This was very good. The yam was crispy with a smooth inside, and it was packed full with lots of diced vegetables, fungus, mushrooms, chicken and nuts. It’s excellent and priced very reasonably as well. Service at Zi Yean was outstanding too.
Decent cup of americano that’s smooth enough and moderately strong. Prices are more reasonable than some of the neighbouring cafes.
Except I asked for the non-spicy version. This is a tomato cream-based pasta with crabmeat lumps and a few cherry tomatoes. As with all the pastas here, you get a choice of either linguine or penne. I really enjoyed this, the tomato cream was delicious and there was plenty of crabmeat.
One of the rare occasions when the actual dish turns out better than the photo. This humongous bowl contains lots and lots of chunks of tender beef and tendon, smooth slippery la mian noodles, some xiao bai cai, baby carrots and radish slices, immersed in a large amount of tasty beef soup.
I’ve never tasted crispy noodles that’s as crispy and dry as this, without being burnt. The crispiness is amazing, and when you get to the bottom, while you’re left with the soggy parts of the noodles, there’s prawns, fish and clams to complete the joy of eating this. This dish is good for sharing. If you’re alone and can’t finish twin towers of noodles, they also have a version with just a single tower.
I got this set of 7 aburi sushi as a takeaway. There were hits and misses. The octopus and yellowtail were disappointingly tough and chewy. The other pieces were tender and flavourful, though not the freshest. This comes with a bowl of clear soup as well.
This bowl comes with quinoa, kale, broccoli, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, dried cranberries, beetroot hummus, spiced chickpeas, falafel and dukkah. I added sundried tomatoes for $1. This is the cheapest bowl on the menu but it’s bursting with colour and flavour, with a mix of sweet and fresh ingredients.
The quality of the ingredients is impressive. The curried cauliflower was nicely cooked and seasoned (though spicier than I remember them to be), the cubed egg whites were cooked just right, the roasted pineapple was amazingly sweet and juicy, and the chicken breast was tender.
Base: romaine lettuce
Protein: chicken breast
Sides: curried cauliflower, egg whites, roasted pineapple
Dressing: citrus ponzu
The mix of prawn and pork ribs comes in 3 sizes, small ($5), medium ($9) and large ($11). The price refers mainly to the size of the prawns. I like the soup. It’s the dark brown type that’s not very prawn-y but still very tasty, and it doesn’t have much MSG. Prawns are appropriately sized for the price. Not my favourite bowl of prawn mee, but this is definitely one of the better bowls around. Some of the aunties are rather grumpy, and one repeatedly chased us away from our table.
I’m a big fan of the poke bowls here, but this acai bowl was honestly a little weird. The acai itself was nice, too big scoops of cold refreshing acai that wasn’t too sweet or icy. Can’t go wrong with the kiwis, pomegranates, bananas, pink dragonfruit and granola either. But the substantial amount of coconut chia pudding at the bottom was oddly warm and had a very milky taste that didn’t go well with the rest of the bowl. The cacao nibs somehow didn’t taste as chocolatey as other cacao nibs I’ve tried, and the chocolate sauce drizzled on top was frozen so I had to eat it like solid chocolate. I’d rather come back to Poke Theory for their poke bowls.
In my opinion, Poke Theory has one of the best poke bowls around, and at just $9.90, it is one of the most value-for-money as well. The 7 standard toppings in this bowl are my favourites, but you can also choose others like kimchi or pineapple. I added an extra ramen egg for $1; my other favourite additional topping is teriyaki edamame. A new change since late-2020 is that you can request for aburi-ed salmon or tuna on weekdays after 3pm or weekends all day, and I love the aburi salmon. I got a salad base here, but I also really like the lemon herb quinoa and brown rice bases.
Base: salad
Toppings: wakame seaweed, sweet corn, carrot, cucumber, beetroot, cherry tomato, mashed sweet potato
Poke: aburi salmon
Extra topping: ramen egg (+$1)
Garnishes: furikake, tobiko
Sauce: mentaiko mayo (not pictured)
This has improved since I last tried it 3 years ago, from what I can remember. A small bowl gets you 75g of poke (original/wasabi mayo/spicy ahi tuna or salmon, a base (rice or salad), 4 normal toppings (mainly veg/fruit options), 1 superfood topping (avocado/quail’s egg/ikura/chia seeds), and there are several other add-one like ginger, scallions, kimchi (which I opted not to have) and purple cabbage. Although I chose a salad base, I was surprisingly full. I like the thick smooth cubes of tuna and the more unusual ingredients like ginger and ikura. It’s pricier than nearby A Poke Theory at Velocity where a similar sized bowl costs $9.90, but the ingredients are different and I’d be hard-pressed to say which is better.
Base: salad
Poke: original ahi tuna
Toppings: corn, edamame, golden raisins, seaweed salad
Superfood: ikura
