Small Potatoes Make The Steak Look Bigger

This hot claypot is pretty good stuff coming from the curry store (Whampoa Drive Blk 90, #01-66) which is just a few units away from the cooked food store of the same name. I was just a little bit concerned when it arrived at the table bubbling at the surface with some exuberance. Fortunately, there wasn't any accidents involving burstings of hot fluid. What I personally liked about this curry apart from the curry itself was the chicken wings which were cooked to the point that you could easily remove the meat from the bones, making them relatively easy to manage with the utensils.

This curry had a good amount of coconut in it for a rich flavor and a decent amount of spice. Granted that this wasn't the thickest of curries that I've had, it was good enough in flavor and the creaminess came across in taste rather than the viscosity. I'm sure you can imagine what it would be like to slather this over a plate of steaming rice on a cool day. Which is why there is also an accompanying plate of them with a token of greens for a balanced diet. Lol. And a piece minced meat laden steamed egg with bits of century egg in it as well.

Apart from exuding the old school charm of a deli, I didn't really think much of the sandwiches offered by this place (19 Tanglin Road, #02-25 Tanglin Shopping Centre, tel: 6737 0701) that's suppose to be the very first deli that is in business in this country. I mean, I certainly wouldn't mind eating here now and then if I live or work in the vicinity, but any further incurred effort to visit really doesn't justify with all things considered. And I haven't begun yet with the grumpy lady proprietor that looked like she had a perpetual scowl on or the two Chinese guys in the kitchen that looked like they were interested in putting the other of out of their miseries. These two guys really gave me the impression that making sandwiches were a just job for them and it really looked like they probably have never eaten what they've made before.

The deli had actually run out of pastrami and corned beef was used as substitute for the Reuben sandwich. A stringy corned beef it was with portions that looked like it could do well with a lot more generosity. It was just strange that the sandwich maker actually took pinches of the meat and placed them on a weighing scale to determine that tiny amount he wanted to put into the sandwich. The bed of sauerkraut looked as yellowed and stale in color as the lettuce on the side that I almost forgot that this was actually sauerkraut. It appeared dessicated like old shredded cabbage and wasn't good. There was just about enough of the thinly sliced cheese to cover the beef and that was it.

The portions here aren't what one would consider large. The steak sandwich did come with a decent sized piece of meat, but it didn't come close to satisfying at all. I must comment at my disappointment at the lack of beefiness from the marinated meat which tasted mostly of salt and basil and seriously, onions don't cost so much. The most enjoyable thing was probably the chocolate peanut butter shake which could do with a bit more viscosity.

I came upon this in Marketplace at Raffles City and was quite intrigued by it since lettuce wasn't something you normally found in juices. To quell my curiosity, I bought it for a go at this interesting drink. The first scent that hits you was a rather overpowering "green" smell of the lettuce. I remember crinkled noses. After taking my first few gulps of the thick greenish fluid, I found that this wasn't too bad at all. The lime flavor was predominant followed by a very recognizeable lettuce taste to the juice. Couldn't detect the kiwi at all. But on the whole, it really was quite an invigorating taste. The down side was that, it wasn't really thirst quenching.

It's been about 10 years since I was first introduced by a friend to this particular store which was then located in an air conditioned coffeeshop just beside Allson Hotel. Since then, it's moved to the food court in Shaw Leisure Gallery and now currently resides in another food court at Bras Brasah Complex (Coffee Express 2000 Food Court). As far as consistency goes, nothing much has changed since the first time I've had these pork chops which are fried on order. Which is incidentily one of the things that make them good. No cooled grease nor soggy batter on the pieces of meat. It's all fried as you get them and as far as fried ones go without getting into leagues of tonkatsu, these are juicy as well.

