Pig's brains from HaiDiLao (海底捞)

I've overlooked ordering this for some reasons during the past few times at HaiDiLao and finally got it this time. Cooked it in water and it's good with a bit of light soya sauce and sesame oil.

Mei Di (美地), Holland Village Food Centre

The toppings for the bak chor mee at Mei Di (#01-12, Holland Village Food Centre, 1 Lorong Mambong) were pretty generous if run of the mill. Sadly, it wasn't a noticeable leap compared with Ah Fong Noodle. Noodles had a marginally better texture and that was it. Those chunks of lard totally had no crisp and tasted borderline stale.

Double bacon cheeseburger from iSteaks

I never realized that iSteaks at Star Vista has burgers until now. Anyways, this was their bacon double cheese. Got it sans sauce and Chinese cabbage (or was that lettuce?). Yeah, that's what they said was in it. It's actually not bad. I think the patty's marinated but it wasn't excessive. Meat was well done. With the onions and cheese and bacon, I gotta admit that I enjoyed it. Now I know there's something else I can get whenever the capped loin of lamb's not available. Like today. 

Fried chicken thigh set with lady's fingers Katong Laksa Holland Village Nasi Lemak

Finally got the fried chicken thigh nasi lemak from Katong Laksa Holland Village Nasi Lemak. It has the same batter as their wings but these come without bones. I asked for a portion of lady's finger and they had for some reason replaced the usual achar on the side with those. Anyways those lady's finger were good with their sambal belanchan. Notice that that's the only sambal I had gotten for today's plate. That's all that's needed for me.

Myung Ga (맛집) ll, Tanjong Pagar

I was initially pretty excited after learning that Myung Ga II had opened an outpost at Tanjong Pagar (28 Tanjong Pagar Road, tel : +65 8042 8025). I was thinking that it meant that I needn't make a trip down to Bukit Timah Plaza anymore. But maybe that might not be true......

Banchan's not fantastic. Selection was the same as the one as their shop at Bukit Timah so I guess they never change. Kimchi's kinda young - I like them more mature. 😏 Bean sprouts were so lightly blanched that it still had that raw-ish vegetal taste. Not exactly dishes on the side to look forward to.

Enjoyed their al tang. Generous portions of fish roe and milt in a moreishly spicy and fishy broth.

What I was looking forward to was their deulkkae kalguksu - a noodle made with a broth that contained ground perilla seeds. Other than the light savoury taste, there was an earthiness that reminded me of oats and texture that reminded me of the mushroom udon from Tracy's Juice Culture. Not a combination that I think I'd seek out but now that I've had it, I found unexpectedly addictive.

Haemul pajeon - not a bad tasting pancake but I was hoping that it'd be a little less doughy. For some reason, the first thing I thought of while eating it was the one from Bigmama because that one had more aromatic crisp. Strangely, when I asked about adding cheese, the server advised me against it because he felt that it was too expensive. Hmmm....

I wouldn't recommend their jjajangmyeon. The recent ones we've had from Wonderful Bapsang and O.BBa Jjajang have kinda set the bar for us so this one falls short on the flavour. It was so lightweight it was on the verge of being bland.

It's obvious that this was an outpost with a trimmed down menu. There's a bunch of stuff which we were pretty sure we remembered seeing from the OG shop that isn't available here. Gonna have to make that trip back to Bukit Timah Plaza again after all.

Qing Hua Jiao X Jing Yue Rong (青花椒 X 精悦蓉), Chinatown Point

This was actually two restaurants in one (#B1-16 Chinatown Point, 133 New Bridge Road, tel : +65 8128 2371). If I'm not mistaken 青花椒 does the soup/stew stuff while 精悦蓉 does the griddle items including the bullfrogs. We ordered one of their sets which I thought was good showcase of what they have. It was also the only way we could get the smaller portion of griddled bullfrogs.

The set came with a main dish, an appetizer, a side dish, a vegetable dish and rice. We picked their griddled bullfrog. Black bean flavour. Not bad. I did imagine the frogs to be bigger though. I realized that there was an external sweetness to the flavouring when I ate the fermented black beans because these are generally just salty. Those slices of corn were delicious and the lotus roots were sweet and crunchy!

口水鸡 was a lot less tame than the fiery colour suggested. There's a little heat but I personally felt it had more salt than spice. This was chilled and I liked that the sesame added their layer of texture and aroma to it.

This was their spicy sour fatty beef (酸辣金汤肥牛). Look at those defined strata of fat and meat on the thinly sliced beef. Loved this. In it were strips of some gourd and thick glass noodles which were slurpalicious. Broth was both spicy, sour and layered with the flavour of Szechuan peppercorn. I will be back for this.

Competent rendition of 四季豆 which featured Szechuan peppercorns as well.

Gotta have something to catch the sauces and soup.

Dessert is gotten from a small bar and self served. If anyone was wondering, it's broken haw flakes, fermented rice, raisins and crushed peanuts from 12 clockwise. There's some transparent jelly and it's drizzled with brown sugar/kuromitsu.

Mao shan wang chendul from 99 Old Trees

I liked the idea for this one because I'm good with chendol I love mao shan wang. But there were some things about the bowl which....I had gripes with. Durian (as much as I enjoyed it) was a little too cold and stiff.

