Travel, Itineraries & Guides, Hotel Reviews
White Rose Café – the all-day dining restaurant at York Hotel Singapore – has always been known for offering great and value-for-money local delights. I still have fond memories of having char kway teow and laksa there. The venue is always popular among families. Besides being known for having good local food, the property has what is probably one of the cheapest hotel buffets in Singapore.
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Cataldo Chiloiro has just been appointed as chef de cuisine at Pete’s Place, the Italian restaurant in Grand Hyatt Singapore. Hailing from Southern Italy – from Taranto in Puglia to be exact – Chef Aldo brings with him 25 years preparing Italian cuisine. But make no mistake about it, he is much younger than his experience suggests, having been exposed to the kitchen from the tender age of eight.
Chef Aldo will bring his expertise in utilizing Southern Italian ingredients to Pete’s Place new menu. Expect to see burrata cheese, truffles and extra virgin olive oil from Puglia. Some of Chiloiro’s signature dishes include Parmigiana di Melanzane (fried eggplant slices with tomato sauce and covered in melted Italian cheese), pizza burrata and risotto funghi – risotto being one of his favourite Italian dishes.
The new menu also features Chef Aldo’s special 48-hour pizza dough. Created in-house, the dough has a distinctly lighter and more flavourful crust. The 48-hour dough is used for every handcrafted pizza at Pete’s Place, all of which are prepared in their brick oven that is fired with sustainably sourced Jarrah wood from Australia.
Another of Chef Aldo’s additions to the pizza collection is the Pizza Burrata (SGD 25 ++), which features a tomato sauce base, fresh basil leaves and chopped tomatoes. The handmade pizza is then topped generously with fresh burrata cheese as soon as it comes out of the wood-fired oven.
The Novotel Singapore Clarke Quay is located right smack at one of the most happening places in Singapore. Towering right next to Liang Court and a few steps from a number of well-known bars and clubs, the hotel is a convenient option whether or not you’re opting to dig into Singapore’s nightlife scene. That being said, Novotel has traditionally been the most business-oriented among Accor’s hotel brands and this property likewise has plenty of meeting facilities for the business traveler – including one inside the club lounge. For convenience, eligible guests at this property are also able to skip queues by checking-out online.
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Tipping is a way of life in the United States. Most waiting staff are paid below minimum wage and rely on tips to make a living. This practice is different from many other countries where servers are paid a living wage and where a “service charge” is added to the bill. For most visitors, it can be confusing – and even embarrassing – trying to decipher whether a particular service warrants a tip. Despite having lived for a period of time in the United States previously, I was likewise stuck in situations where I pondered the merits of a tip during a recent visit. Of course, I could have played it safe and just tipped every server that took care of me but it would have been excessive not to mention detrimental to the tipping culture of the United States.
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Raging Bull Chophouse & Bar officially opened its doors to the public recently through an invite only event. Before entering the restaurant, you are greeted with a golden embossed logo and the name of the restaurant behind a marbled wall.
As you enter the restaurant, old fashioned elegance is immediately imprinted in your mind. It mimics those exclusive country clubs seen in movies. It has different sections, having a cozy and homey section as well as a well-lit bar for a livelier setting. It is definitely unique and versatile, not too snobbish for casual diners and drinkers but classy enough to attract the fine dining crowd.
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Having opened its doors barely a year ago in New York’s East Village, Autre Kyo Ya is the sister restaurant of the Michelin starred Kyo Ya. Compared to the wholly Japanese proposition of its older sibling, Autre Kyo Ya – as its name suggests – offers a fusion between modern French and refined Japanese cuisine. The restaurant is helmed by Executive Chef Shuji who has had the chance to work in both French and Japanese restaurants. During my recent trip to New York, I had the opportunity to drop by Autre Kyo Ya to try out its specialties and I must say the food was splendid (but more on that in a bit).
Entering the restaurant for the first time, I was greeted by warm tones (think: wooden concave interiors and ornamental plants) with undeniable Japanese accents. Autre Kyo Ya is not awfully big. I could count perhaps less than ten tables which help to create a relatively intimate setting even when the restaurant is full as it was during my visit.
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The launch of a new hotel brand is always an exciting event in the hospitality scene. AccorHotels is the latest group to come up with a proposition targeted to millennials with its new brand, JO&JOE but goes a step further by incorporating elements not just from traditional hotels but also from hostel and even private rental formats.
Moving into the co-living scene is a pretty new and bold move for a giant hospitality chain and Accor is the only one I know that is going into this direction. The JO&JOE brand is set to expand quite rapidly, with up to 50 locations by 2020 mostly in key European destinations such as Paris, Warsaw and Budapest as well as in South American destinations such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The properties are set to open in city center locatons, near tourist attractions which is basically what many of Europe’s top hostels offer.
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To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pan Pacific Singapore, Hai Tien Lo has launched 30 signature claypot dishes featuring specialties such as Nyonya Claypot Prawns and Roast Duck with Sea Cucumber. The dishes are priced reasonably at SGD 22 to SGD 28 per claypot. There is also currently a promotion where any two claypot dishes could be had for just SGD 33.30 for dinner from Sundays to Wednesdays. This is a really good deal by Hai Tien Lo’s standards as two claypot dishes could be shared by two or even three people for a respectable dinner.
I tried around twenty of the thirty claypot dishes during a recent media preview of the new promotion. Overall, I found the variety to be a good mix between meat dishes (pork, beef, chicken and duck all well-represented) and seafood (prawns and fish). Many of the dishes could be thought of as comfort food, the type that family and friends would share over a lovely evening while recounting happy times.
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