PS. Cafe, Great World

It's not news but PS. Cafe (#01-555 Great World, 1 Kim Seng Promenade) has an outpost at Great World. There's a "Spice Route" section in the menu here that the other branches don't seem to have.

I've seen their crab tart around for a long time. Finally tried it. Menu said buttery short crust but it didn't taste very buttery to me. The tart was stuffed with crab meat but those tasted like something out of a can/jar. The texture was very minced and there were no chunks. It was packed with crab though.

Tried the lamb pilaf pie from the Spice Route section of the menu. Nice puff pastry cover over rice. I liked the toasted seeds on them. Underneath were some lamb, rice and cauliflower. A third of it might have been cauliflower. The gravy had a lot of tang but not much heat - kinda like a not so spicy vindaloo. It's not bad per se but it wasn't impressive.

Finished with a banana cake with butterscotch. Liked that it wasn't too sweet.

Revisiting Ponggol Nasi Lemak

I've been looking forward to coming back here after the last time because I suppose this is likely to be the closest and convenient option to the impossible elusive "perfect" nasi lemak. Just my opinion. It's almost the same stuff as I got previously topped up with an additional fried chicken wing and extra rice. How do these guys get the batter on the wings so crunchy?

Brothers Ramen, International Plaza

I've known about Brothers Ramen (#01-20 International Plaza, 10 Anson Road) for a few years but haven't gotten a chance to visit them until now. Incidentally, their ability to endure marks them as serious survivors in our unforgiving F&B scene. Anyways, these guys are known for their tori paitan ramen.

Tried their supermen - the bowl that has ajitama, sous vide chicken charshu, pork charshu, and wanton. Seems that they're not serving wanton today and they were replaced by menma. Egg's not bad, chicken is not bad but I found their charshu to be a little lean. More fatty would have given the texture more dimension, made it more pleasing and also gotten them better flavour.

There wasn't any option for the hardness of the noodles that I could see so I'm guessing it's not a a choice they're offering. The default doneness was also okay. Liked that it wasn't too soft but I would have preferred harder with a bit more bite. Their creamy paitan broth was likeable - predominantly chicken flavour. 

The item that I had been eyeing with interest was their dry megamen. Megamen being their take on Jiro-styled ramen. The dry one has only a little broth. Opted for spicy as well. That chunky piece of braised pork belly was tender and flavourful if anyone was wondering.

Very solid and enjoyable bowl. Loved the textures from the cabbage, bean sprouts and chewy noodles. Garlic and whatever gave heat in the spicy option kept it interesting. It was almost reminiscent of certain characteristics of a bowl of lor mee with the starchy sauce broken down. I'd come back for this again. 

Supper from Jalan Tua Kong Ya Lim Mee Pok

I've heard of the Jalan Tua Kong mee pok for years but have never gotten the story of their branding straight. Previously I've had a bowl from Original Jalan Tua Kong 132 at 6th Avenue. Wasn't impressed. There's another Jalan Tua Kong Lau Lim around Bedok and there's also a Ah Lim Jalan Tua Kong Mee Pok at Joo Chiat. No idea which one of them is the original or the better or if there are even more of them around. 

This one was from Telok Blangah. It was one of those options available close to midnight.

Not impressed too. While obvious as it may be, tar pow-ing mee pok isn't the best of ideas since they tend to harden and clump together. Texture fails at this point. The flavour was also lacking. Not getting the pork lard, chilli was barely passable and I couldn't taste any vinegar. I did opt for chilli and vinegar in case anyone was wondering. Here's a first and last.

A bacon burger with mayo, sauteed onions and mushrooms from Five Guys

I've been curious as to how the burgers at Five Guys would taste like without cheese because I haven't had one. This was it. Just like how I was curious previously about how Shake Shack burgers would fare without cheese. Aside from a getting a cleaner mouthfeel with the meat, I don't think I liked it better. So it's gonna be back to cheese burgers again in the future.

Geylang Lorong 29 Charcoal Fried Hokkien Mee & Mao Shan Wang

I'm generally not big on Hokkien mee. Nothing against the local and well loved plate of seafood stock-ed stir fried noodles, I'm just not majorly into them. But easily off my head, I'd rate Nam Sing and Serangoon Gardens Fried Prawn Noodle as more enjoyable eats. Hmmm. Hawkerman comes to mind.

