Crystal: Zhiying, kick Jasmine out of the team. She hasn't been doing any work!
There. Barely 1.5 weeks since the start of Munchin' Mamas and my fellow mama is threatening to disown me as the secretary they cannot do without. I have the crucial job of documenting all our rendezvous and the antics of our mamas. With this first official post I have to inform you that you are witnessing the birth of an amazing student interest group, so leave your name on our tagboard now and we shall inform you of our next food hideout! : D
What can be any better than a steamboat meal for buddies who haven't met up for a long time? After scouring the streets of Bugis, we settled at Shanghai Steamboat Xian De Lai on Liang Seah Street. There was this super popular steamboat place down the road but there was a QUEUE for seats and the few of us just couldn't be bothered to wait for a place so we just took their namecard and we are going to RESERVE seats the next time we have a craving for steamboat.
Xian De Lai was a pretty neat place with air-conditioning just at the right temperature because it prevented us from sweating while sitting around the pot of bubbling hot soup. (okay crys said she was sweating like crazy) Instead of the traditional hole-in-the-table steamboat, they made use of this electric heater and placed the steamboat on it which is pretty dangerous I must say because if you were any more clumsy than these three mamas
who dropped their chopsticks at least twice each, you would have knocked the whole pot over and disfigured yourself. Thank goodness Claire and I were sitting on the steamboat side where we were careful not to risk the lives of our members.
We had a choice of two base soups and we chose a spicy base and some pork ribs soup for the other. For about $20 (inclusive of GST and service charge 0.o), we were expecting a steamboat buffet but half of our orders didn't come and even if they did, they came in miserable portions on mini plates. Our favourites were the special meat balls, vegetable dumplings and yam strips but other than that, there wasn't much they offered that we couldn't find in the supermarkets.
So for the sake of that $20, I suggest you spend it on anything else but not the mediocre steamboat place we went to.
RATING: 2/5 mama stars
And since it was our first meeting, we had to challenge our stomachs to their limits by stopping over at this traditional chinese desserts eatery Ji De Chi 记得吃 where we had their tangyuan in ginger soup and plain glutinous rice balls that came with crushed nuts. We started whipping out our cameras and taking pictures of what we were eating and one concerned lady came over to ask us if anything was wrong.
-imagines the day munchin' mamas becomes THE feared group of food reviewers with all the eateries laying out their red carpets and offering us their best delicacies for free- : D
The tangyuan didn't disappoint
but we don't recommend the plain glutinous rice balls because they are plain. LOL.
We didn't know that at first and since they looked oh-so-divine in the golden syrup covering them, we had to try some for ourselves. Since this place has had promising food reviews, we wouldn't mind coming back to try other items on their menu (like their steamed egg white, I would have tried it if not for my empty wallet that day) when we have more stomach space.
RATING: 3.5/5 mama stars
