More food from Umar Ali Cafe

Another compilation of eats from Umar Ali Cafe.

There's ghee prata on menu. They obliged with my request to add banana after a baffled look from the guy taking the order. Not bad tasting. Wished there was a bit more of that ghee flavour but I couldn't complain.

Loaded up on some Indian rojak. Definitely not the standards that one can find at Tekka Food Centre. 

A couple of weeks later......

Came over for some appam which are available only in the morning. These appams were surprisingly light.

The one with banana was delicious. Largely because of the type of banana they were using which softened from the heat into something tangy sweet nicely, just like goreng pisang.

The other appam was had ghee drizzled over. With some sprinkles of sugar, it was deliciously sweet and buttery.

Sausage and egg prata uses the same fried cheap hot dog as their Indian rojak as I suspected. The sausage was sliced and scattered over the prata with the egg before hopping on the griddle. Came with a mutton-y dalcha and fish curry. I asked them for a dollop of coconut chutney. Never noticed that the dalcha has daikon before.

Some time later......

Roti banjir special. A couple of prata kosong in doused in a mixture of dalcha and fish curry and topped with a couple of sunny side ups. Nice! Better tasting rendition than the one previously from the defunct ABC Food Corner.

There and back again......

Here's their kuey teow combo. Combo in mamak refers to the addition of cheese fries and red sauce mutton on top of the goreng-ed carb of choice. This one was a decent tasting combo plate. Those crinkle cut fries were not over-fried and dried out. Too bad about the dry hard mutton.

We wanted to do better than their usual menu nasi goreng so we got a nasi goreng ikan bilis with keema. The fried rice was light - fluffy even with loose grains and no excessive oil. With the keema, there was an infusion of flavour from mutton. Nice.

Cheese prata has that square of cheese right in the middle. The edges without are a showcase of their kosong which in my opinion is old school bready and nice. Otherwise surpassed by the double cheese version from Prata Saga Sambal Berlada.

Double egg prata is more satisfying than the single egg ones.

威胜碳烤烧腊, Ubi

Pretty good roast meats from 威胜碳烤烧腊 (Wong Poh Kopitiam, 3004 Ubi Ave 3). Both meats were adequately moist and arguably tender. Roast pork was layered with a crunchy crackling while the duck had a thin layer of fat beneath for flavour. Nice. This was just next door to Wan Li Xiang Chicken Rice.

Cheesy chocolate murtabak from Master Prata

But first some "mango lemonade". At least that was what it was called on their menu. Tasted like mango puree. The only thing that was lemon, was that slice in the glass which did not impart any flavour. But it was a pretty good beverage.

Ordered the cheesy chocolate murtabak out of curiosity. I was half afraid that they'd just be drizzling some of those cheap tasting chocolate sauce from Hershey's but there were actual pieces of milk chocolate. Whether this was a murtabak was also debatable. Could've been called cheesy chocolate prata.

The cheese was mozzarella. With the chocolate, this was actually kinda nice. Kinda like Nutella. Pretty happy with it.

Filipino sweets from the dessert stall Asia Food Mall

Tried a couple of things at the dessert stall in Lucky Plaza's Asia Food Mall (#B1-038 Lucky Plaza, 304 Orchard Road).

We were curious about the ube champorado. The usual one's chocolate. This one also didn't have daing.

I couldn't really taste ube though all the diabetes inducing saccharinity from the condensed milk. This looked somewhat like pulut hitam but didn't taste like it.

Our fix to keep it edible was to get kopi c di lo kosong from the drink stall and make coffee flavoured ube champorado. Actually, kopi o di lo kosong would probably work as well. Surprisingly, the coffee here was drinkable.

While getting the champorado we noticed these banana turon. I got these to try in the hopes that it might use the local bananas that are commonly used for goreng pisang - while the voice at the back of my head was pretty confident that they wouldn't.

The rolls were drizzled with something brown and sweet...could not tell if it was caramel. There's also a dusting of sugar on them.

The voice at the back of my head was right. It's the one that tasted more like plantains which are less sweet and a texture like soft yam than ripe bananas. Which turned out to be a better choice since the fried skin was already crusted with sweetness. Unexpectedly enjoyed this more than I thought I would.

Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice.Fish Porridge (新記馳名雞飯.鱼生粥), Mei Ling Food Centre

This was kinda where it truly began for me with the old Margaret Drive chicken rice. Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice. But that old Sin Kee and the current one (#02-22 Mei Lin Food Centre, 159 Mei Chin Road) aren't the same. It's also not the same with another current Sin Kee at the current Margaret Drive Hawker Centre. There's a more complicated history behind the brand which I'm not going into in this post.

This one has a different proprietor at the helm and a smaller stall. Rice was a little wet but still grainy and great flavour from their stock. I could have almost believed that this was a replica of the old Sin Kee but for one thing I noticed. The chicken wasn't as tender. Not that this wasn't any good. It just wasn't the same.

More food from Ye Lai Xiang Teochew Porridge (夜来香潮州粥)

We've been eating at Ye Lai Xiang more than I've been posting about them. Most of the time, we end up getting something pretty similar so nothing much to see on those.

Rice/porridge water is available. I don't know what's the proper term for them.

Omelette with cai por is decent. The rendition from Kheng Nam Lee Teochew Porridge is superior.

More fried pork belly that's been marinated with fermented red bean curd.

Their pork patty with salted egg was so good. The patty was fatty and savoury with salt, topped with a chunk of salted duck egg for more flavour. This and rice maketh a good eat. Gotta get it again the next time.

More hairy gourd.

Sliced fish. Not fantastic but serviceable.

Bean curd stuffed with minced pork. Not bad.

Their unassuming dish of spinach braised with anchovy was umami delicious. Vegetable was tender. The list of repeat order grows.

More chap chye with red fermented bean curd.

Olivia's Signature Grilled Cheese Sandwich from Queic

Noticed that Queic has grilled cheese sandwiches on menu the last time we were here. This was Olivia's Signature - the one with mozzarella, Emmental, blue cheese, mustard and caramelized onions. I enjoyed it. A bit of sour from the mustard and some funk from the blue cheese in almost every bite, punctuated by a cheese pull.

Dan Curry Rice (单咖喱饭), Mei Ling Food Centre

New-ish curry rice stall (#02-19 Mei Lin Food Centre, 159 Mei Chin Road). Not the Hainanese variety and I don't know if there's a specific label to their type. What had gotten me curious about them was the shabu beef option they had for protein. 

Verdict is I'm not digging it. The curry flavour's lacking in animal fat of any sort and wasn't particularly lemak. Scrambled eggs on the side tasted like they were made from liquid eggs. Was wishing those onions with the beef were as tender as their stewed cabbage. Beef looked fatty but not particularly flavourful. Managed to finish this with the help of the sambal belachan which tasted like it was made from a factory.

Yan Ji Gourmet By GoodEarth, Far East Plaza

First time eating at this branch (#01-16A/B Far East Plaza, 14 Scotts Road, tel +65 6369 0988) of Yan Ji Gourmet. I was reeled in by the current limited time hamachi roe porridge.

Got a bowl of that with extra roe. Can't say it's bad but the stock wasn't as flavourful nor robust as their seafood soup. Not to mention that underlying flavour of ginger and the preserved cabbage/dong cai/冬菜 which I'm not a fan of. Otherwise a decent but pricey bowl of porridge.

If anyone's wondering how much roe there was, there's more hidden in in porridge.

More food from A2B Veg Restaurant

Dinner at A2B Veg Restaurant.

Dahi puri to munch while waiting. Refreshingly tangy from the tamarind sauce and yoghurt with a breath of mint and varied crunchy textures.

Party of my exploration of fried noodles in Indian eateries. This was Schezwan paneer noodles - A2B's interpretation of Chinese and spicy fried noodles with chunks of cottage cheese. Texture of the noodles were softer than what I prefer but I liked the straightforward moreish saltiness.

Palak mutter - puréed spinach with green peas. Nice rich savouriness in the spinach from the ghee, adequate salt and garlic. 👍🏼

Some light butter naan to scoop up the palak mutter with.

Washed down with a piping hot badam milk.