The Flyin' Bread

The Flyin' Bread is a nice and cosy eatery located in the basement 3 of Somerset 313 (one of the newest malls in Singapore), right above Somerset MRT, on the very popular Orchard Road. Although they don't provide any seating, patrons are free to use tables and chairs conveniently located around the eatery.

Our visit to The Flyin' Bread was decided very suddenly, when we were wondering where to eat before we headed out to watch "Up In The Air". Initially, we didn't even have any plans of featuring this on Foodie Express, but we all liked the food so much and its been a while since all the core Foodie Express foodies met up to explore restaurants.

They are mainly a take-out eatery and serve up some fantastic rolls. While most of the rolls are non-vegetarian, they do have a paneer (cottage cheese) roll and I think a mushroom based roll too. Oh, they also serve some refreshing fruit smoothies.

Between the five of us, we ordered a variety of paneer, egg and chicken rolls. The rolls come in three sizes - Small, Medium and Large. Small rolls have one kebab stuffed inside the roomali rotis (flour tortillas which are soft and thin as a handkerchief), where as the medium one have two and large ones have three.

Since its a completely open kitchen, we can see the chef making the rotis. He even does  the trick of flinging the dough into the air and then catching it.

I ordered a paneer medium roll along with a mango smoothie and had a very memorable next 5 minutes relishing both the items. The roll as such was very very tasty with a hint of Indian flavour in the stuffing. Even though I had two kebabs inside the roll, I didn't feel it to be heavy. Quite a light but satisfying meal.

The food and the drinks can either be ordered separately or as a combo meal, which definitely works out to a dollar or two cheaper. Price wise, if you order the combo, it will cost you about 7 to 8 dollars. Definitely value for money. I will definitely return back. My only grouse is that there were just two vegetarian options - paneer and mushroom. I just wish they had a couple of more. Maybe corn, potato, etc..

All photos are courtesy of the owners, who very graciously let me use their photos. Since this was not a pre-planned Foodie Express outing, I hadn't taken my camera.

Shorry Shorry!

Presenting my current obsession -





I am kind of hooked onto Korean music since the past couple of days. Must ask my Korean colleague for some nice songs.

Obsession of the month...

is this song -

The first time I heard it and was LOLing about "ni woofer tu meri,meri, mein tera amplifier". But then, the song slowly crept into my mind and now refuses to get out. Not that I am complaining

:D

Bali - 3

Parts 1 and 2 be found here and here.

The rest of the second day was spent in visiting a couple of temples and watching a performance of the Kecak dance. The first temple we visited was the Goa Gajah temple. Goa means cave and Gajah means elephant. So, it translates to Elephant Cave. There are carvings on many menacing looking creatures at the entrance of the cave and one of them is believed to be that of an elephant. Hence the name - Elephant Cave.

Like most temples in Bali, one has to be dressed in a traditional sarong (a wrap around) to enter the cave so as to respect the religious sentiments. Everyone is provided with a  sarong at the entrance (which is included in the 10000 rupiah entrance fee), which has to be returned later. It is said that this temple was built more than 700 years ago but was discovered only in the 1920's. At the entrance of the cave, one can see many pieces of ruins arranged in a small field. The local guide told us that this was from the entrance of the cave, which was damaged due to an earthquake. One can also find huge pieces from a status of Buddha nearby, which is also believed to have been destroyed by an earthquake.

We then went to visit another temple, but I have completely forgotten its name. You see, temples are generally not high on my 'must-see-things' list when I am on a holiday. But, then again each of the temple we visited had this serene atmosphere, where one feels that he/she can think in peace. A place where one can contemplate on his/her life without getting distracted by the trivialities of everyday life. I don't know how most temples manage to have that atmosphere.

By now, it had started getting dark and we ended our sight-seeing day by watching a performance of the kecak dance performed at one of the local institutions. The speciality of this dance performance is that they don't use any musical instruments. Instead the entire background music is provided by the chants of many men, who seemed to chant many variations of the sound 'cak'. The dance is actually a musical drama which depicts some of the prominent scenes from the Ramayana. Now, the Ramayana is not new to Indians and hence we were able to understand what is happening. We were also provided with brochures which explained the scenes which were being enacted for the benefit of the non-hindu or a non-Indian audience. There was even a fire dance, where one of the dancers danced on a burning dry coconut skins. That kind of freaked me out a bit. Just imagine, this guy does it almost every day.

