Mom's Touch, 18 Cross

Mom's Touch disappeared from our shores some time back and have made a return. The last time we've had anything from them was their spicy chocolate chicken years ago. They're currently located at 18 Cross (#01-03, 18 Cross, 181 South Bridge Road), the building formerly known as Cross Street Exchange.

One of the Singapore exclusives is their Angus beef burger. This was the double. Pretty sure the beef was not salted because I could detect all the locked it beefiness in there that was begging to be released. If only they had salted the meat.

Then again, I got this sauceless and maybe that wasn't how they rolled. I'd classify this as edible but I'm not likely to get it again.

White garlic chicken burger's not bad. Chunky fried chicken thigh meat, ham, onions, pickles, lettuce, cheddar and some garlic sauce. Though pretty similar to that Incredible Burger I had from them years back, I enjoyed this more. Pretty sure it wasn't just because of that garlic sauce.

These were the least Cajun Cajun fries I've had.

Their banana milk coffee was nicer than the recent one from McD. More banana flavour and better tasting coffee. Shame on McD. What I did not like though was that even though I had opted for less ice, there was still a lot of ice. Like half a cup of it.

Durian kaya pandan toast from Ya Kun

Durian kaya pandan toast from Ya Kun. They were sufficiently light handed with the durian paste so some of the kaya flavours still came through. Personally, I thought they should've just forgone the kaya and stuck with just the durian paste but I appreciate that they're desperately trying to get something "local" out for this year's ND. What's obviously gimmicky was the pandan toast. Why bother when you cannot even taste it?

Hail to the King

Some stuff from BK.

Buttermilk beef burger. I'm not even sure how to describe the buttermilk sauce in this one. Burger's kinda small. Will not be getting again.

Their long chicken sandwich which is the overpriced McChicken that I feel tastes better than McChicken.

Some smoky maple mayo fries which I'm guessing is not a permanent item. It's actually kinda addictive with that smoky maple flavour. Left my fingers smelling like the syrup from McD's hotcakes.

Was curious about their cempedak mochi bites.

Chewy mochi clad in light crunchy shell that's stuffed with....I'm not sure what to call them but it tasted like cempedak paste. A load of flavour from the fruit in it. Not a bad one.

Look at how thin their fried pies are.

Chrysanthemum cream cheese pie. Pretty noticeable chrysanthemum flavouring there.

Kayago and Popeye's Fav. from Two Men Bagel House

Back at Two Men Bagel House ( 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九, 二十, 二十一, 二十二, 二十三, 二十四, 二十五, 二十六, 二十七, 二十八, 二十九, 三十, 三十一, 三十二).

Kayago in sesame bagel. According to the menu, it's smoked chicken ham, chicken floss, TMBH kaya, smoked Kewpie mayo, buttermilk scrambled eggs. Most of that kaya was lost amongst the other stuff in the bagel. Most, not all. Not bad tasting.

This was Popeye's Fav. in plain bagel. A smoked salmon and creamed spinach thingy. Also not bad tasting.

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.

Pazonia Italian Street Food, Amoy Street

Pazonia Italian Street Food (49 Amoy Street) has been mentioned a bit in the chatters lately. Mostly about their panuozzo. We walked past them on the way to Sodeng recently and I kinda decided that I wanted to check them out and made a mental note to come back.

I liked their burrata & Parma Ham panuozzo. Got this with extra balsamic glaze.

Burrata was chilled with creamy oozy innards of stracciatella like a luxuriant frosting over the salty Parma ham and peppery rockets. Not bad pizza bread. Gripes? Not tasting any of the pesto or olive oil they claim to be in there. That usually means it's either not enough or not good enough.

Their carbonara was "alla Romana". Just enough of the emulsified egg and cheese coating al dente rigatoni. Nicely done but could be improved with better quality black pepper. Love those chunks of salty/fatty/porky guanciale in there.

