Lau Jiang Fishball Minced Meat Noodle Laksa, Jalan Membina

I've been asked if I had tried the laksa from this stall (18 Jalan Membina) at least a couple of times from different people recently. That and we've noticed an increase in their mentioned online. Also recently. Haven't heard of them until recently so we got curious.

They're apparently known for their laksa. Not a bad rendition. What I liked was that their gravy was sufficiently lemak and the bowl even came with shredded chicken. The fried dumplings which seemed to be what got people excited about were not bad tasting once they've soaked up all that gravy.

There's also fishball bak chor mee. Pretty decent bowl if not entirely outstanding. What was prominent was the strength of the vinegar in the minced pork that was the dominant flavour.

 The fish stuff with the accompany soup was decent.

The laksa which is talked about made by the proprietors that are in the stall from 5am to 1pm and I think they don't do Sundays. There's a change of people in the afternoon who sells the same stuff. 

The laksa from those afternoon folks was also decent but there's no fried dumpling or shredded chicken. Ah ha! Different tenants then. There's an additional half an egg and more tau pok though. The latter was of a different quality that didn't absorb the gravy as well as those from the morning folks. 

Li Xin Teochew Fishball Noodles (立兴), Chinatown Point

Li Xin has a new stall at Chinatown Point (#B1-47 Chinatown Point, 133 New Bridge Road). Here's a bowl of dry fishball minced meat noodles which I've never had from them before. Pretty impressed that the flavour of the noodles (猪油 specifically) are quite consistent across the different branches we've tried. This one was the same. Didn't taste so much like bak chor mee than their fishball noodles with minced and sliced pork.

The accompanying soup came with pork balls too. From the taste and texture, one could tell they weren't the generic variety. It's a bit more dense, less springy than the factory ones that's coupled with the aroma of dried seafood.

Another 牛肉炒面 and prawn dumplings from Tongue Tip Lanzhou Beef Noodles

They didn't allow the change of noodles to the flat ones like they did the last time. Because of the texture, it definitely didn't taste as good as then and I thought the flavour also seemed different. Goodbye 牛肉炒面, you were good for just one bowl.

Noticed that there were prawn dumplings (手工虾仁水饺) we've never seen on their menu before. These were quite nice. Looking past the thick skin, there were little condiments in the prawn stuffing that one could mostly just taste prawns.

Bak kua ong lai toast from Toast Box

I had imagined that the pineapples in the bak kua ong lai (肉干黄梨) toast from Toast Box would be of the canned variety. Instead it was the paste/jam that one could find in pineapple tarts. Which kinda made sense. A tangy sweetness from those, smokiness from the bak kua (and obvious torching) plus savoury melted cheese. Not bad tasting.

Chinese Tofu Magician (半仙豆夫)

Who would have thunk Chinese Tofu Magician would be a branding for a beverage? I admit to being intrigued. We've seen them around for a while and have been curious about their "fermented" soy milk tea so we finally got one recently - the one with soy foam and white jade. If anyone was wondering, said soy foam is under the heavy dusting of soy bean powder (kinako) above the soy milk. The white jade are mochi balls.

Liked it. The creamy and lightly salty soy foam was delicious. There's tea jelly in the sweetened soy milk too. Will come back for more.

More Saizeriya at Chinatown Point

Saizeriya has some new stuff on their menu.

Like the cipollata which I've just learnt is a Tuscan onion soup. Supposedly peasant food back in the day. This rendition has bacon bits, egg and cheese. Not bad tasting at all. 

What do you know...salmon pizza with pineapple. Also new on the menu. Added extra cheese for $1.50. Nice. 😏 👍🏼 This was my first pizza at Saizeriya. Their crust was thin and almost like biscuit. 

I've resisted ordering their Tuscan lamb chop for a long time because the meat was marinated. I've mostly found marinated lamb to be a waste of time. We gave in today and ordered it. Not as bad as we thought because there were bits of fat in the chop that caramelized. Those bits came through with the natural flavour of the meat. 

What also helped was that these lamb chop wasn't sliced very thin like local western food stalls (I don't understand those...half of those were just bones). Still a little tedious getting meat off a cut like this with bone but at least they mostly came off clean.

Meating Place, Duo Galleria

We've passed by this Meating Place (#01-27 Duo Galleria, 7 Fraser Street, tel : +65 8338 2918) a number of times in the past but haven't paid attention to them until recently. These guys charge for reservations by the way.

Ordered this because I thought I heard it as house made lemon tea. No lemon nor tea in there. I tasted lavender and mint. Not sure what else was in it but I liked it. 😬

I was looking forward to the khachapuri I saw on the menu. Did not look exactly like the khachapuri I had in mind but hell yeah it was delicious! Loved the garlic mushroom cream, the cheeses and molten yolk that made it.

We ordered this because it was called duck liver min jiang kueh. We thought there would be min jiang kueh but what we got was a representative of one that's actually a pancake made with sourdough flour. First impressions was that the duck liver mousse and bacon espresso jam in it were awesome. That's a coffee/caramel bitter sweetness with the cream bolster richness of livers. 

