RedRing Wanton Mee, Holland Drive

There's a bit of an unusual story behind this stall (46 Holland Drive). 

Apparently, it's run by a couple who has done some R&D with their son, who's incidentally someone bound for a Ph.D. in Stanford University in Chemistry after graduating from the local university. The components of the wanton noodles, a result of their year of research, are a product of part machine automation and part measured scientific calibration.

There's a noodle boiling machine that cooks their egg noodles in batches at precise temperatures under a fixed duration in water that's constantly and automatically changed so that none of that residual starch or alkali accumulates and clings onto the noodles. Char siew is done using a Weber smoker without artificial coloring and the sauce is an alchemy of their own design. The rest of the details can be Googled.

What's the verdict of this unusual wanton mee stall? I think I rather liked it. The noodles, which was my favourite part were chewy and eggy flavored; and there was just enough of their sauce to coat them all. The lightly smokey tasting char siew was fairly tasty even though the style is not of my preferred type and the pieces are much too chopped up enjoy much of any texture. The chilli sauce itself was a little tame and I couldn't really tell what was special about it. But I wouldn't mind eating this again.

A Noodle Story, Amoy Street Food Centre

Credit where it's due, it takes some balls to introduce a thermal immersion circulator for your charshu in an institutionalized food centre amidst a small sea of traditional hawkers.

A Noodle Story (Amoy Street Food Centre #01-39, 7 Maxwell Road) styles itself as a take on Singapore ramen, doing what could be considered a updated take on wanton mee. A wanton mee that comes with 36 hour sou vide charshu from Spanish pork belly, a molten yolked ajitama and topped off with a little heap of chopped negi. Which were really all about it that resembled regular Japanese ramen. And then a tasty crispy fritter of potato strips clad prawn plus a few sizeable meaty wantons thrown in as well. I thought the toppings were pretty well done there.

The noodles seemed local/of Hong Kong styled, thin and wiry with some chew. But the flavors were nothing familiar that I could relate to. Mixed with their home made flavorful sambal, it felt like there was much too much going on for my taste buds. I'm not sure I liked that.

Re-visiting Woh Hup

I remain encouraged by how the flavors of the dishes at Woh Hup elicts nostalgia. Right down to how those pretty generous portions of condimental deep fried lard that worked with mouthfuls of their crunchy nai bai, extends the flavor spectrum of their milky fish soup or even adds a certain little extra to their bean sprouts that coincidentally complements the said lard with their spikes of chilli padi heat. Speaking of which, I'm still impressed by those stir fried bean sprouts with fish viscera.

Today, we got ourselves some competently done sweet and sour pork and a pleasant surprise from their sang meen. Remember how I dislike starchy sauces? The accompanying gravy wasn't as starchy as I had feared and it was so good that I was spooning mouthfuls in succession, wondering what did they do right. The crispy noodles and fresh pieces of meat suddenly took backstage. I was made to consider that their mui fan could be good as well.

sweet and sour pork

tasty milky fish soup

yum yum

stir fried nai bai

sang meen

Brunch with eggs....

......and fried chicken wings, fried tau kwa, ngor hiong, stir fried cabbage and luncheon meat on bee hoon. Spirited home for comfort and leisurely eating.

Mee rebus from Rahim Muslim Food

Says on their social media that their stall (721 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8) is widely known for their Mee Rebus Power. With upper-cased MRP and no less. From what I gathered this stall used to operate around Yio Chu Kang Road and have moved to this district not too long back. I have mixed feelings about the mee rebus personally.

Here's some thoughts on the individual items that made the mee rebus. I haven't been eating much of these starchy kuah-ed noodles in the past decade or so. It's probably because I've never remembered them as being very good. In fact, I can barely remember the last time. For a start, their sweet and spiced gravy was really just okay, but then again I'm no expert on mee rebus gravy. The satay sauce that they ladled over the noodles, one of the synergistic "power" components to the dish would have been forgettable by itself if I had gotten them with orders of satay. That would have been at best middle tier satay sauce and no better. It was a little too thin (I meant it totally lacked viscosity there) and could have done with more crushed peanuts. I don't even like yellow noodles in the first place.

When put together, the plate was actually pretty decent. The satay sauce added more depth to the otherwise regular gravy. Bits of green chilli provided aroma and bite. Not to mention also a little bit of heat spikes. Even the lime slipped in some tang into occasional mouthfuls. Having chopped boiled chicken, surprisingly tender by the way, upped the game because - chicken in mee rebus.

I don't mind eating this if I'm in the vicinity, but I don't think it's so good that I'll travel here specially just for that mee rebus power. 

North South Cuisine (南北名厨), Beach Road

Here's another shop (321 Beach Road, tel : +65 6299 3197) which I've possibly passed by on numerous occasions without noticing until today. Affordable frills free food here. One of the cool thing about them was that they're open daily till past midnight so it works for supper as well. The food was mostly North Eastern Chinese with a smattering of localized flavours that caters to the local crowd which swarms them during lunchtime in the weekdays. One can even detect Thai influences in some dishes.

From the cold dish list, these was thinly sliced pork belly with soy sauce and minced raw garlic. The sharp pungent garlic gives you dragon's breath.

Following were some thinly sliced beef in soy sauce. I'm not sure where it's cut from but the textures were rather interesting and undulating.

We were debating over tan tan mian or zha jiang mian. The zha jiang mian won and it was a pretty rustic and straightforward rendition. I meant that in a positive way.

We ordered a basket of juice laden xiao long bao which bursted in the mouth when you bit into them. These were pretty decent. The bursting of the hot porky juices in the dumplings was satisfying.

And pan fried guo tie stuffed with minced pork and vegetables which had a savoury crispy base. A little greasy here.

