Even KFC has hopped onto the froyo bandwagon and serving up a version of their own for the budget conscious. At $2 for a cup, you get to choose between natural or passionfruit flavor and a topping (mango sauce, strawberry sauce or Froot Loops). An additional topping costs 50 cents. You can also opt for the cone version ($1). The cone looks like the one from macs.

Taste-wise, KFC's froyo tastes like a watered down version of Yami Yogurt's. It certainly can't compete with the high raved Llao llao, Milk & Honey etc. However, at almost a fraction of the price, we weren't really complaining. This makes a good alternative to MacDonald's ice cream on a hot sunny day -- almost every day.  

When we heard McDonald's was selling truffle fries, we were intrigued. At only $3.20 (a la carte), it seemed a good deal if only it was a fraction of what real truffle fries tastes like. Instead of truffle oil, Mac's version is essentially shaker fries with truffle seasoning. 

After doing the necessary, we were hit with an incredible whiff of truffle scent/stink upon opening the bag. Promising enough. Until we bit on it... urgh. Initially, it tasted like seaweed shaker fries which wasn't entirely bad. But then came the aftertaste, which was almost like rancid butter and extremely unpleasant. From then on, it just tasted pretty gross and even the truffle smell seemed to have mingled with that of the reused oil. Please bring back seaweed shaker fries.

Tl;dr: In short, don't eat this.

This chicken ramen is known to be extremely spicy and has been making its rounds on social media. For a period of time it was apparently sold out in Singapore due to its popularity. We managed to grab our hands on a cup ($3) but S -- who has been eating chili padi his whole life -- is skeptical about how spicy it can possibly get.   

Meant to be served dry, the sauce is in fact quite tasty, and I dare say moreish. Will probably taste great if you jazz it up with a sunny side up egg and some greens. S considers it about a 5 upon 10 in terms of spiciness. A 7 would be NeNe Chicken's 'Freaking Hot' sauce and 10 would be Sunset Grill & Pub's level 35 buffalo wings. Of course, the spiciness lingers on and a glass of cold milk does wonders to soothe your burning tongue. 

At $3, this is one of the more expensive cup noodles out there. If it was less pricey, we might even consider stocking up on some. One of the Korean Supermart is selling the packet noodles version at 5 for $5.50 (edit: $4.50 at Shine Korean supermart near SMU). We did spy another brand with a similar looking packaging selling this ($5 for 3 packets). Perhaps that might be worth reviewing another time!

Milkcow, a Korean soft serve ice-cream chain, prides itself in its use of 100% organic natural milk honeycomb. All superfluousness aside, Milkcow does serve up an extremely milky and creamy ice-cream. The ice-cream is milk-flavored, without a trace of vanilla. As the relatively new kid on the block, Milkcow has to compete against the likes of Honey Creme, llaollao, and umm Thai Ice Cream Rolls just to name a few. 

As you can see, you're pretty much spoilt for choice over here. Well, we're going to run through a few items on their menu, so hopefully you will be able to make a more informed decision when you get there. Lets begin!  

Snow Drop ($5.90) -- Candy floss on top, organic salt ice cream, jelly beans and M&Ms. What could possibly go wrong with this beauty? Almost everything actually. Unlike salted caramel or salted chocolate, where there's a balance between sweetness and saltiness, salt and milk seems to be pushing it a little. It tasted pretty weird too in our opinion. But of course, opinions are subjective. The nail in the coffin was, however, the jelly beans. Word of advice: stay far far far away from those, lest you want a broken tooth. Loved the candy floss by the way.

Milky Cube ($5.90) -- This is the poster girl/boy of Milkcow. Soft serve ice-cream with a slab of organic, unadulterated honeycomb. No bees included. The honeycomb was kind of hard to enjoy though as it was waxy, cloyingly sweet and stuck to the roof of our mouth.  

Milky Honey ($5.50) -- This was probably the best of the lot. Plain and simple, just the ice-cream with a drizzle of the organic honey. We loved how the sweetness of the honey contrasted nicely with the savory ice-cream. 

S is on an instagram giveaway winning steak -- 3 in a month! With a $10 Kokomama voucher in hand, we headed down to the cafe at SOTA for lunch. To be honest, we weren't expecting much of Kokomama, having read some rather unflattering reviews of this place.

