Revisiting Liu Lang Mian Noodle Bar (流浪面)

Back at Liu Lang Mian. 

Recent special of the month was their dan dian mian (担担面). While it looked pretty much like any of their other dry noodles, one could taste some heat and the sesame sauce in it. What helped cut through the richness were the onions, pickles and vinegar on the side which made it much easier to inhale with some sparing application. Not the classic Chinese variety but it's pretty good. Cashews too.

Like their DBJ chicken mazesoba too. If anyone was wondering, DBJ = dou ban jiang. 豆瓣酱. A spicy fermented bean paste which along with the minced chicken made this bowl. Noticeably less rich with a more pronounced fermented bean profile compared to the dan dan mian. 

Pork and chives wanton looked like 红油抄手 and even tasted like it with the chilli and vinegar. Stuffings tasted similar to guo tie of pork and chives. Not bad.

Empire Fine Chinese Cuisine, Ngee Ann City

We were drawn to Empire Fine Chinese Cuisine (#05-13/14 Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road) because their menu looked interesting, featuring dishes that weren't exactly run of the mill variety.

Sautéed crab with egg white and white truffle oil. Nice. They kept it uncomplicated so one could taste the chunks of crab meat, the truffle and even the egg white.

Stewed goose web with glass noodles/tang hoon in claypot was pretty good. Goose web was slurp off the bone tender though these needed a little more slurping strength than chicken claws. The glass noodles were deliciously salty, savoury and loaded with black pepper.

Stewed bean curd preserved black olives minced pork. Nice.

Never tried this combination before - stewed chicken with yam, pumpkin and coconut milk in claypot. The creamy coconut milk tasted much like chicken broth. Good quality yam and pumpkin in there which together with the spring onions introduced some natural sweetness. 👍🏼

Shiok Hokkien Mee, Tiong Bahru

Shiok Hokkien Mee used to be known as YouFu previously. They've since rebranded and also expanded to a few outlets outside of Golden Mile Food Centre. This was the new shop at Tiong Bahru (11B Boon Tiong Road) located at the unit previously occupied by a very short lived San Hu Bak Chor Mee.

Not bad. Nice intensity from a creamy prawny flavour in the stock and I liked that it wasn't too wet. Chilli was absolutely burning with a bit of bitter. Will come back.

Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice without curry

No curry or gravy this time round. This dredged memories of how I had pork chop rice at Loo's in my distant past. I was never much into their curry since then. The clean taste of just their five spice flavoured pork chop and rice sure took me back and fuelled nostalgia. Even though I'm pretty sure that pork chop today tasted a little different from before. I think this is going to be the way from now. Also trying their meatball (狮子头) for the first time. Tender and lots of chopped onions in it.

First breakfast of 2025

First meal of 2025. Familiar looking setup of fish soup and radish cake.

Sliced fish bee hoon from Wen Xin Fish Soup.

White radish cake from Unforgettable Carrot Cake.

Kopi from Modern Old School.

Sushiro from last Halloween until......

Another compilation of Sushiro (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九,十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五) eats.

Recently we've encountered added cheese to their sweet tamagoyaki nigiri. Adding cheese made it nicer...I'm almost reminded of cheesecake.

Lobster croquette - could get those crustacean-y flavour in the creamy centre. Okay tasting but was pretty greasy. Looked at the soak in the background.

I wonder why the sardine tempura nigiri aren't a regular item. I think they're not bad tasting.

The quality of their aburi engawa nigiri appears to have gone up somewhat. It's not longer that measly strip of fin these days. I hope they preserve this quality in quantity same moving forward. 

Pretty good shrimp tempura nigiri which had fresh tasting prawns. These were well fried to the point that the crispy tails could be eaten with ease.

Some cheesy fried mushroom wrap. Not bad tasting. Was freshly fried with a whole cap of mushroom inside. Tasted meaty.

Don't recall having had gindara nigiri before. This one was aburi shoyu gindara. Fish was chewier than the cooked variety and didn't particularly remind me of the flavour when it's cooked.

Not passing on the ankimo gunkan.

Yes we have gotten fries here. They aren't bad. Heh heh......

With winter comes shirako. Tempura-ed with ankake. Not bad but I don't know why they had to do this with so much grated ginger.

We were somewhat conned, once, with an order of shishamo tempura. The first fish was filled with plenty of roe. The rest of the fishes from the same plate had none. While I generally like them for their roe, I was actually ok with these without.

Amusingly named 'boss level scallop stack'...

Hokkaido squid tororo konbu. Squid was unexpectedly gummy which we didn't like. Couldn't make out anything distinctive with that tororo konbu. 

While this fried aji was suppose to be a nigiri, one could tell that not much care or follow up with its processing and presentation aligned with the intent. We ordered this for fried aji, not so much because we wanted a nigiri version as well so I guess we might all be looking at it the same way.

Their warabi mochi parfait has upgraded the waffle. It's now a sandwich with a thin layer of cream in the middle. Nice.