Red Rock Deli Potato Crisps

First off, I must say, Red Rock Deli, your crisps are my saviour as well as my (wallet's) bane. THE BEST potato crisps I have EVER eaten thus far in my life! Every single flavour they offer tastes ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC! There's no doubt about it, this company makes the most amazing line of crisps your mouth can ever delight upon.

The box contains 4 different flavours of their crisps, Honey Soy Chicken, Sweet Chilli & Sour Cream, Lime & Black Pepper and Sea Salt.

Prior to this, I had tried the Sweet Chilli and Sour Cream and the Lime & Black Pepper flavour before but this time around, they had a special 10x28g mixed flavour packs in one lovely, convenient box for sale in Candy Empire, Vivo City Singapore. I immediately grabbed it along with three large bags of Lime & Black Pepper and Sweet Chilli & Sour Cream flavour crisps.

I know it sounds absolutely unbelievable-to-the-point-of-absurdity that an ENTIRE line of potato chips all taste so out-of-this-world good but trust me, one taste and you're hooked for life. At this point, you must be wondering just what is it that makes these babies taste so great.

To start off with, these aren't mashed-then-re-shaped-to-all-look-exactly-the-same-in-size-and-shape crisps, they're roughly cut from a whole potato and slowly cooked so each piece is totally unique in shape and size. Secondly, the flavour combinations are SO unique and each ingredient gels so well with with the other. Not your average, Tomato Ketchup/ BBQ /Sour Cream flavours here.Third, the taste of these flavours are intense and pretty darn authentic. I mean sometimes, some crisps made by other brands have so much crappy artificial flavouring that you know it's not from the real thing but these Red Rock Deli crisps do not use any artificial colours or flavourings which makes it THAT bit more healthier & yummier :P

You gotta hand it to them Australians, they really are very passionate about the quality and standard of their products. Always top of the line and as real and authentic (and healthy too!) as it gets.

The only problem with this is that it is so bloody expensive (to a Malaysian earning in Ringgit) I mean, it's about RM5.00 (after conversion) more than your usual 6 1/2oz. bag of Lays/Ruffles. That's roughly RM13.00-14.00 for a bag of potato crisps. OUCH much? Still, I think it is 300% much more worth it to fork out that bit more for a fantastic, healthier, yummier much more satisfying bag of Red Rock Deli Potato Chips than any other brand of crisps out there.

Sweet Chilli & Sour Cream
Totally not spicy at all. Okay, maybe just a teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeny weeny bit of bite from the chilli. It's hardly noticeable. It's got a slight sour but very sweet taste that pretty much dominates the taste of the crisp. The sourish taste makes your mouth water more with each bite you take.

Lime & Black Pepper
Very limey and sour. It has an extremely strong, delightful citrus-y fragrance the moment you open the bag. This flavour will make you want to keep popping crisps into your mouth due to it's sourness from the lime which, I must admit, I'm addicted to. The black pepper helps to balance out the tartness of the taste with a bit of a spicy punch.

Honey Soy Chicken
Sweet & salty. Great soy fragrance and salty taste, combined with the chicken flavour and the sweetness of honey, Mm-mm! Kinda like teriyaki chicken in a potato crisp.

Sea Salt
The mildest and somewhat most neutral flavour of the four, very pleasant slight saltiness from the seasalt. Seasalt, unlike table salt is far less concentrated/salty. It's got just the right amount of saltiness that makes it so addictive to eat. Typical classic flavour. Love this.

I only wish that someone will bring this into Malaysia and hoping that if that ever happens, it'd be sold on a smaller price . :P

Orange flavored M&M's

Okay, so I've been on a bit of a chocolate binge lately. (looks like the pork binge's somewhat over....sort of) I got a pack of orange flavoured M&M's the other day - all the way from the Land Down Under.

