Donna Carmela is named after the wife of the owner, Mauro, just like his former restaurants were named after his mother, Mamma Lucia. Glad to see that he's back in the Singapore restaurant business after a stint back in Italy, and even happier to see that he replicated his Brazilian and Italian formula! Donna Carmela refers to the Italian food, and Caipirinha to the Brazilian.

His sister helps out here, as does Simone from ML days, and another friend Max who happens to own one of the few Gilera Fuocos in Singapore. This interesting scooter was parked right outside and is the only red one here for now. Here's yet another instance of Italians loving it when you ride your Italian bike to their restaurant!

Mauro wants his diners to enjoy wine with every meal, and makes it highly affordable for you to do so. House wine goes for $5+ a glass or $25+ a bottle. He offered a bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Poggio Ai Santi Le Guardie 2006 – a lovely, easy drinking wine that I'm familiar with, at $29+. An unbeatable price I say!

Although opened only this month, Mauro told me that they've already hosted a few full houses - good for him! A friendly couple dining there told me they ate there several times a week and recommended the lasagna, as well as the wine they were having, a Rovertondo Valpolicella Superiore Ripasso. I took away a bottle and will update soon.

This visit, I had my favourite churrasco with about 17 cuts for $37+. Help yourself to the salad bar and then friendly and efficient passadors will serve you all you can eat chicken leg, pork loin, pork rib, ham, pork sausage, beef hump, beef topside, lamb, banana, pineapple... the works. All cut off skewers at your table.

I don't believe in cutting corners on ingredients; neither does Mauro. That's why I'll come again - Brazilian meat is used here and you should be able to taste the difference between this and Australian or other meats used at some other churrascarias (and I've been to virtually all in Singapore plus at least 5 elsewhere). The standout this visit was the pineapple. Thumbs up!

The Brazilian and Italian kitchens are kept separate deliberately. Mauro and company are good hosts - take the time to speak to them. I will certainly be back to visit my Italian friends and try their Italian food, and be back for more churrasco too. Red meat with red wine, at great value prices, what could be better?

Note: at lunch, only Italian food is served

Before you dismiss Thai-Spanish fusion cuisine, Limon serves up decent interpretations of this mix. All the Thai-Spanish fusion dishes that I ordered worked for me, and I give it the thumbs up for such an interesting find.

Behind a sliding glass door entrance, the ground floor is dark and cosy, seating only a small number as a lounge and bar, and furnished with Thai and Spanish cultural influences. There are many huge, colourful cushions for the seats along the wall. There's an upper floor and a further top floor with a private room that I've yet to explore.

You can make your own tapas combo by combining 4 tapas ($35++), or a mains combo by combining 4 mains ($66++). There is a good selection of about 18 types of tapas. I wanted to try the paella so I passed on the tapas - but be warned that paella takes some time to cook. If you're looking for quick relief from hunger beyond an amuse bouche of gazpacho with white wine and bread, you'd better go for a faster order.

Paella - you can choose from the classic Spanish style, the tom yum style or the Thai pineapple rice done paella style. The entree style portions go for $16++ and the main style portions for $22++. Hey, the theme is Thai-Spanish fusion right, so it's tom yum paella then! This was a well executed paella that was well flavoured with tom yum, with seafood, mushrooms and broccoli - certainly like no other I've had. I liked all the ingredients except the squid. Tasty!

The 4 mains I picked for the main course combo were grilled pork chop, bacalao (pan fried cod fillet), lomo de cordero (grilled lamb ribs) and Krapow lobster. Sides included rice and spaghetti (which were accompaniments for the lamb and lobster). The combo came out very well. I liked the cod and lobster best.

Happy hour brought a 20% discount for the wines, as well as 1-for-1 Singha or San Miguel beer. I had a lovely glass of Tempranillo for $19.

The service staff, lef by Ken, the floor manager, were friendly, efficient and helpful. Ken was dressed up in a coat and takes the effort to do a good job for customers. He was also interested to know my feedback on the food and how I got to know the place.

Because Limon's parent company Parkway Thai sent their Chief Chef to helm Limon, and had a Spanish chef coach him, what could potentially be a difficult fusion of cuisines ended up much better than most would imagine. I thought the use of Thai spices like lemongrass and Thai basil in the cuisine was well proportioned and gave the food fresh and bold new interpretations - creativity that worked for me.

