Revisiting Otter & Pebbles

I was drawn back to Otter & Pebbles by their PB & Otter mostly.

Osmanthus jasmine with cheese foam. This was nice. Light yet flavourful with nice velvety texture.

Otter's Minty Choco which was basically hot chocolate with mint. Starbucks has nicer hot chocolate and the mint was kinda weak.

I liked the soy milk udon for the broth which was savoury/umami. Pretty sure the salmon contributed to the flavour. Udon was ordinary. So was the salmon.

Like I mentioned, this was what got me back.

Blue cheese soufflé pancake again.

Their black sesame oat latte with an extra shot of espresso was pretty darn good. Loads of black sesame flavour on top of that thick coffee. Note to self: one shot will suffice.

Kinmedai saikyoyaki teishoku with natto from Nakajima Suisan

I've been lamenting over the portion of the kinmedai at Nakajima Suisan (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) for some time. I think they have gotten a little bigger. 

The slice was thicker and it now comes with bones as well.

Now I just have to wish for them to put the shioyaki version on the regular menu. 😬

Natto and shoyu with rice today.

This has got to be the first time I've noticed the grooves on the backrest of their seats.

Revisiting Pu3

Been some years since we last ate at Pu3. Came back recently for a plate of deliciousness which had (anticlockwise from 11-ish) begedil, assam pedas ikan pari, sambal goreng and lemak turi. Assam pedas packed more heat than I was expecting and was pretty peppery. 👍🏼 Love the savoury richness from the lemak turi too. Very satisfying plate washed down with a sweet creamy teh tarik.

I thought these were fried bananas but turned out to be plantains.

Udon Shin, Ngee Ann City/Takashimaya

Managed to snag seats at Udon Shin (#B2-32 Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road) without a ridiculous queue today. They're from Tokyo and this outlet is apparently the first outside of Japan. Another one of those.

From what I gathered, their udon are not cut or boiled in advance. Each portion is rolled, cut, and cooked on order. Gotta admit the texture's smooth, firm and chewy.

This was their seasonal Arrabbiata bowl which featured a tomato base. Because of the name, I had the impression that it would be spicy. Wasn't really. It was cheesy and tomato-y though. And unexpectedly sweet. Came with some vegetable and snow crab tempura on the side. Those snow crab legs were puny. 

Their Carbonara bowl was topped with a strip of tempura bacon. That bacon was not bad tasting and wasn't as thick or salty as I had imagined. I'm not sure if I'd associate the flavour of this bowl with carbonara but it was eggy, buttery and cheesy. Kinda enjoyed it. Don't think I'll be getting it again though.

A couple of weeks later......

Butter shoyu udon with tempura. Tempura was sliced chashu and cheese. 

Cheese was gooey and salty so I liked it. Charshu was dry-ish and flavoured from the marinate. I think there was considerably more punch from the udons the last round because of the cheese in the noodles. This butter shoyu bowl felt less intense.

Mamita's Kitchen, Lucky Plaza

Food from Mamita's Kitchen (#02-60 Lucky Plaza, 304 Orchard Rd, tel : +65 9222 8894).

This was sinigang na bangus - milkfish in sour soup. Broth was savoury and tart.

Got ourselves some ginataang gulay which was vegetables in coconut cream. That coconut cream was a sweet and rich so this almost tasted like a dessert. First thing that came to mind was bubur cha cha. Mostly pumpkin and long beans in there.

Because the ban on pig's blood has been lifted recently, these guys have already started making dinuguan - a blood stew made with pork or pig innards, vinegar and chilli. Amongst other things. Texture was creamy and there was some livery/offal-y taste in it. There were chunks of meat which tasted like pork belly. Don't know if there were any actual offal. Looked kinda swampy. 😬

That dinuguan was so good with rice. That rice portion they served was pretty generous and I wiped it off the plate.

Some sinigang on the side. These were pretty sour.

For some reasons, the proprietress offered us a serving of tortang talong on the house. This was deep fried eggwashed eggplant and it was fresh off their fryer. The tortang was piping hot, had crispy eggy edges and the eggplant was tender and gooey. A little greasy but nice.

This needs mention - the rice we had today were really moist. Some of them have even compressed into lumpy chunks and I love those parts. Reminded me of ketupat that's warm and tender.

More food from Tim Ho Wan (添好運)

More recent eats at Tim Ho Wan. Aside from some of the things we tended to get like their pan fried radish cake, spinach prawn dumpling and recently their morel dumpling which weren't photo-ed, there's a bunch of limited time stuff from their SG61 “Flavours of Singapore” specials.

XO fried rice with bacon and luncheon meat. Pretty decent. For something that has bacon and luncheon meat, this was really low on salt.

This was bak chor rice rolls - a take on bak chor mee obviously, using cheong fun. There's minced pork, stewed mushrooms, some fried pork lard, tau gay and a token sprinkle of chopped spring onions. It's not lardy like some of the local bcm but it was an interesting take, especially with the vinegar in the sauce that made it easy to inhale.

Not bad laksa seafood dumplings that's stuffed with bits of shrimp, scallops and water chestnut. Those water chestnuts were unexpectedly chunky. Laksa gravy was a little thin but it wasn't bad. Would have been great if there were more laksa leaves. 

I don't think I've never had egg tarts from Tim Ho Wan before. It might be a first time for me. Short crust pastry with eggy custard inside - typical of Hong Kong styled egg tarts. Not bad.

Never seen this peach gum & goji berries in coconut soup dessert before. I reckon it would have been nicer if there were more peach gum.

Some calamansi lemongrass fizz for the weather. Flavour was like a preserved plum (酸梅) drink, but not particularly lemongrass-y,

Dinner at Dulukala

Back at Dulukala for dinner. Lots of gravies and a nice sambal belachan to ladle over their dry boring rice.

Chap chye.

Sauce from the babi pongteh was less intense with that fermented soybean flavour than I had been imagining. Otherwise the pork belly was pretty tender.

Otah's pretty good. Filled with chunks of fish.

Nice assam fish head. The assam gravy was deliciously fruity, lightly spicy and addictive. Something about it kept me thinking that there was pineapple in it.

This was supposed to be chinchalok omelette but there was very little chinchalok in it. 

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.

虾一跳 (Xia Yi Tiao), Food Republic @ Vivocity

The names for some local eateries have gotten punny over the years. Came across this one at Food Republic (#03-01 VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk). Have never seen/heard of this laksa/prawn noodle stall before.

Pricey big prawn laksa. Somewhere along the tunes of $16 if I remember correctly and portion wasn't exactly big.

Pretty good lemak gravy. Needs a dollop of their sambal stirred in because that gravy has less dimension and body without. Their thick bee hoon (粗米粉) was also thinner than the regular type.