The day ended with a hearty dinner at this restaurant called Simpang Cafe, which is located quite close to where we were staying. Infact, we ended up going there for dinner on both the nights we stayed at Bali. Not only did they serve fantastic food, they had a vegetarian menu. They did great with the vegetarian versions on Nasi Goreng and Mee Goreng. One word - YUM! My dinner there on both days were accompanied with a glass of orange juice. I was pleasantly surprised that the orange juice tasted a bit different from what we generally have here in Singapore. It was like they had added some special/exotic herb to the juice. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My friend told me later that it was the natural taste of the oranges grown in that region and that no herb was added to the juice as such. It was fantastic! One should definitely try out a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in Bali. The dinner marked the end of a hectic day for me. While my friends continued partying at one of the clubs, I retired early to catchup on some much needed sleep. It was bliss.

The next day was spent shopping for souvenirs and getting a relaxing massage at one of the massage parlours around the hotel. Like I had mentioned in my first post on Bali, Jln Legian is a great place to stroll around and shop. Lovely stuff!

I will definitely visit Bali again to look at many places which I missed out on during this holiday due to lack of time. On my list are the black sandy beaches in the north of Bali and the towering Gunung Agung.

Bali - 2

Part 1 of the series can be found here. 

While the day was spent in a quiet way, we all decided to make the night a happening one. Plans were promptly made to check out the club(s). My friend, who had visited Bali previously suggested that we had to visit Kudeta. But we couldn't get reservations since it was a weekend I guess. So we went to checkout the other places. As long as I got to drink alcohol, be a bit high and there is good music and company around, I didn't care where we went to :P

Looks like Bali has some of the most hip and happening nightlife and restaurants in south east Asia. They are all so chic and classy that its quite easy to get mesmerized. I just couldn't get enough of such places and was quite in awe! Not that Singapore doesn't have such places, but I had never imagined Bali would be that way. Not that I am complaining. I have always been a sucker for class and sophistication ;)

After partying most of the night away, I woke up quite sleepy-eyed. But there was no time to go back to bed. I was in Bali for just about three days and there was no way I was going to spend it sleeping in a hotel room. After a nice and refreshing breakfast, it was time to hit the road and soak in the other sights that Bali had to offer.

We had engaged a driver and a car to show us around and hence didn't bother to find out about the public transport options available. We started off with a visit to Sanur beach, which was just about ok. The beach seemed to be quite shallow and it looked like one could walk quite a bit into the sea with the water level still below the knees. But, the beach offered nice views of flights approaching a landing at the Ngurah Rai International airport. 

It was quite a hot day and we were more than happy to get back into the cool confines of our car and proceed to our next destination - Ubud. Enroute, we stopped at a Batik art centre, where we could see the local crasftmen making Batik prints. I was under the impression that batik was an exclusive Indian art, but apparently its not. A quick look at the wikipedia entry on Batik tells that it is extensively practiced in Indonesia too. The Batik art centre even had a huge showroom adjoining where one could buy shirts and other items of clothing with batik prints.

We stopped for lunch at this wonderful restaurant called as Adia Asri. Oh, what a fantastic place with a fantastic view and serving up some fantastic fare. YUM YUM YUMMY! They even had a separte Vegetarian section in the menu. I think I almost jumped up and down with joy. 

Whenever I visit a new place, I always do some research beforehand on the different types of food available there, the specialties, exotic stuff. But, somehow on this trip, I was not at all excited about the food. Probably because I knew that there would hardly be any vegetarian options other than gado-gado perhaps. Again, I was pleasantly surprised. Every restaurant we went to happily obliged us when asked for vegetarian versions. One more thing which I noticed was the way in which food was presented. Almost in every place, it was neatly arranged and so visually appealing. Perfect!

Karala Special

Ubud is the cultural capital of Bali. I believe there are quite a few museums but we didn't visit them. We spent most of our time looking around Puri Saren Ubud or the Ubud Palace. It was a cute and charming place. Somehow, I had a very relaxed feeling when I was around the palace. While my friends we busy taking snaps, I was quite content with observing the palace through my own eyes (Ah! The advantages of not taking a camera). I don't know much about the history of this palace, but we were told that some people still reside in the palace. Wow! Imagine that. It would be so lovely to stay there.

And oh! We also happened to meet a very very friendly and adorable dog, who seemed to enjoy all the attention that the visitors were bestowing upon him/her. Awwww! I think I almost dissolved into a puddle. If ever in my life I have a dog (maybe I should, Hmmmmm....), I want him/her to be just as friendly as this dog. I had always been scared of dogs my entire life, but ever since this happened, I have developed a soft corner for them.

