Yong He Eating House - Yuo Tiao Da Wang

I'm sure many Singaporeans have heard and/or been to this eatery at Geylang Rd for their extra long You Tiao and Soya Bean Milk. Or they would have had the famous Beef Hor Fun at the Zhi Cha stall beside the eartery. Either way, Yong He Eating House or what we usually call You Tiao Da Wang ( King of You Tiao ) people here commonly rely to when they want some comfort food that they can trust.

Yong He Eating House is open 24 hours a day. I strongly recommend their Soya Bean Milk ( $0.70), You Tiao ($0.80) , Beancurd, and this fried raddish cake with omelette thingy. Tried their Xiao Long Baos a couple of times and we weren't impressed. Tao Yuan's version is way better.

Their soya bean milk is very good, though i'm not really a conosieur on soya bean milk but this one that they had was good in the sense it dun makes you thirsty after downing a glass of it like how some soya bean milk does. Similarly they beancurd was fantastic. To me it taste as smooth and wholesome as the one at Rocher.

Their You Tiao is one must-try when u visit Yong He Eating House. Their version is a whopping 35-40cm monster ( jus aga-ration but definately longer than the usual ones at the local markets ). Yeah, size doesn't matter. That's when you haven see the full glory of Yong He's You Tiao. What's amazing , apart from it's size, is the crispiness of the You Tiao. Try dipping it inot a glass of soya bean milk and take a bite off it. Leave the remaining on the plate and carry on with other items, come back 5-10 minutes later and your You Tiao will be still erected and crispy. That's what i call Da-Wang ( The King ) , You Tiao Da Wang that is. Kenny Sia has got 2 huge coconuts but does he have what it takes to be hailed as the You Tiao Da-Wang?


Alos must try is their this item which i always have problem remembering the name. It's basically a fried Raddish cake ( not the ones made from flour,.This one contains the real stuff, shredded Raddish ) topped with fried Omelette. Sounds slightly pretentious but this stuff is good. It's oily, it's sinful, it's flavourful, it's ... so good.... Please do try it if you'rew there. Only like $2.50.

As for the Xiao Long Baos, on the few occasions when GF and myself went, they were lackluste. My take is that they had steamed the life ( and juices ) out of the tiny little baos. However the Xiao Long Baos were still very tasty and meaty. Just lack the that bit of juices flowing out of the baos when you bite a small hole in them.

Overall it's a place where i will go for some late night supper for some You Tiaos and Soya Bean Milk. Quite convienently located near Sims Ave and some sleazy alleys of Geylang, and just besides the main road. Nearest MRT should be Kallang and from there a 10 minute walk to Yong He Eating House. Otherwise just flat a cab at Kallang MRT and direct the cabby to the famous You Tiao Da Wang. Alternatively you can hop on to bus service number 51 ( or some other bus service, not too sure abt the service numbers but i'm sure there's plently serving the area) .

Another thing to note is their service is prompt and food is served quite quickly. There used to be a lot of those Feng Chen Nu Zhi ( sex-workers) in ultra low-cut blouse, in thick makeups sitting inside the eatery for some snacks. Hardly seen any in our recent visits.

Bottle Tree Village

General Office enquiry@bottletree.com.sg
General Sales and sales of plants sales@bottletree.com.sg
Event Booking and Enquiries events@bottletree.com.sg
TEL: 67554056
FAX: 67532491

Restaurant Reservation And Enquiries
TEL: 67526953

Our Address:
60 JALAN MEMPURONG,
SINGAPORE 759058

GF heard so much about the Bottle Tree Villlage online that she makes it the venue for our dinner last Sat evening. I would say the map provided from the Bottle Tree Village wasn't that detailed. We made a few wrong turns here and there only to find our way there at the very last minute before we decide to abandon the idea of having our dinner there.