For some reason, Bingsu is so darn expensive in Singapore. It's just shaved ice and syrup for goodness sake. There's something cheaper called ice kachang out there. Kokomama's Bingsu is priced about mid-range, a notch cheaper than the more popular chains. They also serve a baby version, which is cute, but probably not worth your money because the prices don't seem to have scaled down proportionately with the size (on the poster).

There is a decent array of korean fushion dishes on the menu. Prices, we felt it were a little on the high side, considering the clientele. Perhaps there's a student meal deal somewhere that we missed out on. Wanted to try the highly raved chilli crab (black) bread bowl but decided against it due to the 2 chillis (need to train Sher to eat spicy food).

S had the Jumping Prawn Aglio Olio ($12.90), which was quite a huge & generous portion and looked photogenic. Probably one of the least korean dishes on the menu, it tasted decent enough.

For just $2, you can add on a drink. It's a huge drink though, and perfectly shareable between two people. The weather was a little on the hot side, so we had the refreshing honey lemon drink.

Today we wanted to try some new kimbap place (House of Gimbap), apparently near Suntec City. However, we didn't manage to find it (turned out to be Millenia Walk instead) so after much deliberation, we settled for the Idaten Udon next to Sushi Express. Seems like it replaced the Asian Kitchen, hope it fares better than its predecessor.

Concept-wise, Idaten is more cafeteria style, where you start off by choosing your udon, then you grab a tray and slide it along the rails to the next counter and pick your sides. We had the Kake Udon (hot dashi broth) and the Kamatama Udon (with shoyu and onsen egg). Idaten allows you to choose what type of udon you want, having rather unique flavors such as matcha, yuzu and pumpkin. However we stuck to the plain old wheat noodles.

As for the sides, you get to pick from a wide variety of tempura, onigiri, karaage and even oden. We spotted deep fried squid, fried chicken & crab croquette as well. Although not freshly deep fried, most of the dishes are kept warm by the lamps. After paying for our meal, it's off to find seats and grab some of the sauces and garnishes from a nearby bar. Free flow of seaweed, spring onion, tempura flakes, chilli padi (the super spicy one) and the boiling hot tempura sauce! By the way, don't be deceived by the 'grated white raddish' as it tasted unmistakably like ginger to us. Sher was too greedy and took a whole bowl of her favorite 'white raddish' to garnish her udon and we ended up drinking ginger soup:/

As usual, we over-ordered on the sides, thinking two sides each would be just nice. We simply couldn't resist the tempura enoki mushrooms ($1.50), and the fried mixed vegetables which consisted of mostly onions and carrots. At merely $2, it was huge and could probably feed four.

S craved the pumpkin tempura ($1.30), so we took this lightly battered morsel off the tray. The fried chicken onigiri ($2.20), was surprisingly tasty despite being just a whole lot of carbs. 

The Kake Udon's broth was very qing dan and wholly satisfying. On the contrary, the Kamatama Udon was already very flavorful thanks to the shoyu. Mixing up the egg added yet another dimension of richness to the sauce.

There aren't many specialty udon places in Singapore, and Idaten seems pretty promising. This place caters to the budget conscious, and we would recommend this place if you are looking for a quick, fuss free meal.

Have you ever had dry ban mian? Neither did we until we chanced upon Toa Payoh Central's famous dry ban mian. Normally with dry meepok or dry meekia you'd expect some combination of the classic chili/vinegar/tomato/dark soy sauce. However, with ban mian, one would probably be curious as to how on earth do you serve it dry. At Fu Zhou Ban Mian (whose signboard just states Ban Mian), for $3.50, what you get is a huge bowl of handmade broad noodles (ban mian), mixed in dark soy sauce. Apart from the crispy ikan bilis, a cracked egg and minced pork, this dish is a vegetarians' delight. It is absolutely loaded to the brim with green leafy vegetable (we think the veges are seasonal. We had cabbage on our second visit)-- trust us the picture doesn't really do it justice.

Be prepared to wait!  We went around dinner time on our second visit and had to wait about 30 - 45 mins for our order to be ready.

Because we had the dry Ban Mian, it came with a very generous portion of soup (with more leafy veges and an egg!) S ordered a dry prawn mee ($3.50) which had lots of kangkong (morning glory) and tau geh (mung beansprouts) -- and as usual, added too much chili powder. Because we are greedy people, we had to order popiah ($1.50) from a nearby stall to complement our meal. It was decent, although there wasn't any fragrant rojak flower that we adore.

