Bakerzin first started its business as a café in 1998 specialising in patisseries and cakes. They have six outlets to date. Our family of six went for dinner at Bakerzin Gardens by the Bay. It was my first time dining at Bakerzin even though they have established more than 20 years in Singapore.

We dined as early as 5 pm, so there was no customer at this time. We sat at a cosy corner to look at Bakerzin’s menu. There was a wide selection of main courses to choose from local cuisine to western dining.

As a starter, Barley Salad (S$12.50) was very appetising. It reminded me of the Burmese Salad, Lephet Thoke (Fermented Tea Leaf Salad) which I have tried once. This salad is a must-order food, as the sauce and the taste are unique.

Kids Mini Meatballs (S$ 9.90) was for my little niece. I have never taken a fancy on tomato sauce. Eating too much tomato sauce makes me repulsive. I tasted the food nonetheless but nothing special. Even the meatballs were not tasty.

Chix Curry Rice (S$16.50) must be avoided at all cost if you are expecting the same standard of the authentic local curry. The overly sweet curry sauce was another failure to this dish. The ingredient was miserably little too.

My brother ordered a Bakerzin Burger (S$17.90). The burger was small, and so I did not try. He remarked the taste to be so-so. Hence, I guessed the standard was just decent.

I did not try New York Coney Island Dog (S$18.90) either. It was a hot dog with meat sauce and some potato wedges.

The first thing that came to my mind about Thai Pork Rice (S$17.90) was the amount of sugar added onto the food. It was too sweet. I did not think it was delicious at all for all that I had tasted was only sugar.

Voila, here came my food! This Salmon Penne (S$18.90) was the most delicious main course of all. The creamy sauce was savoury and left me wanting for more with each bite. No regret.

Finally, the long-awaited slice of Pumpkin Chiffon (S$ 5.00) came in anticipation which cakes should be a speciality of Bakerzin. Moreover, that was also the “Cake of the Month”. Indeed, it contained the pumpkin taste, but unfortunately, it was again too sugary to indulge in the pumpkin cake. It had somewhat failed in my expectation.

Chocolate Cake with Vanilla (S$ 8.80) was an expensive dessert not worth spending the money for dessert enjoyment. It was attractive to look at but not delightful to eat. The taste was not distinctive and yet, sweetness once again overpowered the flavour.

I would not recommend Bakerzin Gardens by the Bay as the standard of the food was not high. The chef had added too much sugar in many of their dishes. Even their signature desserts failed to make the mark. However, we were pleased with the excellent customer service. The friendly waitress informed us of the promotions and gently reminded us at times so that we would not miss out the offer.

DBS cardholders enjoy a 15% discount on the bill back then. Remember to check with the staffs if they have any credit card promotions when you foot the bill.

I had a birthday celebration with my friend at Ocean Restaurant by Cat Cora in Resort World Sentosa Singapore (RWS). It was a beautiful, romantic and classy fine dining restaurant with a splendorous and dazzling aquarium. Indulging in the pleasure of the fishes swimming close to the glass tank while dining was a gastronomic adventure. The food was fabulous but with a miserable small serving. The service level was excellent, particularly a male staff named Colin. Indeed a Paradiso!

We went on a Saturday afternoon. It was packed and noisy inside the restaurant. We had a 3-Course Set Lunch that cost S$55.00/pax which you can pick and choose from the Starter, Main Course and the Dessert menu. I tried my friend’s steak, which was rather average in taste. But most importantly, it was her birthday and she liked the food. I ordered salmon, and it was delectable.

The food was generally delicious, but not enough to fill up the stomach that was perhaps the reason why it was called fine dining. When the portion was meagre, it was tough to say that the food was not tasty. Before you have enough time to decide whether the food tasted good, it was already in the stomach. Never to go there famished expecting the portion served to perk you up. You pay a dear price to dine in a cosy and memorable ambience and not merely for the food.

