Restaurant Review: The Book Cafe

Restaurant Review: The Book Cafe

20 Martin Road
Singapore 239070

+65 6887 5430

"If you didn't know it was there, you would not see it." That was my first thought upon finding The Book Cafe on Martin Road. Hidden behind some on-going construction in the Seng Kee building, the cafe is only visible from one side, and then you just see a few tables outdoors, and could easily give up and go to cafe espressamente, right opposite. However, if you actually managed to find this truly hidden gem, you will not want to leave, and the generous opening hours (until midnight on weekends), good food and very, very comfortable interior will make it easy for you to forget time.

Comfortable cafes that are not overcrowded or overpriced are quite hard to come by in Singapore, thus I was quite pleased to find The Book Cafe and a bit reluctant to promote it further, lest it becomes too popular. There are various reasons why The Book Cafe is, simply put, fantastic.

Firstly, it's just super comfortable, that is, if you're lucky enough to snatch one of the 5 big sofas or waited around long enough for one to become available. Chairs are only so comfortable, and sitting in one for a few hours is not exactly a treatment for your behind. However, once you plunked down into the cozy comfort of the sofas, you'll have a hard time convincing yourself its time to go. Along the walls are bookshelves, and the variety and extravagance of the book selection makes sure you'll find something to pass the time in the event you didn't bring anything with you. If you prefer lighter entertainment, there are also magazines and power plugs for laptops, so you can always choose to work, study or just watch a movie. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly why The Book Cafe has such a nice, cozy, comfy atmosphere. Perhaps it's because not everything fits exactly 100% and at times the place does seem a little disorderly, which makes it extrardinarily charming in a squeaky clean and orderly city like Singapore.

Second, the food. The menu at The Book Cafe is not exactly extensive, and vegetarian/vegan options are limited. However, the food they offer ranges from decent to just finger-licking good. Must-trys are the Eggs Benedikt, the Cheeseburger (you can always opt for a small salad on the side if you don't like fries) and the Banana-Chocolate Cake. Also, The Book Cafe offers freshly squeezed juices/smoothies.


Lastly, the crowd. Whereas other cafes are target by young students occupying a table for hours to study, others are filled with families and yet another kind caters to the working crowd. At The Book Cafe, you will find a bit of everything, yet it appears they all have one thing in common: an appreciation for a good cafe. This is both in the literal sense (as the drinks are also quite decent here, for tea lovers I recommend the African blend with Roi-bush) but also metaphorically. Either it's the cafe that make the people cool and laid back, with an underlying sense of comfort and creativity, or it is the people hanging out here that create this unique atmosphere.

Quality has it's price, and The Book Cafe is no cheaper than most other cafes in Singapore. But it has three things goign for itself that make it unique: the food is very good, the athmosphere is very cozy and the patrons and staff are nice. Oh, and did I mention it's really comfortable?

5/5 Stars

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Restaurant Review: Broth @ Duxton Hill

Restaurant Review: Broth @ Duxton Hill

21 Duxton Hill
Singapore 089604

+65 6323 3353 

Situated in a corner of Duxton Hill, Broth is an elegant little restaurant with an atmosphere best suited for a nice dinner for two or a quiet evening out with friends. Given the elevated prices, usually it is not hard to find a table even at times when more trending places such as Lucha Loco (also on Duxton Hill), are packed. Curiously enough, the restaurant does not have a theme of soups/broths but is rather the acronym for Bar Restaurant On The Hill...could have fooled me ;-)

We went on a weekday night and besides ours, only two other tables were taken. The staff is friendly and the service pretty decent. The menu is not very extensive, and if you have any dietary restrictions (e.g. as a vegetarian) you will only have a handful of items to choose from, most of which are starters. Since my companion and I found the Lamb Loin In A Green Coat On Fine Beans, Rosemary Potatoes & Mint Jus the most appealing, we both ordered the same main dish (usually we choose two different ones, so we can switch, but as I said the selection at Broth is rather limited and nothing else tickled our fancy). As mentioned above, Broth is not focused around soup, so the only soup they have is a "Broth of the Day', which in our case was potato soup. To be honest, I don't see the point of paying 12 bucks in a fancy-shmanzy restaurant for a potato soup even the most novice chef can't go wrong with cooking it at home. Instead, we ordered Sugar Beet Cured Salmon, Cucumber Tagliatelle, Caperberries & Mandarine Dressing and some house-made olive/onion bread with oil, butter and pepper to start our dinner.

