I LOVE LOVE LOVE food and trying out eateries is my favourite weekend activity. So, I've decided that I will blog about the eating places I go to if I do happen to find a good one :)
This restaurant I am going to blog about was introduced to me by my sis. She had been raving about it ever since she had her company team dinner there and I finally gave it a try on a Friday night.
The Naked Finn
41 Malan Road, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 109454
T +65 6694 0807
(call after 4pm)
www.nakedfinn.com
Reservations is highly recommended as the place is extremely small. There's only 2 tables inside and 6 tables outside. It is only open for dinner so seats are very limited if you want to sit in the air-conditioned area.
The Naked Finn's menu is very simple, only cocktails and seafood but oh boy, they do it really well!
As the name suggests, the seafood is served "naked". The chef does not use heavy sauces or condiments to hide the freshness of their seafood but instead tries to use simple ingredients to bring out the flavourful-ness of their fresh ingredients. YUM.
There were 3 of us that day and we ordered the set dinner for 2 to share as well as 2 ala carte dishes. IMO, the set dinner for 2 ($128) is more worth it than the set dinner of 1 ($88) as there are more courses. The set for 2 is actually enough for 3 pax. We felt really full at the end of all the courses and we are not small eaters hehe. The set dinner is really worth the price as there's so many kinds of seafood!!!
Free flow bee hoon to fulfill any carbs cravings. The bee hoon is a bit tangy, I believe it's tossed with vinegar or lime juice. It's served chilled like a salad appetizer. Very addictive! Chilled blanched kangkong tossed in freshly-squeezed kalamansi juice and shallot oil is also part of the set but this is very blah compared to the rest of the dishes. You wouldn't expect a seafood place to serve such local dishes like pan-fried bee hoon and kang kong but the bee hoon really goes so well with the rest of the meal.
Ala carte dishes - Diver-caught great Atlantic scallop ceviche and Escargot in butter sauce
The scallop sashimi is very fresh and the escargot so sinful with it being baked in butter.
Set dishes below:
1. Lightly grilled live pod razor clam drizzled with hot shallot oil and fried shallots - this is 1 of the star. (I have 2 top favourite dishes in the set meal, this is 1 of them) the fried shallots are crispy and goes well with the perfectly grilled razor clam. Meat is not too tough or rubbery.
2. Live Japanese littleneck clams boiled in barramundi stock (soup) - the clams are the plumpest I have seen, sis commented that the soup is a bit fishy tasting but I find it quite acceptable
3. Grilled baby Indian squids with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil - this is the other star. This dish changed my view on sea salt forever. I tried my 1st squid without the sea salt and it's very good. But, I dabbed some sea salt on my 2nd squid and zomg, it's mind-blowing. The sea salt brought out the smoky flavour of the grilled squid, food-gasm =p
4. Flambé live giant tiger prawns with white wine and garlic - nothing much to comment on this dish because it just taste like 白灼虾 to me, but it's fresh and good quality.
5. Pan-fried barramundi fillet with sea salt and extra virgin oil - another hot favourite among us. The skin is super crispy but the flesh still remain very moist and melts in your mouth. I dunno how they pan fry the skin but it's just like eating a fish skin cracker haha.
6. Grilled African lobster - by this course, we were already super full haha. We had a 2nd serving of the bee hoon cause it's too addictive. Probably all that carbs filled us up. But of course we still made space for the lobster! Meat is sweet and of the right firmness.
Including the kang kong, there's 7 courses. I will say $128 is reasonable in Singapore context for the quality and quantity of food we got at Naked Finn.
The cocktails are also their specialty. Most of their cocktails are fruit-based, they will use fresh fruits to make sorbet and blend it with various alcohol. I ordered a rockmelon Cointreau concoction ($18) and sis ordered a lychee something ($18). Both were very potent, lots of alcohol added, I like! haha ;)
The cocktails were so good that I cannot resist ordering another one, Kyoho grape with Calpis and vodka ($20). The kyoho grape cocktail taste the best! I had a hard time choosing my drinks cause every one of them sounded so good. They have orange, pink guava, finished with Cointreau and Kronenbourg Blanc ($18), as well as the calamansi- and sour plum-infused syrup with vodka ($18) and tasty mango, orange and rum ($18). I wish I can try all of them!
