Xiao Ya Tou

Those who understand Chinese might find this name Xiao Ya Tou (小丫头) a catchy and unique name and it's not hard to guess what cuisine they are serving if you understand the chinese word. According to their tagline, it's a restaurant that served naughty modern Asian cuisine. I first heard of this restaurant from my friend and decided to give it a try with Chappy. Lucky us managed to buy the $100 voucher with just $70 on Chope.sg (Yes auntie mode on). I think the promotion has ended but they do have this 10% promo going on, you can check it out here!

The restaurant is full with retro decors and it gives u a quirky retro feel from the interior to the menu, I honestly feel like taking the menu home..lol~ We went there on a weekday night and thus only dinner menu is available. Greedy us ordered 5 dishes to share. Our favorite and 'your must try' has got to be the twice cooked angus short ribs (两次熟牛仔骨) that served with smashed cucumber and sesame butter. The ribs are really soft and tender, literally just melt in your mouth. Another signature is their XYT Lu Rou Fan (卤肉饭), not the usual braised pork rice but braised wagyu beef on rice (bonus point: it comes with poached egg!). Being greedy as always, we also order the ngoh hiang, dumplings and charred eggplant to share. For their drinks menu, they have pretty interesting cocktails, im so gonna try their milo dinosaur next time haha!

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves that night although the bill came up exceeding our budget..hahaha! Overall it's a really nice place to chill with your friends over interesting cocktails and their modern Asian cuisine with a little twist~ I am definitely going back again to try their brunch menu!

Xiao Ya Tou
6 Duxton Hill
Singapore 089592
Tel: +65 6226 1965

Seoul 2016 - Common Ground

Common Ground is the Korea's first pop-up store built with shipping containers, it's made up of 200 large containers and can be transformed into different structures or moving into other places. With such interesting shopping places with bright blue shipping containers and various independently owned brands housing inside, it's not hard to believe that Common Ground is one of the hipster places in Seoul. The price of their stuff seems to be a bit steep but for something unique and different, it's a good place to check out the local brands in Korea. Besides shopping, you can also find different restaurants and cafes at Common Ground, they even have some food trucks there but we didn't try any of the food there except Dore Dore..lol! Overall a really interesting place to check out!

Common Ground

200, Achasan-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, Korea

02-467-2747

Operating Hour: 11am-10pm

Direction: Konkuk University Station -exit 6

Seoul 2016 - Nami Island

We went to Nami Island on our day 3 in Seoul and i think we travelled the most that day! Nami Island is about 63km from Seoul and it's famous for its scenery with the beautiful tree lined roads~  To get to Nami Island, we took the subway to Cheongnyangni Station (you can transfer at Yongsan station too) then transfer to ITX train to Gapyeong Station. The journey for ITX is around 45 mins and it's a faster route to get to Gapyeong station. Remember to purchase the ITX ticket in advance so that you won't end up like us..standing throughout the whole journey..lol! After we reached Gapyeong station, we took the shuttle bus to Nami Island where you will pass by a few stops such as Petite France, The Garden of Morning Calm and so on. Alternatively, you can choose to zipline to Nami Island as well (whuttt)..haha obviously this option is out because the weather is so cold!!

We went straight to the Nami Island wharf to take the ferry. The crowd to get to Nami Island is no joke! The queue was insanely long but luckily it moved quite fast. I guess we went at the peak season and timing, everywhere is flooded with tourists and locals..it was so damn hard to take a picture without anyone photobombing you..haha! We took A LOT of time to take pictures there because we have to make our trip worthwhile lol!! To be honest, Nami Island is not as pretty as what I expected but it's definitely worth to go if you are visiting Seoul.


Nami Island
1, Namisum-gil, Namsan-myeon, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do
Direction: take subway to Yongsan or Cheongnyangni Station > ITX to Gapyeong > Shuttle bus/zipline to Nami Island.