Steamed curry chicken bao from Old Chang Kee

Old Chang Kee has a steamed curry bun shaped to look like their Curry'O at their "coffee house" along Tanjong Pagar Road (#01-36, 1 Tanjong Pagar Plaza). Apart from the steamed bun skin, they tasted pretty much the same as the one with the fried pastry skin. Now if only they were a third cheaper, I might consider getting them with some regularity.

The Gogijip (고깃집), Tanjong Pagar Road

We were here at The Gogijip (72 Tanjong Pagar Road, tel : +65 6224 0667) because they have a lunch set which has ganjang gejang - something which we were keen on exploring further after the recent episode at Ko Ryo Jeong. These guys are apparently also known for cuts of Iberico pork so we ordered some jowl and pig's skin for the grill too.

Service was uncannily speedy. Shortly after the order slips were printed, banchans were served. Kimchi and tofu were good. The latter had a sauce which reminded me of the flavour of the red sauce from chee cheong fun.

Following closely with the banchan were the condiments and vegetables for the wrap. The condiment beside the ssamjang tasted like yuja & chilli with a blend of flavours that were citrus sweet, had a fruity tanginess and was spicy altogether.

That ganjang gejang lunch set came with only one crab. Pretty decent I would say but not as enjoyable as those we had from Ko Ryo Jeong because these were a bit fishier. I suspect wonder if there were differences in the quality of the crabs for the lunch sets and the full priced ones.

There's rice, some mini jeons and a seaweed soup that came with said set.

That seaweed soup had chunks of beef in it. The soup itself was also a little beefy. Nice.

The crab which we had gotten didn't have much roe/tomalley. 

That's the Iberico jowl we ordered. Check out the fat marbling.

That's the pig's skin.

Onto the grill they go.

See ssam-thing familiar? Heh!

The Iberico jowl was fatty, chewy and full of flavour. All the richness made it a good candidate for the ssam which would have slices of garlic, chilli, pickled onions, ssamjang and a lettuce wrap to cut through all the oil richness. The same items also mellowed the porcine strength from the pig's skin as well.

Abundance, Lengkok Bahru

Abundance (#01-378, 63A Lengkok Bahru, tel : +65 8032 1880) opened some months ago in a corner of Redhill that isn't exactly known for cafes or restaurants. A relatively quiet spot nestled between public residences and car showrooms....and a small temple. With that said, they're also walking distance from Redhill MRT station. 

What they do is interpretations of Taiwanese styled street food on their terms. Taiwanese food has for some reasons very low take up rate for restaurants for a country that isn't far away. The ones that do exist are at budding stages of presence where they're not capable of selling anything but "stereotyped" representatives of Taiwanese food. But let's not digress.

Fizzy lemon tea which was light with the fizz and lavender Earl Grey ale from the local Sunbird Brewing Company. The light tangy ale did capture notes of Earl Grey with a lavender-y aftertaste. Served insufficiently chilled though. Might be a good idea for Abundance to think about bringing their array of craft beers to the table abundantly chilled. Couldn't resist.

We had an order of gua bao - a Taiwanese bao stuffed with stewed pork belly, pickled vegetables and crushed peanuts. And cilantro which I asked them to omit for obvious reasons. I liked it. 

Savoury and very tender spiced pork belly on the verge of disintegrating, cut through with the sour soft crunch of the pickled vegetable (mustard greens?). Those and the aroma and light sweetness from the crushed peanuts - imagine the textures of that. I've never had one in Taiwan before so I don't know if they're comparable but this was pretty good tasting.  

That's the Niu Yolk. Beef fat wok fried rice with slow cooked slices of beef ribs and onsen egg. Onsen egg was hidden under the tobiko which was an add on. Eat this for the beef fat fried rice. There aren't many around here and the standards of this one was kinda Ding Tai Fung-esque. Am on the fence as to if mixing the tobiko was a good idea because while I liked it, it did mask the flavour from the beef fat in the rice.

