Poutine, truffled mushroom soup and wagyu burger from Crossroads Cafe

What did I not like too much about the food here(320 Orchard Road, GF Marriott Hotel, tel : +65 6735 5800)? Probably just the truffled wild mushroom soup that reminded me a little too much of the Campbell variety with a tad generous dash of cream which was largely saved by the truffle oil that came in almost imperceptible portions. Maybe I could gripe over the gravy from the poutine that could have been a little richer and perhaps less watery. Or perhaps, the choice of bun which didn't quite do it's job holding the burger up together as the juices from the patty disintegrated them.

I'm just being picky :p.

I did enjoy the poutine in spite of the fact that I would definitely prefer it with a bit more of that gravy which wasn't too shabby in the first place. Couldn't complain about the stinky goat cheese and bits of salty chorizo that came with it as well. The wagyu burger was definitely more than a mouthful of stacked beef patties, nicely grilled and blanketed with raclette cheese. As one might have surmised from the above, there were a great deal of bovine flavoured meat juices and grease from the patty. Nothing beyond a some rockets, the fragrance of sliced raw red onions and a little tomato to detract from the flavour. And a juicy fat gherkin to cut through all the combined grease. I can't say that I won't be back......

...but I will not be ordering that mushroom soup again.

Kampong Glam Cafe

Here's a good stop (17 Bussorah Street) for some down to earth local food. One which I've passed by on countless occasions until recently. No complains at all from their hearty nasi padang which featured surprisingly tender paru goreng down to that blend of sweetness from the shaven coconut, spicy kick of their sambal belachan and lemak savouriness from the sayur lodeh. Pretty much a good selection of distinctive flavours on one plate.

In spite of being a little bland with the broth, the "upgraded with a begedil" mee soto was pretty decent. Piping hot with a mix of chillis and deep fried shallots to go along in a cool rainy afternoon.

Their teh tarik was just the drink to wash everything down with.

Will definitely drop by again when in the vicinity.

Re-visiting Cafe de Hong Kong

Home made grilled cheese sandwich

The magic of wholemeal bread, shredded cheddar, a questionable amount of butter in bed together on a hot frying pan. I'm going to use raisin bread the next time for the next cosmic alignment.

Christmas lunch at Bedrock

This blog is not yet dead!

But this entry is definitely late in the coming as lately, real life has wrapped its reel more tightly about things as I battle to fight for breathing room. But let's get to the food.

We decided to pick up the offer from Bedrock out of numerous emails because we had a good meal from the previous visit and we definitely had hopes that this would not be far from the experience we had from that first visit.

The piping hot and freshly baked flat bread which Bedrock serves has not changed. Exactly how we remembered them to be with the soft buds of garlic and salted butter. Needless to say, we had seconds and even thirds.

Yukon potato soup - truffle cream

The comforting and creamily textured potato soup was really just buffed by the truffle cream which performed admirably with their truffle-y flavour. I couldn't say that the soup was out of this world, but the flavour from the fungus worked enough of it's magic that I've had to admit that it was a pretty decent soup. Yukon potatoes or not.

pumpkin risotto - braised duck, confit tomato, shaved parmigianno reggiano

Their pumpkin risotto turned out to be much better than it appeared on plate in the department of taste. To their credit, the flavour of the pumpkin was identifiable in the creamy rice and it paired off very nicely to that "sweet and salty" effect from the gravy that came with the braised duck. If this item had ended up in the regular menu, I certainly wouldn't mind ordering them again.

steamed sea bass - sautéed asparagus, balsamic reduction, boneless short ribs

The steamed sea bass looked like it might have been seared a little as well instead of just steamed. I'm not overly big on fishes most of the time, but I would have to say that I liked this. The texture of the meat was nicely preserved where the meat didn't just crumble and dissolve in the mouth. Simply flavoured too, was it with nothing short of salt and pepper. I didn't quite understand why a braised short rib came along, but it was surprisingly well done. That melted in the mouth.

duck fat potatoes

We just had to order up the fried potatoes to side up the other items we had. Notice the golden yellows and dark browned edges. It tasted as good as it looked without excessive grease.

steamed banana pudding - vanilla bean ice cream, brandied cherry

We were getting quite stuffed from the food and extra orders of the flat bread earlier. Lacking the capacity of a four stomach cow, I sometimes forget to accommodate space. What would usually impress me about a dessert would be their ability to make me still finish them even when I feel stuffed. This was definitely one of those. It was a suitably soft banana pudding. I guess what helped out there was that the pudding and the large scoop of ice cream weren't too sweet and the tart cherries and sauce helped get us going. Yes, and the gooseberry too.

