Pasta Brava, The Scarlet

The last time we were at Pasta Brava, the restaurant was still located at Craig Road. This was possibly the one time we'll be here in their current location (#01-13 The Scarlet Singapore, 33 Erskine Road) because by the time this post is out, they would have been relocated to their new spot at Tras Street.

The menu appeared to be a mix of the old Pasta Brava items and those from Sofi. I was thinking of the former's blue cheese or chocolate red wine sauce steaks but we got totally distracted by their specials.

Specials like a spinach pappardelle in fresh oyster truffle cream sauce. Couldn't taste the truffle in it. The oddity here was the aroma of the oyster that came with the pasta. We could smell it, thinking that it came from the cream sauce. Couldn't taste it in said sauce which was mostly garlicky. While there were oysters in the pasta, we couldn't reconcile what we experienced.

Surfeit crept in partway through and what helped us finish was Tabasco sauce. 😬 The garlicky cream sauce was actually pretty damn good with some splashes of vinegary hot Tabasco.

Another special was grilled ox tongue and mushroom pizza. The tomato on the pie was sharp - reminded me of jarred tomato sauce and was almost overwhelming every other flavour, including the grilled ox tongue.

Dessert was a keto zucchini lime cake with whipped cream. Cake didn't have much sweetness. Couldn't identify the lime in it. Tasted underwhelming.

Lao Gai Mee (老街面), Beauty World Food Centre

Relatively new stall (#04-39 Beauty World Centre, 144 Upper Bukit Timah Road) selling Malaysian noodles. Got a bowl of their kolo mee which was pretty good tasting. Noodle texture was nicely done with a savoury lardiness from the saucing after they're tossed. Char siew was also better than the run of the mill dry cardboard variety. That being said, the quality one gets is pretty much the luck of the draw. Love the pickled green chilli that cut through the porcine grease of the bowl with it's sharpness. Will not mind coming back.

Bee tai bak or rat's tail noodles from Ah Seng Teo Chew Minced Meat Noodle (亞誠潮州肉脞面)

Here's a satisfying lard-y, vinegary and slurpalicious breakfast of minced meat bee tai bak from Ah Seng Teo Chew Minced Meat Noodle. Am I cycling through the noodle types from the stall? Perhaps so. This one and the mee pok are at the top of the list.

Revisiting Chatterbox

It's been some years since we were last at Chatterbox. Not that we were aching to come back but it was a suggestion that did not sound bad. Now that we have, we also realized that the entire place has been renovated. Place looks a lot more classy.

We ended up with chicken rice and ngoh hiong.

Half a chicken was huge. They're apparently free ranged from a farm in Malaysia which I hear provides only for Chatterbox. Bird's served boneless, was meaty, full of bite and tasted...retro. So that's what time honoured recipe means. In retrospect, there're a number of options out there which are more enjoyable in my books. With eyes closed and a rock tossed at random space, I think I might have hit Jew Kit. 

I thought their ngoh hiong looked disappointing. What with the fried skin and some meat paste protein matter suffings. Definitely not the type I envisioned in my head.

Fortunately, it did not taste half bad. Skin was crisp, pretty fragrant and the stuffings did not taste as paste-y or floury like it looked. But still we weren't exactly impressed and will probably never get it again. At the prices Chatterbox charges, I would love to be impressed.

Mini maple blueberrybon from Cinnabon

We came across this at Cinnabon by chance and decided to stop for one.

Not bad tasting. There's definitely blueberry flavour and something else which felt familiar yet I couldn't put a finger to. Not maple I'm sure.

Phoenix Garden (凰园), Ngee Ann City

Dim sum at Phoenix Garden (#05-30 Ngee Ann City, 91 Orchard Road, tel : +65 8058 7038) from a couple of visits. Don't know when they opened but I never even knew that they existed until recently. We stumbled upon a one-for-one dim sum deal going on which operated with a limited menu. By the time this post is published, they would have closed the current premise because the last visit was their last day of operation.

A little bird whispered that they had to relocated because of the increase in rent.

There's a drink on the menu call Black & Black which is described as Guinness + British Black Currents. I was wondering what the latter was until the wait staff mentioned Ribena. 😂 Anyways, the stout came in a can, was poured into a glass with the British Black Currents and we had to stir it ourselves. I kinda enjoyed it though.

Pan fried radish cake's pretty decent. There's strips of radish within and pork (or was it chicken?) floss without.

Pretty edible Yang Zhou fried rice. Needed more salt. Or perhaps fish sauce. 

Seafood fried rice we had on another occasion had better salting resulting in a moreish and savoury flavour. The only seafood in it were diced prawns and scallops.

