Revisiting Cenzo

We finally made it back to Cenzo.

Sparkling water is a couple of bucks and bottomless.

Wagyu tartar cannoli wasn't memorable. Wouldn't have known it was wagyu if the menu hadn't mentioned.

The lardo tigelle with truffle honey which we liked from the last time has become garlic bread whipped lardo burnt honey. This one was nice...cheesy, savoury and tinged with sweetness. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the tigelle was nicer. 😅

There's a lot of pistachio stuff going around lately. Most of them are second rate. I'm also being kind by just labelling them second rate because the honest description would conceivably be 'con job'. Not this gramigna with pistachio pesto though. It's not just nuttiness in the pesto, it's pistachio specific nuttiness here. With actual crushed nuts. Enriched by burrata.

What I had been looking forward to was their lamb porchetta. You read that right.

This was awesome. Serious crackling cushioned by a layer of flavourful lamb-y fat over meat. That and its unique blend of bite, greasiness and crunch. Why so? It doesn't have the same mouthfeel as regular porchetta because of the size. Pretty rich and heart clogging. 👍🏼

Tiramisu to end.

Kolkata Beckons, Race Course Road

I came across the mention of Kolkata Beckons (52 Race Course Road, tel : +65 6291 5244) some time back and have been wanting to give them a try. The restaurant is part of the Fifth Season group which also runs Tangra Chinese. Food is Bengali. Like Mustard...and probably a slew of other places I don't yet know of.

That's the malai sweet lassi. As I understand, malai refers to the layer of cream that is formed after boiled milk is cooled. Not uncommonly used in gravies in North Indian dishes. This one had them folded into their sweet lassi for extra richness. Nice. We were cautioned that it induces food coma. 😅

Tried their peas kochuri which was a fried bread spread with peas and chilli and some spices on the inside. On the side was sada alur torkari - which translates into and is also literally descriptive of 'white potato curry'. What apparently differentiates the sada alur torkari from regular curry is the lack of turmeric. And hence, white.

Couldn't actually discern much of the peas. They looked like pooris and tasted much like hum chim pang. 😬

Mangsher chop.

A fritter of spiced potato and mutton which could conceivably be viewed as a cross between curry puff and croquette, served with mustard on the side.

We had an order of badshah malai kofta. Badsha is Persian for ruler/king/emperor so presumably, this might have been a dish for royalty in the past.

It's described as a fruit stuffed paneer. The flavour's sweet, lightly savoury and cheesy. The cheesy part was not typical of paneer that I know of and I'm not sure where's the fruit part. Deliciously rich though. Remember the bit about malai earlier?

More carbs in the form of basanti pulao. The rice which had cashews and raisins was infused with saffron and slightly sweet. Was a little thrown off at the start but it kinda latched onto me. 

So we're back to Man Man again (formerly also known as Unagi Tei)

For some reasons, Man Man has decided to call themselves Man Man again after an attempted rebranding to Unagi Tei (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九).

We were here tonight for their fleshy tare glazed Hyogo oysters. These were creamy and plump. Stole all the limelight from their unagi. I'm pretty glad that they're no longer giving us the ends of the wasabi root and grater to make us sweat work for it. On the other hand, I'm sad that the Suntory kuro has been taken off their menu.

Beef katsus at Kimukatsu

Trying some gyu katsus at Kimukatsu. The regular mille feuille rendition which they called beef katsu was actually kinda nice. One could taste the light beefiness in the thin layered meat beneath that crispy panko.

The other one which featured a slice of whole meat which was called gyu katsu was forgettable. Not particularly beefy and most of it was more cooked than the medium rare we asked for (we were given a choice). That Miyazaki gyu katsu from Ginza Anzu is still the best we've had.

 

Traditional Rui Ji Chicken Rice & Laksa Chicken Noodle (瑞记正宗鸡饭 叻沙鸡面), Hong Lim Food Centre

Don't know if this stall (#02-27 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) has any relation with any of the Swee Kee chicken rice brands around. They're just next door to The Noodle Memories.

Chicken rice was serviceable but not memorable. Rice was light on flavour and not moreish. Chilli's watery and had a pretty run of the mill taste. The soup changes daily apparently and it's Sichuan mustard green today.

Itaewon Jjajang, Peck Seah Street

Korean Chinese food here at Itaewon Jjajang (64 Peck Seah Street, tel : +65 6223 1600). Have noticed them numerous times whenever we're around the vicinity.

Their banchan look poised to cut grease (or attempt to) from our palates. Each one of them was a pickled vegetable. The last dish was their rendition of Sichuan preserved mustard greens (四川菜).

I was curious about their jjampong. Clean seafood flavour from the broth where one can choose from 3 levels of heat. This was level 2. Was manageable at the beginning but was definitely burning by the time we were done. Heat was cranked up by chilli padi/bird's eye chilli. Seafood's pretty good quality. Don't have anything against it but I don't think I'll get it again. I like the smoky rendition from Jeong's Jjajang much better.

Saeu bokkeumbap's a little bland on it's own but maybe the intention was that we should be having every mouthful with the jjajang - which by the way was velvety, full of bean flavour and layered with the aroma and sweetness of melty onions

Those pieces of fried pork from their tangsuyuk were coated with a layer of something soft and chewy... like mochi.