The aquarium in the restaurant was part of the Underwater World in Sentosa. When you walked out of the other door, there were many people taking photographs of the stunning environment. You have to pay to go inside the Underwater World, but if you dine in this restaurant, you get to enjoy part of the luxury as well. Quite a great deal, I would say.

Instead of showing you photos of the environment and the food, I made a one-minute video with the photographs. The Youtube video will show you the name of the cuisine that we had.

Update

As we went to Ocean Restaurant by Cat Cora quite some times ago, the current menu seems to have changed. It is pricier now at S$72.00 for a 3-Course Set Lunch. Furthermore, I could not see Cat Cora name anymore on the website. Likely, she is no longer there to curate the Ocean Restaurant menu.

The Dee Mak Mookata dinner that we had at Geylang was unplanned. It was raining on that day. My boyfriend took shelter in the coffeeshop at Yin Chuan Building while waiting for me to arrive after work on a weekday. We chanced upon Dee Mak Mookata stall and decided to take our dinner there as it was an auth Thai BBQ and steamboat. Having steamboat was probably the wisest decision to eat on a cold rainy day leisurely.

The Dee Mak Mookata menu was really impressive. I was bowled over by the choice of food that I saw.

We selected nine dishes for two people. There were two types of meatballs on the plate at the top left-hand image which we placed together to take a photo – pork meatballs and cheeseballs.

There were two choices of soup base – spicy and non-spicy. We chose the spicy soup base for the steamboat, which was a Tom Yum flavour concocted by Dee Mak Mookata. In other words, we would not get the original Tom Yum taste familiar to us. The other choice of non-spicy soup was corn soup.

I was surprised to know that Dee Mak Mookata steamboat pot was extremely shallow as compared to the typical one which had a deeper base. I was somewhat paranoid and doubtful whether the food that was half-submerged in the soup would cook properly. Ricky, who was the Manager at Geylang Branch, clarified my doubts.

For the BBQ base, I was given butter and lard (also known as pork fat). Ricky explained that the fat had to be placed on the BBQ base first for it to melt slowly and afterwards, it would glaze the surface. Subsequently, smear the butter and lastly, add the food on it. This method would enhance the taste when more flavours were gradually released.

On the left-hand side of the photo above, there was a jug of soup on standby. It was used to pour into the steamboat anytime when the soup was lesser. Thumbs up to the box of tissues provided by them for the extra service.

All the food was very fresh. There were already several reviews online raving about this factor. Dee Mak Mookata certainly lived up to their reputation, which I could attest. My favourite food was their spicy chicken marinated with Tom Yum sauce and their yummy cheese balls! I would highly recommend anyone to try out these two food.

You could taste the fragrant Tom Yum sauce from the chicken as it was full flavoured. Anyone who worships cheese like me would be delighted to have it oozing out from the cheeseballs when you chew them inside your mouth. I love them very much!!

I was lucky to get two packs of complimentary instant noodles from Ricky to try. He said they would be very delicious to go with the soup. He was right. The slow cooking of the noodles in the shallow soup base somehow retained the crispiness of the noodles and did not soften them quickly. You had to be patient to enjoy the crunchy noodles.

As there were not many customers on the day that we went since it was raining, Ricky demonstrated his friendliness and excellent customer service by helping us to barbeque the meat for quite some time while all of us chatted. This restaurant was the second outlet that they had opened recently on 4 July 2015. The first outlet was in Jurong West and tended by another partner, Michael.

He also stated that there would be more local dishes coming up, such as Zi-Char (wok-fried dishes) or fried rice to accustom to the taste of the regular elderly customers in the coffee shop. They were more reluctant to try out “non-local” cuisine that proved to be more adventurous for them. As expected, customers who patronised Dee Mak Mookata were mostly young people.

I was pleased with the quality of the food. For the order that you see above, the average cost for one person was S$15.00. I would recommend others to go for a try at such a reasonable price. It was a very relaxed place to hang out in the coffee shop and not too noisy for me, probably because it was raining.

