Cô Chung, Boat Quay

We've noticed Cô Chung at Plaza Singapura. Have seen the queues and wondered about them. This was their branch behind Boat Quay (4-5 Lorong Telok, tel : +65 8876 8137).

Iced coffee was not bad. Strong and milky, sweet without being excessively so.

Egg bánh mì with added on pate. I didn't it was cool that I have to top up an additional $5.90 for pate in a $11.90 bánh mì that I could barely taste.

Disclaiming that pictures are for illustration purposes only doesn't cut it for me. That in my opinion is a deliberate lie. Intended misinformation. This was how it looked ☝🏽 on the menu.

Anyway, it didn't taste good. Baguette was a bit hard instead of crisp and airy. Even NamNam's textbook rendition beats this. Bánh Mì Saigon kicks its ass hard. The defunct Viet9 at Toa Payoh central was a better eat. 123 ZÔ would rip this to shreds. And......I think I've made my point.

Bún with sautéed beef. Expected the sauce to be fishy and limey but it wasn't. I'm not even sure what we tasted. Beef was decent...but I was kinda hoping it would be shabu thin.

Gỏi cuốn tasted pretty carb-y. Prawns were small and the wrap was damp. What's that peanut sauce they were using? 

Revisiting NamNam

Back at NamNam.

Decent gỏi cuốn.

This be gỏi bưởi tôm thịt- I don't know how to pronounce it. It's a pomelo salad.

Pretty refreshing from the pomelo and a good squeeze of lime.

Chilled truffled wagyu phở. We swished the slices of wagyu in the broth ate them on their own. Pricey bowl but the beef was delicious.

Something called Saigon breakfast. Kinda like a deconstructed bánh mì on a hot pan with eggs, sausages, pate and some...luncheon meat? Sweetness from the sauce and caramelised onions broke the monotony of the rest of the items which I felt were a little light handed with the salt. Would have also been nice if there was more pate than that sad little scoop. Not bad tasting as a whole though.

Passionfruit lemon tea's pretty good. The other was avocado coffee which wasn't that creamy.

Huong Pho, Upper Boon Keng Road

Heard about Huong Pho lately. They're a relatively new Vietnamese stall located in Food Haven Coffeeshop (5 Upper Boon Keng Road) which is a short trot from Kallang MRT. What they offer looked like the run of the mill variety not unlike most Vietnamese stalls around. Phở, bánh mì, spring/summer rolls and a bit of this and that.

Phở was pretty good. Light and beefy broth with a savoury sweetness and deliciously smooth and slurpy rice noodles. Rice-y tasting rice noodles at that. They obliged my request for tendon only. The only herbs/aromatics they had for topping was a mixture of spring onions and coriander and since the spring onions were tainted, I ended up with a clean bowl. It wasn't very different from a local bowl of beef noodles like that.

What intrigued me was their sardine bánh mì. I heard that their sardines are market purchased and cooked in house. The fish was mashed and spread into the baguette with pickles and some respectably spicy sweet and sour chilli sauce. This one was sans coriander obviously.

The sandwich was unexpectedly hefty. Not bad. Very street styled because the fish wasn't distributed evenly.

I like their chả giò. We waited a while for this and it came out freshly fried and piping hot. Texture was meaty underneath that crispy wrapping and reminded me of Peranakan ngoh hiong. There's wood ear fungus and fine carrot bits inside. This was nice.

Cempedak appam from Mr. Appam

Haven't gotten an appam from Mr Appam in a while. This was their cempedak appam, the fruit in strips laid over the middle. Tasted exactly like how cempedak is supposed to - which I haven't figured out how to describe yet but if you know it you'll know. What's different today from their appam servings is the bowl of coconut milk. Thick, sweet and delicious accompaniment on top of the sugar and grated coconut. Also noticed that I couldn't taste the fermentation in the dough which led me to more questions.

Phở Me, Old Airport Road Food Centre

Heard about Phở Me (#01-89 Old Airport Road Food Centre, 51 Old Airport Road) recently.

They got my attention because there's bone marrow on the menu. First time for a Vietnamese stall here. Do not scoff at the tiny potion of the broth that comes with it. It's already loaded with some richness from bone marrow.

Marrow from the bones just added on to the already greasy broth. 

That's phở gan - tendons only. Broth's light and beefy, generally savoury with a background sweetness flavoured with pepper. Not bad tasting. The one thing which I felt would have improved it greatly were how the tendons were prepared. These were somewhat chewy. Would have been nice if the texture were much more tender.

A bit of heat from the red, sour from the green and also pickling from the garlic help cuts the beefy richness.

NamNam, Raffles City

It's been quite a while since we've had anything from NamNam. The last episode which was a little more than a decade ago did not inspire confidence. Wow, they've been around that long huh? Anyways, this was the outpost at Raffles City (#B1-47 Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road).

We're pretty sure that the broth we had today is a different recipe from the one we had previously. This one was pretty decent. Not heavy but still beefy. The thin slices of beef were tender and the meatballs dense and robust. What we found out today was that cilantro/coriander is chopped up and mixed with the other "herbs" so I had to omit all or nothing. That left us with just spring onions in the broth. Which was fine. Would not mind eating it again.

Bánh mì was kinda textbook if you catch my drift. It's not bad tasting and that was just it. Guys like 123 ZÔ, Viet9 and Bánh Mì Saigon would blow this rendition out of the water. But like I mentioned, it didn't suck. It was just what it was. A safe and regular bánh mì.

Of peachy black tea and eggy coffee...

We came back to 123 ZÔ for drinks because we liked their peach black tea and egg coffee.

Shaken not stirred. In a cocktail shaker no less.

It's probably tea with canned peach syrup and a couple of slices of peaches but it's a pretty darn good rendition.

A tealight keeps their ca phe trung hot.

We noticed the staff painstakingly froth the egg by hand. That egg foam was sweet, cinnamon flavoured and kept afloat throughout. Nice.

123 ZÔ, Icon Village

The last time we were at 123 ZÔ (#01-45, 49-51 Icon Village, 12 Gopeng Street, tel : +65 9669 9655), they were at Geylang. Their current shop at Icon Village appears to have lost some of the rustic charm the Geylang shop had. Menu has also changed.

This was their new jumbo rib pho. Broth had prominent star anise flavour and it's not intense with the beefiness. Fixed that with squeezes of lime and a splash of fish sauce. There was something among the herbs that I didn't like and I suspect it's sawtooth coriander.

Rib was well flavoured from the marinade and the meat easily slid off the bone. Nice.

Their bánh xèo seemed to be a bit more flour-y than I remember of them. Maybe more flour to egg in the batter. But being so also allowed more crunch along the edges to form from all the charring.

They were served with rice paper and we were told that we could have the bánh xèo wrapped in them with along with pickles/vegetables to eat like a roll. This was pretty good.

Love the citrus-y gỏi xoài. Lots of texture from the julienned mangoes, nuts and basil leaves.

We ordered grilled frog legs. Did not expect that the marinate on them were so spicy. These were the spiciest frog legs I've ever had, bar none. So spicy that the chilli dip on the side felt almost like a reprieve from it.

In the end, all that was left were bones and burning lips and tongue. Their peach tea oddly helps relieve the burn.

We built our own bánh mì here. The fillings we picked leaned towards traditional - pork ham, pate and fried egg. They were by default filled with very little vegetables and pickles for some reasons. Baguette was light and crisp. I think we could come back for this.

Nice ca phe trung (egg coffee). Rich creamy sweetened egg foam on top of the bitter brew.