Artichoke, New Bahru

It's been some years since we last ate at Artichoke (#01-02 New Bahru, 46 Kim Yam Road, tel : +65 8092 4210) and that was back in the old premise at Middle Road.

They've shifted to New Bahru since and it's become a sort of pizza place with traces of their "least-Middle-Eastern Middle Eastern restaurant" still in the menu.

Got myself a craft cherry cola which was basically cherry flavoured tonic water with some spices that reminded me of the masala mix used in teas.

Love their green & gold kiwi starter which featured feta, pecorino, spearmint, black pepper and honey. A large part of it was the sweet fruitiness from the kiwis, milky saltiness from the cheese and a breath of freshness from the mint leaves. I like this a lot. 👍🏼

There's ox tongue in Marsala sauce with crinkle cut fries chips. Not a fan of the chicken salt in the fries. Tongue was nice but didn't think much of the Marsala sauce which came across as pretty generic tasting brown sauce.

The thing I was looking forward to most was their pizza - something I've heard described as Detroit styled with thick, airy, focaccia-like crust and crispy caramelized cheese edges. This was a platter featuring the 4 available toppings in the menu. Clockwise from top left

• Beef pepperoni - has hot honey and pickled peppers which had a bit of heat. Spicy, sweet and sour.
• Sunny slice - featured a refreshing mix of Halloumi, roasted fennel, kumquat, pistachio, arugula. Those kumquats tasted like sour plum. Not bad.
• Dirty margherita - just margherita.
• Bacon apple pie - with pancetta, brie, rosemary and hazelnut. Pretty relieved that the rosemary wasn't overpowering. This one reminded me of Christmas/apple pie. Nice aroma from the hazelnut.

Ichiwan Don, International Plaza

Came across Ichiwan Don (#02-51 International Plaza, 10 Anson Road) recently. They're mostly about donburi, sashimi and small plates. Tried a couple of of their dons.

The bowl with aburi salmon belly was disappointing. The torching was token, didn't have much smokiness in the fish and it wasn't melty like it should be. Pretty sad. 👎🏼 

Barachirashi was pretty generic with large cubes of salmon, tuna, swordfish, tamagoyaki and takuan. Both bowls were served on vinegared rice that's topped with furikake. Miso soup tasted like the powdered stuff.

KangJi Curry Mee, Far East Shopping Centre

Heard about KangJi Curry Mee (#05-16 Far East Shopping Centre, 545 Orchard Road) recently and was curious about their curry mee. I haven't eaten anywhere in this building except for Shashlik.

We were here at the opening hour for breakfast. We heard that this was supposed to be Penang styled curry noodle.

Broth was thin and drinkable. Bowl was topped with some fried tofu skin stuff, some fried pork belly, slices of fish cakes and half an egg. Wasn't a bad bowl. Toppings were decent. But it also wasn't particularly memorable.

Blood curds are available for import after more than a couple of decades of ban. So we got a bowl of them as an add on.

Not a fan of their ngoh hiong.

Wan Jin Yuan (萬金园), Holland Village Food Centre

Curry rice stall (#01-38, Holland Village Food Centre, 1 Lorong Mambong) at Holland V. If one omitted the splash of curry, it'd just be cai png. Apart from the fried egg and long beans, the messy brown stuff on the left was the most delicious item. The stall called it 咸菜肉 when I inquired (I actually couldn't tell what it was). The 咸菜 was pickled mustard greens and 肉 consisted of pork and chicken. Appetisingly salty and tangy. 

Revisiting Hong Xing Handmade Fishball @ Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre

I wanted to confirm a couple of things at this Hong Xing Handmade Fishball at Bukit Merah View. The first was that I like how they put together the mee pok versus the stall at Hong Lim - seems like I'm sticking to this stall in the future. The second was that one could choose to have all meatballs. Mission accomplished!

More curry noodling at Cantonese Delights (廣東小吃)

Breakfast at Cantonese Delights. Queue formed about 10 minutes before the stall opened. It was almost a half hour before we got our food even though we were early.

The stall has both curry yong tau foo and laksa yong tau foo. According to the proprietor, the difference is in the gravy. The latter has dried shrimps (hae bee) and a sprinkle of dried laksa leaf. I'm sure they also forgot to mention that the rempah is different as well,

This laksa bowl has gravy that's nice and lemak and quite drinkable. Out of the 4 curry noodle stalls at Hong Lim, these guys are still numero uno in my books.

Char siew's better than many. It's made in house but they aren't a specialist in these.

A few days later......

Since curry wanton noodles was a thing, I tried curry sui gao noodles. Added fried chicken.

Dumpling's decently sized, has a smooth slurpy wrapper and stuffed with shrimp, minced pork and diced water chestnuts. Not bad.