Apparently Bottle Tree Village serves "Zhi Cha" style food. From what i gather from GF, the atmosphere here is fantastic. Situated a stone throw away from the beach, the place looks cosy and most importantly, sea breezes blows in to keep the diners cool while they dug in into their chilli crabs, steamboats...

Flipping thru their menu, they have many interesting dishes ( Deep Fried Fresh Prawns with Salted Egg, Banana Scallops etc ) . And they serve many usual favourites like Chilli Crabs, Fishhead Steamboat, Steam Fresh Fish/Prawns, Hor Fun, Hokkien Mee, etc.

The constant problem about dining at such a restuarant with only a companion is always the food to order. So our dinner for the night was their Fried Rice ( GF is a major fried rice freak ), a Pai-Ku-Wang ( Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs ), and a Claypot San-Pei Ji ( 3-cup Chicken ).

The fried rice was so-so (2/5). It tasted a bit bitter, perhaps the cook didn't washed the wok properly before cooking up our fried rice, or he had take his attention off the wok while cooking the dish. Either way, we're not please with the Fried Rice.

The Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs was pretty well executed ( 3.5/5 ). The ribs were huge and tender. I kindof suspect they used curry powder to season their ribs as i felt a slight hint of curry in the ribs. The sweet and sour sauce was a little too thick but still good anyway.

The Claypot 3-Cup Chicken ( 3 Pei Ji ), a chinese dish that has its roots in Taiwan-China. Ever had this once when i was in Taiwan-China, for a government sponsored activity. Here, the chicken is coated with flour and deep-fried prior to cooking together with the 3 cups of all-essential sauces ( seasame oil, rice wine, soy sauce.. i think ). Somehow the meat tasted a bit bitter ( strangely bitter ) too.

Overall a good dining experience. Food quality was okie but some very fantastic HDB Zhi-Chas i've been will put Bottle-Tree-Village to shame. However considering it's ulu location, the place was near full house when we were there. IS there something that they know thet we dun? ... hmmmmHowever if u want a place for dinner without feeling stuffy, with sea breezes brushing by you, good atmosphere, simple food, quantity at the expense of quality, den do give Botle-Tree-Village a try.

For me and GF, we're probably making a trip soon to try their Fish-head Steamboat. No more Fried Rice though this time.

Bangkok - EatFatFat random pics

We went to the 4-face Buddha to pray for good luck. GF's in her final year of her degree and hopefully she can maintain her excellent results and graduate with a equally great degree. Before the trip she had been headhunted by a MNC for a position in Germany and she was confused whether to go for it or not. I know what's stopping her was our relationship.

You know the funny thing about the whole situation. Of course i would rather have her by my side then let her venture far away from me. I started worrying if she fall sick would there be anyone to take care of her, to keep her company. Den i reflected on my past and i thought a lot about many things.

"To love is to give it wings." I told GF that she should go for the interview and do her best to get the position. Be it 2 years, 3 years or 5 years, i would want her to try and live without regards. It's an honour to be offered a chance of a lifetime and dun want to see her miss it because of me. For me i'll just continue with my life, work hard and wait for her return. I even joked that if the appointment was to be a long term one, i wouldn't mind going there with her as her "Expat-Husband".

I even thought of things to do when i'm there. I'll cook German Baked Trotters, drink German beer, watch German tv, sing German songs, be a German desperate house-husband. Hiak hiak hiak....

Call me an idealist. I believe that as long as both of us are happy, we will enjoy doing anything together. I dun mind carrying a huge bottle of mineral water in my haversack, running around BKK with you, carrying your barang-barangs, obediently taking out the file on out itinaries from a ultra-pack haversack each and everytime u asked for it. Just as long as you're happy, i'll be happy too. But i really though you could do without that much Naraya bags... lolz.

