Ling Zhi Vegetarian - Novena

Very easy to find this place. You can come directly into Velocity from Novena MRT. So no need to go leave the lovely air con! As you can see below, there are three options in which you can choose from - lunch, hi tea or dinner. We went for the hi tea, which is $15.00 PAX ++. The Hi Tea is only available on weekends and public holidays, however. There is also a branch of Ling Zhi at Orchard, for those wanting the information of that branch, you can go to their website!

Ling Zhi Vegetarian Restaurant
Location: 238 Thomson Road, #03-09/10 Velocity, Novena Square Contact: 65382992
Opening Hours: 11am-3pm (lunch). 3pm-5pm (hi tea). 6pm-10pm (dinner).

Note - A lot of these dishes i've never tried before, so i will hold my hands up and say my opinion's on these dishes may be a little faulty. Apologies.

This Herbal Jelly is hardly my most favourite thing in the world. In fact, anything herbal i tend to run rampantly away from, haha. This is not too bad when honey is poured over it though. However, if you don't drown it in honey, then for me, it tastes like swimming pool water that's been made into a jelly. Yuck! But like i said, it's herbal is something i've never been able to appreciate, so my opinion might be a little blurred. If you like herbal, this might be for you!




Great presentation! Around the outskirts is the Carrot Cake. I had a couple of these, and didn't like them at all. The texture was so doughy, and hardly had any flavour, plus they can fill you up a lot! In the centre is the Pan Fried Dumpling's, unfortunately for these the 'skin' was way too rubbery and chewy. So both of these were a little underwhelming for me.






Here is the stack of Dim Sum's that are available, all different kinds to choose from.












Here is a selection of the 'finger food' snacks that they have on offer. Starting from nearest to the camera we have the Chicken Nuggets, then the BBQ Pork Pastry, and finally the Spring Rolls. All of these are very moreish. But having more is a big mistake! Because they will fill you very fast and leave you with no room to try the other things on offer. Take one or two only, then save your stomach for other things. All are very good in taste and texture, especially the chicken nuggets, which i have to admit, i ate too many of!



...More finger food. The Curry Puff's at the back were very tasty, but like with the food above, you shouldn't eat too many! Next to the curry puff's is the Yam Roll's, my stomach couldn't eat anymore, so unfortunately i didn't get a chance to try these. I'd have preferred the curry puff's to be a little more spicy, but of course, these are the Chinese version, and usually are more milder.






This is the Steamed Char Shao Bun, for this dish the char shao (or char siew) was a little too mushy. Also, the outer bun was not as fluffy as i'd hoped. But overall it was quite enjoyable. I've never tried the 'authentic' version of this dish, so i'm not sure how far off the mark they are, haha.








Next up we tried the Streamed Beancurd Vegetable Roll. This dish comes is quite a tasteful broth. The roll's are nice and soft and they really melt in your mouth. Overall a very good dish.









We ate lots of these Steamed Vegetable Dumplings! Overall the outer shell is not so good, but i still enjoyed them. It's worth mentioning that the fillings for these dim sum's are very generous!









As well as being able to pick what you want from the buffet, you can also order a la carte dishes (which don't cost extra), however, there are only a few dishes available. This Sauteed Monkey Head Mushrooms With Dried Chili was one of them. The portion is small, but i'm not paying for the dish individually, so i'm fine with it. We had to order two servings eventually.






These Sauteed French Beans were delicious! Not too soggy, but not too raw. And the taste could be considered one of the most impressive that i've tried. I am someone who loves long beans in general, but often they're done very badly, being either too soft or hard, and seldom have much flavour. These long beans were jam packed with flavour and juice. Although it would be seen as a very simple dish, there is a lot of variety with taste and texture, both of which were superb in this dish! Definitely order it!



Conclusion - Without the '++' this could be considered a pretty reasonably valued meal. The price is not too excessive, and the options that you have are very impressive! However, the '++' is crippling. It added another $10 dollars onto the meal. Of course, i know it's to be expected from a higher end restaurant. But what annoyed me the most is that i'm getting my food, i'm collecting it, and i'm pouring my own tea. I'm confused what 'service' i'm getting exactly? The variety of dishes is quite commendable, another quibble that i have is you have to pay for tea separately, which seems insane as this is, after all, hi tea! The tea is $1 per person. The french beans were my highlight, as they were superb. The buffet dishes were good, i wouldn't say anything really jumped out at me as being sensational, but at the same token, nothing jumped out as terrible either.

