Western Boy, Kopitiam @ Tiong Bahru Plaza

Here's a half spring chicken with aglio olio spaghetti from Western Boy at the food court  in Tiong Bahru Plaza (#03-101 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road). There's the same spicy garlicky local aglio olio like the one we had and liked previously at their branch in Malaysia Boleh at Bugis Junction. Decent fried chicken but it's not Arnold's. I'd go for a protein without the hassle of bones the next time.

Revisiting Cenzo

We finally made it back to Cenzo.

Sparkling water is a couple of bucks and bottomless.

Wagyu tartar cannoli wasn't memorable. Wouldn't have known it was wagyu if the menu hadn't mentioned.

The lardo tigelle with truffle honey which we liked from the last time has become garlic bread whipped lardo burnt honey. This one was nice...cheesy, savoury and tinged with sweetness. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the tigelle was nicer. 😅

There's a lot of pistachio stuff going around lately. Most of them are second rate. I'm also being kind by just labelling them second rate because the honest description would conceivably be 'con job'. Not this gramigna with pistachio pesto though. It's not just nuttiness in the pesto, it's pistachio specific nuttiness here. With actual crushed nuts. Enriched by burrata.

What I had been looking forward to was their lamb porchetta. You read that right.

This was awesome. Serious crackling cushioned by a layer of flavourful lamb-y fat over meat. That and its unique blend of bite, greasiness and crunch. Why so? It doesn't have the same mouthfeel as regular porchetta because of the size. Pretty rich and heart clogging. 👍🏼

Tiramisu to end.

Niigata Food Fair stuff and the old black truffle fried rice from Tampopo @ Ngee Ann City

Haven't eaten at this branch of Tampopo for a really long time. The last time we were here might have been that one where we had their gyukotsu ramen. We were reeled in today by a couple of items that were featured in their Niigata Food Fair menu.

One of which was their amaebi rice flour tagliatelle. Couldn't tell if the tagliatelle was made with rice flour through the gravy/broth which had an intense umami sweet crustacean flavour. Think prawn bisque. Those amaebi also had a gentle but discernible sweetness to them. Nicely done this one. 👍🏼

Presentation has kinda...changed for their black truffle fried rice compared to how they used to plate it. Thankfully, it's still pleasantly greasy and sufficiently salty to be moreish.

The other Niigata Food Fair thing we tried was their matcha parfait. Notice a sprig of thyme. No cornflakes in this one. Plenty of intense matcha sauce. Nice.

Revisiting Royal Host @ Takashimaya/Ngee Ann City

Have been meaning to come back to Royal Host.

Got their Royal Hamburg Curry Rice which came with some floral iced tea...

...and a soup. This was the clam chowder. Tasted better than what the Campbell-esque appearance might suggest. There's quite a few tender chewy clams in it.

Royal Hamburg Curry Rice featured their delicious hambagu with curry on the side. 

Not bad tasting curry which was spicy sweet but not annoyingly so.

Also nicely done mentaiko seafood pasta with small squids and scallops spiked with pretty potent shiso. 👍🏼

Revisiting Santi's

Mixed feelings about them like the last time. Didn't get what I wanted because the actual menu wasn't what they had on their website. They explained that the site wasn't updated but the current menu as been around for about a week now. Add four days more to that as I'm writing this because it's still the old menu online. 😬 Getting lackadaisical vibes from this place. 

Anyways, this was their smoked miso leek rigatoni. Both leek and miso were... subtle. Not getting any of the sharpness from the leek and I might not have known it was miso in the sauce if not for the menu.

This was the mortadella panuozzo - pizza sandwich thingy. Was looking forward to the one with Parma ham but that's from the old menu. This definitely could have been better. 

Too little slices of really thin mortadella inside which were overwhelmed by the other stuff. Stuff like some Lao Gan Ma-ish chilly thingy and stracciatella - which was a pretty good combo actually. I liked this as a sandwich. But I would love to taste mortadella when I order something with mortadella.