We prayed for good luck and good health at the 4-face Buddha. Actually since i'm a novice to BKK, i had intitially thought the 4-face Buddha would be a huge establishment like say our Loyang Tua Peh Gong or the Guan Yin Temple at ( si-bey-loh aka 4-horse-road). That probably explains my reaction when GF brought me to this corner of the Hyatt Hotel and told me this was it. I was like huh, "what-the-my-amituofou, shan zai shan zai"


Really an eye-opener for a sua-ku like me. A simple offering with jokesticks , a candle and 4 bundle of flowers cost 200BHT.


Chatuchak Market

On the saturday morning, a day before our flight back, we went to Chatuchak Market (CTC) for some shopping.

Some really interesting happened to us. Coming out from the BTS station, we saw this huge group of people in white forming up along the road besides CTC. As we walked down towards CTC, we were quickly caught in the middle of the crowd. Den something happened. This group of aunties directly in front of us raised up a huge banner, chanting something in Thai we we dun understand.

Then it hit me. could we have caught outselves in the anti-Thaksin protest? Got so zun-bo. I grab GF's hands and we did a belok kiri to overtake the group, only to find a camera crew fliming us coming out from behind the huge banner. And the best thing was GF and i were in white polo Ts. I held GF's hands tight and made a beeline for the entrance to CTC.

Anyway we were being too nervy. We found out after our shopping at CTC that the crowd were a pro-Thaksin rally. Anyway back to our day at CTC. CTC was like this massive piece of real estate with nothing but a few huge metallic low-level structures, with perhaps thousands of stalls inside. We dun even know where to start.

The place is huge. And there are so many stalls selling the same thing over and over again that i thought gotten over at Suam Lum. Anyway GF made a few purchases there. Slippers, shoes, Voodoo dolls ... For myself i got a few of these really cute plastic thingy that resembles, say an egg. And you are suppose to throw the thing so hard it smashes onto the floor and spread itself out like a sunny sideup. So cute. GF got the tomato one whereas i got the egg and the smiley.

GF really took the effort to buy some simple gift for her friends. Take the voodoo dolls for example. We did find some common ones in small medium and big sizes. But these are the same design jus size difference. We search all round CTC and found these really interesting voodoo dolls costing like 35bht each. You do like the one below? The little red devil voodoo doll.

We also made our way to the pets section of the CTC market. There were lots of puppies, fishes, rabbits, parrots, squrriels out there. It's more like a huge pets section of the CTC market. Check out the cute little rabbits and squrriels.

Weather soon got hotter and the market got very stuffy. We decided to adjourned to some other place for lunch and perhaps go back MBK for some shopping. On our way out we tried the roadside stalls selling bbq chicken.



We tried the BBQ drunmsticks ( 10BHT each ) and it was well marinated, served hot and definately fresh. If not for GF, i would have been glad to exchange my 1000 thai baht note with the stall owner for the drumsticks.

We also got some fresh fruits from the fruit stall besides the drumstick lady's.

So many varieties and each and every one look so delicious!~~!~. ANd it's cheap. Do give it a try should you visit BKK. Ask for the spicy plum powder to dip your fruits in. It's great!

World Trade Centre

On our second last day, we went back to WTC to get some Dunkin Donuts back for our family. In all we got 4 boxes, each with 6 items for less than 400 Baht. Can't seem to locate the Krispy Creme in BKK so this was the next best choice.

MBK treats

More often than not, we made MBK our backup shopping cum makan heaven should GF want some more shopping before the night markets open or for some after lunch exercise.

Remembered reading so much about the Loh-Bak in MBK. Figured out we could give it a try since we were there. Situated in a food-court at the top level of MBK, one has to purchase coupons and use the coupons to pay for the food. Couldn't really figure out the logic behind it but we had only one goal, that was to try the Loh-Bak there.

The food courts there had so many variety. From beef noodles to phad thai to Japanese food. And all the food looks so tempting. GF adviced that we should just try the Loh-bak and reserve our stomach for some other food later on. I agree.

