Nummun Thai Kitchen, Upper Thomson Road

We came here wanting to try the chunky crab omelette which people were talking about at Nummun Thai Kitchen (#01-03 Thomson Imperial Court, 200 Upper Thomson Road, tel : +65 8886 8699) but they happened to be out of crab. Bummer! Anyways, their cha yen was pretty decent and definitely a reprieve in the scorching afternoon. But that Fanta Green just resurfaced bad memories of childhood so - no more of those.

Thai style stir fried kang kong packed less heat than I was expecting. Main gripe was that they were too stemmy.

Non spicy clear tomyum talay was outstanding. At $14, I wished there was more seafood in it. 

Som tam mamuang was pretty bare bones. I had to request for the peanuts. I suspect every other condiment that I was expecting had to be requested for separately. The mango was refreshing with the sugar/lime but I didn't think I tasted any fish sauce. And more finely sliced onions would have been great. 😅

That som tam mamuang was pretty good with the sticky rice though.

Not bad tasting pineapple fried rice. Came with a couple of sizeable good quality prawns and cashews.

Ice coffee's decent.

Fish Village (小渔村), Maxwell Food Centre

Relatively new stall selling steamed fish (#01-32 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street). Tried a portion of their steamed sea bass and it was delicious. Firm and flaky with little seasoning but sweet soy sauce kind of delicious. Will come back another time!

Breakfast at The Roti Prata House

Haven't been eating at The Roti Prata House for a long time. Here's a recent breakfast where I learnt that their fish and chicken curry weren't great. There's definitely better around. Teh halia wasn't very gingery.

The kambing soup was a little thinner than what I imagined. Not sure where that viscosity was coming from. Cubes of lamb in the broth were a little tough.

Decent maggi keema. I liked that it was dry and the noodles weren't soggy. There's minced mutton in it - the kind that they use for murtabak but those didn't appear to have much flavour.

Masala potatoes were masala potatoes.

We ordered their fried fish because it looked better than run of the mill. Doesn't quite appear good looking in the photo but I thought it was delicious. The skin of the mackerel wasn't crispy but it had pretty good seasoning and the meat wasn't dried out from the frying. Gonna get this again the next time.

Lau Di Fang Curry Rice (老地方), Kopitiam @ Tiong Bahru Plaza

Noticed this stall Kopitiam at Tiong Bahru Plaza (#03-101 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road) just next door to Cuo Cuo You Yu and decided to try. Not a fan. Curry's not robust and nothing in particular was outstanding in particular. That being said, the braised egg and stewed vegetables were pretty edible. So was the fried chicken. The latter was pretty salty though. Not something I'd look forward to in earnest.

Maybe I'm just not hugely into curry rice. There's a bunch that I don't mind like the ever popular nameless Beo Crescent stall, Hong Seng, Loo's, Maddie's Kitchen and perhaps Yuguo that I can recall offhand. The next step up which I prefer were the old school defunct Traditional Hainanese Curry Rice (Redhill Food Centre) and 38 Curry Rice (Havelock Road Food Centre). The last two have sadly shuttered.

Lao Ye Teochew Porridge (老爷潮州粥), Happy Hawkers @ Kim Tian

Lao Ye Teochew Porridge (201 Kim Tian Road) is located at the same Happy Hawker coffeeshop as the recent King of Fried Rice. We noticed them that last time and thought their offerings looked appealing.

Nice. Everything we ordered was competently done. The minced pork with black beans sure was good with rice. Pomfret was delicious. Will come back again.

Revisiting Konjiki Hototogisu at Great World...the good and the bad

Haven't had the oyster paitan bowl from Konjiki Hototogisu in a while so we came back for it. Still delicious.

They're in bed with Osaka Ohsho apparently so there's chahan on the menu. Lousiest tasting fried rice I've ever had from a Japanese shop. Whatever it was they used was not evenly distributed in the stir fry. It's also bland-ish. Gyozas were okay.

Didn't think it was worth it to finish the plate. There's also a bit too much grease in it and not in a good way at all. Note to self : never get fried rice from them again.

Red Hill (红山), Redhill Food Centre

This (#01-73, Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane) was the other stall with bee hoon stall which I've previously noticed. Yes, the name is Red Hill. They sell a bunch of local breakfast-y stuff along with packaged snacks. Old school here.

