Vandilicious

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Tvoila Cafe - Orchard Central

Sorry for neglecting my blog, been busy, changing of job and adjusting to new environment. Too many things I wanted to write but can't find time to do so sad emoticon

Anyway I chance upon Bumblebee Mum blog on her write up on this cafe, Tvoila at Orchard Central. I thought it was good since I have a mummies gathering coming up. I called up to make a reservation and the first impression was superb! I guess the guy over the phone should be manager (assume), he was very nice to offered me a 'special' menu for our kids as I requested pasta.

So the day came, I arrived at 11am sharp but they are not opened yet. One of the staff asked me to wait for the rest of the staff to arrive before they could start their business. After 20 minutes of waiting, we could finally get our tables and imagine we are all waiting outside with our kids running around? Surprising the cafe was empty, actually no reservation is needed.

The horror starts! Good service turned out worst!
- Toys was faulty, wheels on trolley was broken
- 'Self service' to on their tv in the play room
- Many items we wanted to ordered was not available, simple drinks like latte also don't have!
- Wanted to ordered Tuna sandwich, not available, wanted club sandwich also not available! And they only have 5 or lesser sandwich items on their menu.
- Kids menu is very pathetic! 3 pieces of nuggets, GREEN APPLES and cold hard fries at $7!! Kids meal at MacDonald is way better!!
- They have 4 staff with us, a group of 6 people and 3 kids as customers but they can't be bother to serve us. We have to get our own menu and drinks, everything is just like DIY here

No doubt this place is convenient but their play area is not enclosed and be warn that their cafe is right in front of the escalator. You got to watch your kids every second in case they ran out. And this is simply a run-out-of-mill cafe, a place just for drinks and snacks which don't serve any mains. Unless sandwich can filled you up.

We didn't stayed for long and shifted to Marche, much happier than staying at this horrible so-called kids friendly cafe!

Kids pasta

Kids nugget set

PS: No offence for Ms. Bumblee Mum write up, is my own feels and thoughts of what I had experience. Her blog is always my favorite site when I need to source for kids places.

You can find them at:

Address: Orchard Central

#B1-15/16/17/18/19

Tel: +65 69666660

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Momiji Revenue House

It was my birthday and I was craving for snow crabs! Saw quite a few good reviews and decided to give a try.

Made my reservation at 6pm so hub can get to enjoy the free flow of sapporo beer which starts from 6.30pm to 7.30pm. Remember to give your empty bottle in exchange for a new one! The place was spacious, not crowded on a tuesday night. Variety was not too bad, quite a good spread. From Seafood, desserts to cooked food but it was a huge disappointment after the dinner! And don't hope for any service!

After you got your seats, they will lay a clean plastic table mat for you to enjoy their current promotion, 'Seafood in a bag'! Yes, no more Icy Snow Crab! Sad

And the most horrible thing is they are out of ICE that day! Imagine your Fanta without ice Smack head

What good?
- I only enjoy the seafood in the bag, is free flow! There is mussles, cooked snow crabs, scallops and prawns but seems like the crayfish is missing!

- Self made waffle, it was fun!
- Chawanmushi
- Paper hotpot
- The cold & sweet succulent prawn

What so bad?
- Fried stuff was cold and hard!
- Prawn paste chicken wings was so SALTY! When I first got the cold wings, it was red and uncooked! But the staff could still argue with me that it is FULLY COOKED!
- Sashimi was thin and doesn't look fresh to me
- Tempura was cold and batter was so thick!

Please enjoy the rest of the picture!

This is what you will get in your Seafood in a bag!

My overall experience: I don't feel the worth of return for the quality of food. I guess people came here for the seafood promotion as well as the free flow of beer.

(credit from:Momiji website)

You can find them at:

City Square Mall #05-05/06 Tel : 6509 1193

Northpoint Shopping Centre #03-47/50 Tel : 6484 1090 (CLOSED)

Revenue House #02-02 Tel : 6253 2469

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Penang Nov 2015

Last day in Penang! Our returned flight was at 4.30pm so we asked our tour guide to drop us for Bak Kut Teh while on the way to the airport. Since the kids woke up early and after our nice breakfast at Garden Cafe I took them to the indoor playground. It was located beside SIGI restaurant and they were opened at 10am. Hotel guest paid 24RM for each kids and baby under 2 is free. Each accompany adults for each kid are free too. Very simple indoor playground with a toddler area and huge slide for the older ones. Well, I didn't expect my 2 years old to love the slide, yes all the HUGE SLIDE! He didn't even wanted to go to the toddler area LOL

Make sure you are in your long sleeve if you want to accompany your kids to play. They are super strict on this!

I forgotten to take down the name of the Bak Kut Teh place we had for lunch. I only could recalled it was the last restaurant along the Song River Bak Kut Teh. I still prefer the version in JB, I couldn't really taste the strong herbal as I was looking forward to but much more dark soya sauce in the soup. The lunch cost us $80RM for the mixed soup, Sesame Chicken, Vegetable, rice and tea. I find it expensive comparing to our seafood dinner.

