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. 👍🏼

Qiji Traditional Fish Maw Soup & Minced Pork Noodle (麒记鱼漂汤 肉胜面), Sunset Way

Came across the menion of Qiji Traditional Fish Maw Soup & Minced Pork Noodle (#01-62, 106 Clementi Street 12). The noodles with fish maw soup sounded good. Sounded is the operative word.

These guys used a better mee kia than the mass produced factory ones. But I don't think it was handled well because after the saucing and tossing, the noodles ended up feeling a little slimy rather than firm and cleanly coated. While it looked like there were bits of fried lard there, we actually couldn't taste much of them.

Soup's peppery with a some sweetness, possibly from the cabbage. Liked it better with some of the minced garlic which made it more savoury. The fish maw was unmemorable - like soggy you tiao kind of unmemorable. Pork tasted floury and unnaturally textured. Not impressed.

More food from Maddie's Kitchen

Haven't eaten at Maddie's Kitchen for a while. Went zi char style with rice today.

Garlic kailan's pretty decent. Sauce with its savoury/salty garlicky flavour was great with rice.

There's sliced red garoupa with bitter gourd and fermented black beans. Did not expect the fish to be coated with flour and I would prefer that they hadn't been. Not bad tasting with those salty black beans.

Tried the minced pork omelette.

There's like at least as much onions as minced pork in the egg. Maybe more onions than pork. Tasted pretty good though. 

Mushroom pizza and teh from rumeL

The pizzas from rumeL are pretty good eating largely because of their puffy Neapolitan-esque crust. Tried the one with mushrooms recently and I liked it. Think it's just cheese and mushrooms. The teh's decent. It might not be as strong or creamy as the ones from Toast Box nearby but it's also cheaper.

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.

A breakfast of chee cheong fun, eggs and fish cake from Jia Ji Mei Shi (佳记美食)

I'm gonna say it, the bee hoon from Jia Ji Mai Shi is not great.