Overall Rating
Food - 7/10
Ambiance- 9/10
Service - 4/10
Value - 6/10

Yong Vegetarian Food - Chinatown

I've never really been around this area in too much detail, so i was quite pleasantly surprised to see a vegetarian stall located in this hawker centre. This stall has all the typical Chinese dishes that you would expect, with the standard rice or bee hoon dishes available as well, of course. However, they're quite limited with their amount of variety. Anyway, i only ordered two dishes, but here's what i thought!

Yong Vegetarian Food
Location: Blk 32 New Market Road, #01-1042
Contact: Unknown
Opening Hours: Unknown

I actually ordered pineapple rice, but got this Olive Fried Rice instead...I was too tired to contest it with the lazy workers. Biggest problem with this dish was size, and lack of it. It's a very stingy portion for the price. Although the actual rice is cooked well, and the flavour of the olive leaves really comes out successfully. It's still nothing exceptional though, and they could do with adding 1/3 extra volume to the dish.

Price: $3.00. 5/10


Here we have the Standard Been Hoon. I found the mock meat that i chose in this dish to be quite flavourful! Unfortunately, the other two that i ordered weren't so impressive. I'm not a huge fan of bitter gourd, but i won't let it sway my evaluation. The bitter gourd was alright, but the seeds were still inside!? Making it very uncomfortable to eat. The long beans were very pitiful, hardly any flavour at all, with a sad and soggy texture to them. The bee hoon had reasonable texture and flavour, but nothing out of the ordinary. Average mixed been hoon dish, but the long beans and bitter gourd didn't fulfill me at all!

Price: $2.80. 5/10

Conclusion - Nothing special here really. Like i said at the beginning, there is a very limited amount of options here, especially so if you're getting the standard been hoon/rice dishes. I wouldn't dissuade anyone from coming here, and it is an affordable eatery, which i like. But there is nothing worth making the trip to order. Average.

Overall Rating
Food - 5/10
Ambiance- 5/10
Service - 3/10
Value - 7/10

Ananda Bhavan Vegetarian - Changi Airport

Sorry i've not posted in a while! Well, i found myself at Changi Airport again recently, and was pleased to see that the Ananda Bhavan restaurant has finally opened at T2! It's a nice looking new restaurant, that i was delighted to see had various facts about how humans were not meant to eat meat at the counter, which you can also see on their website. Whilst you're on the website, you might also want to dabble with their new online ordering system, which i think is a great idea, although perhaps not if you want a dosai, or something that tastes much better fresh.

Ananda Bhavan Vegetarian
Location: Changi Airport, T2, Level 3
Opening Hours: I'm assuming it's 24 hours? But i will have to confirm it later.
Contact: 62959595

Very pricey for a dosai, but this Mysore Masala Dosai visually looked great and left me itching to try it! Overall, it tastes fantastic! The mysore masala inside is very generous (practically the whole dosai is filled with it!). It's flavoured well. However, the dosai should have been more crispy. Instead, it was very soft, which is not how i like my dosai's to be. Which is a real shame, because this is really the only flaw that it has. I'd have preferred the masala to be a little more spicy. If this was a dollar cheaper it would get a much higher rating, unfortunately price is a huge factor here.

Price: $4.50. 7/10

To be fair, these are really lousy and really over priced Plain Naan's. These naan's are like a slice of stale bread, they are way too thick. This is coming from someone who generally prefers thick naan's, so you can believe me when i tell you, these are too thick. There is no crisp texture to them whatsoever, so really it is just the same as eating bread. Very disappointing, and might rank as one of the worst naan's i've tried in Singapore. The price is high, just to top it all off. Avoid!