Raw Kitchen Bar, Upper Bukit Timah

Not bad...

Pupella Pizza, ION Orchard

This was another relatively new pizza joint down at the basement of ION. I've been walking past them on numerous occasions and finally decided to give these fellas, which reminded me of Donatos a try.

Understandably, there was only so much in the "freshly made" taste that one can derive from pizza that's sold over the counter that were heated up only when you ordered them. These were their unheated Parma ham with rocket and their quad cheese pizza which had unexpectedly featured two thickness of crusts. The former being thicker and much chewier since it was left unheated and the other, pretty nice thin crust. I did like the salty Parma ham over a generous bed of rockets, nicely concealed under the pizza. But it was kind of tough chewing through the cold crust. Couldn't complain there since I turned down their offer to have them heated up.

As usual, I would have preferred more blue cheese from that quattro formmagi.

Eating at the Noodle Place

It's been quite a long time since I last visited this place (176 Orchard Road, #01-53/56 Centrepoint, tel : +65 6733 3171). That was way before that chef from Mak's Noodle in Hong Kong had come across and created a little stir over wanton noodles. I thought that it would be interesting to see how the food was with the new chef and also gauge how the noodles compared versus the pretty good one over at Canton-i.

We got ourselves an order of roast duck and char siew rice and found them to be pretty decent. Their char siew is done in a similar style as they do in Hong Kong - which meant much less caramelization on the outsides, little to no charred surface and has a much more savoury taste. Different from the sweeter versions that are more common locally.

It certainly didn't hurt to top up our dosage of greens.

 

Back to the wanton noodles, I prefer this one over the Canton-i rendition. The wiry noodles here had chewy textures that were comparable. Wantons here were noticeably smaller in comparison but I couldn't really discern much of a difference in flavour. What won me over was the superb soup that they had over here. This wasn't just the regular wanton noodle soup - there's also dried prawn roe and sole fish for flavour. Certainly made a hell of a difference when compared to the regular variety.

Smiths Fish and Chips, Tanjong Katong Rd

Little had expected that a British styled fish and chips joint would open up in such a location (230 Tanjong Katong Road, tel : +65 9639 8348) here. What's more, this shop had brought in their own frying range to do their job.

Let's see....it was all golden brown on the battered fried fish and the chips with a healthy amount of grease to soak. White, piping hot, firm and flaky fish meat on the insides. I definitely preferred the haddock over the cod. The sour pickled eggs were a novelty for me and I probably preferred the nutty tasting dried up mashed peas at the defunct Fisherman's Wharf than the gooey one over here. These weren't bad, but it just reminded me of unsweetened green bean.

Wouldn't mind visiting again if it weren't such an effort just to reach this location.

Huhu Udon, ION Orchard

So this is a new joint (2 Orchard Turn, #B4-56 ION Orchard, tel : +65 6509 3256) brought in by the En Group after Go!Go! Curry! down at the basement of ION Orchard. As the name implies, it's a place that sells udon and I've never really been big on those thick chewy noodles except for the unfortunate Wakashachiya.

I had to admit that the creamy mentaiko broth base attracted me more than a little and it turned out to be a very good thing. The piping hot soup was milky, yet light tasting and was quite generously laden with the flavors of the roe with the associated spiciness. Each mouthful brought eggs that burst between the teeth. So good that I practically drank it all up after finishing the udon. They also had the curry with shabu beef version which wasn't as spectacular, but featured a very decent light curry that was not slouch on the spice like most Japanese curry. The meat was however quite forgettable, but this was probably one of the better curry udons I've had along with that one from Bon Goût.

Wait a minute, I haven't had that much curry udon to speak of......