Suju it!

Lunch at Suju. Yes, it wasn't that long ago since the last one. Just happened this way.

Today's special was negitoro don. So I got reeled in just like the last time. Suju does a pretty good one though. It tasted especially luxurious with the smooth and finely minced toro, aroma from the negi and sesame seeds along with the vinegared rice. Portions were a little small.

So I topped it up with their ooebi tempura. Chunky and full of bite.

Uni tsukemen from Menya Sakura

The first time we came across Menya Sakura (#01-07 Orchid Hotel, 1 Tras Link Road, tel : +65 9469 3366) was when they were located in Boat Quay. They were doing a foie gras ramen while we wanted to take advantage of that with a 1 for 1 deal from JPassport.

These fellas are currently doing a 3rd year anniversary menu with an uni tsukemen. Yep, you heard that right. I knew enough not to have hopes but I was still curious. 

There wasn't much uni going on except for the tiny pile on the noodles. Definitely far from the prettiest looking ones. We've also tasted better. Putting good quality sea urchin is apparently not a priority for these guys. The creamy tsukemen broth had a flavour akin to fermented bean (豆瓣酱) or miso. That was actually not bad.

Chin Huat Live Seafood (镇发活海鲜), Sunset Way

I don't recall if I've ever eaten at Chin Huat (#01-30, 105 Clementi St. 12, tel : +65 6775 7348) but these guys are an institution for zi char and seafood. Been around for years. Beside the common variety, the choice of clawed crustaceans they have on menu included Alaskan King and dungeness crabs. What the restaurant is known for are also some dishes done from giant grouper parts - some of which require pre-ordering. 

Very nicely poached prawns with Hua Diao jiu (花雕酒). The freshness of those prawns were apparent from the ease of de-shelling and sweetness of their meat.

Sweet and sour pork was passable. 

There was an unexpectedly tasty dish of home made bean curd. Couldn't really figure out what made that special sweet/savoury sauce that they used but it was pretty good. Good with both those bean curd and the vegetables. Gotta remember this the next time.

Our dungeness crab was steamed with Hua Diao jiu and egg. That Chinese wine imparted its flavour into the crab and that layer of wobbly steamed egg which made it the best tasting chawanmushi ever. Dungeness crab had a thinner shell what was easier to work with and meatier legs; but the meat from the body was crumbly and not as easy to remove cleanly like the Sri Lankan ones.

The Sri Lankan crabs which we all were familiar with had firmer meat and was equally sweet. What we had was done with their golden sauce which was made with pumpkin and curry leaves amongst other things. That sauce was sweet, luxuriant and pretty rich tasting. Pretty addictive with those fried man tou.

I mentioned Chin Huat offering giant grouper parts earlier. This skin was one of those parts. This was giant grouper skin stir fried in black bean sauce. Those slivers of skin were chewy, wobbly and umami - spiked with heat from chilli and saltiness from the fermented beans.

That's the three egg fried rice - tasted a lot better than the look suggested. The last time I had these was the one from New Station Snack Bar at Far East Plaza which was oozing grease. I had been burping flavour from that fried rice for the rest of the day afterward. This one here was competently done without excessive grease. While I would have preferred more of those trio of eggs in the rice, I did enjoy this.

Tried their coconut pudding which was more of a coconut milk jelly. Not bad but I prefer the clearer variety made with just the juice like the one at Ping's.

The boiled hashima dessert definitely needed more hashima. Like loads more.

They have orh nee with pumpkin sauce too. Not bad

Ajikatsu from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison

That's the seasonal horse mackerel in katsu form from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison. Pretty generous portions. I liked that the aji itself was firm and flaky, clad in the crispy panko batter. No excessive grease. A chunk of that ajikatsu together with some goma dressing soaked shredded cabbage and then chased with some of their rice - すけえ!

Ikkousha, Tanjong Pagar Plaza

Once upon a time, I thought highly of Ikkousha (#01-104B, 7 Tanjong Pagar Plaza, tel : +65 6538 1880) back in the day when they were new and competing (successfully!) at Ramen Champion. There was a smoky quality I found appealing in the broth. Sadly, their tonkotsu broth doesn't seem to taste like how it once did. 

The flavour from their bonito bowl was subtle. I supposed it might have done with the intent not to mask the tonkotsu base. Even with bonito, it didn't seem to rival that smoky quality their regular bowl used to have. It's not bad bowl of ramen per se. The character that defined it for me has just been lost.

I recall that their gyoza used to be meatier but I'm not sure if I remembered that right. Anyways, the ones that they have today were pretty run of the mill.

Tori karaage was passable.

Swiss food menu at Huber's

Huber's has a Swiss food menu on a limited run so we came down to "do some groceries". Everything we ordered were from that menu.

Like the morchel suppe. A morel soup with vegetables that's thickened with egg yolk and cream. Thickened is a little misleading because it wasn't very thick nor would most people mistaken it for a cream soup of sorts. Pretty nice. All the flavour from the morels went into the soup. The mushroom was left a flavourless husk.