Home/house made bread sounds good, and the two slices we were served at Broth did look appetizing (as an appetizer should ;-) ), however, the dough was much too soft, so instead of a rich wholemeal bread, it rather had the consistency of soggy toast. Not sure if baking it longer would help, but they should do something about it. The olive oil seemed of decent quality, and what can go wrong with butter and salt. Would have been so simple to make this into a decent appetizer, but Broth failed.

Disappointingly, as it happens in many elegant restaurants, the salad was rather tiny and the few slices of salmon were well hidden by a camouflage of greens. If the starter had made up in taste what it was lacking for in size, I wouldn't complain. However, the mandarin dressing did not have a fruity flavor, the two olives that came with the salad were pickled and the cucumber was absolutely devoid of taste. The salmon itself was ok, but nothing that you wouldn't get at cold storage, i.e. no beet-cured taste at all.

The lamb loin that we had did look appealing, and was quite decent taste-wise. The crust could have been a little more thick and crisp, but otherwise it was savory. Wedged in between the slices of lamp were two or three slices of roast potato. If you're hungry, better order several dishes (like starters) or go elsewhere, otherwise a grown man or woman with a healthy appetite will go home hungry.

With 2 glasses of wine, 2 starters and 2 mains the total bill was close to SGD 170. For this kind of money for a dinner for 2, I would have expected the food to be of higher quality and not just average overall. Still, the restaurant does have a nice athmosphere at night, and may still be worth a visit, at least once.

3/5 Stars

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Where to buy a laptop in Singapore?

Where to buy a laptop in Singapore?

If you’re looking to buy a laptop in Singapore, chances are that most people will recommend you to either go to Sim Lim or Funan Digital Life Mall. While these two IT malls are filled with all sizes of computer stores and many offer laptops, there are some things to bear in mind: people say you can make a bargain on a laptop (or any IT equipment for that matter) at Sim Lim, but equally as many people will tell you that there is a high chance of getting ripped off if you don’t know 100% what you’re going for and how much it should cost. Instead, you will most likely be recommended to go to Funan Digital Life mall to buy your laptop. While it is “safer” to do business at Funan (i.e. you don’t get sold junk), I would still not recommend to buy a new laptop there. The reason for this is very simple: most of the smaller stores that sell laptops (Newstead, Digital Asia) are owned by the same guy and therefore there is exactly zero price competition between the stores. If you try to bargain for your new laptop, or if negotiate a discount for buying multiple machines, you will get one pre-defined discount from the list price and that’s it. No amount of haggling will get you a better bargain. I know this to be true from my own experience buying IT equipment for my company. The fact that all stores are owned by the same guy were confirmed to me by two different employees at Digital Asia and Newstead and proven to be true when one time I went in to buy a couple of screens and the guy actually went around to the different stores to pick up the remaining stock to serve my order. Naturally, there are the bigger chains, such as Harvey Norman or Challenger, which operating independently (though I would not be surprised if they were still all in cahoots and set the prices amongst themselves). What’s more, the consumer laptops you can buy in Singapore are all preloaded with useless crap that slow down your machine.

So the question remains, where do you buy a good quality laptop in Singapore for a decent price? The answer is simple: you don’t. If you want to buy a decent laptop (for more say SGD 600), and especially if you’re looking to buy a business laptop, I would recommend you to buy in the US and have it shipped to Singapore. Initially, this might appear quite costly and time intensive, but instead it’s fast, simple and much cheaper than buying a laptop in Singapore. For example, recently my company wanted to purchase a couple of HP laptops. I went to Funan to get the local prices and when I compared this to Amazon’s price it really blew my mind. The same model, with the same specifications, of a HP Probook cost just over SGD 1,400 in Funan (after “discount”), whereas on Amazon the price was just above SGD 600! This was an older model, but the only and “newest” Probook they had. I also did a search on the HP’s Singapore homepage, where a similar model was offered for SGD 1,600 (albeit including a c. SGD 100 20” LCD).  So, the price difference between buying a laptop in the US and buying it in Singapore was a staggering SGD 800, per computer!

