More donuts from City Donut

We popped by City Donut for a couple.

Their best seller is apparently the citrus yuzu. There's a pleasant citrus creaminess to the fillings in the ring and can understand why it might be well received but I'm not getting any yuzu. If I had to describe the flavour, I would say lemon cream.

This one is Milo dinosaur. The cream fillings does taste like Milo but I personally thought 'dinosaur' raised the bar on expectations that this didn't meet.

Chocolate banana cake from Secret Recipe

I remember having this from Secret Recipe years ago. Remembered not disliking it but it's been easily way over a decade since. Got a slice of it recently and...not superb in any sense of the word but it's also not bad tasting. I didn't dislike it. 😬

Revisiting Xiang Jiang Soya Sauce Chicken (香江豉油鸡) and the conclusion is......

I've been doing a bit of sui gao comparisons against Xiang Jiang and Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Noodle Rice because these were a cut above most of what one can get out there. I wanted to decide which was the one I preferred more. So this was the one more visit to Xiang Jiang because it's been a while and in that while, I've been eating at Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Noodle Rice a few times. 

The sui gao is impressively sized. 90 cents here versus $1.20 from Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Noodle Rice. Loaded with minced pork, shrimp, black fungus and diced water chestnut. I remember ranking this one a bit higher previously because of the water chestnuts. I got regular egg noodles today. 

The texture seemed a bit loose with the minced stuffings from today - definitely not as packed as the other sui gao. I'd say they're still very good but I think I prefer the firmer stuffings from Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Noodle Rice. Not dissing this one at all and I'll be happy to eat them when I'm in the vicinity.

The tender herbal-ish soya sauce chicken is delicious. Back to topic, I have decided that the stall at Beauty World won this round for the dumplings.

More fishball noodles and chicken rice from Malaysia Chiak

Pretty sure that the chilli sauce that they used was different somehow from the one I had the last time. This bowl didn't taste as good as then because I'm not feeling that nostalgia from the flavour. Not a deal breaker but...

In other news, I found out that the chicken rice stall has an option without the bean sprouts. I happened to get the ji wei (鸡尾) by chance without specifying because it was the remaining section of the last chicken they had.

Fermented Hokkaido butter soft serve with financier from Chateraise Premium Yatsudoki

Chateraise Premium Yatsudoki (#01-05 Guoco Tower, 7 Wallich Street, tel : +65 6980 7120) took over the spot that Hattendo used to be at. From what I gathered, they're a premium offshoot bakery by Chateraise which looks to be more pricey than Chateraise. They have a bunch of pastries/pies which I've been curious about. One of which, the apple pie is available at the regular Chateraise - I tried that and it wasn't impressive at all. Just wondering if it will be any different here.

Anyway, here's a look at their fermented Hokkaido butter soft serve - impressively smooth and creamy. Yes, having one with the financier is nicer than without if you asked me.

Back at Kim Dae Mun

It's been years since we last ate at Kim Dae Mun (100 Orchard Rd, #01-03D Concorde Shopping Mall). The location looked different from what I remembered of the eatery.

We ordered their kimchi jjigae. I liked the invigorating sour imparted from the aged kimchi they used for their broth. Even their cucumber banchan on the side was pretty sour.

And we also had their steamed saba. I know, what's steamed saba - never heard of such a dish, not in Korean food here anyways right? Maybe it's boiled saba or stewed saba. I cannot be certain. It's nice though. Chunky sections of the boned in fish in a fish flavoured spicy broth that came with a whole potato. I liked this. The red bean rice on the side which they called brown rice tasted similar to pulut hitam. Better on its own than with soup/sauce.

Passable potato-y jeon with garlic chives. Did not taste bad but don't expect the standards from restaurants.

I like Calpis better than Milkis.

Ji Ji Noodle House (基記麵家), Hong Lim Food Centre

I've only taken notice of this stall (#02-48/49 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) recently. They're located along the interior facing units just to the left of Lee Kheong Roasted Delicacy (李强烧臘) or three units to the right of Eddy's (艾迪1号). The thing that most people seem to be eating from them are their wanton noodle. Which I didn't get because the curry chicken cutlet noodle looked/sounded more appealing.

