Pin Sheng Teochew Bak Chor Mee (品盛潮州肉脞面), Eng Hoon Street

Out back behind Chapter 55 along Tiong Poh Road to Eng Hoon Street is Pin Shen Teochew Bak Chor Mee (#01-46, 56 Eng Hoon Street, tel : +65 8833 2282) - housed within the same coffee shop as a certain Tiong Bahru Yong Tau Hu stall

I've passed them by a number of times over the past year and have been wanting to give them a try. Saw that they have a tom yam bowl which looked intriguing. I ordered one and was intently observing the assembly of the bowl until it was plopped onto the tray and I was arrested by a “要小柑橘吗?”

小柑橘 refers to calamansi. A common lime variety found in this parts. All that was needed was a squeeze and a drizzle over the mee kia - one that had a moderate burn from the heat, was lime-y and lemon grassy from an enjoyable savoury tom yam broth. There was also a large fish dumpling among the toppings they had in the bowl. Not so much minced pork though. But I will come back for this.

Tsukemen from Ippudo

Ippudo has tsukemen on their menu for this month. From what I gathered, it's available only at their shops along Mohd Sultan and in MBS.  The tsukemen is apparently a Singapore exclusive. I was intrigued.

Those thick chewy whole grain noodles and charshu were as they appeared. Competent.

Hence the item that made or broke the tsukemen for me would be the dipping broth. This one was not viscous and punchy as say Tonkotsu Ikkyu, Sanpoutei or Tetsu (formerly at Ramen Champion). If we were comparing only strength of flavour, the one Keisuke's Kamo Soba also hit harder.

There was a pronounced bonito flavour from the gyokai broth, a nice sharpness from diced onions and bits of fats. But it was too thin to cling much onto the noodles. Not thick enough that I could still drink it like soup - in fact, I had imagined the bonito tonkotsu bowl at Ikkousha to be somewhat like this. 

Putien and the 2021 Yellow Croaker Festival

It's the Yellow Croaker Festival at Putien. I gather that these "festivals" occur to showcase specific ingredients that are in season. Like the oyster or seaweed ones that they've done. The yellow croaker has always been on their menu though. It's just more variety of dishes that they've done with the fish.

But first, their stir fried yam with sugar and fish sauce. First because it was the first dish that made it to our table. So addictive.

They've a red mushroom seafood lor mee which we've never seen on the menu before. There might have been a seafood lor mee previously but not one with red mushrooms. Which rendered the broth pink. From what I've read, these mushrooms are gathered from deep within the forests of the Wuyi Mountains in the Fujian province. Harvesting them isn't a walk in the park. 

They have a pleasant woodsy mushroom flavour which I find less intrusive than regular Chinese dried mushrooms. Don't know how much flavour they contributed to the lor but that lor was delicious from the seafood and sweetness from the cabbage.

One of the dishes from the festival was kailan stir fried with salted yellow croaker. It's okay. Not as impressive as the previous two or the next dish. Some of those kailan were a little fibrous. Which I didn't expect because they usually put more care into the ingredients. 

Another festival dish was their yellow croaker fillet soup. Soup was tangy, I couldn't tell if that came from tomatoes or pickled vegetables. Meat from the fish was a little too soft for my liking. Perhaps deep frying works better for me with this fish because of their texture.

Otah toast from Toast Box

We were here to get coffee and saw this on the menu. This otah sandwich/toast thingy was not bad at all. I attribute it to the otah they used which packed sufficient flavour and just enough heat to go with the crunch of those cucumbers. 

Another luxed up bowl of Myojo Char Mee

It's my favourite Myojo char mee again. Those two teardrop shaped fish paste things are fish balls filled with fish roe - frozen from supermarket. Lots of shredded lettuce, a couple of molten yolk-ed sunny side ups and ngoh hiong from a secret location somewhere central of this sunny island.

