Little Rogue Coffee, Yong Siak Street

Lunch at Little Rogue Coffee (27 Yong Siak Street). These guys have been around and previously operated at Tanjong Katong before moving here. They appear to be another mostly all day breakfast-y food kind of place. This spot which they're occupying used to be Soi 47.

Not bad breakfast spamwich. Eggs, spam, hash brown, cheese and mustard. It has that combination of fat, salt and protein that made it pretty easy to like and there're no surprises here. 

From what I gathered, they're known for their scrambled eggs with ikura. Also pretty good. The eggs were creamy and purposefully flavoured with the brininess from the ikura and some richness from the truffle cream. Nice with the buttered sourdough.

There's espresso tonic here.

Maple thyme hotcake was delicious. Love the crusty texture on the edges. Flavour of the herb came through the hotcake. Think that was a miso caramel sauce drizzled over. Ice cream was Earl Grey.

Dalila's Kitchen, Ubi

Malay food stall located at the same coffeeshop (Wong Poh Kopitiam, 3004 Ubi Ave 3) as 威胜碳烤烧腊 and Wan Li Xiang Chicken Rice. Got myself some spinach, sambal goreng and assam stingray. Stingray was chunky and not bad tasting. 👍🏼

Otter & Pebbles, Sinaran Drive

We've been wanting to check out Otter & Pebbles (#01-05/07 Novena Specialist Center, 8 Sinaran Drive, tel :  +65 8690 4390) for a while because some of their stuff which we spied online intrigued us.

Pineapple Americano with two extra shots on the left. Not bad tasting and packed a decent punch from both the caffeine and the fruitiness of pineapple juice. House made lychee grapefruit kombucha on the right. Noice! 👍🏼

Tried the baco mentaiko udon. Tasted much like how it looked with the creamy richness and umami from the mentaiko and seaweed. Not bad.

This was a Dutch pancake called PB & Otter. PB's prosciutto & burrata instead of peanut butter. My first Dutch pancake. Tasted much like Yorkshire pudding. So that's something I presumed to be salted maple syrup on the side. Lots of sweet and salty and creamy on top of the eggy pancake. Like. 👍🏼 

Latte with miso, caramel and wasabi. The flavour was intriguing for me in a way that made me want to go back for repeated sips. Wasabi flavouring was definitely discernible but more towards the end of the swallow and not so much in your face. Not detecting the miso though.

Otter & Pebble's soufflé pancakes are apparently a thing. Somewhat. Pistachio pancake's pretty prominently featured online. Not bad tasting also. The ice cream has more pistachio flavour than the cream. Noticed that there's another one of these with blue cheese. Curious.

One week later......

Came back for the one with blue cheese called Cheese but in Blue. The blue cheese was on the foam/cream/sauce thingy on top and brûlée-d in the middle. More of that cream in between the souffle pancakes. Blue cheese flavour not intense but discernible. Not bad this one. Vanilla ice cream on the side nice. Brown stuff was crushed Biscoff.

Double C - cold chocolate with salty cheese foam. Nice.

Teochew Hand Made Squid Ball • Pork Ball • Mixed Soup (麥士威83号), Telok Blangah Crescent Food Centre

Not far from Song Heng Fishball Noodles is this shop (#01-119 Telok Blangah Crescent Market & Food Centre, 11 Telok Blangah Crescent) that makes squid balls for their noodles. Aside from Dong Fang Hong at Hong Lim Food Centre, I don't know of any others that make these.

Both the squid balls and the meat balls are home made. One can clearly tell from the texture. Meat balls were nice. Love the rough grittiness.

Squid balls also not bad tasting. There's a gentle sweetness and firm bounciness in them.

More food from Putien Mama

 

Back at Putien Mama. On hindsight, this food here is not very different to expensive cai png. Presentation's just better. Those clay plates the dishes are served in are deceptively shallow so portions aren't big. But the food's delicious.

Tried their chicken in fermented red rice wine sauce. Nice smokiness in there, dangerously delicious with rice.

Moreish umami-ness from their tofu & shrimp in crab roe sauce. Just like the red rice wine sauce, dangerously delicious with rice.