We also had a pork terrine which the menu described having dried fruits. The rustic looking terrine tasted like it might have been made with liver and there were bits of chopped walnuts and pistachios. No fruits. It was slathered with something sweet though. That glisten on the terrine and plate wasn't olive oil. Delicious.

There was lamb stew. Meat was so tender but perhaps because of the cut, there wasn't so much of those lamb-y flavour. As a stew, it was hearty and tasty.

This was their kalbsadrio - described as pan fried veal and pork emulsion wrapped in caul fat. That 'emulsion' was akin to a meat mousse of sorts. There was some wonderful charring on the surface. This was very nice. The mushroom sauce that came with it was outstanding. Must have been that caul fat that was making this so good.

The other thing which was really good was their Thurgauer bratwurst. The sausage was made with apples and pork and was served in a tangy brown apple sauce. Texture was dense and flavour was good.

Tan Yu (探鱼), 313 Somerset

We finally got a seat at Tan Yu (B3-30/31/32 313@Somerset, 313 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6509 8887), a Chinese grilled fish chain from Shenzhen that's not so different from Riverside Grilled Fish. Just to be clear, it was never really difficult to get a seat here. These guys don't do reservations during the weekends and we just never had the patience to wait through peak hours.

There was a green pepper limbo fish that was not bad. The broth was more salty than spicy in spite of appearances and those Sichuan peppercorns were more 麻 than 辣. Heat was pretty manageable. Does anyone know what exactly is a limbo fish?

There's grilled honey toast that you could order on the side. This was a little buttery and quite nice.

The grilled lamb skewers looked better than they tasted. Some of the meat was so hard that I couldn't eat them. Expensive as well. Better to just get these from a place like Restaurant Manchurian which makes better skewers which are less expensive.

That milky beverage on the right is their 'lemon and lime lactic acid milk drink'. Name was a mouthful. Taste was kinda like Yakult or Calpis flavoured with lime or preserved plums. Not bad a drink if you're into that sort of thing.

The lunch before Easter at Suju

We were at Suju for lunch and I was reeled in.

Reeled in by a spicy maguro yukke don. Something off the regular menu. Not bad. There was ginger bits in the rice but fortunately not so much that I couldn't remove them. The chunks of tuna that they used were pretty good. Some of them tasted like chutoro.

Wanted some grilled chicken and so it was the torimomo shichimi yaki.

Mellben Signature, Tanjong Pagar Plaza

I haven't eaten at Mellben for years. This particular outfit (#01-105, 7 Tanjong Pagar Plaza, tel : +65 6220 5512) was largely cze char though many people still come for their crabs. It's what they've always been known for. But there were no crabs in this dinner. 

There was sweet and sour pork with longan on ice though. Kinda similar to that one from Social Place. The cuts of pork here weren't as fatty. The ice kept the fried pork from getting soggy. Not bad.

Stir fried French beans with dried shrimps had a nice texture and was deliciously savoury. Bits of  thinly sliced chilli padi gave spikes of mild heat.

Their seafood fried rice needed salt. Or fish sauce. I don't think these guys are known for their fried rice.

Liked their home made fried bean curd with chicken floss. This had quite a bit of textures going on from the mushrooms, broccoli, bean curd and chicken floss. Not to mention it was both sweet and salty.

We had prawns in creamy butter sauce. Prawns were not bad. That creamy sweet sauce scented with curry leaves and some heat was addictively delicious.

That's the salted egg pork ribs. Meat was pretty tender. I think these ribs might have been boiled before they were deep fried and then stir fried with the sweet and salty salted egg sauce. 

Uma Uma Ramen, Forum The Shopping Mall

I've seen this ramen shop (#01-41 Forum The Shopping Mall, 583 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6235 0855) around for a long time but for some reasons have never gotten interested enough to come by until today. Apparently, they were established from back in 1953 in Fukuoka. So the Hakata style influence is in the menu and the broth for their bowls are mostly tonkotsu. 

This one wasn't tonkotsu but a creamy chicken broth. What intrigued me into getting this bowl was that it came with lemons. The tori paitan wasn't very rich. It tasted unimpressive initially. After crushing the lemons into the bowl, the broth perked up from the citrus. The heat also mellowed the lemon slices that I ate them. This bowl turned out to be nice. I'd eat this again happily. Only 10 bowls a day though.

That's the dry ramen with mentaiko. That mentaiko and dried seaweed combination is an unassailable umami bomb that results in almost surefire deliciousness. This bowl was like that. Savoury and yummy with those thin Hakata styled noodles.

Didn't like their grilled beef. Overcooked and chewy. Menu mentioned truffle salt. Couldn't taste the truffle but the beef sure was salty though. I was hoping that there would be nothing but salt for flavouring but the meat was marinated. Very tangy salty chewy beef I guess I just didn't agree with.

There's coffee jelly with vanilla ice cream for desserts. Think we started to like coffee jelly from the past year. This one felt like a Japanese-esque version of affogato.