Countdown to 2017 – Serenity Spanish Cuisine

January 3, 2017January 4, 2017 / maigongbojio / Leave a comment

Miss BoJio and Mai 公 were in a dilemma whether to spend the last night of 2016 counting down in the crowded Clarke Quay or a quieter option.

Eventually, it was decided to go to a compromise, visit Vivocity where one can still catch the fireworks going on at Sentosa, have a nice crowd at the various restaurants and bars facing the water yet not a tad too rowdy.

A glimpse of Sentosa’s fireworks if you may.

We settled for Serenity Spanish restaurant and bar that has a live band playing music. Truth be told, it’s not our first choice but there’s a huge queue outside Brozeit even at 11.30pm so we decided to give Serenity a chance, given it’s our first time here.

Given the late hours, only drinks, tapas (snacks) and pastas were available. First to the food: Tortilla Espanola (Spanish Omelette with Potato and Onions), Calamares a la Plancha (Grilled Squid drizzled in extra virgin olive oil) and Calamari Rings.

The Calamari Rings ($9.80) were nothing to shout about and very much like any others one can find in bars. Plus point for them being freshly fried and served hot and crispy.

Mai 公 likes the Tortilla Espanola ($10.80) best, given his uncontrolled love for eggs but even Miss BoJio who hated onions sang praise for this tapas. It’s interesting with the layers of different texture and flavor, with omelette outside and layers of potato inside. However, given the Singaporean nature, we very much prefer this to go with chilli sauce than the sour cream.

The Clamares a la Placha (S$18.80) was Miss BoJio favorite for the day. Freshly grilled and lightly sprinkled with spices in olive oil gives the squids a smooth and tender feel. While this can’t be considered flavorful, the spices gives it an adequate taste.

Next to the drinks where Serenity is offering one-for-one for their imported Spanish beer and wine. We opted for the Spanish beer ($16 for two) and it’s our first time trying Spanish beer out (it’s Sangria always). Introducing the Estrella from Barcelona –

The matching glass won itself plus points, with the glass being thin compared to normal beer mugs and gives the whole drinking a different perspective. Although the Estrella only stands at 4.6% alcohol, the taste is pretty strong and highlights vibe of hot-blooded Spanish. On the other hand, the texture is still a far way off from German beers and feels far less smooth.

The one thing which we want to emphasis most was the service standards, or rather, the lack of it. Perhaps it’s New Year’s eve and the service crew were very busy but the standard is really not there. Asking to pay first once the order is taken is fine as they explained the need given customers all flock to take photos/videos of the fireworks once the clock strikes 12. I gave them my card and requested for it to be kept on the tab. Didn’t stop them from giving me the bill and asking me to pay first anyway. There’s no notice of last order and we were deprived of ordering more tapas. Wanted to order a specific type of Sangria (they have like 10 varieties) but ran out.

All in all, we might still visit Serenity in the future given the many different savory tapas to explore and try but this is probably not the place to be if you want to impress your clique or significant other.

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Starbucks – Peppermint & X’mas

December 29, 2016January 4, 2017 / maigongbojio / Leave a comment

It’s not the first time Starbucks, the biggest chain for coffee has launched this X’mas seasonal drink, the Peppermint Mocha but every year without fail, Mai 公 will drink this.

Perhaps it’s me thinking that Peppermint & X’mas goes well hand in hand or maybe it’s just because I have to spend hours idling at a coffee break joint every Monday in the evening while waiting for Miss Bojio’s class to end (P.S. it’s a rather quiet Starbucks joint in central Singapore, say hi if you catch me around)!

This time round it’s iced Peppermint Mocha. Depending on individual, you may also opt for it to be hot or frapp-ed (ice-blended). Personally I like it iced best, but would also enjoy a cuppa of hot steaming Peppermint Mocha when it gets rainy and chilly. The Frappuccino version usually takes a longer time to drink given it’s harder to suck up the blended ice (not to mention you’ll end up with tasteless ice if you drink too fast).

Starbucks is not the only place for Peppermint infused coffee and many others were tasted. Although this one at Starbucks is extremely sweet and not to be always drunk, it taste adequately flavorful (what else to expect when you have 4.5 spoons of Peppermint contents for the largest Venti size) to garner a post. The extra colorful sprinkles at the top adds a slight crunch when drinking as well. No whipped cream for me though, the extra sin is avoided at all cost.

Other than the Peppermint Mocha, Starbucks also offered a variety of other seasonal choices: Toffee Nut Latte, Gingerbread Latte and Teavana Red Ribbon Green Tea Latte making one spoilt for choices.

While it’s good to have a sweet tooth once in a while, it’s strongly recommended to avoid overdosing oneself with this. Other than the fact that it’s expensive (Tall – $7.10, Grande – $7.60 or Venti – $8.10), I hate to imagine the amount of sugar within this cup of irresistible sin.

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First Stop – Dancing with Crabs

December 22, 2016January 4, 2017 / maigongbojio / Leave a comment

It’s the end of the year where many celebrations and feasts await us.

