La Nonna, Holland Village

La Nonna (26 Lorong Mambong, tel : +65 6468 1982) of the Senso Group has been around for some years. It had somehow never been a place that has gotten me interested enough to check out. I'm thinking it's because of Italians and their grandmothers. No offense to the matriarchs, but it's a little tacky as marketing for their food. You know, the home spun and old recipes that they all claim as a source of their cooking. I may not be Italian, but I think grandmother's recipes all over the world tend to have certain defining attributes. Looking rustic aside, it's generally filled with more love and richness than food that one generally can purchase outside. I don't feel that love there. It was a Chinese guy making the pizza today.

So we had a couple of pizzas, a crab and tomato cream pasta linguine and some tiny looking bruschetta. Their linguine was a little more savoury, garlicky and less creamy than the one from Da Paolo.  I like Da Paolo's rendition much better. The squid inked frutti di mare pizza was not too bad though. The toppings were rather generous, crust thin that it was folding down from the weight of the said toppings and the flavour of the ink came through.

I'm not really getting that "I'll be back" vibe though. 

Pontian wanton mee with cheese sauce

Yeap, if you had just done a double take. It was definitely the old Pontian noodles with cheese sauce from their outlet at Toa Payoh (177 Toa Payoh Central). A curiosity if you would. But then again, these guys haven't changed their menu for the longest time and as bad an idea this might have sounded, it was new. It didn't taste half as bad as I had imagined. In fact, this was even cheesier tasting than the cheese noodles at Sun Kee. It kinda gives you an idea how poorly I think of the latter.

Small Potatoes Make The Steak Look Bigger : Year Eight

Another slightly late anniversary marker. It's been 8 years, hasn't it?

This picture up there is the cover of Scorpion Swamp, the 8th from an old series of Fighting Fantasy game books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone that used to be the thing back in the 80s. For adventurous little boys with greater ambition than that of being a chosen one destined to defeat a dark lord through a battle of wands that is. I kinda grew up with those choose your own adventure games along with stuff like Joe Dever's Lone Wolf and Blood Sword by by Oliver Johnson and Dave Morris.

Scorpion Swamp was memorable for one thing. It was the first of those books where you could map the terrain through the game like a grid. Even though it didn't have one of the better artworks or story lines.

Fun times then.

Familiar comfort food at Pow Sing

Brow-sing Pow Sing?

Tonkatsu & Sake Bar Tonzaemon, Chijmes

Tonzaemon (Chijmes, 30 Victoria Street, #01-09, tel : +65 63385907) is a pretty new joint by Ma Maison, which seems to be making a bid for the tonkatsu market. They started branching the fried pork offshoot opening their first, followed by an outlet at Westgate. And now this. As the name of the place implies, it does tonkatsu and sake. And some other small bites on menu.

If the question at this point is if they're any good, I'd say that there's definitely room for improvement and they could certainly learn more about what they're trying to sell.

These are foie gras gyozas. They aren't entirely filled with the foie, but there's probably enough inside to flavour the pork stuffings. Very decent and if they're trying to achieve a balance of flavours between the liver and the pork, they've succeeded. It came with some balsamic vinegar concoction and a mixture of chilli oil and soy sauce on the side. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would use them because it would simply mask all the flavours that they're trying to create.

Their hire katsu stuffed with foie gras sounded promising. Truly. The pork was well fried to a good crisp, well drained and honestly, rather competently done. What unexpectedly didn't work out so well was the foie gras. In spite of the quantities that was used, the flavours were barely there. I mean, how can that be? In a similar ball game, there's definitely a better player. This didn't fail as a dish. It just didn't turn out quite like how I thought it should have. 

While it was nice to have a change of dips with their Japanese mayo and tonkatsu sauce mixture, it simply doesn't quite work out for this katsu. I want to taste foie gras when I eat this. Why else would I be ordering it?

And that's the rosu katsu with cuttlefish ink. The meat was a beautiful light pink shade of white, thick and tender. And no, the flavours of the ink didn't come through. What surprised me was that the flavour of the pork itself didn't quite come through as well. 

And rice with pickles and tonjiru. These are ordered and charged separately. Yes, the price tags of the katsu aren't large enough to cover these. So on hindsight, there are definitely more economical places to have tonkatsu in town. The older players here have been around for a while and are still around for a pretty good reason. The tonjiru here doesn't even contain the slightest morsel of pork. Two bowls of it and nada.