We later visited the market situated next to the palace. It was a typical touristy market selling many souvenirs and other such stuff. It was very reminiscent of India with prices being quoted more than double. Significant bargaining is expected.

More in the next post.

All photos are by Srivats.

Bali - 1

Ah! Bali. How do I even start writing about my whirlwind trip to the charming island? A place which is special to me now, for various reasons. 

I have been meaning to visit Bali from almost the time I came to Singapore. I had heard much about its beauty, exotic locales and the beautiful people. Needless to say, I was itching to see for myself this paradise, which conveniently is just a 2.5 hour flight from Singapore. Its things like these, which makes me feel very happy about staying in Singapore. Singapore is located in such a strategic location in South-east asia that any place is just a short flight away. You name it - Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Hong Kong & China. Even the western parts of Australia also for that matter. Strong presence of three budget airlines - AirAsia, Tiger and JetStar serving most of these destinations ensures that it is not hard to clinch a good deal on the airfare from Singapore.

So when my friend sent me an message informing me of 70 dollar (all inclusive) return fare to Bali, I jumped at the chance and booked tickets almost immediately. Initially I was a bit apprehensive about going on a trip with people whom I did not know all that well, but then isn't that how friendship grows from a formal "Hello! How are you?" to a casual "Stop eating me head you ass!" :P Anyway, I am so glad I did go on the trip.

I love traveling with AirAsia. I haven't had any problems with them so far and I think the combination of Red with Black upholstery inside the cabin looks very classy. Yes, that is how I choose which airline I want to travel with - choice of colours :P

Anyway, I am digressing. Lets get back to Bali. It looks like the runway of Ngurah Rai international airport at Bali has actually been built on reclaimed land. The runway almost entirely juts out into the sea. So, when our flight was approaching the landing, it looked like we were going to land right over the water. Its just at the last moment, I spotted the tarmac below. Perfect landing. The buildings of the airport have been built in the typical Balinese architecture. Infact most of the houses and old buildings in Bali have a conical roof. A unique thing I noticed about these conical roofs is that the base of all these  cones were squares. I hardly ever spotted a rectangle. Err.... I just reread what I have written and it sounds so geeky. No wonder things like this happen.

Indians are eligible for an on arrival visa to enter Indonesia. I was already mentally prepared for long queues at the immigration. Surprisingly it was super fast and very efficient. Btw, do you people know what is the coolest thing in the whole wide world? Its the automatic immigration machines at Changi airport. Oh dear lord! God bless Changi  airport and Singapore. It took me less than 10 seconds to clear immigration.

We had already booked our accommodation. Our hotel was very conveniently located along Jln Legian, which has shops and restaurants on either sides, is a very charming place. It has many famous brands lined up alongside quaint little shops selling artifacts and other cutesy stuff. I would personally love to walk along Jln Legian on a day just randomly looking around and wandering around such shops at my own pace. Perfect for a relaxed day with nice weather. Speaking of weather, Bali has a very tropical climate and is quite hot during the daytime. But the humidity is much less when compared to Singapore.

The first day was spent just roaming around our hotel, visiting the beach and restaurants. Actually, Bali is a great place for surfing. One will find lots of people doing that. Kuta beach is the place to be to see people surfing. Infact, many famous surfing brands have a presence in Kuta/Legian.

More in the next post. In the meanwhile, here is a teaser.

Tequila Blue

I don't know what exactly about Mexican food excites me. Maybe its the flavour or the vibrant colours or many vegetarian options. Or maybe its a mix of all these things. So, its high time that I feature a Mexican restaurant in FoodieExpress. Presenting, ladies and gentlemen, the latest discovery by our resident consultant, Ms. Sayesha - Tequila Blue. Its situated at Changi Village, very close to the Changi ferry terminal and the Changi Bus terminal.

My all time favourite Mexican place in Singapore is Cafe Iguana. Well, Cafe Iguana now has a competitor. After my visit to Tequila Blue, its has definitely been added to my favourites list. Not only was the food great, but they had a wide variety of veggie options.

They had quite an interesting ambience. Check out this hilarious poster that we saw at the entrance.

They even had a foosball table, where we played a few games. Needless to say, I lost hopelessly. I still need to get hang of that game. Also noticed was a pedestal kind of thing, where had kept many bottles of tequila. It resembled the typical positioning of gods as depicted in a bollywood movie. Haha! Well, some people consider tequila as god. :P

We quickly placed an order for a jug of mango margherita, a plate of Nachos Grande, Quesadilla and Jalapeno Rellenos. While we were waiting for the food to arrive, I was experimenting with my friend's new DSLR camera, doing random photography and also taking pictures in the manual mode. It was nice fun. I liked this particular photo very much.