More aji katsu from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison

 

Everytime I have one of these from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison, I wonder why they don't bring the sanma katsu back.

Re-visiting Jeong's Jjajang

There were a couple of things we wanted to come back to Jeong's Jjajang for. The first was to try their jjampong and the other was to get their delicious mandus again. And then we also found something else this time. 

I love the smoky aroma infused in their jjampong's broth. It's exactly the same soup as what they gave us on the side the last time we were here. It's so good. Will try the stir fried one next.

There's kalguksu which I hadn't noticed on their menu the last time. The in house made soya bean broth was deliciously bean-y. 

Possibly the best mandus we've had to date. Not that we've had that much but the quality is obvious and the stuffings, generous.

Sushi Zushi, Funan

Been wanting to come down to try Sushi Zushi (#02-01 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road) for a while. They're a casual sushi-ya and from what we've heard, decent quality made to order sushi and affordable prices. Which in retrospect is true. But truth like a gem has facets.

Tried a few temaki. A little disappointed that the one with aburi-ed engawa didn't have enough engawa flavour in spite of the melting fat because there wasn't enough engawa. The one with uni was not bad and I kinda also liked their tuna and cream cheese roll. The latter was rich with fatty tuna, cream cheese and avocado.

All in all, pretty happy with their sushi. The aburi-ed ones were delicious. Special mention goes to the engawa nigiri which was smoky and oily.

The reason why their prices are more affordable are partially because of the portion. In a "nice" sushi restaurant, the toppings are definitely more generous. Quality of the ingredients in those places will also be held to higher standards.

But this was much more affordable and less stuffy. Like I've said earlier, pretty happy with what we've had.

Will not mind coming back.

Torasho Ramen & Charcoal Bar, Tras Street

We've been wanting to try Torasho Ramen & Charcoal Bar (32 Tras Street, tel : +65 6970 5055) for quite a while.

Finally got to do so recently. Food can be pretty pricey. Decent tasting but I wouldn't say it's great value for money.

These were their uni pillow. Sea urchin on seaweed topped with shiso flower. Each piece is...a little smaller than a one biter. Maybe 66-75% of a bite for me. Decent quality but wayyyy too small for $18 a pop.

Mapo ramen spiciness level 3. Heat packed much more punch than I imagined and I was glad we didn't shoot for a higher level. This was presumably the Japanese Chinese mapo gravy and didn't have much of the fermented bean flavour compared to the Chinese renditions. Not bad tasting as a whole but I'm not big on the texture of the noodles.

Tried their cold stupid ramen. In retrospect, I felt stupid paying $69 paying for this bowl which has a pretty predictable flavour profile of truffle oil and ikura that's kinda pervasive these days. Was the quality of this bowl exceptional? I did not think so. Seafood quality's decent and that's about all the good I could think of from it. Will never happen again.

The Teochew Kitchenette, Keong Saik Road

Came across this branch of The Teochew Kitchenette (26 Keong Saik Road, tel  : +65 8338 7106) by chance.

Okay-ish claypot fish maw soup. The broth was a base from bak kut teh so it was slightly herbal and garlicky. Despite that base, I'm pretty sure this wasn't meant to represent the classic bak kut teh which is generally more intense and peppery.

Not bad tasting red grouper white bee hoon. Don't mind coming back for this.

Love their hae cho (deep fried prawn rolls)...these deliciously savoury weren't oily at all and had a good amount minced prawn inside the golden brown exterior that was dry and crisp. Will definitely get these again if we come back.

GO Unique (有间不一样), Raffles City

GO Unique (有间不一样) is by GO Noodle House (有间面馆). They're at the basement of Raffles City (#B1-12 Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6935 8323). What's different between them and the noodle house is that rice dishes and sandwiches can be found here. 

Pretty happy with their soup noodles with Shaoxing wine. Tasted just like the ones from their noodle house. Got mine with batang and sliced beef and today.

One of the rice dishes they had came with something called Baba Sauce pork belly. I'm not sure what that sauce was made with; there was a caramel sweetness and it packed serious heat. 🔥 I'm gonna come back again for this because I liked the burn and I think I need to understand it better. 😂