Sweet Spot Chocolates - Marina Bay Sands Hotel

My aunt treated me to some chocolates from Sweet Spot @ Marina Bay Sands Hotel. It is near the lobby of the hotel, on level 1.
I like the glass display of their items.

Those are little chocolate bits scattered around.

Here's the address in case you're around the area and craving for some sweet stuff:

Sweet Spot
10 Bayfront Avenue
Lobby Level,
Tower 3
Marina Bay Sands Hotel






Click on the pic to see the full sized menu.

Mine is the 12 piece box of chocolates.

See, that's my box below, next to the white baggie of pastries that my aunt selected for herself. Here are my chocolates. The Marina Bay Sands yellow imprint on the chocolate is cute, but I can't remember what flavour it is.

I still can't bear to eat the chocolates yet. So tempting... but will it live up to expectations, that price = quality? Hmmmm...

Update: Tuesday 5 July 11
~ Had my 1st piece of the chocolate. Chose the one with the red triangle at the corner. It is a strawberry filling. I am NOT IMPRESSED. It is not bad, but I don't find it so special as to justify the price tag. Ouch. $2.50 gone. Hope the remaining 11 chocolates would taste better. I mean, the remaining 10 chocolates, since there were 2 of the strawberry filled chocs.

Update: Tuesday 12 July 11
~ Took another strawberry filled choc yesterday, again, I did not think it was great.
~ Took the mint choc today, it's the one with the bubble/pebble surface. Now I'm more impressed, it is good. I can taste the outer bitter chocolate layer, and the mint chocolate inside is a good blend - the mint is not artificial tasting nor overpowering, and the chocolate (tastes like dark chocolate, not milk choc) filling can be differentiated from the mint.
~ I would get more of this flavour if I ever purchase from Sweet Spot.

Food Places in Saigon

Here's a list of my favourite eating places in Saigon. They are all in District 1, for easy access. The Viet restaurants (with the exception of Phở 24) get very very crowded around meal times. So go before or after the usual eating times. These Viet restaurants are SUPER popular with the tourists and locals, a sure sign that the food is great! Price is very reasonable too.

When in Vietnam, a must-try would be the fruit smoothies!!! Super nice and refreshing. Try them in the restaurants, more hygienic than in the road side stalls (duhhhh!).

Vietnamese
1)Bún bò Huế Vietnamese Huế Noodle (Quan An Hue Truyen Thong)
39A Ngô Đức Kế
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bun_Bo_Hue
- The restuarant is located at the side road leading off Ðồng Khởi, near the Saigon River end.
- This is my new favourite restaurant! Way better than Phở 24, and the menu is good. Fruit smoothies are cheaper and just as nice here. Must try the Sapoche (chiku), soursop, mango, avocado...
- Try the mix pork and beef combination near the middle of the menu. It is sort of like fish balls/cakes, except that meat instead of fish is used.
- The Huế style of cooking is very similar to traditional Chinese cooking, so it's very easy on the palate.
- Add on the other types of meat 'cakes'.
- After a meal, do go over to Bố Già Ice-Cream to sit down and relax. When you exit the Bún bò Huế restaurant, turn right and it is a few shops down.

2)Quán Ăn Ngon (Marché-style Viet food)
138, Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa
- From this restaurant, you can easily walk to Diamond Plaza for shopping. Just ask the waiters/waitresses for directions. When you exit Quán Ăn Ngon, just turn left and walk down and later turn right.
- Super extensive menu. You could walk around the stalls to have a look, then order from the menu.
- DO NOT EVER ORDER their phở noodles. The soup stock is not nice and the noodles are not nice. You're better off having Phở 24 noodles. The fresh spring rolls are hard and NOT tasty.
- The bun noodles are not bad, try the Mekong Delta style bun noodles.
- The lemongrass steamed clams are really nice. Must order the seafood hotpot for 2 also. YUMMY!!!! Lots of veggie and fresh seafood.
- I prefer the Phở 24 and Bún bò Huế fruit smoothies. If you're at Quán Ăn Ngon, mango smoothies are the safer bet. Soursop is okay too. If it gets too sweet or concentrated, just ask for ice.

3)Phở 24
- Located everywhere!
- The fruit smooties are a must try. Strawberry is nice, so are the usual avocado, soursop, Sapoche (chiku), MANGO!!!!!
- Do try the fried spring rolls. But avoid the yoghurt unless you have a sweet tooth.