Pictures and menus are available on its website www.limon.com.sg

Kashmir is a small restaurant specialising in Kashmiri cuisine. A rarity in Singapore, Kashmiri cuisine contains influences from diverse influences – Hindu, Buddhist, Afghan, Mughal, Sikh and British. Here you can find Kashmiri muslim food, Kashmiri Hindu food, as well as North Indian cuisine.

The restaurant seats about 40 and is furnished with dark wood with warm lighting. Before you eat, the wait staff will ask you to wash your hands at the table, pouring water from a container (Tashtri). Specialties are indicated by a maple leaf symbol on the menu (apparently common in the Kashmir valley). When in Kashmir, try the specialties!

Kabargah - "Ribs of lamb boiled in milk with kashmiri spices and fried" - is a good starter as the portion isn't big. Rohit the owner advised us to try eating it with our hands, instead of the fork. This had a nice blend of spices infused into the lamb, making for lovely flavours.

Kokkar roganjosh - "Chicken in harmony with onions and tomatoes flavored with aniseed" - two pieces of chicken served in gravy. For someone who doesn't really like to order chicken, this was a decent spicy chicken dish.

Mixed vegetable - "Assorted veggies cooked with chef’s secret condiments" - provided about 5 varieties of colourful fresh vegetables, and as with Indian cuisine, none of the leafy types. Cooked together with spices but without much gravy, this came out in a pleasant way.

Akhroat Ka Raita - "A rich combination of curd and walnuts" - was an interesting find, with a strong taste of walnuts in a curd style raita. I haven't seen this around, and must say this provided a good balance to the other items.

Kashmiri pulao - "Long grain rice cooked in perfect harmony with nuts, saffron & kevra" - came in a big portion for $6. You might want to go easy on other carbs like naan if you order this.

Roomali roti - a thin handkerchief type flatbread that I always try to order in an Indian restaurant. I might try the more interesting Chilly cheese naan next time.

Stuffed with all that, plus two lassi for only $59, it left no room for dessert. I was looking forward to trying the pista kulfi but it will have to wait.

I spied several tables ordering a sizzling Afghani Murg, which smelt and looked really good, so I might try that next time as well. There is also a decent vegetarian selection.

Service staff, led by Rohit, are very polite, friendly and efficient, well trained by the owners who have much experience in the hotel and F&B industry in India. With its decent prices, this is certainly a good find for rare cuisine.

Orchid Live Seafood from Orchid Country Club has opened a branch at Jalan Kelulut recently, taking over the premises of the old Spice and Wine. If you're not living in or visiting the neighbourhood, you wouldn't happen to pass by and notice "Oh look, there's a restaurant here!". You have to come here knowing that you're looking for it. Yet Sunday night at 8.30pm was met with a full house.

Inside was totally rowdy like a Chinese restaurant. Outside, a few tables are placed on the corridor, spilling over to the front of adjoining shops. Only those tables directly outside the restaurant have ceiling fans.

I ordered the house specialties: lobster porridge (Teochew style) and Steven chicken. 600g of lobster cost $48.

I preferred the lobster porridge at House of Lobster, ITE Simei (though that chef has since left and I'm not sure whether they are maintaining his standards). Orchid's broth seems to have something missing in the flavour, though I can't really pinpoint it - maybe cooking wine?

Steven chicken is chef Steven Chua's specialty chicken. It's fried chicken with sesame and sauce with a sweet flavour. The chicken is served showing the bones, with the flesh in the middle of the bone moved towards the ends - makes eating easier. This was reasonably good.

I noticed several tables with wine, so it appears that they might sell wine.

Wait staff could barely cope with a full house and tables took a long time to be cleared. Once the table is cleared and dishes are served, you're mostly on your own. A table with a birthday cake helped themselves to the plates and forks for the cake.

I've been to Khansama Tandoori at Serangoon Road and found it to be competent and good value. Paying a visit to their sister restaurant, Khansama Tandoori Village, I found the same friendly prices in a more upmarket setting. Yay!

Set up to fit the theme of a Punjabi village, there are nice touches like traditional musical instruments and a very old TV set. The plates and cups are the traditional metal type.

There are at least 6 TV screens showing DVDs. Depending on your luck, they show either very recent Hindi music videos (like Krissh and KANK) or very old ones that look like they're from the time of James Bond in the 1960s or 1970s - both were screened when I was there.

