Alice Boulangerie & Restaurant, Raffles City

Came across Alice Boulangerie & Restaurant (#1-22A Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 8083 5315) by chance and we were ushered in by an subtle yet not fully understood force while looking at the menu. They're French-y, not French with pretty attractive looking pastries/confectionary/breads, some food and drinks.

Grabbed a few items from the bakery...like the banana tart, a pistachio cream bun with a light and pistachio-y cream and a not too sweet nama matcha chocolate bun. All pretty good tasting.

That chocolate banana tart had layered sliced bananas, banana cream and chocolate ganache within the buttery pastry.

Pretty impressed with their lychee macchiato. Loved how the lychee paired with their espresso. Menu mentioned lychee jam.

Not bad tasting beer battered haddock. Tartare sauce is house made, could taste perhaps a hint of horseradish and capers in it. Mushy peas were bright tasting, redolent of green pea flavour.

Fish was pretty thick.

Didn't think much of their maple cinnamon latte though - latte's a little thin. Tasted like something I could make at home.

Oriental Kopi, Mid Valley Southkey, Johor Bahru

We ended up at Oriental Kopi at Mid Valley Southkey (No 1, LG-054, The Mall, Mid Valley, Persiaran Southkey 1, Southkey, 80150 Johor Bahru) for lunch.

Got their iced chocolate royal because we remember liking it the last time we had it at Bugis Junction. It's as good.

There's a new taro polo bun on menu. I quote them "...crispy #purple sweet potato crust, velvety smooth #Taiwan Dajia taro paste, and a refreshing layer of #thick-cut cold butter. Hot meets cold, crispy meets creamy, a flavor explosion in every bite!?". Oh hell yeah this was good. I haven't heard of Dajia taro until now. As I'm typing this. Pedigree of the taro aside, the execution of the bun was well thought out.

I've been curious about their mala ban mian for a while now. Tasted like how I imagined it. Not bad but also not special.

Their prawn fried rice was very eggy. Very.

Pretty decent tea. The flavour's reminiscent of Thai tea and they don't try to kill you slowly with sugar here.

Bonjour Ma Cuisine, Craig Road

Bonjour Ma Cuisine is the brunch operation of the one Micheline starred Ma Cuisine (38 Craig Road, tel : +65 9627 1058). The former is available for breakfast and lunch for weekdays only and the latter only has dinner service. At least for now that's how it's working for them.

Iced coffee's okay. 

Chocolat veinnois had a rich milkiness paired with a creamy viscosity and an infusion of cinnamon in the chocolate. Not bad. 

One of their recommended dishes was their Croque Madame Truffe - their refined rendition of the traditional sandwich with truffle. Doesn't look like the standard variety sandwich of its kind. Ham and cheese was inside the disc of crunchy bread with a pretty sunny side up. Not bad tasting. Now that I've tried it, I won't get it again. That's how it was.

We were more impressed by their quenelle de brochet sauce nantua.

Quenelle had a creamy/custardy texture flavoured by presumably the pike that went into it and that crustacean-y sweet, savoury and spicy sauce nantua. 👍🏼

Salade de foies de volaille - warm chicken liver salad with rockets. Nice. Sauce was vinegary and with onions which cut through the richness of those livers.

Their pasta with Parmesan is apparently a thing. Menu calls it linguine but isn't this pappardelle? Anyways, the application of the cheese is balanced by what the restaurant thinks ideal. It didn't taste bad. It just didn't pack the punch from the cheese like I imagined. But otherwise, it's okay.

They have a pretty refined hand chopped tartare de boeuf. Meat's in small chunky cubes which provided a good texture full of bite - if that's your thing that is. It was mine. We enjoyed this.

We were recommended their pain perdu kaya. I was initially wondering where the kaya was. It's the yellow sauce. Bread's nicely brûlée-ed with a light crisp and caramel bitter sweetness. It was also airy on the insides which helped absorb the custard-y sauce. This was nicer than I imagined.

KFC Breakfast Loaded Burger

Was thinking as I wrote if this post added to useless web clutter. But thank you posterity. Anyways, it's odd that the buns were cool for something assembled on order. Cool like "it wasn't microwaved long enough or at all" type of temperature. Tasted milky and cheap. Cheese wasn't melted as well. Loaded? I don't think they understand loaded. Well, another lesson learnt here.

Duck confit with blueberry sauce and kaya butter crispy bun from Tsui Wah (翠華)

The duck confit appeared on menu recently and I think it might be a limited time item. I thought it was nicely done. Crisp skin and tender meat that was adequately salted, pairing nicely with the sweet blueberry sauce and buttery mash.

The menu listed this as kaya condensed milk bun but what they were actually putting on plate was a half of that crispy bun with kaya and butter and the other half with condensed milk and butter. Would have been great if there was more kaya but I still liked it.

Don't their lamb chops just look great? Nice browning on the surface, arguably tender yet meaty at the same time and came with enough fat for those lamb-y flavours to shine. They're delicious.

Brunch at Wooloomooloo Steakhouse

First time brunching at Wooloomooloo Steakhouse. Four course menu which is kinda like a set lunch for weekends.

Nothing has changed with their onion focaccia. Still as nice with the butter.

Crustacean bisque was savoury sweet, creamy and had a bit of heat that trickled down the throat. There's some chopped prawns in it. Not bad.

Buttery egg & smoked mackerel tart which was delicious with the crème fraiche and sweet caramelised onions. There's a molten yolk egg in the middle to add to the richness. 👍🏼

Tuna tartare in goma dressing topped with tobiko in what appeared to be black sesame flavoured cones. Nice.

I saw someone with a Wooloomooloo double cheeseburger last time and thought it looked good. Got it with their secret sauce on the side. Meat's coarse ground/chopped and hefty with just smoked cheddar and house made lightly pickled cucumbers between buttered buns. Liked those fries. Someone thought this burger out well. Secret sauce was actually pretty good. Tasted Thousand Island-ish with mustard and diced pickles. Even enjoyed the ketchup. I could come back for this. 👍🏼

Lamb ragu linguine. Lamb flavour was in the tangy tomato ragu and the meat was chunky. Not bad at all.

Matcha yuzu gateaux. The yuzu came from the blob of crémeux on the side. Fragrant sesame tuile. Cake was basically matcha mousse. Also not bad.

Isn't a pavlova the Australian take on an Eton mess? Anyways, I liked this better than I imagined. There's raspberry compote with a light crunchy meringue holding chamomile Chantilly inside. Not excessively sweet so that scores.

Cavern Restaurant, Rainforest Wild Asia

Cavern Restaurant is newly opened by the Tunglok Group at Rainforest Wild Asia (#02-32 Rainforest Wild Asia, 20 Mandai Lake Road, tel : +65 9853 7558). And yes, the cavern is obviously man made.

Food's decent. Had the burrata and heirloom beetroot salad with truffle honey which has a sweetness which I couldn't discern if it was from the honey or the beetroot. Cheese was nice but not the creamiest or milkiest I've had so I'm gonna call this not bad but also not great.

Burger's passable. Could tell it's beef but it lacked salt and char and considering that it says wagyu on the menu, the patty's kinda underwhelming. Otherwise not bad tasting. In retrospect, I'm pretty glad I got it sans sauce.

A different double bacon cheeseburger and no more short loin of lamb at iSteaks

Pretty sure this tasted different from the last time but I cannot put a finger to precisely what exactly differed. It felt less enjoyable today. In other news, their capped short loin of lamb has been taken off the menu. They claimed that it wasn't something that people ordered much. Sad - because my biggest reason for coming to iSteaks is no longer.