McDonald's: Would you do DIY?

McDonald's has introduced DIY burgers beyond JEM. The 'Create Your Own' invitation is now available through self service kiosks at other branches, including Suntec City as well as Raffles City. 

View from the Jurong East MRT station showing the walls of the McDonald's at JEM advertising the Create Your Own burgers.

The self-order kiosks at McDonald's in Suntec.

Want to know more?

Read the Suroor Asia review of my experience when JEM was the only outlet offering the DIY burgers.

Prata Wala for a thosai fix

Prata Wala in Jurong Point serves affordable, tasty Indian food in comfortable surroundings, and is open till late. I go there for the thosai, but it also has chapatti, prata and naan, all made to order. 

Start off getting a seat in the busy restaurant (a challenge at peak periods), then make your order at the counter. The restaurant is canteen-style: order dishes displayed at the counter from the menu on the wall, then pay up. You get a buzzer which will light up when the food is ready for collection, pick up the cutlery and serviettes yourself, and tuck in. There is a sink in a corner if you would like to eat with your hands.

The fresh thosai is crispy and comes with generous portions of sambar, tomato chutney and coconut chutney. It goes well with teh tarik, but the drink has become too sweet lately.

The restaurant is open from 5am to 3am. 

Interested?

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Asian Market Cafe presents halal local favourites buffet style

We celebrated Mother's Day at the Asian Market Cafe this year. This buffet restaurant is part of the Fairmont Singapore and serves local food in the main, with delicacies from other regions on occasion. We went on Mother's Day eve, a Saturday, which is timed more like a high tea, from 1pm to 4pm. 

There are salad and dessert sections on one side of the restaurant, and live cooking stations opposite. The food is beautifully presented, carefully labelled and generally good though there were a few misses. Service was good too, with staff removing plates quickly and coming round towards the end of the meal to take orders for coffee or tea. Beverages are included in the price.

A tasty Mediterranean pasta salad to begin. It had apple slices and olives as well as julienned bell peppers. 

Roti jala is made fresh at a live cooking station. There is a curry chicken accompaniment, but I only took the curry. If you've not seen roti jala, think of a crepe made of lace, so that it is crispier than usual.

A second helping of roti jala, this time paired with Thai green curry chicken.

The sauted beef was a favourite, with the dish emptying as quickly as it was replenished. I thought it was average.

Three flavours of roti john were available, cut into slices, and kept crispy. This is the egg and mushroom version.

The barbecued stingray was tender and juicy. My portion is garnished with black bean sauce. 

The crab gravy was served in a separate tureen, with deep fried mini mantou piled nearby. The mantou were crispy without being greasy, but the gravy - which looked authentic - was insipid, full of corn starch and lacked any crab flavour at all. It felt like it had been made by someone who has never tasted chilli crab. A total miss. I didn't take the crab itself - too much hassle.

The chai tow kway (white version) looked great but was a complete miss. The carrot cake part was average, but the egg was a dense chewy layer to one side instead of being mixed into the cake, and had been over-salted. 

And on to the desserts. There was a lot of choice, including durian pengat, but what really drew me were the signature Fairmont Macau egg tarts. These are mini-sized and served warm. The flaky pastry was buttery, crisp, and crumbly, complementing the creamy egg custard perfectly.

The desserts really showed how much care the Asian Market Cafe takes styling the food. The lemon raspberry cakes had a curl of chocolate, an edible flower, jellied cranberries and a shaped spoonful of lemon mousse resting on raspberry cake, which was in turn resting on a coconut base.

There are computer games near the entrance for the kids, and for mother's day, free balloon sculptures.  

Asian Market Cafe is at level 2 of the Fairmont Singapore. The nearest MRT stations are City Hall and Esplanade, and it is accessible via Raffles City mall. The dress code is casual.

It is open for lunch Monday to Friday from 12pm to 2:30pm, and for weekends from 12pm to 4pm, which is more relaxed.
Dinners Sunday to Thursday are from 6pm to 10pm, and from 6pm to 10.30pm on Fridays, Saturdays and public holidays. 

As a hotel restaurant the buffet is a bit pricier. A Saturday lunch cost S$55++ per adult. 

Reservations are recommended. Call +65 6431 6156 or email dining.singapore@fairmont.com. 

McDonald's introduces DIY burgers with premium ingredients

Dinner at McDonald's JEM: a small French fries, Heaven & Earth green tea, and an Angus beef burger that I designed myself, with a slice of Colby cheese, tomato, lettuce, garlic sauce and tomato jalapeno sauce.

The McDonald's at JEM has introduced self-service order kiosks which allow diners not only to order what's on the standard menu, but also to create do-it-yourself burgers with premium ingredients. According to the friendly McDonald's staff who was there to help people creating their own burgers, custom burgers may only be ordered through the kiosks, and not at the counter.

The basic burger with an Angus beef patty costs S$8.95 but may be more expensive as a meal (add S$2 for small fries and a soft drink) or if various options are added. While much care has clearly gone into the design of the software, the actual ordering process is somewhat confusing.

Firstly, diners may have to scroll down to view the full set of options. There is no indication that there are more options onscreen, and diners have to be aware that they should swipe up on the screen in order to view the rest of the screen. I, being used to Windows, tried swiping up on the scroll bar to the right. That did not work.

