Unless you’ve been living off the grid (i.e. away from social media), you would probably have seen Hana Restaurant’s famous flying noodles once or twice on your Instagram feed by now. The sister restaurant of the equally talked about Benjamin Browns Bistro & Bakery, also at Forum the Shopping Mall, recently overhauled their menu to beat the ever growing competition in Japanese fusion cuisine.
It was the array of artificial food displays that caught my eye when I first strolled past Hoshino Coffee at Plaza Singapura’s New Wing. Laid out on a table at the restaurant’s entrance, it resembled something straight out of a classy high tea.
Needless to say, it had my mouth watering even before I had caught the slightest whiff of what was cookin’ in there. 😉
Hoshino Coffee is just one of the many food chains that have invaded our sunny island to feed an ever growing appetite for Japanese cuisine – or any type of cuisine that has that unique Japanese twist to it.
With close to 50 outlets scattered across its home country, Hoshino has brought its famous Hand Drip Coffee and Pancake Souffles to one of only two outlets located outside the Land of the Rising Sun. And with snaking queues forming around its wooden perimeter, my expectations were certainly high when I finally got round to checking it out!
Navigating one’s way around Singapore can be a tricky affair at times, especially with her ever changing infrastructure, and not forgetting – and this is my greatest pet peeve – the ever so strange way we name our places and buildings. Like how some places are named after a district that they’re not even located in.
Heck, there’s a certain Pasir Ris Secondary School right smack in my neighbourhood, and I sure as hell am not living in Pasir Ris!
Luckily, Tanjong Beach Club (TBC) is nowhere near committing this cardinal sin; its name is as straightforward as its location: right in Tanjong Beach at Sentosa! Though some might easily confuse it with Tanjong Pagar, going by evidence in hash tags on Instagram.
Arriving at its pristine white entrance with a couple of colleagues one sunny Saturday afternoon, who would’ve guessed that we would be stepping into a tropical oasis with a 1950s beach resort concept:
The perks of being a student in Singapore are endless: with bus concessions, special memberships and the like, getting by with our hectic schedules and heavy workload gets a wee bit easier when we have perks like these to look forward to. C:
And the best student perk of all?
STUDENT MEALS! Hey, since we are a nation that’s well known for her rich cuisine and dynamic eating culture, why not? I’d say bring on the grub! 😀
Famished and wanting to escape the post-exam crowd in school, my friends and I headed over to Star Vista after we heard about Watami Japanese Casual Restaurant’s Student Meal, which offers ala carte items from their lunch sets for half the price!
Update 20 Jan 2025: District 10 has closed.
There’s nothing that I love more than a night of good food and good company, and with the newly opened Star Vista a mere three stops away from school, these two things are easily within reach after a long day of classes. C:
Chue On It 