Fatt Choy Eating House (發財餐館), Haji Lane

Not impressed as a whole with Fatt Choy Eating House (10 Haji Lane).

Pork lard fried rice was a little underwhelming.

There's lard and dark soy sauce flavouring in it for sure but the fried rice was bland and definitely not great fried rice by any stretch of imagination.

This helped.

This was their original Roxy laksa. I've never had the original but I somehow didn't think that those would have tiger prawns. Which were nice and unexpectedly sweet by the way. The broth even had a particularly prawny crustacean dimension to it.

Not a fan of their ngoh hiang. Didn't like the crispy fried bean curd skin. Much prefer the regular skin. One could taste pork and prawns in them but it wasn't enough to save it.

I've had my share of lamb skewers and I'd rank these at the bottom of the list. At $18, they were also the most we've ever paid for lamb skewers. The meat looked aburi-ed, not grilled. While it had the prerequisite cumin flavouring, it didn't pack the oomph and also would have benefit from having a bit more salt. Lamb was chunky, chewy and lacking of a good fat to meat ratio that would have brought out better flavours. Waste of money. 👎🏼

Revisiting Santi's

Mixed feelings about them like the last time. Didn't get what I wanted because the actual menu wasn't what they had on their website. They explained that the site wasn't updated but the current menu as been around for about a week now. Add four days more to that as I'm writing this because it's still the old menu online. 😬 Getting lackadaisical vibes from this place. 

Anyways, this was their smoked miso leek rigatoni. Both leek and miso were... subtle. Not getting any of the sharpness from the leek and I might not have known it was miso in the sauce if not for the menu.

This was the mortadella panuozzo - pizza sandwich thingy. Was looking forward to the one with Parma ham but that's from the old menu. This definitely could have been better. 

Too little slices of really thin mortadella inside which were overwhelmed by the other stuff. Stuff like some Lao Gan Ma-ish chilly thingy and stracciatella - which was a pretty good combo actually. I liked this as a sandwich. But I would love to taste mortadella when I order something with mortadella.

Teochew St. Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (潮州街香菇肉脞面), Smith Street Food Centre

Been wanting to try the bak chor mee from this stall (Yellow Zone, #02-023 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) for a while. This was their $6.50 signature noodle. Pretty loaded with the works. I was initially scoffing at how soft the mee pok was but it for some reasons grew on me. Saucing is pretty wet here. I liked the quality of their toppings. Special mention goes to their stewed mushrooms and the fragrant combination of ti poh and lard. Verdict was I enjoyed it with the sliced chilli. Will come back.

Idli and eggs from Sri Aachi Aappakadai Pte Ltd

Came by Sri Aachi Aappakadai Pte Ltd for idli and egg kalaki.

The chutney treatment was quite different from the last time.

Egg kalaki was loaded with onions. It's not bad an omelette but I'm not a fan of the overwhelming sharpness from so much onions. I like the one from Anjappar at Brickfields better.

Bakuton ramen and a couple of other stuff from Ippudo

Ippudo has a limited time Bakuton ramen which was a Jiro styled bowl. I was skeptical but I decided to try it anyway.

Looked pretty but there was far too much fat in that thick slice of chashu. Even after soaking in the broth, the fat wasn't melty. Far from it. For many, this doneness and texture would fall within the "gag zone". Think the base broth had the flavour of soy or dashi. This has nothing on Keisuke's Jiro bowl and Brothers Ramen's Megamen (regular or dry).

Let's leave it at their chahan was uninspiringly mundane. Wasn't a bad fried rice. Just...ordinary. 

The nicest thing we had were crispy button mushrooms with truffle mayo cheese/sauce thingy. Nice application of the truffle which wasn't overpowering. 

More breakfasting at Bangalore Cafe

Here's getting more breakfast at Bangalore Cafe.

I'm on the verge of declaring my favourite rava idli here but I think I should get it again at MTR just to convince myself which one is better.

Bisibele bath tasted better than it looked. Aside from the robust warm savoury spices in the porridge, there's also boondi for some contrasting crunch.

Neer dosa's texture was a little different from what we've had at MTR and Kalam Restaurant. It's more moist/wet. Sweet coconut/jaggery was also more coarse/rustic and I didn't mean that in a bad way. There's the other coconut chutney infused with cumin that came with the dosa as well. It's not the same as their usual coconut chutney which doesn't have cumin. Not bad tasting.