Some new stuff from Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant

At Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九)  during lunch to check out some of the new-er items on their menu. I don't know when they were introduced but we noticed them from our last visit.

The reason why we were here at lunch instead of the usual breakfast timing was because their vegetable briyani is only available from 11am.

It's pretty good. Savoury with warm spices and pepper with bits of vegetables like green peas, string beans, tomato, nuts and if I wasn't mistaken, some paneer. Flavourful yet not heavy. It's a single portion per order for this one. Why did I mention it? Because some briyani come in big assed portions that can feed two. 

Came with sambar, korma, raita and some kesari. Sambar was delicious.

The other new item on their menu was their kizhi dosa. From what I found after some brief search, kizhi translates into pouch/parcel/bundle in Tamil/Malayalam. So this was a parcel-ed dosa wrapped in banana leaf and subsequently steamed. They even have an IG reel showing how it's cooked.

Kinda similar to a banjir prata with the gravy soaked in and all. Obviously there was none of the crisp like the regular ones have. There was something between the layers of dosa which I couldn't identify though. Anyways, this one was pretty hefty. Not bad tasting. 

Bona Aroma, Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre

Bona Aroma (#02-66 Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre, 31 Commonwealth Crescent) was another one of those stalls at Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre I've noticed numerous times and kept reminding myself I should give their food a try.

Never happened until recently when I noticed that there's a ketupat rendang which I've never had before. 

Tasted as good as it looked. There's mutton rendang (relatively tender lamb), sambal goreng, an egg and serunding all over some ketupat. This was a medley of savoury, sweetness and heat from the sambal and creamy nuttiness from the rendang. Paru was an add on. Not bad, I enjoyed this. Even though I wasn't getting any aroma from the ketupat.

Josh's Grill, 313 Somerset

We've eaten at Josh's Grill once at Bugis a few years back. Food was decidedly decent. This was our first time at their 313 branch (#B2-15 to 19, 313@Somerset, 313 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6235 0594). Menu seemed a little different from the last time.

There's butter beer - tasted like root beer with melted vanilla ice cream. Non-alcoholic if anyone was seriously wondering.

Tomato soup's not bad. Texture was velvety creaminess and flavour's tangy from the tomatoes. I kinda enjoyed it.

Nice tasting oysters with garlic butter. My only gripe was that these were pretty puny. I could fit 3 of them in my mouth.

Something called cheesy melts fried chicken cutlet - basically fried chicken cutlet with melted cheese. Said cheese was brought out separately in a cast iron pan still bubbling and poured over the fried chicken when they served it. Nice.

Josh's Grill has a series of steaks in their menu under J's Steaks. 250g served on a hot plate with a lightly sizzling pool of what I initially thought was butter. Presumably, J is for Josh rather than the clown prince of crime. 🤡

That stuff bubbling on the plate didn't exactly taste like butter. Don't know what it was. Ribeye has low marbling so it's edible, not great. Meat seemed barely salted. What's not good was the creamed spinach. Those were really fibrous and chewy

Yang zhou fried rice from Jumboree

Back at Jumboree. Got the yang zhou fried rice from the Jumbo zi char stall today. Since it's by Jumbo, one gets real char siew instead of crab sticks or worse - fake crab sticks. It's a competent plate though a little more oily than I prefer. Flavour's decent but nothing in particular was outstanding.

Nan Yang Dao (南洋岛), Tiong Bahru Plaza

Some stuff we had from Nan Yang Dao (#02-115 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

I had initially scoffed at the pat of butter with their butter coffee which I thought was kinda small.

Turned out to be pleasantly adequate. Not bad Hainanese coffee by the way.

Decent tasting egg tarts they have. I just wished the crust was bit more buttery and the custard a bit more eggy. Not of the same standards as those from Oriental Kopi if anyone was wondering.

Kolo mee wasn't bad per se but the sauce didn't taste like those we've previously had and there was something about the texture of noodles that was off. These just weren't as springy. If I had to describe, this bowl tasted like an imitator with leathery char siew jerky.

Ma Maison, Anchorpoint

Some food from Ma Maison (#01-12 Anchorpoint, 370 Alexandra Road, tel : +65 6479 1670). These guys have been around for ages and have generally been pretty decent. They're also my first exposure to Japanese styled western food.

Onion gratin soup which was made with beef stock was not bad tasting. Sufficiently savoury and beefy plus pretty cheesy as well.

Their sirloin's generally not bad. I like that they get doneness correct and the crust that they give to the steak. This one has tamari sauce which was actually pretty good pairing with the meat. The only thing that they haven't quite gotten going well is the consistency of their meat. There's silverskin sometimes which can be a bummer. 

Yummy ikasumi omu rice. Creamy but not excessively because they didn't overdose with that cream sauce.

There's seafood and mushrooms about with squid ink rice in the omelette which was delicious. One can taste that squid ink flavour in it.

Love their chocolate strawberry shortcake too. These tasted better than their appearances belie. Pretty chocolate-y from the combination of the cream and sponge and the chocolate flavour's quite nice. Have mentioned liking them before.