A tokusen toroniku shoyu ramen with Iberico pork cheek from Ramen Santouka

It's been quite a long while since my last foray to Ramen Santouka (21 Cuppage Road, Cuppage Terrace, tel : +65 6235 1059) and it seems that they've upgraded their pork cheek ramen, using Iberico pork. While those slices of grilled pork cheeks were still tender and salty and ready to break apart in the mouth, I cannot in honesty tell the difference between this Iberico cut and the one that I had previously. The noodles were exactly as I remember them....not exactly my cup of tea for texture, but I would maintain that this shoyu broth is still my preferred one from this joint. With so many ramen-ya these days, I guess these guys aren't the force to be reckoned with anymore.

Now that I've tried it, time to move on again.

Triple Black Ramen from Tampopo

Steadily and surely, Tampopo unleashes more of their seasonal or limited run items onto the world. It has become difficult for me to revisit the stuff from the regular menu that I like.

I ordered this Triple Black Ramen because it looked badass. Like Darth Vader badass that's obsidian and reflects the abyss back to the approach.

It's triple black because of black broth, black noodles and black pig. The broth as I could gather, was a light vegetable and pork broth with squid ink. It came with noodles that were shaped like none of the variety that they're currently serving on the menu. Its a little like tagliatelle.

What wasn't so obvious was within the inky broth, were fat laced minced pork and scattered bits of fish roe that provided abundant bursty texture (as fish roe does) and more chew to the textural medley. The orange stuff was a scallop with a really large coral and hidden just behind the shredded lettuce was an ajitama. Bleached white colour in contrast. Molten yolked and no less.

Ramen Bar Suzuki, Circular Road

Here's a bowl of basic tonkotsu ramen Ramen Bar Suzuki (61 Circular Road, #01-01) with 'hard' noodles and 'strong' flavoured broth sans the red pickled ginger. The customizable options for each bowl was of greater granularity than what I've encountered before. One can choose items to omit on top of the usual slew of add ons, strength of flavour and oil. On hindsight, I should have opted for 'harder' since 'hard' just fell right in the middle spectrum of options. Would prefer more bite.

While it was an decent bowl of ramen, I didn't think the broth was interesting enough that'll make me crave for it soon. Though flavourful, it had lacked a certain creamy depth which I preferred. It didn't make me want to finish up after the noodles. The charshu was thinly sliced and tender, but was otherwise ordinary. What was interesting were the "flavours" available for tonkotsu ramen which including squid ink, sakura ebi and even a cheese & basil rendition. There were free flow hard boiled eggs and steamed rice for dinner, but those eggs were difficult to peel. Half the whites were lost, stuck to the shells. Or maybe I just suck at peeling eggs.

Red Pig Korean Restaurant, Amoy Street

It was almost a full house slightly before 7pm on a Tuesday night. Food here's (93 Amoy St, tel : +65 6220 7176) not too bad. The service staff seemed to be overwhelmed and there weren't any refills of the banchan. I was wondering if it's because of the limited wait staff are constantly having to run from table to table.

To note - one should wait for the charcoal grill to be heated up before attempting to cook that galbisal as I doubted that the servers took enough notice when they assisted in the cooking. Having a grill that was still heating up only meant that there wasn't enough heat for you to get respectable grill marks onto the meat without them getting overcooked. Meat doesn't come salted, but that's easily rectifiable. Their signature Red Pig cuts of marinated pork were pretty tasty in a spicy, nutty and sweet sort of way. What was outstanding was their crispy seafood pancake which was a medley of textures from the exterior, the chewy insides, bite from generous portions of squid and crunchy spring onions.

The Burger Bar by Fat Boy's Concepts, Far East Plaza

The Burger Bar (14 Scotts Road, #01-16A/B Far East Plaza, tel : +65 6737 3315) is run by the people that came up with Fatboys. The idea here is for people to build their own burgers and the options are pretty much similar to what one gets at Fatboys. With some bits of upgrades (more options for toppings, sauces, orders taken through iPads and blah blah....). Back at Fatboys, I remember being put off by the beef patties that they were using. What I didn't like about them were the poor meat to fat ratio, blandness and that they were generally overdone and not delicious. I hoping for an upgrade to the patties that they had been using now that this place had happened but these guys here used exactly the same beef as they did then.

That was really the weakest link for my order of cheeseburger with cheddar, pickles and peanut butter. They even had the soft brioche freshly toasted and the only thing that hadn't worked for me was the very forgettable meat. Which made it such a pity. I'll happily top up the difference and head across the road for something real the next time I want proper beef in my burger when I'm in the vicinity.

KL Hokkien mee at Malaysia Boleh

This is from Ping Ge KL Hokkien Mee stall down at Malaysia Boleh (1 Jurong Point 2, #03-28), a little food court that specializes in Malaysian Chinese street food which opened October last year. I haven't had these dark soy sauced noodles in some years, the last time being in Kuala Lumpur where I really enjoyed them.

How does this one stack?  Not as smokey as I was hoping for and a little lacking of the fragrance from the dark soy sauce element. But it was still enjoyable, piping hot with crispy bits of fried lard from the fired wok of what looked to be a pretty competent stir frying cook. The chilli that they provided on self service was pretty good stuff going with those savory sweetish and greased up thick noodles. I certainly wouldn't mind having these again, but the other options there like prawn noodles and even chicken rice look pretty darned appealing too.

Another literal look at the lamb skewers from Jia Yan

For reasons I will not venture into, things have gotten a little slow lately and nothing new or interesting have come by in the way of eats. So this was just an updated (clearer) picture of the lamb skewers from Jia Yan. And more of them as well. This second visit made me realize that there were actually some sesame seeds sprinkled over the lamb which I could taste and I had somehow missed totally during the previous visit.

