328 Katong Laksa, East Coast Road

For posterity, a large bowl ($9.30) from 328 Katong Laksa (51 East Coast Road). That shrimpy coconut-y gravy seemed more satisfying today than what I remember from their shop at Queensway and Tiong Bahru. But memory can be fickle. Or maybe it was just better tasting. I'll probably never know which.

184 Family Cooked Food, Bukit Timah Interim Food Centre

 

I remember 184 Family Cooked Food from the old Bukit Timah Food Centre some years back. They're currently located at the interim food centre (#01-056 Bukit Timah Interim Food Centre, 2A Jalan Seh Chuan) next door to He Zhong Carrot Cake just like before. Bee hoon's still not bad tasting but their chicken wings look different from what I remembered. I also didn't think as little of their otah and sambal today as I did previously. Somethings seem to have changed. 🤔

Lin Traditional Chicken Rice (林传统鸡饭), Amoy Street Food Centre

Noticed Lin Traditional Chicken Rice (#01-59 Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road) and their long queues during my previous visits to Amoy Street Food Centre.

Most of their chicken on display were the roasted/fried variety. There appears to be limited poached chicken - at least the ones that were visible.

Tried their roast/fried chicken. Meat's dry-ish. Rice was beady and passable. Chilli's garlicky/gingery/lime-y. Serviceable plate with pretty generous portions. I'm guessing that the stall attracts a queue because this was likely to be the largest portion of protein that one could get for $5 around the vicinity.

One week later......

It seems that there isn't additional charge for thigh meat. This was also $5 for 白尾. Similar generous portion of meat as the breast meat from last week. I suppose that partially explains the queue.

Just to be clear, the egg is an additional separate charge.

Tsukiji Kaisendon, Holland Village Shopping Centre

Finally came down to Tsukiji Kaisendon (#02-03 Holland Village Shopping Centre, 211 Holland Avenue, tel : +65 8493 0438). This was the queue with an already full house at about 5.30pm on a weekday which according to Google is their opening time for evening service.

From what I could piece together, the restaurant's history started with Sumo-Ya -> Chirashizushi Shou -> Tsukiji Kaisendon -> Takumi Sakaba.

There's Suntory on tap.

And ankimo ponzu.

Their barachirashi was decent as barachirashi went. As an aburi barachirashi, I'll score it something like 2/10. The amount of torching was scant that I could barely taste it. It's not like torching took a lot of skill and this looked like they simply couldn't be bothered.

I'm pretty sure I can get better tasting salmon belly from Donki.

Banana Pudding Oreo

 

So I came across these at Cold Storage.

I can only imagine how banana pudding might taste like. Artificial flavouring of bananas which I usually don't mind.

Might be one layer of regular Oreo cream and another of that banana pudding flavour.

Too sweet. Banana flavour tasted...nothing like I imagined. Didn't like this one.

J2 Famous Crispy Curry Puff, Amoy Street Food Centre

Here's a couple of curry puffs from J2 Famous Crispy Curry Puff (#01-21 Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road, tel : +65 9475 8425). Both had shatteringly crispy pastry shells and were well filled with their stuffings. On top of that, they never felt heavy or dense.

Sardine's pretty good tasting.

So was the one with chicken and potatoes. Not bad. Didn't recall any egg in there though.

More cai png from Wan Jin Yuan (萬金园)

There's minced pork petai with that got rotated in at Wan Jin Yuan which I've previously not seen. Too bad there wasn't much petai in it. There's some sweetness underlying even though there weren't any onions in it. Gonna be difficult to hold off their fried chicken since they're pretty darn good.

可口鸭, Bukit Timah Interim Food Centre

Chanced upon 可口鸭 (#01-052 Bukit Timah Interim Food Centre, 2A Jalan Seh Chuan) thought that their offerings looked good. 

Ordered kuey chap. The fried shallots and oil that you could help yourself to was so cool.

Very competent plate of braised goods - eggs, large intestines (大肠), duck, pig's skin and tau kwa. All tender and flavourful, notably for the intestines and pig's skin.

Love the rice-y kueh in their uncomplicated savoury broth. Get them with the fried shallot and oil.