Definitely room for improvement methinks.

Peanut butter & pickle sandwich

This happened largely because of Food Wishes. I was watching one of their videos on the world's favourite video streaming and came upon one for making pickles. Somehow, the pickle sandwich just got stuck in my head, driving me to Google for it. Little did I expect that the top search results from 'pickle sandwich' actually leads to peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. One site led to another which eventually led to me making one just to see if it tasted like how I imagined it.

It's actually pretty good. I'm definitely making these again.

Lamb soup with rice at Curry Times

I was honestly skeptical about Curry Times (3 Gateway Drive, #02-08 Westgate, tel : +65 6369 9609) when I had first heard about them because they were opened by Old Chang Kee. Which has become a brand for me to avoid for their over greasy fried food and steadily shrinking curry puffs with prices going on the inverse. After visiting a couple times, I'm starting to admit that they aren't too bad after all. Sure they're trying hard to sell the nostalgia. Old skool food and decor with new skool prices. But I think they're getting the food part right. At least for some of the items. And their curry chicken is pretty tasty. Seriously.

Here's a bowl of their lamb soup which I liked. I think it's good because this happens to be one of those Chinese (local) lamb soup that isn't overwhelmed by excessive use of herbs. There was a noticeable lamb-y flavor in the broth and those fall off the rib meat. Sure there was dang gui, some goji berries and a little bit of ginseng in there. There was even some coriander I spied that was boiled to death. But all those were on the sideline, supplementing the natural flavours of the lamb without much detraction. And that chilli that they provided on the side was pretty nice too. Tasted like a rendition of chicken rice chilli and would have been more awesome with a squeeze of lime. It's just too bad that this would be on menu only for this month. 

Rediscovering Modesto's

We haven't been to Modesto's for a long time. For some reasons, I got reminded of them and decided to eat there. But before heading down, I Googled it and for the first time, found out a little about the person who opened the place (a real Italian by the way) and how the restaurant was formerly started in Kuala Lumpur. That guy, Modesto Marini, has sold off this chain and is apparently running some pretty spiffy (read expensive) fine dining places in KL.

The restaurant hasn't changed very much. They're still using those plates lipped with leopard skin designs. But it seems they don't serve their focaccia anymore.

I kinda remembered that their mushroom soup was pretty okay. It still is, blended bits of real mushroom with a token drizzle of cream which failed to achieve much beyond presentation. To think that these guys were way ahead many of the competition of their era when they first opened.

I've never recalled ordering any melanzane alla parmigiana. This could be my first! And as wary of tomato sauces as I generally am, this was quite enjoyable. Those eggplants were soft and well..... one cannot really taste much of eggplants buried in flavours like these. Not complaining at all though. 

I got suckered into ordering their beer risotto which was this month's special. I was initially thinking that the rice could have been a bit more cooked, the cheeses could have been Parmigiano Reggiano instead of whatever light and mildly bitter one that they used and more salt would have been great for the stock. They used Tiger by the way. But on hindsight, all those heavier flavours would have drowned out the mild beery (I meant hoppy) bitter. Their home made sausages could also do with more salt.

What kinda rocked, unexpectedly, was their puttanesca which we got with their house made squid ink tagliatelle. The pasta was firm with bite (again, a shade.....just a tiny shade under what would be ideal for me). The sauce was delicious. There's the garlic, tomatoes, some heat and olives with the pungent and salty anchovies. Served piping hot.

Portions here are still pretty generous. We didn't have space for desserts. The atmosphere was old school, like Pete's Place. There's no fancy plating or puny portions. But I think I'm not going to be discounting them so readily in the future. By the way, OCBC cards gets 30% off the bill on Tuesdays.

Sambal nasi ayam at Mr Teh Tarik

I wasn't sure what to expect out of the sambal from this chicken rice stall at Mr Teh Tarik, but it turned out pretty good. The flavours from the sauce were rich, pungent and spicy - ladled over some tender fried chicken. Their rice was beady and well flavoured while the accompanying chilli sauce on the side was lime-y and refreshing. This was definitely one of the more memorable Halal chicken rice that I've had.

