Food Republic

today, i brought anja (pronounced "AN-YAH") out for lunch at orchard road. i had initially intended to take her for sushi but she beat me to it by having it yesterday. as a result, we headed to food republic because it was a good place to introduce the concept of food court and local food.

i asked wai and edward along because it was a good opportunity for anja to meet the locals and brush up on her singlish english.

waimin so very pretty LARH!



check out the spread!

we had the three evils: char kway teow, oyster omeletter and fried hokkien mee, along with fried carrort cake, popiah and pad thai.



our asian carrot cake! devoid of cream cheese, walnuts and erm actually carrots too.. turnip is an ingredient featured majorly in our asian carrot cake.. the verdict? it was pretty good and anja loved it..

Thye Hong hokkien mee..

WAIT WAIT.. not so quick! prior to this, you have to join a resonably-quick queue, yup even on a weekday. i dread to think of what the queue is like on a weekend..

now this is my cue to take on the role of the devil's advocate.

WHAT IS THE BIG FUSS?! it's the singapore herd mentality.. join the queue when you see one, be it for free fruit juice samples or hello kitties.. and even if you have no clue on how good the food is.

i feel really stupid to have made edward line up simply because it was horrible. you have the normal ingredients of egg noodles, thick vermicilli, egg, squid, big prawns, lard ya-dah.. and somehow it shouldn't be that easy to screw up especially since the hawker would have had experience.. but it sure tasted like NOTHING. as in bland and uninspiring.. it doesn't even qualify as pedastrian since most next-door hokkien mees are at least decent..

why does it happen to be the most popular store? i have no clue. zilch.


i still prefer the popiah from takashimaya's food hall

and the pad thai is nothing to shout about.. in fact, have it only if your life depended on it. THAT and if you have a cursed skin disease that causes you to break out in can't-stop-itching hives if you see a plate of pad thai and delibrately avoid it.

this plate of char kway teow is from the same hokkien mee stall. not the tastiest i have had but compared with the horrendous hokkien mee, this one at least made it down my oesophagus.

well, we are on an uphill here.. featured on the left is the oyster omelette (from the same hokkien mee stall). this was delectable, right down to the very last oily eggy bit.





after lunch, we introduced anja to the concept of "dessert by the road".

yup, from our very own uncle and his motorcart stash of potong ice cream.

smile for happy day!