The Food Place by Food Republic, Raffles City

The Food Place (#03-15/16/17 Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road) is another swanky food court venture by Food Republic. They've gotten a few brand names, both local and foreign, to set up a collection of eateries.

Tried the Indonesian nasi padang. Think their name is Padang Padang. Not bad tasting dishes here but kinda pricey at $15.60 for this plate. Got some sambal mussels, scrambled eggs, an arguably tender beef rendang and sayur lodeh. I don't mind coming back to this one for their variety.

This plate from Kam's Roast Express costed even more at $17.10. Char siew, siu yok and goose liver sausage. The latter was delicious with flavour from both the liver and what might be shao xing. But those few bite sized slices of goose liver sausage costed $4+. 😓 The roast meants here were decent but also do not taste similar in flavour or quantity compared to Kam's we previously ate in Wan Chai, Hong Kong.

Indomie goreng with ayam geprek from Dapur Penyet

Hmmm...pretty nice fried smashed chicken which was both tender and crispy. I like this as much as the sate version.

More eating at Hajah Maimunah @ Jalan Pisang

Was looking forward to this lunch back at the flagship of Hajah Maimunah. Will just be pointing out a few of the notables.

Rice with rawon gravy and serunding. Gravy was a lot less intense than I imagined for something that has buah keluak as part of the ingredients but the serunding compensated with its spicy sweetness. One thing that's definitely not lacking from the food here is flavour.

The stingray here was not as good eating as the one we had at their branch at Clementi. It's not bad by any stretch. Meat's stiffer than what I had expected.

Paru belado was outstanding. Believe it or not, the first thought that came to mind was tenderloin.

Pacuk paku masak lemak - fiddlehead ferns in a coconut rich spicy gravy.

The gravy for their tahu telur seemed different...unless I remembered wrongly. I was anticipating something like kecap manis but this was more like rojak sauce with the belanchan in it. Love it though. Tofu was crispy on the outside and wobbly tender on the inside.

Our first pengat pisang....a sweet coconut soup with sweet potatoes and bananas that were on the verge on disintegrating in it. The tanginess from the bananas had seeped into the soup. Damn this was good.

I'm not sure if these were kueh salat or if there's another name for them. The one with the white bottom layer is made with sago and coconut and the other was pulut hitam. Nice.

Saayang Sayang Indonesian Nasi Padang, Kopitiam @ Changi Airport Terminal 3

Nasi padang at the food court (B2-03 Terminal 3 Singapore Changi Airport, 65 Airport Boulevard) in T3. Got me some sayur lodeh, sambal goreng and paru belado. Paru was chunky and meaty while the gravy from the sayur lodeh had the pre-requisite lemak-ness. Kicked ass with the sambal. I enjoyed this.

Pandan cheese milk martabak from Smile Martabak

Finally got to try a sweet martabak from Smile Martabak (#02-34 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road). This was the pandan cheese milk - product photos looked somewhat better. Pancake felt kinda thick compared to the fillings so it ended up feeling floury. Cheese also tasted really cheap. Not impressed. Prefer those at JTown Cafe.

Nasi Lemak Ayam Taliwang, Bukit Merah Central

I've been wanting to try Nasi Lemak Ayam Taliwang for a while. This one was from a relatively new outlet (161 Bukit Merah Central) at the coffeeshop where No. 25 Minced Meat Noodle is. From what I've gathered, what they serve marries local nasi lemak with ayam taliwang, an Indonesian grilled chicken dish with a spicy sambal. Don't know why the plates are so big but the portions weren't. Added an otah which totalled up the plate to $9.50. Would not consider this great value at all considering that I was still thinking of getting more food after that.

Anyways, I didn't like their rice. The first flavour that I detected was ginger. Not overly strong but definitely present. Chicken's fall off the bone tender, pretty tasty and the sambal was fiery. There was a bit of sweetness and considerable heat that followed. Something you wouldn't want to choke on. Nothing else stood out.