Costing 180BHT for the set, it comes with a whole piece of deboned pig trotter, 2 eggs, freshly cooked vegetables and preserved vegetables ( Kiam Chai ). The Braised meat was absoluting delicious. Soft and full of flavour it simply melts in the mouth. Actually i prefers a bowl of warm "bey" ( porridge ) to go with the loh bak than the rice.

Please do try this if u happens to be in MBK. you won't be disappointed. Oh and please dun forget to try the mango sticky rice there too. We got the 80BHT serving and the portion was quite reasonable. The mango was very sweet, the rice cooked just right. The sesame seed sprinkled on top lifted the taste of the rice. The coconut milk used was very fresh and that makes the whole dish so fantastic. We couldn't have enough of this in BKK and even now GF still suffers from Post-Bkk-Syndrome and i have to tao-bao Mango sticky rice from Bali-Thai to stop-gap her craving.




We also had Bird's Nest Soup and Sharkfin Soup at "Lam Seng" ( didn't really catch the name ). Actually the interesting thing about us is that in Singapore i eat more than GF. But in BKK, she's the QUEEN of the hill. Still filling full after the Loh bah Lunch, GF quickly brought me to this restuarant for Sharksfin Soup and Bird's Nest Soup.

I dun really know how to appreciate such delicacies so i just eat with GF by my side explaining how and why the soups were delicious... For the first time in BKK, i was really full.....

Bar B Q Plaza at MBK

While shoppping in MBK one day, we passed by Bar BQ Plaza and found ourselves looking curiously at the diners inside the restuarant, watching how much they enjoy themselves. And i must say their bronze grilling plate sure pulls your attention away from the shopping for a while.

Made a mental note to try it some other day an we continued with our shopping. MBK is huge. Make that very huge. Everything u need could be found here in MBK. So much so that i do find prices here cheaper than say Suam Lam Night Market. But then that's my personal opinion. Well at least they are airconditioned and having a meal in some creature comfort is not a problem here.

Back to Bar BQ Plaza. We were prompty served upon arriving. As usual there were some problems with communications but i guess some simple hand signals ( plus lots of Ji Tong Ya Jiang - Chicken and Duck Talk ) we managed to convey our message to them.

One thing i learnt from my trip to BKK is that the restuarant operators there are relatively generous in providing that special touch to their customers. Stuffs like providing free ice buckets, ice-green tea, ice chrysanthemum tea. I mean these are simple ( and inexpensive ) gestures but they goes a long way to show that they care about their customer's needs. Right here even in some cafes, pubs, eating joints, ice-PLAIN-water is chargable. I mean if you serve me Evian bottles water i LL but for some good-ole tap-water on the rocks you gonna charge me, then i'll probably say bye bye to you. Yes Tong-Shui-Cafe, i'm talking about you.

Flipping thru the menu, we were greeted with pages and pages of Thai. The only things i understand from the menu were some simple English translation of the items and their prices. Stating out preference for a non-beef menu, we were recommend Pork Set and Seafood Set. Perhaps we were surprise by how cheap the meal cost, we quickly ordered a Family Set ( with both Pork and Seafood sets ). Perhaps we were too ambitious cause the waitress looked at me in a "what-the-fark, you-mean-you-2-can-finish-our-Family-Set meals?" look. I admit we were both hungry and we weren't sure how big the serving would be. And did i mentioned we had ordered a serving of Fried Vietnamese Spring Rolls?
The Spring Rolls were very nice. Served hot, the outside was cripsy and the inside pipping hot. Radish, carrots, prawns, meat and spices made the filling. Wrapped them with the raw cabbage and thai mint leave, dipped the rolls into the thai sweet chilli sauce before popping them into the mouth. One work... S-H-I-O-K...

The Seafood set came with lots of fresh vegetables, fresh prawns, sotongs, chicken breasts, fish noodles, slices of fish and fishcakes.


The Pork Set came with lots of finely sliced pork tenderlion, livers, bacon, fish noodles, fishcakes and lots of vegetables.