The durian mousse from Dessert Bowl (一碗甜品)

This durian mousse from Dessert Bowl (80A Serangoon Garden Way, tel : +65 6285 1278) is actually part of a small bunch of my favourite durian desserts. The others being the durian sago from Ah Chew and the durian Guinness shake from Udders. Of the three mentioned, the former two are made with D24 and the latter, mao shan wang.

Why does this work? Well, I guess that using D24 helps qualify it as legit since anything lesser doesn't quite bring in the flavour. The mousse is always nicely chilled and retains that chill well throughout eating with its thick creamy consistency. And then there's real durian pulp to bolster those flavours. Guilty pleasures doesn't get any better.

One last meal at Bottle Tree Village

Well, at least until they have moved over to their new location at Marina Barrage at the end of the year that is. According to what's being mentioned in the news, the lease has expired and there are new interests in their site that's bidding two and a half times the current lease. Can I say that the rental economy here is ousting small local businesses? I better not. Dangerous line I be threading.

Not much has changed with the restaurant. The service still looks semi-reluctant and the prices have never been under the economical range for zi char. But one can always argue that they're a proper restaurant since there's air conditioning. It's probably just that their food and ambiance looked like it came from a local restaurant 3 decades ago.

These are scallop and banana fritters. As you can see, there's not so much scallops in there, but I guess it made a rather tasty greasy dish that reminds of goreng pisang.

Their sweet and sour pork has changed. According to them, there were numerous feedback against the fruits that the restaurant had previously used. If that was true, I can only lament that there's too much boring people feeding back. One can eat regular sweet and sour pork anywhere. There goes the cool green maraschino cherries, dragonfruit and lychee.

Here's their steamed garoupa with chai por (preserved turnip). As sinister as the two ivory beady eyes looked, this tasted pretty good. For a freshly slain fish, I didn't expect any lesser. The flesh was firm and flaky.

And then, obligatory greens of kailan with garlic. Which was decently done if mundane in appearances. Presentation is not exactly a forte here.

Then came the butter sotong. I'm pretty sure these were cuttlefish and not squid. As aware of the fact that there are different renditions of butter sotongs around, these didn't quite fit into my imagery of any of them. These tasted like they had a light curry batter with sugar. Quite good until you've had enough of the batter to let them get to you as the grease builds up.

We dug their scallop fried rice. Well, just the rice. It was one of the boring looking fried rice which had left impressions crestfallen upon arrival, but it tasted pretty good. Wok hei present if you like that and not excessively greasy. The scallops were unfortunately not so good. Flavours of the shellfish was muted and the texture conveyed their quality.

A Diamond this August

Say what you will about them, Lawry's exhibits consistency. Something that many places seem to have difficulty achieving. Be it their tender prime rib, mashed potatoes that has enough of those little bits of potato amidst the creamy pile to let you know that there are real potatoes; or their smooth and savoury creamed spinach. These guys are still the ones to beat for the classic slow roasted prime rib here. Hell, they're even the ones to beat for the crisp Yorkshire pudding. I'm not sure whether I should be glad that they're upholding standards or sad that in the ever changing dynamics of our F&B market, there's still none that can beat them. Though I'm fairly certain this Diamond Jim Brady has become smaller in recent years while prices have noticeably inched upwards.

The spicy yuzu ramen at Yoshimaru Ramen Bar

Yoshimaru Ramen Bar has been off the radar for a while, at least for myself. They started off here doing Hakata styled tonkotsu broth ramen before the era of Ramen Champion which has to some degrees, garnered more limelight via social media. In retrospect, brands like Ikkousha, Nantsuttei and Keisuke have outdone them in terms of popularity and personally for me, flavour. I'm pretty sure Yoshimaru has their fans, but the interest for me has dwindled.

Today's to check out their spicy yuzu ramen. I think it's quite nice. The flavour of the citrus was definitely there, paired up with a steady warm heat that allowed the broth to endure. Takana on the side added dimension to the warmth. This particular flavour I hear, has been developed by a test team back in Japan in response to local palate preferences. The rest of the components were so so. The noodles didn't come across as hard enough and to be fair, that wasn't requested for during order. I guess they aren't quite up there as the ramen specialist that we've been used to from the past few years that I'd think to ask for harigane.