Those things on the top right are not tissue paper - I added boiled wanton. I like this bowl. Curry was comparable to the one from Cantonese Delights so it's creamy and deliciously savoury with a mild heat. Kind hard to tell which stall has the better curry noodle at this point but I definitely preferred getting these two compared to the soup-y poached chicken ones from Heng Kee and Ah Heng.

A pleasant surprise was the couple of stalks of non-fibrous kailan - what a gem! If it wasn't so visible from the picture, portions of the chicken chop were pretty generous and it even came with crispy chicken skin. I guess what also ultimately help tip the scales for me was the noodles that weren't soggy.

They have a machine for payment which dispenses change. Not something one normally sees in hawker food stalls.

A poké from Poke Theory

I must have had poke some time previously but I don't remember where they were from. But I'm sure this was my first from Poke Theory. Got this with the shoyu tuna and quinoa base. Not bad tasting but there was coriander in it. I was told that might have come from the avocado sauce. Didn't like those chuka wakame though - they were too salty.

NBCB

The name abbreviates 'Nothing But CheeseBurger'....nbcb all of you, what else could it have meant?! Anyways, they're a home kitchen business that sells nothing but cheeseburgers on Fridays and Saturdays only. The double pattied burger I got had gotten was a little soggy but the buns held up with those hefty coarse ground beef patties that were done medium. Nice - though I think they could have been much better with some char. 

There was supposed to be nothing but a smear of mustard but it tasted much more saucy than just mustard. Should just lose that leaf of lettuce which contributed nothing. As a whole, the burger was not bad tasting at all. Unless I'm able to get it in less of a mess, I might just pass on the next opportunity. But how would I know? Now that there's 2280 around....

Feng Xiang Bak Kut Teh (豐香肉骨茶), Beauty World Food Centre

I was drawn in by the fried porridge from Feng Xiang Bak Kut Teh (#04-65 Beauty World Centre, 144 Upper Bukit Timah Road), not so much their bak kut teh. This was a claypot of said porridge with sliced fish - thick chunky slices of some freshwater fish (obviously underneath) and additional bak chor (also not visible). Porridge's flavour was umami and a little smoky with shreds of dried cuttlefish. While the taste was not as intense as the one from Old World Bakuteh, it was also less oily. The generous chopped spring onions were a nice touch.

Got a plate of deep fried intestines as well. They're okay, slightly offal-y in taste and some parts were more chewy than crispy. Nice with their sweet/spicy/sour chilli & garlic dip though. I spy soy sauce braised pork trotters on their menu and wonder if those are good.

Siti Nur Liyana Nasi Lemak, Adam Road Food Centre

I noticed Siti Nur Liyana Nasi Lemak (#01-14 Adam Road Food Centre, 2 Adam Road) the last time we were here. They don't use basmati rice like the No.1 Adam's and Selera Rasa but that ultimately is more of a textural thing since it was nasi lemak and all these stalls did a good coconut milk infusion and salt to bring out the flavours. What attracted me to them was also that they have paru - not the better ones I've had but it didn't suck by the way.

Chicken wing's a lot better here - there's more flavour and the batter wasn't hard. Fried egg had a softer yolk. Sambal was a little sweet (and a bit of heat) which one had to use sparingly to avoid masking the coconut flavour in the rice. Oh yeah, I like the ikan bilis here - crispy and not hard. While this stall in my experience isn't usually mentioned in the same breath as the other two, I'm thinking that they've got to have their own fans too right?

Revisiting Ko Ryo Jeong Korean Restaurant (고려정)

Seems like we've been having a bit of Korean food lately. The last time we were here which was not a few days back, we had the cheonggukjang jjigae. Today we got the ugeoji galbitang. Among a couple of other things.

Today's banchan was almost entirely different from the last time; which was also different from the first time. Except for the kimchi. Rotation's good because there's something hopefully good to look forward to. Well, it's been good here so far.