Some cheese crusted steaks from Chili's

Every once in a while, something draws me back to Chili's. This time round, it's their cheese crusted steaks which seem to be something on menu for a limited period. Something totally unimaginatively appealing. Were they any good? I think I like the fragrance of the Parmesan crust much better than the cheddar bacon. More crust would have been great as well.

While Chili's does not serve the most memorable food out there, they're what they are.  Honestly, there seems to be little room for complaints; however I need to get this off my chest. They don't serve very good beef here. I've had better for sure. For less as well. In fact, for what they had charged here after discounts, I could've eaten at Aston's twice. No cheese crust of course, but much better bang for buck quality of meat and flavour. 

Foie gras tonkatsu with truffle from Tampopo

It seems that Tampopo has just upped the ante of their own game by introducing truffle paste into their foie gras stuffed tonkatsu. This item has already made it into their regular tonkatsu menu if anyone's wondering. If anything could be described as indulgent, this would be one of them. Needless to ask, I was sold. How did that taste? It was exactly like what I had in mind with both the flavour of the black truffle and the fatty melting liver coming through like butter across those tender layered pork beneath a crispy breaded crust.

Itacho Sushi's new spot and blue fin tuna

Itacho Sushi has been working on their new outlet (ION Orchard, #B3-20) for a while now and it's finally opened recently. It seems that they've decided to up the publicity factor by introducing a limited offering of bluefin tuna on their menu which one can have on sushi, sashimi or even a don.

On hindsight, the regular bluefin slices tasted the best. These guys here aren't exactly the most skilled at doing aburi-ed anything and any other add on anything else simply detracts from the natural flavors of the fish. Say, aren't they suppose to be on the endangered list or something?

Moving away from tunas, there's mantis shrimp and snow crab on sushi now. The shrimp was actually pretty tasty and sweet even though I suspect it's been frozen. As for the snow crab.....don't waste your money.

mantis shrimp 

bluefin tuna roll 

engawa 

kani miso

tamago with seaweed

assortment of bluefin tuna, hamachi, Kagoshima wagyu 

bluefin toro

snow crab 

cod liver

A negi miso rosu katsu from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison

That would be Tonkatsu by Ma Maison in case you didn't know. They had these miso sauced katsu which I was curious in measuring up against the ones by Tonkichi. As it turned out, the ones from Tonkichi tasted sweeter while these were more salty. I'm not as favourably disposed towards Tonkichi these days as I was in the past but I think they still do a dryer crisp breading compared to here.

Fu Xiang Chicken Rice, Toa Payoh Central

This place (J99 Eating House, 186 Toa Payoh Central) was a good call for chicken rice and the stall certainly had the queue to back up the quality of their food.

Let's see what they did right here. The flavour in the rice was a little lighter than I expected and it was a little bit greasy. Still within what I considered the boundaries of a properly done chicken rice and this case just meant that their ginger/garlic chilli sauce gets put to used. Now to the better accomplishments...

The turn over must have been quick that their roasted chickens had the opportunity to be served warm and still with that slight crisps on some of the edges of the skin. Their livers were just so pleasantly creamy and the roasted pork was tasty with their lightly crisp crackling and balanced meat to fat proportions. Sure puts some of the supposedly branded names to shame.

I was told that this particular coffee shop is well known for their ban mian as well. 

Rajah Inn, Tiong Bahru Plaza

We have passed by this place (302 Tiong Bahru Road #02-13/14/15, Tiong Bahru Plaza, tel : +65 6835 0080) at least a couple of times before and had never really paid attention until the last time when we realised that there was actually a porridge buffet going on and that the spread was actually rather decent looking. So we came here to eat at the next opportunity to be in the vicinity.

For less then ten bucks, a modest spread of staple dishes that can be found commonly in Teochew porridge stalls with sweet potato porridge, fried bee hoon and fried rice. I actually liked most of the things we had, including that braised pork belly at the end that surprisingly had fats that dissolved in the mouth and the not so spicy, but lemak laden chicken curry. Don't come here expecting to be blown away by the food. It's a small simple selection of properly prepared comfort food that's familiar. 

Kian Seng Seafood Restaurant, Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park

Was introduced to this place (4013 Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 1, tel : +65 6458 2552) via a friend that doesn't live anywhere close to here. The tze char was pretty good and on the whole, wallet friendly enough to visit with some regularity.

Unfortunately, the spinach with three eggs was a little disappointing for me. It was suppose to be a recommended rendition that was better than the usual offerings, but it tasted rather regular to me and the starchy sauce didn't help. I was expecting a base of broth.

The fried rice was nicely done. There was enough oil and char aroma (I mean wok hei) and almost no excessive residual grease. I think that's a fairly reliable benchmark dish there for tze char. It means to me that the cook has measurement and control over the base ingredients which is rather lacking these days. Yeah, they used crab sticks.

Ngor hiong was pretty ok I guess. I prefer the types with chunky textures which this one doesn't quite have. Needs more water chestnut. The accompanying sticky plum sauce made up for it.

These steamed cabbages with dried scallop was probably my favorite of the bunch tonight. The flavors permeated which lent the savory aroma from the scallops to the soft vegetables. It was also the most expensive item, costing almost a third of the total bill at the end.

And then, deep fried pork collar marinated in nam yu (fermented bean curd). The meat was relatively juicy, moderately fat laced and had enough chew for texture. Tasty.

The taste of the broth from the steamed frog legs with chicken essence was rather unexpected. I was expecting a deeper savory punch akin to a soy based flavor. This one was herbal and lightly salted. Still it was good enough that we drank it to the last drop after sucking all the tender meat off the bones of the frogs.

Kian Seng's orh nee uses a generous blanket of thickened coconut milk. So no fried shallots nor lard to be found; which I feel are essential ingredients to a solid (fragrant) rendition of this Teochew dessert.