I think they're okay. The bee hoon wasn't as delicious as I imagined but it was better tasting that the one from Faith Nasi Lemak. The first ones that came to mind which were better are Chang Ji Gourmet and Hup Lee. And yeah, there was quite a bit of oil pooling in those fried eggs. Cabbage was not nice...very greeny tasting. Don't bother with the luncheon meat.

Durian and yam desserts at Yat Ka Yan (一家人)

Even more desserts from Yat Ka Yan. Yam paste was nice. The texture wasn't entirely smooth with little bits of yam in it. This bowl had a tang yuan because they ran out of gingko nuts.

Today's hot durian paste was served hotter than the last time and I noticed that it cooled really quickly so it's something that has to be eaten fast because hot is the way to go for this one.

Mala xiang guo at Zhang Liang Mala Tang (张亮麻辣)

We came back to Zhang Liang for their mala xiang guo. Had the bowl 中辣. I had expected more heat out of it but I'm not complaining with what we've gotten. Wonder if the heat had been dialed down for locals.

Nicely done in my opinion. No excessive oil pooling at the bottom, deliciously salty and great variety of ingredients that you could pick. Toasted peanuts too. This was noticeably more pricey than the likes of Tian Fu Ren Jia. Understandable since this was in Bugis and the spread was way larger so I guess that's what we paid for. 

Note to self : do not pick the dory the next time.

More prata and fried chicken from Master Prata

Tried a couple more prata from Master Prata. Left's what they call soft prata, which I had hoped/presumed to be a bit more chew than crunch like the old school style but it wasn't exactly like that. It's just a fluffed up crispy kosong I think. The other one's the banana egg prata which was pretty good.

That's an order of fried chicken, refried I believe before serving which got it nice and crunchy. I detected a hint of ginger in the marinate and a good bit of garlic. This tasted more Chinese than Indian.

Of burrata, ankimo and katsuo at Healthy Soba IKI

It's been a while since we were here at Healthy Soba IKI (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八). The kitchen crew seems to have gotten bigger. We were drawn in this time by their seasonal showcase which includes anikmo and katsuo that were prepared in house.

But first, the milky burrata with salt, black pepper, toasted buckwheat and their fruity olive oil. This has been consistently enjoyable.

Love the nuanced flavour from the ankimo - something that we've noticed is not apparent often possibly because of the temperature they are usually served. The taste of that was exceptional today. Love those cubes of ponzu jelly.

I didn't even mind the mild hint of ginger in their slices of katsuo. 

Look what shook out of the shack this November

Shake Shack's flavour of the current season is the bourbon bacon cheddar. There's bourbon bacon cheese fries that comes with that if it sizzles your bacon. Doesn't that sound like it makes you want to get off your gluteus maximus and run to the nearest Shack already? But hear me out before that. 

This was underwhelming and the worst tasting of both their limited time and regular burgers. I'm getting sweetness, some heat and oregano (wtf is this!) from that bourbon bacon. It's a flavour I did not and could not associate with "bourbon bacon". Couldn't even tell that there was bacon in it. For the first time oddly, the taste of the fried onions registered for me.

The quality of their service crew has obviously dropped with their expansion and all that. That one zombie today looked like she was dying to leave the place and couldn't care less.

A recent Sushiro-ism

Back at Sushiro. A realization just dawned upon me on how much I've been eating there when I've had to put up these 👉🏼 (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九,十, 十一, 十二). Here's some of the stuff we had this time.

Ankimo gunkan. I wonder if these are truly seasonal. I seem to recall seeing them around quite a number of times. Today's was decent.

I'm surprised that they do sujiko here. It's okay. Definitely have had better before. On nigiri as well.

Aburi-ed hon maguro toro was nice. I could wish that the tuna was a larger piece but I'm happy with this.

Today's uni was extra bad tasting. I did not like it at all. Tasted worse than the bad looking uni we've had here before.

Crab leg tempura. Kind of guilty pleasure.

I have a soft spot for their chilled chawanmushi.

Pumpkin tempura was unexpectedly good. Even though it was much more greasy than I normally like tempura.

This was called yamaya mentai cream tsukemen. It's tastier than it looked and that cream had a bit of smokey flavour.

What I didn't get was how were they expecting to tsukemen this. We sure didn't and poured the cream sauce into the noodle which was the sensible way to eat it.

Discount mont blanc. Don't think of it as one.

Some orange yoghurt ice cake which was okay-ish. Not one of their more memorable desserts.