Revisiting Jia Wang Cafe (佳旺)

As happenstance would have it, a consecutive sambal fried rice dinner. This time from Jia Wang Cafe. Since the last was just the day before, I had to compare. I thought the sambal flavour was pretty similar so it's a tie with that. Lao You Ji's rendition has little shrimps that this one doesn't but this one has ikan bilis. The char siew bits also seemed a lot finer here so one won't be getting much of texture from those here. On the whole, pretty good. Loved the molten yolked 荷包蛋. That's an add on.

The mui fan (烩饭) was a bore though. There's decently quality ingredients but those couldn't save it from the bland gravy. I guess this would be a measure of how their hor fun would taste like and we won't be getting those for sure. Hillman Restaurant still takes the cake for this dish for now.

Tried their black pepper sliced fish. Not a bad rendition if I might say. Pretty generous with the fish slices in spite of appearance and they did a savoury pepper sauce that I found agreeable and wasn't gloopy.

Revisiting Lao You Ji (老友記)

Tried Lao You Ji's sambal fried rice this time round. Not too bad methinks. There were bits of real char siew and little shrimps in it. Sambal had a bit of heat. 

We ordered their deep fried prawns (炸虾球) thinking it might be good. Was disappointed when they served the dish after seeing the horrifyingly thick batter. We ate the prawns after scraping those off. Some of the meat were tender while others were a little dried out. This put into perspective the type/quality of fried prawns which I've never given much thought to before and made me appreciate the rendition at Sin Hoi Sai so much more. This was a bad call.

That's steamed egg with chunks of century eggs and bits of salted egg yolk. A triple egg steamed egg dish if you would. For some reasons, I was thinking that this might be like the one at Uncle Sim but I guess it just wasn't. Didn't taste bad but we also couldn't find anything outstanding about it.

Revisiting Ting Heng Seafood Restaurant

Here's us back at Ting Heng Seafood to try more of their dishes. Before the food, I want to air some thoughts. They were out of some of the items on the menu which we only knew about when we asked. Would have been nice if they would inform us. No biggie.

What's worse was that they processed a dish which we had ordered where they didn't have all the ingredients. While the crowd they had to deal with might be a reason that they've forgotten, I expected better since these guys aren't new to the business. But maybe, it is because they aren't new that they're this way. Who knows?

End of rant.

This was supposed to be chicken and pig's liver in claypot. Until the dish was served and we realized that the livers weren't in and we asked that they admitted that they had run out of pig's livers. Not exactly an ingredient that I would expect an eatery to run out of barring poor planning. We were more disturbed by the fact that they never bothered informing us. We wouldn't have ordered this haphazardly chopped up boney chicken dish otherwise. Dish was garlic-ky, savoury and didn't taste bad. Just a lot of bones in the chicken.

Tried their steamed scallops and tofu. We've had something similar at Yuet Lai Shun in Hong Kong a couple years back. Yuet Lai Shun did it better. The scallops here were sweet and the tofu was quite nice but the sauce that made the dish had ginger which marred the experience for me. I only wanted the black bean sauce experience.

The one item I really liked this time was their Hokkien fried rice. It's similar to the one we've previously had at Tian Tian Seafood. This one had fish and kailan which the rendition at Tian Tian didn't. The sauce was much lesser but it had a more intense flavour. Gripe? This was a serving for two persons. Supposedly. $15. Kinda pricey and portions were kinda small for two.

The Hokkien fried rice was good with their cut chilli's though.

Revisiting Jing Hua Xiao Chi (京华小吃)

It's been years since we were last here at Jing Hua Xiao Chi (京华小吃). We're glad to find out that their 锅贴 were still delicious and of a standard above many.

They've introduced cheese and rosemary 锅贴 into the menu. These were actually quite nice. One can definitely taste both the ingredients in the pot stickers which didn't overshadow the stuffings. I'll put these under the same class as their regular 锅贴.

I remember liking their blanched bean sprouts in minced meat sauce. While I'm sure the taste hasn't changed, they didn't seem to be as good anymore. It's me, not them

They have an edible fried rice. Not something they're good or even decent at. While the they have ingredients like lup cheong/or was it bak kwa and edamame which many fried rice don't, the flavour was unimpressively bland. Didn't even look forward to finishing it.

Tried their spicy and sour noodles which was their soup thrown together with noodles. It's neither very spicy nor sour until one has zhng-ed it up with extra chilli oil, vinegar and pepper. Then the soup becomes delicious. Not a fan of their soft noodles.

Personal Best in jalapeno cheese bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Did not realize until writing this that it's been almost a year since I was last at this Icon Village outpost of Two Men Bagel House. Menu has gotten a bit of a revamp if my memory serves. This was their Personal Best - featuring spam, crunchy peanut butter, sunny side up and hash brown on jalapeno cheese bagel. I added cheese.

Here I was thinking that their bagels have been shrinking from the past couple of visits. This bagel was hefty and pretty filling. A mess to eat because the fillings were sliding out halfway but a delicious mess nonetheless. Previous delicious messes here (一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十 十一).

Nasi padang from the Malay stall at Foodclique @ Jurong East

Local nasi padang lunch from the Malay stall at Foodclique at Jurong East (132 Jurong Gateway Road). Not bad. Their paru was in smaller bits compared to the larger pieces commonly served which gave it lots more flavour from the spices used to cook them. There was much delicious spicy savoury on my rice from the combination of the gravy from their ayam lemak, sambal belachan and the sweet chilli from the sambal telur.  

75 Ah Balling Peanut Soup, Chinatown Food Centre

This (#02-113 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) was a branch of the stall at Golden Mile Food Centre. We got the almond soup today with their peanut filled glutinous rice balls. Didn't think there was much of a difference between the Golden Mile stall and this one. Both seemed to be equally good.