Oceans of Seafood at Turf City is the best Japanese restaurant in Singapore, in my opinion. It has a stylish interior in wood design. The dim light provides a calm and relaxing ambience away from the upbeat lifestyle. I would love to come here daily and bask in such a cosy atmosphere.

I came with my best friend to celebrate my birthday because we love to eat Japanese food in a non-crowded place. Oceans of Seafood is at The Grandstand located in Turf City. It is rather troublesome to reach the area if one does not drive. There are a few shuttle bus pickup points from the MRT stations and the bus stops that can pick up people to The Grandstand.

We had Sashimi Salad (S$14.00) as a starter which a variety of fresh raw fishes and salad titillate our taste buds.

Salmon Oyako Chirashi (S$28.00) which means Salmon on a Sushi Rice Bowl had six thick slices of salmon and a generous serving of fish roe. The menu online reflected the price at $20.00. The restaurant charged us S$28.00 when we foot the bill. Have they increased 40% of the cost, or did they make a mistake that we paid for it without checking? I think that S$28.00 was way too pricey for this dish. S$20.00 is reasonable.

Chawanmushi (S$7.00) is a must for completing the Japanese sushi. Their Chawanmushi had a lot of ingredients as you can see from the photo. The steamed egg was smooth and delightful.

We placed an order for the sushi which came in a single piece – Unagi Sushi (S$3.40), Salmon Sushi (S$2.50) and Maguro Sushi (S$2.80). As for drinks, we had Lychee Frizz (S$4.50) and Salmon Avocado (S$ 7.00). The total bill was S$95.00, inclusive of GST and service charge. These Japanese delights were expensive especially Salmon Oyako Chirashi. I still felt that it was not worth the price of S$28.00. Nevertheless, I will patronise this Japanese restaurant again if I have the chance.

Thanks for reading this far. Unfortunately, Oceans of Seafood restaurant is permanently closed. I am sure that you can find a lot of great food at The Grandstand.

I met up with three friends in IMM to have dinner in Shu Jiang Grilled Fish Restaurant | 蜀江烤魚. It had a classy interior and an aquarium as part of the decoration. Shu Jiang’s concept was to dine in an underwater environment and hence the birth of such a restaurant in Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) where the diners can enjoy the mesmerising view of marine creatures while savouring the dishes.

In IMM Building, it is not possible to have the same kind of underwater environment. They could assimilate a similar concept of Resort World Sentosa and introduce a smaller aquarium in the restaurant of the IMM Building. Diners have a more relaxed environment with the presence of water.

Shu Jiang Grilled Fish Restaurant originates from Sichuan. The folks in Sichuan are fond of hot and spicy food. Most of their dishes are spicy. The restaurant signature dish, Shu Jiang Grilled Fish 蜀江烤魚, is cooked in specially made ovens to the right doneness and then overlaid in the sauce which the customer has chosen.

There were four types of fish to choose from at IMM and six types of fish at RWS. We selected a Regular Sea Bass 金目鲈 @ S$42.80 which the promotional price was $38.00 at that time. The Large Sea Bass cost $48.80. The Regular Sea Bass in RWS cost $42.00 which was $0.80 cheaper.

The price of the fish cost lesser in RWS when making a quick comparison online. It was rather unexpected as RWS being a high-end location, had a fish menu that was priced lower than IMM Building.

There were six choices of sauces to pick for the grilled fish. Out of the six, four sauces were spicy. We selected Special Chef Spicy Sauce Served with Dried Chilli, Soya Bean & Peanut.

We had to make two more selections of vegetables out of nine vegetables on the menu that were part of the dish. We chose a unique one, Mung Bean Vermicelli 绿豆粉条 and Cabbage Long 大白菜.