Price: $2.50. 2/10

Now onto my favourite part of any Indian meal! The curries! My friend recently had Daal Tadka at another Indian eatery, so i decided to sample it at AB. Well, first of all, visually it looked nice, and for once the price of this dish was actually more than acceptable, even if the portion was a tad on the small side. The daal curry is deliciously flavoured, with the coriander leaves sprinkled on top. The curry is not too watery, and overall very enjoyable.

Price: $5.00. 7/10


The other curry we ordered was the Mutter Paneer. Again, this dish was certainly not excessively priced, which was a relief. It's taste wasn't too bad either. However, the main problem with the dish was a felt it was overpowered by too many spices inside. Not only that, a lot of inedible whole ingrediants were inside, which became troublesome to keep picking out. Ingrediants such as cumin seeds, whole cloves, cinnamon sticks etc. Although it's not unusual to have these in curries, i've never seen one with this high amount before. The paneer was good, although i'd have preferred a few more pieces inside. Overall a good tasting dish, but soured a little by having to dig inside it constantly to pick out items.

Price: $6.00. 6/10

Conclusion - The interior design is great, the staff are friendly, and the food...Well, mixed feels about the food really. I thought the curries were well priced and good efforts overall. The naan's were simply terrible though. The dosai was the best thing we ordered, certainly! Even the slightly soggy crust wasn't enough to dampen it for me! Upon paying you must also face ridiculous GST and service charges, which added another $5 dollars onto our meal. I'm quite confused what service i'm actually paying for when you have to order at the counter. This is the main reason why i applaud somewhere like Gokul all the time. Because they give you a higher level of service, without adding any GST or service charge to your bill...And the food is way way better. So i was a little irked by that. But i do like Ananda Bhavan, especially their pro-vegetarian statements in the restaurant. But food and price still leave something to be desired.

Overall Rating
Food - 6/10
Ambiance- 8/10
Service - 5/10
Value - 5/10

Eight Treasures Vegetarian - Chinatown

Money, money, money, it's never funny, and i'm not in a rich man's world. But if you have a barrel full of it, this may be the place for you! Located on a surprisingly quiet street in the centre of Chinatown, this upper end eatery has charming decor and helpful staff. As well as an expansive menu full of dishes that i couldn't wait to try. In fact, it was difficult to select the ones i wanted! No dairy products used here. So let's get right to it.



Eight Treasures Vegetarian
Location: 282A South Bridge Road
Contact: 65347727
Opening Hours: Daily 11am-10pm

Probably the dish i was most looking forward to trying was the Vegetarian Peking Duck. It's high price tag was almost enough to put me off, but i still persisted to order it! Overall, it was a tad disappointing. As Janice touches upon, there is no real duck taste in this dish, instead the yam overpowers everything, which ruins it slightly for me. The presentation was lovely, and it's an enjoyable dish to eat. But the flavours were too plain for me, and for the price tag, it definitely wasn't justified.

Price: $15.00 (S). $23.00 (L). 5/10

The Tie Guan Yin Tea is quite nice from here, price tag seems high, but they give you an unlimited amount of tea, constantly filling up the teapot. So, not bad overall.


Price: $5.00. 7/10







What a shame this dish didn't quite have enough sauce with it. This is the Mock Ham Roll With Honey Sauce. This variety of mock meat is delicious! This mock meat can be found in many mid/upper end vegetarian eateries. The mock meat is crisped perfectly! But like i mentioned at the start, i would have been in heaven if they just added more sauce. Instead, it didn't have enough, and subsequently it left the dishes tasting a little dry.

Price: $8.00 (S). $12.00 (M). $16.00 (L). 7/10

Final dish is the Black Pepper Monkey Head Mushroom. Most probably the best dish we ordered! The sauce is fantastically thick and rich. With the pieces of monkey head tasting superb! The vegetables were cooked well, and the balance of flavours is good. I can't really find much to criticize (apart from the price tag). Everything worked well in the dish.