Anyways, I pulled the trigger after reading some off social media. Caveat lector. For something that had been supposedly charcoal fried, I'm not getting any smoky wok hei. The stock for the noodles had the prerequisite crustacean sweetness but I didn't think it was anything that would be wowing anybody for $35. Lobster meat was hard, lacked the subtle sweetness and basically tasted like a big meaty prawn. Not that it tasted bad but it's not what I was hoping to get out of lobster.

Where's the lard?!

The mao shan wang came into picture because these guys apparently are taking orders for them. I paid $29 for a box. It wasn't much - half a durian at best. So it'd be almost $60 for a whole fruit which I felt was expensive in today's durian climate. The durians were very chilled. It's good msw if anyone was wondering. Just a little too little for what it cost.

And the first PCB meal out is......

PCB means differently to different people. It may abbreviate more than a couple of things to some. In recent months, it's gotten itself another meaning. But let's not get wayward here......

I've been resisting getting ramen while eating at home because I don't think they survive delivery well. But I hadn't anticipated that the first eat out after these couple of months would be at Keisuke's Kamo Soba. The miso bowl won. Love the balance of miso and duck in the broth. Strangely, I seem to recall it being nutty/peanut buttery but this wasn't it. Very odd. This time the first imprint from the broth was aka miso. I'm hoping this isn't the Mandela effect at play... 

Jew Kit

Not Jew kid. We weren't quite done with eating at home yet because too many reasons to run through. We ordered from Jew Kit (105 Killiney Rd) - a local eatery that added to the list of restaurants that do chicken rice and cze char.

Pretty impressed with the quality of their boiled/steamed chicken (白鸡). We ordered a half chicken which came chilled with a thin layer of jelly beneath the skin. Chicken was respectably slurp off the bone tender. So now we know where else to get some nice chicken rice in town. 

The oil rice (油饭) or what many usually refer to as chicken rice wasn't heavily flavoured. There were some. Not as nuanced as I generally prefer. Not much to remember by on its own. But it paired very nicely with their chilli which introduced a synergy to the flavours. I'm going to leave it at that.

I was curious about their special pineapple steamed fish - intrigued mostly by how it looked on the menu and imagining the sweet pineapple sauce with diced bits of the fruit over the tender steamed fish.

This was the real Slim Shady. Not so much pineapple bits but the sauce was pulpy. Must have been made with a lot of pineapples. When we opened the packaging, there was a waft of something that I thought might have been tamarind.

Sauce had a fruity sweetness, was tangy and had a nice warmth from the chilli. What I liked most about it was the flavour of pineapple that it captured. Very appetizing stuff that I found addictive. Fish was good quality and tender. 

So this dish looked little like the picture on the menu, didn't taste like what I imagined from that but turned out to be very delicious.

We washed it down with some sour plum Coke.

Sausage McMuffin with egg, extra sausage, ham and grape jelly. From myyyy.......

So, I added on a couple of stuff. Not so much different from the stack that I've had previously except that this has ham and that had "chicken bacon". Obviously the muffin didn't come with the grape jelly so I had to help myself from their squeeze packets. I've always found the grape jelly to be quite sweet but having them in this had those sweet grape-y flavours muted. This brought into perspective how much salt flavour there was in between the muffin that drowned out the grape jelly. One evil triumphing over another so to speak.

Another supper of pork chop fried rice from Tsui Wah

As I've previously mentioned, these guys scored because service runs late. Managed to snag an order via Grab shortly before midnight. I noticed the packaging for their delivery has changed....improved somewhat. I got a much larger piece of pork chop compared to the last time too.

Double downing the Double Down

Or is that doubling down the Double Down? Anyways, KFC has a limited time promotion for a 1 for 1 Mozzarella Zinger Double Down. $7.50 for 2 of those? I thought it was a good enough deal to give them a go since I've never tried any of their previous iterations.

It's obvious that their 11 secret herbs and spices are no longer important these days since the tomato basil sauce which I didn't like masked most of the flavour coming from the chicken. The fried mozzarella cheese in between the fried chicken tasted a little....unnatural. Chicken was crunchy and had a little heat. This stuff isn't doing favours for anyone's heart but at least I've tried it.

