Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill, Tanglin Place

I've seen Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill (#B1-01 Tanglin Place, 91 Tanglin Road, tel : +65 6738 2800) around for years. Make that decades. Have never walked in till today. As much as they looked retro-American, these guys were originally from Hong Kong. Didn't know that until recently.

We didn't get any complimentary basket of bread. Didn't even get crackers for the clam chowder. Cost cutting certainly has taken its toll on hospitality. Anyways, clam chowder tasted as retro as the restaurant itself. Creamy, starchy with sparse bits of clams and bacon. I wouldn't say that it's bad but I also probably wouldn't order them again.

Ordered a cheese burger with blue cheese. Guess what's wrong with the picture?

To their credit, they recovered themselves by offering the blue cheese which I did not refuse.

I added it into the burger and all was good. Think that's a Danish blue that they used. This turned out to be very similar to the bistro burger from Brewerkz. I enjoyed it.

Made the mistake of thinking that their 10oz US ribeye was a decent deal for under $50. The menu never specified USDA Prime. While I may not be an expert at telling, I knew it wasn't. 

The steak was flaccid and full of sinews. I didn't think it was worth even half of what they charged. This was shockingly low quality which spoke volumes about how little the restaurant's reputation mattered these days because it probably no longer did.

Was thinking that I'll never come back, but I just might for that blue cheese burger.

Springleaf Prata Place, Safra Yishun

Springleaf Prata has an outpost inside Safra Yishun (60 Yishun Ave 4). We came by for prata seeing that it had been a long while since we've had anything from them.

I wanted to get something that wasn't available elsewhere. Ended up getting their old 2012 Ultimate Hawkerfest murtabak with Mozzarella cheese, tandoori chicken and portobello mushrooms because their later Hawkerfest pratas looked like bad ideas.

The standards of their signature prata appeared to have declined. It looked and tasted much better when I first had it. Couldn't taste the smokiness from the tandoori chicken. 

Tried their banana egg prata. I kinda enjoyed this.  Pisang raja and egg in their prata - good with fish curry or sugar. Speaking of which, I might have gotten more sensitive to how their pratas were done. Springleaf's method tasted like the pastry was shallow fried than griddled on a hot pan. A little too greasy for my preferences these days. 

OLD WORLD Bakuteh (老世界肉骨茶), Yishun

Heard about the fried porridge from Old World Bakuteh (Hiap Hoe Eating House, #01-108, 747 Yishun Street 72) so we grabbed the first opportunity we needed to be in the vicinity to visit their stall.

It was delicious. My mixed pork innards porridge was fried on order and done so in very short order. I had mine on the tray a couple of minutes or so after the order. There's a nice smoky wok hei along with the aroma of hae bi (dried shrimps) and fried shallots. Not the factory variety mind you, these were shallots that were made in house. There were chunks of tripe, liver, kidney, intestines, sliced pork and little cubes of tofu puffs in there. Not as viscous or complex as the one from Dynasty Ipoh but I'd still come back just for this.

They served pretty generously portioned pork ribs. For $6, we got four meaty ribs that were so tender that the bone slid of the meat when I tried to pick them up. I liked that there was a mixture of fat and meat. The peppered garlic-ky broth was less intense than I normally prefer but it's not a deal breaker.

Braised tau kee was decent. I liked it.

Ramen Kiou, &JOY Dining Hall @ Great World

I've been wanting to come back to &JOY at Great World to try Ramen Kiou. Don't know much about them except that they're from Osaka. After some "research" I also came upon the realization that most of the media event bloggers are equally clueless.

Was largely drawn to the tomato cheese ramen because I was curious about the tomato broth. I got a bowl with extra cheese. The flavour was a sweet tanginess from the tomatoes coupled with a cheesy rich viscosity and aroma from basil. Not bad.