When they refilled the banchan, we even had something new. I'm gonna take a stab at it and call it spring onion pancake. That was what it tasted like.

Ordered a bibimbap with pork. Portions were huge. Could feed two.

I think this was gosari namul - fiddlehead ferns hidden beneath the other vegetables. They're apparently a classic ingredient in bibimbap but I've never noticed them till now.

They gave us a small bowl of soup (maybe sundubu jjigae) and a dish of gochujang for the bibimbap. Look at the ingredients that made the multitudes of different textures. This was so good.

Kimchi jeon - the crusty exterior tasted a little cheesy. Not bad but a little greasy.

Their ugeoji galbitang was delicious. The ugeoji part refers to the cabbage leaves. Lots of them inside together with leeks and onions and whathaveyous along with tender fatty short rib pieces. Love the beefy flavour of the broth.

Bigmama Korean Restaurant, Kim Tian Road

Bigmama Korean Restaurant (2 Kim Tian Road, tel +65 6270 7704) has been around for a decade maybe. They're a small restaurant that has a vibe like a small family restaurant that one sees in movies/series in Korea run by busy looking ajummas. I remember there used to be some buzz on their dak galbi some years ago.

I was looking them them up before coming down. It seems like their banchan have been mostly the same for the past decade so that's probably not going to change. Which means there's not much to look forward to for the banchan because I didn't think much of them. Kimchi's a little to underdeveloped for my liking.

There's this jelly which I couldn't identify though.

Tried their samgyetang.

Broth was bland. This might be my first time having one so I didn't know what to expect. The was a little bit of natural sweetness to it but as a whole, it's chicken soup sans salt.

Meat was very tender though. Came with a salt and pepper dip for flavour. Not something I'll be looking forward to.

Galbi gui - or grilled yellow corvina. Like what SBCD Tofu House serves with each meal but much bigger. This fish was generously salted. Quite a bit of fine bones.

Their buchujeon was delicious, tastiest dish we ordered tonight. Those browned bits were crispy and fragrant the pancake was filled will little shrimps and bits of squid.

Alimama Green Chilli Chicken Rice & Prawn Noodle, Maxwell Food Centre

Been wanting to try this green chilli chicken rice from Alimama (#01-09 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street, tel : +65 8484 3944) for a while. I enjoyed it. The chicken was freshly put to the grilled on order which resulted in a crisp exterior and meat that was tender. It wasn't as spicy as I had imagined but there's a nice flavour to that green chilli salsa. Red sambal on the side was also unexpectedly fruity tasting amid the heat. While it was called green chilli chicken rice, it wasn't actually 'chicken rice' per se.

Lunch @ Ko Ryo Jeong

Rained again so we ended up at Ko Ryo Jeong for lunch instead of heading towards Maxwell Food Centre like we originally intended. Actually, it was a good thing that we came here instead because we had previously wanted to explore their menu and that didn't happen then because...ganjang gejang.

While looking through the the menu, we found cheonggukjang jjigae - something we've never seen in our limited ventures into local Korean restaurants and it sounded good. In English, it's an extra-strong fermented soybean paste stew. The proprietress looked concerned when we ordered but we knew it wouldn't bother us.

Hell yeah this was good! The cloudy stew/soup/broth had a flavour profile similar an intense dou ban jiang (豆瓣酱) / miso; plus a tiny bit of funk that might be construed as natto-ish. The pot was mostly vegetables with sparing bits of fatty pork inside. I'd eat this again.

That's gul jeon - oyster pancakes. Ate them with kimchi from the banchan which was great pairing because that kimchi was well aged and hence, pretty tangy. Natural pairing here to the greasy omelette oysters.

Kimchi fried rice was not bad too. Not as intensely flavoured as I was hoping for but maybe it was a good thing today. There's one item from the banchan I liked (apart from the kimchi and the sweet fish cake slices). Those chives in some fish sauce/sugar marinate. Looking forward to coming back.