The next question mark had to do with which options are part of the basic burger at S$8.95, and which are not. There is no pricing information on the screens. There are some options clustered on the same screen which are included in the base price, such as red onions, jalapeno peppers, lettuce and tomatoes. You can choose more than one sauce as well. There are other options for which you may only choose one, such as the type of bread, and still others which come with an additional charge. While I'm willing to pay for a customised burger, I would still like to know how much that burger is going to cost as I go along.

I ordered a burger meal and was surprised to see that the bill did not list the French fries, though it noted that I had changed my drink to Heaven & Earth green tea. What I didn't realise was that when the receipt says 'Create Your Own Meal' that it meant that there would be French fries and a drink involved, and if it doesn't say 'meal' that it's just the burger. As a first-timer to reading a custom burger receipt, it worried me that my French fries were not listed, but the McDonald's staff assisting me assured me I would get them, and I did.

My burger meal cost me S$11.45 in the end, $8.95 for the burger, $2 for the meal and $0.50 for switching to green tea (I thought it was $0.30 if you buy a standard meal but it might have gone up while I wasn't looking). Payment is cashless and painless, and the receipt comes with a number that you can use for picking up your order at the counter. Custom burgers come with those buzzing discs that will sound when your order is ready for pickup - you pick one at random from a stack by the side of each kiosk, and tell the software what number it is. Strangely enough, I was told that I don't actually need to wait around for my order - they would actually serve it to me. In this case the disc acted like those numbered signs that tell staff where to find you.

The meal, when it arrived, was very prettily arranged on a wooden Moda breadboard, on dull gold paper. The fries came in a little wire basket that was lined with paper, and my green tea in a clear plastic to-go cup instead of the waxed paper variety. I had a 'hand & face refresher' wet tissue in addition to serviettes which was a nice touch, and a straw in a paper jacket. The only thing which was missing was the tomato or chilli sauce for the fries (if you want them).The assistant, to his credit, had actually asked me to go get the sauces, but it would have meant giving up my seat as a lone diner and sauces in little disposable plastic saucers spoils the mood somewhat.

The taste test? It is definitely much better than the normal McDonald's burger because of the Angus beef - a different texture - and all the other ingredients. The standard burgers don't come with a tomato slice and that always makes such a difference for me. The sauces - I chose a garlic sauce (creamy garlic aioli) and a tomato jalapeno sauce (tomato jalapeno relish) - added a definite sparkle to the taste, and I contemplated asking if I could have extra for the French fries, because it would have tasted SO good with them. 

I left without clearing up because I really wasn't sure what to do with the wire basket - you can't possibly toss that into the bin like you would with the remains of a standard meal. More guidance on how to clear up would be useful.

The verdict? Be warned that the burger isn't huge - you would get more dollar for dollar at Swensen's - but I loved the idea of deciding exactly what I wanted to have in it. I loved the 'plating', which by the way is about the same internationally; I have seen variations with fake newspaper but it's all breadboards and wire baskets. When you consider that some of the standard burger meals at McDonald's are pretty close in price 'Create Your Own' is a definite winner, especially if you go with others and can discuss your choices with each other.

I'm told that JEM is the only McDonald's in Singapore with the Create Your Own option, though self service kiosks may be introduced to more outlets in future, paving the way for fewer counter staff as diners will do all the ordering and paying by themselves. The next time though I might try the pre-designed options, which look like they would cost more than S$8.95 if you put them together by yourself. 

New at Vainpout just for year-end

Source: VainPout Instagram page.

VainPout's pictures are drool-worthy. Visit her Instagram or the Facebook fan page, and you can see for yourself: there are delectables made just for the festive season, such as Hershey's Chocolate Chip Cornflake Macaroons ("soft, crispy, chewy, sweet and light all at the same time, pretty much like life"), pictured to the right; halal eggnog and the Eggnog Bundt Cake ("eat it as it is or savour it with eggnog glaze"). 

Source: Vainpout Facebook
page. Chocolate chips
in chocolate ganache on top
of mini chocolate cupcake
batter, ready for baking.

VainPout can be found at bake sales around Singapore, with each sale listed in advance on Facebook and Instagram. 

What Reeina, the Founder of VainPout is really known for, however, are the cupcakes. "I bake mostly cupcakes like the ever-popular red velvet, salted caramel, and chocolate cupcakes to name but a few. Additionally, we have brownies, baked New York cheesecake and tiramisu," she says.

Corporate orders have come in too, often for canape-style bites, from festive cookies and marshmallow pops, to mini forms of her cupcakes and tiramisu, and brownie platters. 

Reeina only started VainPout in May this year, though she learned the art of baking as a child from her mother, "an awesome baker herself". 

"As cliched as it may sound, I really started out only baking for my family and friends during the festive season. Word got round and the orders were really coming in, so I decided to have VainPout registered with the encouragement from my better half," she shared.

At VainPout, every morsel is made with not only with love, but also with a smile, Reeina adds. "My better half has always advised me that when one bakes or cooks, you should always do it with a smile. Never let your worries or troubles wipe the smile away. So yes, VainPout always bakes with a smile on her face, no matter how hard the day is!" she said.

Source: VainPout Instagram page. 
Fudgy Wudgy Brownies.

Interested to have a taste? Send a private message to Vainpout through the Facebook page or Instagram. 

Customers are requested to make a 50% deposit and full payment before collection of their bakes initially, but the rules may be relaxed for repeat customers. Good customers may even get a little more to sample - always with a smile, Reeina says.