Some Days Are For Healthier Eats

A salad bar in VivoCity Fairprice Xtra run by Culina concepts. They also sell rotisserie meats in the same unit where you can choose from their selection of roast meats, or head to the butcher counter and select your own fresh cut of meat for them to cook to your desired doneness.

Opted to try the grilled seafood instead but popped by here for some fibre. There’s three different salad sets starting from $8.90, but the only difference is the number of toppings.

Overall, the salad vegetables are fresh, and though the toppings are not bad, the selection is quite limited. Nothing fancy like CBD salad shops which come up with interesting seasonings for their toppings, just plain pumpkin, mushrooms, corn and egg in my salad with smoked duck breast. I got the yuzu dressing on the side and thank goodness it wasn’t in my salad. I only realised after that it had a strong taste of wasabi and didn’t enjoy it at all.

Brought my own container since I already intended to takeaway my salad, but I could also make a side by side comparison with the salad I ordered at Cedele last week. Theoretically they should be the same portion since they are under the same group, but Toss & Turn has once again proven how value for money their salad option is.

What’s in my bowl:
Base - soba, romaine lettuce
Protein - 2 cold (spicy chicken and brined tuna)
Toppings - eggplant, corn kernels, bell peppers and pumpkin
Dressing - cashew lime

Just look at how much meat I was given for $11! I managed to get the spicy mayo chicken chunks and brined tuna, and I’m not sure if it was close to closing time which was why I got an extra huge helping of the protein (the orange part on top is totally chicken, and the bottom half was tuna which has been obscured by the four toppings). Super super value for money given the portion size and makes for a very fulfilling and delicious meal! With the seasoned proteins, I didn’t even need the cashew lime dressing.

Not a fancy salad place by any means, but one that provides a wide spread of consistently good and value for money ingredients!

Last week of Round 1 of Bhutan Unfiltered Souperchef Specials and they were sold out of the Spicy Chicken Stew! No!!!! I ended up ordering my default Tokyo Chicken Stew as a safe choice, and enjoyed it as usual. Nothing much to comment about the Tokyo Chicken Stew as it’s always pretty consistent.

The bread roll this time was more of an olive and herb bread roll, which carries a sharper smell of herbs than usual. I found the top of the roll extremely fluffy and soft, but the bottom tended to be dense and seemed to be where all the dough collected. Not my favourite choice of bread as I much enjoyed the previous roll with nutty pumpkin seeds, but still a yummy roll which serves its primary purpose of soaking up all that soupy deliciousness!

One of the choices of salads, sandwiches, flatbreads or cakes as part of the Soupervalue meal is the soba salad with teriyaki chicken weighing in at slightly less than 200 calories.

The side takes some time to prep so the buzzer might ring while you’re enjoying your soup and bread roll. Anyway although it’s prepared to order, the soba noodles tend to be soggy and clump together. I personally wasn’t so put off by that, and I found the mix of sesame seeds, alfalfa sprouts, egg, cherry tomatoes and teriyaki chicken quite delightful. The veggies were fresh and crunchy, while the chicken was tender and nicely seasoned. I wish there was more meat though, as it seemed to be more fat and skin. Wouldn’t mind ordering this again for a change from my regular flatbreads!

My newest salad obsession - SaladStop!

Was a little disappointed when I ordered these to go but the staff mixed the dressing directly into the bowl and salad. Although that’s lesser plastic wastage, I don’t like the idea of my salad sitting in dressing for an hour or so. Wish they would’ve at least asked before mixing it in. The bread stick seemed to be complimentary, and the staff will ask if you want it. I liked the bread stick as it was very crispy, and reminded me of a poh chui cracker.

The Arabian Night bowl is pretty good. I love the mix of flavours, especially the red pepper hummus.

As for the Howdy! salad, this is one that’s relatively low calorie and high protein on the menu. I requested for no red onions, and I really loved this mix of lettuce, grated egg, chicken chunks, cherry tomatoes and corn. It seems like a simple salad, but it’s packed full of flavour. Probably also from the salad dressing (which would’ve been much nicer if it hadn’t been getting diluted by the salad greens and dripping to the bottom of my bowl by the time I actually sat down to eat this).

