Selera Restaurant, Mackenzie Road

Was brought here (15 Mackenzie Road) by an old buddy who felt like duck rice. Halal one that is. I don't remember having eaten here before but I think I might have heard people in the past mention their curry puffs. Which we didn't get any of today.

Here's a serving for of mixed duck and chicken. Roasted - or fried if you wanted to be more accurate. Looked very rustic and didn't taste bad at all. Meat was reasonably tender. The duck skin was a little tough at parts, but the fried taste made up for it.

Obligatory fibre in the form of stir fried mixed vegetables which came with bits of squid, fish and prawns. Slices of fishcake too. A little gingery but I kinda liked it.

Here be the rice. Very generic and weak flavoured chicken rice but their limey chilli made up for it.

CH叉R, Jalan Besar

Some years back during the time when Ch叉r (363 Jalan Besar, tel : +65 68427759) started business, I was curious about the roasts they were doing. Never got to visit until a today after we were unsuccessfully trying to get to another shop. Then we stumbled upon them. Better late than never I suppose.

Their food ordering system felt out of place. There was no physical menu and we were asked to browse what they had via their website. We feedback to them that there are no prices indicated before they asked us to try using their delivery platform Oddle. Which Oddly didn't have everything on their regular menu.

Anyways......

Not impressed by their chicken and salted fish fried rice. I'm not sure if I even registered salted fish in the flavour. Rice was also more greasy than I generally like. Needs a bit more salt or fish sauce or whatever it was. What saved this was their chilli which was refreshingly zesty.

Duck was dry. Funny thing was, even their delivery menu compared that dryness to the desert. Not really sure what was the point there. Unlike most Cantonese roast, these didn't seem to have fat underneath the skin. Meat was tender for some parts. Wasn't bad though.

Ch叉r is known for the char siew. I had initially thought from pictures that I saw that it was the KL styled char siew but getting up close, these didn't look nor taste much like them. The dark exterior seemed to be more glaze than actual caramelization. Sweet and sticky with quite a bit of fat. Nice.

Roast pork was pretty good. The roast had a balanced proportion of layers between meat, fat and the crispy crackling. Didn't expect to taste rosemary in the meat though.

Props to them for having the option of kailan stir fried with fermented bean curd for their vegetables. 

Suju : The zuwaigani croquette teishoku and the oyster miso oil zuke

This was our first time at Suju after the lockdown was lifted. Can't say we weren't looking forward to it. After all these time with them, one of the take away is never to judge their food by appearances. They usually taste much better than they look and if they already look good, one should be prepared for a treat.

Their oyster miso oil zuke was one of those starters we've been wanting to try but never did until now. These were oysters marinated in miso and grapeseed oil. Texture was akin to rehydrated dried oysters if you get what I mean - with miso flavour. Umai!

Today's special was zuwaigani (snow crab) croquette teishoku. Those croquettes looked unassuming. They were well fried without excessive grease, very tender and was a flavour bomb on the inside. If I had to one phrase them - these were the fried versions of crab chowder. 

Nama tamago for the rice. Itadakimasu!

Li Xin Teochew Fishball Noodles comparatively

I mentioned wanting to come back here to compare fishballs and also previously verbosed though how I prefer to order he noodles at Li Xin. What I had somehow forgotten to mention from then was that the ultimate edition works better with the sliced chilli on the side that you can get with soy sauce. If you're a sliced chilli person that's game for a little heat that is. The texture of their mee pok is still great and if I were to be forced to make a choice, I would think Li Xin is a little better in this department compared to Ru Ji.

These fishballs from Li Xin definitely feel smaller than what they were in the past. #inflation Pretty sure it wasn't my imagination nor the Mandela effect. The flavour was still as delicious while the mouthfeel was tender with a light bounciness just like how I remembered it. Very similar to Ru Ji. The difference I could tell was that these here were more pock marked while the ones from Ru Ji looked smoother.

Sakuranbo mochi taiyaki from Mr Obanyaki

So you've made it this far, you deserve to know what I think about this limited edition mochi taiyaki from Mr Obanyaki that's stuffed with cherries and chocolate.