The idea is simple. Basically to sort of pan-grill the meat of the round plate of to cook them shabu-shabu style in the groove around the outer rings of the bronze plate. Slices of pork lard were given to greeze the plate to prevent the meat from sticking to the plate.

For the vegetables, we dumped them into the outer ring to sort of shabu-shabu-ed them. Some how we could really figure out how the rest managed to scopes the soup out. Anyway we paid to cook our own food but we enjoyed it! The accompanying dipping sauce was damn shiok too. Taste like some sweet sauce with a hint of nutty flavour and a healthy mix of salt and sour in it. Dipping freshly cooked pork slices into it before sending it to you mouth... heaven...

GF's bowl of fried rice. Read "thai rice fried with EGGS and OIL".

On a hind note, Bar BQ Plaza. originated from Thailand, had started it's invasion down south. The last time i heard from my ex-NS buddy, now plying his trade in Malaysia, Bar BQ Plaza have set up shop in KL. Anyone can verify?

Brazil Churrascaria at Asia Hotel

Rio Grill, Asia Hotel,
296 Phayathai Rd, Bangkok
Tel 215-0808
Fax 215-4360
BTS Ratchathevi.
Open daily 11.30am-2pm, 6-10.30pm.
All major credit cards accepted


While reading about Bangkok off some local and oversea forums, i chance upon a review for Rio Grill - Brazilian Churrascaria. Have been wanting to try this back home and we i thought since we're going Bangkok, might as well we make a trip to Rio Gril to try Brazilian Churrascaria.

We made a reservation the same day morning. Since it was very near our hotel, we took a stroll there. First impression was the staffs were very friendly ( not something you'll always get here ) and the slad bar looks decent enough for me to really want to walk over from my table and grab something to eat.

I guess we were a little early and the restuarant was near empty when we reached. We were promptly lead to our tabel, a cosy little corner of the restuarant. The atmosphere was fantastic. Like wat GF would say, so romatic can.

What i like about here is the atmosphere is very nice, the staffs were very friendly and most importantly they were very helpful and polite. First stop ws to the salad bar for some greens. Took some beetroots, baked beans, some greens, tomatoes, eggs to share with GF. Nothing fantasic about the salad bar,just a word, sufficient.

After salad, the waitress promptly cleared the dishes and asked if we would like to be served the roast. We glad "accepted" their offer, i say "bring it on" .

Couldn't really remembers the squence but these were the meats served. Salmon, Chicken Wings, Sausages, Pork, Ostrich meat, Leg of Lamb, Beef and pineapple. I love the grilled Ostrich meat ( medium ), the grilled Salmon ( fantastic ), Leg of Lamb ( hardly any trace of yang-sao wei but a bit over done ), and the pineapples.

Of all the things, i remember clearly i grew sick ofpork in Bangkok. Everywhere you go there's this porky smell. And their pork had this strong pork smell, which can easily puts a eatfatfat guy like myself off. To me they smell stale but that's my opinion.

Basically the servers will serves you a round of all the meats on offer and you can choose which ones you wanna try. After all the meat been served, we will be asked which items we would wanna have seconds. I had seconds for wings, salmons, pineapples, ostrich.... I was damn full!~!~!~

The servers also recommends the sauces to go with the meat he serves and being our first time to such an establishment, we followed with great obedience. Lemon Chilli sauce for Salmon, Thai Chilli sauce for Ostrich, Mint sauce with leg of Lamb, Sweet Chilli sauce for the wings, and Brazilian Melho Sauce for the beef. In the end, i found Sweet Chilli sauce to be the most versatile and use it for the second helpings. Total damage comes to about 1500bhts. One thing to note is the ice water they serve is not FOC ( in fact 30bhts per bottle ) so order dun anyhow hamtum the ice water or the bill for the water will cost more than the meal itself.

