Dan Shui (淡水)

Some bites in our day trip to Dan Shui.

Pancake with cai por (pickled radish). Peppery ones at that. Never had these sweet pancakes with cai por before. Pretty good tasting with a lot of crunch - a texture that one normally doesn't get in these.

Red bean ones were also nice. Love that they weren't overly sweet. Loads of beans inside.

Custard ones were kinda lightweight.

Salted duck egg with powder blue shells.

They were salty, but not as salty as the ones we have back home.

The century egg shells were speckled.

The crystalline blacks were latticed with dendritic salt crystals. According to Gemini, these patterns are known as sōng huā (松花) in Chinese, are a sign of a properly made and high-quality century egg.

Yolk was creamy and molten. These were good tasting century eggs.

Stopped for some seasonal blueberry kakigori at this shop.

White bitter melon juice with honey. The drink was actually refreshing with the bitterness edging in at the back of each gulp.

爆漿大貢丸-迪化店, Dihua Street @ Datong District, Taipei

Pitstopped here (No. 13, Section 1, Dihua Street, Datong District, Taipei) for some local bites.

Chilled beancurd with grated peanuts.

Lu rou fan here was much more enjoyable than the one from Raohe market. I attribute it to the flavour intensity of the sauce.

Taiwanese sausage with tobiko. Couldn't taste those eggs but could feel them pop in between the teeth.

Tsujihan (つじ半), Breeze Xinyi, Taipei

Tsujihan originates from Tokyo. They're apparently a "viral" cash only and no reservations restaurant. This branch in Taipei (No. 68, Section 5, Zhongxiao East Road B1, Xinyi District, Taipei) takes reservations so we were able to get seats without having to queue. Also accepts credit cards.

What many people seem to be getting here are their kaisendon sets. 

Ankimo ponzu which wasn't part of the sets. Nice.

Saw quite a number of pictures of this tai sashimi with sesame sauce online. It was ok.

This was their 特上 kaisendon bowl. Seafood quality was just passable. I was expecting them to be exceptional. The uni was sweet but there was pretty strong taste to the point that it wasn't pleasant anymore. Crab meat was shredded and doesn't have much to go with mouthfeel. This felt like a glorified kaisendon.

One can get chazuke by requesting for their tai broth to be added to the rice. Other than the fish, I'm guessing dashi and miso. Not bad but it would cook whatever bits of fish that's still left in the bowl. 

Some milky pudding with matcha and an anko ball at the end.

Koo Kee (高記), Tiong Bahru Plaza

Koo Kee has relocated from the food court upstairs to the basement of Tiong Bahru Plaza (#B1-136 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road). I haven't eaten much of their stuff for years because they're kinda like the fast food of yong tau foo. What bugged me mostly were the portions for what they charged.

To be fair, they don't taste bad.

The Koo Kee set's actually not bad. You know...with the chilli and bean sauce and all. They were out of kang kong today so they gave me xiao bai cai. Noodles portions were/are kinda small. That hasn't changed from what I remember. What might have changed was that I remember them tasting more flavourful.

What's also nice imo, is their laksa yong tau foo with chee cheong fun. Gravy's thin - don't think or expect anything close to Peranakan styled laksa. But it's savoury, has some heat and tastes like it has MSG. And I dig this bowl.

They're selling desserts too it seems. The black sesame paste is kinda thin. Not the kind of standard one can expect from specialised Chinese dessert shops.

Choon Hoy Parlor (春花馆), Capitol Singapore

Choon Hoy Parlor (#01-84A Arcade @ The Capitol Kempinski, 15 Stamford Road) is by Dylan Ong of The Masses - the latter has incidentally relocated from their old premise at Beach Road to just next door to Choon Hoy Parlor. Story I read was that the restaurant was opened by Dylan in honour of his mother and that it bears her name.

The menu in broad strokes includes classic styles and updated takes on what's commonly regarded as heritage/traditional Teochew dishes. Have been curious since I first read about them.

But first, a Pandan Coconut Highball. Which is alchemised from pandan essence, 海之蓝, coconut water and soda. Took a few sips to get used to it and after that, I kinda enjoyed it. Not sure how to describe this.