The sauce of the fish was spicy and hot but flavoursome. The grilled fish certainly lived up to its reputation. I am an average eater of chilli. Towards the end of the dish, my tongue was burning hot from slurping the delicious chilli fish sauce as I could not help myself.

Despite the spiciness, I could still taste the sweetness of the fresh fish. I loved to eat the Mung Bean Vermicelli as they were thick, smooth and soft. They always slipped out of my spoon. I had a hard time scooping them.

Dining in a Sichuan food restaurant, one must remember to try their Hot and Sour Seafood Soup 海鲜酸辣羹 @ S$8.80. The soup was yum-yum and piquant.

My friends also ordered Pan-Fried Iberico Pork 香煎西班牙黑豚肉 @ S$24.80 which I had never eaten before. The Iberian pig is either red or dark in colour. Iberian pork is more expensive than the usual pork due to the higher grade of meat. The Iberian pork was so heavenly and tender that it might make any pork haters change their minds. Even if you do not like to eat pork generally, this dish must not be missed.

I could not recall whether Braised Bee Hoon with Crab Meat 珍珠螃蟹焖米粉 @ S$18.80 was tasty or not as the spiciness of the fish sauce numbed my burning taste buds which drowned the taste of any food that was milder in taste.

The customer service levels of the servers and manager were excellent. They asked for feedback on their food frequently and put on a lot of smiles. The manager even gave out name cards to all their patrons asking them to come back again. It was an enjoyable dinner surrounded by good food and friendly staff who took pride in their job.

The array of choices for their fish and sauces is a selling point for fish lovers to return and experiment with more cooking varieties of the fish. On the downside, the cost of the food is a bit expensive considering the small serving.

Xin Wang Hong Kong Café | 新旺香港茶餐厅 is one of those franchised cafes in Singapore that has firmly established itself since the first restaurant opened in 2005 in Heartland Mall. They have about 15 outlets to date in a shopping mall which you can find in many neighbourhoods in Singapore. If I see Xin Wang anywhere I go, it will mostly be my first choice. The atmosphere is usually casual in Xin Wang cafes.

Casual ambience in Clementi but it has closed down

For me, it is a household name that builds a reputation for medium-priced range dining in a restaurant. The prices are higher than food in hawker centres, yet lower than the cost of going to most restaurants. Over the years, I have tried a lot of their dishes from local to western food. Xin Wang HK Café will continue to remain as one of my favourite eateries that serve above-average food which never fails.

Below are a few food reviews that I have tried at Xin Wang Cafe.

I was very pleased with the Chicken Chop with Cream Spaghetti (S$11.90) as the cream sauce of the spaghetti was delicious. The portion was not enough for me because it was so delicious. I want to have more.

My friend ordered a Chicken Cutlet with Curry Ramen (S$11.90) and a Honey Lemon drink (S$ 4.90). I tried my friend’s Curry Ramen sauce. We loved the sauce as it was very tasty. My friend who had fussy taste buds agreed with me for once. I think the honey lemon drink was a bit overpriced as compared to other restaurants.

Topping up another S$ 7.90, I also got a Chinese Pork Rib Soup and a dessert. Even the taste of the Chinese soup was heavenly for such a price! At least I did not feel like drinking water as many of these soups nowadays had too much water added in it to produce more quantity to sell and compromise the quality of it.

I walked out Xin Wang forgetting about the dessert which I had not consumed. I returned to the restaurant and brought the jelly longan dessert home and ate them the next morning. I liked the dessert because the jelly was firm and not overly sweet. Some desserts had too much sugar added and tasted disgusting for me. Coupled with the sweet longan, I enjoyed my morning breakfast with just that.

Huang Ji Huang | 黄记煌 三汁焖锅 Three Sauce Simmer Pot (aka Hojoho) originated from the “Spicy Fish Sauce 香辣汁鱼” in the Imperial Cuisine of Food during the Qing Dynasty. The first Huang Ji Huang outlet was set up in 1998 in the Xuan Wu Meng street in Beijing by the Founder, Mr Huang Geng.

