Jollibee, Lucky Plaza

The entire of this country's fast food could certainly learn a thing or two about queue management from Jollibee (#06-048A, Lucky Plaza, 304 Orchard Road). That aside, I can see why these guys are so popular. Their fried chicken was pretty light, quite tender and tasted reasonably good. Even their burger steak in that onion-y gravy was quite the comfort food with the little packet of rice on the side.

I thought part of their draw was that they were a little different, subtly enough and not entirely a different beast. I wouldn't mind eating this but I'm not so sure it'll be worth the time if there was a long queue. Hey, there's actually pineapple juice instead of just the globally monopolized sodas and overly sweet lemon tea. 

Al Borgo, Bukit Timah Road

I've been wanting to come over to Al Borgo (383 Bukit Timah Road, #01-02 Alocassia Apartments, tel : +65 9772 1680) for a long time because the old Borgo held a special spot in my heart and I really wanted to go back. Well, they closed and this opened up. This here was one of those procrastinations upon procrastinations for some reasons.

The food here was pretty competent without going into any comparisons. The pastas were firm with a good bite and there's very little to fault since it was all supposed to be relatively straightforward food. Portions were generous, food was adequately tasty but it didn't wow so much. But I hear that the chef is more of a man of the grill rather than pasta.

The pleasant surprise from the lunch was a special off the board of their thinly sliced roasted beef with truffle sheep cheese that was packed robust with the flavour of truffles. There was a pungent flavour in the semi hard crumbly cheese that worked with the truffles. I'd order them again if they ever ended up in the regular menu. 

If I had to complain, I could gripe over the minced wild boar from their pappardelle which was a little lean. The light cream sauce from the tagliatelle was much more rich tasting than it looked. I believe a lighter hand with the cream would have worked better with those shaven black truffles.

A recent bowl of prawn noodles

Those may not so remotely resemble dismembered fingers, but are actually "slurp off the bone" tender pig tails from a tasty bowl of home made prawn and pork rib noodles. And yes, the picture below shows off the bits of freshly fried bits of crispy lard to go with them. Thanks for the delicious dinner Alice!

What happened to L'Entrecote Express and &Made?

L'Entrecote has an express outlet sharing the same premise with &Made down in Pacific Plaza. So you can pretty much order anything from both menus. Since I liked both of them, it sounded like a rather ideal setup right smack in the middle of town. What surprised me was that the quality of the food has gone noticeably downhill.

The beef tasted a little flat and the sauce, while creamy, lacked the liveliness that I remember. Some of the vinegar tart seemed to be lost. This was certainly not the steak I had at Duxton. Even the fries tasted a little grease logged and boring. The other shocker was how dry and lacking of flavor the B Burger from &Made has become. I'm not so sure it was that same aged beef patty that was used and I certainly didn't expect that obvious slide in quality coming from some place run by somebody who has had 3 Michelin stars. Even if that was in the past.

Trattoria Nonna Lina, Craig Road

Hey, I think I actually quite like this place (4 Craig Road, tel : +65 6222 0930) even though it was just a first visit. The people and the food here were humble and homely. But lesson learnt is that I should avoid ordering two cream heavy pastas at a time since it all got pretty darn heavy for lunch, encouraging the z monster right after.

The chilled chopped tomatoes from their bruschetta was surprisingly refreshing. I didn't quite agree with their Gorgonzola sauce in the pappardelle because it wasn't as pungent as I was hoping for. I suspect that it has to do with the cut of the cheese that was used which contains less of the blue mold and hence less stinky. But preferences aside, the food was very decent and generous in portions. Their carppacio di manzo tasted a lot more flavorful and tender than the looks suggested and their signature baby octopus with porcini in Prosecco reduction were so packed with good flavors that we mopped the sauce up with bread.

I quite liked their carbonara di mare. I think a balance was achieved from both the cheesy creamy portion with smokiness from the bacon and the clam/crustacean flavors that were mingling in the sauce. Textures from the bits of seafood and bacon were plentiful.

Revisiting MTR 1924

This was an anticipated return to MTR as we were rather happy with the experience in the previous visit. We dropped by over the weekend for dinner ordering some snacks and their Sunday menu specials.

