Like Mee Noodle House (贊麵館 豬肉粉), Taman Mount Austin, Johor Bahru

Pretty impressed by what we had at Like Mee Noodle House (6 Jalan Austin Heights 8/2, Taman Mount Austin, 81100 Johor Bahru).

Ice kopi's pretty good. Flavour's robust even with the ice and milk. That monkfruit/luo han guo/罗汉果 tea wasn't as thick as I was imagining though.

Tried their 猪肉粉/pork noodles. This one was the option with mixed pork parts which included sliced pork, liver, some deliciously flavourful pork patties and check out those stuffed intestines! Both meat and offal were well prepared without residual stench. Soup's cloudy and packed with a clean pork flavour, layered gently with lard.

Flavour of said soup was intensified and further aromatised from a generous shot of shao xing wine (绍兴酒).

The other bowl we had was fish paste noodles. Not that fish paste noodles. This bowl was noodles that came with slices of fish paste. Tasted like tender fish cake. The soup was fortified with evaporated milk and more shao xing wine. Reminded me a little of that milky soup bowl from Go Noodle House. Hell yeah this was good! 👍🏼

Tried their fish popcorn. These were kinda like mini fish cakes. Kinda because it wasn't the same but I couldn't put a finger to what made these different.

Would love to come back.

More food from from Meng Meng Roasted Duck (阿明帝皇鸭) at City Square

Stopped by Meng Meng Roasted Duck at City Square for food before heading deeper into JB.

Discovered that their salted vegetable duck soup (咸菜鸭汤) was not bad. Liked it enough that I'll want to get it again the next time.

Tried asking for 半肥瘦 for their char siew. This was it. Tasted kinda like the last times we had them. The meat was more tender than it looked. Not Char Siew Yoong standards obviously.

油饭 doesn't have that much salt so the flavour intensity isn't high. Which makes it great pairing with their lime-y chilli sauce.

Bonjour Ma Cuisine, Craig Road

Bonjour Ma Cuisine is the brunch operation of the one Micheline starred Ma Cuisine (38 Craig Road, tel : +65 9627 1058). The former is available for breakfast and lunch for weekdays only and the latter only has dinner service. At least for now that's how it's working for them.

Iced coffee's okay. 

Chocolat veinnois had a rich milkiness paired with a creamy viscosity and an infusion of cinnamon in the chocolate. Not bad. 

One of their recommended dishes was their Croque Madame Truffe - their refined rendition of the traditional sandwich with truffle. Doesn't look like the standard variety sandwich of its kind. Ham and cheese was inside the disc of crunchy bread with a pretty sunny side up. Not bad tasting. Now that I've tried it, I won't get it again. That's how it was.

We were more impressed by their quenelle de brochet sauce nantua.

Quenelle had a creamy/custardy texture flavoured by presumably the pike that went into it and that crustacean-y sweet, savoury and spicy sauce nantua. 👍🏼

Salade de foies de volaille - warm chicken liver salad with rockets. Nice. Sauce was vinegary and with onions which cut through the richness of those livers.

Their pasta with Parmesan is apparently a thing. Menu calls it linguine but isn't this pappardelle? Anyways, the application of the cheese is balanced by what the restaurant thinks ideal. It didn't taste bad. It just didn't pack the punch from the cheese like I imagined. But otherwise, it's okay.

They have a pretty refined hand chopped tartare de boeuf. Meat's in small chunky cubes which provided a good texture full of bite - if that's your thing that is. It was mine. We enjoyed this.

We were recommended their pain perdu kaya. I was initially wondering where the kaya was. It's the yellow sauce. Bread's nicely brûlée-ed with a light crisp and caramel bitter sweetness. It was also airy on the insides which helped absorb the custard-y sauce. This was nicer than I imagined.

