Mee kia from You Yi Minced Meat Noodle (友谊肉脞面)

$5 mee kia from You Yi today. Portions were still substantial even though it's reduced compared to the $7 bowl. No fish maw as I anticpated but I noticed a couple of wantons which I don't recall from the last round. Asked for extra chilli today - that'll be the way moving forward with them.

Will stick to mee pok in the future.

BBQ drumstick rice from Golden Rooster

Not bad drumstick rice from Golden Rooster. Even though it didn't taste like it was fresh off the...whatever it was they use for their bbq chicken. Portion felt a little small though. Will stick to the half chicken the next time.

女皇镇驰名油条 (Queenstown Famous You Tiao), Alexandra Village Food Centre

I've never noticed this stall (#01-72, Alexandra Village Food Centre, Blk 120 Bukit Merah Lane 1) until recently.

What got my attention were their banana balls.

Had a skin like hum chim pang - a little doughy and chewy. Inside was mashed banana. We returned for seconds and got a batch fresh off the fryer. Nice! 👍🏼

Plain Vanilla, Yong Siak Street

I was just saying not long ago that we never come into Plain Vanilla (1D Yong Siak Street) because of the crowd. This somehow happened.

Niçoise salad. Tasted like Niçoise salad with fishiness from anchovies and tuna.

Got the portobello mushroom & Stilton flatbread because Stilton. In the end, it was mostly mushrooms and rosemary I tasted with occasional nuttiness from the pine nuts. Not so much the blue cheese. 😔 Felt like they were trying to do something and half assed it because they were afraid.

This was nice. Bacon, scrambled egg and halloumi sandwich with chipotle mayo. Buns were soft and the in betweens were deliciously hearty. Every element in here was bold and discernible; unlike the wannabe flatbread that tried to involve Stilton and failed right at it.

Menu called this tomato veloute soup with grille cheese soldiers. The non-fancy name could be cream of tomato with grilled cheese. Passable but I'm pretty sure I preferred the one from Josh's Grill.

Unremarkable ice mocha. Would have been enjoyable if they made this a lot more gao in consideration of all the ice in there. But that's me.

Bouillon Gavroche, Mandarin Gallery

Brasserie Gavroche has opened a less pricey Bouillon Gavroche (#01-16/17 Mandarin Gallery, 333A Orchard Road, tel : +65 8522 0998) in town. While the restaurant is definitely easier on the wallet, one also needs to understand that the price tag commensurates with the quality of the food.

Decent warm goat cheese salad but that goat cheese...let's just say we've had better flavoured ones. These were crumby and tangy but not so much....goaty? Which I thought was the point.

There's crevettes sauce thermidor - or prawn thermidor. Not bad crustacean-y bechamel and those prawns were nice and smoky. Liked the mushrooms in it too.

Ordered their butcher's cut steak with peppercorn sauce. The cut of the day was sirloin. Meat's dry-ish...almost like dry aged meat on the interior surface but minus the funk and flavour. Quite disappointing. Going on record here that Ma Maison has better sirloin steak.

Redhill Prawn Noodle (85红山蝦麵 ), Redhill Food Centre

We were intrigued by the queue we saw Redhill Prawn Noodle (#01-95, Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane) whenever we passed by. With that visible constant queue every time, it's gotta be good right? Right? 🤔 Ingredients were decent. Soup's lightweight, not the gao type but still adequately flavourful and pleasantly rounded. Mee pok was sadly soggy and saucing not memorable. The noodle quality is important - at least for me it is since that's the majority flavour/textural experience there. Maybe the thing here is not to go for the mee pok.