Yugoslavia Bakery & Cafe, Citylink Mall

This bakery (#B1-13 CityLink Mall, 1 Raffles Link, tel : +65 9028 4524) features breads and pastries from the Slavic countries with influences from the Ottoman Empire. The last one refers to Turkey if you didn't know. 

Tried a couple of their bureks - those triangle pie things. Pastry tasted a little bit like prata. We were mostly disappointed with how little the fillings they had. Couldn't taste much of the feta cheese or the beef that were supposed to be in them. That gevrek on the top left - would have benefited lots if the sesame were more toasted

The baklava's not lousy but tasted like it's been out for a while rather than freshly baked. A little sweet but pretty good eat with a good flavour from the nuts. If I didn't recall wrongly, the middle's kifla with cinnamon and raisins. Don't remember what's the bread with chunks of meat on the right - very little salt on the meat for that one.

Spanish latte - coffee with condensed milk. Sweet and milky and not the kind that I'd look for as a perk me up because it didn't pack that caffeine punch but it also didn't taste bad. Pro tip : this latte makes a good dip for the gevrek.

Dumplings.ru, Maxwell Chambers

We tried the food from Dumplings.ru (#01-05 Maxwell Chambers, 32 Maxwell Rd, tel : +65 8875 7033) some time back when they were just Ang Moh Dumplings. They've set up a bigger shop now. It's more of a tavern/bar than a restaurant. Remembered that I wasn't impressed previously at all but someone we trusted tried recently and the feedback was that they weren't bad. So we thought, what the hell - let's give them another try.

Kvass. Quite like this.

Ordered their okroshka because it looked so nice on their menu.

This was how it was served. Tasted like raita with dill and potatoes. The menu mentioned ham but we didn't get any. Nice for the hot weather but when we had this, it was one of those rainy nights.

Tried their kholodets. If you're trying to figure out from the picture, it was a chicken jelly/aspic dish. It was okay. Jelly was salty.

The shuba was not bad. Haven't had much of these before so I can only describe them based on whether I tasted good or not. Liked the mild earthy sweetness of the beets together with the smoky saltiness of the herring. Not as fancy or high quality as the one at Dacha though.

When we had their lamb pelmeni previously, I remember that they were unimpressive. These tasted different from the last time. We could discern the lamb flavour from the fillings today which was a good thing. A little more salty than I preferred but still quite tasty.

Ang Moh Dumplings, Tanjong Pagar Station

We came by Ang Moh Dumplings over the weekend. The pictures on their (#B1-39 Tanjong Pagar Exchange) website featured garnishes on the food which looked prettier than the real thing. What was obvious though was that the shop wasn't ready for business on a weekend because most of what they had were sold out so we ended up with just a couple of dumplings.

The ang moh dumplings they have are pelmeni. Pretty surprised that the the black ones which were stuffed with beef had coriander. I didn't like it and cannot will not give an objective opinion. It sucked. The other greenish one was stuffed with mutton and according to their menu, mint. I couldn't taste the mint and was barely able to discern the flavour of mutton from the stuffings. Tasted something like butter though. It's not bad but also not good enough that I'd want to eat them again. *sigh*

Khachapuri Day at Beerfest

Apparently, Khachapuri Day happens at Beerfest every third Sunday of the month! So here's a khachapuri from our local microbrewery in Rochester. Freshly made upon order and of the same Adjarian variety like the one we had previously at Dacha. The cheese was a little different though. The ones used here was more curdy and sharp as opposed to a richer, heavier and stretchier cheese. Still very good coming fresh from the oven and worth the 20 minute wait.

Another Slavic Day at Beerfest

Apparently, this Slavic Day events happen on the first Sunday of the month so it's not such an uncommon occurrence as I believed the last time we were here.

Their fish platter has improved greatly since the last visit. More fish and it seems that they're all cured in house.

Great munching with their toasted rye while waiting for the food to arrive.

I managed to get the lamb shashlik this time round. Good stuff which was as delicious as the pork ones if not better. I liked that a lot of it was the natural flavour from the meat. The potato is missing now though.

A good time too - to toss back a couple of kvass while getting food here.

Dacha, Hollywood Road, Central

Yes we had Eastern European food in Hong Kong. Possibly the one and only Eastern European restaurant/bar in the country. Dacha's (G/F, 38-40 Hollywood Road, Central, tel : +852 2420 3555) menu as the hostess asserted, has a little from Ukrainian, Russian, Georgian, Polish and Romanian cuisine.

We were served some dark rye bread with lard.

And sipped kvas while waiting for the food. This kvas was actually very good drinking. I dare say that it was as good or even more enjoyable than the one from Beerfest. At least it was for me that I got another bottle.

The first cold starter was shuba, or also known as "herring under a fur coat". This was layered pickled herring, beetroot, carrot and potatoes with chopped eggs. Flavoured with a bit of dill and what appeared to be salmon roe. This was quite delicious.

