Soups & Salad

Yummy and filling soups from The Soup Spoon are just the thing to eat for lunch when I'm feeling not particularly hungry, or feeling a bit out of sorts. There's a choice of thick soup, cream or tomato-based soups, or clear broth, with or without meat. It's not too heavy, easy-to-eat and yet not so light that it makes you go hungry too soon.

For a heavier lunch, one can always opt for the large portion, which comes in a bowl that's as big as the "碗公" (in Hokkien) that are typically used for soups in Chinese families in a communal eating setting. A small bun of your choice is served with each serving of soup.


The day's special - Chicken Ciacatore (sp?) with Sage, which was very yummy with a strong taste of ang moh herbs


Spicy Vegetable Gumbo, which was meatless


One can take-away either the hot soup or this package chilled soup and heat it up at home. I opted for this because it's easier to handle cold soup on public transport.


It contains some Japanese chicken soup/broth, enough for about 2 to 3 servings


Sweet and yummy!

On another occasion, I went back to Food For Thought one day to try its salads. This time, I chose to sit at its empty bar counter as I'd wanted to see the food preparation and what goes into their dishes of mainly salad and sandwiches.


The creamless brocolli soup was alright, though hardly exciting.

Now the Chinese Chicken (or was it turkey??) Caesar Salad was the one that bothered me. Instead of the usual Caesar dressing, it's dressed in a Chinese stewed pork sauce, which came from their special stewed 3-layered fatty pork (meant for sandwiches) and topped with fried ikan billis (anchovies). I knew this only because I'd asked them about the sauce.


Salad leaves with a layer of shiny oil

While I'm ok with the Chinese twist of adding fried ikan billis and a Chinese-styled dressing, what was not ok was that they had first added some oil onto the salad leaves, followed by the stewed pork sauce which also had a layer of oil.

Gosh! I wanted to eat a salad coz I wanted something light, so I definitely don't want my salad to be piled with so much oil! There was enough oil for it to drip below the salad leaves onto the plate, and I've had to try to drain out as much oil as I could from the leaves before putting them into my mouth.

Secondly, I really didn't expect anything porky to appear in a chicken/turkey salad, so why did they not mention anything about adding pork sauce, and a rather oily one at that? What if customers were on a white-meat diet? Furthermore, the sauce was not even fantastic.

And finally, I AM NOT A PORKY PERSON (I will only eat some pork done in certain ways), so I absolutely hated it that they'd spoiled my supposedly-healthy lunch totally with the very porky, pork oil-laden and probably cholesterol-laden sauce! Not wanting to waste food, I ate them up, but I was so put-off by their mis-concept that I did not bother to give my feedback.

Needless to say, that was my last visit to that cafe.

Coffee Break

Coffee from JCO Donut & Coffee


I must have bought either an Americano or a latte and to my pleasant surprise, the staff gave me a small donut foc, to go with my coffee.



This is not raw sugar, but really brown sugar powder! It didn't interfere with the taste of coffee though, and I do like the understated but stylish packaging.



Local egg & kaya-butter toast set at a new small joint at SMU.


I happened to walk aimlessly to that area, not sure of what to have and when I saw they have soft-boiled egg... well, that settles it! :)

It was too light, so I went to pack a veggie subway for an afternoon snack. I'm still not sure why I got a discount for the sandwich. Did they think I was a SMU staff (I wasn't wearing any tag) or .... a student?!? :-O

Coffee with a friend at Espresso Bar, at Sim Lim Square


The sinful moussey, dark chocolate & banana cake was her idea!


Nice... and the prices are slightly cheaper than most coffee joints. Hope they stay around.

Coffee & cake

Here's the cafe latte from Sleek Espresso Bar (at basement of Sim Lim Square) which I like.



It's quite a big cup filled with full-bodied espresso + foamy milk, and I think there's more than one shot of espresso at that - good value for money! Their service is friendly too.



They also sell this big slice of ang moh carrot cake at $4.20 nia. I tar-pao the carrot cake to take home to share with the SO.



I dunno why, but I felt so hungry that Friday afternoon, that I ended up eating the whole big chunk of cake for tea...all by myself :P

Furthermore, the SO asked me to go eat steamboat dinner that night...so end up overate again! >_<

The cafe latte from The Soup Spoon, at $3.60 or so (can't remember) , in a very small cup and it had only one single shot of espresso, and it wasn't shiok.



At the office, with one of the blue pens that I brought from home, coz the pens provided by the office all can't be used after some time - the ink wouldn't come out!

Meanwhile, I am still wondering WHEN I will try to bake a carrot cake. I wanted to do that one weekend, then the cat sisters came and it never take off after that.

ps: Speaking of cakes, I could never quite understand the English phrase "to have one's cake and eat it as well". I mean, what's the use of having a cake if one can't eat it, right?

Soup lunch at Food for Thought

Having had a heavy breakfast, I wanted to eat something light for lunch. After gallivanting into PLC to check out the retractable leash, I remembered there was a small sandwich diner close by, so I found Food for Thought, which offered several choices of sandwiches (1 vegetarian s/w), pastas and 2 types of soup.

I chose the shitake mushroom soup (the other was Ham & Potato).


A Sunday Times food reviewer had ordered this soup and on her first taste, thought the chef had forgotten to add salt! Contrary to her experience, on my first taste, I found the soup to be savoury and slightly sweet, which needed just a sprinkle of pepper.

The soup came in a big bowl and had slivers of shitake mushroom. It was served with 4 pieces of lightly-toasted bread...enough to make a filling lunch.



Water is free, but please donate generously, so that the underprivileged may also have clean water to drink... so says the sign.



It was close to 2pm, so the place wasn't crowded, but while I was waiting for my takeaway latte, a bunch of school gals came in to have lunch.


The place is small and cozy enough, though I wish they didn't have those reflective tables which is kind of glitzy. If it remains quiet and not too crowded, I would like to go back to try their salads and fruit freezes.

(Note to self: the cafe latte at $3 was average, in a small cup...can't beat the Sleek Espresso Bar's version at $3.60 which had more oomph... )