Witch's Black Potion with Katsu Kun and other things from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison

Tonkatsu by Ma Maison @ Mandarin Gallery had a Halloween tonkatsu for this year. We went for that and tried a couple of other stuff.

Never seen their chilli cream cheese on the menu before. It's pretty good. There's a savoury flavour from the chilli oils that paired nicely with the cream cheese.

What we were looking forward to today was Katsu Kun 😬. 

Check out the crazed looks. 🤘🏼 One could choose between rosu or hire. This was rosu. Plate came with squid ink black curry. The wagyu menchi katsu on the side's an add on.

Menchi katsu's a mix of minced wagyu and pork. Tender and moist on the inside and was pretty tasty. Didn't taste particularly wagyu-y.

Revisiting Little Red Hen

Haven't eaten at Little Red Hen in quite a while. This was their nasi ulam ayam percik again because I remember liking the gravy. Noticed that their nasi ulam has changed a little. Rice is now more yellow. But the flavour remained somewhat the same. Because it was just next door to Warung Parsanga which belonged to the proprietor's folks, one can actually include stuff that they sold. I topped the nasi ulam with some paru goreng from that stall. These were more tender than than they looked. 👍🏼

21 Fishball Noodles (21鱼圆面), Old Airport Road

Got wind of 21 Fishball Noodles (#01-111, 21 Old Airport Road). This stall is located at an old coffee shop a couple of minutes walk from the well known Old Airport Road Food Centre. It's not in that food centre.

This was the queue at about 9.30am. Never abated throughout the 40 minutes or so we were there.

Got the $7 portion. The size of the bowl of noodles doesn't seem to change. Only the portion of the ingredients in the soup does.

Competent but not particularly memorable. They use the regular large chilli here so there's more bark than bite so to speak.

The thing that was mention worthy were their fish paste items in the soup - fish cakes, fish balls and fish dumplings. They appear to be made in house and were quite delicious. Hidden at the bottom of the bowl were also pork slices which I thought was over tenderised.

Park Bäckerei, Icon Village

I've been wanting to try Park Bäckerei (#01-41/42 Icon Village, 12 Gopeng Street, tel : +65 8421 0866) since they setup shop. They're mostly handmade German pretzel, stuffed bagels, sausage rolls, sandwiches and some confectionary.

Came across a limited time Easter special. Pulled beef cheese steak sandwich. Looked kinda small.

It was delicious though. That piping hot pulled beef was properly tender and tangy with a likeable barbecue sauce, cheese, pickles and greens. The pretzel bread was crusty on the surface, tender and dense on the insides. Don't mind coming back.

Hot Boss Fav from Tarik

Finally got the hot Boss Fav from Tarik. I like the balance of tea, spices and milk. Flavour was similar to the cold one. Nice. 👍🏼

Pandi Ayya Tiffin Centre, Tekka Food Centre

Been trying to get some food from other stalls at Tekka Food Centre instead of the same few ones we've been going to. This was some idli and vadai from Pandi Ayya Tiffin Centre (#01-240 Tekka Market & Food Centre, 665 Buffalo Road). Those idlis were taken from plastic containers at the front of the stall so I don't know when they were made but they tasted pretty tangy. Vadai was freshly fried and were both tender and crusty. They were all pretty good once the sambar and chutney came into play.

鸭皇 (Duck King), Ghim Moh

I remember having char siew from 鸭皇 (19 Ghim Moh Rd, #01-263) years ago. Not to be confused with the popular roast duck eatery similarly named 鸭皇 from JB. 

This was what I was talking about.

Got ourselves a plate of triple roast - roast pork, char siew and roast duck. All nicely done. There was a crunchy crackling on the roast pork, gummy fatty sweetness from char siew and pretty tender duck breast.

Livers, gizzards and eggs on the side.

Sauce on the left was 当归 for the duck - also worked for roast pork. The other brown sauce was starchy and mediocre.

There was another black sauce - I believe it's dark soya sauce with drippings from one of their meats. This in tandem with the 当归 on their rice was pretty kickass delicious. 

Round two of the meats because the first round left us wanting more.