Yes, this made a relatively fuss free (no need to think) dinner. I promise that I will start looking elsewhere so that I can at least make some comparisons between shops.

A couple of favorites from Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐)

These above are known as xiao cai on the menu of Din Tai Fung. It's a bunch of julienned stuff and a bunch of other stuff that's not actually julienned, but looks that way too. There's seaweed and beansprouts, strips of bean curd with rice vermicelli that results in a medley of textures in the mouth. The flavours were savoury, a little spicy and a bunch of sour. And it's been so addictive that we've had them almost every single visit since.

And then there's their truffle xiao long bao. I may not be an expert in them, but I daresay that the ones here are consistently the best in this country. A two hit combo of a noticeably robust aroma of the truffle in the soup followed by the flavour of pork. Keep in mind that I'm rating these as the best because of the truffle flavour over something else like the ones from Paradise Dynasty which had a porkier punch, but suffered very poorly from the inexcusable lack of aroma from the truffle.

These two alone could keep me coming back. Or at least until I get a shot at their truffle chicken soup which I always seem to miss.

Chinese lamb skewers in Balestier

I've been having a bout of craving for some lamb skewers lately since the last time in Hong Kong. Coincidentally, a buddy of mine happened to have stumbled upon one in Balestier Road a while back and we ended up there one evening.

There're no addresses on this post because I forgot to ask for a business card but the place was a Chinese restaurant that strangely has Korean characters on their signboard and also serves a selection of Korean food. Hmmm, it's a few units away from the Loy Kee Chicken Rice place.

This was pretty good. In fact, much better tasting than the one I had previously. The flavours from the spices were bold and fortunately didn't mask too much of the natural flavour of the lamb. For a dollar per skewer, it wasn't tough on the pockets too. We managed a small wok of spicy beef tendon and potatoes along with spicy bean curd strips in chilli/sesame oil and we thought that it was honestly pretty good. I'm going to head back here again another time.

Edit 19/04/2013 :
The name of the place is Jia Yan Restaurant. Address is 336 Balestier Road.

Yu sheng noodles at Wei Ji Noodle House

The idea behind having sliced raw fish and noodles is ingenious. I'm not sure if there are other people who're doing this, but this one from Wei Ji (335 Smith Street, #02-35 Chinatown Complex Market) was pretty damned good. Egg noodles and shredded lettuce for texture tossed in a light soy sauce, sesame oil and a squeeze of lime with sliced wolf herring. This was refreshing and light as a salad.

Tamoya Udon, Liang Court

This is apparently another one of those first of overseas outlet (177 River Valley Road, #01-32 Liang Court, tel : +65 6337 0301) of a Japanese chain; specializing in udon and coming from the Kagawa Prefecture. I used to avoid these thick chewy noodles for some reason, but have gotten to appreciate them in the recent years after some good experiences. Tamoya is yet another positive turn and I certainly liked what I had.

Which was a beef bukkake udon. One could snigger at the thought process of initiated men who has to vocalize the order. I was surprised, in a positive manner that is, by how sweet and savory the flavor of the broth. The trinity of dashi, mirin and shoyu perhaps? The udon was chewy and the slices of beef were definitively beefy. To soak up all that broth was also addons of tempura and kushiage options that one could choose along the order line. Of these, were just a focused selection that were pretty decent.

Will return for more.

Update 13/04/2013 :

This wasn't planned, but I had come back much faster than I expected. Here's a quick dinner of the kama-tama udon - basically a bowl that came with a raw egg and a shoyu broth on the side. It wasn't as rich as I had hoped, but I guess it did the job. If anyone is wondering about their tempura, I recommend the sweet potato.

Ythu Wendy Authentic Vietnamese Cuisine, Food Opera @ ION Orchard

Believe it or not, this was the third or fourth time this year I've been ordering the chicken chop rice from this stall (Stall #5 Food Opera, Basement 4). It all started off with running out of ideas on what to eat in a place filled with food. So I gave them a try and subsequently, their lemongrass and orange marinated chicken that was oven grilled got me hooked. I'm not sure why even though it was a mediocre grill. Maybe it's the whole thing with the marinade, the fish sauce and chilli on the side and the appetizing mango salad with a breath of basil and mint with the crunch of toasted peanuts.

The simplicity of it all resonated with what street food really was. Albeit it was all at premium food court prices. This will not be my last visit.

Le Bistrot Du Sommelier, Armenian Street

I've been wanting to visit this place (53 Armenian Street, tel : +65 6333 1982) for quite a while. To be a little more accurate, it was since the time they've opened up at Prinsep Street. Never happened until now. The current location is at the space where Fi53fty Three used to be.

We were aware that Le Bistrot du Sommelier was known for their house made charcuterie, so we ordered up a bunch to taste what they had to offer. Namely their duck rillette, pig tongue terrine, chicken liver pâté with port wine and a current off the menu special of pig sausage with pistachio baked in a brioche.

Believe me when I say that every bit of the greens helped there. The food was rich from the fat meaty flavours and salt that the sour from the gherkins help cut all the richness that was building up from every bite. Every delicious bite that is. Their brioche was altogether buttery, dry and crumbly, but I thought that had worked pretty well with their fatty pistachio and pork sausage for textures.

All that meat was further bolstered by a serving of oven roasted Mangalica pork chop served with a gratin of pig trotter and macaroni. The exterior of the pork chop was caramelised lightly which added smokiness to the moist interior along with a light hit of rosemary. The gratin had unfortunately (or maybe fortunately at this point) contained little of the meat from the pig trotters.

This was definitely one heavy meal. Thankfully there was wine as well.

As stuffed as we were, we managed a dessert of profiteroles. I like this. The choux pastry was crisp and light. Will come back again for other stuff.