In May 2008, he established Huang Ji Huang company in Beijing and became the Chairman of the Board. In a short period, the company opened several restaurants in many parts of China and expanded its business internationally to more than 640 restaurants in China and overseas.

In 2020, the largest food chain in China, Yum China that has more than 8,700 restaurants under its wing, will be acquiring substantial shares of Huang Ji Huang to expand its F&B industry. Over the years, Huang Ji Huang has owned a lot of awards and recognitions which place the company in a very marketable and trustworthy position.

Our family members of six (five adults and one child) took our lunch in the restaurant of Huang Ji Huang | Hojoho |  黄记煌 for Three Sauce Simmer Pot | 三汁焖锅. My brother recommended it to us. He had tried it before and said the stewpot had an interesting concept that we should see.

The waitress brought us to our table in which three people could sit on each side of the table. There were two stew pots on the table. We could use either one or two stew pots together. However, each used stew pot would be charged S$15.00 with a vegetable base and a choice of sauce. Thus, we only want one stew pot for six of us.

The fun concept was to create your stew out of a choice of more than 12 items from the list. You have to order at least four plates of food to achieve the optimal taste, but a single stew pot cannot exceed six ingredients in it.

The above image showed the vegetable base for the stew pot.

We selected two fish and four meat from the list which made up our “Combi Pot 自由组合”. They are Dory Fish 龙利鱼 (S$12.00), Cat Fish 鲶鱼 (S$12.00), Pork Chop 猪排 (S$10.00), Chicken Drum 鸡腿肉 (S$12.00), Frog 牛蛙 (S$18.00) and Sliced Beef wrapped with Enoki 金针菇肥牛卷 (S$9.00).

Subsequently, the vegetable base and all the meat would be left to stew for 15 minutes. We also ordered the Spring Rolls 春卷 (S$5.50) and Chilled Cucumbers 刀拍黄瓜 (S$3.50) as a side dish while waiting for the soup to boil.

The raw chilled cucumbers were dipped in some dark sauce which tasted like a combination of light soy sauce with a drop of sesame oil. Cucumbers dipped in the sauce was a bad idea as they have no absorbing capacity, I did not taste the flavour of the sauce that much except a mouthful of raw cucumbers taste.

The fried Spring Rolls came in a plate of six pieces. We snapped all up hungrily, but there was nothing special about the spring rolls. It tasted like those being sold everywhere out there. I would not recommend the two side dish above because it was nothing special.

About 10 minutes later, six pieces of sliced beef wrapped with enoki were placed on top of the food and stewed for a few more minutes.

There were a few choices of sauces on the menu. Hence, we were in a dilemma of what to choose. The waitress told us that the “Seafood” sauce had a milder taste compared to the “Original” sauce when we asked for her recommendation. They have “Original” and “Spicy Original” sauce. We chose “Original” sauce because it was non-spicy as we had a kid around. The sauce was then added, stirred into the food and stewed for a while more.

Our food was finally ready to eat. We drooled over the taste of the sauce. My brother commented that the “Spicy Original” sauce tasted better than the “Original” sauce after having tried both of them. Despite the sauce being very savoury, all the meat was tasteless except for the sliced beef wrapped with enoki which was the most delicious of all.

The aromatic flavour of the sauce was somewhat lost when eaten together with the meat. It did not taste as good as I had expected. The natural taste of frog meat should be tasty even without the sauce. It tasted bland like the chicken meat. Maybe the meat was of low quality or kept too long.

I am always very particular about the pork taste. It tasted somewhat smelly, which I resented. I did not eat more than two pieces of it, although all my family members thought that the taste was acceptable and not like what I had described.

The other amusing discovery about this 三汁焖锅 | Three Sauce Simmer Pot food concept is that water could be added to the thick sauce in the stewpot at any time to transform it into a soup so we could put more food inside and boil it.

