Have I told you lately that I love you?

Have I told you lately, that I love you?
Have I told you there's no one else above you?
You fill my heart with gladness
You take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles, that's what you do

- Rod Stewart, "Have I told you lately that I love you"

Well, we found yet another good and cheap western place! Aston's Specialties, located along East Coast Road. Now apparently this was the original place, and then after which they spawned a few outlets, called Aston's Express (at places such as NUS Prince George's Park, Serangoon Gardens) as well as a more up-market one called Aston's Prime. Now, Aston's Specialties is pretty popular, during peak hours the queue to go in can stretch for ~20, 30 people until the traffic light junction! Almost all of their dishes comes with 2 sides, from which you can choose fries, onion rings, potato salad, garden salad, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, etc.

Teriyaki Chicken with Onion Rings and Mashed Potatoes as sides. The Teriyaki sauce is very very nice, and the chicken is quite well prepared as well. The mash and the onion rings were both super, and I wanted to order another whole meal after finishing this! Not to mention that this is about $5.90 or $6.90!

Beef again! Ribeye steak, medium, with fries and garden veggies. It was pretty good! The beef is nice and succulent, and served with an awesome garlic-mushroom sauce. The fries were tasty by themselves even without any sauce. No comments about the "garden veggie" though; we were expecting leafy vegetables at least. This one is about $12.90.

This place doesnt charge service charge, only the 7% GST, so the bill was like, low $20s. Which is not a bad deal! Another point to take note, ice water is 30c/glass. The beef tends to get more expensive, especially as you up the cut. There was a Wagyu beef offer I remember, something like $60+. Aston's Prime also caters to the more up-market crowd, offering even more expensive (and I would wager better quality) beef. But for the chicken and the fish, they're all <$10. (: Next stop, Essential Brew, tucked away in a corner of Holland V. I've been here quite a few times, firstly cause my friend used to waitress here. It serves a very interesting herb-infused cuisine. The last time I remember trying a cilantro fish fillet. Didn't go too well with my friends who were with me, but luckily I liked it. Their drinks and their desserts are also pretty interesting, most of them with tea influence.

Dance of Tea. It's milk tea with chocolate (the chocolate's all the way at the bottom). Pretty decent, and it's popular too, saw a few tables around us all having it.

This would be a berry smoothie. With a mix of berries and a nice dollop of ice cream on the top. The ice cream was pretty nice! We were trying to identify it (as Essential Brew serves New Zealand Natural ice cream), as it tastes slightly different from just plain vanilla, but we didn't manage to.

Grilled dory fillet! As with most of their dishes, this is served with veg, and their brown rice covered in a pretty aromatic sauce. I was reminded of Karma Kettle's aromatic rice, this is something like that. The fish was pretty tender and decent

Rosti stacked Beef. Apparently it's supposed to be beef slices atop a rosti base. The rosti base is unfortunately pretty thin, like, one layer of potato only. The beef made up for it though, it was tender though being so thin, the slices were all well done.

The above-meal at Essential Brew cost us about $50. The service that night wasn't too good though. And we came happily with a 10% voucher just to notice after sitting down that it was expired. For three days. Shucks.