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.

Fish stomach ee mian from Mr Batang Fish @96

Finally got to try the fish stomach from Mr Batang Fish. Meat's more tender than their regular batang slices - which were also delicious in case the wrong idea was conveyed. Will come back for more.

Luxe with hash brown in blueberry bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Something's off. I didn't seem to be enjoying this Luxe 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) as much as I thought I would. Maybe I'll just milestone this and move into the MYOB for a bit starting the next time. I see that the Forged Gras is part of the protein option these days. 😏

Rat tail noodling at Authentic Teochew Tradition Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (潮州传统香菇肉脞面)

First time getting bee tai bak/老鼠粉 from Authentic Teochew Tradition Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle.

Not bad tasting. The old uncle was at the front of the stall prepping dried sole with a permanent scowl etched on his face.

Grilled Fish Keisuke, Tanjong Pagar Road

 

Nice! Keisuke has opened up a (mostly) grilled fish teishoku shop on the unit (101 Tanjong Pagar Road) that used to house his tendon-ya Ginza Tendon Itsuki which ended business earlier in the month. We (also read as 'I') needed this in between bridging the crazy queue at Nakajima Suisan and the pricey Suju.

They've stepped up with the condiments in this shop featuring a briny mentaiko ika, a beefy savoury gyu shigure ni and a salty spicy karashi tanaka.

Teishoku comes with rice, miso soup and a fried egg. They're bottomless along with the condiments except for that fried egg and the protein of choice.

Which made it dangerous because the condiments were intensely flavoured and well salted to pair with rice. I had seconds.

Gratuitous molten yolk porn.

We had the gindara and akauo misozuke yaki. Grilled black cod and Pacific Ocean perch that's been marinated with miso in English. Both fishes were nicely done with crisp skin and a layer of light smoky sweetness from the marinate. I look forward to coming back - I spied gyutan and kinmedai.

Uncle Ah Teck's Noodle House, Chinatown Food Centre

Uncle Ah Teck's Noodle House (Green Zone, #02-051 Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) opened at the unit that used to house the defunct Jiakali. Chef was apparently from the hotel industry and the stall only does laksa.

This was the bowl with prawns. Flavour from the broth was serviceable - that's nowhere in the same leagues as Janggut Laksa or even 928 Yishun Laksa from the lack of dried shrimp infusion. Not a bad tasting bowl to be fair but I won't have a hankering for it anytime soon. Not with the plethora of options at Chinatown anyways.  

More assam stingray from Dalila's Kitchen

More nasi padang from Dalila's Kitchen. Assam stingray and sayur lodeh. I've had these a couple more times and the size of the ray appears to be luck of the draw. Today's portion was sized like a meaty chicken thigh instead of the previous one I had which looked like it was a 2X2 setup of Chicken McNuggets.

天天有鱼 (Tian Tian You Yu), ABC Brickworks Food Centre

Came across Tian Tian You Yu (#01-142 ABC Brickworks Food Centre, 6 Jalan Bukit Merah). These guys share the same stall units as Soon Lee Fish Soup and a little bird whispered, having seen the staff from both stalls wear the King Grouper Fish Soup tops. So I guess they're all the same?

No complains with their sliced grouper. It's not necessarily the better tasting ones out there, but it was also not of mediocre quality. Those brown bits were fried cai por (preserved radish).

Also decent-ish lu rou fan. Sliced pork belly was pretty tender and the gravy's passable. This bowl actually rocks with some of the fermented bean sauce. 

Kinki, Japanese unagi and yellow croaker at Nakajima Suisan

Another satisfying breakfast 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).

Pretty surprised that they have kinki. Seems like they're also pushing the envelop with that since kinki isn't cheap and this was the most expensive set we've ever gotten at $49.90. That being said, I recognise that this was a lot less expensive than what most places charges for a fish like this. If you didn't know, there's a prawny flavour to the fish and it was delicious.

There's also a limited quantity unagi kabayaki teishoku featuring Japanese eels. Equally as pricey as the kinki but sadly not great. Meat was a little mushy. Don't expect the standards that one gets from Man Man/Unagi Tei. Or even Uya and Unatoto for that matter. Won't be getting this again.

Their yellow croaker is still available and still huge. Great value for quantity and the fish, though leaner and less flavourful, wasn't bad at all.

Natto, shoyu and rice.

So...back at Suju @ Mandarin Gallery

We found ourselves back at the Mandarin Gallery branch of Suju ( 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).

Miso cream cheese without white corn. Without the distraction from the corn, the miso marination along with the rich creaminess was put into focus. Love this. Love this with the wasabi as well where the sweet sharpness turned out to be a great pairing.

Nasu dengaku - or eggplant topped with their house miso. Nice and that's mostly because of that miso.

Got myself a kanpanchi shioyaki teishoku today.

Delicious fish with moderate oil richness layered with flavour from the browning and salt.

Casa Vostra, Jem

Casa Vostra has opened an outpost at Jem (#01-03 Jem, 50 Jurong Gateway Road) and it appears to have inherited the queue which is equally crazy as the original spot at Raffles City. We got there 15 minutes before opening and ended up spending about an hour in that queue.

There were some things on the menu that were only available here though.

Like their polpette alla fonduta featuring fried meatballs in Taleggio fondue. Great stinky cheese which we enjoyed - couldn't tell what meat the meatballs were made of after that though.

Aglio e olio's nice. It looked a lot spicer than it tasted because of red came from sun dried tomatoes. The one thing that this rendition differed from other aglio olio was the lack of garlic.

Pizza only available in this outpost included the 5 formaggi e pear. Found this very easy to like. I thought it needed a bit more of that pear compote for a more pronounced counter sweetness but I'm not complaining.

Another pizza only available here was their Amalfitana that's basically the seafood pie. Prawns, squid and clams. There was an option to top up extra prawns which we did. Profile's light tomato tanginess with clean thalassic flavour. Nice. Wish there were more clams though.

Just needed to end this with the triple espresso tonic after all the food.