Price: $10.00 (S). $15.00 (M). $20.00 (L). 8/10



Conclusion - It's very very expensive. But the food is certainly to a high standard. The peking duck was a let down for me, but the other dishes we ordered made up for it! There are so many choices available, that this post only really scratches the surface, and perhaps when i win the lottery, then i will review more dishes from Eight Treasures. The service charge is murderous (added almost another $5.00 onto our bill). The food is certainly not worth the price tag, even though the taste and presentation are well above average. Eight Treasures makes Whole Earth seem like good value, to give you a sense of perspective. Good food, but unless you want to re-mortgage your house, avoid it.

Overall Rating
Food - 7/10
Ambiance- 9/10
Service - 7/10
Value - 2/10

Happy Realm Vegetarian Food - Chinatown

I've been spending quite a lot of my time in Chinatown recently, i've had a visitor from the UK coming to chow down with Hungry Ang Mo, and this is one place we stumbled upon. On the 2nd floor of the Pearl's Centre, this old fashioned looking eatery was very inviting! Here we go!





Happy Realm Vegetarian Food
Location: 100 Eu Tong Sen Street, #03-16 Pearl's Centre
Contact: 62226141
Opening Hours: Daily 11am – 8pm

One of the all time great accompaniments to a meal, Chinese Tea! This Chinese tea I found a little lacking in flavour, but tasty overall.

Price: $1.20. 6/10







First dish was the Claypot With Seaweed Rolls. I'm a great lover of claypots, and this claypot had pretty good flavour. I found the soup base to be a little one dimensional, though. It was just a typical tomato based soup, which could have done with a greater complexity of flavourings. The highlight of the dish was without a doubt the seaweed rolls! They were delicious! Tastes identical to the typical mock 'fish' that you find in many eateries, thankfully they didn't become too soggy inside the soup base, thus maintaining a delicious texture! Not worth the price tag though.

Price: $8.00 (small). 7/10

My eating partner choose the Fried Hor Fun. I sampled it myself as well. However, i was struggling to pry myself away from the hilarity of watching my Dad try to use chopsticks, haha. This dish is a very generous portion for the price, and the flavours are really good here overall. The dish has a divine wok hei aroma flowing through it (one of my favourite things!). The vegetables were cooked well and quite crucially not too oily! and overall it was certainly the best dish!

Price: $6.00 (medium). 8/10


Conclusion - It's a nice secluded place, outside the more bustling area of Chinatown. The staff are really friendly and helpful. There is no GST or service charge at this eatery. However, there is a charge of hand towels (only 40c though). I wasn't overly impressed with the claypot dish (especially the price), but the hor fun made up for it. I'll be going back to Chinatown again tonight to review some more places for you all! This is a very credible place though. Worth visiting!

Overall Rating
Food - 7/10
Ambiance- 7/10
Service - 8/10
Value - 6/10

Il Piccolo Pizzeria - Sengkang

Sengkanger's join together, unite, hold hands and let's sing a song of hope. Because me and the Sengkang gang have a new food centre! The dismal selection of food available in the Sengkang area has been improved significantly! There is a new 100% vegetarian place that i will be reviewing shortly. But to start with, i'm going to review Il Piccolo a pizza and pasta stall. To get to Kopitiam Square you can access it via the MRT station, which leads directly to it.


Il Piccolo
Location: Blk 272D, Compassvale Link
Contact: 68860312
Opening Hours: Unknown

WARNING - This place is not 100% vegetarian!!!

MOVED TO Blk272D, Compassvale Link (Buangkok)

We ordered the Quattro Formaggi Pizza, which translated is four cheese pizza. This pizza is drenched in cheese, which for its price is fantastic! The cheeses used are gorgonzola (a blue cheese, which i recommend asking them to make without), fontina, emental and mozarella. The base is not as thin as i suspected it would be. And overall it definitely has to be considered worth the price.

Price: $7.00 (9") $12.00 (12"). 9/10


A slightly wider shot of the pizza, the second time i ordered this pizza i told them to exclude the gorgonzola, this turned out to be a better choice. I have no idea why they'd choose the expensive gorgonzola on this pizza, when blue cheese is such an acquired taste. It would have been more logical to use fetta instead. They also have vegetarian pasta dishes, and one more vegetarian pizza, which is the Vegetariana Pizza.