I've always loved chocolate (especially dark chocolate) with orange or mint. These M&M's sugar-coated milk chocolate with orange flavour is just so awesome. Thin and crispy sugar shell-like coating with soft, smooth chocolate and a hint of citrus freshness - instant addiction! Couldn't stop popping these little bits one after another into my mouth. Too bad it's not sold in Malaysia :-(  We're all stuck with just a handful of choices.  If anyone sees anything new or different apart from the usual milk chocolate / milk chocolate with almonds / dark chocolate / crispy ones, do share. :P I love my chocolates!

Lindt Excellence Chilli Dark Chocolate

No, this isn't a review of a restaurant or a cafe but it's something I felt I needed to share.

Had gone for a bit of grocery shopping today and spotted a sale on Lindt chocolates. Only RM10 per 100gm bar! I couldn't pass up the chance to eat some good quality dark chocolate for less than half it's usual price so I grabbed a couple of bars off the shelf.

One of which was this unique flavour of chocolate : Extra fine dark chocolate with extract of chilli pepper. I had seen it for sale many times and I usually pass it off because it's a pretty expensive experiment and it'd be a waste if I didn't like it in the end, but with the sales price, I had one less excuse not to buy it, which totally works for me.

The two bars of chocolate that I bought. I had initially wanted to take the Lindt 75% Ecuador bitter sweet chocolate but decided to put it back for the Chilli one.

Description on the back of the packaging.

Lindt's Extra Fine Dark Chocolate with Chilli Pepper Extract pieces

Surprisingly it doesn't taste as odd as it sounds. It is very fine, rich, smooth and dark and when you're swallowing the mouthful of melted  chocolate down your throat, that's when you feel the heat of the chilli. There isn't a chilli taste to the chocolate at all, just the spiciness of it. Definitely a must try for anyone who loves chocolate AND spicy food. It is surprisingly pleasant and definitely a fantastic twist to eating chocolate. My brand new fave!

PS: Dark chocolate is good for you!

Elcerdo, Changkat Bukit Bintang, KL (II)

I've been putting off updating this blog for a looooong while. It's been a month(?) of unintended hiatus due to my day job (that actually pays-both mentally and monetarily). Anyway, let's cut to the chase; here's the second part of the review for Elcerdo, as promised.

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Had visited Elcerdo again for Dad's birthday.

First to arrive was a complimentary cream of tomato & bacon bits soup. Slightly sour and bacon-saltish in taste (in a good way). Light, slightly creamy/gelatinous in texture which is consistent with tomato soups.

This time we were served bread & butter as well...which did not happen in our previous visit, for some reason. Nothing special about the bread or the salted butter.

PRAWN & SHRIMP SALAD. Do I really need to describe how extremely fat, juice-spurting-when-bitten and sweet the shrimps were and how well it went with the accompanying tangy orange sauce as well as the fresh, crispness of the salad? Nah. You can always have a visual taste of it for yourselves.....

Delectably juicy piece of shrimp.

We loved the OVEN-ROASTED IBERICO PORK RIBS so much the last time, we ordered it again, this time off the Specials menu, with pineapple salsa. Beautifully, pineapple-y sweet, juicy and extremely tender to bite. The sweet-tanginess of the pineapple really transforms this dish to something that tastes in a sense, more fresh and exotic when compared to the smoothness of the mango salsa.

We also ordered the roasted half piglet. There was only 4 of us hence, we ordered the smaller portion. Every order of this dish comes with a ritual; ONE of the diners must bang the side of a ceramic plate loudly twice on the wooden board, followed by a good, swift "chop" on the piglet using the side of the plate. Then with the same plate, one makes a wish, choosing between money or love and drops the plate (into a specially provided wooden bin) smashing it to pieces.

The yummy 'ickle piggy after it's been cut to pieces.

It's skin was crispy, the fat was gelatinous and juicy, the meat was porkieliciously sweet and tender. Every part that you see is edible - yes, including the very delightfully crispy little tail and the section near it's eye(s).

