Happy Geprek, Far East Plaza

I heard of Happy Geprek (#05-99 Far East Plaza, 14 Scotts Road) last year. Have been wanting to try their ayam geprek since, fuelled by the curiosity of the range of sambal that they have. 

The first plate we had was with the spicy Indomie with sambal matah - the latter which had sliced red chillis, onions and sparse strips of kaffir lime leaves hadn't much on the more refined and flavourful rendition we encountered at Dancing Fish Signature. While the food packed some heat, neither the spicy Indomie nor that sambal matah were very spicy. Sweat inducing but manageable.

The sambal udang had more depth and savouriness, possibly because of shrimps as an ingredient. Not much heat as well. Chickens tasted like the frozen variety and refried on order. Not so tender or moist. 

I had imagined that the spiciness of their sambal would leave the deepest impression but what got to me mostly was the greasiness of the food.  Might not mind eating here if I was here but it's not something I'd come specially for.

Day Night Fried Kway Teow (日夜炒粿條), Bukit Merah Central Food Centre

We noticed Day Night Fried Kway Teow (#02-41 Bukit Merah Central Food Centre, 163 Bukit Merah Central) the last time we were here. Didn't have anymore room then and their char kuey teow looked good enough that we were curious and hence this. Because they looked good and also because they had the decency to open on a Sunday.

This one was pretty savoury but it hadn't much sweetness from the dark soya sauce. The kuey teow they used was of the thinner variety than the usual which one finds in this dish. There's also crispy bits of fragrant light bitterness from the caramelized fried lard in the plate. Another unusual characteristic was the lime they gave. I don't mind coming back again.

Dhal vadai from The Vadai Shop @ Amoy

I know these as masala vadai but they're called dhal vadai at The Vadai Shop. Not bad eating but not one of the more memorable ones I had in recent times like those from Hajjah R.S.A. or Hajjah Syed Meeral. I went through one of these with with three of those green chillis which left me with a burning tongue and lip. Note to self : the onion vadai is worth coming back for.

That beef tenderloin hor fun from Maddie's Kitchen is still as good

Glad to know that it hasn't changed from the previous times we've had it. Smoky bitterness on that plate as I have heard it described and I can't disagree. I'm also pretty sure there's a whole lot of grease in there that I don't want to know about.

Lamb, mushrooms, sweet potato and the sign you've been looking for at Miznon

Came by Miznon because there was a lamb shawarma pita on the menu that was labelled *special*. I'm a sucker like that sometimes and also because...lamb.

I liked it as a whole as their pitas went but sadly, the meat was a little lean and didn't have enough flavours to compete with the other ingredients stuffed in the pita. Like the chilli and the pickles which overwhelmed what little there was of the lamb's natural meat flavour. Also, did not expect something that looked stir fried - not what I had in mind of shawarma.

Their mushroom plate was delicious. Great pairing with sour cream.

Yum yum tender sweet batata.

Lamb pot and a couple of other stuff at Boon Keng New Taste

Looking again at the menu from Boon Keng New Taste, I noticed that they categorized the food into at least a couple of regions from China. The kitchen and staff are Malaysian. So "Malaysian 东北-esque" is probably a pretty accurate description.

Noticed that there was a lamb pot in the menu. Was a little excited until they brought it to the table.

It's a 麻辣 type of broth as far as I can tell from the Sichuan peppercorns hovering in the range of 小辣. It got pretty salty towards the end. The non-meat ingredients included some bean sprouts, measly portions of thin sliced radish (白萝卜/daikon) and even more measly portions of even more thinly sliced carrots. Heh! I would have loved more bean sprouts and radish in there.

No gripes about the portion of the lamb but they weren't as tender as I was hoping for. Not likely to get this again. 

Standards of their 烧烤 seem to fluctuate. Today's was not as nicely done. The pig intestines were hard and chewy. I recall them being more edible previously. Not in picture was their grilled bread - which was basically sliced white bread with butter and sugar. Today's had garlic as well. Sugared garlic toast! Not bad tasting.

Fortunately, their seafood fried rice was dependably delicious. Since I hadn't mentioned previously, seafood here translates to some squid, a few shrimps and crab sticks. A little pricey methinks but if I had to call it, I'd take this over Din Tai Fung 99% of the time.

Supercurry, Telok Ayer Street

Pang Kok Keong, aka Chef Pang formerly of Canelé Pâtisserie, Antoinette, Pang's Hakka Noodles and perhaps still with Sichuan Alley has a new curry rice shop Supercurry (121 Telok Ayer Street). Right next door to Uptown Nasi Lemak. Curious series of twists and turns from pâtissier to curry png. But I read that he's not cooking. Someone else is.

It's not bad tasting. In spite of the starchy curry, I liked it because it had a flavour which I enjoyed that many curry rice curries don't. Don't know what's in it but it had a bit of heat, creamy tanginess and lemak richness going on. The toppings which included onion omelette, some bean curd skin rolls and fried chicken were nicely done. Weakest link was the chap chye - not intensely flavoured and would benefit from being more tender.

