Katong Kitchen Buffet @ Katong Village Hotel – Review

The last weekend was quite the week of feasting in fact we decided to attempt something which we have never done with the kids before. A buffet!!!!!  Ok to be fair this was their 2nd buffet but their 1st with just us and with no aunties or uncles to distract them while mummy and papa gets to eat. So I was abit apprehensive because I really really needed both kids to be cooperative, like the food and the environment and allow us to at least have a decent shot at the buffet table. It didn’t help that Jah was being extremely disruptive just before lunch and Joel had suggested no less than 5 times that we should perhaps postpone the buffet lunch to another day. I was determined to have my Nonya buffet lunch that day but I was also really stressed out and worried that I was going to end up with an “I told you so” from Joel. Thankfully it turned out fine..better than fine.

We made a reservation for 12pm at the Katong Kitchen located on the 4th floor of Katong Village Hotel. We were 10 minutes early and asked to sit around and wait while the staff continued to prep the buffet table. Jah was immediately drawn to the seafood table when he saw the mussels and Joel and I were really surprised that he actually went on to eating quite a number of these cold mussels.

Eager for 12pm to come

Eager for 12pm to come

The spread was mainly Peranakan cuisine ranging from hot food buffet spread to a laksa stand as well as a DIY Rojak and Kueh Pie Tee. However they also injected alittle variety by having a seafood table, sushi area, salad bar, waffles stand and a dessert table which had a mix of nonya desserts as well as your regular cakes.

Cold Seafood Spread

Cold Seafood Spread

Normally the first thing I go for but I didn't even get the chance to eat these because the rest of the spread was just too good!

Normally the first thing I go for but I didn’t even get the chance to eat these because the rest of the spread was just too good!

Hot food spread

Hot food spread

DIY Rojak

DIY Rojak

DIY Kueh Pie Tee

DIY Kueh Pie Tee

I have to say I was very impressed with the quality of the food! While I probably would not equate it to the standard of a Peranakan restaurants. It was nevertheless a good variety of food with decent quality and priced very affordably. I usually don’t like going for buffets because 1) you don’t get to eat leisurely with kids and 2) it is always a struggle between variety and quality but I would say the buffet at Katong Kitchen hit the spot. There was really something for everyone! Even my pickiest child (Jah) ate…a lot!

Sure there were a few spicy dishes which the kids could not take but there were more than enough kid friendly items to keep them full and enticed. Jah enjoyed his silverfish fried rice with freshly bbq-ed satay as well as his cold mussels. He also enjoyed freshly baked waffles served with chocolate soft serve ice-cream that he got to decorate with toppings and drizzle with chocolate sauce and he got to make his own ice-kachang as well (ok mummy made the ice kachang). Bella savoured her ee-fu noodles and well ate everything else including tons of keropok (minus the sambal which was available in abundance).

Everyone had their own waffle with soft serve ice-cream

Everyone had their own waffle with soft serve ice-cream

Ice-Kacang Machine!

Ice-Kacang Machine!

Keropok with an abundance of sambal

Keropok with an abundance of sambal

Nonya Kuehs!

Nonya Kuehs!

Super spoilt for choice

Super spoilt for choice

The adults ate everything and I even got to make rojak and kueh pie tee for the family by following the simple instructions they had on display. We spent a leisurely 1.5 to 2 hours at lunch which is unheard of in our family but everyone had so much fun and the staff were ever helpful and always on hand. Oh and before I forget, do order their own fruity ice tea concoction! It was simple thirst quenching with a little fizz..totally love! In fact Jah loved it so much that he was competing with us for refills.

Easy Peasy!

Easy Peasy!

Mummy makes awesome rojak! ;)

Mummy makes awesome rojak! 😉

Loved the laksa!

Loved the laksa!

Yummy too!

Yummy too!

At $38++ per adult and $19++ per child (above 6 years old) for a weekend buffet lunch (which ends at 4pm!), we will definitely be back for more! Yes and kids below 6, eat for free! 😉 so even more reason to try right? 🙂

JahBella’s Mummy

Whisk and Paddle Review – Tebing Lane

One would think that we would have discovered this café/ restaurant a lot earlier, given that we live almost right next to it and it has been opened for almost 2 months now. I guess this kinda shows that we haven’t exactly been on our family bike rides much in recent times.

Jah and I chanced upon Whisk and Paddle on Saturday morning when we took a Mummy-Son bike ride. Joel’s bicycle had somehow ‘come apart’ that morning, a combination of his annoying bike tyre problem and Jah messing up the bicycle chain while we were trying to solve the tyre problem. The result being, Joel and Bella were relegated to a morning at the playground (Bella was very pissed off) and Jah insisted that Mummy stuck to the original plan and took him to the park for a ride.

