Operator Diner, Lonsdale Street, Melbourne CBD

Operator Diner (Shop 2/130 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, tel : +61 3 8395 6341) is an American styled diner in the CBD.

Long black's sour. Flat white was......ok.

Got ourselves a breakfast muffin call Usual Suspect. Went big with the bacon and sausage combo which is topped with poached egg, cheese, their BBQ bacon chutney and a hash brown on the side.

Muffin was too wobbly to eat by hand. Not bad tasting. The sausage was pretty tasty.

Had an order of their Love Me Tender (chicken tenders) because they mentioned blue cheese sauce. Sauce was cheesy but we didn't get any blue cheese flavour and it was pre-mixed. How did we know it was pre-mixed? We asked if they could have it with more blue cheese and they told us so. Pretty disappointing. The tenders and fries were nicely done though.

Some drink called The Big Apple - single origin coffee (not that I could tell), apple juice, spiced chai, brown sugar foam and cinnamon. Not bad.

Pecan pie was too sweet. Didn't think much of it.

Apparently, Zac Efron was here. Filming. Pretty sure they marked the seat he was at just like what was done when Harry met Sally at Katz's Deli. I just never found out which one was it.

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.

Betty's Midwest Kitchen, Aman Suria, Petaling Jaya

According to the owners, Betty's Midwest Kitchen (A-G-40, Jalan PJU 1/43, Aman Suria Damansara, Petaling Jaya, tel : +60 3-7886 9357) serves American diner inspired food from their visits to Iowa. There's a pretty good selection on their menu and more things that we wanted to try than there was space to do so.

We were intrigued by their meatloaf. Each slice was tender, crumbly and pretty meaty tasting with bits of carrots and something tangy I couldn't identify. There was a beer based sauce on the side which was also tangy. Not bad tasting.

One can top up a few ringgit for each main ordered to get soup and a drink. Current soup was described as tomato with ham. It's actually more like minestrone.

They have house made lemonade which was okay-ish.

Pork chop with apple sauce was pretty good. Pork's tender and yet had a satisfying chew. The sweet and tangy apple sauce was loaded.

What registered as outstanding was the gravy on their mash. Creamy, milky and rich with a velvety texture to boot.

French onion soup inspired burgers from Shake Shack

Current limited time flavour from Shake Shack.

In retrospect, doubling the meat kinda detracted from the flavour of those onions. Without the usual American cheese, I also realised that there's actually not much salt on those patties. 😮

The "French onion" flavour was more apparent in their shroom burger. 

Garlic parmesan fries has the cheese sprinkled on and some garlic aioli thingy on the side. These were pretty forgettable if you asked me.

Five Guys, ION Orchard

Haven't had Five Guys in quite a while. This was our first time at the ION branch (B3-24/25/26 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn). Seems like one can make their burgers a meal these days. See that? They're finally assimilating. Just remember that it starts from $25.50 and doesn't necessary cost just $25.50. I had to top up for the shake.

The small portions of fries are still large. Not complaining here. They oversalted today.

So I found out you can ask for hot sauce from them on the side. Now I know what else is good with the fries.

Banana and bacon shake was too sweet. I wonder if it's just this time. Also not tasting the bacon oils anymore, just the bacon bits.

More beef kut teh from Wolfgang's Steakhouse

Back at Wolfgang's Steakhouse for more of their beef kut teh. Since this was available only for this month, we wanted to have it one more time before it's no longer around.

Each order of this is entitled to one free refill of the broth. Which we took advantage of today.

Plentiful fall off the bone tenderness on the rib.

Our vegetables of the day came in the form of their tasty creamed spinach. There's a flavour in those that reminded us of anchovies.

We got an additional portion of rice. Didn't expect that to be so big.

But we made short work of it folded with butter, creamed spinach and dark soya sauce. 👍🏼

We swapped the coconut ice cream with their mango sorbet today. It's ok but not great. The citrus wasn't coming through enough to be impressive. Now we know.

Our SG60 lunch at Wolfgang's Steakhouse

This happened on National Day......SG60 is a good reason as any to celebrate with a nice lunch at Wolfgang's Steakhouse.

Got ourselves shrimp cocktail again. Big assed and meaty.

The Taste of New York set for lunch included their dry aged sirloin with creamed spinach, mashed potatoes and cheesecake. Meat's not bad. Mashed potatoes were addictive and that creamed spinach was another kind of delicious. Loads of actual spinach flavour in all that butter (or cream?). I liked that their cheesecake was frills free and unloaded with all the extras that many cafes/restaurants tend to include to make up for their inadequacy.

Highlight of the lunch was Wolfgang's beef kut teh. Made for SG60 obviously, this was a rendition of bak kut teh that was made with USDA Prime Black Angus short rib. Only for August they said. Broth was beefy, garlicky and a little herbal. Not a bad remake of the original if I might say so. That 500g short rib was tender, meaty and substantial. The kitchen even offered chilli padi as option with the dark soya sauce. 

Too bad about the coconut ice cream. Did not like it.