Revisiting Un-Yang-Kor-Dai

S'been a while since our last and first time at Un-Yang-Kor-Dai. The restaurant has expanded with larger seating capacity. The vibe here for Thai food feels somewhat like how Tambuah Mas is to Indonesian food.

Cha ron was thick, creamy and not excessively sweet. Nice.

These were deep fried prawn and scallop cakes. Underneath the crispy surface was fluffy and tender almost like crushed tofu or egg white. Couldn't definitively discern prawn or scallops in it but it was seafood-y and pretty tasty.

Pretty impressed by their rich red curry with grilled chicken. Think sweet, fruity, spicy and creamy altogether. Pretty lemak stuff. Menu mentioned lychee and tomatoes but there's also mango and pineapple. This one has just stepped up to replace the panaeng roast duck curry from Sawadee Thai as my favourite fruity roast bird curry. 👍🏼

Omelette with minced pork not bad. 

What was kickass with rice was the stir fried morning glory with chilli and garlic. I think I tasted fish sauce and oyster sauce in it too.

Did not expect the tom yum mama noodles with prawns and minced pork to be in so large portion. Broth was sweet, tangy and spicy while those large prawns were fresh and sweet. A little refined but not bad.

Part of their festive menu included a sea bass tom yum coconut soup. From the picture, we were given the impression that it would be like tom kha gai but the real thing didn't have coconut milk. The broth was made with coconut juice. Slightly disappointed but the tangy spicy soup was delicious and the thick slices of fish were fresh and good quality.

Seaweed shio pan from BreadTalk

Regular shio pans (salted and buttered rolls) can be found in a number of bakeries here. Came across these seaweed ones from the BreadTalk at ION Orchard. That "special-er" one that has stuff most of the other outlets don't. This was actually pretty good. Buttery, salty and at the risk of being Captain Obvious, seaweed-y. Yeap, the seaweed flavour came through. I like this. 👍🏼

Truffle Fried Rice/Udon Max from Wok Hey

I've gotten fried rice from Wok Hey a number of times. They're generally okay (from my experience at least) for something that's a quick hot meal. Because each time is probably a different person cooking, the standards tend to fluctuate. Somewhat. This Christmas special from them is Truffle Fried Rice Max. There's a cheesy chicken snail sausage, macadamia nuts and cranberries. Not bad tasting. Savoury and occasional pops of citrus sweet from the cranberries. Pretty flavourful from the truffle paste they put in it.

A few days later......

So I wanted to try the udon just to see what was the difference. There's macadamia and cranberries along with the cheese chicken snail sausage like the fried rice. What's apparent was that this tasted sweeter compared to the rice which was more savoury. Was also less truffle-y. The texture and sweetness kinda reminded me of char kuey teow. Pretty sure there's a generous amount of oil in there for that smooth slurpability. Between the two, I like the rice better.

Shake Shack's Black Truffle Burger

Okay, this tasted like how I imagined it - a little less cheesy because it was Swiss cheese instead of American, a bit more creamy, truffled from the black truffle mayo and shot through with the bite from arugula. Much of the fried onions were lost among everything else but no complains from me. Happily washed this down with the Shackmeister which an ale as golden as the brass emblems on their marble walls.

Yu Zhong Bu Tong (鱼众不同), Food Republic @ Wisma Atria

I hear words like farm-to-table associated with Yu Zhong Bu Tong (#04-02 Wisma Atria, 435 Orchard Road) which makes me slightly wary. It shows that they have some marketing savvy but often those are in place to make up for the lack of actual quality. Then there's also because 'farm-to-table' in my view is this era's literary prostitute. But we took the bait to find out for ourselves.

This was the zesty winter melon - winter melon in some orange-y sauce. Awesome. Lived up to its namesake by the sweetness that paired with a vibrant citrus. Refreshing is the appropriate word.