Freaky Cones, South Bridge Road

Stumbled upon Freaky Cones (200 South Bridge Road, tel : +65 9631 0617). I remember vaguely having read about them before but couldn't put my finger to any detail in particular. Hand crafted ice cream they said. Personally, the description "hand crafted" is inane unless someone could show me machine crafted. Anyways, it's not bad. 👍🏼 Black sesame mochi was nutty and smoky. Pistachio was also nutty and creamy. Loved their freshly made waffles with a light caramel-y crunch on the exterior and moist insides. Will consider coming back.

More from Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant

Back at Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant.

I spied their thattu ghee podi idli on the menu the last time and wanted to try it. It's just the big assed version of their regular one. Same spicy, salty cheesy butteriness. But bigger.

Butter onion uttapam just has a lump of butter over the top. Nice when you get the butter in the bite. There wasn't not enough to nicely coat the whole pancake. It also appears to be less burnt than the ghee onion uttapam.

Paneer butter dosa. Or also can be read as butter paneer dosa.

Basically cubed paneer in the butter chicken styled yoghurt gravy in the dosa.

Ah Hua Handmade Fishball Noodle (阿華手工鱼圆面), Redhill Food Centre

Was it my choice or an illusion of choice that landed me with Ah Hua Handmade Fishball Noodle (#01-55, Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane). A philosophical question which will not be dwelled on here. Serviceable bowl but I didn't think it memorable. Lots of saucing in this with the noodles. Chilli's not very spicy. Those prawns - they had really thin shells that weren't easy to remove. But the meat was sweet and quality better than I had initially misjudged. 

Dim summing at Kai Duck

It's actually a bit more than just dim sum from their menu at Kai Duck. Had a few other stuff a la carte.

Couldn't resist their cold tomato with passionfruit.

Tempura sweet corn was...quite forgettable. The corn didn't taste especially good.

Roast pork's fantastic. Crispy on the crackling and the meat was tender.

Char siew with peanuts was okay. Tender and quite tasty but there are better tasting ones around. Very little peanuts also.

That's luffa and sliced kurobuta stir fried preserved olive leaves. Meat's really tender and good flavour from the sauce, thanks to the preserved olive leaves. Will come back for this again.

Half roasted duck. Tenderer than what I remember of them from the last time.

The English name on the menu was something along the lines of fish shaped eggplant salt dumpling. I'm not sure of the intent but it tasted like wu kok/fried taro dumplings to me. It's not fish shaped but eggplant shaped. Skin's fried, a little chewy and there's minced stuff inside.

Fried yam and pumpkin. Decent.

Har gow's huge and pretty good tasting.

Pan fried teriyaki siew mai. The flavour from the teriyaki glaze was light - which was the way I liked it. Otherwise, competent siew mai. Would get this again if we come back.

Sheng jian bao (生煎包). No comments. Might not have been memorable.

Scrambled eggs with minced beef. Not bad.

Tofu stuffed with minced pork. There was a bunch of clams at the bottom of the claypot. Nice. Good for returns.

Fried noodles with soya sauce was nice. Great texture from the noodles. I'd come back for this too.

Steak Sukadu, Killiney Road

Been wanting to try Steak Sukadu (107 Killiney Road). If you're wondering what is their draw, it's Omi Gyu - one of three of the top wagyu "brand" alongside Kobe and Matsusaka. Also from what I've read, the oldest strain from the Shiga prefecture which dates back over four centuries. Lots of fluff out there regarding how premium it is. The icing on the cake, so to speak, is that Steak Sukadu makes theirs affordable.

Rice, soup and salad can be ordered individually or as a set of all three and they're refillable.

Personally, I don't think one would get much refills of the beef broth which is rich with beefy oils and adequately salted. It adds quite quickly to the surfeit that tends to accumulate from the already rich A5 omi gyu.

We had the hamburg. Tender, has a nice crust but lacks character in terms of texture and flavour. Meat's minced with onions. Not something I'd look forward to again.

The A5 omi gyu steak was tender, rich and delicious. Got ours with sauce on the side. The meat needed nothing else but salt. I don't understand the hot plate concept with this because it did little but burnt the potato wedges. This beef was really good with just rice.

Love their ketchup. Don't know how it's made but it's noice.