The dish is served with a side of salad..

...and potato wedges.

Check out the glistening piece of pork fat.

Andreas Special

For dessert, we ordered the WERNER'S SPECIAL (Fresh Strawberry in Mango Sauce with Chocolate Mousse and wild berry sherbet) as well as the ANDREAS SPECIAL (White Chocolate Ice Cream, Milk-Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Crumble, Bananas, Passion Fruit and Pear in Red Wine) which the chef had split into two beautifully layered glasses for each dessert. Reading the description for the sinful desserts itself is enough to make one's mouth water.

Werner's Special

I loved both desserts. Werner's special was sour (in a good way) and refreshing to taste whilst the Andrea's special was smooth and rich.

And once the last scoop of our desserts were downed, we thought we had had an extremely beautiful ending to our already fantastic dinner.

....till the waiter brought us each a tiny shot of seemingly-innocent complimentary after-meal drink......Which was actually a vodka-tequila shot. (and a bit of fruit juice, though I cannot remember which fruit juice it was)

The phrase, "Ending with a bang" doesn't even come close to actually describing the epilogue of our meal. It was truly and epic meal fit for a King we had at Elcerdo.

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Refer to previous post for The Breakdown.

Elcerdo, Changkat Bukit Bintang, KL

*******Ok Goh, Dad, SW, and the rest of you who've been bugging me to hurry up and write this post, here's the review on Elcerdo you've been waiting for. *phew*

If you've been following, you'd notice that I've been pretty much going on an all-out PORKPORKPORK frenzy. Obviously, the best place to go to satisfy my my pork-craze would be a place with a tag line like "Porkielicious", which could only mean, Elcerdo.

I've been wanting to try this place out for a looooooooooong time. But it's hard to convince dad/friends to drive all the way downtown during weekend nights. Last Saturday however, I managed to coax my dad into agreeing to go by telling him about it when he was half asleep (evil me >:) ) I started describing how great it would be to eat fat-drippingly-delicious pork ribs and bacon and he totally fell for it; YES! SCORE! My dad's also a big fan of pork. He just needs a bit of convincing to let him know that it's worth it to drive all the way there. The week before we had wanted to go but when we called up, they said that they were fully booked so we decided to call up for an earlier reservation last weekend and we got a table. They said that they were fully reserved after 7pm so we opted to go at 6.30pm instead.

When we arrived, we were immediately shown to a table and after taking our orders we were presented with a complementary cup of potato & bacon soup which was absolutely delish! All three of us drained our cups dry. I was sorely tempted to lick the rim of the cup and ask for more :P

But before I could embarrass myself our CARNITAS DE CERDO arrived. It's basically minced pork wrapped in tortilla served with avocado paste and tomato salsa. The menu's description said that it was "spicy pork" but honestly, nothing spicy about it, so no worries. Put everything together and you have a good bite to eat. I don't think the dish tastes as good on it's own. It needs it's "friends".

Eating these ribs, eating these OVEN-ROASTED IBERICO PORK RIBS WITH MANGO SALSA(RM 68.00), fingers and all......was pure bliss, seventh heaven, cloud nine, whateverchawannacallit, it rocked my socks, tickled my tummy and left me begging for more. (I do very much wish I could do much better to describe/demonstrate the yummy-pork-fat-drippingly deliciousness of it.)

It was absolutely sweet, tender, juicy, finger & lip licking-ly delicious.It is one of the best ribs I've ever savoured, it left me dreaming for more that night.

GERMAN CRISPY PORK KNUCKLE (RM98.00) We found this to be a tad on the dry side, overall it tastes very good but just a little overcooked. The skin was crackling-ly crispy and a delight to munch on. When Mr. Werner walked over to our table to greet us and asked us how the food was, we told him we found the pork knuckle to be on the dry side. He apologised and explained to us in such a charming manner saying that they marinade and slow-roast their pork between 10-12 hours each day and it may be a little overcooked as the size that we got was on the smaller scale so it possibly got cooked faster than the others. He suggested that we use some of the gravy provided to counter the dryness. At that time we were already almost finished with our meal and was looking into ordering some dessert.