Chendol's just the green noodles, coconut milk and gula melaka - no red beans. The latter two weren't particularly fragrant and the whole bowl tasted icy. Durian aside, Nonya Chendol's rendition or even the one from the food court at Tangs Market were superior to this. Didn't dislike this but I'll stick to their Stinky Bombs and Stinky Bowls since it's really just durian I'm looking forward to whenever I come here.

Sourbombe Bakery, One Holland Village

I've been wanting to try the bombolinis from Sourbombe Bakery since I've heard about them. Finally happened at their new shop at One Holland Village (7 Holland Village Way, #01-27). This one was lavender lime mascarpone. I liked that both the floral accents and the lime came through the creamy fillings. Will come back another time.

Super Ultra Spicy Burger from Shihlin Taiwan Street Snacks

It did not occured to me while I was getting this Super Ultra Spicy Burger - not until I had gotten my first bite that I noticed this was pretty similar to McSpicy. Obviously, there were differences. The meat in the McSpicy was juicier and thicker and the actual spicing was not the same. This sandwich felt like it had a bit more heft to it as well. But otherwise, it's a bunch of similarities as a spicy fried chicken burger and I enjoyed this.

While I liked it for what it was, it was also difficult to eat as a sandwich with what's between the bread slipping out easily. Burger was falling apart as I went through it. Messy it did get. Could taste every component except the cheese. But otherwise no complains. 

Another Wonderful Bapsang

Back at the Thomson Plaza branch of Wonderful Bapsang.

Got ourselves a yukhoe bibimbap. I remember wondering if there was another place that served this and here it was.

The beef was dressed with sesame oil and bit of salt. We threw in the bean sprouts and kimchi from their banchan before tossing it up. I liked this better than the one from The Gogijip.

Chiizu donkkaseu. Only half of it was covered with torched mozzarella. Did not expect the shower of nuts on top but I'm not complaining. Meat was thin and had a nice crunch from the breading.

Because I remember enjoying their kimchi jjigae previously, here's another. These would be one of those things which can conceivably be considered "perfect pairing" with their steamed rice.

Bombay Dining, Pasir Panjang Road

Have never noticed Bombay Dining (89 Pasir Panjang Road, tel : +65 6475 5855) before along this stretch of the road. Good thing we took this leap of faith.

Got a drink called thandai. According to Wiki, "Thandai is an Indian cold drink prepared with a mixture of almonds, fennel seeds, watermelon kernels, rose petals, pepper, poppy seeds, cardamom, saffron, milk and sugar". Figures. Tasted like a refreshing chilled badam milk. Pretty sure we don't have poppy seeds in this one. I liked it.

Seekh kebab was delicious. The minced lamb was moist crossing over to juicy and the spices packed a bit more heat than I had expected. Gotta have them with those crisp sharp onions.

Did not expect fish head curry on their menu. This one was different from the common local Indian rendition we're used to from say Muthu's Curry, Banana Leaf Apolo or Samy's Curry. This fish head was fried prior. Meat was much dryer.

While curry was in its own way addictive with a strong hit of assam (tamarind), I'm also pretty sure it didn't have so much in common with the regular rendition. Tasted like it was some sort of assam curry that's been mixed with butter chicken gravy. It was rich with an underlying sweetness.

Loved their Kashmiri pulao. Aside from raisins and chopped maraschino cherry, there's pineapple and some other fruit which looked like papaya. And some cashews. All of which were rounded up nicely with ghee in the rice. Good enough to eat on its own or with raita.

This was for the fish head curry.

Kashmiri naan has nuts in it. Decent but not memorable.

Got a vegetable raita which was great pairing with the Kashmiri pulao. The vegetable component included diced onions and cucumber which added crunch to the refreshing yoghurt.

Stuffed as we were from the food, their halwa served piping hot went down with surprising ease. Haven't had a lot of these but this one was really good. Herein lies a pronounced cardamom-y sweetness punctuated by bursts of tanginess from raisins.

宫源麻辣烫, 麻辣汤, 中辣

I don't know if it was because this was 中辣 this time round compared to the 小辣 which we had previously, the broth didn't feel as thin. It was more rounded and I liked it much better. 中辣 was very manageable heat here so I'm gonna stick to this level for the time being.

Revisiting Al Borgo

It's been about 10 years since the last time we were at Al Borgo. Of all the trattoria-esque Italian restaurants we've been to, they look the part the most. The setup looked like it was from another era. Even their olive oil tasted like it came from another era. 😂

We had sardines stuffed with buffalo mozzarella.

Pairing sweetness from the caramelized onions and balsamic vinegar with the saltiness from the fish and the cheese. 👍🏼

Got curious about their Kobe beef fettuccine even though we understood it was never gonna be Kobe beef. Tasted like regular beef. The creamy sauce was garlicky. Not a bad one but it also didn't feel like it was worth what they were charging. But now we know.

The menu mentioned white truffle tagliolini. This was the amount of white truffle shavings that came with the basic plate and additional would have costed $12 per gram. The noodle wasn't tagliolini but the buttery sauce and truffles sorta made us forget it wasn't the correct pasta. Thinking back, I still would have preferred tagliolini.

Special dessert was panettone. First time having them. It's just bread with some dried fruit. Pretty expensive for some bread with dried fruit.