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.

BBQ mutton from Milan Shokudo

Previously, I was kinda disappointed that Milan Shokudo took away the chocolate banana pizza from their menu. My impression of them took a serious downturn with this bbq mutton I noticed on their menu recently. I mean, what the hell was this?

The pasta on the side was undercooked and looked like it had been previously portioned in a container and refrigerated. It hasn't even lost it's shape so yeah, you can judge the freshness of the prep from there. And that mutton - it's got that irritating sweet marinate which was pretty much the only flavour in the meat. I couldn't tell it was mutton/lamb. 👎🏼

Look at how much gristle in that mediocre quality meat that was inedible. It looked like these guys couldn't care less what they were serving to people. 👎🏼

Astons Specialities, Clarke Quay Central

Hadn't realised that there is an Astons Specialities at Clarke Quay Central (#03-85 Clarke Quay Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street, tel : +65 6222 3987) until now. This place is pretty nostalgic. Used to be the new kid on the block back then. I remember them for leveling up affordable steaks and introducing accessibly priced wagyu when wagyu was too rich for the blood of most of us.

And also the naturally and artificially flavoured D Nutrigraded IBC which we actually like. I don't remember if I've ever had IBC anywhere else except Astons. 

There's some limited time chocolate crumble fries for Christmas. Drizzled with chocolate hazelnut (is that Nutella?) and some crispy granola/cereal thingys. Much larger portions that I imagined and with the load of sugar, fat and carbs; unhealthy is a suitable adjective for some of us. Not forgetting delicious. 👍🏼😏 

Their entry prime ribeye tasted like how they did from back in their early days. Decent quality and affordable still but prices have understandably gone up through the years. 

Re-visiting Surry Hills Grocer @ Raffles City

Getting some food at Surrey Hills Grocer at Raffles City.

Farm styled mushroom soup's not great. We've had more mushroomy ones at this price point. The sweet potato foam felt gimmicky because it's there, we're not sure how they work together and the flavour wasn't sufficiently intense that it left an impression. It felt like it was there because they wanted to be different.

Their Lao Gan Ma chee cheong fun did not look like much.

Turned out to be awesome. Those Lao Gan Ma roasted chilli added plenty of flavour, not to mention a measure of umami heat, into the creaminess of the sauce. 👍🏼

Mussels were okay. Garlicky broth was pretty decent too. Fell short of memorable and that's what we were looking/hoping for.

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.

Little Rogue Coffee, Yong Siak Street

Lunch at Little Rogue Coffee (27 Yong Siak Street). These guys have been around and previously operated at Tanjong Katong before moving here. They appear to be another mostly all day breakfast-y food kind of place. This spot which they're occupying used to be Soi 47.

Not bad breakfast spamwich. Eggs, spam, hash brown, cheese and mustard. It has that combination of fat, salt and protein that made it pretty easy to like and there're no surprises here. 

From what I gathered, they're known for their scrambled eggs with ikura. Also pretty good. The eggs were creamy and purposefully flavoured with the brininess from the ikura and some richness from the truffle cream. Nice with the buttered sourdough.

There's espresso tonic here.

Maple thyme hotcake was delicious. Love the crusty texture on the edges. Flavour of the herb came through the hotcake. Think that was a miso caramel sauce drizzled over. Ice cream was Earl Grey.

Royal Host, Takashimaya/Ngee Ann City

Been curious about Royal Host since they opened at Jewel. These guys are retro styled Japanese western food...not unlike Ma Maison. This branch in town (#B2-25/26 Takashimaya Shopping Centre, 391 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6908 1339) was a lot more accessible.

Royal paradise tropical iced tea - tasted a little herbal. 

Lobster bisque's decent. Portion was pretty small.

This was an odd one; albeit an odd one which we enjoyed. A Genovese styled kale pesto spaghetti that's sprinkled with candied pecans and bits of biscuit which tasted like Marie biscuits. 😯 So amidst that pesto and creamy cheese, there's sweetness from those. I'd come back for this.

Sparkling water is available free flow for two bucks.

Their hamburg seemed to be a signature dish so we got one with brown butter sauce. Said sauce didn't exactly taste buttery - pretty sure there was beef stock with tomato and/or vinegar in it. Not bad tasting but we prefer the hambagu sans sauce because the meat tasted beefy. No fillers. Not bad. I like it more than the A5 omigyu one at Steak Sukadu.

Hot fudge sundae was pretty awesome. Never had something like this since I was a kid at Swenson's. Style's pretty nostalgic. Though it even had the same candied pecan and bits of Marie biscuit like the kale pesto spaghetti. 😬