When you order your meal, you have the option of upgrading your meal, for $1.50 extra. For this extra price you get what is pictured here. It's Soup Of The Day & Garlic Bread. Thankfully for us the soup was mushroom. Overall it's not really even worth $1.50. The mushroom soup is terrible, very watered down and very little mushroom taste. The garlic bread is barely satisfactory also. Very cheap to upgrade your meal, but i wouldn't recommend it. If you're going to get it, please check it's a vegetarian soup first!

Price: $1.50. 4/10


Conclusion - If you want really good quality pizza, then i'd definitely recommend this place. If you remember a while back a reviewed another pizzeria inside a hawker centre, at Golden Mile. This place is much better. The base is not as thin and the amount of cheese that they use is really quite astonishing! Stay clear of the upgrading, and just enjoy the pizza by itself! Perhaps one of the best pizza's in Singapore?

Overall Rating
Food - 8/10
Ambiance- 6/10
Service - 8/10
Value - 8/10

Madras Woodlands Ganga Restaurant - Little India

I was wondering aimlessly around the streets of Little India (as i often do). When i stumbled upon this place! No tourist or random searcher would find this place, as it's nestled on a side street, which hardly anyone ventures down. We happened to go down there, and by chance we found it! Those familiar with the Little India area will be well aware of the vegetarian franchise Madras Woodlands, they have at least three branches that i know of. To get here, walk down Serangoon Road, past the Tekka Centre. You will see a side street called Kerbau Road, go down that then turn right onto Belilios Lane - It's there!

Madras Woodlands Ganga Restaurant
Location: 22 Belilios Lane #01-02
Contact: 62953750
Opening Hours: Lunch Buffet 11am-2:30pm ($7.50 pp). Dinner Buffet 6:30pm-10:30pm ($11.90 pp)

NOTE - I've just been informed that the lunch buffet is only available on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays. However, the dinner buffet is every night.

The interior design is particularly nice for Woodlands Ganga, we arrived at 6:30pm exactly (by chance) and were the only ones there during our whole meal. As i mentioned above, the buffet is $7.50 for lunch time, and $11.90 at dinner time. It should also be mentioned a la carte is available for those not wanting the buffet. Everything is 100% vegetarian, of course. But for vegans, some dishes have cheese. We were both starving and couldn't wait to gobble up everything in our path, here's how it went!



Here's a look at some of the stuff on offer. We have Sambar on the far left hand side. On the far right we have some Plain Dosai's, these were not as crispy as we wanted. Next to the dosai's we have Idli! If you're like my girlfriend (an Idliphobe) you'll want to stay away from them. Can't say i'm crazy about them either. For those thinking what's an idli? Check out my Idli post.





Here's the stuff i love! Curries! Starting from right to left:- We have the Palak Paneer. Next to that is Aloo Gobi, after that we have the Chana Masala, however instead of typically using chickpeas, they used black-eyed peas instead. At the far left we have 'Kurma' although it has no resemblance to kurma at all! Check out my definitions below if it seems like i'm speaking a foreign language, haha.





We have some lighter dishes here. Right at the back is the Gobi Manchurian. Next to that is some noodle type dish (Singaporeans will see that as a relief i'm sure!). In the bowls at the bottom we have Dahi Vada, i didn't try the other two so can't tell you with any certainty what they are. Also, of course, they have rice. Both Briyani and Plain White Rice is available. I opted for the briyani, which was a little underwhelming.





Continuing on from the picture above, this is a couple of the Dahi Vada's. Vada is basically a deep fried idli that has been spiced. In this case it's soaked in a sour yogurt type sauce, which subsequently makes the vada lose it's crispy out shell, and almost metamorphoses back to being an idli again...It's very complicated.







Yum, delicious! These naan's were presented to our table, they gave us a variety of naan's, which included Garlic Naan, Butter Naan, Plain Naan and also Plain Dosai. I heard some inherant overstated whispers at our table that these naan's were of the quality of Raj and Gokul. If you love very thin naan, then maybe these could be very highly rated! But if your preference is thicker or even medium naan's, perhaps these won't quite meet your desire. I definitely enjoyed these naan's, but i find Raj's naan's still most superior due to them having more bubbles, and a firmer more charred base.

