French onion soup inspired burgers from Shake Shack

Current limited time flavour from Shake Shack.

In retrospect, doubling the meat kinda detracted from the flavour of those onions. Without the usual American cheese, I also realised that there's actually not much salt on those patties. 😮

The "French onion" flavour was more apparent in their shroom burger. 

Garlic parmesan fries has the cheese sprinkled on and some garlic aioli thingy on the side. These were pretty forgettable if you asked me.

Hoe Nam Vintage, Tiong Bahru Plaza

Hoe Nam Vintage opened up at the lot vacated by Lee Lai Jiak. The last time I've had prawn noodles from Hoe Nam was ages ago. Have a vague recollection of finding them okay-ish. I have mixed feelings about these guys here (#02-105/106 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

The impression I had gotten was that the crew were taught how to prepare the food they were serving and might not have much real exposure to how some these dishes were actually like.

And the kitchen was apparently dealing with some order issues that resulted in long waiting time.

This bowl featured small prawns and thin sliced pork belly. The latter was pretty good by the way. Saucing was...I don't know. Not bad but not what I expected from dry pork noodles. Then again, I haven't had Hoe Nam's prawn noodles for ages so maybe it's always been this way. The soup was pretty good, refillable and left an aftertaste like monosodium glutamate does.

What happened was we wanted to try their claypot dry bak kut teh. It never arrived and after about an hour, they informed us that we'd have to wait quite some time if we still wanted it. At this point, we didn't.

Tau kee's nice. The pickled mustard greens were the first sign that maybe, these guys weren't acquainted with what they were doing. There weren't very salted and were also fibrous and crunchy. 😮‍💨

One week later......

Prawn kuey teow soup's pretty decent. Portions were kinda small for a large bowl. These featured their "regular" prawns which were larger than the tiny shrimps from last week.

Okay-ish pig's stomach soup. Didn't taste exactly like what I imagined of it because the flavour was just a little different. Why is there 芹菜 in it?!

At $3.10, the pork liver rolls looked sad. Not nice. Not very livery. A knee jerk reached out to the memories of those superior ones from China Street Fritters and He Ji Wu Xiang Guan Chang. These ones here weren't close. Wouldn't get them again.

Their fried pork lard were freshly prepared but was oddly lacking in flavour. Hmmm......🤔

Managed to get the claypot dry bak kut teh this time round. I don't remember if I've ever had these so I have no frame of reference. This rendition was pretty good. I had expected the flavour to be more akin to dark soya sauce but these didn't quite taste like that. Still enjoyed it though. Pork ribs were tender with meat easily pulled off the bone. Love the thin sliced lady's finger. Would have been great if they sliced the chilli into smaller bits.

Re-revisiting Jeong's Jjajang

I've been wanting to come back for this stir fried jjampong from Jeong's Jjajang. It surprisingly packed little heat compared to their regular jjampong and was also less smoky. Wasn't bad tasting but I was imagining/anticipating/looking forward to more smokiness and burn from it. Squids were pretty chewy.

Yuen Kee Dumpling (袁记云饺), Funan

Finally got to try Yuen Kee Dumpling (#02-3 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 8931 9588). I must have walked past their shops at least a couple of times in my last trip to Hong Kong and Taiwan. There's barely anyone in there. The ones here are on the other hand, often packed. 🤔

Tried their shrimp and crab roe wanton with the viral sauce. Maybe viral in the context of the sauce means common or ubiquitous. It's a little spicy but not special or great and surfeit crept in pretty fast from the peanut sauce. Thankfully, there's vinegar and chopped garlic from their condiment section which made inhaling this enjoyable. Not bad wantons.

The other dumpling they had were 饺子. This one was stuffed with vegetable, shrimp and pork. Skin's hardier and less smooth than the wanton. The amount of garlic from the garlic sauce was pathetic.

I don't mind coming back only if I don't have to wait more than a few minutes in line for it.

Labobo with extra patty in sesame bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Labobo's the recent flavour of the month at Two Men Bagel House ( 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九, 二十, 二十一, 二十二, 二十三, 二十四, 二十五, 二十六, 二十七, 二十八, 二十九, 三十) featuring beef patties from BurgerLabo.

Love how the dill pickled onions and apple mostarda help cut though the hefty patties with the tangy sweetness.

Hunan grilled chilli pidan chicken burger from Shiok Burger

I was intrigued by the grilled chilli pidan chicken burger from Shiok Burger. Sadly, it turned out that the burger looked little like the picture they used. I expected better so now I know better than to expect better from them. 🙄 *cues rumination on the need for law against deliberate false advertising*

The century egg had texture like fish cake. Odd. 🤔 They were also tinier than what the pictures suggested. Not nearly enough to go round as well.

The product shot featured some intense green looking sauce. What we got was something that had a bit of green chilli in mostly mayo. Kinda disappointing.