Check out the layers of delicious, crispy, bacon enveloping the pork knuckle.

You can imagine what wonders those slices of bacon did for the roast.

Some side dishes we got to accompany our meat. Sauerkraut and potato wedges;

My dad, a person who naturally hates sauerkraut, actualyl enjoyed eating Elcerdo's version of sauerkraut :D The potato wedges are okay. I only ate a piece. I'd rather save tummy space for the pork and dessert.

...And a bit of salad - mostly lettuce. Lightly dressed.

The waitress helping us carve the rest of the roast. mMmmm... I always liked to see meat being carved. The idea that one gets to eat it soon always thrills me. :P

For dessert, I ordered HOT & COLD (RM19.50) the other two were already stuffed and did not want to order anything else. As for me, I won't pass up a good opportunity to try all their delicious sounding desserts. It was an excellently refreshing combo after an oily fatty meal. The warm, slightly sour, tart and tangy, gelatinous mixed berries jam coupled with the cool smooth, real, homemade vanilla ice cream was such a fantastic, perfect end to a good meal.

Will I return? Yes and I already have. Wait for the second visit review (spoiler! I ordered the piglet the second time around ;) )

THE BREAKDOWN
Ambiance

Service

Food

Price
Easily RM80-RM100 per person. Not a place to visit alone, grab your friends and family along and pig out together! ;)

Contact Info
43&45 Changkat Bukit Bintang,

50200 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03 2145 0511
Fax: 03 2145 1375
Web: www.elcerdokl.com


GPS Coordinates :
N03°08.851'
E101°42.456'

Opening Hours:
Open from Sundays to Fridays for Lunch & Dinner.

Saturdays, dinner ONLY.

Closed between 3pm to 6.30pm.

Non-Halal

Highly Recommended.

Heaven's Loft, Orchard Central, Singapore

After a hearty meal at Quiznos, we decided we gotta have something sweet for dessert. It was afterall, our last day in Singapore, so why not pig out as much as possible. We went up to Heaven's Loft on the 8th Floor of Orchard Central initially for some Ben's & Jerry's - for the third consecutive day- but in the end, we went on a total chocolate binge.

We ordered the Chocolate Hazelnut cake (SGD4.90) which was very nice. Rich yet light and nutty. Loved it.

Dark Chocolate Truffle (75%) and the French Lemon. (SGD 1.80 each) Whilst the Dark Choclate Truffle was good; smooth and dark, the French Lemon..... was.........beyond....... horrendous. I can't even begin to describe to you how it tastes. It was so sour and tangy that it just mutates your face the moment you place it into your mouth. Talk about instant face distortion.

Chocolate Mud Pie (SGD 4.90) ...err.... Did. not.like.it.at.all. Friggin' DRY. OMG! Mud pies should be moist and sticky. This was like taking a bite out of the Atacama Desert.

Dark Chocolate Eclair (SGD3.90). Nothing special. Not very good. The pastry was pretty soggy and it didn't taste like dark chocolate. In fact, I found it quite sweet. Our local Just Heavenly makes much better chocolate eclairs.

Will I return? Not likely.

THE BREAKDOWN
Ambiance

Service

Food

Price
SGD4.90 per cake

SGD1.80 per piece of chocolate.

Contact Info
#08-01/02

181 Orchard Central,

238896 Singapore.
Tel: +65 68849505

GPS Coordinates :
N01°17.032'
E103°50.898'

Non-Halal

Quiznos, Orchard Central, Singapore

Oh my god, this post is like, two weeks late. I've just been, well, experiencing post-Singapore depression. Hahaha! Kidding. I've been really tied up with work and have been cooking more than eating out, after all that retail therapy in Singapore. Anyway, this is the best meal I had during my Singapore trip, granted, I was also with great company and sometimes, having good company makes all the difference.