We affectionate called this the 'rubbish curry', not because it tasted bad (in fact it tasted great!). But due to it seeming to consist of all the discarded items of the other dishes, haha. There was bits of everything in this dish, which might be a little off putting to some people. The curry is a little too watery, but the tasted is really great! And was probably our favourite curry dish of the evening. To conclude the meal, there was a Kheer dessert also, which was very sweet! (as all Indian desserts are).



Definitions:-
Gobi - cauliflower
Aloo - potato
Paneer - cheese
Palak - spinach
Sambar - watery vegetable based curry dish
Kurma - typically a thick, mild and creamy curry
Kheer - very milky and sugary dessert, heavily spiced with cardamom, also can include raisins and almonds
Chana - chickpea

Conclusion - Indian food is by far my favourite cuisine, so the all vegetarian Indian buffet leaves me feeling like 'a kid in a candy shop'. The buffet is really good! The atmosphere in the restaurant is great, it has a dark, secluded and old fashioned vibe to it. As far as the food goes, it's surely not the best quality Indian food in Singapore. The palak paneer in too watery, the dosai's a little too soggy. But that being said, the food is certainly not disastrous. The only other minor quibble i had was they only had one paneer dish. I'd like to have seen one more in there (although i know paneer is an expensive ingredient, which they'd like to keep to a minimum). For its price, i really enjoyed it! If you have a large stomach, then i suggest coming here. For small eaters, $11.90 might be a little steep, if you won't be eating that much. I will be coming back here again certainly, hopefully they rotated the dishes on offer quite frequently.

Overall Rating
Food - 7/10
Ambiance- 9/10
Service - 8/10
Value - 8/10

Hougang Vegetarian - Hougang

Over the next few days i have two small little vegetarian stalls in Hougang for you, unfortunately neither of them have an English or Chinese name! I'm also struggling to find their contact information and addresses for you, but i will try to add them to this post in a few days. This place sells very cheap food, but you must be careful about the food running out, usually by mid-day there won't be a vast amount left to choose from. Anyone wanting good vegetarian food, then Hougang must be one of your first stops, it has a huge array of stalls, restaurants and hawker centres.

Hougang Vegetarian
Location: Hougang Avenue 4, Blk 681
Contact: Unknown
Opening Hours: Half day on Wed. I will get the other opening times shortly.

So first up we have the Curry Mee. There is something perversely satisfying about eating a spicy hot curry soup dish in the lovely 30+ degree Singapore weather. Am i the only one that thinks so? You can't call yourself a Singaporean unless you have done it! This dish is good, not too dissimilar to laksa, but the curry is much thicker. Almost like the curry you get in nasi briyani. The soaked cabbage is delicious! It comes with the thick yellow noodles, which are a little too starchy. Has cubes of firm tofu inside also. Overall a credible dish, and a good price to match!

Price: $2.50. 7/10

I've been wanting to try a vegetarian version of Nasi Lemak for a long time. But most places sell them only in the mornings and we're always getting there too late! We were in luck when they were not sold out on this particular day. The serving portion for the rice was great. However, the taste of it all was nothing to shout about. The otah had a plastic taste to it. The chili however went great with the rice and crunchy 'ikan billis'.

Price: $2.20. 6/10


The thing weighing this Wan Ton Mee down was the starchy texture of the noodles. Which is a shame, because overall the portion size is really quite large, the price is good, and the rest of the ingrediants were more than satisfying! In particular, the char siew is a very good quality! The wantons are also not bad! Worth getting for the price, but the noodles let this dish down.

Price: $2.50. 5/10


Final dish we have is the Chicken Rice. Most people know the well renowned chicken rice from Li Wei, in Serangoon. Obviously this won't match those high standards. But what they do have here, is a good quality and low priced chicken rice. I thought the rice was cooked well, and like i mentioned for the previous dish, the char siew is really top notch (especially for such low prices of these dishes). The portion size for this dish is fulfilling, but not massive. The mock chicken comprised of bean curd sheets. I found the outer 'skin' too crunchy and the bean curd sheets a little too slimy, which was the low point of this dish. But overall i can't complain!