Pardon my hub fat finger LOL

Bak Kut Teh

Sambal Potato Leaves

Sesame Chicken

Penang airport is quite small and only a few airlines. Airasia is the most popular which I could see as the queue is the longest and messier. Our flight got delayed when we reached Singapore due to bad weather. Overall, I find Penang is a place that is worth for the return. I quite like the resort we stayed but the distance is quite far, be it from town or airport. And there is much things to do when night falls. I hope you all enjoy my simple write up and hopefully it provide some tips too Wink

Penang Day 1

Penang Day 2

Penang Day 3

Penang November 2015

Penang Trip!

Penang Day 1

Penang Day 2

Penang Day 3

Penang Nov 2015

Our breakfast on Day 2 was horrible! We went down at 8.30pm to their Garden Cafe but it was full. And direct us to SIGI restaurant which we had lunch yesterday. Some of the food was served uncovered, you can see files flying around! Hashbrown was hard as stone and non crunch cornflakes! After my unhappy breakfast, we went for our tour which starts at 10am.

First stop - Famous Kek Lok Si Temple: Kek Lok Si
Our tour guide brought us around and intro us our to this temple. There is a small tram that could bring you up to the big Guanyin statue. We spend close to an hour here. If you want to tried the famous Penang Laksa, it is just at the bottom of this temple. Air Itam Penang Laksa resource from:Daniel Food Diary. I didn't went to try as I am afraid there is no other food choice which suit my kids.

On the way up to the temple

Fare for the tram

Second stop - We went to try the Loh Bak at Kheng Pin Cafe. It is actually a deep fried Five-Spice Roll and not braised pork meat. The boss of this stall is a nice hokkien spoken uncle, I do not know how should I go about to order it so he asked me how many pax and I told him 2, he suggested to get the 7RM (set) will do. To me, there is nothing really to shout about (individual preferences, no offence). Is a little dried but very crisp and fragrant. I still prefer our local version.

Address: Kheng Pin Café, 80 Penang Road
Opening hours: 7am – 3pm. Closed on Mondays
Resource from: Miss Tam Chiak

Loh Bak

Wanton mee

Chicken Fish Porridge - Silky smooth and crunchy

Third Stop: Famous Mural Street

It was burning hot, sweaty and tired after carrying my '12kg' around. We didn't stay too long as I wanted to go to Gurney Plaza to enjoy some aircon Laughing

The jetty across

Fourth & Fifth stop: Gurney Plaza and Ghee Hiang Tar Sau Piah

Gurney Plaza is quite a huge mall with an atas cold storage supermart below lol... There is a Gurney Paragon beside with most high end shop. We didn't went there, we just walked around and left to get the Tar Sau Piah. It is their local famous pastry (green bean biscuits) which I heard they have over 150 years of history. I was so embarrassed when I was inside the shop. I was expecting a huge shop which I usually goes to like in Malacca, where you could taste their pastry and had other products which you could shop around. But not here! You basically queue up, there is a 'menu', you just ordered what you want and that it! So I brought 10 boxes which they have been nicely packed in individual wrapper back for my families and friends.

Last stop: Penang Hill

Regret not doing enough research and regretted going too! Our tour guide told us the expected waiting time to queue to reach the top of the hill during peak period can be up to 2 hours! But when we saw that there isn't much queue and only took us 20 minutes so we went ahead with it. They are very disorganize, nobody is there to manage the queue so people start pushing around when the tram comes. Each tram took about 7 minutes to go up but waiting time is close to 15 minutes to get into it. Upon reaching, we shook our head because the queue going back is much much longer than the one we came up. It was windy, cooling and we got the buddy to bring us for a mini tour. It cost us $30RM. Bad weather again and the time we decided to head back was close to dinner time and so the queue was even worst! It really took us 1 hour and 40 minutes to return. Super tired! One experience and never again!

Nice view

Seems copycat of Korea lol

Dinner: Tsunami Village

Tour guide suggested us this place for dinner. It's a chinese seafood restaurant, a kampong style restaurant where you could have sea view while having your dinner. Wrong move again, because is quite hard to get a cab back to resort. Since our tour has ended we got to find our own ways back. This place is situated at the bottom of where we stayed. Food were pretty good, cheap but with some 'irritating files' as accompany Confused

They renamed it to Tsunami Village after the incident back in 2004. It wasn't crowded when we reached there on a Sunday at 7pm. We ordered, Prawn Paste Chicken, Claypot Beancurd, small Steamed Pomfret Fish, Vegetable, Fish Maw Herbal Soup and Stired Fried Lala. Total damage: $90plus RM, pretty affordable right?

Address: 543-A Tanjung Bungah, 11200

Contact: 019-447 2718

Closed on Monday