Cicheti at home

It's been a long while since we were last at Cicheti. 

We ordered a small burrata. Nothing unexpected or out of this world but the vinegar, onion marmalade and pesto brought it all together. 

We tried their pizza with sopressata and spicy honey. Very nice. I liked how the tomato wasn't overly tart. Loved the porcine quality in the dried meat and how the mild burn from the honey paired nicely with them and the garlic. 

Super Mama noodle from Noodle Thai Thai Kitchen

This was the Super Mama noodle with jumbo river prawns from Noodle Thai Thai Kitchen with a side of their green mango salad. From the name, we were expecting the noodles to be the Mama branded instant noodles. I'm not sure they were in retrospect since the flavour didn't seem as toasty. Asked for extra peanuts in the salad like the last time we were there but there weren't any at all. 

Even though we had portioned up to include additional clams and shrimps, portions were still kinda small. Looked pretty much like their picture on their menu except for the river prawns which were much smaller. But since they were only charging and addition $6 for additional 2 prawns, I shouldn't be expecting too much.

What we liked about it was that the tom yum broth was addictive in it's own tamarind-y way though.

A breakfast of bread, bacon and eggs. And fruits

Another brekkie whipped up at home like the last time and the one before. We buttered and pan fried the Gardenia Hokkaido milk bread this time. So good.

Rawon standard dulang from Mizzy's Corner Nasi Lemak

We've never tried Mizzy's Corner (2 Changi Village Road) before since it was perpetually out of the way for us down at Changi Village Hawker Centre. The stall is primarily known for their nasi lemak. Thanks to the "circuit breaker", unprecedented eateries like them have hitched up their skirts and gotten themselves onboard the online order and delivery wagon. Which was possibly the only reason why we had this opportunity. 

This was their rawon standard dulang - the last word I think refers to tray. There was another premium version which featured beef rendang but I thought we didn't need it since this basic platter already featured a number of dishes we liked. 

Very enjoyable. Many of the items that were included in the platter were made to go well with rice. From the sambal goreng to the shrimpy sambal belachan they provided to the rawon gravy. I thought the variety of food they included was pretty good. There was fried tempeh, paru, begedil and sambal sotong. So savoury and lemak.

boCHINche at home

First time ordering from boCHINche. Not that we're regulars. Ohhh no. Not at all.

This was their ajo blanco, a sort of "white gazpacho" made with almonds. There's some grapes and sliced apples in there too. Texture was mealy/chalky and flavour was a little tart. Didn't dislike it but I don't think I'm a fan. What disappointed me about the soup was the smoked almonds it came with. Didn't taste smoky and those almonds were just beginning to turn rancid. #disappointed

We ordered one sweet corn empanada to try because we hadn't any idea if it would be good and I remember being not too impressed with the last empanada we had from them. This was good. Creamy fillings that wasn't excessively so with the flavour and sweetness from the kernels of corn. I wouldn't mind getting these again. 

Their osso buco pappardelle was nice. Rich and savoury wine flavour bolstered by meatiness which coated the noodles. But wait. Those candied walnuts that were supposed to come along - why even bother when there's not enough of them to register flavour in this already rich tasting pasta? Couldn't even get any texture since they were so crushed up and the amount was a pittance.

I was hoping that those walnuts would have added a little something different. #disappointed

Another round with Hajah Maimunah

Hajah Maimunah disappeared for a while from Oddle recently. Got me a little worried since we wanted to get a bunch of other stuff that we enjoyed having from then.

And that I couldn't get passed the fried fish roe that I missed.

You know it.

Crispy savoury shell around the piscine hunk of sandy textured roe.

Sambal goreng was generally a failsafe with rice. This one seemed to taste a little different from the last time we ordered it though. Still delicious.

Missed the paru belado the last time round so there they are. The belado packed a moderate heat that was savoury with hint of bitter. Paired nicely with the tender chunks of chewy spiced beef lungs which also paired nicely with their nasi putih.

Ordered their opor nangka for the delicious lemak gravy. On top of that, we still had some of the leftover serunding in the fridge from the last time we ordered to break out for this. Gravy + shredded coconut = stuffed face with rice.