This Ban Mian place has hardly any reviews so we thought we'd give it some publicity given that its cheap and good. Block 186 is within walking distance from HDB hub, look out for Courts!

In preparation for our visit to the Sembawang White Beehoon at Punggol Settlement, we thought it would be apt to dig out our photos from our previous trip to the original Sembawang White Beehoon at Jalan Tampang (just across the road from Sembawang Shopping Centre). We were there for a quick lunch before our K Box session, so fortunately, we only had to contend with workers from the nearby offices and factories. Apparently, the dinner queue for tse char at night can be quite an intimidating affair.   

The medium portion of White Beehoon costs only $6 and was large enough for the both of us! It looks like something my grandma would whip up at home, it was far tastier, albeit disappointingly lacking in wok hei. The star of the show was probably the rich and starchy stock, which was easily soaked up by the white beehoon. There was also a decent amount of prawns and sotong to go with the noodles. All in all, although not a particularly exciting dish, we thought it would serve well as a lighter alternative to horfun. Leaves you with more tummy space for other dishes like their much raved ngor hiang or fried chicken wings.

Alexandra Village Food Centre has lots of great options. However, as there's only so much food two stomachs can handle, we had to make some rather hard choices. In the end, we decided to go for the Bak Ku Teh and Roast Meat Rice instead of the Claypot Laksa and jiao zi.

There's two types of Bak Ku Teh out there in Singapore, the herbal kind and the peppery kind. Leon Kee's Bak Ku Teh belongs to the former category.  Laced with dang gui and garlic cloves, the claypot helps keep the soup hot. We ordered the portion with extra pork ribs ($6.00) and added crispy you tiao ($1) to soak up the flavorful soup. To go with the pork ribs which have been stewed for hours on end until tender, make sure to grab some chili padi and dark soy sauce. 

Next to the Bak Ku Teh stall was a long queue for this roast meat rice. Being typical Singaporeans, we had to see what the fuss was about. We know it looks like a pile of grisly meat and grease but believe us, it is in fact an incredible combination of char siu and roast pork doused in their special braised sauce. For only $3.50 a portion, you also get a bowl of cabbage soup (with pigtail) which helps to cleanse your palate between each spoonful of the sinfully good roast meat.

We will be heading back there a second time to try the highly raved claypot laksa!

S has been eyeing Snack Culture's 9-course omakase degustation dinner ever since we came across rave reviews of the place. Unfortunately, soon after, the prices went up to $59 from $49 and we had second thoughts. So when Snack Culture decided to offer a $49 promo for its one-year anniversary, we immediately decided that we had to head down (with S' mom in tow). Do note that the degustation menu is only available for dinner, on Thursdays to Saturdays, and by reservation only. On Snack Culture's website, there's a rather entertaining recount of the origins of this menu.

To get to Snack Culture, be prepared for a long walk. That's because it's located at CT hub and the nearest MRT (1.2km walk away) is Lavender. Alternatively, there's a bus stop right outside CT hub that has bus 67, 145 among others. From the outside, it just looks like an ulu office/industrial building, you can't tell that the Snack Culture is lurking inside.

The restaurant itself is pretty small, seats about 30 at most and the far wall are shelves displaying their homemade goodies with a local twist e.g. cookies with flavors such as haebi hiam, laksa and rojak ($16.90 for a small jar). Unfortunately, as there wasn't much direct lighting, some of our photos didn't come out to par. We were desperately trying to use our phone torchlight as a backlight so that we could get the camera to focus properly - still trying to figure out how to operate our new cammie :/

Looks like the menu has changed a little since their opening. The Ter Kah Chor Scotch Egg and Har Jeong Soft Shell Crab Capellini were gone. In their place, Snack Culture has put in renditions of the Lobster Roll (but using squid) and Yangzhou Fried Rice. If you haven't done your research -- unlike us -- you can have a go at the riddles on the menu while waiting for your food. The answers would be provided, on plastic cards, just when your food arrives. It's an interesting concept, and a great conversation starter.

To our dismay, the Snack Culture doesn't serve tap water. Or perhaps the waitress thought we were atas people that only drank bottled water. Nevertheless, expecting lots of spicy food, we paid $6 for a 750ml bottle of Coralba? No idea what's that brand or why people need to drink bottled water in Singapore anyway. (Later on, we saw other tables being served glasses of water?! So we suppose they did have tap water after all.)