I've always been a big fan of sub sandwiches and Quiznos has officially topped my charts. Their newly open outlet in Orchard Central, Singapore (they also have another outlet in Far East Square) was giving out 50% discounts on 3 of their selected sandwiches, one of which the Zesty Grilled Steak on Rosemary Parmesan (SGD6.20 for 6inch and SGD10.90 for a foot long), unfortunately, I couldn't claim as they have already ran out of beef. Dang!

There was still a choice of ordering the Tuna Melt or Honey Bourbon Chicken (SGD5.40 for 6 inch and SGD9.20 for a foot long) instead but it did not have any bacon in it and I was a little quite desperate to eat as much non-halal food as I could before I had to return to Malaysia so I decided to order one of their signature sandwiches, the Mesquite Chicken with Bacon (SGD6.20 for 6inches). For an additional SGD2.70 you can choose to add a Caesar salad or a chicken noodle soup, which was what one of my companions did. You can also choose between chocolate chip cookies and potato crisps.

Mesquite Chicken Sandwich with Chicken Noodle Soup

However, I would like to strongly advise you to not opt for the soup. It was terrible. Bland, artifical and reminded me vaguely of watery tapioca-flour glue. The Mesquite Chicken with Bacon sandwich however, was divine!

The Mesquite Chicken with Bacon sandwich consists of warm chunks of very tender, flavourful chicken in between cold, soft, yet crunchy bed of lettuce; crispy, deliciously yummy bacon; sharp, salty taste of cheddar; fantastic aroma of herbs; crisp, sweet slices of red onions and slices of fresh tomatoes with a good dolop of Ranch dressing toasted to saliva-tsunami-inducing perfection.

One thing I like very much about Quiznos is that you don't get to customize your sandwich - except for a choice between white or wheat artisan bread; unlike other sandwich bars like Subway, where the patrons can choose what sort of sauce combinations they want in their sandwich; most of the time which, they end up putting too much or weird combos and end up spoiling the entire sandwich or making every one of them taste the same each time. Quiznos keeps the taste of every one of their sandwiches unique and tasting incredible by NOT allowing people to customize it.

I bet if patrons were able to have their way, they would spoil the perfection of the Mesquite Chicken with Bacon sandwich with silly additions of Thousand Island sauce or sweet chilli sauce. *Bleagh*

Honey Bourbon Chicken (SGD5.40)

Most of all, I love the fact that Quiznos uses chunks of real meat as opposed to processed meat and ham. Although Quiznos also offers your standard cold-cuts like turkey ham sandwiches, the ham will only be cut to order and every one of their sandwiches are perfectly toasted to mouth and heart-warming goodness; none of that pre-cut stuff that Subway sports.

I personally believe that Quiznos gives much more value for money as compared to Subway Sandwiches, mainly due to the fact that they use fresh meat. They're roughly the same in price but you get fresher, yummier choices from Quiznos.

Will I return? HELL, YES.

THE BREAKDOWN
Ambiance

I didn't really like how the tables were placed and there weren't enough tables.

Service

Food

Price
Between SGD4.80 - SGD6.20 for 6 inch sandwiches and SGD8.40-SGD10.90 for foot longs. Not inclusive of GST.

Contact Info

#03-33 Orchard Central,

181 Orchard Road,

238896, Singapore.

Opening Hours:

Open Daily.

Tel:

+65 65099833

GPS Coordinates :
N01°18.052'
E103°50.387'

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#01-01 Far East Square,

49 Pekin Street,

Singapore 048781.

Opening Hours:

Closed on Sundays.

Tel: +65 6536 2420

GPS Coordinates :
N01°17.032'
E103°50.898'


Non-Halal

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Quiznos Menu. Click on thumbnail for larger view.