Hainanese Delicacy, Far East Plaza

This shop (#05-116 Far East Plaza, 14 Scotts Road, tel : +65 6734 0639) remains a sort of an institution to locals for chicken rice. That being said, I collect myself with a little refrain by acknowledging that I don’t really know the history behind the stall and if in the past decades, ownership remained the same. But the first times that I had eaten here was a long time back (yes, I was once a school kid with little money to eat better while hanging out in town) so I know it has been around. Straightforward, fuss free and occasionally, a little brusque.

To trim the proverbial fat of verbosity, to the chicken rice! It’s not bad actually. I liked it then and I still find them a decent rendition now. There’s no excessive use of sesame oil (not that it’s always a bad thing but…) and the tender meat tasted clean flavoured with the light soy sauce. Rice wasn’t overly greasy or heavy which is on hindsight a good thing. The after-burps will not be a bother and it also simply means that there’s less guilt when you silently exclaim to yourself ‘...I like it. Another!’. The chilli was just okay, nothing particularly memorable. But then these guys are old school and sometimes, old school simply means stopping at just adequate.

Ghost Pepper Wings from Popeyes

I'm not sure if any real ghost peppers were involved in the flavouring of these things, but they're only a little spicier than usual. Which means that it's not getting anybody looking for a level up excited about the heat. Seems that the biscuits are honey glazed these days and they've stopped giving out the jams because of that.

London Fat Duck, Scotts Square

The name was a little misleading upfront. For a start, this fairly new restaurant (6 Scotts Road #B1-16/17 Scotts Square, tel : +65 6443 7866) was not from London, hadn’t anything to do with that Four Seasons (which has also opened here recently by the way) from London that is famed somewhat for their Cantonese styled roast duck and was certainly in no way associated with Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck in Bray. What I read was that the ducks here were imported from Ireland. Otherwise, this place was local as local as can be - a joint venture by the Akashi Group and the Fei Siong Group.

Compared to the other Chinese restaurants of their market, food was passable and service was pretty atrocious. The wait staff looked like they were reluctant to serve and importantly, overwhelmed by a morning crowd that filled only half the restaurant. The crew looked like they didn't have experience running the shop and every request took a long time. I'm rather surprised at the management considering that the groups that collaborated have more than a fair bit of experience across the ranges in the F&B sector.

Obviously, what they are known for are their roast ducks amongst other things. Those weren't bad, but I honestly thought I had a better time eating ducks at Dian Xiao Er. Truly. I'm not even sure what getting ducks from Ireland had brought to the table here.

We tried egg tarts. Those were rather boring. The crust was neither fragrant nor buttery.

Har gow was decent but very small. Not something I can see myself looking forward to.

It sure took quite a long time, but I'm seeing local restaurants starting to up the ante for char siew in recent years. This was actually quite nice. But you do get better portions and equal if not more satisfaction for the same price at Grand Mandarina.

Pan fried carrot cake was passable.

This was their black pepper London duck bun. The other thing that was quite nice because it was different from the other crusty buns with sweet fillings. The strength of the black pepper was quite moderated for balance. Very present, but not overwhelming as many black pepper items can be.

We had originally though these "signature" rice rolls from London Fat Duck to be regular zha leong, which were steamed rice rolls wrapped around dough fritters. As it turned out, the dough fritters themselves were also stuffed with shrimps.

There was actually more food that we had ordered, but they never arrived and we decided that with the poor service and the generally average quality of food, it wasn't worth wasting our lives waiting further and shortening already shortened fuses by trying unsuccessfully to get the attention of the overwhelmed (and clumsy too if I might add) wait staff whom obviously didn't want anymore attention from the crowd.

Mentaiko rosu katsu from Imakatsu

The mentaiko that they used were pretty generous in portions and very tasty. Totally worked with their well fried rosu cutlet. Unfortunately, these guys seemed understaffed during this visit and somebody in particular had been getting the orders wrong that some of the orders never arrived while others came in the wrong portions. But still, I like this enough to come back again.

Hot Reuben now with Guinness Stout bread at Nassim Hill Bakery

This was the third beer bread at Nassim Hill Bakery for their sandwich, with the previous ones being made with Asahi Kuronoma and prior to that, Grimbergen Ambrée. What seemed different from this visit was texture (and flavour) of the bread. Previously, they were soft, chewy and warm. This time round, it had lightly toasted and didn't seem to taste as good as the previous visits. The toast had taken the chew and the soft out of the equation.

I'm guessing that it's probably a better idea to visit in the morning when the bakes are fresher; which was exactly when the previous two visits occurred. Hopefully it's not the downfall of their bread because of a change in recipe.

In the other news, they have a Po Boy on menu. It's didn't quite look like what I expected out of a po boy but it was a decent sandwich I wouldn't mind having again. Shrimp, ham and lettuce between a cheesy sun dried tomato focaccia.