Li Xing Nasi Lemak, Amoy Street Food Centre

This Chinese nasi lemak stall (#02-80 Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road) is right next door to Yuan Chun's lor mee. Pretty old school style where one gets to pick their choice of greasy fried/stir fried ingredients to go with the coconut rice. The reason why I've never noticed them before was because these guys are only open for the first half of the day and only on weekdays.

Their rice had a pleasant coconut flavour which I liked. The rest of the toppings were so so from what I've tried. Ikan bilis and peanuts were the sweet and salty kind with just a bit of heat. Sambal was way too sweet for me - good thing I like the rice enough to eat them on their own.

Habib's Power Mee Stall, ABC Brickworks Food Centre

I was drawn to Habib's Power Mee Stall (#01-8 ABC Brickworks Food Centre, 6 Jalan Bukit Merah) because I saw that there was the option for lamb tongue for their soup kambing. The tongue was sadly unavailable today when I ordered so I ended up with just lamb ribs. Which were very decent slip off the bone tender with a good amount of fat for flavour. The soup's consistency was a little thick and I felt it needed a bit more salt. Don't know if this was due to the fact that fasting is on going currently and they couldn't fine tune from tasting. 

I'd pick Bahrakath Mutton Soup King over this anytime.

Maggie goreng was pretty good though. I liked that the noodles were sufficiently dry from the stir frying. They use ground mutton here so maybe I'll get one with extra mutton the next time.

Bizen Okayama Wagyu Steakhouse, Plaza Singapura

Bizen (#N3-10 NomadX @ Plaza Singapura, 68 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6219 3463) is by the Astons Group. They do steaks - specifically wagyu ones brought in from Bizen in the Okayama prefecture through partnership with farmers there and the idea was to provide affordable wagyu to the masses here. A3 graded I read.

What Bizen does that the other steak restaurants don't are the options of steaks from cuts that aren't available commonly available. Like delmonico, pope's eye, teres major and another seventeen which aren't the commonly graded as prime cuts like ribeye, tenderloin and sirloin. They do have those as well though.  Their variety looked more yakiniku than steakhouse but not everything is available every day.  

I got the tri tip which was fatty and quite intensely flavoured. Relatively tender and had a bit of bite.

Like I said - fatty. And intensely flavoured.

Wouldn't recommend the grilled fish here at all but I would come back to try other cuts of their wagyu.

Saizeriya, Orchard Gateway

Have passed by this Saizeriya (#B2-11 Orchard Gateway, 277 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6702 4451) a number of times, but have never tried them until today. You may wonder what's the big deal since I've already been to the ones at the defunct Liang Court and City Square Mall. Shouldn't they all be the same? I don't know but I've heard that the branches at Holland V and Star Vista aren't good.

This was a squid-y lunch if I might say so. That grilled squid was actually kinda nice with the charred bits, soya sauce and butter along with the slightly chewy parts that had the intensified squid flavour. Not rubbery at all.

Josh's Grill, Bugis Junction

I've notice Josh's Grill (#01-69 Bugis Junction, 200 Victoria Street, tel : +65 6337 8633) for a while now. They're managed by the group that runs Poulèt, Riverside Grilled Fish and City Donut amongst a bunch of other restaurants. While we were curious, I was also afraid that it might be another Collin's experience. Fortunately, it didn't turn out like that. We were glad we tried.

Each person got a sweet roll with butter.

One of the items that piqued my curiosity about Josh's was their bbq lamb ribs. Not much of these going around as I recall. The last I had one of these was Tony Romas at Johor Bahru. And La Strada. Meat was scrape off the bone tender. Liked that they didn't overdo the bbq sauce. Note to self : skip the cheesy butter rice rice the next time.

They also had an affordable pan fried sea bass. The skin could have done with more crisp but I'm not complaining. Very decent piece of tender flaky fish. That seafood cream sauce on the side was more lemon-y than crustacean-y that I had imagined.

That's the Brazilian lemonade. Lemonade with cream or condense milk. Kept the citrus but took the edge off that. Not bad.