The menu is very, very extensive - more than 50 pages. Their specialties are also divided up by category - chaat specialties, chicken specialties, vegetarian specialties... spread all over the menu. There are also several interesting choices of Indian dishes with Chinese influences, such as Chilli Paneer - "Cottage cheese coated with flour, and cooked in sweet and sour gravy, and soya sauce, with plenty of chillies", Fish Manchurian - in sweet and sour sauce, and more.

I don't think I can ever finish eating even half the items on the menu, no matter how often I return. On with the orders!

Fish Pakora - a special from Amritsar - $6.50
"Boneless tender Angoli fish fillet soaked in gram flour paste and deep fried until golden brown and served with mint sauce"
I ordered this because it was touted as an Amritsari special. Good choice, many pieces of good Angoli fish, well flavoured and goes well with the mint.

Bharwa Mirch - $8.50
"Whole Capsicum filled with a mixture of meshed potatoes, cottage cheese, dry fruits and spices and cooked at slow fire on a hot plate"
This was another good find. The whole capsicum was stuffed with cheese and others, cut in half and served in gravy. If you love capsicum and cheese like I do, excellent!

Plain Naan $1.50
This was a very well done naan, worthy of mention!

Mutton Rogan Josh - $8.50
Rumali Roti $3.50
Mango Lassi $4
Salted Lassi $3

There is a fair wine selection, and they have Kingfisher, Hayward 5000 and other beers too.

All prices are net so what you see is what you pay. Service is efficient. They offer delivery too if you can meet the minimum order, and offer catering as well. I find this a good place for good Indian food at value prices. Thumbs up!

Set in the old River Valley Primary School, La Villa is a hideout just below Leonie Hill serving Mediterranean food. Look for the lit signboard on River Valley Road pointing out ERC, go in, pass the carpark and a big, pleasant outdoor dining courtyard to the main building.

The inside of the restaurant is separated from the courtyard by glass doors, giving you a view of outside. It also means that cars coming down Leonie Hill Road will shine their headlights at you. It is decently decorated, furnished and lit, with mirrors on the perimeter walls, spot lights and concrete screed flooring.

By coincidence, I came here on the day that Business Times featured it. Not knowing the article came out that morning, I ran straight into an almost full house.

There's a reasonable selection of wines by the glass with more than 5 choices each, unlike places that give you a choice of one or two only. I picked a glass of Cape Mentelle Sauvignon Blanc ($16++), and they poured me a fairly big glass.

There's a good selection of simple food - various starters, pizzas, pastas and mains. I spied a suckling pig confit on the menu and will be returning for that.

You get a nice basket of several breads to start. The orders for the day were:
Seared tuna loin with capsicum ($18++)
Cheese ravioli ($20++)
Emiliana pizza ($20++)

The seared tuna loin - 3 small pieces - was seared on the outsides only. The portions of the yellow and red capsicum were small.

The waiter serving brought me some soup - but wait I didn't order any - oops no er it's ravioli in broth. BT says the cheese ravioli is imported frozen from France. This was a pleasant dish, with the mild cheese not overwhelming the taste.

Emiliana pizza was also good, a large sized portion with decent and generous ingredients. This was one of the better pizzas I've had. Good value.

Service was pleasant, and my server Shah was helpful throughout. Prices are reasonable for the pasta and pizza, so if you plan your orders to budget you can do quite well here. I feel the Senso group has done a good job on their new casual joint, La Villa.

Thaipan impressed me with their excellent cuisine featuring outstanding sauces. It's moved right up to top spot on my list of favourite Chinese eateries - quite an achievement because I don't get impressed easily!

Down by the sea at the Civil Service Club at Changi Village, Thaipan has a large window area facing the sea. It's set in pleasant and tranquil surroundings, in a free standing building with high ceilings and a wide dining hall. There is a seminar room area with 4 tables.

Service staff were helpful and polite, with many Filipinos. Here is one Chinese restaurant where you can order in English comfortably. Tea was poured automatically after we were seated, which suggests that you don't have a choice of type of tea.

The menu is mainly Chinese cuisine, with some Thai dishes such as green mango salad, tom yum, green curry.

3 of us ordered:
Butter squid
Broccoli with crab meat
Stir fried french beans with dried shrimps
Prawn paste chicken
Jing du pork chop
Olive fried rice

The quantity of this lot was just slightly beyond the capacity of 3. All for $56 all in - excellent value, especially with such outstanding food!

Throughout the lunch, I kept hearing superlatives from around the table, including from myself. I must commend the sauces used - every sauce poured over the dishes were excellent in texture, mix and flavour.

The two most outstanding and particularly impressive dishes were the butter squid and the broccoli with crab meat.