The fillings were fine. Creamy hot chocolate and sour cherries which weren't bad pairing at all. What didn't work for me was the mochi skin. It's a little too chewy. I prefer the regular taiyaki skin which I thought would have worked out better. But that's me.

Dim sum at Crystal Jade Golden Palace 12 years later...

What a coincidence! Crystal Jade Golden Palace was the second place in this month at Paragon where the last time we had visited was 12 years ago. The other was Akashi.

It occured to me as I was typing that this picture above will mark an era in the history of a time to come when we were graced plagued by Nurgle a pandemic and restaurants had to use markers to denote social spacing.

I was told that previously, we were served the kung fu tea (工夫茶) after we had placed our order. Today, we didn't get them until we asked.

Century egg porridge was served first. This was well done and creamy like how good congee is. 

Char siew sou was competently done. The pastry was light and flaky. I would have liked for it to be more buttery though.

Didn't like their scallop dumplings (帶子饺). We asked about coriander in the items we ordered and were told that there was none. I inquired specifically about these when they were served after seeing suspicious green bits and they apologised for forgetting that these dumplings had a little bit of them. They certainly didn't forget to not charge me for their forgetfulness though. There was more than a little bit of the coriander.

Even though these were scallop dumplings, there were only some small pieces of scallops on the top of the dumpling. The stuffings were prawn. And coriander.

Was recommended by a friend to try their Teochew styled pomfret porridge. Nice. The broth was savoury, flavoured with dried sole. 

Char siew was competently done. Have had better and worse ones so this kind fell in the between spectrum.

Har gow's pretty nice here. Liked that it wasn't small, the skin sufficiently thin and the prawns were chunky inside.

Not Imperial Treasure good but still pretty nice.

My fault for ordering this - deep fried salted egg prawn fritters in rice rolls. I deconstructed it after the first piece because it felt too greasy. Not much prawns inside considering the size of those fritters in rice rolls. *cues memory of rice rolls from Xin Cuisine*

This was double boiled morel soup in coconut. Nicely salted with a hint of sweetness, light flavour from the morels and coconut. Clear and not intense. Enjoyed it but won't order again kind of thing.

Fu pei quin (腐皮卷) was okay. Not memorable though.

Enjoyed their char siew bao. Skin was soft and fluffy enveloping that scalding meaty sweetness inside. Nicely done if I might say.

Braised chicken feet with black beans were pretty decent. Like a number of their other dishes, I get this feel that they're just okay and not exceptional.

Egg tarts are probably not a forte here. These were egg tarts with bird's nest. The crust was unsatisfying-ly bland with no aroma from a good bake nor butter. Kinda underwhelming.

I tend to compare Crystal Jade to Imperial Treasure because of their history. To be fair, a comparison for Golden Palace should be made with the Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine just to be a little more equal. You know what I think? I think that there's more finesse in the food and service standards at Imperial Treasure. 

Sushiro-ling rollin' rollin' rollin'

Back in Sushiro and experimenting with camera filters on the iPhone while wondering why all the pictures here have a blue tinge I cannot seem to quite remove.

Torched spear squid (yari ika). Tasted like regular squid. Light aburi flavour.

Today's ankimo gunka tasted not bad.

The broth in their hae mee has lost some intensity compared to the previous time we had it. Still a nice eat though.

Uni ramen still on the menu. Sweet and creamy just like the last time. Still surprised by how they captured the uni flavour in this.

Not too bad negitoro gunkan.

These large scallop nigiris are still nice.

There's a more voluminous ikura gunkan on menu now. While it wasn't quite as piled up as the pictures implied, it was a lot more than the regular one.

Torched mentaiko and cream cheese gunkan. Salty. I liked it.

Their big prawn nigiri is still good. It's a little smaller than the last time though. Luck of the draw I guess. After the order arrived, I saw another one sail by the conveyer belt that was larger.

Smallest anago on a sushi I've ever had. Looked sad.