Chicco Trattoria, Holland Village

Chicco Trattoria (27 Lorong Mambong, tel : +65 8189 7302) is by the folks behind Cenzo.

Sangria tasted diluted.

This was the spiced honey ricotta dip. I'm guessing the chilli oil looking thingy was the spiced honey. Not bad tasting paired with the sweet creamy ricotta. Those crackers on the side had an aniseed flavour that I had initially mistaken to be from the "honey".

Parma ham and duck toastie was nice. The fillings was savoury/salty/umami in between toast which was buttery. 👍🏼

Pretty good flatbread - this was the one with roasted cherry tomatoes, stracciatella or burrata and pesto. The bread was unexpectedly slightly sweet. Kinda like this.

Carbonara arancini. They squared the circle here. 😅

Didn't taste like carbonara. Fillings were more creamy than cheese-y and had barely discernible pepper. These arancini were made with pasta, not rice.

Sea bass fillet was nicely pan fried and not bad tasting. Would be nicer if there was more of that caper salsa to go around.

Pork and pesto lasagna also not bad. Pretty rich tasting béchamel bolstered with saltiness from Mortadella and minced pork ragu. There seemed to be a spice...maybe star anise or nutmeg from the béchamel that's teetering on the edge of discernibility. 

Pretty enjoyable pistachio tiramisu. Creamy and well soaked with a nice creamy coffee flavour.

Pecan pie was meh. Only after we had left that we realised that we remembered seeing cherry and strawberry gelato mentioned in the menu and there were none of those in it.

Suspicious Hiro

Sushiro (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九,十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六) is a pretty good place for fries and beer. #notjustsaying. Their fries are pretty decent IMNSHO and their mugs of Suntory have consistently been served satisfyingly chilled. Anywaysss...another compilation of eats. Some new, some old...some kokumi, some cold. 🤔 What's that last one again?

Shake and ikura gunkan. Nice with those pink fatty slivers of salmon and bursty briny roe.

Guilty pleasure of mentaiko and mayo gunkan.

Sujiko is apparently in season.

What's better than a sujiko wrap is a sujiko wrap with aburi-ed shirako! This one was both briny and creamy.

Uni croquette. The inside was hot, smooth and creamy. This was nice but I'm not sure what to make of the inside because I'm not sure if I tasted uni or not. But it's nice.

We've never gotten the corn mayo gunkan before so here's a first. Those firm corn kernels were not bad tasting. 

Houbou nigiri. Red gunnard. Fish was freshly fried and pretty good eating. Crispy tail's edible.

The uni season brings their uni butter dry ramen. Noodle texture aside, this wasn't bad with the uni and uni cream sauce and butter. There's onions and shiso to cut through the creaminess.

Tuna toro with lumpfish caviar. Needs more caviar.

Matsukasa cut squid aburi-ed and glazed with shoyu. Quite nice. Better than the generic raw variety because the torching imparts the squid-y flavour.

Uni & avocado with lumpfish caviar wrap. I liked this. Ordered it with low expectations and it turned out pretty good and creamy. Pretty sure there was something citrus like yuzu in it. Have had this a few times. Nice.

Miso soup with seaweed and okra.

Strawberry panna cotta's not great. The pudding tasted like a thin strawberry milk. Most of the strawberry flavour came from the sauce and those seriously chilled diced bits of fruit.

Edamame tempura. Think the bean clusters were held together with mashed potato.

Salmon with Hokkaido cream cheese and basil pesto. Nice. Cream cheese added an enjoyable creamy richness to this.

Salmon with Camembert. Not as tasty as the one with cream cheese. Camembert was muted in flavour.

Shiojime cod tempura. Looked nothing like their product shot. Fish was a lot smaller. This tasted like fish and chips on rice. Did not taste bad at all but I expected a much bigger piece of fried fish.

Not feeling much with the shiojime cod. Yes this was the raw version of the previous fish. Meat was firm but didn't have much identity.

This was puchi puchi tobiko mozuku gunkan. Gemini tells me that puchi puchi is an onomatopoeic word that sounds like the popping or bursting of bubbles. In other words, bursty. I get it. Tobiko is flying fish roe and mozuku is a type of seaweed. Flavour's vinegary.

Chicken meatball gunkan.

Sesame marinated Japanese sardine. Not fond of this one. The marinate stripped most of the natural character, both flavour and texture, from the fish. There's some yuzu flavour in it which wasn't enough to win me over.

Marinated hotaru ika in squid ink. Strong briny and squid-y flavour. No squid ink taste. Pretty salty. Wouldn't eat it again.

A guilty pleasure of shredded crabsticks and mayo.

Menu called this aglio olio. It's kinda it. Japanese udon aglio olio I suppose. Garlicky and spicy with loads of small meaty clams. This was delicious with a few squeezes of shoyu. Nice! 👍🏼

Current seasonal dessert is cheese datemaki melba. I'm not sure where the 'cheese' part came in but I like the eggy datemaki. Soft serve on the side has a nice vanilla taste.

The House Chungdam, Duxton Road

Noticed The House Chungdam (#01-01, 72 Duxton Road, tel : +65 8336 2068) only recently. Place looks pretty and the menu offers premium looking cuts of meat for barbeque along with jeons and jjigaes. This was lunch.

There's a lager on tap going at an attractive $10 at happy hour. Taste reminded me of Tiger which meant more tang, rougher with the fizz and less character compared to the likes of Suntory or Asahi. A lesson was learnt here and won't be getting this again. 😬

Appetizer came with lunch. From the left, cheese kimchi jeon, a skewer of sweet stewed mushroom & quails egg and some japchae. Kimchi jeon's pretty good...will a la carte it the next time.

Quite impressed with their kimchi jjigae bansang. Why? The jjigae had a nice balanced flavour of fermentation rather than just coming on with a strong sour. Said flavour got more apparent once the stew has cooled a little. Rice was moist and tender...the ultimate pairing one could have with the jjigae. What the picture doesn't show, were the strips of "disintegrate in your mouth" pork belly in the stew. 😏

Banchan on the side were mostly tangy and competent. Notable were the kimchi which packed some heat and the ojingeojeot (pickled squid); both of which would either enhance the intensity of the jjigae or just good eating as topping on that delicious rice.

There was a yukke bibimbap. Not the typical looking bibimbap I'd admit. This one appeared to be more refined. Was served with the same banchans as the kimchi jjigae.

Flavour's also not typical. Not in your face here with the sesame oil and also no gochujang. There's a sweetness to it which I couldn't put a finger to but it was on the whole delicious.

We were curious about the cheese potato jeon which quietly incorporated bits of bacon for salt and smokiness. The menu mentioned that they used fluffy textured potatoes from the mountains of Gangwon - the location being the birthplace of potato jeon. Cool trivia which I hadn't any means to verify and the jeon wasn't exactly fluffy. This was Korean rosti and there's no way one could construe it otherwise. And hell yeah it was delicious.