The butter squid, which has been so well loved by many other reviewers before me, was exactly as they described. A mix of egg, spices and butter resulted in a truly impressive sauce with wonderful flavours. I felt the squid could have been cooked better for it was chewy. Given that others before me had better squids, I might just have got a difficult squid. Notwithstanding, it was indeed one of the best items!

The broccoli with crab meat was equally, if not more, impressive. The broccoli was cooked nicely without destroying it by cooking too long, and the sauce, oh the sauce! Wow! Every bit as good as the squid, and even more so, I felt.

French beans came cooked to the right level. It looked a little undercooked but wasn't. It had a nice heap of dried shrimp and what I think could have been lard. Well executed, and again good flavours!

The chef seems to have very good control of the temperature and the timing - both the vegetable dishes came out exactly as I would have liked. Excellent skill worth commending.

Olive fried rice was another good find. Overall, I preferred the sea-based dishes to the land-based dishes. To me, they were simply excellent, outstanding, surpassing most of what I've had in so many other places elsewhere. Coupled with the ability to impress me at first taste, this gets a rare 9 rating from me. Which of my reviews has such a high count of impressive, outstanding and excellent? Having experienced such an unexpected great find, I'm already making plans to return!

I did a side by side taste test on the $4 fried Hokkien mee from Che Jian and Ah Hock. Conclusion: if you like your Hokkien mee with a slightly smoky flavour, fried to a texture that exhibits a little crispiness (from the lard I reckon), a little gravy, with fantastic lard that doesn't taste or feel like lard (more like chips instead) - Che Jian it is!

The ingredients - prawn, squid, pork - are good, the chilli is fine. But the star is really the noodles! The $4 portion is small, in that it looks more like a $3 portion you get elsewhere. The waiting time was pretty reasonable too, with the food arriving in about 10 minutes.

Finally, after so many fried Hokkien mee expeditions around Singapore, at Che Jian I find a Hokkien mee worthy of an outstanding rating. I must say I was truly impressed even with the first mouthful - very rare for this diner - that warrants an equally rare 9 from me.

Pagi Sore (morning and evening in Bahasa Indonesia) has been in business since 1989 and serves very good Indonesian food. Having had lunch here when it can be totally crowded, hectic and rowdy, dinner was a much quieter experience.

The specialties here are the beef rendang, grilled squid and ikan otah kukus. These dishes are indeed excellent. The flavour and spice of the rendang is well executed (warning: I was there on one occasion when this turned out pretty poor - off day perhaps?). The squid is very fresh, with a very good sweet and spicy sauce.

On this occasion I chose other items: kangkong belachan, tahu telor and ayam bali (marinated char-grilled chicken). The tahu telor, I found quite pleasant. The ayam bali was a very good combination of flavours - the taste of nicely grilled chicken with a sauce mixing spices with sweet.

One serving of rice comes in a folded banana leaf held together with a toothpick. If you finish your rice, the attentive wait staff will come by and ask if you need more.

Total with drinks cost $38 after service charge and GST - decent value.

It is staffed by a bunch of polite, friendly and efficient wait staff. Dishes are also cleared off your table promptly. You can sign up as a VIP member that gives you 10% off food at lunch and 15% off food at dinner.

Order the right items and you'll do well. Pagi Sore would be my choice for Indonesian food in Singapore.

Located in the tranquility of Gillman Village, Handle Bar is the Harley riders' hangout in Singapore. The motorbike theme is evident in the decor, with bike parts all over, including using a collection of motorbike side mirrors for the wash basin.

On a typical night, you can see all kinds of bikes parked here, especially the high end ones - Harleys, BMWs, Ducatis, big Hondas and Yamahas... There's apparently a bike wash service that you can pay for on weekends.

Handle Bar was surprisingly well patronised early on a weekday evening, with people in their office attire as well as the typical Singapore motorcyclist attire (shorts, slippers, open face helmet...).
Sadly, there are many in Singapore who ride their flash bikes in sloppy attire - something rarely seen in developed countries.

There's a decent menu selection. Hot wings came with the choice of low, medium or high spice. "Never test the depth of the water with both feet", so low it was. $10+ for 6 wings, suitably spicy at low spice level, thumbs up. After that came fish and chips and a cheeseburger, which were decent.

There's a large selection of beers on the list. All your condiments and cutlery come in a mess tin - see spunkie foodie's photo of that below. Staff are friendly and efficient. All prices are subject to 10% service charge.