean tasting. Crisp finish with fruity notes.

white wine (@$65++)

wine to sip

Realised that our dinner for the night had a recurrent theme; seafood and tomato based. We had Risotto alla Marinara (italian rice with mixed seafood and tomato sauce), Pizza Fruiti di Mare (tomato, mixed seafood and mozarella cheese), Linguine con Capesante (flat pasta with scallops in pink lobster sauce) and Filetto Maiale (baked pork wrapped with bacon in rosemary sauce).

risotto marinara

with squid, clams, prawns

We made the right choice with seafood. Liked the squids and the prawns. The risotto was lighter in taste than anticipated. The umami taste associated with seafood was kind of missing from the dish. Not the best risotto tasted thus far, but quite enjoyable. Generous portions too.

Next up, was the linguine.

Linguine con Capesante

large scallops

All of us liked the linguine very much. Very tasty and much stronger in flavour than the risotto. Had a hint of spice and the pasta was not undercooked. My friend was praising the freshness of the scallops but I had one that tasted kind of mushy. Hmm, maybe I ate the wrong part?

Next, was the seafood pizza. More carbo!

Fruitti di Mare

with large squid rings, unpitted olives, mussels and prawns

The pizza crust was nice with slightly (very slightly) chewy dough, crisp edges and loaded with mozzarella cheese. Best eaten by taking the pizza slice, fold it and use hand (fingers) to hold it. Give it a hearty bite and feel the cheese and seafood come together. Hahaa, not fine dining material or prescribed behaviour, but I liked it! Ok, but not sure why the prawns still had its tail shell retained...Aesthetically pleasing but abit harder to eat.

We're done with carbo, so out came the protein (meat).

pork fillet with bacon

It's three chunk of pork wrapped in bacon and baked, served with brown sauce with a bed of greens and mashed potatoes. Interesting dish and first time having this in an Italian restaurant.

It's like pork knuckles minus the fats (if you discount the wrapped bacon slice). Not melt in your mouth tender, but not chewy either. It was just nice. The sauce has just a slight sourness to it. A dish that had a hint of homecooked flavour to it.

Service crew were pretty attentive and will pop by to ask about the food, anything else that we need or to just pour out the wine to our empty glasses. Nice.

And because it was a birthday dinner, the service crew sang the happy birthday song when the cake was brought out. Hehe. Thank you to the restaurant for allowing us to bring our own cake.

fruit tart/cake from Fruit Paradise

yummy~

There's a 15% discount on food items (excluding alcohol) if you're paying via Standard Chartered credit card. For 5 pax, order just 1 or 2 starters, 4 main courses and it'll be more than enough food for everyone. Needless to say, we were stuffed from dinner and the cake. Expect to pay between $50~$60 per pax for a 3 course meal.

Hainan Tea Garden @ Cheras

Air-conditioned kopitiams (cafes) seemed to have sprouted like mushrooms in my hometown. There's Old Town, Hailam Kopitiam and Paparich in Kajang alone! My dad likes these places so I've visited those with him, and the most recent one, Hainan Tea Garden at a shopping mall in Cheras.

glossy menu with nice pictures

interior

Fill in the order chit and press a device on the table and a service staff will come and attend to you.

press and wait

My dad ordered chicken rice, brother wants a chicken hor fun, mom is having chicken chop while sis wants a chicken cutlet. Note that you can actually request for the chicken parts. Dad and bro wanted steamed chicken drumstick. For me, I wasn't feeling hungry, so just ordered toasted bread with kaya and butter with a cup of coffee.

Chicken rice was pretty normal but the chili sauce was quite good. Had some problems with the hor fun order though. At first, after waiting for 10 minutes, the service staff informed us that they ran out of steamed chicken drumstick. So we changed that to roasted chicken drumstick. Then, after another 5 minutes, another service crew came over and told us that they ran out of hor fun. Whoa! So finally, my bro had wanton noodles soup with roasted chicken drumstick instead.

chicken chop

chicken cutlet

The chicken cutlet was ok, with tender meat but it lacked flavour. The chicken chop fared a little better in flavour but its meat was tougher. The black pepper sauce for chicken cutlet was rather lumpy. Too much flour?

toasted bread with kaya and butter (@RM3.50++)

The coffee that I had costs as much as the toasted bread. Hahaa. The bread was nice although stingy on that slab of butter and the kaya was spread a little too thin.

Total cost of the meal inclusive of drinks came up to RM79 for 5 pax. Good idea to check the bill before payment because we were initially charged for chicken hor fun and chicken wanton noodles. Likely a genuine mistake as the order were changed a couple of times due to the kitchen running out of certain ingredients.