So France, Duo Galleria

I'll be straight to the point on this. I didn't think very much of the place (#01-51/56 Duo Galleria, 7 Fraser Street). The people were nice but that niceness felt like a veneer. 

The shop and bistro brought nothing new to the table that others haven't already done and done better. We had a fish soup which was not bad but the same could also be said of those bottled stuff that used to be available at Carrefour which could also be spruced up to taste similarly. 

I didn't like how they charged for additional bread especially when they didn't give much in the first place for their Camembert and charcuterie. Speaking of which, those charcuterie tasted very...... pedestrian. They were also sliced too thinly and we can find better at the same price point. Maybe these guys oughta take a page from Le Bistrot du Sommelier.

Wan Xing Nasi Lemak (万兴椰浆饭，炒米粉), Albert Centre Market FC

We chanced upon this stall (#01-62 Albert Centre Market Food Centre, 270 Queen Street) while looking for food and decided to give them a go. Sadly, this was another case of a contemporary nasi lemak where there wasn't much fragrance in the rice. It seemed that a lot of people liked them though since the queue appeared relentless.

On the brighter side, their sambal was kinda nice. Spicy and savoury that seemed to be without much sweetness. This meant that I didn't have to worry about having them overwhelm any of those coconut flavours in the rice since there wasn't much of those coconut flavours in the first place. The fish we got today wasn't dried out. In fact, it was surprisingly moist and even had some roe in the belly.

Deli's Kitchen, Sunshine Plaza

From what I could gather from the shop, Deli's Kitchen (#01-54 Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, tel : +65 6926 6176) is a front that represents 11 other shops from Japan. Hence the huge menu. Assuming that all the other shops are atypical of good restaurant owners who are specialists in their own rights for the food that they cook, what would that say about the cook in this particular kitchen?

I suppose I could say, this is Singapore. One man can do the jobs of eleven. #lmfao

One of the eleven was Shibaura Genghis Khan from Hokkaido that features grilled lamb donburi. That lamb looked like it was pan fried than grilled. Even with the sauce on the side, the marinade alone detracted from the limited natural flavours of the meat. It wasn't bad per se; just not good enough that'll make me look forward to returning for. That onsen tamago styled egg was also probably the egg with the least amount of whites I've ever seen.

That's the Trump-Kim summit item on a limited run created from their Fukuyoshi menu from the Kanagawa prefecture in Kantō, Japan (remember that the eleven menus?). A wagyu hambagu patty topped with kimchi and nacho cheese. On hindsight, it might have been more appropriate as a Abe-Kim summit item I reckon by the style of the hamburg. 

The patty had nice grill marks, was nicely browned but was also mushy on the inside. Didn't taste bad but it was definitely not American styled hamburger beef. The kimchi was sour (read nice). What could the nacho cheese be symbolic of? Those are American aren't they? Wait, wouldn't that make this be for the Abe-Trump-Kim summit then? Portentous! 

We needed a little more food which gave us a little more excuse to order another item to try. So it was the black curry topped with a skirt steak from Ryu's Bistro. Something from Hakata. There seemed to be a mild garlic flavour in the curry which left an aftertaste like MSG. The handling of that skirt steak clearly showed how little the cook knew. The steak was sliced along instead of against the grain which left the chunks of meat chewy. Each of those slices were also too big. Not to mention that the skirt would have benefitted from a bit more char to bring the flavours out. 

Greenwood Fish Market, Valley Point

Greenwood Fish Market has just opened up at Valley Point (#01-21/22/23 491 River Valley Road, tel : +65 6732 3788); which is a much more centralized location than their other two shops - the original being Greenwood Ave. and another at Quayside Isle in Sentosa. I just realized that it's been quite a long while since I've had anything from them.

We happened to stumble in on their oyster day which is every Tuesday. Those oysters are no longer a dollar each. It's almost double that these days. Still a pretty good deal considering how much oysters cost here. We had half a dozen and realized that these went down far too quickly and ordered another half dozen. 

They have a lobster bisque on menu. Deliciously salted and competently flavoured if you asked me.

Greenwood does their own version of aglio olio which also comes with some fried shallot, spinach and anchovies. Those melted anchovies added a punch to the flavours. Not to mention a bunch of saltiness as well.

I wanted to get monkfish but they weren't available so I thought why not the curious sounding fried smoked chicken. Applewood smoked and then deep fried sans batter. I liked that all the smokiness managed to get into the meat but the meat was a little dry and the chicken was a little too salty. Not feeling it for their fries which were really pale.

We had to get a fish since we were here so it was a pan fried barramundi which was their recommended style of preparation for the fish. While the fish was delicious and of good quality, this one had the soggiest skin. Running a fork through that skin doesn't make that scraping sound. It was silent and merely ruffled up the fish skin.

Tai broth ramen from Tampopo

Tampopo has a tai (red snapper) broth ramen this month by a certain award winning Kawase Yuya. It was actually kinda nice. That broth had a certain light fishy sweetness to it which one doesn't find in their other bowls. There was a bit of yuzu peel in there for flavour as well. What's also cool was that those menma didn't have the least bit of pungent taste at all.

For some reasons, I was expecting slices of the fish in the bowl but that turned out to be just charshu.

Din Shan Vegetarian (鼎膳素), Tiong Bahru Market FC

I'm not sure if I've ever had vegetarian noodle from this stall (#02-14 Tiong Bahru Market, 30 Seng Poh Road) previously. There was a constant queue and business looked brisk so I thought it was worth a try. It wasn't bad at all. The proprietress even successfully upsold me with an add on of their "drumstick" - the ones made of rolled tau kee (dried beancurd sheet) which I liked. Their "char siew" was sweet and smoky too rather than being salted pieces of rubber. If my memory serves, the food was also less oily than Seng Kee Vegetarian down at Beo Crescent.