I definitely foresee myself visiting SaladStop! again to try out more salads, wraps, bowls or breakfast items!

I’m not sure why people are so taken with Bhutanese foods all of a sudden, but I’m not complaining whenever I get a chance to be taken back to Bhutan - physically or gastronomically. This season’s Souperholic specials feature six Bhutan-inspired soups. The two soups we tried today are from Part 1 of this series - a Bhutanese Spicy chicken Stew (front) and the Chilli Cheese Stew (back, which the cashier actually cautioned against due to the spiciness!).

If you’ve been to Bhutan, you’ll be familiar with chilli cheese, which is akin to their national dish. This stew is nowhere near as thick as authentic ema datshi, but it’s still yummy and pretty spicy for a stew! It features a lot of dried chillies, as well as three different cheeses. It doesn’t quite hit the same spot as ema datshi does, but it’s still a delightful tribute to the National dish of Bhutan. This soup is totally vegetarian, it’s also dairy-free if you request for no ezay condiment (which is an additional chilli ‘salad’ mixed with coriander).

The spicy chicken stew didn’t strike me as much of a Bhutanese dish, as I didn’t have any of this in Bhutan. I never had a good impression of meat dishes in Bhutan as I found that they tended to chop the meats into awkward chunks with really sharp bones, plus the meat tended to be quite hard. Thankfully, The Soup Spoon’s Spicy Chicken Stew has masterfully cut and tenderised the boneless chicken chunks, and cooked it in a hearty chicken broth with lots of vegetables, AND Bhutanese red rice! What a treat! I love the texture of Bhutanese red rice, plus the infusion of nuttiness it provides to the dish! I loved this soup so much I used the bread roll to sop up every last drop!

It’s also worth noting that the bread roll seems to be bigger than before, plus it’s got more sesame seeds and even some pumpkin seeds embedded inside! I love this change in rolls! Definitely going to be eating more of these Bhutanese soups before they switch to the second half of the series on the first week of October.

Ordered this as part of Set B where you get a choice of a flatbread, sandwich, salad or cake. I originally wanted the sriracha chicken flatbread, but it wasn’t available at dinner time when I visited.

The flatbreads, sandwiches and salads are all prepared when ordered, so they do take a while to be served, but they’re warm! The flatbread is slightly crispy, and stuffed with generous amounts of well seasoned bulgogi beef, gochujang mayo, arugula leaves and quinoa. The savoury and tender bulgogi beef, coupled with the slightly spicy gochujang mayo, nutty quinoa and bitter arugula makes this combination a winner. The portion size is also perfect, it’s smaller than a wrap you’d get in the supermarket, but filling as a set with your soup. Plus, the estimated calorie count is only in the low 200s! Yums!

One of the newest additions to the menu is ‘Shroomy Chicken’, which is essentially a new mashed mushroom concoction spread atop Subway’s roasted chicken breast.

It was actually my first time getting the chicken breast and salad at Subway, and I was very pleased with how tender and moist the chicken breast was (although I’m a little worried what other fillers this might have been reconstituted with). The salad was pretty underwhelming for $9, as you just get to pick from the same vegetable toppings as a regular sub. I thought there would be a different salad mix base given the pricing. The shroomy mix was pretty good, it was savoury and earthy. If you’re counting calories, this would actually be a good enough replacement for salad dressing. Overall I probably wouldn’t spend $9 for this salad again, but it might be worth trying the mushroom mix in a wrap or sub in the future.