4)Café Central
At Sun Wah Tower, junction of Nguyễn Huệ and Tôn Thất Thiêp
- More for hanging out for snacks and drinks, and people watching. Great view of traffic and the sidewalk.

5)Temple Club
29-31 Ton That Thiep, Located right next to Fanny.
- Occupying a former Chinese temple, the place looks ordinary from the outside but is impressive once you've entered.
- The fresh / steamed spring rolls are highly recommended by my Viet friend "B".
- She said that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ate here as well!

6)Ice-Cream
a)quán kem Bạch Đằng at 26 & 28 Lê Lợi.
- Ask to sit on the 3rd or 4th Floor. A great view of the busy intersection, view the hectic traffic in the air-conditioned comfort.
b)Bố Già Ice-Cream at Ngô Đức Kế, a few shops away from Bún bò Huế restaurant.
- Supposedly the best ice-cream in Saigon. Literally, "Bố Già" (pronounced Bo2 Ya3), means 'godfather' as in the mafia.

Italian
7)Santa Lucia Trattoria Italiana
14 Nguyễn Huệ, this road is parallel to Ðồng Khởi and near the 'Lucky Plaza' shopping centre that's on Ðồng Khởi.
- Order the freshly made pasta if you want something more chewy.
- The clam pasta in white wine sauce is great for 90,000 VNÐ (less than S$9), but the pasta is not the freshly made type.
- As in all restuarants in Vietnam, tipping is not required but much appreciated. Can just leave small change behind, it is up to you.

8)Italian Restaurant at The Continental
- The Continental Hotel along Ðồng Khởi was the setting for much of the action in Graham Greene's famous novel, The Quiet American. It is next to the Opera House.

French
9)Augustin
10 Nguyễn Thiệp, this is adjacent to Ðồng Khởi Road.
- When you see "Gloria Jeans Coffee", just walk into the side road, Augustin is down the road on your right. There is a famous bread shop on the left.

Daiso

Daiso, Always $2 in Singapore, 100 yen in Japan!
The Daiso outlets in Singapore have such a mind-boggling selection of items! I especially like the Sanrio Hello Kitty products, home care items and food stuff.

26 Aug 2007 Sunday - Food Items
Bought some food items from Daiso at VivoCity. It is on the 3rd Floor, located above the PageOne bookshop.

I had bought a pack of Cha Soba dried noodles from the Plaza Singapura outlet on Saturday, and this started my quest to prepare Japanese food!


From left to right:
1)Bonito flakes in the orange packet, far left.

2)Wasabi-flavoured seaweed mix flavouring / topping for rice, noodles & soup, in the green & yellow stripe packet.

3)Dried garlic bits in packet with yellow label.

4)Cinnamon sugar in purple-blue bottle.

5)Garlic paste in the pink box.





My review:
1)Bonito flakes: (check back later)

2)Wasabi-flavoured seaweed mix: Mmmm...! I like this one! Main ingredients are seaweed, bonito flakes, sesame seeds and wasabi bits. The wasabi adds a nice little kick to the mixture. It's quite salty, but such Japanese food items are meant to be salty. I tried those mixtures imported from Japan, same saltiness and very expensive. I added the seaweed mix to my brown rice dinner, and I could finish everything up. Very appetizing. About 1 flat tablespoon would do. Definitely would repurchase, and will try the other flavours! Saw Tamago (egg) and other fishy flavours as well.

3)Dried garlic: The flakes are crispy enough to break like potato chips when you bend them. When you actually bite into them, the flakes are softer than expected. So nope, you can't pretend these are potato chips. There is the 'bite' of pungent garlic. Put them in soup, warm rice, gravy, and the moisture will turn the flakes slightly yellow. Cook them if you want to get rid of the garlicky bite. Otherwise, just sprinkle a bit of them on rice or fried rice for an added kick to your meal!

4)Cinnamon sugar: This is rather nice with butter on toast. Don't add too much, or your food may be too bitter. I add on extra sugar to make it sweeter.