When we had finished all the meat and left with some vegetable in the soup, we ordered additional Lettuce 生菜 (S$3.50) and Crab Balls 蟹肉丸 (S$5.00) to put inside the pot. The result of the soup was so full-flavoured that everyone was praising the aroma that derived from the goodness of the food stewed earlier. The soup was slurped so quickly until the last drop.

The total bill came as S$ 141.26 (after GST) with some drinks, rice, towels and a 10% Service Charge. The average cost per pax would be S$ 28.25. The concept of this stew pot is targetted for more than two people because a minimum of four types of meat and fish are required to form the “Combi Pot 自由组合” to maximise the aroma. Therefore, expect to pay around S$30.00+.

One marketing concept of Huang Ji Huang company was cooking the food without the chef. I would think that this is slightly expensive and yet unique to have a go. It was like a steamboat concept with a bit more creativity in it. Anyway, really glad to have tried it! For delicious Dim Sum in Singapore, follow the link.

Fascinating Story of Huang Ji Huang Three Sauce Simmer Pot Origin
(In Mandarin Narration with Chinese and English Subtitles)

Are you thinking to sell your car in Singapore or becoming a Grab driver? This article was my experience in selling my car and reviews on a few used car dealers that I had approached and contacted. I sold away my Kia Cerato 1.6 Manual car manufactured in 2008 on 30 June 2016. I asked for quotations as early as February so that I could monitor the price change over the months.

sgCarMart Quotz Review

I started with Quotz Pte Ltd after seeing an advertisement in sgCarMart. Quotz is part of the sgCarMart network, which is one of the top car classifieds for buying and selling Singapore used cars. It provides you with a free valuation of the current selling price in the market with no obligation via email.

After sending Quotz a request for a quote, the Customer Service Executive replied to me in 2 days. The price quoted was $17k – $22k in February 2016 by email. She also followed up on the same day with a phone call to encourage me to try their Auction Bidding Scheme for the offer of the highest car price possible.

This system was beneficial for the prospective seller who would first pay a $107 service charge by cash or NETS to their office at Automobile Megamart to participate in the Auction Bidding Scheme. Quotz will assess the car condition on the spot and provide a reserve price set by the company. The seller has to make an appointment first before going down to their office in Ubi.

Quotz has a database of over 300 used car dealers in their system. The car will be auctioned on their website for the second-hand car dealers to bid for the highest price in 1 working day. The sellers decide whether the bid price is set to their expectation before accepting the offer. If a seller agrees to the auction price and sells the car away, Quotz will only charge $107 for the service rendered.

If a car seller refuses the car offer of the bid price, $107 (inclusive of GST) will be refunded at a later time based on either one of the two conditions not met:-

1. Reserve Price Guaranteed – sgCarMart guarantees that their Bid price exceeds your Reserve price
2. Highest Price Guaranteed – sgCarMart guarantees that their Bid price exceeds all other Market offer prices

If the seller sells their vehicle at a later date with a higher price, he has to produce the Sales Agreement to Quotz and claims back his $107 service charge.

June is the month that I had to hunt seriously for a car dealer again. My ideal handover date was 30 June 2016. I asked around for quotations from my friends who had their friends as second-hand car dealers. Two car quotes came in. The first was $12k, a ridiculously low offer. After some negotiation via messages, the car dealer offered me $15.5k. The second friend quoted me $15.5k and $15k from his two friends who were car dealers.

Carlingual Review

• 10 June 2016

My friend asked me to go down to WCEGA Plaza in Bukit Batok because his friend, who was a car dealer wanted to offer me a higher price if my car condition was good. My friend did not turn up on that day as he overslept. He did not pass me his friend’s address either.

Not wanting to waste my time, I approached randomly one car company there, Carlingual for a quotation. The sales representative proposed $18k. I was elated as it was $3k higher than the rest of my car offers. He offered to send my car for a free inspection at the car workshop on the same floor and gave a final quote after 30 minutes of waiting.