Ofcourse, I also loved the photo I took of all of us, but I cannot post that here, else we will be hounded by the paparazzi on Singapore streets. LOL!

Mango Margherita

Our food arrived shortly. First came the Nachos, followed by the Quesadilla and Jalapeno Rellenos. They dishes were lovely and I had to quickly take a few pictures before my friends attacked the food. My yelling at them to not touch the food before I can take pictures does not seem to have its desired effect anymore. Here are a couple of pictures that I managed to take before we devoured the food.

Nachos Grande

Jalapeno Rellenos

Quesadilla

For the main course, the vegetarian items ordered were a Veg Burrito, Veg Enchilada and a Veg burger. They quickly found their way to our table. I had more time to take pictures though as my friends were busy devouring the appetizers.

Enchillada

Burrito

Veg Burger

The food was quite good overall and I would definitely recommend this place to people. The dinner and drinks can be followed by a leisurely walk on Changi beach situated nearby. If you like to watch planes land and take off, Changi beach is one of the places to be. Great views of all sorts of flights landing and taking off at the ever busy Changi airport.

The bill came to about 150 bucks for 5 of us, which makes it about 30 bucks per head. Quite affordable by Singapore standards. This restaurant was good value for money. If you are in or around Changi and looking for a place to eat, do consider visiting this place. You won't go back disappointed.

Woods Bio Marché

Presenting the next installment in Foodie Express - Woods Bio Marché. This post is for all those people who tell that we visit restaurants in the east only. This particular restaurant is in the north. About 350 km north of Singapore to be precise. In Kuala Lumpur. I had clearly mentioned that Foodie Express will be sort of a vegetarian's guide to Singapore restaurants. But then, rules are meant to be broken :P And we sort of got carried away. Hehe!

We happened to come across this restaurant purely by chance. On our recent road trip to KL, we were walking around the Bukit Bintang area looking for a place to eat, when we chanced upon this place serving organic, vegetarian and vegan food. My curiosity was certainly piqued. A quick look at the menu and we found ourselves inside the restaurant, ready to order.


The place served mainly vegetarian/vegan versions of local dishes such as Nasi Lemak, Noodle soup apart from a couple of Western items. They had quite an interesting and colourful menu. Also mentioned on the menu, under each dish was its health value, like Anti-oxidant, Stamina, Relaxation etc.


It is such a relief to go to an all vegetarian restaurant. The knowledge that I can order anything from the menu is like a major high in itself. I will usually be found asking the waiter/waitress if a particular dish can be made vegetarian. But this, was something lovely.

As usual, I was confused on what to order. I am generally the last to decide. So, while my friends waited patiently, I zeroed in on Dumpling Soup. Orders were also placed for a Fusion Nasi Lemak set, Nonya curry somen (noodles) and a soyabean burger. While we were waiting for food to arrive, we indulged in some mindless chit-chat, people watching and random photography.


The items arrived one by one. First came the Nasi Lemak set.


followed by the Nonya curry somen,


dumpling soup


and finally the burger


I think the highlight of the entire meal was Nasi Lemak. It was very very tasty. It came along with a side of some chopped vegetables, roasted peanuts and some sambal paste. Yummy!

The dumpling soup was quite good too. The stuffing has coarsely powdered peanuts mixed along with it, which gave the dish a very interesting twist. Soft(the covering) and crunchy(due to the peanuts).

The noodles in Nonya curry was great, especially the veggies. Not overpowering like some curries generally are.

The burger was just about ok. Not particularly a big fan of the mock meat patty.

They even had vegan coffee (I am guessing made with soy milk), but I wasn't in an adventurous mood. So didn't try it. Somehow, I am not all that adventurous when it comes to coffee. There is just one or two ways in which I like my coffee and I don't prefer it having any other way.

I would definitely visit this place again. Now that I think of my visit to this place, I feel that I didn't spend enough time there to completely soak in the place or try out a few more dishes. Like my visit isn't complete or there are some loose ends which need to be tied.

I personally felt that the prices were quite cheap compared to Singapore standards. We paid about 56 Ringgits for the entire meal for 5 people, which comes to about 23 Singapore dollars. Holy Cow! That is incredibly inexpensive. We would have probably spent 60-70 dollars minimum at such a restaurant in Singapore.