Whisk and Paddle is located at Tebing Lane, with a view of the park and the waters. It would have been a perfect morning outing for mummy and son but ermm mummy didn’t bring any money with her so we were resigned to coming back at another time with papa and little sister. :/

The view!

The view!

We decided to come back on Sunday evening for an early dinner with the other half of the JahBella team.  The restaurant does not take reservation on weekend evenings so we did a walk-in. At 6pm, the place was already half filled with the other half of the place fast filling up. We chose to sit further at what I call the family friendly seating area, long tables with sofa benches. The other seating area consisted of more traditional café like tables and chairs. There was a small play area with a tent and some toys to keep the kids occupied. The play area was right smack between the two seating areas which in my opinion was perfect! Rather than have the kids play at some corner where only parents seated at those corners could see what was going on. Having kids right in the middle meant that they could have lots of light and they could spot their parents no matter where they were seated. 🙂

Family friendly seating area

Family friendly seating area

Play area

Play area

The restaurant serves all day breakfast and other mains from 3pm onwards.

We ordered Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon and Ham for the adults and a Bolognaise Penne for JahBella to share. We wanted to try the chunky fries with truffle mayo but it wasn’t available. We also order a Piccolo Latte, a Babycino, a Crunchie Honeycomb Milkshake and a warm Chocolate Fudge cake with Ice cream.  One word sums up our food experience..yummy! Jah was very happy with the food and he was also very happy with the old school snack corner. 🙂

The food plus the laid back ambience, blue skies and fresh air really completed our wonderful weekend. Our kids are very much like us…give them crappy food and we will get very cranky kids. Give them a good ambience and yummy food and we have the sweetest kids ever. :p Suffice to say, our kids were extremely happy and cooperative that day.

We will definitely be bringing the kids back to try more, in fact I think there might already be plans to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary with the kids there this weekend.

For now, we will let the pictures do the talking…:)

Eggs Benny with Smoked Salmon

Eggs Benny with Smoked Salmon

Bolognaise Penne

Bolognaise Penne

Eggs Benny with Ham

Eggs Benny with Ham

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Piccolo Latte

Crunchie Honeycomb Milkshake

Crunchie Honeycomb Milkshake

Babycino

Babycino

Warm Chocolate Fudge Cake

Warm Chocolate Fudge Cake

Old School Snacks Corner - Spoilt for choice!

Old School Snacks Corner – Spoilt for choice!

JahBella’s Mummy

Kovan Special Noodle and Chikuwa Tei Chirashi – Food Journey

This blog was started to document our parenting and family travel adventures but this year I have decided that I will attempt to document our food journey as well. This might include not only food joints that are family friendly but the food ‘adventure’ that Joel and I embark on as a couple. 🙂 They may range from your simple hawker fare to ‘nice food’ for that special occasion. They say the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I say the key to a happy marriage is awesome food! Trust me! Totally tested! We argue less when there is good food. :p

So let’s kick off 2015 with the food we had today!

The Special Noodles at Kovan market is an old favourite for us. We discovered it way before Jah was born and used to have it almost every weekend. We have stopped visiting for awhile because bringing kids to a hawker centre and having to queue at least 20 mins for noodles is not exactly ideal. The stall serves your usual wanton mee, Ipoh hor fun and shredded chicken noodles etc but their signature dish is what they call Special Noodles which is kind of a mixture of all the above noodles I have mentioned. The sauce plus the chilli and tomato ketchup mix is simply awesome! Just make sure that you come early if you want to try their special noodles as they tend to sell out fast and the stall normally closes by late morning.

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We decided that our lunch stop for today would include Jap food, a good barachirashi to be specific. We made a reservation at one of our usual Barachirashi haunts but found out when we got there that they were not serving their usual lunch bentos today! Argh! It was 210pm and we were fast running out of options. We did a quick search and ‘settled’ for Chikuwa Tei at Mohamed Sultan which was a 10 mins drive away. I am so glad that we were ‘forced’ to try this restaurant. At $25, their Chirashi sushi bowl is a real treat! Value for money with generous slabs of very fresh sashimi. They also had a very good variety of bentos and sides and we have decided to include them as one of our go to place for good jap food. 🙂

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All in all, a very good start to 2015 yummy wise 😉

Here’s to more feasting, delicious food and a happy marriage!

JahBella’s Mummy