Miss Bo Jio’s friends invited her (ironically) to a get-together at Orchard Central’s Dancing Crab over last weekend and naturally, Mai 公 tags along, invited or not!

It’s not our first visit but her friends’ so they highly anticipated the dinner and made reservations, which I’m glad they did (look at the long queue out there)!

Dancing Crab is part of TungLok Group which most people should be familiar with. Despite the difference in cuisine, with TungLok mainly serving Chinese oriental food and Dancing Crab serving Creole cuisine, this does assure us of the quality (and the hefty price tag alongside).

Menu are served on a clipboard, radiating a casual yet happy atmosphere with the friendly staff always there to help.

Worth noting is that every branch of Dancing Crab has their own exclusive sauce to go along with your seafood galore. Orchard Central branch boasts of the Spicy Miso Butter (if my memory doesn’t fails, the branch at Vivocity has Lemon Garlic Butter). Other than the store exclusive, every branch has the gDancing Crab signature (comes in mild, spicy or extra spicy), Beurre Blanc (creamy white butter) or Zesty Garlic Butter. Word of warning – the signature spiciness level doesn’t lose out to our famous Chilli Crab!

Given the small group of 4 (and 3 ladies at that), we didn’t really try to stuff ourselves but merely ordered a Combo Bag #02 (S$40++) and with the recommendation of the staff, one 1.2kg Dungeness Crab (S$144++ or $12++/100g). A tad pricey but hey, it’s our first time trying out this crawler from Canada too!

Here’s how Combo Bag #02 looks like, no crabs here but you do get prawns, clams, mussels, corn and sausages all in one. Pretty worthwhile for sharing. You might have heard from friends/families that one speciality of Dancing Crab is having the food poured all over the table (or rather, plastic disposable tablecloth) and diners eat with their hands, the messiness being part of the fun. Why is ours served in a pot then?

We chose the store’s exclusive sauce, the Spicy Miso Butter, and the server recommended for it to remain in the pot given that the disposable aprons provided can hardly save us from the dripping of this oiler sauce off the table. Luckily we did.

While nothing can be picked on for the freshness of the seafood (refer below for the huge mussel), the sauce is honestly a disappointment. It seems to be a huge misrepresentation since we hardly taste miso but rather, peanuts which gives it a very grainy feel. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t taste bad but we were just rather disappointed with the lack of miso taste. You would probably love this if you’re a fan of satay, given the similarity in taste between this and the satay sauce.

The huge mussel with the plastic cup to get complimentary iced water (not the San Pellegrino sparking water in the background obviously) for reference.

Next on finally to the highlight – the Dungeness crab. You’re not alone if you’ve never tried this! Fun Fact – although the Dungeness crab from Dancing Crab is imported from Canada, this crab was actually named after a small fishing village in Washington State, North America and typically comes from the West Coast of America.

For the records, we have the live Dungeness crab at the top and the cooked in spicy Dancing Crab sauce at the bottom.

Despite the heavy weight of 1.2kg, typically only 1/4 is meat. The shell is definitely softer, the meat much denser and sweet compared to Sri Lankan crabs that we’ve all become so accustomed to. The meat is slightly akin to snow crab. Although the spicy Dancing Crab sauce is strongly peppery with a tint of tomatoes, it still doesn’t cover the fact that one can know it’s from freezing waters.

I would very much prefer for the Dungeness crab to be served chilled after boiling to taste the sweet and tenderness actually. I trust that it’s more appropriate.

Back to eat? Probably yes, if friends organised a meet-up here.

Dungeness crab again? Guess not. It’s worth a try but not fascinating enough for the premium over Sri Lankan crabs (which taste better with the spices and sauce here in my honest opinion).

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Why you Bo Jio???

December 16, 2016December 27, 2016 / maigongbojio / Leave a comment

This blog is jointly managed by Mai 公 (Mr Mai) and Miss Bo Jio. In short, we can be referred to as MaiGongBoJio! P.S. mostly updated by Mai 公 cause Miss Bo Jio usually don’t jio people *winks*

For the benefit of other fellow races in Singapore, Mai Gong Bo Jio literally means, don’t say that we never asked you along 🙂

Being the natural food critiques we are, our aspiration is to bring you the realistic and nothing but the real verdicts for food and restaurants we’ve came across. No nonsense like paid advertisements! We’re not saints and also make bad dining choices at times. Unlike other food blogs flooding with advertisements and only saying the good (how can be?), we choose not to get bought over and deliver only legitimate reviews. Read, legitimate. We don’t purposely criticise restaurants and food for the sake of doing so. Should this change one day, you will be the first to know.

There’re no boundaries to food and restaurants being reviewed. Within Singapore to foreign lands, high-end dining to hawker food.

If you can handle the truth, and want to quit wasting money on disappointing overrated restaurants and food, read on.

If you’re one that prefer to look at numbers, every review is accompanied with a verdict, represented by the number of kim jio (bananas) out of 10, the higher the better. Also, the indicative damage per person is represented by the number of dollar signs, with each dollar sign representing $10/person (on average).

All the goods we jio! All the cannot-make-it we siam!

Signed,

MaigongBojio