Tried a couple of broths for their fish. We ordered grouper in sauerkraut and sea bass in tomato. Latter's sweet and maybe because of the real melted tomatoes, reminded me of 番茄蛋. Not a bad one, couldn't hate it but I wouldn't get it again. Much prefer the sauerkraut (酸菜) broth which naturally appealed with the light heat, tanginess and salt. Very drinkable stuff.

The gripe I had was with how they prepared fish. As much 'farm-to-table'-ism they'd like us to buy into, it's not relevant to the execution which was far from satisfying. Fish was sliced too thin so it's kinda hard to tell that the grouper was grouper since the texture was kinda similar. Said thin slices fell apart easily. Mouthfeel differentiation was also lost. So, no need to pay more for the grouper.

Topped one of the bowls with fish stomach. Pretty sure I've had them before and these weren't like those. This was tough. Tougher than pig's stomach kind of tough. If these were sliced into strips, it's still be generally too tough kind of tough. Couldn't eat most of them. Note to self : never get fish stomach here agin.

Parmesan Truffle Chicken and Zhng Zinger from KFC

Those who never learn history are condemned to repeat it. I felt like I wanted to check these out from KFC hoping that maybe, just maybe, things have gotten better. 

When I get Jollibee, the first elicited response when I take a bite of their chicken is usually a silent 'yummy!'. KFC usually gets me to 'fuck, this tasted unhealthy!' There's a bit of truffle flavour and it was pretty cheesy in a cheap cheesy way for the parts with the cheese powder. The crusty bits got to me after a while because the parts that didn't have cheese were bland. Meat's a bit dry.

Despite apprehension, I got the Zhng Zinger anyway. Since I've already transgressed, might as well poke around. Apparently this was inspired by some TikTok dude. Chicken was pretty tender. With the hot sauce and the pickles, it was actually not bad. Until the pickles ran out in a few bites. That's when it regressed back into a regular Zinger with dry buns. Couldn't taste the onion rings in it all. Cheese? Do you even see it? Will take Popeyes' chicken sandwich over this any day.

It might have been psychological at this point but eating the cheese fries felt like a coat in the arteries minus the satisfaction. The best part of this visit was probably gulping down the Coke Zero to wash away all the grease.

Renewal at Nakajima Suisan

It's been at least a couple of years since we ate at Nakajima Suisan. Definitely missed them. (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六) The global pandemic had been in part, one of the reasons why we haven't been eating here. The other reason was of course, the usual relentless queue the shop has which can sometimes be deterring.

That being said, they have upgraded the premise. Seating capacity is about double what they once were and there seems to be minor changes to their teishoku. Apart from the old shredded cabbage salad with sesame dressing which doesn't seem to have seaweed anymore and the takuan, they've now also, if you would believe it, a little dish of chuka wakame with mala flavour.

There's also options to top up the rice with mentaiko or negitoro. We got the latter.

Fell back to some stuff which we thought was reliable. This akauo hiraki teishoku was satisfying. Fish was clean tasting, flaky and meaty at the same time with that faint prawny aroma.

On the other end was their buttery mero teriyaki which was flaky and rich. The crisped up skin was so good.

Re-visiting Claypot & Cooked Food Kitchen (砂煲小厨)

Claypot & Cooked Food Kitchen hasn't been opened for some time a while back - I know because I came by and was disappointed. Kinda held my breath a little there. What I gathered from a friendly source online was that the auntie from the stall had gotten some injury and that the reason they haven't been operating. Glad they're opened again. 😬 

Ordered the tofu and roast meat. It's egg tofu they're using. Some were sliced thinner and were nicely browned and others weren't. This claypot was pretty generous with the roasted pork belly there but there were much less tofu than I was hoping to get. Wouldn't have known it was a tofu dish from the variety of ingredients they put in there.

This one was claypot sea cucumber......which also came with pretty generous portions of roasted pork belly. Both claypots so far tasted like they came with the same brown gravy. The sambal belachan rocks with the pork belly by the way. I know I can't complain at this price point but I wished there were more sea cucumber in it.

