The Ceylonese Affair, Mei Ling Food Centre

Came across The Ceylonese Affair (#02-17 Mei Lin Food Centre, 159 Mei Chin Road) recently. The stall does only briyani and appam. 

It's actually not bad tasting. That being said, it was different from the more flavourful briyani that most of us might be used to. The rice was spiced but I'd call the flavour infusion gentle. 

This was their butter chicken briyani which featured their fried chicken with butter chicken sauce. Understandably, most of the flavour came from the sauce. Came with achar on the side. Those brown bits scattered on top were fried onions. Nice.

Recently at Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant (June 2026)

There appears to be more new items at Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十).

They've included masala tea which wasn't available before. This one's milky, not so spicy. Kinda pedestrian.

Ghee pongal seemed dryer today than I remember them. Flavour's still good though.

There's also benne podi masala dosa which wasn't available previously. Not bad tasting but they weren't as good looking as the ones from MTR.

Dabba Street, Tiong Bahru Plaza

Have been wanting to try Dabba Street (#B1-K06 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road) for some time and it finally happened.

Got the Butter Chicken Biryani and the Butter Chicken Dabba Bowl. They were kinda like Indian/mediterranean fast food. The chicken wasn't actually butter chicken per se but their baked chicken that's doused with their butter chicken sauce.

Briyani spices were kinda tame and low on the salt. The Dabba Bowl came with unflavoured blue pea rice. But I don't mind getting them again because it tasted kinda wholesome and didn't feel particularly heavy. Maybe with more of the yoghurt and aioli the next time.

Revisiting Springleaf Prata Place @ Thong Soon Avenue

Been like a decade since we last ate at this Springleaf Prata Place. In recent times, there's the Springleaf MRT Station which makes the location much less inconvenient for people who don't live in the vicinity. Was a packed Saturday morning and we turned up not expecting the crowd.

Teh pandan's not bad - better than I imagined. Teh was adequate and the flavour from the pandan came through. Masala tea's also okay-ish. Note to self: Gotta siu dai.

Finally got to try their Impossible Murtaburger. Instead of lamb like the regular Murtaburger, there's an Impossible patty. The flavour also reminded me more than a little of a Ramly Burger. You know that there's too much sauce when you cut off a corner from a little piece and so much squirts out.

Otah prata which I felt was also a little too sauced up inside. There's mayo and mustard which kinda buried the otah.

Roti bomb. Crispy and sugary.

Lamb shank briyani's pretty good. Meat easily fell off the bone. Rice was savoury and pleasantly spiced. Nice nutty masala with a bit of heat as well.

Saravana Special Meal from Saravanaa Bhavan

First time dinnering at Saravanaa Bhavan. This was their Saravana Special Meal; pretty much a south Indian thali topped with a poori - hence a veritable platter of flavours coming from the spices in the soups and gravies and yoghurt to be enjoyed with bread and rice. There's a slew of other items on the menu at dinner which looked like things we could come back for.

Zam Zam has gotten a makeover!

Haven't been to Zam Zam for a while. The interior has been refurbished.

Hot limau less sweet's nice. There's enough citrus sour in the fruit to make believe that we're cleansing the grease from the food we're about to ingest. 😂 

The thing to eat here which we don't come back often enough for is their crusty mutton murtabak. Spiced ground mutton, egg and diced onions layered in folded prata which is crusted with more ground mutton.

This was the $12 portion.

Ordered their dal for the first time and wishing that we had thought to do so earlier. Love the cumin infused savouriness.

Not bad mutton kurma. The onion loaded gravy was more nuanced with the spices than I had imagined. Mutton's relatively tender but still had a bite to them.

Sikkander's, Marine Parade Central

Came across the mention of Sikkander's (#01-590, 83 Marine Parade Central, tel : +8711 8925) for their mee siam dum biryani.

That's right.

Sikkander's has created a first of its kind; at least for me. Those vermicelli were infused with briyani-ish savoury warm spices that came with a bit of heat. One could choose between chicken or mutton. We had the mutton which was arguably fork tender and chunky. There's also some tangy achar on the side for that cut through.

In retrospect, a bee hoon briyani would probably be more accurate than a mee siam briyani since there weren't any mee siam characteristics/ingredients in it beyond the bee hoon. #justsayin What's pertinent here was that it was delicious. We'll come back again.

One week later......

This was the chicken mee siam dum briyani. Not a slouch compared to the mutton rendition we had last week. Meat from the bird was relatively moist and tender, even for the breast meat. We had some toasted cashews in the noodles today. Very satisfying plate.

Prata's pretty good stuff. That's a double egg underneath a kosong. Both were competently done. I liked how light that kosong was.

An egg briyani and a disappointing gobi 65 from Junior Kuppanna

Came back to Junior Kuppanna for an egg briyani and a gobi 65 on the side. Briyani's delicious. But the cauliflowers were subpar - not much like those crispy ones we had here the last time. The flavour did not change but the texture was mostly spongy. These tasted like they had been fried much earlier and all the crunch has gone. I'm guessing they were microwaved for serving. 👎🏼

Breakfast and thoughts at MTR 1924

I remember back in the day when MTR first opened up, I was trying to figure out their menu online because they had a different selection every day of the week which was then further split between breakfast, lunch and dinner. The variety was noticeably larger then. Fast forward to today, it appears that there's a fixed menu that doesn't vary like it did. I sense fatigue there.

Got ourselves a bisibele bath to remember how good it tasted.

I recently mentioned being on the verge of declaring my favourite rava idli at Bangalore Cafe after getting the one again here for a fresher comparison.

I've decided that there will be no declaration. I like them both as much. 😅

We also had a chow chow bath today because it's been a while since I last had it here.

It's still delicious if anyone's wondering. The coconut chutney was good with both the khara and kesari portions.

Kolkata Beckons, Race Course Road

I came across the mention of Kolkata Beckons (52 Race Course Road, tel : +65 6291 5244) some time back and have been wanting to give them a try. The restaurant is part of the Fifth Season group which also runs Tangra Chinese. Food is Bengali. Like Mustard...and probably a slew of other places I don't yet know of.

That's the malai sweet lassi. As I understand, malai refers to the layer of cream that is formed after boiled milk is cooled. Not uncommonly used in gravies in North Indian dishes. This one had them folded into their sweet lassi for extra richness. Nice. We were cautioned that it induces food coma. 😅

Tried their peas kochuri which was a fried bread spread with peas and chilli and some spices on the inside. On the side was sada alur torkari - which translates into and is also literally descriptive of 'white potato curry'. What apparently differentiates the sada alur torkari from regular curry is the lack of turmeric. And hence, white.

Couldn't actually discern much of the peas. They looked like pooris and tasted much like hum chim pang. 😬

Mangsher chop.

A fritter of spiced potato and mutton which could conceivably be viewed as a cross between curry puff and croquette, served with mustard on the side.

We had an order of badshah malai kofta. Badsha is Persian for ruler/king/emperor so presumably, this might have been a dish for royalty in the past.

It's described as a fruit stuffed paneer. The flavour's sweet, lightly savoury and cheesy. The cheesy part was not typical of paneer that I know of and I'm not sure where's the fruit part. Deliciously rich though. Remember the bit about malai earlier?

More carbs in the form of basanti pulao. The rice which had cashews and raisins was infused with saffron and slightly sweet. Was a little thrown off at the start but it kinda latched onto me.