Their tonkotsu looked nice so we got a deluxe bowl of their shoyu tonkotsu ramen. Broth was milky and robust with that porcine punch. This was like Bari-Uma with with lesser shoyu. Pretty enjoyable. In fact, I thought better of this than my last experience with Ikkousha. 

Eggs were not marinated in shoyu. Charshu was fatty and so tender they were breaking apart when we picked them up with chopsticks. Had a nice smokey flavour from the pronounced caramelization which I thought also imparted a faint bit of the smokiness into the broth.

And for dessert, their ebi chahan. Good stuff under the radar here. The first thing that got me was the aroma from the dried sakura ebi. But oddly when I put my nose up close for a whiff, I couldn't smell it anymore. Anyways, this was filled with the shredded bits of their charshu which imparted its brand of flavour into the fried rice as well. That and the sakura ebi. I recommend having this with the takana they provide. 

Criticism? Those little shrimps that looked/tasted "processed".

Yuan Cheng Wai (源成威), Boon Tiong Road

Came across this stall at the Food Paradise coffeeshop at Tiong Bahru (11A Boon Tiong Road) by happenstance. Chance paved my way to them over the other roasted meat stall because the other one had a queue and this one didn't and also didn't look too bad.

I didn't dislike it. There was relatively tender soya sauce chicken. Decent stuff though I don't think they're in the same leagues as the ones I've had in Chinatown market food centre (一, 二, 三). One of my yardsticks is "slurp off the bone" tenderness which the chook didn't quite meet. Liked that their gravy wasn't starchy though. Char siew was edible and unmemorable. What impressed me were both the red chilli sauce and sambal. The former had a bit of heat and a nice hit of lime like chicken rice chilli while the latter was robustly flavoured with ikan bilis. Delicious chillis.

Sin Song Kee Teochew Fishball Noodle, Holland Drive

Haven't been here for a while so we stumbled upon Sin Song Kee Teochew Fishball Noodle (Chang Chen Mee Wah Coffeeshop, 40 Holland Drive) right in the spot where Sin Kee used to be. Looked like they've opened up recently. I've never heard of them but apparently they've been around, moved around and are known for their handmade fishballs and fish dumplings.

I thought they were okay-ish. Didn't taste bad but I also didn't think they were special that I'd scramble back for more anytime soon. Would have liked them better if the mee pok hadn't clumped up together. Couldn't get much out of the chilli so maybe I should be asking for more if I ever come back. The fish dumplings were nice though.

Syohachi Wagyu Hamburg, One Raffles Place

Enough has been written about Syohachi Wagyu Hamburg (#01-01 One Raffles Place, 1 Raffles Place tel : +65 6223 0755) - the newly opened casual hamburg restaurant by Syohachi Yakiniku from Hong Kong, so I won't parrot. We came over early for breakfast to take advantage of the 50% discount over the weekend. While the queue to order was a little less than 10 minutes of wait time, waiting to collect took over 45 minutes.

I liked it as a sandwich. What pushed the right buttons for me were the generous buttering on the pan fried toast and the melted cheese (this was added on by the way). Those became pretty much most of the flavour in the toasties. The wagyu patties were fully cooked, very tender and had flavours drowned out by the other ingredients. I'm just saying that this wasn't the best use of the meat or configuration for a sandwich if the flavour of the beef were to be showcased. And of course, there's the overcooking......

HK Mong Kok Kui Ji Kitchen, Chinatown Food Centre

We ate at this cze char stall (#02-217 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) once many years ago and remembered liking the food. Have been wanting to come back again over those years and never happened until now.

One of the dishes we remembered liking from the previous visit to HK Mong Kok Kui Ji Kitchen was their fu rong dan (芙蓉蛋). The omelette looked different today. Used to be more voluminous and had onions. This one didn't and was much flatter. Didn't taste bad though. Those cubes of char siew were still there.

The other dish we recalled liking was their steamed chicken with black fungus. It used to also have golden needle mushroom/enokitake (金针菇) and red dates which sweetened the dish. These ingredients were no longer there so the flavour had changed. Wasn't bad steamed chicken, just not mention worthy anymore like the old rendition they did.

