Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant in January

First breakfast at Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八) for 2026.

It'll probably be the end of days if we ever said no to these buttery rice/lentil porridge infused with black peppercorn and cumin. Today's ghee pongal was nicely salted and awesome!

Couldn't resist their always delicious freshly steamed ghee garlic podi idli.

Just noticed today that we can buy the podi/garlic powder from them. Hmmm...🤔

Ghee mudakkathan podi masala dosa - the masala rendition of the ghee mudakkathan podi dosai. If anyone's still struggling with what masala is in the context of dosa, it refers to the curried potato/vegetable stuffings. Anyways, great podi flavouring paired with ghee that you could further flavour bomb with the chutneys.

Some eats from Casa Vostra during the new year

Back at Casa Vostra in Raffles City. 

Agnolotti all'anatra in brodo - duck filled agnolotti in a duck consommé. The minced duck in the pasta was delicately textured but pretty packed with flavour. The broth, for the lack of a better word, was duck-y but also lightweight at the same time.  

Nicely done broccolini. Great pairing with that creamy/cheesy sauce on the plate.

That's their pizza prosciutto e fichi which featured prosciutto di Parma, fig puree, walnuts and rocket with shaven Parmigiano Reggiano. Fig puree tasted like honey.

Dark chocolate gelato's not bad.

Rather liked their strawberry lemonade. Granted I was pretty thirsty then.

Shiok Hokkien Mee, Beauty World

Just found out that there's a Shiok Hokkien Mee at Beauty World (#04-52 Beauty World Centre, 144 Upper Bukit Timah Road). This was a plate of kosong with extra egg and chilli. Similar tasting but not exactly the same as the one at Boon Tiong Road.

42, ABC Brickworks Food Centre

Google registers the address of this stall as 42 Nasi Lemak. But the name on their signage is just 42 (#01-136 ABC Brickworks Food Centre, 6 Jalan Bukit Merah), which corresponds to their unit number in the food centre.

Bee hoon's not bad. Fried chicken also not bad but not a fan of the crispy bits of batter they scatter on the noodles. That being said, the plate was on the whole a little greasy. Don't mind coming back though.

Hai Kah Lang (海脚人), Funan

Hai Kah Lang from Malaysia has opened up at Funan in the spot that used to be occupied by Keisuke Plus (#01-15 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 9003 4023).

Their Bamboo White Coffee's not bad tasting. Supposedly infused with bamboo salt which barely registered. 

Fried fish cake's great munching with their dip.

We like their prawn paste sliced fish (虾酱炸鱼⽚). There's sufficient prawn paste flavour in the batter. That aside, the base flavour/texture of said batter was personally nostalgic for me.

Soup with milk and parrot fish and 干捞 wanton mee. Flavour from the broth was as fantastic as the one we had in JB. Love those dry chewy noodles.

Grouper with tom yam soup and rat tail noodles. That tom yam broth had a sweet seafood-y base which kinda caught me by surprise - in a pleasant way that is. Lou shi fun was delicious...I'm detected some flavourful oil but I couldn't put a finger to what it was.

We also got some of their coconut-y sea bird nest jelly drink that we liked from the last time. 

Ming Fa (明發), Smith Street Food Centre

First time getting a bowl of bak chor mee from Ming Fa at Chinatown (Green Zone, #02-049 Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre, 335 Smith Street). Have tried their branches at Tekka Food Centre and Upper Thomson and have also heard things about this one being the original.

Anyways, this was a decent vinegary bowl. Like the Tekka branch, there were no fishballs, no prawns and no pig's liver in it. Also nothing that made them stand out from most decent bak chor mee. It's in the category where I wouldn't mind getting if I'm in the vicinity but wouldn't travel here just for them. 

Jin Kimchi Express, Bukit Merah Central

I've bought kimchi from Jin Kimchi before but never made the connection with them to their Jin Kimchi Express stalls for some reasons. Ate somethings from their Bukit Merah Central branch (#01-3749, 161 Bukit Merah Central, tel : 6910 3180) recently. They're in the same SG Kopitiam as No. 25 Minced Meat Noodle.

Happy with their signature kimchi set with added sausage and egg. It's actually pretty good. The bowl was generously loaded with kimchi, tofu, and thin sliced pork belly in a savoury broth that was also kinda briny. That little serving of banchan on the side had really nice savoury sweet marinated quail eggs.

