Artichoke, New Bahru

It's been some years since we last ate at Artichoke (#01-02 New Bahru, 46 Kim Yam Road, tel : +65 8092 4210) and that was back in the old premise at Middle Road.

They've shifted to New Bahru since and it's become a sort of pizza place with traces of their "least-Middle-Eastern Middle Eastern restaurant" still in the menu.

Got myself a craft cherry cola which was basically cherry flavoured tonic water with some spices that reminded me of the masala mix used in teas.

Love their green & gold kiwi starter which featured feta, pecorino, spearmint, black pepper and honey. A large part of it was the sweet fruitiness from the kiwis, milky saltiness from the cheese and a breath of freshness from the mint leaves. I like this a lot. 👍🏼

There's ox tongue in Marsala sauce with crinkle cut fries chips. Not a fan of the chicken salt in the fries. Tongue was nice but didn't think much of the Marsala sauce which came across as pretty generic tasting brown sauce.

The thing I was looking forward to most was their pizza - something I've heard described as Detroit styled with thick, airy, focaccia-like crust and crispy caramelized cheese edges. This was a platter featuring the 4 available toppings in the menu. Clockwise from top left

• Beef pepperoni - has hot honey and pickled peppers which had a bit of heat. Spicy, sweet and sour.
• Sunny slice - featured a refreshing mix of Halloumi, roasted fennel, kumquat, pistachio, arugula. Those kumquats tasted like sour plum. Not bad.
• Dirty margherita - just margherita.
• Bacon apple pie - with pancetta, brie, rosemary and hazelnut. Pretty relieved that the rosemary wasn't overpowering. This one reminded me of Christmas/apple pie. Nice aroma from the hazelnut.

More food from rumeL

rumeL has updated their menu. There's a Parma ham and arugula pizza now. Would have been nice if they spread the ham rather than fold them up onto each slice.

Freshly cooked pasta's available too. Their aglio olio didn't taste like what I thought it would. Not getting any olive oil flavouring in there. Also quite unlike the Italian and local western food stall renditions. The noodles also appear suspiciously like a thicker mee kia. Not bad tasting though.

Mushroom soup's nice. It's the blended variety and it's pretty tasty.

Pizza Gorgonzola e salsiccia and honeyed baked Scamorza from Casa Vostra @ Raffles City

Back at Casa Vostra. Not bad tasting Gorgonzola e salsiccia pizza except for the Gorgonzola. I'm not even sure I could taste it. A bit disappointing I'd admit. As far as the taste went, this was just a sausage and onion pizza - a decent one at that.

Tried their baked scamorza cheese. Kind liked it. Chewy, salty and smoky with a light sweetness from honey. There's also a bit of spice from black pepper and I seem to recall tasting parsley.

10" Meat Lovers from rumeL

First time getting the 10" from rumeL. This one was the Meat Lover that came with their bolognese, chicken and ham with mustard. Serviceable toppings if I may say so. It was the puffy chewy sourdough crust that kept us coming back.

Mushroom pizza and teh from rumeL

The pizzas from rumeL are pretty good eating largely because of their puffy Neapolitan-esque crust. Tried the one with mushrooms recently and I liked it. Think it's just cheese and mushrooms. The teh's decent. It might not be as strong or creamy as the ones from Toast Box nearby but it's also cheaper.

Revisiting Pizza Studio Tamaki

Been meaning to come back to PST for a while.

Today's soup is mushroom. They're also not chilled like the previous time. Flavour's pretty intense. 👍🏼

Menu mentioned spinach with marinade anchovies, red chicory and pine nuts. I was imagining baby spinach and slivers of anchovies but it's stir fried Chinese spinach I think and the anchovies have kinda melted into it. Pretty umami. Also, the salad's chilled. Actually kinda nice for the weather.

Ended up with a couple of their monthly special pizzas.

This, their Tokyo Odyssey: Singapore Edition, is I quote "Crafted exclusively for our first international home, this pizza blends the spirit of Tokyo with flavors made to celebrate Singapore’s vibrant food culture." It's nice but I couldn't reconcile the name, the theme and the flavour. If you asked me, this tasted much like tom kha gai. I like it but I don't feel the Singapore in it. 😂

One has got to love kani miso to enjoy their zuwaigani miso pizza. While the crab miso bechamel was understandably not as intense as regular kani miso, it's definitely there. Pretty good tasting also with a squeeze of lemon.

Their house made tiramisu's nice and well soaked inside.

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 chilli 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.

rumeL, Tiong Bahru Plaza

rumeL's (#01-107 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road) a mixed bag. Back when they were renovating, I thought the signs looked like they were promoting a generic Italian cafe with Neapolitan pizza. I think they're a bit more and less than what they claim coupled with some localised flavours.

That and the fact that their name is the reverse of 'lemur'. A Madagascan prosimian primate mascot? I struggle to decipher the meaning behind how they amalgamate. 😲 

Anyways there's a kaya butter pizza. Which was pretty nice. Peranakan styled pandan kaya. It's available for breakfast cheaper than their regular prices and can be gotten with soft boiled eggs and kopi. What's notable was their puffy sourdough crust which was kinda enjoyable. I guess I could call it Neapolitan-esque.

Even with some powdered parmesan cheese, the kaya flavour was dominant.

There's the localisation. Though admittedly these kaya-carb-soft-boiled-egg-kopi traditional breakfast has been a lot more marketing than reality. If it had been tradition, it hasn't been much for the better part of the past few decades. When it was, it might have been only for a couple of decades at best and never widespread. This is just the narration driven by capitalism.

Kopi's drinkable stuff.

Hot honey pizza wasn't spicy. Just sweet and cheesy.

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.

Cheese Volcano pizzas from Domino's

Cheese sauce was a little sweet? Also not enough to go around which was disappointing. Pizza was...edible I guess. Will not be getting these again.

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.

Pistachio and Mortadella pizza from Lucca's Trattoria

We were at Lucca's Trattoria recently and came across a pistachio and Mortadella pizza with burrata. There was creamy rich with saltiness from the cheese and ham; that paired with the nuttiness from the pistachio paste and toasty crushed pistachio. Nice. 👍🏼