Yamanashi peaches and cream rolls at Don Don Donki

There was a station that apparently sold smoothies and fruit sandwiches at the Don Don Donki at Clarke Quay Central (B1, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street). We saw that there were Yamanashi peaches with cream on rolls so we had to get some. 

This was as good as I had imagined it to be. Peach was ripe and each bite was a deluge of sweet peach juices on cream. Damn, it was so good.

Some cold cuts, cheeses and pasta from Amò

Today was cold cuts, cheeses and pasta at Amò. 

From what the menu mentioned, the meat was house cured. Not bad. Cheese were also delicious from the fresh light mozzarella to the goat-y/nutty in-betweens (I don't know what they were but they were Gouda-ish) to the rich, salty and unexpectedly sweet Parmigiano Reggiano.

Came with some bread. Forgot what these were called. They were hard and crispy with texture like pretzels and flavoured with fennel. Surprisingly addictive.

Amò like Beppe De Vito's other restaurants lean towards an upmarket setup and tends to be assumptious. Did not appreciate that they split portions without the courtesy of asking.

But the cuttlefish tagliolini was nice. Liked the cuttlefish flavour that infused the sauce and the spiciness that gave the depth some breath. That being said, the squid ink on the side contended with the sauce of the pasta.

Casarecce was okay. Most of it was the creamy saffron flavour. Too little guanciale to be worth mentioning and for something that had black pepper listed as part of the ingredients, I tasted none. 

Le Shrimp Ramen, Changi Airport Terminal 3

I've been curious about the shrimp broth ramen from Le Shrimp Ramen by the Paradise Group for a while. Have read/heard numerous opinions on it but wanted to just experience it for myself. Happened by the branch on at T3 (#B2-49 Changi Airport Terminal 3, 65 Airport Boulevard).

It's okay. I was getting some wok hei-ish aroma along with some of that prawn-y flavour. It's not bad but also not particularly outstanding in my opinion. Nothing much there that would incentivize me to come back. In fact, those shrimp paste that they had was not even as tasty as the shrimp paste we previously had at Shi Li Fang. If you have had both of them before, you'd be able to tell. True story.  

Despite the shrimp broth I thought the dry bowl was more enjoyable. There's a smattering of ebiko in it but I see it as a lame attempt by the Paradise Group at cosmetics.

Another round at Zai Shun

Another meal at Zai Shun. Hadn't realize it's been more than a year since we were here last. We got the red garoupa steamed HK style this time round.

Egg tofu stewed with cabbage.

Chai buay (pickled mustard greens) which was good with rice or porridge.

We never noticed that Zai Shun had prawn paste mid wings the last time. While the flavour from the prawn paste wasn't one of the more outstanding ones we've had, these made pretty good munching.

Gotta have that addictive-licious hae bee hiam with that appetizing squeeze of lime.

We also discovered their bitter gourd stir fried with eggs and salted egg this time round. These were pretty good.

A Waikiki special from PS. Cafe Petit

Waikiki is merely the name for PS. Cafe's Hawaiian pizza. It's not called Hawaiian probably because there's basil in it. For some reasons I felt like having Hawaiian. The thought of blue cheese wormed itself into my head and I paid for add ons. If anyone was wondering where that blue cheese was, it's the ochre stuff in the middle. But those were the only parts that had their flavour because of the distribution. So now we know the standards.

MooTeow Chilli Beef Kway Teow by Empress Place Beef Kway Teow

I read that the guy who opened this stall (#01-31 Shaw Towers, 100 Beach Road) had been under apprenticeship of the owner of the original Empress Place beef kuey teow so I was intrigued by the outcome which is presumably Teochew style. Which is the style I prefer over the commonly seen Hainanese style.

The owner wasn't around. It was some other guy cooking so I will rightfully assume that standards differ depending on who's behind the stall. After all, recipe and ingredients alone don't make the bowl of beef kuey teow.

This was the $10 mixed beef parts and tendon bowl. Beef balls were served with a bowl of their broth on the side. It's not bad. Kinda pricey though. I enjoyed the lime-y chilli mixed with the sesame oil which formed a large part of the flavours. I liked that I could still taste the rice noodles through the other flavours. 

What was different from the Empress Place Beef Kway Teow stall at Maxwell was the ingredients that made their chili sauce and that this bowl was thoroughly drained of broth while the original stall had a bit of the broth in their dry bowl for additional flavour. Beef balls here tasted a little bland. Otherwise I kinda liked it.

Breakfast : two fried eggs from Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice

Many people have their "I ate these while growing up" moments. Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice is one of mine. There wasn't so much variety in those times and people often went back to their favourites much more often than one did these days. If you asked me whether the food tasted the same all these years, I'd suppose they did. If there were any truly any differences, it was probably negligible. These pork chops were in my head, still the standards I hold to when comparing with other curry rice pork chops. Even though I admit to enjoying the crispy variety in the recent years.

In the delicious mess above was two fried molten yolk-ed eggs, pork chop and chap chye. Curry squids were unfortunately not ready at that time of the morning. Yummy and not everyone's plate in the morning as most of the people in the coffeeshop were queueing for the next door ba chor mee which is probably a more breakfast-y item around.

Doubled boiled milk custard with durian from Honeymoon Dessert

I've tried these a couple of times from both the shop at Vivo and ION (B3-15/16 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn) and decided that I liked the wobbly milk custard. While the scoop of durian pulp helped, it was really the ethereal milk custard that got me hooked. They're not the same thing as those durian mousse from Dessert Bowl but I liked these almost as much. 