Overall a great dining experience, except for the particular group of Singaporeans at the next table. Personally i found one of the lady in the group a little too snobbish. Found her attitude towards the staffs too ah-lan. Well, now i understand why Singaporeans are often penalised oversea for having an attitude problem. Hope it's just an isolated case.

BKK - Hard Rock Cafe

Address:Hard Rock Cafe Bangkok
424/3-6 Siam Square
Soi 11 Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Telephone:662-251-0797
Opening Hours:
Restaurant:Open Daily 11:00AM - 2:00AM
Merchandise:Open Daily 10:00AM - 2:00AM


On our second night in BBK, we made Hard Rock Cafe our dinner venue. Gotta check out the Hard Rock merchandise for a few colleagues. Anyway the cafe is quite a distance from the Siam BTS station. We had a hard time finding the place initially and it took us quite a while before we found our way there.

Having just had a scrumptious lunch at MBK, followed by lots of fresh fruits from Big C, we really could fill ourselves up anymore. interestingly the programme after dinner was to go Suam Lam Night Market so we thought we should jus "top-up" our fuel tank a little.

Hard Rock Cafe Bangkok is located near where we had A&W. I believe it's along the same stretch. Stepping into the cafe, we were warmly greeted by the friendly staffs and lead to our table. One interesting thing to note was we were polietly informed that after 730pm the the cafe will remove the no-smoking curfew.

I guess we were a little early that night and seats were still very much available. The table to our right sits 2 young japanese ladies ( dun mean to voyeur but the constant photo-taking, girlish laughing and the "warm reception" that was given to these 2 ladies made it very hard not to notice them ).

After looking thru the menu, we decide to just order something snack to share cause we were still feeling full. We ordered a Seafood Fajita to share. For drinks, GF had a Hard Rock Cafe Special Tea and i had 2 mugs of Singha Beer ( 1 for 1 ).
I could smell when i saw GF flipping thru the menu, looking attentively at the desserts section. She's a strong advocate that no matter how full anyone can be, there's always room for desserts. More often than not, i'm always glad to have some dessert at the end of a meal. Higher cholestrol, here i come....

People started pouring in after 730pm. Groups of office workers coming for a drink, farangs with uberly chio thai ladies ( i've been told the shemales were equally chio as well ). Anyway i guess it was a place for people watching as well.
After our drinks were served, GF told me her headache is getting bad. I quickly made a beeline for the nearest pharmacy to get some pain-killers. WPZ... the nearest store ( Boots ) was a good 10 minutes walk away and no one seems to understand what Panadols are. Luckily my army days had taught me Panadols are the same as Paracetamol and i managed to dig a packet out from the sea of thai displays. Wanted to adjourned back to our hotel after dinner but my lady insisted on shopping at Suam Lam. Nothing could stop them yeah.

Got back to the cafe and the Fijitas was served. Basically the dish is made up of stir fried seafood ( squids, prawns, chicken, onions, fillets of some white fish ), and there were 3 condiments to go with. One was a salsa-looking type of topping which was very good, the other a nutty-flavoured pesto-looking topping, and a cream cheese spread. And of course lots of shredded cheese. We got our hands down to make our own fajitas rolls. They were absolutely beautiful. The seafood were very fresh and cooked just right without the squid tasting like rubber. However we felt HRC could be a little bit more generous on the totillas as there was still quite a bit of seafood left after finsihing our totillas. But overall a great experience.

For desserts we had the Banana Pie. As simple as it may sound or even look, the bananas filling inside were very good. Just the right texture, it was creamy and delightfully sweet. Not saccharine-sweet but just the natural wholesome sweetness from the banana. But we could really do with less wipped cream. Really. The pie crust was almost insignificant but Gf and myself aint any pie nor dessert connoisseur, we just thought the Banana pie was excellent.

We agreed to have a light dinner and ended up eating even more. Luckily we went Suam Lam after it.