Revisiting Alice Boulangerie & Restaurant @ Raffles City

More food from Alice Boulangerie & Restaurant.

Their grilled beef tongue skewers were tender. The flavour of whatever it had been braised/stewed in had throughly infused the meat and it tasted kinda like Chinese dark soy sauce. Or lor bak. What I didn't like was the sauce on top which had ginger. Don't recall seeing ginger mentioned in the menu.

Lobster bisque orzo was not bad. I was expected more intensity to the bisque but maybe I was expecting a bit too much from them. There's minced crab meat in it.

Mac & cheese was bad. Menu mentioned mozzarella, parmesan and blue cheese. I'm not sure I tasted any blue cheese. I tried. It's mostly mozzarella and cream with little salt to fight the surfeit that came after a couple of mouthful.

I did what I had to in a bad situation and fell back to a reliable remedy.

Corn tart's not bad. The sweetness with the whole pastry was largely moderated except for something inside the tart which was noticeably more intense. Couldn't tell what it was.

Carrot cake's nice. Love the spices in the cake and that cream cheese frosting wasn't overly sweet.

Some eats from Casa Vostra during the new year

Back at Casa Vostra in Raffles City. 

Agnolotti all'anatra in brodo - duck filled agnolotti in a duck consommé. The minced duck in the pasta was delicately textured but pretty packed with flavour. The broth, for the lack of a better word, was duck-y but also lightweight at the same time.  

Nicely done broccolini. Great pairing with that creamy/cheesy sauce on the plate.

That's their pizza prosciutto e fichi which featured prosciutto di Parma, fig puree, walnuts and rocket with shaven Parmigiano Reggiano. Fig puree tasted like honey.

Dark chocolate gelato's not bad.

Rather liked their strawberry lemonade. Granted I was pretty thirsty then.

Casa Vostra, Jem

Casa Vostra has opened an outpost at Jem (#01-03 Jem, 50 Jurong Gateway Road) and it appears to have inherited the queue which is equally crazy as the original spot at Raffles City. We got there 15 minutes before opening and ended up spending about an hour in that queue.

There were some things on the menu that were only available here though.

Like their polpette alla fonduta featuring fried meatballs in Taleggio fondue. Great stinky cheese which we enjoyed - couldn't tell what meat the meatballs were made of after that though.

Aglio e olio's nice. It looked a lot spicer than it tasted because of red came from sun dried tomatoes. The one thing that this rendition differed from other aglio olio was the lack of garlic.

Pizza only available in this outpost included the 5 formaggi e pear. Found this very easy to like. I thought it needed a bit more of that pear compote for a more pronounced counter sweetness but I'm not complaining.

Another pizza only available here was their Amalfitana that's basically the seafood pie. Prawns, squid and clams. There was an option to top up extra prawns which we did. Profile's light tomato tanginess with clean thalassic flavour. Nice. Wish there were more clams though.

Just needed to end this with the triple espresso tonic after all the food.

Pici, Cadogan Street, Kennedy Town

Have been wanting to try Pici. Came across one of their branches at Kennedy Town (G/F, Hang Yu Building, 45-55 Cadogan Street, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong) this trip and we made it happen. 

There was white asparagus on their seasonal menu that came with shaven black truffles and truffle egg mayo. Asparaguses they served were kinda underwhelming thin. Not something we'd get again if the opportunity presented itself.

Their pici with truffle and parma ham was delicious. Great bite on the pasta and the flavour from the truffle cream sauce was nicely done and didn't spring the hidden surfeit knife onto us.

Got ourselves another plate of pici in the form of their cacio e pepe. Can you see what's not right with it?

Anyways, I helped myself using their pepper mill and made it better. Nice creamy cheese. We scraped the plate clean.

Tried their seasonal sweet potato tiramisu.

Nice. Flavouring's good. There's bits of sweet potato in the cream as well.