Handcrafted Italian Pizzas from Pizza Delivery Singapore

Service Review

If you know anything about me, you will know that I completely (and unapologetically) love fast food. I believe cheese to be one of mankind's most ingenious culinary creations and Italian is one of my most favourite cuisines so it comes as no surprise that pizza features up high in my list of preferred foods to order at restaurants. I and my husband also make different kinds of pizza at home from scratch and it usually turns into a weekend fun family activity 😊

Although we prefer making fresh home-cooked meals most of the time, once or twice a week, we give ourselves a well-earned break and go out to eat or else order home delivery. With a global pandemic raging for the past several months, we have resorted to home delivery most of the time. Since everyone in my household loves pizza, it is a frequently ordered item along with sides like garlic bread and mozzarella cheese sticks. 

I was asked by Best In Singapore if I would do a pizza review and to be honest, I didn't think twice. I need no excuse to eat pizza 😁

Image Source: Pizza Delivery Singapore

Pizza Delivery Singapore is an upscale fast-casual concept that serves up artisan-style pizzas and pastas made on demand, ready in minutes and delivered to your doorstep all under 1 hour. They have been shortlisted as one among the 13 best pizza deliveries in Singapore by Best In Singapore. 

As the name suggests, Pizza Delivery Singapore primarily focuses on the online aspect of the pizza experience. They strive to provide customers with an authentic Italian experience just a finger click away. Their handcrafted pizzas are said to be made only with traditional southern Italian mozzarella cheese. Their chefs are committed to personally selecting the finest ingredients every week – assuring you a mouthful of only the freshest pizzas and pasta.

Image Source: Pizza Delivery Singapore

There is a selection of artisan-style pizzas (Classics and Favourites), traditional pastas (such as Marinara, Alfredo, Aglio Olio, Carbonara, Bolognese) and a few sides like Mozzarella Cheese Sticks, Chicken Wings, Fish Fingers, Honey Mustard Prawns and Meatballs. 

I must say that the pictures of the food they have on their website are quite tempting. The credit for that goes to Owari Photography

Image Source: Pizza Delivery Singapore

Image Source: Pizza Delivery Singapore

All pizzas are available in 3 sizes - Small (6-inches/4 slices), Medium (9-inches/6 slices) and Large (12-inches/8 slices). 

I ordered large Margherita pizzas, medium Mushroom pizzas and Mozzarella cheese sticks. I placed the order in advance and selected the time-slot that I wanted.

Sleep Solutions: Origin Superior Coolmax Latex Pillow

Product review
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Image source: orignmattress.com.sg

So, after acknowledging my past struggles with insomnia, I have become the sort of person that doles out sagely advice on how you can get a good night's sleep 😄 A sleep "guru" if you will 😂

But in all seriousness, I am doing much better in the shut-eye department folks. Presently, I get around six hours of restful sleep every night and even though that is still less than ideal, it just about works for me and I really can't complain. 

So, if you think sleep is all about switching off your mind and body for a couple of hours then think again. While you are sleeping, your body is hard at work cleaning up the mess you’ve made during the day. Your systems are busy flushing out toxins, replacing cells, repairing damaged tissues and restoring your energy supply.

There is plenty of research out there to show that poor sleep has immediate negative effects on your hormones, exercise performance, and brain function. It is also linked to weight gain and increase disease risk in both adults and children. 

Given today’s increasingly demanding workload, many people take their work home with them, either physically or metaphorically. Overthinking by dwelling on problems and thinking about things one has no control over, overstimulation by electronic gadgets, overscheduling in the name of productivity (guilty! 🙋) and different kinds of stresses are some of the major factors that have contributed to the overall decline in sleep quantity and quality. 

A few things that helped me personally to improve my sleep quality is to exercise everyday (usually early mornings or afternoons), avoid caffeine late in the day, have an early dinner, maintain a consistent bedtime and rising schedule, avoid using electronic gadgets just before bed and to get a comfortable mattress, pillow and bedding.

As a general rule, bed pillows need to be replaced after 18 months. I'm sure not many of us follow that right? And although most people do understand the importance of investing in a good mattress, not as much thought is given to pillows. But if you think about it, your pillow gets used about 7-8 hours a night (which amounts to more than 2,500 hours a year) so, like your mattress, your pillow is an investment in high-quality sleep, which pays dividends across your waking life. 

The good folks at Best In Singapore recently sent me a Origin Superior Coolmax Latex Pillow for the purpose of review.

The pillow arrived in great packaging and way sooner than I expected.

I unboxed it and discovered it to be soft and fluffy yet dense and quite firm.

The pillow comes with a luxuriously soft pillow cover but I recommend that you put another one of your own pillow cover over it to protect it.

This is the ultimate plush pillow that cradles your head. The Origin Superior Coolmax Latex Pillow offers a responsive Latex foam support and is completed with a removable Tencel fabric pillow cover hat is easy to clean and suitable for machine wash.

Restaurant review: Arkadaş Cafe, Singapore

This blog post has been in the pipeline for three years. I really have no explanation for not doing it sooner. 

The cuisine of the Middle East is diverse while having a degree of homogeneity. It includes Arab, Iranian, Jewish, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Georgian, Kurdish, Cypriot and Turkish cuisines. Fresh, wholesome, rich and aromatic are some adjectives that pop into mind when I think of this cuisine. It is commonly associated with an ample use of olive oil, parsley, pita bread, sesame seeds, chickpeas, mint and rice.

My husband and I are very fond of Middle Eastern food. From an appetizer point of view, I love the concept of dipping warm bread and colorful vegetables in an assortment of savoury dips and condiments with various cheeses on the side.

