Hai Kah Lang (海脚人), Funan

Hai Kah Lang from Malaysia has opened up at Funan in the spot that used to be occupied by Keisuke Plus (#01-15 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 9003 4023).

Their Bamboo White Coffee's not bad tasting. Supposedly infused with bamboo salt which barely registered. 

Fried fish cake's great munching with their dip.

We like their prawn paste sliced fish (虾酱炸鱼⽚). There's sufficient prawn paste flavour in the batter. That aside, the base flavour/texture of said batter was personally nostalgic for me.

Soup with milk and parrot fish and 干捞 wanton mee. Flavour from the broth was as fantastic as the one we had in JB. Love those dry chewy noodles.

Grouper with tom yam soup and rat tail noodles. That tom yam broth had a sweet seafood-y base which kinda caught me by surprise - in a pleasant way that is. Lou shi fun was delicious...I'm detected some flavourful oil but I couldn't put a finger to what it was.

We also got some of their coconut-y sea bird nest jelly drink that we liked from the last time. 

Sing Swee Kee (新瑞记), Seah Street

Sing Swee Kee (34-35 Seah Street, tel : +65 6337 7180) is part of the legacy of an old chicken rice institution, Swee Kee, that I'm not familiar with. It's kinda related to Swee Kee along the same road that was previously known as Sin Swee Kee.

Like that shop formerly known as Sin Swee Kee and other chicken rice shops like Boon Tong Kee or Chin Chin & YY Kafei Dian in the vicinity, they serve both chicken rice and zi char.

Their luo han guo longan drink was diluted. Note to self: never get it again.

They have an option for half poached and fried for their half chicken. Decent tasting chooks. I prefer the poached one over the roast/fried one.

There's chicken rice balls too. Something I haven't had since Good Year. Wow, it's been a decade since.

Not bad tasting. The balls were packed densely and well flavoured. This one falls into the category where it's good with or without the chilli. Chilli's not bad by the way. 

This dish was called Hainanese vegetable (海南杂菜). Which was essentially chap chye. Their rendition had fried pork lard and was flavoured with large dried shrimps. Taste was pretty good but I found the cabbage too crunchy. I like my chap chye tender.

Egg and tau kwa. The latter had chewy skin.

This was their chicken collagen broth with fish maw (胶原蛋白鱼漂上汤). The chicken meat inside was stringy and didn't feel like part of the soup. Fish maw's okay. The soup though, was nice.

Kopi c was not bad. Not bad meaning that I enjoyed it and will have no qualms ordering it again if I come back. Decently brewed Hainanese coffee here that wasn't excessively sweet or milky.

Kinmedai from Grilled Fish Keisuke

Back at Grilled Fish Keisuke for the kinmedai.

Kinda like how I imagined it to be with that firm flakiness that's a little prawny.

Quite a bit of bones to navigate though.

Last Christ-mas, I......

...we made some food. Mostly experimental without formal recipes. Like a ham we got from NTUC with a glaze made from a reduction of mulled wine spices & some Finnish honey (don't ask), cloves and jam. Turned out to be really good and was definitely less costly than ones we used to order from a place that sells ribs.

Onion and bacon soup.

These were highly experimental based off some recipe short in TikTok - eggwashed Vietnamese rice paper/bánh tráng with ham and cheese rolled into snails and oven baked. An alternate universe gỏi cuốn minus vegetables.

A second batch was made to include crab tomalley. 😬

Didn't make this obviously but the Vacherin Mont d'Or made it to table with breads and jams and honey. 👍🏼

Buttery baked mash with bacon and a awesome cheesy crust.

All these and bottles of mulled wine and durian.

Re-visiting Surry Hills Grocer @ Raffles City

Getting some food at Surrey Hills Grocer at Raffles City.

Farm styled mushroom soup's not great. We've had more mushroomy ones at this price point. The sweet potato foam felt gimmicky because it's there, we're not sure how they work together and the flavour wasn't sufficiently intense that it left an impression. It felt like it was there because they wanted to be different.

Their Lao Gan Ma chee cheong fun did not look like much.

Turned out to be awesome. Those Lao Gan Ma roasted chilli added plenty of flavour, not to mention a measure of umami heat, into the creaminess of the sauce. 👍🏼

Mussels were okay. Garlicky broth was pretty decent too. Fell short of memorable and that's what we were looking/hoping for.

Dim Sum Club, Wheelock Place

Came across Dim Sum Club (B1-01 Wheelock Place, 501 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6263 9164) by chance. The spot they're at used to be a coffee place if I recall correctly.

Tea's nice. Smooth and creamy local rendition that's sweet but not excessively so.  

Pan fried yam cake (芋头糕). There's chunks of yam, lup cheong and mushrooms in it.

Curious pan fried kaya bao. They're okay I guess. The kaya fillings inside were not memorable and the skin wasn't the fresh and fluffy kind.

Truffle noodle with sunny side up. The one thing that bothered me some about it was the kee flavour in the noodles. While the saucing and the egg yolk help mask that, some still came through. Otherwise, pretty decent.

Steamed pork and salted egg yolk patty on rice. Nice. Rice was tender and moist. Kailan was tender and not fibrous.

Har gow had thick skin. Not the delicate wrapper we gravitate to. Wouldn't say that it's bad but also wouldn't be getting them if we ever came back.

Their red bean soup with tangerine peel had consistency like porridge and that tangerine peel flavour was adequate. There's some sago in it too. I like this.

Dubu House Korea, Gloria Outlets, Taipei

Korean lunch at the Gloria branch of Dubu House Korea (3rd Floor, No. 189, Chunde Road, Zhongli District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan).

Banchan has nice kimchi, nice (albeit sweetish) potato salad, bland bean sprouts and the wood ear fungus has ginger. Variety is kinda limited. One item not featured in the picture was nori which we got multiple refills of which was good eating with the kimchi (which we got multiple refills of as well) and the potato salad.

A pretty decent sparkling rose Americano to start. Surprisingly drinkable coffee.

This truffle cheese omelette had loads of truffle paste inside. Nice with the nori too.

Gyeran jjim with cheese and tobiko. And also baby corn. Not bad. Cheese added a needed saltiness which made it delicious.

This was their thick haemul pajeon. Seafood pancake. Nice. 👍🏼 Loads of seafood in it. It felt like eating a seafood quiche.

Pretty surprised to find lamb as a protein option in their kimchi sundubu. Not bad. I liked that the flavour of the meat was infused in the broth.

This was supposed to be their oyster seaweed sundubu. Never even noticed that there wasn't any seaweed in it. Anyways, I loaded it with a lot of nori because it was kinda bland.

I don't know if it's customary for them to serve dessert after meals. We didn't order but got some sweet bean curd.