Gotta declare this the awesome-est kung bao chicken (宫保鸡丁) I've had in recent years. The thick sauce was pronounced medley of sweetness, tanginess and heat underneath a layer of oil. The chicken which appeared to be all thigh meat was chunky. I liked it so much that I was slurping the sauce off the dried chillis when the meat was done. Ended up with a burning tongue but it was worth it.

Stir fried (清炒) kailan was okay. I would have much preferred if they had used garlic instead of ginger as the aromatic.

Here be the sauce catcher.

Festive menu ribs from Morganfield's

Been wondering about the chestnut and cranberry glazed ribs from Morganfield's for a few years now. We've always somehow managed to miss them when they're available through the end of the year. So we've finally come to try them this year.

There's Connor and Kronenbourg on tap and it's $13 for the whole day on Sundays.

Mushroom soup's decent. The texture felt like something that came out of a blender.

The description for the chestnut sticky bones on the menu was 'chestnut roasted to amplify its nutty flavour, then blended into an earthy basting sauce to give our ribs a subtle sweetness in every bite'. I didn't think there was anything subtle about the sweetness. Nothing about the chestnut came through. Tasted like generic barbecue flavour.

Cranberry sauce on the baby back ribs tasted much like the chestnut sauce. If not for the cranberries on them, I wouldn't have known. While the ribs didn't taste bad as a whole, the flavour was underwhelming from expectations they have etched with their description. But now we know.

Yaowarat Thai Kway Chap, Tiong Bahru Plaza

I never understood why Yaowarat Thai Kway Chap closed at Holland Village. Always had the impression that they were doing well. Anyways, they've opened up at the basement of Tiong Bahru Plaza (B1-135 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road). And yes, the herbal peppery and salty broth was still as delicious with those penne-like scrolls of kuey. Or kway. Today we also discovered their chilli sauce (that one reminded me of chicken rice chilli actually) which was spicy and lime-y and made a great dip for the meats. Those fried chicken mid wings were also pretty good eating too. 

Confounding mala mazesobas from Menya Kokoro

So there're a couple of "mala mazesoba" at Menya Kokoro. We've tried the both of them and one of them appears to be the real McCoy while the other which bears the name is likely not.

The Kiwami tantan mazesoba is described as having a spicy and numb flavour. What baffled me was, why is there a mala flavour in it and how come this didn't taste like dan dan mian as its name suggested? Charshu was thick and a little hard. 

Then there was their spicy mala mazesoba - I once ordered it minus the mala and they obliged. I wanted to try it with the mala this time round.

The sauce was gritty, spicy and nutty. But I couldn't detect any mala. I also don't recall it tasting like the previous spicy mazesoba as well. Pretty delicious but the name of the bowl doesn't go with the flavour. Something doesn't add up with these two bowls.

Did anyone notice that the rice is getting smaller? It taking two portions these days to properly soak up the leftover gravy from the mazesoba.

Grandfather Food Empire Bak Chor Mee (爺爺香菇肉碎面), Queen Street

Decent bowl of bak chor mee from Grandfather Food Empire Bak Chor Mee (3838 Eating Place, 269B Queen Street). The stall is located at the same coffeeshop as Tai Loke Chicken Rice. I was a little concerned by the smudge of ketchup at the edge of my bowl but I guess it was an accident and the bowl didn't come with any. At least I didn't taste any.

This $7 bowl was loaded with ingredients. Sliced pork, minced pork, pork balls, stewed mushrooms and thin sliced pig livers topped with what appeared to be fried garlic bits. Not getting much flavour from the fried pork lard. Saucing was not bad but it's not as punchy as I normally prefer and the chilli is weak. 

I'm ranking this below Tai Hwa, Tai Wah at Holland Drive and Lai Heng. Wouldn't mind getting a bowl if I'm in the vicinity but wouldn't go out of the way for it.