Kyoho grape cocktail
The restaurant décor - very simplistic as you can see. Similar to a greenhouse concept and they used plastic panes instead of glass walls and the light will reflect off the plastic panes at night. very romantic :)
I will definitely go back again as I read they will change the menu often depending on which items are in season. And also to try the other cocktails that so appeal to me :)))
Went to genting and kl over 1 weekend with the badminton clique. First time travelling with this group of friends (7 of us) and it was so fun :)
Took half day on Friday as our flight was at 4.35pm. Cabbed to the bf’s house to help him pack but I didn’t do much as I was too lazy =p Headed for lunch at T1 Aston’s before boarding, short flight to KL airport. The Malaysia immigration queue was so long that we waited for an hour D:
Hungry after clearing customs and decided to go for dinner before heading up to Genting. Initial plan was to head to Genting straightaway. We chartered 2 taxis to drive us up, the uncle is a stranger-turned-friend when my family took his taxi 5 years ago. Since then, we always book his taxi whenever we go to KL. He’s always punctual and trustworthy :)
The must-eat in KL is the black hokkien mee. It’s my absolute favourite KL food! Told uncle I wanted to eat that and he brought us to a zi char place which is cheap and good. 6 dishes (hokkien mee, melon soup, egg, prawn, veggie and pork ribs) for only RM140, that’s only SGD$8 per pax D: the prawns are surprisingly fresh and uncle said that’s because there’s a port nearby and all the seafood catch come from there.
Johnson is the vacuum cleaner as always haha! He always finishes the leftover food =p
By the time we finished our meal it was almost 8-ish and we began our ride up Genting. Most of us slept in the car due to food coma, the ride was close to 1 half hour and we reached almost 10. Checked in to First World hotel and nua in our rooms before going to the casino at 12 midnight teehee. We contributed RM50 each and decided we will all-in this RM350 common fund later, win or break HAHA
Surprisingly, we spent a whole 4 hours in the casino till 4am lol. Totally became gambling addicts. Lose win lose sighz, let’s just say most of us contributed to Genting’s economy lol. BUT our common fund won money!!! It grew from RM350 to RM600 by us playing 大小. The winnings paid for our meals for the next day damn shiok! =D
Slept at 5am but didn’t had good quality sleep the whole night. I kept waking up and flipping around on the bed. First to wake at 930am morning call since I can’t sleep much anyway. The 4 hours on and off sleep made us all super tired by the 2nd day. To perk up, we went for dim sum breakfast. Took the long long escalator to get from First World to Genting hotel.
1st time trying this 云华宫 restaurant at Genting hotel, the dim sum is not bad. Better than the other dim sum restaurant, 好友记. Good find!
The star of the dim sum at 云华宫 is the egg tarts zomg. It’s one of the best egg tart I’ve ever eaten! Who would have thought Genting will have such good egg tarts? My perception of Genting food hadn’t been good so far =x UNTIL THIS EGG TART. The pastry is super crispy and flaky and the egg custard super smooth and yellow. So good that we had to order a 2nd serving, I have a soft spot for dim sum egg tarts hehe.
We were playing with the panorama function on the iPhone using the lazy Susan on the table, effect turned out quite cute ya? :)took us multiple attempts before we got it right, gotta spin it fast enough to take all 7 of us within the time frame.
Took some group photos too while waiting for food.
The outdoor theme park was part of our plan but we realized we only 1 and a half hour left to play the rides and not very worth it. Arcade became our plan B but we realized a lot games is cheat money one =| worse than casino sia. Like they give u a super soft hollow ball to knock down a damn heavy metal tin, tell me how to hit??? my favourite arcade game is still the bball shooting machine =D
Left Genting at 3pm and set off for KL city! We stopped by a strawberry and veggie farm halfway to pluck strawberries and to buy local tidbits. First time plucking strawberries and we took lots of photos. The strawberries are red but not very sweet sadz.
The guys were saying pose with strawberries very gay and no one was willing to do it except for Johnson hahaha.
They then asked Johnson to man up and take a masculine photo with the strawberries, FYI he was pretending to squash the strawberries with his hand. LOL when we saw this photo.
We also did jump shots at the strawberry farm, just look at Dayne's pose, totally look like 功夫小子 lol!
Reached KL city and checked in to our service apartment at Fahrenheit Bukit Bintang. Location is superb as there are lots of shopping malls and eating places nearby. The 3 bedroom service apartment was huge, clean and could accommodate 7 of us very comfortably. There's even a kitchen complete with utensils and crockery if you want to cook but we didn't use it. At SGD$366 per night, it’s pretty reasonable for a service apartment that size and location. We love it!
It started raining at dinner time and spoiled our plans to walk to Jalan Alor for street food :( settled for teppanyaki at BB plaza/Sungei Wang as it’s sheltered and near to our apartment. The veggie serving is huge! We ordered 1 prawn and 1 beef, average price of a teppanyaki set is SGD$5. Very cheap compared to SG =D I really love Malaysia for their cheap food haha.