They're $3.30 a plate and if my memory serves me, it's been going at that price for a very long time too. There's nothing very fancy to it. A very decent piece pork chop with rice, some cooked (probably frozen packaged) corn/carrot/peas and salted vegetables. The eggs cost extra if you want them and they're actually pretty good for hard boiled eggs. You can notice that the color of the brown sauce seeped into the egg whites from all the simmering and the egg is flavored rather than just colored brown from the sauce. I like to mix the vegetables and the rice together with the chilli, makes the whole deal rather appetizing.

It seems that our popular local western food chain Botak Jones has yet opened another outlet (Blk 732, Yishun Ave 5) recently so I thought I'd drop by and grab a bite for a very late lunch so as to avoid the crowd that tends to form. Picked up a gammon ham and cheese sandwich with a side of jalapeños which turned out to be a pretty good idea as the pickled chilli worked up its little spicy kick on the flat salty ham and cheese. It also seems that the sandwiches now make use of some chewy ciabattas that are similar to the chewy muffins from McDonalds instead of regular sliced bread. Hmmmm......Does anyone else do a ham sandwich like this? The heartiness of it won me over more than anything else actually. I also decided to try a small serving of their whoppass chili con carne to see what it's about. Apparently, it's like a spicy ground beef bolognese which came with whole jalapeños inside. This stuff is not too bad as a stew I would say.

Encouraged by the previous visit above, I dropped by for another late lunch. This time it was for the chili dawg.

The dog turned out to be quite large and slathered with a generous portion of the chili con carne and chopped onions.I guess this was pretty good, but it's not something that you could really eat with your hands considering all the mess from the sauce and that you'd probably need to have a rather large mouth to fit the dog and the buns in for a satisfying bite. Probably one of the better ones I've had locally, but then again, it would have been nice if I could eat this with my hands.

I've never really known about the curry chicken here (67 Killiney Road) until quite recently. I had the distinct impression that the claim to their so called fame is by the kaya toast and coffee but lo and behold, this stuff is actually pretty good. There's enough spice and coconut in the thick gravy to make me happy and curry like that makes me want to eat a lot of rice. At the end of one these, one would have to battle the z monster though.

Beware for you gaze upon death by chocolate salty balls. Lol! I'm kidding, but this is actually quite a delicious salted caramel chocolate mousse tart from Freshly Baked (57 Killiney Road, #01-01, tel: 6735 3298) . I liked the fact that the light chocolate mouse wasn't excessively sweet and that the lightly salted caramel compliments the tart with a swab of savory sweetness that is accented by the cocoa powder. It was still creamy rich on the whole....and made crunchy by those chocolate balls. Quite a few sensations triggered by a tart eh?

We decided on a piece of brownie which didn't look promising at all from first glance. Once in a while, it's a good idea to go against the grains of your instincts in the spirit of adventure because you just might find something good that didn't look apparently so. This was definitely not one of those times. I didn't like the brownie. It lacked the fudge factor. There wasn't enough chocolate in it too. It didn't even have enough chocolate to match many other regular chocolate cakes. What in the world is it doing there as a brownie, I certainly don't know.

Well, here's a burger from the Irish watering hole Dubliner (165 Penang Road, #01-00 Winsland Conservation House, tel: 6735 2220) and it pretty much looks like another of the other burgers that they serve here. The main differences are the cheeses and whether if there's bacon or not. I'd say that the burgers here are pretty decent with a nice firm patty that isn't too crumbly. Decent if not spectacular. The main gripe was that it could've been a little bigger since the patty was noticeably smaller than the regular sized bun. This was in no way a match for the one at Molly Malone's which had better toasted buns and a heartier patty to boot.

The pleasant surprise here was actually the salad. It's a mix of romaine lettuces, rocket, diced tomatoes and bits of onions tossed with some mayo like dressing. What's good is that this guys really tossed the salad instead of giving you your token dressing drizzled over the top. So the dress coats the greens nicely and the raw onions added a much appreciated layer of flavors. A sharp pungent aroma not over the top. So despite its relatively simple appearances, this salad is actually pretty good.

I had a blue cheese burger and as I've mentioned, was pretty decent but lacked a certain satisfaction in volume. I recall something similar which I prefer. Also, crinkle cut fries aren't really my thing.