We started with a couple of vada - a regular one and the curd vada, the latter which was soaked in curd/yoghurt and sprinkled with boondi. Frankly, I liked both. The one in the curd was more refreshing.

One of their Sunday specials was the neer dosa, which translates into water dosa. From what I had gathered, the origins of this particular type of dosa is Tulu Nadu, a region in Karnataka. It wasn't browned like the regular one and was chewier. The batter didn't have the sour of fermentation as well. This was served with coconut chutney and a mix of jaggery and grated coconut which made me feel like it could have been a breakfast item rather than dinner.

The other Sunday special was their pudina (mint) rice. Even though mint was used in the cooking, that fresh minty flavour was barely residual. Instead, this was largely a savoury dish. So delicious that we didn't have the slightest problem inhaling the bowl of it. I'm quite impressed by how these guys can dress up starch.

MTR apparently manufactures canned drinks as well. We had initially thought the drinks were made in the kitchen. Still the badam milk was smooth and sweet with bits of almond and flavoured with saffron and cardamom while the creamy lassi was rose scented. Another delicious meal.

The last customer at Punggol Noodles (榜鵝乾麵) on Sunday......

...was me. I had reached the stall (Hougang 105 Hainanese Village Centre, Blk 105, Hougang Avenue 1, #02-24) at about 1.30 pm and only knew that they were closing when they started refusing orders after mine. Lucky me.

Ordering food as they were winding down for the day also meant that options were limited and I had to settle for mee kia since they were out of mee pok. I think I like this stall. The noodles were well drained as the dry option should be, springy and the ingredients on top were both tasty and generous. One can also taste the bits of dried sole from their rustic looking and tender meatballs.

Hai Tang Lor Mee, Mei Ling Food Centre

I'm normally not one for lor mee because of the gravy. It's usually an almost tasteless, textureless and non nutritional excuse of a glop that is passed off as gravy. But I've had this (#02-14, Mei Chin Road Market, 159 Mei Chin Road) a couple of times before and I think I like it because they remind me a bit of the type that I used to eat as a kid. And also in some twisted logic that works for me, it was a lor mee with not so much lor. 

What really worked with them for me were the generous bits of hand ripped (some that is) deep fried fritters that created crispy textures to go along with the noodles that were just sufficiently coated with sauce. And then, the vinegar, chillis and dragon breath inducing chopped garlic bits are a bag of sour, savory with a piquant spicy and pungent that really gets you perspiring.  

Ah Kow Mushroom Minced Meat Pork Mee, Hong Lim Food Centre

By a large number of if not most accounts that I've encountered, Ah Kow Mushroom Minced Meat Pork Mee (#02-42, Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) is a verifiable institution. The stall has been in been in business since 1945. That's 68 years of cooking the same thing every year for over half a century. On top of that, local media accolades line their stall front.

Boy was it underwhelming. I couldn't reconcile how the very same media who can award similar accolades to Tai Hwa present the same glowing reviews to Ah Kow which was really a different beast altogether.

Here's a large portion of their ba chor mee. The mee pok was so soggy it couldn't hold up to the viscosity of the sauce - the latter which was neither spicy nor has vinegar flavours even though this bowl was an option with both. I heard that they're using traditionally made vinegar imported from China. Couldn't understand how the reputation of that vinegar in the noodles came about when I can't even taste it. Even the other Lau Dai Hua down at ION was a better bowl in my opinion. 

Or maybe I just needed to help myself with extra lard and vinegar. But it certainly didn't excuse the dumplings that they included to be disappointingly boring.

To be fair, this wasn't a super lousy bowl per se. It didn't justify the 25-30 minutes I spent in the sweltering queue that I will never get back.

Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, Serangoon Road

From what I had gathered, Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (438 Serangoon Road, tel : +65 6296 5800), a.k.a. MTR, is quite the lauded institution in Bangalore which was started in Karnataka way back in 1924. It has quite a bit of an interesting history which I will not elaborate here. The chain of restaurants is currently run by the 3rd generation of the family that had started it. 

About half a year ago, they opened up here right in the middle of Little India serving food made with ingredients imported from their country. The food was great!

We headed here for a late breakfast over the weekend. The menu required a bit of perusal since certain items were only available on fixed days and time of the week. A late breakfast was also a little too early for their rava idli so we settled for the regular rice ones. These were soft, light and very tasty - especially when doused with the little steel container of ghee and their accompanied coconut chutney.