And yes, those ragged brown strips were indeed bonito. Supposed to have lavender honey according to the menu but it must have gotten lost with all the other flavours.

Lamb lollipop was fried lamb riblets with sour plum honey glaze. Pretty sure I got the herbaceous aftertaste of mint in said plum glaze but I cannot be sure. Made me think of sweet and sour pork because it was basically fried meat tossed in a tangy sweet sauce. Not bad.

This was listed as a dry aged porcini ribeye on the menu. 30 days on the ageing and grain fed cow from Stockyard. 

They explained that the steak was dry rubbed with porcini powder. If anyone was wondering about the last part, not much of that was recognizeable in the flavour. There was something faint and herbal (or fungal, I don't know) in the middle of the ribeye but not enough to properly discern. Anyways, great tasting steak. Love the caramelized onions too.

Steak came with aligot on the side. Did not expect that. The silky potato was deliciously cheesy and creamy. Texture was like foam. But there wasn't enough cheese for any pull.

Yuzu Brussels sprouts with almond and cranberries on the side; our obligatory vegetables...sorta. Fruity and sweet along with the toasty almond slices with the bitterness from the sprouts was kinda nice. Textures altogether were great. Couldn't discern any yuzu at all though. This got a little sweet at the end.

Kamoshita, Neil Road

Have been wanting to come to Kamoshita (5 Neil Road, tel : +65 6221 3950) for a long time. Today was lunch - not exactly the ideal showcase of the oden-centric izakaya they are but I'm not complaining.

Lunch beer is $9. Asahi.

These were house made cream cheeses. Clockwise from the top left is with smoked daikon, kani miso, miso marinated and shoyu konbu. I liked them all.

• Smoked daikon - creaminess wedged between smokey and crunchy slices of dehydrated radish.
• Kani miso - I thought there was a good balance struck between the cream cheese and the crab fat/butter flavour that's infused in it.
• Miso marinate - intense from both the rich creaminess of the cheese and fermented bean flavour
• Shoyu konbu - not quite getting the kelp. It wasn't seaweed-y if anyone was wondering.

Was curious about the oden daikon tempura. I know, right? It turned out to be how I imagined it. A tender boiled radish infused with the smokiness from the broth of the oden that's clad in a light crisp fried batter. It was actually juicy. 🤯

We had another daikon which the menu described as grilled. We ordered it because there was uni. There wasn't enough of that uni to go around in my opinion. Came dark caramel-y sweet glaze. It's not bad for radish but not worth paying for because of the uni because there was too little of the sea urchin to matter.

Kamoshita does a pretty decent iekei ramen in tonkotsu shoyu. I detected more complexity than just plain pork bone and soy sauce in the rich salty broth but what else exactly made it eluded me. Maybe fish powder? I couldn't be sure. Noodles were thick and chewy and the aji tama was nicely flavoured with shoyu. Charshu were thick sliced - not hard but a lot more jaw work than what I'm used to.

Current lunch special was a gyutan teishoku that came with a slice of duck with cucumber and some sashimi on the side. Nice peppery gyutan which required quite a bit of jaw work as well. 

Ramen Hitoyoshi (ラーメン人吉), Tiong Bahru Plaza

Ramen Hitoyoshi started a few years ago by some guys who were the alumni of Keisuke. Their game's tonkotsu ramen because...erm, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree? They've recently set up shop in the space vacated by Marutama at Tiong Bahru Plaza (#02-138 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

There's bottomless bean sprouts that you can help yourself to. Seem to get the impression that the ones at Keisuke's shops are better but I cannot be sure. These guys don't offer the same for hard boiled eggs though. Would be awesome if they did. 

Gyozas were meaty. Not bad tasting.

Our fried shishamo didn't have a lot of eggs. I don't think they cared about the eggs here so we won't be getting it again. But otherwise it was a decent fried fish.

This was their special charshu tonkotsu bowl. Charshu was much more thinly sliced than what the pictures led us to believe and it was also delicious. The kind that fell apart in the mouth without much chewing. Broth was richly flavoured, porcine and salty - like how I was hoping for it be. 

Would be great if they offered "extra hard" noodles but I guess their "hard" passed muster. Kinda pricey though.

There's also mazesoba.

Doesn't have the flavour intensity like Menya Kokoro or Kajiken but I thought therein laid an appeal to how it was less heavy on the taste. With a splash of vinegar and crushed sesame seeds, it was easy to inhale.

初三 at Happy Lamb Hotpot (快乐小羊)

Gonna keep the verbosity low on this visit to Happy Lamb Hotpot (快乐小羊).

Beef short ribs, not lamb.

Premium marble lamb which I said I would get again but I'm pretty sure these were different from the ones the last time.

First time getting these fried dough sticks with salted egg. They're kinda like you tiao (油条) with salted egg inside.

King oyster mushroom/eringi(杏鲍菇) - meaty and pretty good at absorbing the broth

The lamb skewers which are normally served first arrived last today.