Started off with some pork trotter aspic with a dip they aptly named garlic chilli zhup. The aspic didn't wasn't one of the more memorable ones I recall having but it also wasn't bad at all. The garlic chilli zhup was nice - aside from the two named ingredients, there's probably vinegar?

That's the roti bakar - coffee butter and salted egg kaya with lumpfish caviar on toasted bread. Those lumpfish caviar lent a bit of seafoody flavour, so they weren't just salty. Nice.

Mocha prime pork ribs. A lot more delicious than the description on the menu which mentioned Vietnam inspired egg yolk espuma. Sauce was a creamy caramel smokiness that could have passed off as a velouté of pork floss (肉松) or bak kwa (肉干); if you could imagine that. Meat from the ribs were chunky, pretty tender and fell off the bone easily. That and those crushed pistachios.

Found their assam stingray moreish. Good quality ray, great savoury tanginess from the tamarind broth accented by ginger flower and pineapples! 

Morel Silkie chicken consommé's pretty good. Flavoured also with cordyceps and sweetened by red dates.

These was called Taiwan dou miao & taugay. Haven't had dou miao that looked like these before. There's salted egg yolk and anchovy powder to intensify the savoury garlicky flavours. Great stuff with rice. 👍🏼

Speaking of rice, there's one with lard and soya sauce called A Lil Lard, A Lil Soy, A Lil Love Rice. It's been znged with fried lard, fried garlic bits and light soya sauce. So delicious with the garlic chilli zhup from the pork aspic. Super with the assam broth from the stingray. Also awesome with the dou miao & taugay.

We finished with their Trio of Orh Ni. A bit of a misnomer since the main blobs were the paste of purple sweet potato, pumpkin and yam. That's coconut ice cream on the side.

Even more food from Bangalore Cafe

Another compilation of eats from Bangalore Cafe.

Breakfasts......

That's an open butter masala dosa. It's kinda like a fermented rice flour hotcake with podi, a lump of the masala potato thingy on top and butter. This opened version looked little like the regular masala dosa. Not bad tasting.

Thatte/thattu idlis seem to be making their appearances here. First it was the ones at Murugan Idli (here and here), then MTR 1924 @ Brickfields and now at Bangalore Cafe. This rendition was similar to the thattu ghee podi idli from Murugan Idli - podi powdered and ghee greased for deliciousness.

The Diwali Thali......

Obviously this happened during Diwali. The other thalis were't available so we didn't have much of a choice. But I'm glad we experienced this. The jalebi's too sweet for starters. Am not entirely sure what the semi circular thing below the jalebi was but I think it's a dal holige - supposedly sweetened lentil stuffed flat breads. Tasted kinda like a chapati with jaggery inside. Nice.

Pleasant surprise came in the form of curried pineapples. That orange blob at 10 o'clock. Gravy was citrusy sweet and spicy with heat. 👍🏼

This was when the poori and the idiyappams have been added by the servers, along with scoops of vegetable korma and sagu. Left paper cup's payasam and the right is...some sweet mung bean soup flavoured with cardamom.

Then came white rice......

While it may not be visually obvious because of the mess, I was offered spiced ghee rice and I accepted.

Strangely, the papadums came at this point.

The carbs overflow continues with curd rice.

I was offered more ghee rice which I happily accepted. That came with a generous ladle of sagu.

We were given a banana at the end. Nice.

Even though we were stuffed from the Diwali thali glutton-y, I wanted to try the carrot halwa. Sweet and nicely done here.

The week after Diwali......

Venturing into newer territory here because we've started coming for lunch instead of just breakfast. I also think that the owner recognised me. Drats! I must maintain inconspicuity. I made up the last word.

Dahi puri - this tasted a little different. Probably because of what they filled up on the puri shells. Speaking of puri shells, these got soft pretty fast. Faster than usual.

These were hara bara tikka as the menu calls them. Peas and potato patties with cashew. Flavour's bland-ish but they were pretty darn good with the mint chutney. 

There's a vegetable Hyderabadi biryani which was flavoured/infused with mint & palak. Did not expect it to be green. First thought that came to mind was the palak rice we've previously had at Kailash Parbat. This one just wasn't as ghee rich.

As with most if not all cooked mint, the flavour diminishes greatly. Couldn't taste any of it at all but it was a savoury and pretty delicious green briyani. There's bits of paneer inside too.