Jjajangmyeon wasn't great in my opinion. Was looking forward to a more robust bean-y flavour in the sauce.

BBQ mutton from Milan Shokudo

Previously, I was kinda disappointed that Milan Shokudo took away the chocolate banana pizza from their menu. My impression of them took a serious downturn with this bbq mutton I noticed on their menu recently. I mean, what the hell was this?

The pasta on the side was undercooked and looked like it had been previously portioned in a container and refrigerated. It hasn't even lost it's shape so yeah, you can judge the freshness of the prep from there. And that mutton - it's got that irritating sweet marinate which was pretty much the only flavour in the meat. I couldn't tell it was mutton/lamb. 👎🏼

Look at how much gristle in that mediocre quality meat that was inedible. It looked like these guys couldn't care less what they were serving to people. 👎🏼

Ruxu (入续), Funan

 

Ruxu (#01-11 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 8171 8419) is a tong sui (traditional Chinese dessert) and bakery chain from Guangzhou, China. They've gotten a bit of spotlight on local social media lately because of their first branch in Singapore.

They've something called phoenix milk custard with rice wine & mochi. Not bad though I think the flavour from said rice wine was a little weak. The custard was not excessively sweet with an almost ethereal texture and the mochi was much more tender than I imagined. 

Mango sago pomelo was okay. Decent tasting if not exactly memorable. Those mango were just crossing the edge into the pretty sour zone.

Almond pudding with osmanthus syrup tasted like I imagined. No surprises here.

Changi Village Cooked Food (樟宜村熟食), Bendemeer Market & Food Centre

There must be at least a couple of stalls selling nasi lemak/economic bee hoon at this food centre. I had to choose one so I picked Changi Village Cooked Food (#01-45 Bendemeer Market & Food Centre, 29 Bendemeer Road) which looked promising. It was pretty decent. Got myself the squiggly noodle which they called maggie and bee hoon along with some cabbage, a triangle hash brown, egg and luncheon meat. Not bad tasting.

后港六条石 Simon rd, Bendemeer Market & Food Centre

I don't remember the last time I've been to Bendemeer Food Centre. Anyways, this was a plate of black char kuey teow with extra egg from what I determined to be the Simon Road Fried Carrot Cake stall (#01-78 Bendemeer Market & Food Centre, 29 Bendemeer Road). I don't know how the Chinese name is tied to Simon Road.

Radish cake wasn't well caramelised at all. That and there wasn't as much dark soya sauce as I preferred. What made this pretty memorable was their spicy lime-y sambal which I went back to the stall to ask for more of. 

Astons Specialities, Clarke Quay Central

Hadn't realised that there is an Astons Specialities at Clarke Quay Central (#03-85 Clarke Quay Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street, tel : +65 6222 3987) until now. This place is pretty nostalgic. Used to be the new kid on the block back then. I remember them for leveling up affordable steaks and introducing accessibly priced wagyu when wagyu was too rich for the blood of most of us.

And also the naturally and artificially flavoured D Nutrigraded IBC which we actually like. I don't remember if I've ever had IBC anywhere else except Astons. 

There's some limited time chocolate crumble fries for Christmas. Drizzled with chocolate hazelnut (is that Nutella?) and some crispy granola/cereal thingys. Much larger portions that I imagined and with the load of sugar, fat and carbs; unhealthy is a suitable adjective for some of us. Not forgetting delicious. 👍🏼😏 

Their entry prime ribeye tasted like how they did from back in their early days. Decent quality and affordable still but prices have understandably gone up through the years. 

M&T, Guoco Tower

I've been curious about M&T(#01-12 Guoco Tower, 5 Wallich Street, tel : +65 8948 9242). I've mixed feelings about the food. What we had felt like it came from a kitchen that's been given instructions/recipes to cook rather than being one that has experience with French food.

Goat cheese salad was not bad. Properly tossed, sweet cherry tomatoes and all. My gripe was that the goat cheese tasted weak.

There's a croque au bleu which is a croque monsieur made with Comté and Fourme d'Ambert. The lack of punch (from the lack of quantity) from the latter was kinda disappointing.

Grassfed beef burger with Fourme d'Ambert was also disappointing. Patty's kinda dense, lean and was not particularly beefy tasting. Fries were mostly hollow...like they're shells of actual fries. 

Not much of the Fourme d'Ambert in it as well. We've had better French blue cheese burgers.