You can read more about them here.

Naive

I just don't know how to start describing this restaurant - Naive. Oh! I was so taken in by it. You know, when one is looking forward to something for a long time and when that something actually happens and it turns out to be just as amazing as one had expected it, if not better - that is exactly how our visit to Naive unfolded. It was a long pending visit, which when we finally visited, matched up exactly to how I had expected it to be.

Situated on East coast road, opposite to Katong Mall, the restaurant cannot be missed. I particularly liked their name board done up in black and white.


And while we are on the topic of the location of the restaurant, most of the posts on FoodieExpress so far have concentrated on restaurants in the eastern part of Singapore. That is mainly because we stay in the east and there are many restaurants that are yet to be explored here. That is one of the main reasons I shifted to the east :P Although I would like to mention that we are willing the travel the entire country in search of restaurants which serve up good vegetarian fare. If you know restaurants in the north, north-east or the west which meets this need and is non-Indian(preferably), do leave a comment and we will try to visit place and blog about it!

Okay, back to Naive. I am feeling a bit lazy and at a loss of words to compose this post. So, I will let the pictures do most of the talking.

The owners have a nice vision for their restaurant as can be seen from this picture and I was quite impressed.


The cover page of the menu.


I generally like glancing though reading the menu. I usually take my own sweet time to do that, like I am studying for an exam. After studying the menu, I am invariably confused on what to order because there will be atleast four or five items which I would want to try but I cannot, since I have a small appetite (being a foodie is not exactly about the quantity. Its about quality and variety!). So I generally bully my friends into ordering what I want and yell at politely remind them, if they touch the dish before I can take a photo of it :P

The drinks menu had interesting names for the drinks on offer.


We ordered the Passion of Life


and the Sour Power


But, Passion of Life tasted more sour than Sour power. LOL! While both the drinks were quite good, I liked Sour Power better!

Before the start of every meal, they have a Japanese inspired "Bloss" ceremony during which the diners are provided with a mortar and a pestle, which they use to grind some toasted sesame seeds, which can be sprinkled over the meal later.


Sayesha partaking in the "bloss" ceremony.


For starters, we ordered Penang Rendang along with some steamed buns which were very soft.


You can either tear a piece of the buns and dip it in the gravy and eat it or you could stuff the bread with the gravy(like a pita bread) and eat it.

We also ordered a plate of Mega Mini Mushroom, which is the recommended dish. And boy! We were so enamoured by this dish that we promptly ordered another plate of it. The dish comprised of succellent Lingzhi mushrooms fried and then mixed with a spicy szechuan sauce. Oh! It was very tasty. This is definitely one of the must have items at Naive.


Moving on, we ordered Wolfberry soup, Tom yam soup and a Organic mushroom miso soup! The soups were very well done. I personally liked the Wolfberry soup and it has a very comforting feel to it. Like being wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold day!


For the main course, we ordered a few bowls of Olive rice (creatively named as Oliver Twist on the menu) and a bowl of brown rice along with "Spice of Life" and a plate of Sambal Broccoli respectively. Spice of Life comprised of vegetables which were sauteed in a spicy kongpo sauce. The sauce was quite similar in taste to the sauce in Mega mini mushroom dish. Nevertheless, it was quite good and went along very well with the Olive rice.



The Sambal Brocolli was quite good too!


One might notice (especially an Indian customer) that the vegetables in most dishes are quite raw. Infact, that is a very common complaint that I have heard from fellow Indian colleagues and friends. They feel that the vegetables are not cooked at all and that is one of the main reasons why they dont like eating the local food. As Indians, we are so used to eating dishes where the vegetable have been cooked tender along wth the spices in such a way that the flavour of the spices are more prominent than that flavour of the vegetable. This is not the case with many south east Asian dishes as is explained in this post.

Moving along to the dessert, we noticed that they don't have anything specifically mentioned on the menu. But, they do serve a dessert of the day. On the day we went, the desserts on offer were a pumpkin based item and a pear based item. We ordered the latter and this is what we got -


It was maily boiled pears along with some chinese almonds served in a mildly flavoured broth. We didn't like it so much. Maybe we should have ordered the pumpkin dessert.

Dinner costed us about 140 bucks for six of us, which boils down to about 22 buck per head. Not at all expensive considering and is definitely worth a visit. I am surely going to visit this place again!

Naive
99, East coast Road
Singapore - 428795
www.naivecompany.com