Price: $2.50. 7/10

Conclusion - This place certainly sells really cheap food, that is of a pretty high quality. However, there were reoccurring themes in all the dishes we tried that disappointed me. I didn't like the way the noodles were cooked in any of the dishes, i would have preferred them to have more bounce to them, instead of being so starchy. The mock chicken was also a let down. But for all the negatives, there were also positives, the char siew is divine. The price for all the dishes is outstanding. The portion size is heady. Sorry i haven't pin pointed the address of this place yet, i'll be going back sometime next week to find the rough location of it for you guys!

Overall Rating
Food - 7/10
Ambiance- 6/10
Service - 7/10
Value - 9/10

Greenland Vegetarian Restaurant - Serangoon

Sorry, forgot to take a picture of the outside of this eatery. It is actually possible to walk to Greenland vegetarian from Serangoon or Kovan station (Kovan is slightly closer), it's quite a long walk, but good to get the exercise! If you want to make the walk, let google maps help you find the way! This place is an upper end vegetarian eatery, which also does wedding functions and other such events. The menu is quite extensive, with lots of nice dishes to choose from. So, on we go!

Greenland Vegetarian Restaurant
Location: 789 Upper Serangoon Road
Contact: 62828022‎
Opening Hours: 10am – 3pm, 5pm – 10pm

We were tempted to get this due to our devout love for the BBQ hotplate fish from Li Wei. The official name for this dish is Hot Plate Fillet with Banana Leaf. My main criticism of this otherwise fantastic dish was it didn't arrive sizzling! Although perhaps it's quite superficial, but for me, the dish needs to arrive smoking and sizzling! Just makes it more mouth-watering! The mock fish was quite unique to the typical fish you'd expect to see, which leaves me to ponder if they make it themselves. Although it's not quite up to Li Wei's standards, it does have a more superior chili sauce, this sauce is not too spicy, which Li Wei is guilty of. And in general, the sauce has a beautiful taste! Almost resembling minced shrimp! The dish was a little watery too, as you can see in the picture. But commendable overall!

Price: $11.00 (small). 8/10 Note - Also available in large for $16.00.

Next dish was the Tofu In Claypot. We ordered the 'small' size for all the dishes, and we were impressed with how big a portion we got! The tofu is soft in this dish, i tend to prefer firmer tofu, so i was a little disappointed about that. The sugar snap peas, corn and other veggies all had a nice claypot taste to them. The gravy was good overall, and not too salty. Perhaps a little too oily though.

Price: $8.00 (small). 7/10. Note - Also available in large for $16.00.


This was a real generous portion, and really good value for the price! This Yi-Fu Tasty Noodle had a nice gravy, that wasn't too salty. The noodles were excellent! They were chewy and bouncy, and great to eat! The char siew was a little disappointing, it was too soft. The dish contained lots of veggies, and other delights, such as mock squid! Definitely the best value dish that we ordered!

Price: $4.00 (small). 8/10. Note - Also available in medium for $8.00 and large for $12.00.

Conclusion - Unfortunately the end bill is plagued with extras that really bump up the total. Firstly, at the start of the meal there in the compulsory entree, which is $1.50. Then of course there is GST and service, which added an extra $7 dollars on to our bill, quite ludicrous. So, this place would be considered quite extravagant by my standards, but not to the almost laughable extent of Whole Earth. Like i mentioned, the portion size overall is actually not bad. I'd love to see how one of the 'large' dishes looked! I'm assuming it can feed three or four people! The decor of the place looks very dated, but perhaps that will appeal to some people. The staff are very friendly, especially one very adorable waitress, who unfortunately i didn't get the name of, otherwise she'd get a mention!

Overall Rating
Food - 8/10
Ambiance- 7/10
Service - 9/10
Value - 6/10

Indian House Ptd Ltd - Bugis

Another Indian post here. First off, i should apologize for my lack of posts over the last few weeks, it's been a hectic period with Christmas and New Year (i wish you a very happy one!) and all. But i'll be back to my typical post regularity from now on! This place is a veg & non-veg stall located directly opposite the National Library. If you're coming from Bugis station, you will want to head towards National Library, cross over to the side of the large church and then continue walking. This place has a surprisingly wide variety of dishes for a typical stall (a lot of which being vegetarian). But, it's the quality that matters...