There are several Middle Eastern restaurants in Singapore that we frequent such as Al-Hamra, Alaturka, Beirut Grill, Sofra, Shiraz, Shabestan and Urban Bites. Pistachio and Artichoke have been on our list on a long time but we haven't gotten around to checking them out. Hopefully soon!

Aside from going to restaurants, we also cook several of our favourite dishes at home. We love putting together homemade mezze snacking platters with hummus, baba ganoush/moutabel, tzatziki, muhammara, tabbouleh, falafel, pita, toum, vegetable sticks, feta cheese, olives, nuts, dried apricots and fresh figs. Our children also love this concept of communal dining and the wide selection they get to choose from. 

We went to Arkadaş Café, a café in Fusionopolis serving authentic Turkish cuisine, a few years ago for lunch, and since then, we have been there several times. Whenever our twins have a birthday party invitation on Saturday afternoon, our domestic helper takes them and the three of them end up having lunch at the party which gives me and the husband a few hours for a lunch date and we tend to pick Arkadaş Café. We can enjoy grown-up conversation, a delicious lunch and be back home by the time the girls are back.

What I really like about the café is that it isn't too far for us, I like the casual and chilled out vibe, the  extensive menu choices, the unpretentious homely food and the more than reasonable prices.

To get there, the nearest MRT station is One North on the Circle Line and it is less than a kilometer walk away from there. We go by car and usually park in one of the nearby buildings of Fusionopolis. 

The café is surprisingly spacious which is not quite evident when you see it from the outside. The glass windows and high ceiling make the space airy and bright. The interiors are very plain and minimalist with the color scheme dominated by green, white and brown. I have spotted some Turkey tourism posters adorning the walls. Considering the imposing building it is housed in and the lovely tropical surroundings, the décor could definitely do with some sprucing up.

My husband who had been to Arkadaş Café with his colleagues a couple of times previously, told me that the founder and chef is former personal chef to the Turkish Ambassador to Singapore for 22 years. With those credentials, I think authenticity of the food is pretty much a done deal.

I have heard that on weekdays the café can get quite crowded (considering the bustling location) but on weekends, it is relatively quieter. 

The menu has an impressive range of drinks (none of them alcoholic by the way), appetizers, mains and a few desserts. You can try Turkish coffee or tea, homemade ayran, Middle Eastern dips, bread such as pide and pita, salads, wraps/rolls,/sandwich musakka, kebabs, baked rice, grilled meats and traditional desserts like baklava and künefe. Note that there are plenty of vegetarian and a few vegan options in the appetizer section but only two in the main course section. 

I managed to dig out a few pictures from our previous visits and putting together my thoughts on this café. 

Here are some of the dishes that I commonly order,

Recipe of the month: Milk Burfi

The whole of last month, I posted only one blog entry. Every time I fall short of my blogging quota, I start feeling antsy. But I really couldn't help it. 

In June, Singapore cautiously moved to Phase Two of its reopening with a range of restrictions eased to allow more workplaces, business and social activities to resume. Initially, I was allowed to work only three days a week in alternating shifts (which was still better than nothing) but June 19th onwards, given the small size of my lab and our ability to comply with all workplace safety protocols and regulations that were put into effect, my work resumed at lightning pace. I have been working 10 hours a day with very few breaks (on most days) and with schools resuming and routines returning to normal, most days, I have been too sapped and preoccupied to even give blogging much thought. 

It is all good though. After two months of having too much free time for comfort, I am actually loving this bustling schedule and routine. It actually appeals to my highly restless disposition 😛

This Indian sweet happened quite by accident actually. Anticipating the lockdown, my husband and I were prudent to stock up (NOT hoard!) on some essential dry provisions in the very unlikely event of an apocalypse 😬 In hindsight, it was completely unnecessary because even during uncertain times, Singapore never ran short of any fresh groceries or provisions. At the height of my quarantine cooking and baking frenzy, I recall only not being able to get my hands-on cream cheese and bread flour for a couple of weeks (First World problems huh?) but those items also returned to the shelves soon enough. 

I was going through our "Apocalypse Inventory" excel file recently (I'm not kidding....such a document really exists 😝) and I noticed that there was a large tin of milk powder ordered by hubby dearest that I had completely forgotten about. Normally, I never use milk powder so I started pondering on how I could use it. 

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I don't make Indian sweets often because I am terrible at making them (and that is putting it mildly). I struggle to even make a decent gulab jamun from scratch. There are about 4-5 traditional Indian sweets that I have managed to "crack" and I keep shamelessly repeating them on every festive occasion 😂

Anyway, I didn't want to use the milk powder to make milk or yoghurt and I wasn't going to channel my inner Cleopatra by taking any milk baths (😝) so I figured the easiest way to use it would be in dessert. I settled on Milk Burfi or Milk Powder Burfi, an easy milk fudge subtly flavoured with cardamom and saffron and garnished with chopped nuts. After browsing a few recipes, I settled on one that looked pretty good. As I was making the burfi, I realized that the proportions mentioned in the recipe I was following were a bit off and so I had to quickly improvise to avert a disaster. Much to my surprise, the burfis were nothing close to being inedible and in fact, rather good. With a pleasant melt-in-the -mouth texture, subtle fragrance, mild sweetness and the added crunch and flavour from the nuts, it turned out to be a successful endeavor. 

I wanted to blog the recipe (more for myself than anyone else) but before that, I wanted to make it one more time to ensure that the proportions of ingredients were correct. The recipe you see below is a tried and tested one with the results approved by my family so you can proceed with confidence.

If you have any other suggestions for using milk powder please leave a comment. Would love to hear your ideas 😊