Yong Kee Different Taste Hainanese Chicken Rice (勇記不同味海南雞飯), Hong Lim Food Centre

Trying a chicken rice stall (#02-24 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) I've never noticed previously at Hong Lim Food Centre. They've been around - just that I haven't registered them before.

Got a plate with poached chicken thigh, roast pork and egg.

Pretty decent chicken rice here. Chilli's lime-y, garlicky, a little gingery with a hint of bitterness and some heat. Chicken's tender and rice was adequately flavoured. I think this one was better with chilli than without. Soup has really tender cabbages in it but I'm pretty sure I caught kiam chye flavour. What's not good was the roast pork which had soggy crackling.

虾一跳 (Xia Yi Tiao), Food Republic @ Vivocity

The names for some local eateries have gotten punny over the years. Came across this one at Food Republic (#03-01 VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk). Have never seen/heard of this laksa/prawn noodle stall before.

Pricey big prawn laksa. Somewhere along the tunes of $16 if I remember correctly and portion wasn't exactly big.

Pretty good lemak gravy. Needs a dollop of their sambal because that gravy has a lot less dimension and body without. Their thick bee hoon (粗米粉) was also thinner than the regular type.

Nitty Gritty, Teo Hong Road

Lunch at Nitty Gritty (21 Teo Hong Road, tel : +65 9637 5884). They're a restaurant which feels/looked like a cafe, serving American(Southern) inspired food with a dash of Asian/Singaporean elements/ingredients. It's like that. 

Love their sparkling apple cream cider. This tasted like it's made from real apple juice with bit of spice and fizz. 👍🏼

That's the apple butter grits with toffee apple crisp. Smokey and very nice. The flavour was apples, toffee and smoke with spices and delicious crusty pecans. 👍🏼

Fried okra - not feeling for this one. I thought it was a little too greasy and maybe I just didn't like the batter to okra ratio.

Eggs with sesame and corn bread pancakes. Not bad - I liked how the dill and feta added herbaceous saltiness to the egg and sesame. And also liked how that honey chilli thingy on the side added to those eggs which I thought was really good.

Cheese grits were salty and nice. 👍🏼

That's their fronana - banana frozen yoghurt that's topped with more of those crusty pecans, chocolate buttons and their sachima (沙琪玛). How was it "their sachima"? I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the usual stuff that one might be able to get at Chinatown. That thing tasted of nutmeg and even though I was never one for sachima, I found it addictive.

The menu mentioned allspice, nutmeg and vanilla for their spiced vanilla latte. I only remembered/registered cinnamon.

Hot corn juice from Yuen Kee Dumpling (袁记云饺)

Got this hot corn juice from Yuen Kee Dumpling in the Food Republic at 313 (L5, 313@Somerset, 313 Somerset Road). This might be the only place we know of that still has this after the limited time ones from Tsui Wah. Putien doesn't have them on their menu anymore.

Chef Lup Roasted (立师父烧腊), Golden Mile Food Centre

I didn't realise when we ate at Chef Lup Roasted at Lau Pa Sat that the brand was started by an ex-Kam’s Roast executive chef who's had considerable experience under his belt. The first shop that was set up is this one at Golden Mile (#B1-56 Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road). 

We had plate of triple roasts with eggs this time round. Char siew was as good as I recall with smokey sweet gumminess from the caramelisation and fat with meat. Not forgetting too the nice crisp on the tender siu yoke and their tender roasted duck breast in herbal sauce which were also exceptional. 

I like their 油饭. Great savouriness in the rice which ended up being both good with and without the sweet/limey/garlicky chilli sauce. That's a nice pickled mustard greens soup on the side.

Kunafa pistachio min jiang kueh from Munchi Pancakes

No surprise here that Munchi Pancakes is on this bandwagon. No disparagement in that previous statement too. This one's quite nice - milky, nutty and sweet with crunch from the kataifi between the jiggly pancake layers.