The Okamochi Box barachirashi set from Ryu's

I saved myself from damnation and came back to Ryu's. This time, we tried their barachirashi served in the Okamochi box. A wooden box with drawer compartments for food. Gimmicky? Perhaps - but it was an experience and more importantly, we enjoyed the food.

This was part of the amuse bouche. A lightly spiced carrot bisque. I couldn't tell what spices were in it but the soup was creamy and very pleasant.

The Okamochi box. The bottom drawers contained the barachirashi.

Top drawer was grilled chicken and a vegetable side which I believed was gobo.

The barachirashi came with cubed let's see - kanpachi, maguro, hotate, ikura, ika, bit of what looked like minced ebi; and there were thinly sliced & marinated shitake and renkon.

In the Okamochi box, were some seaweed sheets, a dollop of wasabi and a makisu. We tried our hand at rolling our first maki rolls ever. The virgin experience if you would.

Truthfully, I sucked at it. I had no idea what I was doing and certainly couldn't grasp how the chefs could work these things so artfully on YouTube. My clumsy hands ended up rolling the seaweed sans the mat. It looked rustic. But hey, it tasted good!

The grilled chicken look like torched chicken. The skin was charred like it had gone through aburi. But there was a familiarly sweet flavour like pandan. 

And the set ended with the same warabi mochi with kinako and drizzled brown sugar as the last time.

Home made ham and cheese sandwich with otah

I cannot imagine a sandwich like this, as simple as it might have been, to exist anywhere else but this part of the world. 

Guzman Y Gomez, Star Vista

Guzman Y Gomez (#01-32 The Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green, tel : +65 6694 2044) is a chain Mexican taco/burrito shop from Australia that opened up here a few years ago. Their initial outlets were located at places I never needed to be so I never got to try them until this one at Star Vista opened recently.

You know what? I rather enjoyed what I had. And it was cool that you could choose different fillings for their set of tacos rather than having all of the same. The grilled chicken and carnitas tasted better than their flank steak which was oddly tasteless as a meat. But three tacos didn't exactly fill me up so we tried their burrito bowl with barramundi. I liked their chicken and pork options better.   

Chee cheong fun with chai por

That's steamed rice rolls (chee cheong fun) topped with preserved turnip (chai por) if anyone needed translation. Story goes when we were trying to get ourselves some chwee kueh from a particularly popular stall down at Whampoa Market Food Centre and they happened to be sold out. Which exacerbated the craving for them. There was left over chai por and the stall still had some steamed rice rolls and so the improbably inevitable happened. It's actually quite nice; nothing unexpected or surprising with the flavours since it was precisely flavours of those chai por over a starch cake.

Hambaobao, Beauty World Food Centre

I’ve been hearing/reading about this stall (144 Upper Bukit Timah Road, #04-49 Beauty World Centre) for a while and decided to check them out. I’ll describe their product (their classic hamburger) as a more Americanized Ramly burger. With better meat patties, none of those overly sweet combination of sauces and there's option for hand cut russet potato fries. Greasy buns a la plancha with cheese, pickles, butter head lettuce, an in house tomato ketchup and I added bacon. The meat was about as exciting as those at the old Botak Jones so it's not Omakase Burger for sure.

A lamb shoulder sandwich from Porsena Deli at PasarBella

That's the Pasar Bella at Suntec (#01-455 Suntec City Mall, 3 Temasek Boulevard) and not the one at The Grandstand in case you didn't realize. While I've aired my opinions in the past on what these guys were trying to sell of themselves versus the reality of who they actually are, this relatively new outfit at Suntec is nothing like that. This one is but a Pasar Bella branded food court. Nothing more.

But Porsena Deli looked interesting and we decided to try their lamb shoulder sandwich. They have a "stuff it" option for $2 which we exercised for "more ingredients". Anyway, this wasn't bad at all. 6"-ish sized freshly toasted soft white roll with a generous stuffing of that tender chopped lamb shoulder meat in that....red tikka-ish sauce, cucumbers and yoghurt. You know what? I would come back.

Kee Hock, Clementi Market & Food Centre

I've never had beef mui fan before so here's my first from Kee Hock (Clementi 448 Market & Food Centre, Blk 448 Clementi Ave 3, #01-43). While I wasn't exactly floored, I think there's a few reasons why I think these guys are one up above the rest. At least for me they are. 

For a start, their gravy wasn't overly starchy and actually has flavour. The other thing that impressed me was that they didn't sodium bicarbonate the meat to death; which was actually a rarity amongst the local Chinese stalls. One could actually taste that it was sliced beef rather than a formless protein matter with little texture. 

A bit more intensity from a richer beef stock, a bit more generosity with the greens and perhaps with the spiking of a little sliced chilli padi and/or fermented black beans - this could have been much more impressive. Their sliced fish hor fun looks pretty good too, maybe the next time.

Salmon en croûte from Saveur Art

I saw somebody at the neighbouring table eating this the last time and I thought it looked good. So I got myself one this time round. A medium to medium-well done salmon with spinach encased in a puff pastry and dill cream sauce on the side. Could taste a bit of parsley in that sauce too. While it wasn't about to floor anyone into a stupendous state, we found ourselves enjoying it. Of course there were little things that could have been better, but good was good enough.

Chicken Head (雞頭), Clementi Market & Food Centre

I remember eating at this stall (Clementi 448 Market & Food Centre, Blk 448 Clementi Ave 3, #01-18) quite a while ago but only had a very faint recollection that I liked it. Which is strange. Anyway, the reason why I remembered them was because the name of the stall translated into 'chicken head' and I found that amusing. So here's another go at that chicken head. It was actually not bad. Their boiled chicken was fairly tender and smooth while the rice was lightly flavoured. Just sufficient flavours from the oils without being too greasy. I couldn't decide if I liked the rice better with or without their chilli so I guess that in a way, I did enjoy that rice. 

While I wouldn't make a special effort to come here just for this, I certainly have no qualms getting a plate again if I'm nearby. Judging from the queue, they seem rather well received.

Kuriya Dining, Great World City

Kuriya (#01-28 Great World City, 1 Kim Seng Promenade, tel : +65 6736 0888) has been around for a number of years now. I’ve been wanting to come by and have been asked by friends who seemed to like the place to give them a go. Somehow, it just never happened until today. Sounds familiar? I have this relationship with many places.

In retrospect - their food was pretty good quality, portions weren't very generous and it was actually more expensive lunching here than Aoki. But we did enjoy the grilled oysters with uni and the fried mehikari which were nicely salted and delicious. That wagyu/uni/ikura don was pretty good but I wouldn't have scored it very high because of a couple of things. I genuinely felt that it could have been improved if they had just used a little bit of shoyu or salt on those thin sliced beef rather than that sweet sauce which also confused the flavours of the sea urchin. For what they were charging, I had expected portions that are more substantial.