Kuey teow 白 from You Yi Minced Meat Noodle (友谊肉脞面)

Kuey teow with no sambal or vinegar from You Yi. Adequately salted and lardy with heat just from the sliced chilli. Nice. What I didn't expect/understand this time round was, why were there fried wantons instead of the regular ones.

Yong Kee Different Taste Hainanese Chicken Rice (勇記不同味海南雞飯), Hong Lim Food Centre

Trying a chicken rice stall (#02-24 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) I've never noticed previously at Hong Lim Food Centre. They've been around - just that I haven't registered them before.

Got a plate with poached chicken thigh, roast pork and egg.

Pretty decent chicken rice here. Chilli's lime-y, garlicky, a little gingery with a hint of bitterness and some heat. Chicken's tender and rice was adequately flavoured. I think this one was better with chilli than without. Soup has really tender cabbages in it but I'm pretty sure I caught kiam chye flavour. What's not good was the roast pork which had soggy crackling.

虾一跳 (Xia Yi Tiao), Food Republic @ Vivocity

The names for some local eateries have gotten punny over the years. Came across this one at Food Republic (#03-01 VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk). Have never seen/heard of this laksa/prawn noodle stall before.

Pricey big prawn laksa. Somewhere along the tunes of $16 if I remember correctly and portion wasn't exactly big.

Pretty good lemak gravy. Needs a dollop of their sambal because that gravy has a lot less dimension and body without. Their thick bee hoon (粗米粉) was also thinner than the regular type.

Nitty Gritty, Teo Hong Road

Lunch at Nitty Gritty (21 Teo Hong Road, tel : +65 9637 5884). They're a restaurant which feels/looked like a cafe, serving American(Southern) inspired food with a dash of Asian/Singaporean elements/ingredients. It's like that. 

Love their sparkling apple cream cider. This tasted like it's made from real apple juice with bit of spice and fizz. 👍🏼

That's the apple butter grits with toffee apple crisp. Smokey and very nice. The flavour was apples, toffee and smoke with spices and delicious crusty pecans. 👍🏼

Fried okra - not feeling for this one. I thought it was a little too greasy and maybe I just didn't like the batter to okra ratio.

Eggs with sesame and corn bread pancakes. Not bad - I liked how the dill and feta added herbaceous saltiness to the egg and sesame. And also liked how that honey chilli thingy on the side added to those eggs which I thought was really good.

Cheese grits were salty and nice. 👍🏼

That's their fronana - banana frozen yoghurt that's topped with more of those crusty pecans, chocolate buttons and their sachima (沙琪玛). How was it "their sachima"? I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the usual stuff that one might be able to get at Chinatown. That thing tasted of nutmeg and even though I was never one for sachima, I found it addictive.

The menu mentioned allspice, nutmeg and vanilla for their spiced vanilla latte. I only remembered/registered cinnamon.

Hot corn juice from Yuen Kee Dumpling (袁记云饺)

Got this hot corn juice from Yuen Kee Dumpling in the Food Republic at 313 (L5, 313@Somerset, 313 Somerset Road). This might be the only place we know of that still has this after the limited time ones from Tsui Wah. Putien doesn't have them on their menu anymore.

Chef Lup Roasted (立师父烧腊), Golden Mile Food Centre

I didn't realise when we ate at Chef Lup Roasted at Lau Pa Sat that the brand was started by an ex-Kam’s Roast executive chef who's had considerable experience under his belt. The first shop that was set up is this one at Golden Mile (#B1-56 Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road). 

We had plate of triple roasts with eggs this time round. Char siew was as good as I recall with smokey sweet gumminess from the caramelisation and fat with meat. Not forgetting too the nice crisp on the tender siu yoke and their tender roasted duck breast in herbal sauce which were also exceptional. 

I like their 油饭. Great savouriness in the rice which ended up being both good with and without the sweet/limey/garlicky chilli sauce. That's a nice pickled mustard greens soup on the side.

Kunafa pistachio min jiang kueh from Munchi Pancakes

No surprise here that Munchi Pancakes is on this bandwagon. No disparagement in that previous statement too. This one's quite nice - milky, nutty and sweet with crunch from the kataifi between the jiggly pancake layers.

