Compose Coffee, One Raffles Place

Dropped by Compose Coffee (#01-02 One Raffles Place, 1 Raffles Place) for some flavoured caffeine alchemy.

The banana coffee above was just iced Americano with banana milk. Not bad tasting if you didn't mind artificial banana flavouring from banana milk. We didn't. The coffee's actually pretty drinkable stuff.

Amangchu - their rendition is peach tea with cubed mangoes and espresso. Wasn't expecting the peach component but turned out to be great for the sweltering heat.

Revisiting Diner's Shack

Back at Diner's Shack which we haven't eaten at in a while. Our only gripe at this place was the slow moving queue and the long wait for the food.

Today's fish was sea bream (a.k.a. ang goli). This bowl had added on minced pork and fish roe. The bowl was as good as I remember them from the last time.

Curry chicken's really good here. One can tell from the consistency and colour that it was pretty lemak and there's a bit of nuance to the other spices that were used in the curry.

Sodeng Korean Vintage BBQ (소댕), Telok Ayer Street

Sodeng (175 Telok Ayer Street, tel : +65 9787 4542) is by Um Yong Baek. They're another KBBQ shop and what's differentiates Sodeng is barbequed duck which is a first here. We came for lunch and didn't get anything on the grill. Just a couple of stuff from the lunch menu.

Banchan. Kimchi's fresh and actually enjoyable considering that I normally gravitate towards the more intense/fermented/sour ones.

Yuja dressing on the salad was nice.

What got our attention was the egg drop soup with dried pollack. Love how the flavour from the fish infused the eggy broth.

The one duck item we did get was their Gwangju styled oritang. Never had oritang before and I had the idea that there would be duck flavour in the broth. This Gwangju styled rendition was just nutty, full of perilla seeds. I liked it though. There's duck meat inside.

I remembered wondering once about where one could get yukhoe bibimbap previously.

This was was $17, has bits of sliced pears and came with a bottle self serve sesame oil which was deliciously nutty.

What's this pandan infused water that they provide? Nice.

36 Curry Rice, Bendemeer Market & Food Centre

I remember this stall (#01-36 Bendemeer Market & Food Centre, 29 Bendemeer Road) from the previous time I queued for noodles at Changi Village Cooked Food. Both stalls were directly facing each other with similar length queues. Got a plate of bee hoon with kuey teow today. I prefer Changi Village Cooked Food. The only item I had that was memorable was the kuey teow which had a nice rice-y taste to it. Nothing particularly worth mentioning for the other items.

Buko Nero, Tanjong Pagar Road

The first time I ate at Buko Nero (126 Tanjong Pagar Road) was a lifetime ago. Back then, there weren't reservation platforms and we had to call and...accept the fact that the restaurant will only talk to you when they deemed fit to do so. And after you've gotten through the reservation, you'd still have to wait for something like a month before you get your table.

They also used to not allow photography. That seemed to be no longer the case. Maybe at some point along the way, they came to the realisation that the world around them is better postured sell their food better than they could ever.

Mood of the restaurant did not feel like it has changed from the impression that was left in me 19 years back. It has that bit of uppity vibe without actually being uppity. In fairness, I need to state that the server was friendly and earnest. To also get something off the chest, it was a little uncomfortable to say the least, having the proprietors hawk over you from the counter while you were trying to eat/have a conversation.

Don't know if I remembered the amuse bouche correctly. Left was halibut on cucumber with apple and edible cornflower. Tasted like tuna mayo. Right was baccala in a little tart shell - this one's nice. Baccala's totally pureed and creamy.

Bread came in the form of spicy breadsticks and focaccia with sweet peppers. It's $4 if you want another serving.

Not bad tasting burrata with momotaro & strawberry salsa. Kinda expensive.

Tried their homemade tagliolini spicy engawa & basil ragu because...engawa. Didn't taste like much in the tomato sauce and I should have anticipated that but for some reasons, the aburi-ed version kept popping up in my head while making the decision to order it. Didn't taste bad but I thought it costed too much at $36.

This was product picture of their wagyu beef cheek red wine & cherries jus that got me sold into ordering it. I mean...that red wine & cherries jus sounded/looked good right?

Here's where I again, ask if there should be a law against deliberate misrepresentation of product? I feel that there should.

$46 and probably 3 spoonfuls of cheek meat. Not bad tasting but I'm kinda put off by the fact that I paid so much for so little.

Nasi lemak & bee hoon meatless from Oriental Kopi

Oriental Kopi has nasi lemak and bee hoon without meat but it's only for breakfast it seems. With one less distraction, we had a chance to tune in just to the santan infused rice. Which I haven't had a chance to since the first time we ate at their City Square outpost. There's coconut, pandan, cardamom and that light lemon grassy flavour in it. Still don't know what are those green beans for. Definitely more complex than regular nasi lemak.