As we wanted a total of four laptops, we ordered them not from Amazon but through an IT company we sometimes work with in New York. The guys were nice enough to procure them through their local supplier, which currently had HP Elitebooks on offer. These HP Elitebook laptops have significantly improved specifications as compared to HP Probook laptops, and at less than SGD 1100 they were still more than SGD 300 cheaper than the Probook I was offered at Funan. We shipped with Fedex, who picked the laptops up in their original boxes and placed two of each in Fedex shipping boxes, which each take c. 9 KG, or 2 laptops, for a cost of SGD 300 per box. If you want to ship one single laptop only, they also have smaller boxes, which are then cheaper of course.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you import these laptops in the capacity of a Singapore registered business, you have to first register with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) and to activate your Unique Entity Number (UEN), a standard identification number of any entity. This first time registration can be done online and is free, and takes just a few days, as far as I know.

Shipping with Fedex from the US takes between 3-5 days (not working days) and you should track the package to see when it has cleared Singapore customs. If you do not know anyone in the US who can take delivery of the laptops for you and send them to Singapore with Fedex, you can just use very cheap forwarding services such as Vpost, the official forwarding service from Singapore Post,

Bottom line, if you can wait 3-5 days (c. 7 if you use Vpost) and if you’re willing to do a bit of organization/online shopping you can save a substantial amount of money and obtain a higher-quality laptop than in any store in Singapore. This way, my organization literally saved hundreds of dollars and got better laptops all in exchange for a little extra effort. The added bonus for laptops is that the service guarantee and warranty is global.

 

Lastly, once the laptops arrive, you'll have to get an adapter or local power cable to connect the power brick to the socket, as the cable that comes with the laptop will be US standard.   

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Restaurant Review - Long Beach Seafood @ Dempsey

 resta Restaurant Review - Long Beach Seafood @ Dempsey

25 Dempsey Rd
249670 Singapore

+65 6323 2222

The Long Beach Seafood restaurant has been around for almost 70 years by now and although the flair of the original seaside establishment has made way to today's style of a modernized Chinese restaurant, the place still has some things going for it. Long Beach Seafood has a total of five outlets in Singapore, and the one at Dempsey is arguably the best. Since Dempsey in general is very crowded on the weekends and since Long Beach Seafood has a good reputation in Singapore, it is advisable that you make reservations beforehand.

As you may guess from the picture above, interior design is not Long Beach's forte, and the place is neither elegant nor stylish. So, Long Beach Seafood is probably less suited for a romantic dinner for two, but rather an evening out with friends and family where decent food is in the focus. Unarguably, all seafood served at Long Beach is fresh, as you can even pick which crab, lobster or golden phoenix fish should end up in the cooking pot. The staff is very nice, and if you want a souvenir, they will be happy to hand you a giant Alaskan king crab to take a picture with.

Long Beach Seafood claims to be the creator of the "Original and Best Black Pepper Crab of Singapore", and indeed the crab meat is very succulent and juicy, the black pepper adding some spiciness, without totally covering up the flavor of the meat itself.

 

Personally, I liked the White Pepper Crab better, though. It is a trifle less spicy, but the white pepper beautifully compliments the crab meat and creates a literal feast for your taste buds. Long Beach Seafood really got the hang of this dish, and I very much recommend gicing it a try.

The Curry Crab is probably THE signature dish of Singapore, and the Long Beach Seafood restaurant's version is quite a decent one. The dish is served with little fried/steamed buns so you can better soak up the chili-tomato sauce (or you can also just spoon it up). I like the taste of chili crab, and think it's also very well suited for people who are not great seafood aficionados, just because the chili-tomato sauce covers much of the flavor of the crab itself. If instead you prefer to taste the crab meat more intensely, I would recommend going with the White/Black Pepper Crab.