Those slices of beef ribs were tender and flavourful but they were also thin and small and not particularly captivating for me. Overall a nice, albeit pricey, fried rice though.

These were pretty much their 红油抄手. Known as Red Hot Chilli Dumplings on the menu. Dumplings were packed. They had thin smooth skin and were stuffed abundantly with shrimp and pork. Sorry couldn't resist. 

Nicely done with the salty spicy Sichuan sauce and chilli oil. A splash of vinegar and it would have been more awesome.

Lek Kee Authentic Teochew Braised Duck (陸記正宗潮洲鹵鸭), People's Park Food Centre

Have noticed the queue in front of this stall (#01-1104 People’s Park Food Centre, 32 New Market Road) every time I've been to People's Park Food Centre. Curiosity finally prevailed. I was told that I might have eaten from them many years ago but I don't remember. Since I don't remember, today was a fresh take on their Teochew styled braises.

This was a portion of mixed braises which included the bottom quarter of braised duck, pig's skin, pig's tongue, a stewed egg and some livers. Duck meat was moist and had a good bite to the texture. Tongue was less tender but had a flavour from the stewing sauce thoroughly infused into them. Pig's skin was tender and chewy. I like the sweet/savoury braising sauce which was in my opinion, all that was needed for the platter.

Not that the chilli wasn't nice. These had a tanginess from lime and a savoury bit of heat from the darker chilli paste. But I found myself getting by without much of them

The extra braising sauce from the platter can be generously drizzled onto their rice for more deliciousness.

Ah Seng Teo Chew Minced Meat Noodle (亞誠潮州肉脞面), Hong Lim Food Centre

Ah Kow's minced meat noodle stall has ended their business. I'm not gonna miss them because I didn't have a good experience. That in spite of glowing reviews of their bak chor mee. A couple of months back, I noticed that in the unit that they used to occupy has become Ah Seng Teo Chew Minced Meat Noodle (#02-42 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) selling the same local minced meat noodle.

Ah Seng did significantly better in my opinion. Their mixture of sauces and chilli was deep and savoury. The vinegar wasn't potent but I guess that's just their style. This $6 bowl came with a couple of their in house wanton that had huge wings. I'm getting quite a bit of that dried sole (ti poh) flavour because the meat stuffings of the wanton, a piece of crispy one they threw in the noodles and the soup on the side had those flavours. Mee pok was well tossed and coated with their sauce.

Speaking of the soup, don't ignore it. This one had the blanket of savoury ti poh taste amidst a gentle sweetness and was robustly salted to bring out flavours. Those fishballs in the soup tender and fishy in a good way. Pleasantly surprised by that.

I like their cut chilli. If you need a bit of additional heat, these would do the job nicely.

More weekend specials at Etna

Like the title says, more weekend specials at Etna. By the time this post was published, this would have been last week. It's also been 10 years since we first ate here.

We were given some onion focaccia today along with some in house chilli infused oil which they recommended. That had a bit of slow burning heat and a fragrance from the chilli they used.

There were some fried sardines this weekend. They were beautifully done with a proper crisp and moist meat underneath. No excess oil and much better eating than most that we've tried. True story.

There was Prague ham. Not sure what exactly constitutes that but the ham had some leopard spotted charring and was deliciously salty like good ham is, stuffed with an also delicious bastardo del Grappa cheese. Like a ham steak foldover. Paired with light pickled onions along with some bitter and also charred endives that broke the banks of saltiness. Nice garlic bread to go with too.

The other thing we wanted to try from this weekend was their pizza special with Puzzone di Moena cheese and Lardo di Colonnata. Those and mozzarella with stracchino cheese topped with walnuts and a light drizzle of honey. Here's where I mention the umami savouriness from the creamy lardo pairing well with the bit of sweetness from the honey. This was one rich pizza. 

Same old pistachio tiramisu there. There's a layer of pistachio paste in the middle which I heard referred to as an Italian equivalent of Chinese/Japanese red bean paste. Make of that what you will.

Coffee has never been that great here but after all the cheeses and salt and sugar, the bitterness was welcomed.