Indian House Pte Ltd
Location: Bugis Hawker Centre, opposite National Library
Contact: Unknown
Opening Hours: 24 hour hawker centre, no off days that i know of.

CLOSED DOWN! (27/03/2011)

NOTE - This is NOT a 100% vegetarian eatery! However, they have a suitable range of vegetarian food that you can choose from. But for those who wish only to eat in 100% vegetarian places, don't go here.

One of my favourite North Indian dishes, this Palak Paneer comes in a surprisingly large portion size. Usually curries like this from Indian stalls come in pathetic little dishes. Now, the paneer (cheese cubes) in this dish was too light, it needed to be denser. The palak (spinach) taste was strong, although i found this dish was too spicy. Not that it was overwhelmingly spicy, but palak paneer should be a more milder curry. For it's price you can't complain too loudly though.

Price: $5.00. 8/10


Although i didn't eat this Daal Tadka curry myself, i would like to add it in here, because it is a very low price, and the eating partner for that day was quite approving of the curry. But, i didn't try it myself, so will refrain from adding my personal views to it. But i listened to what my friend said, and overall seemed to be a good dish! And so cheap!

Price: $2.50. 7/10

The first time i visited this place, i ordered the Saffron Rice, although the price is not bad at all, this rice was very ordinary. It didn't have much flavour to it, so it was quite disappointing. On the second visit i ordered the Plain Steamed Rice, they provide a good portion size, and the rice was cooked well, so can't complain about that. The saffron rice left something to be desired though.

Price: $2.50 (saffron rice). 6/10
$1.50 (steamed rice). 7/10


Rather astoundingly, the second time i came to this eatery and ordered the paneer based dish Paneer Butter Masala, the paneer was much improved! This time it was weighty, dense and chewy just as good paneer should be. So be prepared to have varying paneer from this stall. First time it was bad, second time it was good. Back to the dish, it was way too salty! I recommend asking for less salt when ordering! It is also suffering from a fenugreek overdose. But the flavour is not bad. My girlfriend commented that it's flavour is like barbecue flavoured crisps! Which is quite accurate! Good portion size, good price, but it needs to be more creamy and buttery, unfortunately all the flavour from the curry is overpowered by the high salt content.

Price: $5.00. 6/10

Where can you go to get a Plain Naan for only $1 dollar!? Well, apparently Indian House! These naan's are really so cheap, which is fantastic! Of course the quality isn't up to the high standards of Gokul or Raj, but for the price, i can't complain about them. They are in essence average tasting and average quality naan's. But, for such a low price, i think you get more than what you pay for. These naan's are made fresh as well, which is highly unusual for a Indian stall. Definitely recommend getting one or two to go along with your curries!

Price: $1.00. 8/10

This curry is Aloo Gobi. For those unaware, aloo means potato and gobi means cauliflower. The taste of this curry resembles cheese & onion crisps (sorry for all the crisp references). It's not as overly salty as the masala dish, but probably still a little too salty. The gobi is cooked well though, not too soft and not too hard. Again the portion size is fantastic in relation to the price. In an Indian restaurant you'd probably be looking to pay $2-3 dollars more for this dish. Thick and well spiced curry, recommended!

Price: $4.00. 7/10


Conclusion - If you want North Indian at the very highest quality, then this is not the place to go. There is no comparison in the quality of the food of Indian House with a place like Gokul. However, what this stall does provide is really excellent value! I am constantly searching for Indian food that doesn't cost a lot of money. So far, this may go down as the best value place that i've found in Singapore. Although it will still be deemed expensive compared to a bowl of noodles or fried rice, but for Indian food, it's fantastic value! The curry's were too heavy on the salt, but they were far from terrible. They were so generous with the paneer (by far the most expensive ingredient), which shocked me (in a good way). Go and check this place out! I have to thank my friend Sandy for pointing me in the direction of this place. Enjoy!

Overall Rating
Food - 8/10
Ambiance- 6/10
Service - 8/10
Value - 9/10