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.

Le Bon Funk, Holland Village

The last time we ate at Le Bon Funk was at their original branch at Club Street. This one at Holland Village (277 Holland Avenue, tel : +65 9833 9867) is at where Fosters Steakhouse used to be.

The decor had a 60s-ish vibe which contrasted against the intersperse of more modern appliances/furniture. Lighting was a warm with hues of yellows and browns with the exception of areas at the front and back with tinted blue by the sunlight filtering through the window panes. I'm not sure if I'm getting this across.

Shaken iced tea with hibiscus, orange and sage - tasted fruity, couldn't tell that there was tea in it.

This was their foie gras toast. The fluffy stuff on the top was shaven foie gras. Beneath them was some roselle jam/jelly; the previous time we had it, it was cedar jelly which I couldn't tell. Roselle came across much more discernible. Nice.

Couldn't resist their beef tongue and gribiche sandwich. As good as we remembered it.

Cast iron pancake with maple syrup topped with caramelised bacon and banana. Nice. Served piping hot with crusty edges. Pretty sweet. Bacon was smoky sweet like bak kwa. Bananas tasted like they have cumin in it.

Betty's Midwest Kitchen, Aman Suria, Petaling Jaya

According to the owners, Betty's Midwest Kitchen (A-G-40, Jalan PJU 1/43, Aman Suria Damansara, Petaling Jaya, tel : +60 3-7886 9357) serves American diner inspired food from their visits to Iowa. There's a pretty good selection on their menu and more things that we wanted to try than there was space to do so.

We were intrigued by their meatloaf. Each slice was tender, crumbly and pretty meaty tasting with bits of carrots and something tangy I couldn't identify. There was a beer based sauce on the side which was also tangy. Not bad tasting.

One can top up a few ringgit for each main ordered to get soup and a drink. Current soup was described as tomato with ham. It's actually more like minestrone.

They have house made lemonade which was okay-ish.

Pork chop with apple sauce was pretty good. Pork's tender and yet had a satisfying chew. The sweet and tangy apple sauce was loaded.

What registered as outstanding was the gravy on their mash. Creamy, milky and rich with a velvety texture to boot.

Mr. Bucket Chocolaterie, Dempsey Road

They're (#01-03/04, 13 Dempsey Road) apparently a chocolatier that has started incorporating chocolate into their food so we were here to try them.

That's the Chocolate BLT. What intrigued me was the 45% milk chocolate mascarpone which turned out to be really good. Sadly, the beef bacon was no good at all - it was tough, chewy and sinewy. Some parts weren't edible. Pretty sure it would have been much better with regular bacon but the food's Muslim friendly so that's never happening.

There's steak frites with 72% dark chocolate peppercorn sauce. Kitchen has obviously little experience with plating. Sauce appeared to be watery because of the juices from the meat. Meat's edible, not great quality and also had some chewy unswallowable parts. Adequately salted though. The fries were the best tasting things on the plate.

Was nice of them to oblige when we asked for more sauce because there was barely enough to taste. It's creamy, not bad tasting but also neither memorable nor dark chocolate-y. Felt more like milk chocolate without much discernible pepper.

Pan seared duck breast with chilli cocoa powder was mediocre. I'm not sure what's their definitely of sear because I wasn't tasting any of it on the duck.

Meat was lean and had a powdery feel to them. There's little to no fat under the skin and that skin was very chewy. There were bits of silver skin in them. Apricot gastrique on the side didn't taste bad. Reminded me more than a little of tamarind but I didn't think it worked with the chilli cocoa powder.

Quite a bit of stuff we couldn't chew and/or swallow.

Chocolate's not bad though. We were offered samples and ended buying some.

Revisiting Royal Host @ Takashimaya/Ngee Ann City

Have been meaning to come back to Royal Host.

Got their Royal Hamburg Curry Rice which came with some floral iced tea...

...and a soup. This was the clam chowder. Tasted better than what the Campbell-esque appearance might suggest. There's quite a few tender chewy clams in it.

Royal Hamburg Curry Rice featured their delicious hambagu with curry on the side. 

Not bad tasting curry which was spicy sweet but not annoyingly so.

Also nicely done mentaiko seafood pasta with small squids and scallops spiked with pretty potent shiso. 👍🏼

Perhaps one last Relish......

Word was that Relish has to relinquish their unit at Cluny Court at the end of the month which will also mark their closure after almost two decades. Sounds a little sus if you asked me. They've been in the business for so long and expiry of the lease should have been on the crosshairs ages ago. Couple that with the fact that one cannot even find their menu on their website. Their socials feel kinda dead. One might imagine that interest in the business was already waning.

But that's just me and overthinking.

Came here for their Wild Rocket Burger. Iconic somewhat for the restaurant because they're one of the pioneers of better burgers back in the day. I remember being quite impressed back in the day.

It's obviously not the same burger as then. This one was much more seared and much less juicy. That sun dried tomato relish sure looked like it withered across the past 19 years. 😓

The order menu has options for doneness now. I picked medium. No prizes for guessing how disappointed I was. Meat was not great. And where the hell was that Sarawak pepper cream?

On the bright side, the fries were nice. Tasted like real potatoes, not overly crispy and adequately salted. They deserve a pat on the back for that.

Some breakfast plate. Serviceable with buttery sourdough.

Josh's Grill, 313 Somerset

We've eaten at Josh's Grill once at Bugis a few years back. Food was decidedly decent. This was our first time at their 313 branch (#B2-15 to 19, 313@Somerset, 313 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6235 0594). Menu seemed a little different from the last time.

There's butter beer - tasted like root beer with melted vanilla ice cream. Non-alcoholic if anyone was seriously wondering.

Tomato soup's not bad. Texture was velvety creaminess and flavour's tangy from the tomatoes. I kinda enjoyed it.

Nice tasting oysters with garlic butter. My only gripe was that these were pretty puny. I could fit 3 of them in my mouth.

Something called cheesy melts fried chicken cutlet - basically fried chicken cutlet with melted cheese. Said cheese was brought out separately in a cast iron pan still bubbling and poured over the fried chicken when they served it. Nice.

Josh's Grill has a series of steaks in their menu under J's Steaks. 250g served on a hot plate with a lightly sizzling pool of what I initially thought was butter. Presumably, J is for Josh rather than the clown prince of crime. 🤡

That stuff bubbling on the plate didn't exactly taste like butter. Don't know what it was. Ribeye has low marbling so it's edible, not great. Meat seemed barely salted. What's not good was the creamed spinach. Those were really fibrous and chewy

Ma Maison, Anchorpoint

Some food from Ma Maison (#01-12 Anchorpoint, 370 Alexandra Road, tel : +65 6479 1670). These guys have been around for ages and have generally been pretty decent. They're also my first exposure to Japanese styled western food.

Onion gratin soup which was made with beef stock was not bad tasting. Sufficiently savoury and beefy plus pretty cheesy as well.

Their sirloin's generally not bad. I like that they get doneness correct and the crust that they give to the steak. This one has tamari sauce which was actually pretty good pairing with the meat. The only thing that they haven't quite gotten going well is the consistency of their meat. There's silverskin sometimes which can be a bummer. 

Yummy ikasumi omu rice. Creamy but not excessively because they didn't overdose with that cream sauce.

There's seafood and mushrooms about with squid ink rice in the omelette which was delicious. One can taste that squid ink flavour in it.

Love their chocolate strawberry shortcake too. These tasted better than their appearances belie. Pretty chocolate-y from the combination of the cream and sponge and the chocolate flavour's quite nice. Have mentioned liking them before.