Did some shopping at Pavilion till the shops closed before we headed back to change outfit. We are going clubbing at Zouk KL!!! =D *excites* I think clubbing overseas just got that kick to it for me, like how I feel about Taiwan’s Luxy, it somehow feels more exciting than clubbing in sg hehe.
We were actually all damn tired from the lack of sleep and nua-ing on the bed but we still dragged our asses to Zouk at around midnight. Turned out that tourists get free entry as long as we show our passports. We get to skip the long queue outside and the bouncer led us straight in like a VIP WOOO~ awesome much.
Zouk KL have Phuture as well and the music was good. The bad part is that smoking is allowed indoors and we are engulfed in smoke everywhere. Almost forgotten that sg used to allow smoking in clubs too. It made me appreciate the smoking bans in sg more and making sg a more smoke-free environment.
We had a super super fun night playing drinking games that made us laughed non-stop! I guess the company is very important, we have some major entertainers in our group and when you are with people who know how to have fun, you will have a good time :) The drinks at KL are at a fraction of sg’s prices so that sweetened the deal further.
Headed out at 4am as the music is starting to sound weird lol. Feeling hungry and saw this lok lok stall just opposite zouk. The interesting thing is zouk sg have this stall selling sausages outside and we will go to that after clubbing to satisfy our hunger pangs. But in zouk kl, you have lok lok instead, how awesome is that! “cultural” difference haha. Sat at the bus stop nearby to enjoy our lok lok, super satisfying even though it’s just steamboat food =x but it is the experience that makes it interesting =D
Cabbed back and we were scrambling to bathe and climb into bed. Girls talk on the bed at 6am, we were arranged like sardines across the bed so that it can acocmodate all 4 of us. Hallway through our conversation, I accidentally drifted off to lala land while they were still talking HAHA. I only woke up again when I heard them calling my name LOL.
Eventually, we ended the girls talk session as it is already 6 plus and Pinkie returned to her room with her bf. The remaining 3 of us concussed till 1130am. I really KO for the 2nd night and slept much better than the 1st. Rushed to check out by 1230pm which means we only had 1 hour to prepare, that’s quite a challenge considering we had 7 pax and only 2 bathrooms.
Placed our stuff at the concierge and went out for brunch. We randomly picked this food court 十号胡同 at Lot 10 which had a lot of KL specialty food. The concept is something like our Food Republic. Many choices for us and we settled for: wanton mee, 烧腊, claypot 老鼠粉, popiah, assam laksa, lor mee, kl hokkien mee, hor fun and siew bao. Yum yum yum
Did more shopping at Pavilion again but I only got 1 pair of Vincci shoes :( I love Vincci as their shoes are very affordable and comfy, practically painless. All my heels are from Vincci! It’s my must-go shop whenever I go to Malaysia hehe.
Teabreak at 许留山 to rest our tired legs.
The guys invented this irritating pose while clubbing the night before, said it's part of their team cheer when they beat us 4 girls at the drinking games -_- JUAI PI lol... they are still using it the next day to suan us for losing to them CUI we girls think they will never let us live this down hahaha...
Went for dinner before going to the airport to catch our flight back. The zi char place we went to is the bomb! I fell in love with the restaurant ever since a family friend brought me there during my previous trip to KL. The dishes are unique and cheap =D
Best hokkien mee we had this trip, only SGD$3 for such a big plate
Fried roasted pork, the bomb!
Stewed pig trotters with pig tendon (I only eat beef tendon before but not pork tendon, they say it's full of collagen)
Some veggie which I never hear the name before
Salted egg prawn
Fish with fried butter, the 丝-like thingy you see surrounding the fish are actually fried butter, it totally melts in your mouth, omg damn GOOD. How do they fry butter to become 一丝丝???
鸳鸯芥兰, fried shredded 芥兰 on top which tastes like seaweed. Stir-fried fresh 芥兰 below, very good pairing!
The whole meal for 9 pax only costs SGD$108 with the pig trotters, fish and prawn dishes. Value-for-money or what? =D
With happy tummies, we set off for the airport. Departing shot at the airport.
We got assigned separate seats on the flight so only some of us sat together. Camwhored and chit-chatted the whole flight away.
It had been a superb trip, one of my most enjoyable KL trip :) fun and laughter abound, it brought all of us closer together. the group is toying with the idea of going on another trip to HK in September, hopefully it materializes! :)
