Shiok Burger (新奇汉堡), Tiong Bahru Plaza

Shiok Burger opened up Tiong Bahru Plaza not long back (#01-159 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

Came over to try the XXL Mala Inferno Burger. Given the name, its appearance was a little underwhelming.

Meat's a little thin. Decent mala sauce like what we've had previously but I'm not feeling the 'inferno'. McSpicy has more burn. For an "XXL" sandwich, it sure didn't feel that way after eating.

Mr. Bucket Chocolaterie, Dempsey Road

They're (#01-03/04, 13 Dempsey Road) apparently a chocolatier that has started incorporating chocolate into their food so we were here to try them.

That's the Chocolate BLT. What intrigued me was the 45% milk chocolate mascarpone which turned out to be really good. Sadly, the beef bacon was no good at all - it was tough, chewy and sinewy. Some parts weren't edible. Pretty sure it would have been much better with regular bacon but the food's Muslim friendly so that's never happening.

There's steak frites with 72% dark chocolate peppercorn sauce. Kitchen has obviously little experience with plating. Sauce appeared to be watery because of the juices from the meat. Meat's edible, not great quality and also had some chewy unswallowable parts. Adequately salted though. The fries were the best tasting things on the plate.

Was nice of them to oblige when we asked for more sauce because there was barely enough to taste. It's creamy, not bad tasting but also neither memorable nor dark chocolate-y. Felt more like milk chocolate without much discernible pepper.

Pan seared duck breast with chilli cocoa powder was mediocre. I'm not sure what's their definitely of sear because I wasn't tasting any of it on the duck.

Meat was lean and had a powdery feel to them. There's little to no fat under the skin and that skin was very chewy. There were bits of silver skin in them. Apricot gastrique on the side didn't taste bad. Reminded me more than a little of tamarind but I didn't think it worked with the chilli cocoa powder.

Quite a bit of stuff we couldn't chew and/or swallow.

Chocolate's not bad though. We were offered samples and ended buying some.

Back to brunch at Wooloomooloo Steakhouse

I mentioned coming back here for their burger. 

The butter with the onion focaccia is like the icing on the cake.

Their crustacean bisque is always a good choice.

One of the first course option in the brunch was an open faced beef gyoza with avocado. Beef's really tender but the flavour was almost totally muted by the yuzu mayo.

There's a Australian wagyu carpaccio which was pretty good tasting. Not so much because it's wagyu but more of the combination flavours with the tuna sauce and sweet pickled onions. That and the textures from the diced onions and not too salty crispy capers.

So here's that double cheeseburger. Special sauce on the side.

Nice, hot and meaty between buttery buns.

Picanha from Pure Black cattle. Meat's beefy and metallic, tender and chewy at the same time. Much like skirt/flank. The sweet glazed carrots that came with it was awesome. 

Sticky coffee pudding with vanilla mascarpone to end. Pretty good.

Pistach & Morty in sesame bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Rick & Morty vibes much from the name of this one? 😏 Anyways, Pistach & Morty from TMBH ( 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). According to them - hazelnut, salted walnut, kataifi, Mortadella, whipped Brie, balsamic glaze and cranberry compote.

現実 <- The only nut I picked up was pistachio and I'm not sure if it came from the Mortadella. That green stuff tasted nutty so I'm guessing it's pistachio butter. Nice crunch from the kataifi and a deliciously rich cheesy creaminess from the Brie with the fruitiness of the cranberry compote cutting through it all.

Perhaps one last Relish......

Word was that Relish has to relinquish their unit at Cluny Court at the end of the month which will also mark their closure after almost two decades. Sounds a little sus if you asked me. They've been in the business for so long and expiry of the lease should have been on the crosshairs ages ago. Couple that with the fact that one cannot even find their menu on their website. Their socials feel kinda dead. One might imagine that interest in the business was already waning.

But that's just me and overthinking.

Came here for their Wild Rocket Burger. Iconic somewhat for the restaurant because they're one of the pioneers of better burgers back in the day. I remember being quite impressed back in the day.

It's obviously not the same burger as then. This one was much more seared and much less juicy. That sun dried tomato relish sure looked like it withered across the past 19 years. 😓

The order menu has options for doneness now. I picked medium. No prizes for guessing how disappointed I was. Meat was not great. And where the hell was that Sarawak pepper cream?

On the bright side, the fries were nice. Tasted like real potatoes, not overly crispy and adequately salted. They deserve a pat on the back for that.

Some breakfast plate. Serviceable with buttery sourdough.

Mushroom burgers and star potatoes from McD

Some recent burgers from McD. The left was the Creamy Mushroom Triple Cheeseburger and the one on the middle was the Creamy Mushroom Double Deluxe. We kinda got confused thinking that the triple would be bigger than the double but that Double Deluxe had bigger patties. Obviously, we had overlooked the "deluxe" in the name.

Think of them as the quarter pounder versions. The ingredients were pretty much the same except for sesame seed buns and larger patties which also appeared to be more moist. Those star potatoes were star shaped hash browns.

Re-revisiting Merci Marcel @ Eng Hoon Street

Been some years since we were last at Merci Marcel at Tiong Bahru.

Got the sweet potatoes & lentils hummus thinking it might be sweet. They weren't. 😬 Tasted like regular hummus packed with cumin flavour and a different texture. There's supposed to be coconut milk in the hummus which I never detected.

Love the roasted feta with the pears, both poached and fresh.

Pleasantly surprised by their beef burger. Meat's nicely caramelised, still moist on the inside and not destroyed by marinates/herbs. Good saltiness coming from the Parmesan cheese and crispy Bayonne ham. Those toasted sesame on top of the buns were nice!

Cauliflower trilogy - had these at Club Street previously. Still so delicious.

Not bad orange confit & cardamom cake.

Jalan Tua Kong Lau Lim (惹蘭大公老林), Tanjong Katong Road

There's a number of Jalan Tua Kong, some with associated 'Lim' noodles around. Did I even make sense? 😂 Of the limited ones I've tried, I'm ranking this one (248 Tanjong Katong Road) as the best.

This bowl appears to be what I understand as Teochew noodles, not bak chor mee even though they're pretty similar and lines get blurred over the years. Pretty generous amount ingredients and I love those Teochew meatballs - which are a mixture of minced pork and fish paste if you didn't know. Would have been great if there wasn't some of those kansui taste in the mee pok. That being said, it's not a deal breaker.

There's a bunch of other "local delights" which looked pretty decent. Got ourselves some butter sugar toast. Will definitely consider coming back.

Revisiting Santi's

Mixed feelings about them like the last time. Didn't get what I wanted because the actual menu wasn't what they had on their website. They explained that the site wasn't updated but the current menu as been around for about a week now. Add four days more to that as I'm writing this because it's still the old menu online. 😬 Getting lackadaisical vibes from this place. 

Anyways, this was their smoked miso leek rigatoni. Both leek and miso were... subtle. Not getting any of the sharpness from the leek and I might not have known it was miso in the sauce if not for the menu.

This was the mortadella panuozzo - pizza sandwich thingy. Was looking forward to the one with Parma ham but that's from the old menu. This definitely could have been better. 

Too little slices of really thin mortadella inside which were overwhelmed by the other stuff. Stuff like some Lao Gan Ma-ish chilly thingy and stracciatella - which was a pretty good combo actually. I liked this as a sandwich. But I would love to taste mortadella when I order something with mortadella.

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.

Labobo with extra patty in sesame bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Labobo's the recent flavour of the month 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) featuring beef patties from BurgerLabo.

Love how the dill pickled onions and apple mostarda help cut though the hefty patties with the tangy sweetness.