Kaya toast and drinks from Roast & Coffee - Retro Garden 1968's

Ducked into Roast & Coffee - Retro Garden 1968's for some drinks and sanctuary from the sweltering heat.

Ice lemon tea was suitably astringent, robust and lemony. I don't know if anything else here can top this for the weather.

Carrot milk's not bad. Got this sans ice. Creamy, carrot-y and cooling.

Not a fan of their kaya toast. Felt flimsy. Not using pandan kaya aside, the thin strip of butter was just sad.

Greek Shack stuff from Shake Shack

The current limited time them from Shake Shack is the Greek Shack. It basically involves using things like tzatziki, za'atar and mediterranean-esque ingredients like parsley, fresh onions, cucumber and tomatoes.

It's actually much better than their usual limited time menu items. This one had a layer of crisp freshness layered over their meat and the tanginess from the tzatziki to cut through. 

For some reasons, they were still "making" the tzatziki for the fries when they served so we ended up eating them with the cream from their summer peach shake. Fries + cream = 👍🏼

A summer peach shake that was a little bit more sweet than that we're comfortable with. Didn't taste peachy like what we're used to in peach teas. There's peach folded into it but it mostly tasted of vanilla.

Tzatziki was ready after a while.

Pretty refreshing with the fries. I seem to taste mint in it.

Getting pretty pricey eating at Shake Shack.

Pasarfish X Chef X, Clarke Quay Central

A bit of quick context.

 

Pasarfish is a platform to educate environmental conservation and local fishery with the objective to promote sustainability in the local seafood supply chains. According to their mission statement, which I quote, their goal is to "To preserve Singapore’s seafood heritage sustainably through outreach and research".

Chef X is an initiative by Far East Organization to allow local home-based/private chefs a sandbox to operate their own commercial restaurant within Clarke Quay Central.

So Pasarfish X Chef X (#03-103 Clarke Quay Central, Eu Tong Sen Street) is....you can kinda connect the dots here.

The current chef came up with some dishes, some of which are of Teochew origins. Sounded intriguing.

Chilled grey mullet with tangerine oil, scallions and chilli. Variation of the steamed grey mullet found in Teochew restaurants/stalls. That tangerine oil tasted much like the sweet & sour sauce used I remember from steamed squids in Teochew porridge stalls which some may know as kek yew. Because the fish was chilled, the meat is a little more dense and less tender.

This was called U-yummy - fish sauce coconut kaya with ti poh (dried sole) butter on pretty good tasting home made bread which I'm not sure if they're sourdough. Lots of umami sweet saltiness from the kaya that came with a layer of smokiness from the butter. Nice and intense flavours.

That's their Fash - a hash with corn and eggs fried in fat from the grey mullet belly with Parmesan cheese. Interesting seafood-y take on the dish. Not bad.

Something called Abu鱼yu Congee. Fish porridge made with fish bone broth with aburi-ed fish. Don't know what fish it was. Came with some XO sauce on the side. Flavour was light and pleasant with a bit of sweetness. I liked it more than I thought I would.

Tobimisu - tiramisu with tobiko. One can only taste the tobiko if it's eaten with those on top of the tiramisu. Otherwise, the amount of roe folded into the mascarpone cheese was sufficient just to add popping texture and little else. Flavour's not as weird as it might sound. Has alcohol.

This was the Fish Fan - a flan made with fish sauce and other secret ingredients which the chef shared and I forgot. Lol. Eggy and umami. That sauce tasted just like the glaze used in the fish satay snacks that used to be popular back in the 80s I think. 😲

KFC Curry x Sambal Zinger

So there...the curry sambal Zinger that uses instant/frozen prata as buns from KFC. Fried chicken's fine. Prata was a tad greasy. Curry's actually not bad tasting. That being said, one would taste mostly just curry which presumably serves as a dip. Couldn't taste much else; was almost done with this before I remembered that there was supposed to be sambal in the sandwich because I didn't notice it through the curry. It was also a mess to eat.