 

 

In addition to the crabs, we also ordered another of Long Beach Seafood's signature dishes: BBQ Golden Phoenix Fish. Again, this fish is served as fresh as it gets (short of fishing it up yourself and eating it on the beach) and you can pick the one you wish to have prepared for yourself. On the downside, the one we got was slightly undercooked and the waiter we asked to carve it for us massacred the fish, leaving spines everywhere.

 

Besides seafood, Long Beach also serves quite a wide variety of meat, from your usual chicken, duck and pork to even deer meat. To finish our meal, we ordered a rack of ribs, fried rice and some green sprouts. I think, if you go to a seafood place, you're usually well advised to stick with the seafood, and although the other dishes we had besides the crabs were okay, they were not as exceptional as the first courses. The fried rice was okay, the green sprouts were literally drowned in garlic (no matter how many times we ask them to put less, they always put large quantities in) and the ribs would actually have been quite good if they hadn't been so very sweet as to almost taste like a desert.

Overall, I would recommend Long Beach Seafood, also if you have people visiting you in Singapore. The crab dishes are quite a few notches above your average Singaporean seafood restaurant and definitely worth a try. The other dishes were had mostly okay to decent, and for the more adventurous palates Long Beach also offers more exotic seafood such as geoduck and tiger mantis. That said, quality has its price, and you should not go to Long Beach Seafood restaurant expecting a cheap meal.

4/5 Stars

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Restaurant Review - Shin Kushiya at Far East Square

Restaurant Review - Shin Kushiya

33 Peking Street
Far East Square #01-01
Singapore 048703

+65 6438 8991

One of Shin Kushiya's three outlets is located right in the CBD, very close to Raffles Place, in the hustle and bustle of Peking Street, where the working crowd hangs out after office hours. I've never been to Shin Kushiya on a weekend, but I imagine it might actually be less busy than on a weekday evening, as the people working around China Square, Far East Square and Samsung Hub congregate in sizable numbers in Peking Street in the evening.

Even so, when I decided to drop by at Shin Kushiya for a quick dinner, the place was busy, but not crowded, and there were still a few tables available. This might have to do with the fact that, price wise, Shin Kushiya is one of a very few restaurants that are higher priced than the other bars and eateries surrounding it. Most of the tables at the restaurant seat 6 people, so when it's full I reckon it's packed and quite noisy. As in many Japanese restaurants in Singapore, the atmosphere is busy, and not exactly very cozy or romantic, so I would recommend the place rather for a night out with friends than for a romantic dinner.

Shin Kushiya's menu is extensive to say the least, and we took quite some time in ordering. There is always staff around, and as long as you can attract their attention, they are quite friendly and helpful, if sometimes a bit young and inexperienced. For two people, we ordered Cha Soba (thin, cold buckwheat noddles flavored with green tea powder), Garlic Rice, Sake Butteryaki (pan butter grilled salmon), the Sushi Favorites and Sashimi Moriwase. To drink, we only ordered green tea and water. 

First off, the Shushi and Sashimi were very decent, both in terms freshness and taste. I'm not a big fan of of soba, but I reckon they were ok as well, though nothing that would make me order this dish again. Unfortunately, Shin Kushiya's Sake Butteryaki and Garlic Rice were both sub par and lacking in flavor. In contrast to the Sushi and Sahimi, the Sake Butteryaki did not taste very much of Salmon, and as butter in itself does not exactly have a very intense flavor, the whole affair was rather bland. what surprised me is how they managed to get the Garlic Rice wrong. I mean, this dish is so simply and would require nothing more than a bit of fresh garlic, rice and maybe some herbs and seasoning to round it all off, but Shin Kushiya instead delivered a bowl of rice that was nearly devoid of taste.

Overall, I'd say the more expensive dishes, such as the sushi and sashimi were worth their money, whereas the cheaper dishes all disappointed. At the end of our meal, we were sated, but our bellies were not bursting, and the bill was slightly north of SGD 100. I might go back to Shin Kushiya in a pinch, but it certainly wont make it to the top of my review list of favorite restaurants anytime soon. 

3/5 Stars

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