The compelling factor of this Riverside Indonesian BBQ store (68 Orchard Road, Level 6 Kopitiam Food Court, Plaza Singapura) Plaza Singapura is the coconut laden curry which makes the rice simply irresistible. That and the convenience of the location despite their ever present queue. So I'm back here again and this time round, I decided to try the chicken option which includes a grilled thigh. In truth, the chicken is probably cooked somewhere else already and just brought out from behind the kitchen to be grilled just for a little bit before being served. The result is a soft and totally unremarkable skin that isn't even crispy in the slightest. Oh well, the curry and slice of omelete is pretty good still.

Wow, this roasted duck store (Swee Sian Yuen Eating House) at Chong Pang wasn't bad at all. With these portions for four persons inclusive of rice, it costed about $20 which I thought was pretty reasonable for a coffeeshop store. It would have been great if they deboned the duck, but I'm certainly not complaining here.

I'm talking about tender lean slices of meat with just that little bit of fat underneath the layer of crisp skin. An accompanying order of roasted pork was also pretty good as well with their crispy crackling. And the rice was the soft type which I liked even without any accompanying gravy. I guess this store would be one for returns along with the recent place at Circular Sumptuous Square.

I actually dropped by the new Canelé outlet (1 Scotts Road, #01-01A Shaw Centre, tel: 6738 9020) for some coffee. I remember saying that a good place to come for a cuppa would be La Strada, but now I've found somewhere that serves the same brew for a dollar less. Then the croque madame on the menu beckoned. I gave in. It was actually not bad. The portions of this was larger than I had expected. Since this stuff is basically cheese and ham and eggs on toast, there isn't anything much that I can say to describe it apart from the fact that I quite liked this in its heart clogging goodness. Since a picture paints a thousand words, more pictures for your ogling pleasure....

Headed down for some morning dim sum at Shang Palace (22 Orange Grove Road, Lobby Level Shangri-la Hotel, Tel: 6213 4473) after hearing about the early bird discount of 30% for the early seatings. I suppose that I had expected more of them since they were a restaurant located in Shangri-la Hotel, but I left without being impressed. Honestly, it wasn't bad at all. I was just hoping that it might have been something noteworthy. Apart from the pretty delectable custard and salted yolk bun which tends to burst and spill their scalding contents if you took a bit too big of a bite, I couldn't really say much about the food.

Here're most of the stuff that we had...

These donuts are so incredibly soft and light, I could actually down three of them as snacks quite easily. I guess that's the dangerous things about them since they felt almost like nothing after you ate them and true enough as they say it, one is never enough. I've got to say that they tasted better than I had expected. I suppose one of the winning factors that makes the regular glazed one a winner is that it wasn't excessively sweet like Krispy Kreme. So, despite being a fan of the old school grease and sugar coated rings, I thought that these new generation lightweights stood up quite well for themselves in my books. Sure wouldn't mind getting more of them from time to time.

This ramen with miso based broth from Ramen Santouka while palatable wasn't very memorable at all. The flavor wasn't as full as I thought and I very much prefer the shoyu broth which I can quite safely say now is one that I like best after having tried the shio version the last time round. This set which I got comes with some bits of charshu on rice and scallions and the nice surprise from that regular sounding bowl of rice is the sprinkle of toasted sesame that upped things on the fragrance factor. The soft and thinly sliced pork cheeks are still as good as I remember them from the last visit.

These are actually some kind of freeze dried strawberries coated with white chocolate which a friend got from Muji in Hong Kong. They are actually pretty good if you don't eat too many of them at a time. What you get is a nice tart interior of the dried strawberry which have become a texture like meringue that's mixed in with the creamy sweet exterior coating. It's a pity I can't find them here.


Edit 19/07/08

I found these at Muji at Paragon.