Sometimes, eating healthy doesn’t pay. It’s usually expensive eating healthy outside, but Glow Cafe at Supernature takes it to a whole new level. For this salad and latte, the bill came up to $26.30. I don’t care if everything is organic or not, this was definitely not what I was expecting when I saw “Small salad - $15” on the menu and was informed I could pick two different salads on the display. Turns out they charge the salads by weight, so 1kg of salad costs $60 and this mix of kale and capsicum salad, soba noodle salad and firm tofu was 330g. Hmm. The salads were pretty good though. The kale was definitely massaged so it did absorb the dressing and was much softer and easier to swallow than raw kale. The cherry tomatoes were incredibly sweet. I have no idea what variety they use, but it’s amazing. I’m still not sold on the price just because of that though. The soba noodle salad was pretty ordinary, and the tau kwa, though delicious, was quite ordinary as well.

I actually really liked the latte. The blend wasn’t too acidic nor bitter, and it had a smooth, well/rounded mouthfeel. The latte was reasonably priced at $5.50 with an additional $1 for soy milk. I guess if I was around the area I’d just go for the coffee, but definitely not getting ripped off by the salad again.

It’s way more worth it to get a large bowl, especially if you’re sharing, but we were pretty full and just had a hankering for acai so we got the classic small bowl. HAAKON’s Classic Acai Bowl comes with chia pudding, blended Acai, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, dried coconut, nuts and granola. I enjoyed the multitude of flavours and textures in this simple bowl, but I did feel that the Acai was a little too sweet. In addition, the chia pudding layer was frozen and quite hard to eat until it had defrosted. Still a yummy and healthy dessert that’s available till late as compared to many other Acai stalls around the area.

*Note: HAAKON is FavePay friendly!

First time venturing to Science Park for their food and I’m so in love with this place my friend recommended. To make a bowl, you choose one protein, one base and three toppings. Each protein is priced differently, with tofu that costs $12 to sirloin that costs $15.

What’s in my bowl:
Protein - honey lemon chicken ($14)
Base - salad
Toppings - crispy tofu puffs, Thai cucumber salad (spicy), eggplant

There’s just so much selection here that I had a hard time deciding! This place has the widest range of bases I’ve ever encountered - as they have quinoa, rice, salad, dry noodles with various seasonings and noodle soup. The salad is a mix of crisp lettuce, spinach and other assorted greens, dressed in Japanese sesame dressing. The greens were super fresh and crunchy. Love! Perfect for a lighter meal option without suffering through tasteless and mundane salad greens.

The honey lemon chicken was so tender and juicy. The seasoning wasn’t overpowering, so it wasn’t too sweet or too sour. While I found the chicken delicious, I wouldn’t be able to tell it was honey lemon seasoning! Not that I’m complaining though.

I was torn with what toppings to choose! I really wanted the lava egg, but they had so many interesting choices that I ended up going with less common items. The eggplants were seasoned and cooked to perfection as they weren’t overly mushy. The cucumbers were dressed in a thai spicy sauce that I really enjoyed, super refreshing, but might be too spicy for someone unaccustomed to eating chilli. The crispy tofu puffs were quite disappointing as they were super crisp and dry. I was hoping for some tau kwa puff in laksa consistency, but this was purely dry and crunchy. It’s seasoned with some spices so it’s not tasteless, and it’s also not oily, but I wouldn’t order this again.

Prices of the bowl were pretty steep, but the portion sizes were reasonable and for the quality of food, I wouldn’t mind paying for such yummy bowls around Kent Ridge once in a while.

*Savourworld is GrabPay and FavePay-friendly!

What’s in my bowl ($10):

Base: buckwheat soba, green and purple cabbage
Vegetables: spinach, long beans, lotus roots, cherry tomatoes, broccoli
Dressing: yuzu apple cider
Lux it up: golden fluffy tamago
Crunches: almonds, tobikko, shallots

Ok so pretty much everything’s the same except that I’m trying the yuzu apple cider dressing for the first time. It’s been on the menu the whole time but I never ordered it since I’m a creature of habit. I’m glad I did today, because this is a really refreshing, light and delicious dressing. The taste of the dressing is quite subtle, but it imparts a sweet, citrusy and mildly sour taste to the bowl. Unfortunately I wouldn’t recommend this dressing with soba noodles unless you’ll be eating it immediately as this dressing is more watery, so the soba noodles get soggy when left for a while.