Sens, Raffles Holland V

It seems that on certain spectrums, there are some restaurants that are lacking of confidence with whom they are. Or perhaps I am mistaken and that these guys are simply inarticulate. With social media profile and website states next to nothing but meaningless marketing drivel about what they represent, it feels as though an effort is made to mask themselves behind anonymity while pretending to introduce themselves - at the risk of sounding much like the next restaurant.

We were here at Sens (#B1-12/13, Raffles Holland V, 118 Holland Avenue, tel : +65 6262 5618) for a meal. Food was pretty decent.

Their grilled fishes were quite nicely done and there's a kaisen chahan that was unexpectedly peppery. The latter wasn't a bad thing.

I'm glad they didn't gut their sanma so that we could still enjoy those bitter sweet innards.

Got ourselves a grilled kinmedai which had a flavour that reminded me of toasted shrimp or crab.

Yi Jia Chun (一家村), The Arcade @ Collyer Quay

On the occasions that I've reason to find myself at The Arcade (11 Collyer Quay), I've noticed this cooked food stall (#01-24). Always, I've been captivated by the steaming pots of food and soup at the stall. Little did I realize that they've a few outlets about in the vicinity until recently. Anyways, we stopped by for lunch before the lunch crowd came by.

One of the things that attracted me to the stall was their pumpkin rice. They were not bad - as ambiguous as that might have sounded. The kind of not bad where I wouldn't mind having again if I'm in the vicinity but not specially visit for.

There's pickled Szechuan mustard which was tasty in their mildly spicy and salty kind of crunchy way. I liked these.

Thick sliced luncheon meat is always good. I always felt that most places slice them too thin.

Didn't like their chicken curry. The curry itself was thin and flat while the pieces of chicken in there were bland. They weren't exactly slurp off the bone tender either. We didn't finish the most of it.

For some reasons, I got reminded of the lotus root soup at Big Bird while sipping this one. Anyone remember those guys? If anyone was wondering, this bowl has got nothing on the one at Big Bird. Big Bird's soup was bold and flavoursome while this rendition was lightweight.

Fu Shun Shao La Mian Jia (福顺 (锦记) 烧腊面家), Maxwell Food Centre

Noticed the queue at this stall the past couple of times we were here at Maxwell (#01-71, 1 Kadayanallur Street). While I generally don't subscribe to the wisdom of crowds in the context of our local food centres, our curiosities occasionally gets piqued. And sometimes, that doesn't end with the death of a cat.

These guys do a very competent roast duck. As all well done and properly roasted birds of such nature went, the meat was tender (even for the breast), moist and there were a little bit of tasty fat under the flavourful roasted skin.

The roasted pork belly was unfortunately a bore. Some of the crackling weren't crispy and the meat wasn't anything to write home about. But their char siew was very nicely done. Tender, fat laced and savoury sweet while texturized by a bit of delicious char on the surface and the grains of the meat. This and the duck I'm coming back for.

More eats at Tampopo

Been a little while since we were last at Tampopo.

Sweet corn from Hokkaido was in season so we got ourselves some of them in tempura. These ones here were a lot tastier than the ones we had at Keria Japanese Restaurant not a couple of months back.

Tampopo's wafu steak has always been a welcomed sight. While we don't order it every single time we're here, we've had it enough times that it's possibly the most ordered beef item that we do.

Their beef and potato croquette was lacklustre. Not quite getting that beef.

While it can be argued that we have enjoyed their negitoro don, I think I've figured out what has changed. The negi is still there but there's not much toro anymore. The portions of the minced tuna have increased, but it's no longer so fatty. Once upon a time, it used to be good.

White peach is in season and there's a chilled and refreshing salad on the menu currently which was delicious. Most of it because of the sweetness and aroma coming from the peach.

Remember their hon maguro don at a good deal? It's still available.  

Some Oktoberfest food from Huber's bistro

It's that time of the year when the kitchen at Huber's whips up a little something different for their Oktoberfest menu again. Breaking from tradition, I got myself a bottle of Paulaner's weissbier instead of the usual Grevensteiner. The last two sentences did not have any relations by the way. 

This year there was potato soup with smoked eel on menu. Amazing depth of extra smoky flavours those bits of eel lent to the soup. Nice.

Unfortunately, this year's leberknedelsuppn - for the lack of a better word, sucked. The broth simply wasn't beefy. Compared to that cheesy liver dumpling ball last year, this was sad and barely mention worthy.

 

The kitchen did some braised beef oyster blade a red wine sauce this time round too. The meat was fork tender while the sauce rich and flavourful. Delicious creamed cabbage on the side too.

While meatloaf on rye didn't seem to be particularly special, their honey sauerkraut with Schmand rocked. Especially tasty paired with sweet mustard on the rye. 