Xiao long bao was also decent quality. While I couldn't tell how it fared against "the local benchmark" (😂), it wasn't far off from those standards.

Got an order of the fried 腐皮卷 after learning that there wasn't any coriander or Chinese parsley in them. The stuffing was prawn paste and this was much better tasting than I had imagined.

Competent siew mai with a good mix of flavour from both the pork and mushroom stuffings.

Some nicely done vegetable dumping which were mostly filled with chopped mushrooms with truffle oil.

Har gow stained with butterfly pea flower. Tasted just like regular competently done har gow. Skin was a little thicker than what we generally prefer but it's not a deal breaker.

No 红油 in their 红油抄手. These were more akin to 水饺. The heat was mild in the vinegar sauce. Not bad tasting but these weren't 红油抄手. 

Salted yolk lava buns quite nice. This was how they looked the first time we had them.

On the second occasion, the buns were of a different design, charcoal infused and grey.

I liked both versions we had. No flavour differences for sure.

Char siew bao with brown sugar skin. I could smell the brown sugar faintly but not taste them. But pretty good tasting bao though.

They also had this 寿桃 buns that were filled with yam paste.

Beneath the peachy surface, creamy grey sweetened yam paste.

Orh nee was thick with a creamy coconut milk over. Not very sweet. Not bad also.

Happy with their mango sago pomelo too. This place isn't fancy. The food shows. That being said, the quality was not bad at all.

香香猪肉面 (Xiang Xiang Pork Noodles), Upper Boon Keng Road

Mixed feelings about Xiang Xiang Pork Noodles (#01-01 WuFu Coffee Shop, 5 Upper Boon Keng Road). We were served by a non-local who couldn't speak Mandarin, did not look like he was well versed in preparing the food we ordered and had gotten the meatball we wanted incorrectly. The wait time was pretty long. Food's a mixed bag as well.

This was the large portion of their sweet intestine mee pok. Not a fan of their chilli sauce. I'm also not tasting lard (猪油) nor did I get any lard (猪油炸) even though I noticed them around and they also appeared to be selling jars of them. Love the intestines and pig's skin but the noodles weren't anything that would make me look forward to coming back.

For some reasons, they mixed up the additional meatball orders and gave us one less of the truffle one. Meatball's decent. Soup's nothing to write home about.

The minced pork soup noodles were another thing entirely. This broth had a lot more going on and I don't know if it was just the robust hit of garlic in it. Definitely more enjoyable than the dry mee pok. Gonna be getting the soup bowl if I ever come back. 🤔 What I couldn't quite figure out was, this was supposed to be the small portion and looked no different in size from the large mee pok.  

Pig's skin here were kinda meh. The ones that came with the noodles were more tender while these harder ones had more of the herbal flavour from their braising sauce. Not impressed.

Back at Ma Maison Kitchen

Dinner at Ma Maison Kitchen.

That's the onion gratin soup. Beef stock with onions and a slice of baguette in a cup covered in cheese. It's their rendition of the French soupe à l’oignon and a weak one at that. 😂

They changed their recipe for their deep fried gyutan. We know because we've had them previously. The breading was oily and there's a discernible flavour of ginger which was never there before. Today's tongue was also hard and chewy. What was that expression about mending things that are not broken again? 🤔

Pretty good Camembert beef stroganoff. I mean, their beef stroganoff has always been nice in a rich wine-y beefy manner with sweet onions and moreish chunks of beef. Having it was some Camembert in no way diminishes that. Even though it wasn't one of the better Camembert we've had.

I've been curious about their Napolitan spaghetti for a while but have resisted ordering it because the primary flavouring ingredient is ketchup. Did not expect the egg in theirs though. We finally tried it today. It's not as bad/sweet as I imagined. Also no bell peppers in it. Actually very edible with powdered cheese. 😬 Don't mind getting this again.

More eating at Jew Kit

Been a while since we were last at Jew Kit.

There's Hokkien mee on their menu. Did not taste like the kind of Hokkien mee that one usually gets from Hokkien mee stalls. Seemed more soupy and appears to have less infusion of the stock into the noodles. While the bee hoon tasted like it had soaked that flavour in, the yellow noodle did not. Stock was quite nice tasting though. The sambal/chilli tasted like the kind of lime-y chilli sauce that Putien uses. I like them but the flavour was pretty overwhelming.

Man their chickens are good. This was a single serving portion with thigh meat which we ordered from their Set A which oddly appears to be cheaper than the single serving portion of chicken for one.

Chicken rice set came with a bowl of meatball soup. These meatballs were delicious. 👍🏼 No dried sole flavour in them but they were gently sweet.

Coffee's fragrant but unsatisfyingly diluted.