Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant in January

First breakfast at Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八) for 2026.

It'll probably be the end of days if we ever said no to these buttery rice/lentil porridge infused with black peppercorn and cumin. Today's ghee pongal was nicely salted and awesome!

Couldn't resist their always delicious freshly steamed ghee garlic podi idli.

Just noticed today that we can buy the podi/garlic powder from them. Hmmm...🤔

Ghee mudakkathan podi masala dosa - the masala rendition of the ghee mudakkathan podi dosai. If anyone's still struggling with what masala is in the context of dosa, it refers to the curried potato/vegetable stuffings. Anyways, great podi flavouring paired with ghee that you could further flavour bomb with the chutneys.

Christmas 2025 breakfast at Saravanaa Bhavan

Yet another breakfast at Saravanaa Bhavan. They appear to be more crowded then usual on Christmas morning.

More mysterious creamy stuff.

This time they're idly. That dried chilli on the side - I think the name's mor milagai. That's pretty potent with the heat and salt.

Ghee roast - thin, crispy and buttery.

Breakfast at A2B Veg Restaurant

We've had breakfast at A2B Veg Restaurant a few times. This wasn't the first. Ordered a few "usuals".

Like vadai.

And their mouth watering ghee pongal which appears to have gotten its form back.

I wanted another go with their carrot uttapam today. To convince myself that what I had previously was how it is and will be. But, the coriander wasn't in the uttapam today. The sweetness from the carrots also didn't taste as apparent. Why?!

Our first ragi idly. Never noticed them in the menu previously. These are made with millet flour. Texture was a little more supple and there seemed to be a faint nuttiness together with the fermentation sour.

Leaf Corner, Tai Seng Point

Chinese vegetarian restaurant located in a dingy second floor of a building (#02-01 Tai Seng Point, 11 Irving Place, tel : +65 6931 8869) a minute's walk from Tai Seng MRT. This was described as olive fried rice but if you've had any of them before, it's actually preserved olive leaves rather than olives. I've mixed feeings.

The brown crispy stuff on top which were supposed to be mock meat floss were pretty good. It's sweetened and tasted pretty close to the real thing. I was told they were made from mushrooms. What I didn't take to was the lack of olive leaf flavouring. Fried rice was a tad oily that I tasted it in my burps through the afternoon.

Even more food from Bangalore Cafe

Another compilation of eats from Bangalore Cafe.

Breakfasts......

That's an open butter masala dosa. It's kinda like a fermented rice flour hotcake with podi, a lump of the masala potato thingy on top and butter. This opened version looked little like the regular masala dosa. Not bad tasting.

Thatte/thattu idlis seem to be making their appearances here. First it was the ones at Murugan Idli (here and here), then MTR 1924 @ Brickfields and now at Bangalore Cafe. This rendition was similar to the thattu ghee podi idli from Murugan Idli - podi powdered and ghee greased for deliciousness.

The Diwali Thali......

Obviously this happened during Diwali. The other thalis were't available so we didn't have much of a choice. But I'm glad we experienced this. The jalebi's too sweet for starters. Am not entirely sure what the semi circular thing below the jalebi was but I think it's a dal holige - supposedly sweetened lentil stuffed flat breads. Tasted kinda like a chapati with jaggery inside. Nice.

Pleasant surprise came in the form of curried pineapples. That orange blob at 10 o'clock. Gravy was citrusy sweet and spicy with heat. 👍🏼

This was when the poori and the idiyappams have been added by the servers, along with scoops of vegetable korma and sagu. Left paper cup's payasam and the right is...some sweet mung bean soup flavoured with cardamom.

Then came white rice......

While it may not be visually obvious because of the mess, I was offered spiced ghee rice and I accepted.

Strangely, the papadums came at this point.

The carbs overflow continues with curd rice.

I was offered more ghee rice which I happily accepted. That came with a generous ladle of sagu.

We were given a banana at the end. Nice.

