Four Leaves - Sones, Scones, Scones

Mr HB ought to be very very upset because I found a new love.

And it's none other than scones! Did I get u there? Ok, a pretty lame and corny effort.

I got hooked onto this english snack recently and cannot pass on a chance whenever I can find a place selling scones. But unfortunately (or should it be fortunately), scones are not very readily available in bakery in this little sunny island and they tend to be not cheap.

To date, I think the one that I like most are those found at "Four Leaves".

Little pile of baked flour, sugar and butter that looks very humble and not eye-catching at all but tastes really wonderful.

Here's how it looks after taking a bite.

Soft and buttery on the inside.
Best eaten with a cup of hot tea.

Mr HB doesn't like it. He finds it too dry and it sticks to the roof of the mouth. Some seriously tongue exercise required afterwards.


There's another version that I tried from Swissbake, which is bigger in size. Tastewise, it has got more milk and less butter content.
Guess I prefer more butter to more milk and it tends to be a bit dryer.

Provence - Flour and more

I am a self professed carbo lover (bread, rice, pau, pastry...bring them on!).
Read many raves and only good reviews on Provence, I brought the family to Holland to "eat bread" for lunch (at my expense! the length I go to satisfy the carbo lover in me.)

We intended to go a bit earlier to beat the lunch crowd and make sure we get our hands on the wassant that was highly recommended by all the reviews I've come across.

OK, so it rained on our way there and we had no umbrealla. I half ran with my 7.5kg son in my arms to get to shelter. Not exactly a great start. Anyways, we did manage to beat the crowd. Upon reaching, there were only a handful of people in the shop.
I went round to see what's available on the shelf.

The aroma of the freshly baked buns is indeed addictive. The buns here are somewhat biased towards cheese and cream type.
We tried the following
Milk bun - a tat too sweet for my liking
Raisin bun - somwhat similar to roti boy bun but smaller and with raisins. This is quite good if it is fresh from the oven.
Wassants - Soft and light in taste. Taste great when warm and fresh. A little over rated in my opinion.
Cinnamon roll - Again too sweet for my liking.
Teriyaki chicken sandwich - ok, finally something that I cannot fault. Fresh bread with chicken in teriyaki sauce and some lettuce. Sweet and delightful to the tongue.
The BLT set lunch - fresh sandwich but nothing to scream about.Assorted crossant (ham, cheese, egg...etc) - as above.

Provence's success can be attributed to 2 factors
1. Fresh ingredients
2. Fresh from oven

If a bakery follow the above 2 guidelines, they cannot go too wrong (unless their baking skills really suck!)
Overall, it's a place worth visting if u are into bread and stuff but a little overhyped in my opinion.

Must Tries: Teriyaki chicken sandwich

Provence
17A Lorong Liput, Holland Village, Singapore

QQ Rice - Healthy Rice

This was featured on one of the variety shows some months back and I thought that this would be interesting to try.
But months flew by and I did nothing until last week, my brother-in-law bought some back for all of us to try.

The concept is simple but interesting.
They feature 5-6 types of rice with more than 30 types of ingredients (pork floss, chicken meat, pickled veggies..etc...etc....). You get to choose 1 type of rice and 5 type of ingredients and they will roll them into a rice ball for you. Serves as a healthy snack and if you go before 11am, they throw in a free drink (pretty value for money).

Innovative and worth a try.

QQ Rice
10 Sinaran Drive, #01-06 Square 2, Singapore

Loong Huat Eating House and Confectionary - Good Tau Sar Piau

We were on our way to Square 2 one day and the traffic was terrible along balestier road. It was after 2pm in the afternoon and we have not had lunch.
So Loong Fatt came to mind. We thought since we are going to be stuck in the jam for some time, what not get some tau sar piau (TSP) to line the stomach first? So we turned into the car park and got 30 (?!) TSP from Loong Fatt.

OK, so the price has gone up from $0.50 to $0.60 per pc. The TSP are fresh from the oven and still piping hot. Me and Mr HB each grabbed one piece and sink our teeth into TSP, it was heavenly (esp on that rainy day).
Soft and tender is the skin and the paste is sweet and aromatic. Excellent stuff.

Personally I prefer the salty one as I find the sweet one too sweet for my liking.

At $0.60 per pc, I'd say it's not exactly cheap but definately something worth trying.

Loong Huat Eating House and Confectionary
639 Balestier Road,
Singapore