Dessert was a Morello cherry filled eclair with whipped cream. Both the pastry and the cream were very light.

Bacon double cheese XL at BK in Suvarnabhumi Airport

I figured that it's been a long time since we last ate at Burger King and since we were already trapped in departure, why not? Certainly didn't mind some Double XL sized sandwiches with the bonus of not having turkey bacon. 

So how did it go? I couldn't complain. This tasted like how I remember BK ages ago with the gooey cheese and char grill aroma with the bacon - which was a far cry from what it is today. Kinda expensive at 380฿ though.

Kub Kao' Kub Pla, Gaysorn Village

We stumbled upon Kub Kao' Kub Pla while roaming about the new wing at Gaysorn (3rd Floor Gaysorn Tower, 999 Ploenchit Road, tel : +66 2 075 2661). I read that the restaurant started out as a cafe/dessert place in Thonglor. The food that they serve here are a mix of common and/or contemporary Thai dishes and Thai influenced western food.

One more local-ish lunch before we head back.

Even more cowslip creepers again. I did mention us liking them. This time, they're stir fried with glass noodles, egg, dried shrimp and cuttlefish. This was good with rice.

Kub Kao Kub Pla has a rendition of shrimp cakes of their own. They are deep fried with sliced almonds.

The innards of the shrimp cake were tender and pretty flavourful.

We had ox tongue stew which certainly wasn't a typical Thai thing. The tongue was tender and the stew was rich with the essence of red wine. Another dish for great pairing with rice.

The menu called this crab balloon omelette.

Of course it's just a regular old crab omelette. I thought this nicely done but they very light handed with the salt. I suppose this allowed it to be paired better with their garlic chilli/fish sauce chilli/coriander lime dip.

Green curry, blood curds and fish paste

We were at Terminal 21 (88 Sukhumvit Soi 19, Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok 10110) and noticed that there was some kind of gourmet market going on at the basement so we decided to poke our noses in. Literally and figuratively. There were the usual looking street snack vendors lined up hawking their food. Then we came across this stall selling green curry.

We inched closer and noticed the blood curds. How could we have not stopped for a bowl of that? Of course we did. A bowl of mixed ingredients we ordered featuring both the blood curds and fish paste.

There was some liquorice flavour going on from the basil in the green curry which was delicious. That paired with creaminess and a warm buzzing heat from the spices. The blood curds were tasty and tender like very soft tau kwa. What surprised me pleasantly was the rustic looking fish paste which was robustly flavoured with the flavour fish. In a good way. The texture was coarse - a good sign there and they had a nice bite. While I think unlikely, I wonder if this stall is a permanent fixture in the market.

Krua Apsorn, Samsen Road, Bangkok

We headed a bit further out for lunch this time to check out Krua Apsorn (503 Samsen Road, Wat Sam Phraya, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok 10200, tel : +66 2 241 8528, +66 2 668 8788). In spite of addresses that we could find online, there was a little trouble locating the actual place. 

I don't remember the last time I had duck eggs apart from the salted variety. For some reasons, they aren't available back home. This was a dish of duck eggs and pork cartilage stewed in a sweet broth. The kind of sweet broth similar to the ones in kuey chup or Thai beef noodles, but sweeter and surprisingly, I liked it. And yes, those eggs do taste different from chicken eggs. There was more intensity to the yolk.

One of the dishes that Krua Apsorn is known for is their crab omelette. It's not so similar to the one from Raan Jay Fai since there were more eggs than crab meat. But then again, it also wasn't half as expensive and probably no one makes crab omelette like Raan Jay Fai.

There....still chunks of white meat to be seen in the egg. While I gather that this place wasn't the cheapest of eats around, something like this would probably cost a lot more back home.

We ordered something which was called crab dip on the menu. I have no idea what's the Thai name for this. There was quite a bit of coconut and plenty of minced pork along with pickled green chilli. Those onions added some sharpness to the richness. Which made this awesome with rice and very nice munching with the vegetables on the side.

We fished out a couple of small crabs from the crab dip. They were too small to eat and left absolutely none of their flavour to the dip. But the dip was still delicious.

Another dish that the restaurant is known for - also proven by the number of orders of it from the neighbouring tables, was their stir fried crab with yellow chilli/pepper and long beans. It's not bad but I had been expecting more sweetness from the meat. The heat from this dish was commendable though.

To add even more vegetables to lunch, stir fried cowslip creepers. Again. This time with some minced pork. We've taken a liking to this vegetable.

Of course we had rice. The plates served here were curiously heart shaped.

And a pretty nice coconut sorbet to finish. Just the thing for the warm weather in the land of smiles.