Here comes our starter: Japanese Edamame with Thai Tom Yum Espuma, essentially a non-traditional take on Tom Yum soup. Firstly instead of soup, what you get is a foamy delight that lingers on your tongue. With the addition of fragrant Rojak Flower (bunga kantan), and the sweet edamame, which they leave you to peel for yourself, this creation packs a serious punch, albeit quite a spicy one. Sher's chili training seems to have paid off, she said it wasn't that spicy. Our only grouse was perhaps the tiny portion -- although mostly necessary in the grand scheme of things.

Next up, Korean Mandu in Singapore Bak Kut Teh Consomme. Served chilled, the consomme was the peppery variation of Bak Kut Teh with a mild aniseed flavor. This went nicely down our throats. Accompanying the clear broth, were two bite-sized pork dumplings that were juicy and tasty, but nothing too out of the ordinary.




We were also offered extra belachan mayo, in case we desired more kick. Even if you are a fan of black fungus, we recommend adding more of the creamy sauce, it helps in making the spongy fungus more palatable. In the dish, there's also jing zhen (should tie a knot to make it crunchier) and particularly potent tasting black mushrooms (S's most hated ingredient). There was also some fried sweet bean curd, which came as a welcome surprise to us.


For the fourth dish, we were served a trio of bite-sized Asian treats. We were instructed to start from the left and work our way to the right, as the flavors would get progressively stronger. The Vietnamese spring roll came deftly wrapped in rice paper, and was filled with tender bulgogi and mint leaves. It was served with the traditional sweet chili sauce.

In the middle, was the Ayam Buah Keluak Wanton. S' mom said that the buah keluak taste was quite mild. Apparently it's something of an acquired taste. But having never tasted Ayam Buah Keluak before, we could not identify any unique taste and so to us, it was just a normal, yummy chicken wonton.


Lastly but not least, was the highly raved dry laksa on a homemade haebi hiam cookie. The haebi hiam cookie was delightfully buttery like good old shortbread and the dried shrimp flavor was intense. Paired with the flavorful laksa spread (more laksa leaves please), we wished we could reach out for another one.


Upon reaching the halfway mark, we were treated to a take on one of our favorite Chinese New Year dishes -- Pen Cai. The tasty broth was made of only 2 ingredients - dried scallops & a secret ingredient that we didn't manage to guess and shan't spoil ;)


Unwrapping the intricately wrapped parcel to reveal the delicious goodies inside: scallop, mini abalone and that potent black mushroom again.


Next on the menu was a creation inspired by the popular lobster roll, but with local ingredients and spices - deep fried squid, a la Old Chang Kee, and salted egg yolk sauce. For garnishing and added flavor, we also had deep fried curry leaves i.e. the ones you find in your cereal prawns. Impressive looking dish, however, we found it a bit hard to eat as the squid would poke our faces. Hence, we resorted to using our knives to cut the squid up first.


Our 7th course was a culmination of Singaporean's favorite breakfast treat, Fan Choy, and Yang Zhou Fried Rice. Tri-colour Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah), which resembled tiny grains not unlike couscous, was stir fried with typical fried rice ingredients such as char siu and french beans together with the atypical bulgogi that's laid on top. To eat, just chop it up and mix in the garnish. Careful though, the chili padi is extremely spicy (intentionally not de-seeded).


While we were having our Quinoa Fan Choy/Fried Rice, we could already smell the intense garlicky aroma of the this dish wafting from the kitchen. A play on the cajun seafood boil, our 8th dish was Seafood En Papillote (French for 'In Parchment') consisting of fresh prawns and mussels baked in a parchment paper pouch so that the seafood steams in their own juices and infuses with the piquant Louisiana seasoning. Instead of bread to soak up the delicious sauce, we were served one of the crispiest and lightest roti prata we've ever had.


Portions were pretty generous -- two prawns, 3 mussels and as much prata you can eat. The prawns were fresh and very easy to shell with just the fork and knife, although nothing's stopping you from getting your hands dirty. S kept reaching out for more prata (wonder how can he stomach this much food), and using them to soak up every last bit of the flavorful garlic broth.


The Snack Culture Company
Address: #02-17, CT Hub, 2 Kallang Avenue, 339407
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun, 9:00-19:00; Closed Sun
Website: http://snackculture.com
Contact: +65 6443 2006
Damage: $49+/pax (u.p $59+/pax)