This plate reminded me more of Babas Peranakan than Hainanese curry rice.

Some stuff from Sushiro recently...

There's a bit of fried stuff going on lately at Sushiro. The place smelled of grease when we were there and we smelled of grease when we left. But they did a surprisingly tasty aji katsu for their sushi. Piping hot, crispy and moist jack mackerel. Freshly fried.

The other freshly fried one was their Hokkaido sardine tempura nigiri. Crispy batter also, appropriately salted and moist inside. They appear to be doing a pretty decent job with their fried fishes.

Just mentai mayo on their jumbo scallops but it's tasty.

Not mentai mayo on this gunkan. It's mentaiko and mayo.

Shiodare pork belly was also pretty good. Go pork sushis! Greasy and peppery.

The shirasu mountain gunkan was a little dry. I wished it didn't have ginger.

That's the wild southern tuna wrap. Not sure what's wild southern tuna but this as one can imagine tasted like negitoro.

Black (Tap) Velvet

Have been wanting to get the peanut butter milkshake from Black Tap again for quite a while. The last time happened all the way back from the first visit a few years back. Yeah I'd love to get the Greg Norman again too but we had a delicious substitute today. More on that at the bottom.

One of the things we noticed from previous visits and was curious about was their buttermilk chicken tenders. Enjoyed it. Crispy on the outside, tender and moist on the inside unlike many "tenders" from fast food joints that weren't actually tender. Those liars! I liked the dips too....buttermilk dill, Korean bbq & lime honey mustard. 

Their buttermilk slaw was less sweet than I had imagined. Not bad but if I had to pick a preferred slaw, the one from Luke's is superior. 

*Gee Anzalone drumroll* Behold the Greg Norman substitute. We ordered a lamb burger and swapped the Swiss cheese for the blue one. Damn it was good! Notice we discarded the pickled onions. Do that.

Revisiting Nusa & Tara

We were reeled in by plates of lontong kering we noticed on the neighbouring tables around Nusa & Tara. While the queue didn't look encouraging, we thought why not since we don't end up in this hawker centre often.

Lontong kering if you didn't know was dry lontong. Sans gravy in other words. Also not to be confused with lontong goreng. The plate of deliciousness included paru goreng, sambal goreng, begedil, fried chicken wings, a fried egg (add on) and a shower of serunding heaped over rice cakes. Very solid fried chicken wings there.

Their nasi lemak was the other item we had that I wouldn't mind coming back for. What made this was their delicious coconut milk infused rice and a sensible amount of salt to bring out flavours and also make it savoury. I tasted more of the rice today than the last time because there was too much going on previously with that nasi lemak sambal goreng.

Suju Masayuki (酢重正之)

(一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六)

I had the impression that we haven't come by Suju for a long time but the last time was just February this year. Not exactly recent but it wasn't that long back either. The red wine miso beef cheek doesn't seem to be available on the menu anymore! 😱

You know it!

One of the specials of the day was garlic butter beef cubes with mushrooms. It's not something I had expected as a special from these guys but hey, tori karaage was once a special here. To their credit, this was one of the nicer saikoro suteki I've had. Also the most expensive one as well. The meat had a good bite yet quite tender amid the beefiness. Don't know what beef it was they used for this though.

Pulled the trigger on their wagyu sukiyaki. Pretty pricey this one and the bowl was much smaller than I had imagined. It was packed with a generous portion of thin sliced wagyu - meat that readily fell apart in my mouth before any chewing.  

Gindara harasu - something we've ordered before. Rich and greasy cod belly which was superb with rice.

A familiar sight of their gohan tray. And the nama tamago.

It beckoned.

Itadakimasu!

More stuff from Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine

The majority of the time, we get the regular stuff that most people order at dim sum. Occasionally we try something we haven't had before just to see what else we can allot into the boundaries our regular orders. So this was about new experiences and I'll be avoiding re-posts and pictures without purpose. Anyways, Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine at Guoco Towers is shuttered for good. I'll miss it. So we're stuck with this one at Ion.

Decided to reach out for another soup other than the double boiled pig's stomach soup with salted vegetables and peppercorn. Chicken soup mellowed by sweetness from the dates. Those dates had been boiled for so long that all the sweetness had siphoned out of them.

Tasty beancurd sheet rolls stuffed with pork/prawn in a superior soup - the latter a savoury chicken-y broth

We've had their minced pork and pork liver mee pok at least a couple of times previously. We ordered this wondering if they cooked it the same as the previous occasions which we've had at Guoco Tower. I had the impression that the sauce was a little sweeter now compared to the last times but I also wondered if I had imagined it.

Black sesame tang yuan with peanut powder. Nice. Filled with piping hot gooey and gritty black sesame paste. Too bad they don't do the peanut dumplings anymore. I liked those.

Got a much larger slice of pumpkin in the orh nee today compared to the last time we had it. Okay, I didn't have so much to say about this which I haven't already said but since I had the picture taken, I wanted to put it up. The part about the larger pumpkin slice was still true though. 😬