Revisiting Tiong Bahru Bakery @ Raffles City

Been a while since we were last at Tiong Bahru Bakery - mostly because I never liked what I had that much from them previously. Menu's updated a little since.

There's a coconut pandan financier (for SG61) and another one with hazelnuts. Pleasantly surprised that both these were kinda nice. They were buttery enough and I liked the pandan infusion from the former that wasn't overshadowed by coconut. Also liked that saltiness we were tasting from the hazelnut one.

Pretty pleasant custard-y canele.

Found a cream shio pan - gotta admit that I rather liked it. It's a little different from the one from Noci Bakehouse. Something about the cream maybe.

Okay-ish houjicha latte. This one was actually kinda smooth going down and a little more milky rather than a more robust tea flavour I was hoping for.

Yeastside, Somerset

Been wanting to come to Yeastside (#01-02, 10A Exeter Road) since their first setup at King Albert Park. Yes it's been that long.

Their Caulihummus was delicious. Roasted/torched cauliflower on hummus with pomegranate flavoured with cumin and honey. 

Liked their Foursome With Honey pizza - there's fior di latte, cheddar, parmesan and blue cheese. Don't know which kind of blue cheese it was but it was adequate and that much cannot be said of many pizzas that claim to have them.

Crust's not bad, but the cornicione didn't seem to be as good (combination of chew, puffiness and aroma) as what one can get from Casa Vostra or the defunct Zazz Pizza.

Ramen Shoshiji, Orchard Plaza

If one were in the know, Ramen Shoshiji (#03-42 Orchard Plaza, 150 Orchard Road) is a buzz about town now. What they bring to the table is a never seen before (at least for me) ginger shoyu ramen. The standard bowls on menu here appear to be said ginger shoyu and a Hakata tonkotsu. There's also tori paitan, Iekei and Jiro styled on rotation based on availability.

Availability is determined by updates on their IG.

Tried their pork shumai. These were huge, freshly steamed, moist on the insides and tender. Nice. 👍🏼

We were given plate with a smudge of mustard for the shumai. I enjoyed the pairing.

The other condiment(s) which worked with the shumai are the doubanjiang or doubanjiang with garlic.

I'm typically not a ginger person but I thought the broth from their ginger shoyu ramen rocked. This bowl was with extra ginger. Brought about a nice bit of prickle at the back of the throat. Did not expect to take to it but I ended up liking it and being amazed by myself enjoying it.

The Hakata tonkotsu bowl was somewhat more pedestrian. There seemed to be an underlying sweetness in the broth which I preferred without. Charshu's lean-ish. Nothing particularly special about this.

Interestingly, they have a wider range of hardness for their Hakata tonkotsu noodles than the other ramen-ya around. I got the ultra hard which wasn't very hard at all.

Kucina, Food Republic @ 313

This was just bad. 👎🏼

This was their cheese wheel pasta - was pretty surprised that there was so much cream in it. That cheese wheel was just a gimmick because there wasn't much cheese flavour. It's obviously mostly cream. Tasted cheap. Couldn't even discern the black pepper in it.  

Meatball had a mushy texture and tasted floury. There were a lot of fillers in them and did not taste good.

We're generally against food wastage but it infuriated me thinking that I'd have to swallow these so as not to waste food. We didn't finish it. Will not be coming back. 👎🏼

Delhi Lahori, Tekka Food Centre

Delhi Lahori (#01-266 Tekka Market & Food Centre, 665 Buffalo Road) among the eats at Tekka Market has landed itself a Michelin Bib Gourmand which piqued my curiosity. A bunch of the stuff from the stall weren't available at the opening hour when we were there. So I ended up with chapati and keema. Latter's spicy packed a bit of heat with nicely flavoured minced mutton. It's more watery than I thought though.

A few days later......

Fish tikka - very tender and salty. Not smokey like I imagined them to be.

Some naan with dal and palak paneer. Both the lentils and spinach were unexpectedly spicy - not bad tasting as gravies/dips went. Cheese naan was sadly not so cheesy. Kashmiri naan tasted generic with maraschino cherry, raisins and some unidentifiable bits of nuts.