Then came the killer khachapuri - a Georgian dish of cheese filled bread in the shape of a boat. Killer because it was very tasty and it also killed us with the portions. As a warm starter item, it could have easily fed four. According to our favourite crowdsourced internet encyclopedia, this was an Adjarian variety served with a pat of butter and raw egg. The bread appeared fresh out of the oven, was piping hot, soft and had a nice crust.

We had an order of gołąbki. It was okay. I wasn't getting a defining texture from the stuffings. The rice and the meat weren't separately identifiable and a bit of salt was in order. I thought that the one from After The Tears were tastier.

Then came what I guessed to be an Uzbekistan lamb plov - a pilaf like dish with what the menu described as "Caucasian spices". No idea what those were. The flavours were Indian/Middle Eastern-ish. Rice was a little sticky but not as much as the glutinous variety. There were delicious little chunks of charred lamb in the rice. This plate was on hindsight, a shocking kind of tasty. We were already pretty stuffed at this point and I found myself spooning mouthful after mouthful till the plate was empty. 

Slavic day food at Beerfest

We had the distinct impression that it would be a sort of Slavic fair event with fun and games and tradition down at Beerfest (4 Rochester Park) - which is by the way an actual brewery/restaurant and not a beer festival as the name might have implied. In the end, it was just a one day event where they featured food from the region. 

The menu included earthy borscht, some cured fishes, dumplings and a tasty but pricey golubtsy which looked like an inside out poh piah. What was outstanding though, was their pork shashlik which featured tender and one of the juiciest grilled pork I've had. Juices that were squirting out as the knife went through the meat. Fragrant bits from the burnt ends. Wow. This pork shashlik made Shashlik look bad. Too bad it's a one off.

But beer seems pretty good and outrageously super value for the weekends. Drinks from $2 at 2pm anyone? Their cherry brew was a great flavour for the sweltering heat and there was also some fruity/yeasty kvass which I found myself enjoying.

After The Tears, Elsternwick, Melbourne

We’ve never had Polish food before. Eastern/Central European food has never been in easy access from this part of the world we live in, so besides the short lived Dracula and Kaiserhaus, I don’t think we’ve had much from that part of the world. While it’s not very different to the rest of European food, it’s not exactly the same too.

We eased into the meal with some chilli lemon vodka because After The Tears (9B Gordon Street, Elsternwick, Melbourne, tel : +61 3 8592 4642) was also a vodka bar with more brands than one has teeth.

One of what's not the same about Polish food are pierogis. While they're recognizeable in form as some sort of dumpling with stuffings, they're insistent that these are Polish dumplings that aren't ravioli. Who would we be to say otherwise? These ones stuffed with minced roasted duck and apple, topped with cooked sour cherry were delicious!

While the Greeks have their lahanodolmades, the Polish have gołąbki - boiled cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and meat amongst other things. This meat used in this particular one was veal. The whole of which topped with a paprika laced roasted tomato sauce. Even though I generally avoid tomato based sauces, I'd have to admit that this was tasty in a very rustic homely kind of way which I enjoyed. 

We had some crispy rice balls aren't so different from the Italian arancini. Bread crumbed and fried, these rice balls had bits of artichoke and are well flavoured with Parmesan cheese. Tasted a lot better than the looks suggested. Those pink stuff are beetroot aioli by the way. 

Couldn't pass on their kaszanka which I had spied on the menu; blood sausages/black pudding by another name. These ones had stuffings that included buckwheat groats. Served with mashed potatoes, mustard and an apple & onion slaw. The latter a foil for all the richness of the dish. Again, delicious.

The restaurant also did a delicious pan seared barramundi. Yes, I'm aware that I've used the word delicious a number of times already. Crispy skinned barramundi that came with sautéed potatoes, beans and spinach. And delicious capers that were not overly salty. Savoury and hearty would be good words here.

What do we have here? More pierogi! This one was stuffed with sauerkraut and porcini, sautéed with brown butter and sage and topped with a little dab of cranberry horseradish. Pretty tasty stuff too though the earlier one with the duck tops this.

Their sticky BBQ ribs with red wine and honey were a little sweet at this point of the dinner where we were definitely encountering diminishing returns from each bite. The flavour was almost peculiar. Almost like Chinese lor bak (braised pork) minus the spices. Unanimously agreed upon that it would be something that none of us would be ordering again.

We finished up with a poppyseed cake with Maraschino cherries and cream, drizzled with a spiced coulis.

Pomegranate cake from Laman's Delight

This was pretty enjoyable. I've never had cake (or anything else) with so much pomegranates before. Certainly not one in a shade of enchanting red and layered with cream, sold by a couple of ladies that looked like grumpy Russian gypsies. Laman's Delight (PasarBella @ The Grandstand, 200 Turf Club Road) the shop's called. I hear that this particular cake has been infused with hibiscus juices too. Anyway, the shop's located right beside Keith Crackling Roast - which does very delicious caramelized char siew by the way. For $12 a slice, this cake sure didn't come cheap. But I'm pretty sure I'll pop by the shop to buy again the next time I'm there.