Kumamoto wagyu ramen from Seizan Uni Ramen

I've numerous thoughts as I tucked into this bowl. One of them questioned if Seizan actually staked any reputation behind Seizan Uni Ramen because this stall didn't feel like it housed the dedication and care that would be needed to earn their accolades. Pretty sure the lackadaisical  attitude of the guy behind the stall and his young appearances had nothing to do my impression of them and how their food was made.

Maybe it's a partnership where their name was used for branding and this was merely just another local business just like the other local shops in Picnic. Back to topic then.

Those briskets (I think) were pretty tender but not particularly flavourful. Nothing about the taste clued wagyu because it was unexceptional and lacking in flavour. Not much beefiness coming from the broth which was also honestly, pretty pedestrian. Noodles - nothing mention worthy. Not worth the $20 they charged.

In fact, I popped over to Tangs for one of these straight after because the bowl was so unsatisfying.

Considering the density of food blogs to square kilometre ratio this island has, it's shocking how little one can learn about new stalls because everyone's just ripping content off each other or regurgitating some marketing material.

Uni torobutsu meshi and more from Kuro Maguro

This uni torobutsu meshi was part of a current limited time J Passport promotion with Kuro Maguro. You get the discarded end cuts of toro in a rice bowl and for $4 more, they would top it up with a bit of uni. The uni didn't have good flavour and I wouldn't recommend it but their toro has always been very decent quality. Didn't matter that they were from the end bits.

Ankimo ponzu was available and I usually never refuse one of these. The remaining sauce with bits of ankimo and spring onions were good for drizzling over the torobutsu meshi.

Kinmedai was on the menu. We got a head grilled. Meat was delicious especially on the parts right at the base of the fins. Those were the chicken oyster or thigh equivalents on the kinmedai with dark meat. So delicious.

Revisiting Rumah Makan Minang

We've been wanting to come back to Rumah Makan Minang for a long time. It seemed that the wanting had being going on for the past nine years.

Rumah Makan Minang does serve brown rice. But whom are we kidding? We didn't come here for brown rice when the traditional nasi putih isn't broken. This stuff is tender and absorbs gravies well. Everything we ordered was good with the nasi putih.

Stir fried kang kong was okay. It's a dish that was what it was - mouthfuls of vegetable crunch flavoured by a little garlic and ikan bilis with just a bit of heat from the chillis. Not bad with rice.

Begedils here were awesomely peppery.

The gulai nanka, or curried jackfruit is much more tender than the ones from Minang House at Lucky Plaza. I'd pick this over the latter if I had to choose.

Very competent sambal goreng here. There was a particular sweetness perhaps which I couldn't put my finger to. But still addictively delicious especially with white rice.

Pretty decent ayam belado hijau. Wished the chicken were meatier though. The belado hijau itself was pretty salty so that's another solid reason for their nasi putih. I liked the flavour from the green chilli which oddly reminded me of a particular taste that can be found in green beans as well.

Spiced omelette. I never found out what was the proper name for these things. Not bad too. 

Their teh halia doesn't have much of that halia flavour so I'm sticking to the regular tarik drink the next time.

Another meal at Sin Hoi Sai

This was another late-ish dinner. While Sin Hoi Sai wouldn't exactly be what most people would categorize as "value for money", they were pretty consistent with the quality of their cze char and there're dishes here we like enough that we could revisit.

Had these fried prawns a couple of times. So far they've had the light batter crisp and dry which is how I like deep fried battering. Simple and pretty good eating which is also nice with their sambal belachan. A little pricey. 

Tried their boiled beef (肥牛) with fried garlic bits. The beef was fat laced and tender but for some reasons not beefy tasting at all. Not much flavouring from the fried garlic bits too so I'm not sure what to make of this. Will probably not order them again.

Their sambal petai for now and the foreseeable future is my favourite vegetable dish from them. Though I'm calling it a vegetable dish, it actually has minced pork.

Today's salted fish and minced meat tofu lacked that salted fish flavour that was more prominent the last time we had it. Hmmm....just as I was saying that they were consistent.

With art I choke

Artichoke just had their 9th anniversary some days back and had come up with a bunch of dishes to commemorate. Those items are - or should I say, were available for a short time on their menu. At least that's what they said. So we came over to try.

That's grilled halloumi, jackfruit, Thai basil and peanuts which felt like it was put together without much thought on if the flavours would synergise. It didn't taste bad. I just thought that the sum of its parts didn't exist and I was eating each item on its own.

We were particularly intrigued by something they called octopus donuts. 

It's a ball donut, sugar crusted and stuffed with octopus and chermoula. Interestingly tasty even though I couldn't detect any octopus. The stuffings tasted like spicy tomato sauce sardines from a can. And oddly enough, it worked at least for me, as a donut.

The other thing we had was their wagyu carpetbag kebab. Oysters wrapped in thin slices of wagyu in a pretty kickass oyster chowder. Tasty. I know Artichoke has always been about honest "dude food" and I'm clearly not in much of a position or experience to criticize their choice of ingredients as being poorly conceived, this was to me a poor use of the cow because it could have been any other decent quality beef and I wouldn't have been wiser.

Tonkatsu teishoku from Suju

I saw a neighbouring table order this previously and told myself I'd come back to try it. It was good. Dry crispy breading over a fat laced and moist rosu katsu. Even came dangerously close to enjoying their tonkatsu sauce. These guys could give Tonkatsu by Ma Maison a run for their money. 

While I have not had every teishoku in this country, I'm pretty sure that Suju has one of the best better ones. I'm glad that the oshinko is still their daikon. I hope this doesn't get swapped out.

Where Suju beats Tonkatsu by Ma Maison is the nama tamago. Tonkatsu doesn't have that.

Itadakimasu!