Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Food review: AIWO Food for Life

Date night with dear yesterday. We decided to try AIWO, a literal transliteration of the Chinese "爱我". The restaurant's tagline is "Food for Life" and it brands itself as a healthy eating place where you can "dine to fitness".

The restaurant is tucked away in a corner of Raffles City, on the 2nd level. From outside, it looks a bit like 可爱鸡 or some foodcourt, but once you walk into the resturant, the impression changes instantly. From glass-topped tables with nifty little pull-out compartments storing cutlery, to the plush chairs and sofas, muted lighting and sleek conveyor belt, the interior is understated class in the best way. The only thing that threw us off was the in-house music: dinner lasted exactly as long as half of 欧德洋's "孤单北半球" album. Heh.





















On to the food. The all-you-can-eat is a steal at $17.60 for dinner (and even better value at $12.60 for lunch). The meal included a bowl of soup (Mediterranean vegetable) and soya pita with tomato, barley and some-weird-sauce dips; tandoori chicken, prawn and salad, all served in a gorgeous glass dish. The all-you-can-eat part consists of 14 different dishes that roll past on a conveyor belt, and the menu changes daily. Each dish comes with small servings of an average of 50 calories each, but it tastes so good you cannot tell the difference from normal, much-higher calorie meals. Of course, 50 calories also means that the servings are very small, but hey it means you get to try everything too!

Some of the dishes we had last night:
- Steamed Pacific Dory (two thumbs up!)
- Vegetables in white cashew curry (the cashew tasted slightly strange, but maybe i'm just not used to nutty flavours in a sauce)
- Pine nuts and oat crusted chicken (yumm)
- Phuay leng (don't know the english name for this very nice veggie) and mushrooms (my fave! muah muah mushrooms!)
- Celery with preserved cabbage
- Black pepper chicken
- Lohan vegetables (slightly dry)
- Grilled fish of some kind (veryvery dry! =(
- Tau Kwa skewered with roasted capsicums and olives

But all in all, it was a very good meal. EVen after downing a lot of plates, I didn't feel bloated or queasy (thanks no doubt to the olive oil used for cooking). The pan-Asian cuisine brings to mind the food at Straits Kitchen, although it comes in much smaller servings and at about half the price. AIWO has also received a lot of good reviews.. what are you waiting for? Make your way down, the next time you feel healthy!


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