Ordered steamed fish head with fermented black bean sauce and chilli. Awesome. Loved those black beans and chilli on rice. The steamed fish from this stall is as good as any of the competitors in the vicinity.

Zazz Pizza, Short Street

We've been wanting to come down to Zazz Pizza (1A Short Street, tel : +65 8199 9909) for a while and we're glad it finally happened.

It seemed that burrata is the thing that many people were ordering. We got a platter which featured some usual suspects thrown together. I thought their prosciutto di Parma was good.

We only had room for one pizza so we went with their Contadina which was basically a pizza bianca with four cheeses, some red bell peppers and salami. Nice. Liked it. Liked that the red bell peppers were sweet and didn't come on strong. My only gripe was that I couldn't taste the Gorgonzola. But otherwise it was delicious. Zazz has officially gotten itself, in my books, into the same league as people like Cicheti, Trattoria Pizzeria Logic and Luka.

Impressed by their saffron cream fettuccine with prawns and scallops. Sauce was delicious - a crustacean-y prawn flavour infused with garlic and saffron. Seafood was sweet. Enjoyed the bite on the pasta. The plate tasted better than it looked.

Ding Ji Wanton Noodle (鼎记云吞面), Tangs Market

So the wanton mee stall at Tangs Market has a name which I had previously never noticed. Their dry noodle came in a bit of soup. Wasn't what I had expected. Noodles not bad. Wantons were nothing to write home about. In this aspect, this stall was similar to Fei Ye Ye and Guang Li - the other wanton mee stalls with boring wantons but had noodles good enough that kept them in their game. 

Shake Shack, Liat Towers

This is Shake Shack's third outlet (#01-01 Liat Towers, 541 Orchard Road). For an organization that's hyped itself to an international phenomenon, they sure were careless with ground operations. But wait - maybe their success is the reason. I was brusquely referred to the ordering kiosk by someone who appeared to be in charge, left alone at a point which required verification that I couldn't perform and was subsequently advised to make a selection which was not processed the way the kiosk optioned. 

Order took more than 20 minutes. In this COVID-19 crowd climate, that's poor performance for fast food. To their credit, they recovered by correcting the erroneous order created by their system adequately.

Experience aside, didn't think much of their ShackMeister burger. That's a double. Minus sauce because someone told me the sauce would have drowned everything out with the cheese. Someone was right. Couldn't taste much of those supposedly ShackMeister ale marinated shallots. It's not entirely missing, just not there much because the meat and the cheese dominated the flavour. Now I know.

The autumn katsu from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison is back

The autumn special featuring kurobuta with mushrooms on daikon oroshi with truffle oil and shiro dashi is back for the season.

Divine Chicken Pot (好滋味鸡公煲), Food Republic @ Wisma Atria

Noticed this stall (#04-02 Wisma Atria, 435 Orchard Road) the last time we were here at this Food Republic and told ourselves we would give them a try the next time. While the name says chicken, they also do some beef and pork for their hot pot. And dishes on the side too. The thing they are known for and what most people order are their spicy hot pots.

This one's chicken with instant noodles. 小辣. Enough heat to make us sweat a little but not overwhelming so that there's annoying burn on the lips and mutes the flavour of everything else. It's not bad. Enjoyed the savoury gravy which were infused with heat from the chillis. The chunks of chicken meat were tender as well. We'll customize the ingredients the next time.

Tsukemen from Keisuke Kani King

It's been a while since the last time. I didn't recall a tsukemen on the menu then but there's one now which is what I came for.

The dipping broth was disappointing. Didn't even pack the punch that their regular thick soup does. Tsukemen broth tends to be thicker than their regular counterparts but this seemed not to be the case.

The regular thick broth was good enough to finish. Good as I remembered it.

Gyozas were okay. These has skins that reminded me of Chinese fried guo tie. Don't mind eating them again.