Sunday, September 5, 2010

Coffee Square

Coffee Square
Shop 21g, Market Square, 341 Mains Road, Sunnybank



It might seem odd for a food blogger to admit this, but I've been eating out too much. Just eating too much full stop. This weekend, I've succumbed to all-you-can-eat Mongolian (will be posted later), dad's birthday dinner (Peking duck + a cake I made), milky beverages and MORE. Right now, I'm lying in bed, thinking about the quantity of food devoured and feeling queasy.

This is going to stop. Queue fitness and proper eating as of tomorrow. Goal = prevent myself from being a lard tub come Summertime.

There still will be food posts. After all, eating out and photo-snapping is something that makes my life worthwhile. But rather than making a clean sweep of my plate, plus taste-testing everyone else's food and asking for dessert after, I'll take it easy on my poor stomach.





Today, we were chasing cheap eats (what else is new) and Byron suggested Coffee Square. He seems to say 'this is the best' slash 'this is my favorite' about every Asian eatery he recommends but in any case, this title was once again used for Coffee Square.

I hadn't been there before (or maybe I have but then forgot) and the menu nearly blew my mind. Sure, all eateries have page after page of food to choose from but maybe when it's the first time you see their particular selection, it's much more confronting? All I know for sure is that I swung back and forth between about 4 different things before throwing the menu at Byron and commanding 'decide what I want!'

Mind you, it then took him 3 goes before he settled on something.


Drinks

For beverages, Byron and I chose hot Japanese green tea. They came as tea bags in a mug and tasted like hot water. Meh. Indy got a HK-style milk tea, which as per description is a cross between tea and coffee. He wanted hot but it came as a cold drink. Apparently it was still decent though. Hien was quite stoked with his hot honey lemon beverage.

Not long after we ordered, a guy brought us 2 plates of food that belonged to the table next to ours. After that was sorted out, a girl presented us with a plate of fried rice and explained that she had taken my order wrong (it was supposed to be noodle) and were we OK with taking the rice. Well... I really didn't want fried rice so I said I'd wait the 10-15min required for them to bring out the correct order.

Takoyaki

Everyone else's food arrived thereafter. Indy chose takoyaki (octopus balls with benito flakes). He said they were good. It was an entree-sized serve of 8.

Sizzling sirloin steak with chips and mushroom sauce

Hien ordered the steak. We thought he was crazy for choosing steak but it turned out alright. Rather than having 'rare', 'medium-rare' and so on till 'well done', they have a percentage thing where 50% is medium. I'm not sure why they bothered though because Hien's steak was supposed to be 30% and came out close to 100% cooked. It was a sirloin and looked like a large, flat piece of steak folded over. The chips were tasty and the mushroom sauce was artificial-tasting but moreish.

Spicy pork mince with eggplant and rice

Byron was the only person who knew exactly what he wanted (since he was a past-regular). He chose the eggplant and mince dish with rice. It had a great saucy consistency and the eggplant was soft and slippery. We would have preferred a greater mince:eggplant ratio though. The flavors were good.

Chicken chow mein

After what seemed like ages, my chicken chow mein arrived. Chow mein literally translates to fried noodles. I think they're deep-fried because they noodles are actually crispy. A hot sauce with chicken is then poured over the top. It was pretty tasty but a bit too salty for me. Besides, I was already full from picking at everyone else's food.

We had some service lapses but nothing unforgivable. The food was plentiful, tasty and extremely cheap. Also, thumbs up for variety.

5 comments:

  1. - Malaya - King of Foods - Coffee Square - Cyber City -

    These are my favorites, first 3 for great quality and quantity to cost ratio. Coffee square is open late most nights too, so great for a late midnight congee!!

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  2. I'm going to get congee and breadstick next time. Unless there's a good dinner special (e.g. sweet and sour ribs).

    Also, those eateries are win because they have plenty of options (hard to get sick of) and serve food speedily (good for us hungry people).

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  3. Last time I ate at Coffee Square, I ordered Congee with scallops.. I found it to be a little bland and found myself adding lots of chilli. All the other meals I've had there have been great though, yummy won ton noodle soup!

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  4. Hi eye candy carousel...
    Note to self: don't chose the scallop congee. I thought plain chicken or mince sounded nice. And I heard the wontons are meant to be good. Was really tempted to get the wonton noodle soup. It was on my short-listed options before I threw in the towel and delegated the task of ordering.

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  5. The pork mince and eggplant on crispy noodles = game over! (^-^;

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