Tanamera Coffee, Rodyk Street

Breakfast by the river at Tanamera Coffee (8 Rodyk Street, #01-01/02, tel : +65 9145 8171). So to speak.

Have seen them here for a while but we've never actually understood what differentiated Tanamera Coffee until we went to the branch at Tanglin Mall.

I recalled liking their dirty matcha. While it should taste the same, I have the impression that the previous one I got had a better coffee flavour.

Americano's kinda sour. There's also an aftertaste from their brew that one gets from soya sauce or fermented beans(dao jio). 

Tahu tempe goreng which was good munching with their kecap manis sambal concoction thingy.

We found out that these guys fry a pretty mean goreng pisang as well. The bananas here were halved and battered. Great tangy sweetness from the pisang raja. Gonna get these again if/when we come back.

Chicken porridge was not outstanding. It was simple. Like something many would think shouldn't cost more than a couple of dollars kind of simple. I find it strange that it was served just lukewarm and not piping hot. Dough fritters did not taste like the regular kind we're used to.

That's their Big Breakfast 2.0. Not bad. Beef kofta would benefit from a bit more salt. Beans were quite delicious. But they were slightly chilled - which I thought was odd because I expected them to be warm. Kinda enjoyed the minty lamb sausages. Enjoyed the sweet caramelized onions. They were pretty generous with the beef bacon which were pretty chewy and not as smokey or salty as I imagined they would be. 

Was there anything that could have been better? Sure. Getting fried eggs with molten yolk like the menu shows would have been the least the could do for those. 😞

Indomie goreng with sate ayam and gado gado from Dapur Penyet

As simple as it sounded, the Indomie and sate at Dapur Penyet was delicious. Its mostly the sweet kecap manis and their lip burning sambal flavouring the noodles along with the sweet nutty sate gravy. Also liked the gado gado - a salad of boiled vegetables with potato/egg/tofu/tempeh/lontong underneath the same nutty gravy and colourful keropok.

Tanamera Coffee, Tanglin Mall

We were drawn to Tanamera Coffee (#02-130 Tanglin Mall, 163 Tanglin Road, tel : +65 8660 3712) because they featured Indonesian food instead of just regular coffee place stuff.

Haven't tried much of their regular coffee but I thought their dirty matcha was pretty good. Pretty good meant that there was enough matcha and coffee in the drink without imbalance. Reminded me of the one at the defunct Forty Hands.

Our first soto betawi - a beef and vegetable broth with coconut milk. And also chunks of potatoes, carrots and tomato. The clean milky broth was not bad tasting. I kept thinking it was soup buntut with coconut milk.

Seafood woku - I'm not familiar with what's a woku but from what I gather, it's a sort of turmeric curry. I like it - it was creamy, coconut-y and savoury. Seafood's just squid and prawns but it was three sizeable and good quality prawns. And then some pumpkin, cauliflower and kailan.

Gotta do rice because sambals and gravies. 

Nasi goreng iga hitam. Squid ink fried rice.

Came with some sweet marinated beef ribs on the side. Those squiggly stuff on the other side were prawn crackers. Not great as a whole.

Tahu tempe goreng had a nice flavoured batter. These fritters included tofu in them as well.

Love their kue tape. It's essentially a butter cake with cassava/tapioca. Much like the kueh bingka at Quentin's. This one was a little denser in texture and also more buttery. Nice. 👍🏼

Enjoyed the matcha caffe latte.

Dapur Penyet, Tiong Bahru Plaza

Dapur Penyet has opened at Tiong Bahru Plaza (#02-137 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

Bandung grass jelly.

Tried a couple of their grilled stuff. I guess they were okay. Half of the meat from the beef rib was dry and stringy. Pomfret was so so. Everything tasted mostly of kecap manis.

Chicken satay was large and meaty but these are nowhere close to the ones from Cumi Bali.

Eggs belado. Their belado tasted similar to the ones from Sari Ratu but packed substantially more heat.

This was called sayur asam - vegetable soup with assam. It's sour but also sweet so it wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Aside from the sparse vegetables, there's soy beans it it. Me no like.