I hadn't had a kesari bath since the currently defunct Chellas. This was basically a pudding - or porridge as they described of semolina and vermicelli, done with ghee, cashew nuts, raisins and flavoured with saffron. Tasted exactly like I remembered them and good enough for returns.

Amongst a number of dishes MTR is known for, was their bisibele bhath. Which I read also originates from the state of Karnataka. The name translates from their language into "hot lentil rice". Essentially it was a hot spicy porridge with vegetables, curried, with tamarind annndd...a little steel container of ghee for enrichment. It has also been a while since I've last had these. It was great by the way. I liked those little crispy stuff on the side that they served this with.

Their masala dosa made from rice batter, black lentils and stuffed with potatoes was delicious stuff as well. This was quite different from the regular dosa/thosai that we have locally. The skin was crisp, had a little bit of chew in the middle and came in a hue of darker brown; flavoured generously with again more ghee. Ghee like butter, makes everything taste better.

The wash down was their filtered coffee which seemed to be some sort of specialty of theirs. It was okay, drinkable stuff but I'm not sure if Indian coffee is a thing for me.

Looking forward to coming back again.

A green bean soup with seaweed and durian from Ah Chew

Not the first time I have had this at Ah Chew, but definitely a first time I'm having it with durian. I'm not sure how they had meant for this to be eaten. In the end, we didn't break up that ice cream scoop sized ball of packed durian flesh and simply tore chunks out of it as we drank the soup. You know what? It was quite good. The durian that is. I think it's D24, but I cannot be sure. It was also more durian that I had been expecting. The green been soup and seaweed were really just like how it was when we first had them.

Bario's charshu don and Tonkotsu Itto

I had been wondering about the charshu don from Bario for a while after seeing them on the menu. I had been thinking that it looked like it might be good. Now that I've finally had ordered it, it seemed the real thing looks better than it does on menu; and I think I've found my second favourite charshu don.

It was three thick slices of their caramelized charshu over a bowl of rice, drizzled with their soy based sweet and savoury sauce and then aburi-ed. I suspect there's more, but I don't know what else they had done. The prep time took a while and the bowl itself was "please keep your fingers off" hot.

The result was a charred teriyaki-ish aroma with tender meat and fats which dissolved after you've popped them in your mouth. I'm definitely coming back for this one again. Smoky, sweet and savory.

Tonkotsu Itto rotated in just as the current reigning champion for the past 2 years, Ikkousha had moved out of the arena in the very same shop. To digress, Ikkousha is actually finally setting up shop at Tg Pagar and set to open in less than two weeks. They seem to be offering a bunch of red and black and white flavors that a number of other ramen shops are doing that they didn't do in their original shop at Ramen Champion. 

Back to Itto, I think I enjoyed their bowl of ramen and wouldn't mind having them again if I were in vicinity, but there was definitely something about Ikkousha and their broth that I felt was ahead. 

What Tonkotsu Itto had on menu that was a little different was their lobster tonkotsu which was essentially a regular bowl with a slice of charshu plus a splash of thickened lobster stock on the side. After finishing the noodles, the taste of the broth did remind of a lobster bisque of sorts. Albeit one that was a little more porcine than crustacean.

Ramen Keisuke Gyoza King, Orchid Hotel

The third of three Kings along Tanjong Pagar by Keisuke Takeda has opened its doors sometime last week and this third, was unexpectedly the Gyoza King (#01-15 Orchid Hotel, 1 Tras Link, tel : +65 6804 6674). I wouldn't say that I'm that big on gyozas as I generally prefer their Chinese counterpart, still I was intrigued enough to give it a go.

So, it's basically a counter seating joint with gyozas on a la carte or with sets - teishouku styled served with Koshihikari rice for the latter where you can pick your stuffings of choice between tori, buta or ebi and choose a couple of sides to go along.

I honestly didn't come here expecting myself to be blown away by gyozas, but I couldn't deny enjoying the meal. It was almost like eating at Ootoya. The sides were delicious and the gyoza was not bad by my yardstick. I prefer the shrimp over the pork stuffing. I think this place nailed the frills free comfort food concept right on the head. Hey, their green tea Cola doesn't taste of green tea at all.