Even though we were stuffed from the Diwali thali glutton-y, I wanted to try the carrot halwa. Sweet and nicely done here.

The week after Diwali......

Venturing into newer territory here because we've started coming for lunch instead of just breakfast. I also think that the owner recognised me. Drats! I must maintain inconspicuity. I made up the last word.

Dahi puri - this tasted a little different. Probably because of what they filled up on the puri shells. Speaking of puri shells, these got soft pretty fast. Faster than usual.

These were hara bara tikka as the menu calls them. Peas and potato patties with cashew. Flavour's bland-ish but they were pretty darn good with the mint chutney. 

There's a vegetable Hyderabadi biryani which was flavoured/infused with mint & palak. Did not expect it to be green. First thought that came to mind was the palak rice we've previously had at Kailash Parbat. This one just wasn't as ghee rich.

As with most if not all cooked mint, the flavour diminishes greatly. Couldn't taste any of it at all but it was a savoury and pretty delicious green briyani. There's bits of paneer inside too.

Another deluxe meal ticket at Po Lin Monastery

Made our way up to the metal Buddha again this year and got a deluxe meal ticket at the monastery's food hall..

Today's soup was filled with different beans and sweetened by figs.

I don't recall how I felt about this mixed vegetable stir fry from the last time but I enjoyed it today. Bell peppers and all. Those toasted cashews were great.

Love their fried spring rolls. That's coming from someone who normally doesn't bother with fried spring rolls.

Those mushroom caps look reptilian methinks. Don't you?

Love the lemon sauce tau kee.

These Chinese vegetarian meals at Po Lin Monastery are possibly one of the more memorable ones we've had.

More food from Bangalore Cafe

Back at Bangalore Cafe for more deliciousness.

Tried their chow chow bath. If anyone was wondering, a chow chow bath is a serving that consists of a khara bath and a kesari bath. Both are semolina pudding/porridge thingys. The former is savoury and while the latter is sweet and flavoured with cardamom and saffron.

Pretty good khara bath here with cashews, onions, mustard seeds and curry leaves, flavoured also with ghee.

That's the Mysuru masala dosa - also known as Mysore masala dosa. The Mysuru/Mysore version is supposed to be a bit spicier from some chutney but these don't appear to have that. These ones were stuffed with curried potatoes (maybe the spicy chutney is in here) like regular masala dosa and had noticeably more diced onions in them. Not bad.

Bangalore Cafe, Syed Alwi Road

We've only noticed Bangalore Cafe (80 Syed Alwi Road, tel : +65 9011 6000) in the recent couple of months on our way to Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant. Pretty sure they're quite new to the area. Decided to come try their food because I spied rava idli on their menu - something that Murugan Idli doesn't even do.

They've pretty competent freshly fried vada/vadai which has a peppery fragrance from the peppercorns inside. No qualms coming back for these again. Their sambar is oddly a little sweet. Coconut chutney is slightly gingery.

This was a risk I felt like I needed/wanted to take - a coriander filled rava idli. 🤘🏼 Remember me just mentioning that I spied it on their menu? 

This was the third place we've had rava idli; the first was MTR at Serangoon Road and the other was MTR at Brickfields at Kuala Lumpur. And happily like both previous locations, the bits of coriander has had most of their flavour steamed out to the point that I could enjoy the rice cakes; rice cakes that were infused with ghee. 😬

Mangalore buns - just like those we had from Kalam Restaurant and MTR 1924. I noticed cumin in these.

One week later.......

Came back the following week and had their cheese masala dosa. It appeared to be a little greasy but still pretty good tasting with the cheese adding their salty sharpness to the curried potato fillings in the ghee laced pancake. Nice. 

Masala chai was good the first time we were here. Not overly milky and a great balance of creaminess, sweet and flavour from the tea. On our second visit, the tea was quite different. Too much milk and a little weak with the tea flavour. So I'm guessing they aren't consistent