Together, the ability and desire to appreciate good food is a double edged sword. One would like to think that for such a sword, the business end ventures forth in experience and adventure. But being double edge, the reversal back swing could put some stress in those seams of the wallet right there. Lol. I've been to Akashi a few times, but this is the first visit to the new outlet (1 Tanglin Road, #01-01A Orchard Parade Hotel, tel: 6732 4438) located just next door to their Inakaya Robatayaki place at Orchard Parade Hotel.

I noted that there is this strange relationship that I have with visits to Akashi. It was always quite impromptu a thing. I haven't really planned to visit them and still I've ended up here always on a last minute note or decision to do so.

After some moments of back and forth with the menu, we finally managed to decide on what we wanted and sushis were something that I decided a must have. Though this time round, we pushed it a little bit more for some of the tasty pricier items which in the end, served as a gauge for the standards in this outlet.






There is something about raw slices of seafood that appeals. Nifty presentations aside, a nice wedge of carbs atop the subject awaiting mastication and then down into the gut. I admit that the rice is a factor for me that does it in comparison with sashimi. It's not that I dislike the latter, but sushis sit better in a hungry stomach. The chilled creamy uni with its earthy sweetness and subtly buttery otoro left almost nothing in the room of gripes except for the fact that more would have been great. That was further met by the explosion of butteriness in the aburi-ed version of the tuna belly which didn't look quite like the usual toro after being torched. Oil from the melted fats seeped into the rice and onto the plate. This stuff is amazing.

The botan ebi was plump, sweet and firm. I'm having anago for the first time as I can remember. These salt water eels wasn't as oily as unagi but they were soft and tasty the same. And quite a mouthful as well.







The rest of the items were a bunch of this and thats from the menu. Of note was the fish noodles which actually had texture akin to fish cake rather than noodles. That wasn't too bad, but the portions could have been bigger for the price. The bamboo clams were the usual, but the miso mayo made a whole lot of difference to it by adding a depth of fragrant sweet and savory creaminess. That being said, the miso mayo made up pretty much most of the flavor. Unfortunately for the prawn ball, it wasn't very spectacular. It's simply as you see it, a ball of minced prawn.

I was thinking that the sweet potato would be grilled, but they arrived steamed. It wasn't a bad thing but I believe that Kazu's method of grilling them and serving them with butter is the way to go. And if you like pumpkin, their ice cream is a creamy one with bits of pumpkin in it.

This eatery has a pretty interesting name if one were to disregard the fact that it's located at Circular Road (14 Circular Road). Haha....certainly has nothing to do with circling any squares and such. It's actually about roast duck. And talking about roast ducks, there's a short story behind this dinner. We were actually locating for the newly opened Ohsho outlet in the vicinity and didn't see it despite making a couple of passes down the road. And we had only managed to find it after dinner. I could have sworn that we did not see....... so chance was pretty much what made roast duck dinner tonight.


The place does serve a small variety of cooked food (tze char) but we didn't go for any of that. We ordered a half roast duck ($18) which turned out to be quite good despite the slightly messy appearance upon being served. I suppose it might have been the fact that they had to debone the bird, but presentation is really not an issue here. The duck which came with slightly crisp skin and just a little bit of fat under that skin was about just right. Meaning that enough of that fat was there for a nice greasy flavor of the meat, but wasn't too excessive. An order of the roast pork turned out pretty good as well as unexpected in fried form. Crispy fried roasted pork belly. Circular sumptuous square. And nothing but a lime juice and a few strips of cucumber to save us from all that cholesterol.

I think I'm slowly but surely getting to appreciate how the Les Amis group position themselves as one of the best restaurants in their business here. I walked out of La Strada (1 Scotts Road, Shaw Centre, #02-10, tel : 6737 2622) after a leisurely lunch feeling good about the place, pretty much the same good feel I had from Aoki a couple of doors down the same pavement. Thanks ice, for making the lunch arrangements. The quality of the food and the unobtrusively attentive service do make their own points justifying the heftier price tags. This place already inches quite close to stellar in the latter providence. Anything more comprehensive would have been truly fine dining or my personal butler. I can't begin to describe how good it is a thing for the server to actually know what's on menu instead of the usual "please hold on, let me check" or the baffled mask/sheepish grin.