5)Garlic paste: (check back later)

Meiji Snacks - Cacao XX%

Don't quite like this one. I bought the Cacao 80% box of individually wrapped chocolate. There are little flakes of... something... inside the chocolate. I found it too bitter for me. That's a surprise, 'cos I thought I preferred dark chocolate over normal milk chocolate any day. However, the Cacao 80% was not sweet enough, so all I tasted was bitterness and bitter bits. No added dimension to the chocolate. It isn't a bad chocolate, it's just not to my liking. Cacao also comes in 72% and 86% concentration of cocoa. Won't repurchase. :(

Meiji Snacks - Pucca

Oh boy, I like Pucca biscuit snacks.
It's one up from the Hello Panda chocolate-filled biscuits. I like the super dark chocolate ones: chocolate flavoured biscuit with dark chocolate semi-liquid filling. If you need a chocolate substitute, this is it! Currently, the only product pictures I can find are the standard Pucca chocolate biscuits. It's just normal milk chocolate, not super dark chocolate. The Pucca biscuits I'd like to try are the cream cheesecake (?) ones. It was reviewed very favourably in the Urban supplement that comes with The Straits Times. So far, I haven't found it in any supermarket. I've been to Meidi-Ya and the usual Japanese supermarkets. No sign of this Pucca range... Wonder if they'll be as nice as the super dark chocolate Pucca. I like the filling so much... And the biscuit casing is not sweet too. Very nice flavour. Mmmmm!

Dreaming of Pucca cheesecake flavour...

Meiji Snacks - Chelsea

I asked my cousin R what I should blog about today. He suggested...
"How about the Japanese snacks you always buy?"

This is one of the first Meiji sweets I recall buying... Chelsea Butter Scotch was the original butter-y flavoured candy I tried, way before Werther's Original.





Meiji came up with other flavours in the same little push-out box. I like Yogurt Scotch too, though the flavour is a little 'thin' compared to the nice mellow medium-richness of butter scotch.

The Green Tea flavour tastes a little strange to me - milky and slightly bitter.

Then Meiji came up with their Dessert Mix flavours... Simply wonderful!

They have a Crème Brûlée flavour that is amazingly like.... the dessert itself! Down to the slightly baked, smoky crust taste on the outside of the sweet. A nice custard caramel taste. Can't believe that they can replicate it so well!

Chelsea packaging and flavours from 1971 to today: http://www.meiji.co.jp/sweets/candy_gum/chelsea/package/package.html



Please click on the picture to view the full size.

Hột vịt lộn - Fertilized Duck Egg

"A balut (Trứng vịt lộn or Hột vịt lộn in Vietnamese, Pong tea khon in Cambodian) is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. They are considered delicacies of Asia and especially the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam."
~ taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut

Anthony Bourdain - Fetal Duck Egg (Hột vịt lộn)

Oh wow, I wonder if Anthony Bourdain (celebrity chef and author) actually liked the taste of that dish! Looks like the video was filmed in chợ Bến Thành (Ben Thanh Market in Saigon).

I have not had the appetite to try this 'delicacy' and street food when I was in Saigon, Vietnam. Cousin E didn't have the stomach for it either!

See pic on the right. That basically sums up our reaction to this hột vịt lộn dish that we saw on the streets outside Bùi Viên in Phạm Ngũ Lão (Backpackers' area)...

"*gasp* What's that!"
"Do you think it's what I think it is?"
"Are those feathers I see in the egg?"
"No way on earth am I eating that!"

Since neither Cousin E nor myself wanted to even go near these eggs, I had to get photos from the Internet. What we saw was what chef Anthony Bourdain ate in the video above. So far, I haven't seen any eggs like the following... ... (Neither do I wish to see such things in real life!)

15 Day balut egg boiled for 15 minutes, ready to eat. Floating in a mixture of hot sauce and patis. (I don't know what 'patis' is, but it does NOT sound good!)

The Vietnamese prefer their balut matured from 19 days up to 21 days, when the chick is old enough to be recognizable as a baby duck and has bones that will be firm but tender when cooked.

This dish - also known as the "treat with feet" and the "eggs with legs" - makes for a great Fear Factor stunt.

Since I have not had the *ahem* appetite to try this dish, here's a link to give you a better idea of the taste...

Deep End Dining
(please click to read)

Bleah... Suddenly I've lost my appetite for eggs... and ducks... and chicken for that matter!
Oh wow, chocolate and Hột vịt lộn / Balut. What an irresistable mix.

I'm sure this would be a nice surprise for kids - Cadbury Chocolate Hột vịt lộn / Balut Egg!