Disappointing iSteaks at Suntec

We've had iSteaks' capped loin of lamb a couple of times at Star Vista. They've so far never disappointed. Tried them at Suntec for the first time. The minimal doneness they do is medium. This was much less than medium. Quality control as one can see, is poor. What with only four outlets to manage? No, we did not complain or ask for a refund or even waste our time on a replacement. Won't be coming back.

Previously we've tried their NZ Silver Fern ribeye at Star Vista as well. Today we ordered the Reserve cut which presumably is of a better quality somehow. Look at the medium rare they did. Serious problem with the cooking because this looked like medium raw to me. Only the exterior was cooked so the logical deduction would be that they threw frozen meat into the grill that wasn't properly thawed and wouldn't cook on the inside while the exterior charred. I wouldn't waste more money on this place.

The nicest thing we had was their tea with milk. Look, kaleidoscopic froth!

Even more chicken rice from Mat Noh & Rose

Has been a while since we last ate at Mat Noh & Rose. Prices seem to have gone up. This order of fried chicken thigh with crunchy skin and rice was $7.

The quality of their fried birds and crunchy fried chicken skin were still good though.

I did not even recall that they used basmati rice for their chicken rice. Lower glycemic index eh? Still delicious also. Ditto for their pandan-y chicken soup.

Revisiting Fei Ye Ye Food Tradition (肥爷爷)

I've been wanting to come back and try something from Fei Ye Ye but have never gotten myself back in Chinatown Food Centre early enough. We did today. Since I wasn't a fan of their sui gao/shui jiao (水饺), I decided to try some 凤爪 with char siew. The braised chicken claws were passable. We've had better from other places. Char siew slices were kinda dry. Which meant that there wasn't any of their ingredients in particular that I've tried were anything that I could look forward to. Maybe they aren't worth the time in the queue considering that there's an overwhelming plethora of other options in Chinatown.

Still the better mee pok at Whampoa Makan Place

This bowl from Xing Heng Feng Guo Tiao Tan (新恆豐粿條攤) happened shortly after the bowl from Matasoh because I couldn't finish up that bowl and waste valuable stomach space knowing that I could have had this instead. A clear reminder of which is the better mee pok in these parts.

Tastier chilli sauce, fried chunks of pork lard and noodles with a better texture. This was hands down the better mee pok.

For a dollar and fifty cents less as well, I also thought the ingredients that came this bowl of noodles were a better deal. Delicious soup with the flavour of fried sole fish and wanton that's flavoured with the same.

Matasoh Fishball & Meatball Mincemeat Noodle, Whampoa Makan Place

Came across this stall (#01-54 Whampoa Makan Place, 90 Whampoa Drive) and got curious enough try their signature Soh Special bowl. While waiting in the queue, I couldn't help but get caught in the mind numbing video the stall was playing. By someone/somethings call Singapore Foodie that featured the stall and extolling the qualities of their bowl of noodles - including the onsen egg. When I finally got my bowl, the first thing that actually came to mind was local soft boiled egg rather then onsen tamago.

Not very impressed with the bowl. It was average at best. Chilli was okay but not outstanding that they could differentiate themselves. Mee pok was okay but many mee poks out there are okay. Fishballs weren't bad but it's not exactly so good that I'll be looking forward to coming back. There are too many good eats at Whampoa to even remotely consider coming back for this.

 

Revisiting Gin Khao

It's been almost 5 years since we first/last ate at Gin Khao. The vibe of the restaurant seemed to have changed. To something a little more subdued. Quiet for a week night with what little energy left that hasn't been siphoned off by the neighbouring hotpot restaurants. Felt that way.

Wanted to try new dishes but couldn't resist getting the tom kha gai which I remembered liking from the previous time. Thankfully, it was still good with the clarity from the tanginess and coconut milk. 

Tried their prawn cakes. They were dryer than the recent ones we've had from Soi Thai Soi Nice and also less springy in texture. But the flavour from the minced bits of prawns were a bit more intense. Soi Thai Soi Nice's prawn cakes tasted a little more mousse-y. 

We wanted to order their kang kong with fermented beans. They informed us they ran out of kang kong and offered to use kailan instead. It looked like oyster sauce kailan when it was served. We feedback and they said they would redo. The replacement serving looked similar. Turns out that it wasn't a fermented bean paste or sauce. Just a few fermented beans. Didn't have much of those flavour. Chilli padi made it good though.

Not a bad stir fried kailan to be fair. The dish just was not what we were thinking of. Pretty good eating with rice that's been ladled over with the broth from the tom kha gai.

Pretty sure this longan sweet and sour pork wasn't Thai. That's right - it's longan and not lychee. The longans were not part of the stir fry process. We knew because the pork was arm and the longans were chilled. The pork was nice though. Nicely deep fried before stir frying and the sauce reminded me of sweet and sour pork from days gone by.

Shake Shack(les)

We were heading down Neil Road on the way to someplace else and noticed that there wasn't a queue when we passed by Shake Shack. The fastest change of minds took place.

So this happened.

Tried their new Chick'n Bites. Kinda like McNuggets but made from whole chicken meat chunks rather than reconstituted ones. All-natural, antibiotic-free whole muscle, sous-vide, hand breaded and prepared on order...blah blah blah. Pretty tender and not bad tasting. A bit expensive though.

There's currently a mandarin orange shake on the menu. Possibly a CNY thingy. The cream even had some shaven orange zest. Shake managed to capture some of that orange flavour but none of the citrus. That's how it tasted. 

Their Shackburger is still reliable. Maybe not for everyone but I like it.