The opening notes for lunch were a smoky pan fried scamorza cheese, wagyu carpaccio in truffled mayo and foie gras.

I truly have no complains with the starters. The lightly fried scamorza was delicious, clad in simplicity. The latter achievement is by no means, as it sounds. I could just almost call this juicy and I'm not talking just about grease. Wagyu carpaccios are wasted on me since the way they are done as I've encountered never imparts any of the additional flavors associated with the breed of cattle. The fortunate grace of the carppacio di manzo for me was the heady truffle mayonnaise in hand with the thinly sliced parmesan which made it memorable.

I haven't had a nice piece of pan fried foie gras in a while and this definitely deserves a mention with the word, nice. You know, the tell tale shades of bronze char that marks the edges thinning out onto the centers that forms part of the lightly crisp shell of the liver that is still, slightly pinkish on the insides and quivery soft. My last recollection was simply disappointing. This is as I said, nice and on a crisp piece of toast with some excellent accompanying pear compote.




We had some idea of what we wanted from the mains and that was further made concrete in decision by the recommendation from the server. I wouldn't call it a blind leap of faith in this instance to make our choices by virtue of suggestion, since like I said, we already had some idea.

The tagliolini al granchio of shredded mud crab, garlic, chilli and white wine turned out to be remarkably Asian in flavor. To put it into a very Asian context, this is mee pok in a sauce that tasted as unanimously agreed upon, like that of the three egg spinach/boxthorn. The winning pasta I felt was definitely La Strada's rendition of the common carbonara featuring truffle butter, shaven parmesan and a nicely done confit egg. I could rank this rich piece as one of the better pastas I've had for taste and for a little more perspective, you readers should bear in mind that like many people out there, truffle and foie gras notches scores up a fair bit for me. Especially the well concocted.

I generally do not lean towards chicken often in a western dining place and I definitely know nothing about French baby chickens, but this roasted baby chicken was indeed as tasty as the server had recommended. I found the roasted crisp char of the exterior well endowed with the associated char fragrance and to my pleasant surprise, a juicy and tender inside. With little excessive grease and condiments to match apart from its own roasting jus, this is definitely not your regular chicken chop.


I wouldn't say that the tiramisu is bad. In fact, it's far from being there. It just lacked the edge from sufficient marsala wine and the mascarpone cream probably didn't hold enough body to be served in anything else but a container. That's not necessarily a bad thing keeping subjective preferences in mind, but I generally prefer mine with a bit more alcohol. The molten chocolate tart was also a little better that what I had preconceived in my head for such. It was good, but for me, it didn't quite wow. I actually enjoyed the accompanying bitterish orange sorbet better.

By the way, La Strada serves a mean brew of beans of a brand of roast which they claim exclusively for their own. If you're in town, love good strong coffee and are looking for a cuppa. Forget Starbucks. Forget Cedele. Come here. It's only $5.

If you're wondering about the generous amount of golden yellow at the top, this butter corn shoyu ramen from Baikohken (7 North Canal Road, tel: 6534 3808) normally doesn't come this way. This one is topped up with extra butter and corn and an egg. And butter makes most things taste good so you get the idea of my general impression of this. I did manage a couple of spoonfuls of the shoyu based broth before everything was mixed up and I found it to be both less robust and salty in comparison with the recent one I had at Ramen Santouka. The thickly sliced braised pork was rather lean in comparison to similar offerings I've had in other Japanese places. It was so soft that there were several occasions, I thought that it could have been tuna as the tender meat crumbled quite easily. Now this was quite unexpected. As usual, I found the noodles to be a tad too soft for my likings.

What I did enjoy was their charshu don which is simply, a bowl of sticky rice with generous chunks of the braised pork and topped with scallions. This turned out to be simple yet very tasty comfort food indeed. Unexpectedly, this rice bowl from a ramen store turned out to be what I enjoyed the most and I'm pretty sure this is what I would go for if I come again. Even if the soft crumbly pork tasted like tuna.