He offered me $17k because my car had to undergo some minor repairs which the workshop listed them out. I suggested to fix them at my expense. I felt that the technical issues that he had listed out would cost me less than $1k to repair. He agreed to take in at $18k if I could rectify all the problems listed.

I needed the car for the next few days to run errands and the handover date would be somewhere around end June. He asked me to call him again should I want to sell later and to confirm the selling price again. I had no intention to call other car dealers, as I felt that the market price was around $15k.

The end-user selling price of this car model in the same manufacturing year was around $20k. Therefore, $18k offer was the best car deal. Nonetheless, before I left, I told him that I would try Quotz Auction Bidding System to make another round of final car price comparison.

• 20 June 2016

I called up the same woman in sgCarMart Quotz to evaluate the market rate for selling cars for the last time. She shocked me by saying that the car price for Kia Cerato was then $13k to $15k as some companies had reduced the selling price in the end-user market. The car value had dropped drastically over the last few days.

Then, I made another call to Carlingual sales rep. I decided to sell my car to him because of his professional service. He replied that his boss did not agree to take in my car at $18k and offered $15k instead. I was disappointed and did not agree to it. I started to research the car forums to find more car dealers for quotations.

One participant in a car forum provided a list of CaseTrust-STVA Accredited Business which I called all of them immediately. Below are the quotes of the car companies for my Kia Cerato 1.6M.

CaseTrust-STVA Accredited Business of Car Dealers

Best Car Dealer, Best Car Offer

Whom did I sell my car?

A friendly gentleman by the name of Gerry from Fourpoints Automobile called. One of the car dealers above recommended him to call me. He offered me $17K on the phone and told me that $18k was not possible at the current market rate. I agreed to meet him the next day at 11:00 at Unit B46 Turf City to show him my car.

PS: Since the article was written a few years ago, the company may have shifted or not in operation anymore.

• 21 June 2016

After inspection and driving around the area for a few minutes, he offered me $16.5k. He wanted to give my vehicle a new coat of paint, changed tyres and repaired some parts. I feel that the price was reasonable and accepted the offer because If I have to respray the car, it would probably cost me around $800 to $1,000. As a car dealer, he will get a lower cost from the workshop.

Inside the office, he handed me a $2k cheque to seal the deal. I had to sign a document to reveal the outstanding loan amount from my bank to him. He would pay the outstanding car loan to the bank and gave me the balance out from the sales transaction. I told him I wanted to hand over my vehicle 9 days later on 30 June 2016. He agreed without hesitation.

The next day, he texted me the outstanding amount from the bank. It was $44 more than the outstanding loan that I had. The bank charged an administration fee for early termination of instalments.

• 30 June 2016

Gerry came to my place to collect the vehicle as agreed. He passed me a cheque of the remaining value after deducting the balance outstanding bank loan and the initial $2k payment. I also passed him a Transaction Pin from LTA that was required to do a car transfer. The process was smooth and fast.

He was the owner of Fourpoints Automobile and was polite and professional. He gave me a better car offer as he wanted to have more cars to sell. I recommended Gerry to another friend who wanted to sell his car. They arranged for a car viewing after my friend got a car quote.

Although I did not ask my friend whether Gerry had proposed him the best price, I was sure that Gerry did as it was common to call several car dealers to check on the best car offer. Otherwise, my friend would not have taken the trouble to go down for a car inspection at his place.

How to Apply for a Transaction Pin from LTA?

An LTA Transaction Pin is necessary for Vehicle Ownership Transfer. You can apply it online. LTA will mail your Transaction Pin in 1 week.

My final advice is to seal the deal immediately if the car offer is good. If you wait for a couple of days or weeks like me, the car value may drop drastically. Car prices are volatile in Singapore especially when the Government introduces a new scheme or adjust current changes that will affect the supply and demand of used vehicles. Check out 10 steps to get your PDVL and become a Grab Driver.