More breakfast-y food at 焱

They ran out of fried eggs or I would have had them too. Just realized that I could eat these chicken wings using chopsticks with relative ease by sucking the meat off the bones. Even at 4pm, these guys don't look like they could slow down with the queue. Just after me, was some dude who ordered 10 packets to go.

A chocolate and pickle sandwich

So I've done peanut butter & fried shallots, peanut butter & pickle, kaya & salami and chocolate & salami. Nutella with pickle is starting to sound not so far off, isn't it? I liked it. Tasted nicer than I imagined with the sweet tanginess of the pickle balancing off the chocolate-y creaminess from the Nutella. 

Sliced fish and fish roe soup from Yu Mei Mei Shi

Here's giving Yu Mei Mei Shi another go. $6 fish soup with $4 of fish roe. I could tell that the roe was just done from the tender texture. Soup had a light flavour from dried sole which wasn't even enough to threaten the sweetness. If one is looking for intense deep flavour, this is simply not how they roll.  Didn't taste bad but I wouldn't call it satisfying. Also pretty pricey. 

Miso rosu katsu from Tonkichi

Had the miso hire katsu years ago at Tonkichi so I wanted to experience the rosu today. I had the impression that the miso at Tonkichi was sweeter than what I tasted today. Did I remember wrong? I'll never know.

Duck bak kwa fried rice from London Fat Duck

Never realized that London Fat Duck has achar. Not something to be ordered - something they'd charge you for if you didn't refuse it. I didn't because I wanted to try it. Didn't taste bad. But like many achar out there, it needed crushed peanuts. Lots of them.

We were here for their duck bak kwa fried rice after experiencing the standards of their fried rice the last time round. Loved it. The duck bak kwa tasted like the regular ones so I wouldn't know if they used regular ones. If I had to compare between this and the bak kwa fried rice from Din Tai Fung, I'd say this one was better.

Sweets at Whampoa Market

 

Didn't realize that there was a Nyonya Chendol stall (#01-17 Whampoa Makan Place, 90 Whampoa Drive) at Whampoa until recently. If anyone was wondering, their chendol/cendol tasted pretty much the same as the one at Redhill Food Centre. This one used D24 durian and I thought it was as good.

This bean curd was from the Whampoa Soya Bean & Grass Jelly Drinks stall. Goji berries were one of the options for topping. While I've had them countless times, it was only this time that I thought they reminded me of some kind of raisins.

Huang Tu Di Xi’An Delights (黄土地西安小吃), Clementi

I've been wanting to try the food at 黄土地西安小吃 (#01-13/14 Grantral Mall, 3151 Commonwealth Avenue West, tel : +65 6902 5480) for a while. This has finally happened. Food was not bad - I was just slightly disappointed thinking that they'd be another place I would look forward to returning soon. There were some items from the bunch of dishes we ordered where I could find better renditions.

From what I've read, the owner is from Xi'An.

We had chilled pig's ears (凉拌猪耳). Savoury and tangy and made pretty good munching.

Some tofu strips and pickles (素菜拼盘) which were also pretty good munching. They weren't bad but also not exceptional.

We were curious about their 牛羊肉泡馍. The 泡馍s we've had previously were 羊肉泡馍. Mutton based with the memorable one being the rendition from the defunct 羊贵妃. This one had both beef and mutton in the broth and the flavour spoke for itself. Prefer the ones that has just mutton. Didn't dislike this but I don't think I enjoyed it enough to come back for them. There was a lot of bread in it.

Liked their 肉夹馍. The stuffings had a good flavour and the bread wasn't hard or stiff. Don't mind coming back for this.

Tried their liang pi (凉皮), which was 西安凉皮 on the menu. Don't know if the Xi'An rendition was any different from the others. Felt that the flavour could have benefitted with a bit more intensity but I'm not complaining. Texture of the 凉皮 from Xun Qin Ji (寻秦记) were springier.