Some years back, I used to work around the vicinity of Alexandra and it was only today that I've visited Handle Bar (1 Lock Road, Gillman Village, tel: 6475 9571) for the first time. The affliction of looking far out ahead instead of just simply forward is a curse that plagues many, myself included. Now that this location is truly out of the way from any place that I may be in most circumstances, I've chosen to take notice and visit it. But it was a pretty decent place. At least for steaks and beers with friends it is.

The food's pretty decent I must say, if a little pricey in the retrospect of comparison for the ribeye which I had. At almost $40, you get a decent 350g slab of fatty meat, but I didn't think they got medium rare right. It was definitely medium and I guess the positive side is that it would have been worse for it to be undercooked than over. An amusingly named "Silence of the Lambs" came out thickly cut in generous proportions and fatty as well, but was unfortunately lacking of much of the taste of the meat which wasn't strong in the first place, and subdued by the wine sauce. Stuffed jalapenos was quite good actually. I'm not an expert in those since I don't eat them often at all, but I though those cream cheese stuffed chillis were rather tasty finger food with a noticeable bit of spicy kick.

Coming back for the steaks and beer is definitely not out of the question.

Despite the insidious smothering evils of fast food, the greatest empire of them all actually comes out with things once in a while that I actually found tasty. A long time ago, it was their biscuits. Contextually today, it's the McGriddles. Their very recognizable breakfast chicken patty with a disc of egg and salty cheese snug between two slices of corn syrup soaked hotcake buns. A rather simple yet tasty marriage of sweet and savory. I think I'll be making efforts to go for breakfast more often.

This store which does flame grilled burgers apparently comes from a chain in the Philippines and has made it's debut here in Lau Pa Sat. It seems that they started off as a little store in a car park and has slowly grown to what it is today. A little voice in my head told me that this was likely to be better than another burger store with a weak knockoff for what I consider to be meat patty. To fast forward into retrospection, this wasn't too bad at all. What I got from the ultimate cheese burger ($8) was two slices of quarter pounder beefy tasting patties marked quite distinguishably with the charred flavor of real flame grill. However, they store does like to remind you that Rome wasn't built in a day and that their flame grill burgers in the analogy of comparison, likewise takes time. It did take a while for the orders there to arrive.

The main gripe I had with them is actually the cheese whiz like sauce which while was quite tasty in its on savory ways, didn't feel quite sufficiently cheesy for a cheeseburger. It had melted that barely anything of cheese could be seen. I saw a blue cheese burger in the menu so maybe I'll come back another day. There's also some Irish nachos thing which seems to be criss cut fries with beef chilli and cheese which wasn't yet available.

It was a kind of happenstance that brought me to Popeyes (65 Airport Boulevard, Basement Level 2 South, #B2-LF1 Changi Airport T3, tel: 6247 5521). I had originally intended to visit Brewerkz at Terminal 3, but I didn't realise that it's not accessible for the public.

I thought these fried chicken wasn't too bad if a little expensive. I'm not a big fan of KFC or even fried chickens on the whole, so apart from the recent visit to Waffletown and those that I liked from Ikea, I can't really put a place in comparison. I must say that from memory, these appear less oil soaked then KFC and the spicy crispy batter was quite good as well without being excessive. They do charge extra if you decide that you want to specify which parts of the chicken you want though.

What I found quite appealing was the flavored fries and the dense, but soft biscuit that accompanied the fried chicken meals. A little bit of extra flavor does a lot of good for fries for me and these taste somewhat similar to what's available at Long John Silvers. There was some fruit jelly/jam for the crumbly biscuit which made it a lot easier to to wolf down and it's probably the main draw for me if I ever come here again. The dried looking rice with beans on the side taste absolutely microwaved so you might wanna stay away from that. It was interesting that they actually provided plastic sporks.