Sing Swee Kee (新瑞记), Seah Street

Sing Swee Kee (34-35 Seah Street, tel : +65 6337 7180) is part of the legacy of an old chicken rice institution, Swee Kee, that I'm not familiar with. It's kinda related to Swee Kee along the same road that was previously known as Sin Swee Kee.

Like that shop formerly known as Sin Swee Kee and other chicken rice shops like Boon Tong Kee or Chin Chin & YY Kafei Dian in the vicinity, they serve both chicken rice and zi char.

Their luo han guo longan drink was diluted. Note to self: never get it again.

They have an option for half poached and fried for their half chicken. Decent tasting chooks. I prefer the poached one over the roast/fried one.

There's chicken rice balls too. Something I haven't had since Good Year. Wow, it's been a decade since.

Not bad tasting. The balls were packed densely and well flavoured. This one falls into the category where it's good with or without the chilli. Chilli's not bad by the way. 

This dish was called Hainanese vegetable (海南杂菜). Which was essentially chap chye. Their rendition had fried pork lard and was flavoured with large dried shrimps. Taste was pretty good but I found the cabbage too crunchy. I like my chap chye tender.

Egg and tau kwa. The latter had chewy skin.

This was their chicken collagen broth with fish maw (胶原蛋白鱼漂上汤). The chicken meat inside was stringy and didn't feel like part of the soup. Fish maw's okay. The soup though, was nice.

Kopi c was not bad. Not bad meaning that I enjoyed it and will have no qualms ordering it again if I come back. Decently brewed Hainanese coffee here that wasn't excessively sweet or milky.

Dim Sum Club, Wheelock Place

Came across Dim Sum Club (B1-01 Wheelock Place, 501 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6263 9164) by chance. The spot they're at used to be a coffee place if I recall correctly.

Tea's nice. Smooth and creamy local rendition that's sweet but not excessively so.  

Pan fried yam cake (芋头糕). There's chunks of yam, lup cheong and mushrooms in it.

Curious pan fried kaya bao. They're okay I guess. The kaya fillings inside were not memorable and the skin wasn't the fresh and fluffy kind.

Truffle noodle with sunny side up. The one thing that bothered me some about it was the kee flavour in the noodles. While the saucing and the egg yolk help mask that, some still came through. Otherwise, pretty decent.

Steamed pork and salted egg yolk patty on rice. Nice. Rice was tender and moist. Kailan was tender and not fibrous.

Har gow had thick skin. Not the delicate wrapper we gravitate to. Wouldn't say that it's bad but also wouldn't be getting them if we ever came back.

Their red bean soup with tangerine peel had consistency like porridge and that tangerine peel flavour was adequate. There's some sago in it too. I like this.

Family Mart stuff in Taipei

Here's some of stuff we had gotten from Family Mart over the past week. First up was this brand of papaya milk where the flavour reminded me specifically of those Hawaiian papaya with creamy yellow flesh.

Chocolate and cream cheese sandwich. It was what it was.

Pistachio flavour's present for sure but I was hoping that it'd be a bit stronger.

The tea eggs were pretty good tasting. I've had more of these in the past week+ than I normally do in a year usually.

Not nice. Apple jam thingy wasn't particularly apple like.

Pretty sweet, had plenty of watermelon flavour but couldn't taste much of tea. Not good.

Has pineapple flavour. Interesting but won't be getting again.

We spent a while trying to figure the flavour out. It tasted like a mala broth minus the heat. Flavours unusual for sure but couldn't quite reconcile that with stinky tofu. Wouldn't get it again.

Sparking yuzu coffee. I had initially thought it was just sparking yuzu. Not bad. If they had used a stronger espresso, it would have rocked. 

Coffee's sour but I was thirsty and the fizz made it better. I don't mind drinking this again.

Re-visiting Alice Boulangerie @ Icon Village

Quick one from Alice Boulangerie.

Basque bleu cheese tart. 😬

Not as melty as I imagined but the blue cheese flavour was a superb blend with the creamy sweetness and the buttery pastry without being overpowering. 👍🏼 

Nicely done Paris Brest. Choux pastry was a little denser than I imagined though.

Not bad hōjicha cream latte.

Couldn't get past the orange Americano. 😬 While there are probably a few renditions of this drink around, this one was I suppose, a bit more......indulgent. That coming from the orangey sweet creaminess. 

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.

Revisiting Oriental Kopi @ Bugis Junction

We've been wanting to come back to the local branch of Oriental Kopi. As far as we could tell, there wasn't much difference from their Malaysian counterparts.

Think I like their iced kopi better than the hot one. I get the impression that those iced ones seem to be more robust.

Wanted to have a go with their delicious chicken rice and the lime-y chilli here. Couldn't discern any difference between the one in Malaysia and this one so...as far as I was able to tell, they're both kinda equally good.

Dry mee siam's not bad. It has the same texture as their other bee hoon.

The other thing we wanted to try was their rojak. Underneath the blanket of crushed peanuts were cucumber, turnip, guava and pineapple. I'm not a fan of a couple of things. The rojak sauce wasn't great. And then there's the crunchy you tiao which were like biscuits rather than fried dough fritters.

Orange Americano from Cocobella Lifebar

I've never stepped into this place (#01-55 One Holland Village, 7 Holland Village Way) until today. Got an Orange Americano. This rendition came with coconut water. Since this was a "coconut water bar" and that coconut water has got to get in with the coffee and orange juice, something had to give. It wasn't a bad drink but as far as this beverage went, Alice Boulangerie and Luckin makes better ones. This one just tried.

Sunning Restaurant (新寧餐廳), Lee Theatre, Causeway Bay

Sunning Restaurant (Shop B, 16/F, Lee Theatre Plaza, 99 Percival Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2890 2029 / 2576 3301) has the same kind of vibe that old school institutions back home like Shashlik, The Ship or The Tavern have. That's what they are. Restaurants that were classy as defined from their era, enduring and a lot of nostalgia involved for a certain demographic who have spending power.  

The bread basket is better than what Shashlik and The Ship has though.

Mushroom cream soup. I was surprised that the soup actually had some flavour of mushrooms. 😬

This one was oyster bongo soup. The name got me intrigued.

I don't know how the name was supposed to describe the soup but it's a cream soup with spinach and a large oyster. And yes, there was some oyster flavour in the soup. Even though it looked just like the mushroom cream soup. Oyster's great.

Menu called this baked pickle ox tongue with rice so I was curious as well. 'Pickle' was probably an inaccurate translation. The more appropriate word would be 'corned'. Like corned beef.

Lots of tongue in the creamy rice layered with a bit of toasted cheese.

Their rack of lamb was breaded and fried instead of grilled.

We asked for medium but it's close to well done. Pretty tender and fatty though. Tasted better than it looked.

This one not Hainanese coffee. It's freshly ground beans and better tasting.