Royal Noodle, Circular Road

This (27 Circular Road) was kinda disappointing. The only thing that helped me finish the bowl was an extra helping of their tasty chilli paste. The noodles were ordinary and I didn't find anything memorable with the sauces. What's worse was that the peanuts where just shy of turning stale. Those nuts really bugged me about the quality of their food here. 

Grand Mandarina, New Bridge Road

Grand Mandarina (#01/02-00 Thye Shan Mansion, 325 New Bridge Road, tel : +65 6222 3355) opened about a year ago and I had never heard about them until recently. From what I could gather online, they're a new player in the local scene with no ties to any of the better known restaurant groups which could mean that they are a little bit more interesting with what they do rather than the usual formulaic themes.

The restaurant is located at a spot just a short walk from Outram Park MRT exit at Bt Pasoh's side.

This was chicken and cordycep soup. It happened to be soup of the day which is going for less than $2 due to some promotion that they were having. Pretty well done double boiled soup and just for a song, I'd easily return for them.

One of the items that they are apparently known for is their honey glazed barbecued pork loin. Char siew in other words and yes, it was as good as people were saying. We had seconds of those glazed pork which possessed a light sweet glaze shattering crunch. The meat was relatively tender and fat layered.

Fried fish skin with salted egg yolk, curry leaves and chilli padi. Rather addictive. Even for the pieces that had gotten a little bit soggy.

This was described as soya poached foie gras with 20 year "Shao Xin" wine jelly. The idea was good, but the foie gras tasted funny. It was livery without the buttery element, might have something to do with the poaching. The Shao Xin jelly sounded impressive if I had understood that 20 year part correctly; the flavours were present but not extraordinary for something that sounded like it had been aged. Did I read this wrong?

Their stir fried vermicelli with pork collar and XO sauce was not bad too. The generous amount of sprouts lent texture to each mouthful of noodles.

Steamed rice rolls with scallops were quite ordinary.

Those crystal dumplings aren't my thing. The dominant flavour was chinese mushrooms which I'm not big on in the first place and we've definitely had better done crystal dumplings with mushroom.

Competent if ordinary har gow.

Also competent if ordinary siew mai. If I'm giving the impression that these were mediocre, dispel those impressions. 

Their phoenix claws with black bean sauce was a mishap. Those chicken feet tasted a little sour (not quite the vinegary manner) and that sour didn't come from the sauce. We stopped after a couple of bites and feedbacked to the restaurant. They were gracious and took it off the bill.

That's pan fried carrot (radish) cake with lup cheong and a sprinkle of chicken floss. Again, competent.

We liked the char siew bao. Skin was fluffy enough, sufficiently voluminous for balance of proportions between meat & bun and the fillings were more savoury than sweet. 

The other let down was the salted yolk custard buns. There's not enough salted yolk flavour and it was a little too sweet for us to like them.

Apparently, the one thing Grand Mandarina seems to be known for is the empurau fish; reputed to be the most expensive edible fish from Sarawak in Malaysia. Expensive like a couple of thousands of dollars perhaps for a single fish. Obviously, it's not going to be something that's landing plated on my table anytime soon.

Sugisawa, Robertson Quay

I remember reading about the origins of chirashi which began as a way to utilize the unattractive looking cuts of fish that were leftovers from making nigiri sushi or sashimi. On certain occasions, I've actually tried to relate that possibly dated (or geographically inapplicable) fragment of history to the ones that we're having. I'm pretty sure that's not how it works these days here with the most of them far too prettied up or voluminous to be treated as discards. 

This chirashi donburi from Sugisawa (30 Robertson Quay, Riverside Village Residences, tel : +65 6235 0212) could just possibly be one of those bowls that fit in to the category of repackaging remnant cuts of fish - plus a little more on the side. Either that or the knife work was especially lacking in finesse. The quality of the fish had passed the decent muster but wasn't extraordinary.  I didn't quite take to the extra chewy slice of octopus tentacle. What I liked was the sakura denbu. Not so many places include them. And the butter fried scallops were actually rather good. Weren't overcooked at all and had that residual natural sweetness intact.

Chir Chir Fusion Chicken Factory, 313 Somerset

Just to be clear, I didn't queue to get into Chir Chir (313 Orchard Rd #B3-04/05/06). I happened to be there at a time when the insane queue hadn't yet begun for dinner. Their food was a fairly interesting experience if not altogether anything new.

I liked the grape salad with honey and ricotta but the restaurant doesn't used freshly toasted flatbread and was careless with the freshness of the nuts that they used. Otherwise, the rest of the food was pretty much how it looked. Those "cajun" spiced chicken with cheese & cream weren't as heavy as they looked though.

I could eat it again, but I sure as hell wouldn't queue for it.

Gurih Restaurant, Arab Street

ayam lado hijau

sotong hitam

sambal paru

begedil & sambal telur

sayur lodeh

Pretty decent nasi pandang from this shop (150 Arab Street, tel  : +65 6299 1643) located at the junction of Arab Street and Victoria Street. The proprietor claimed that the food is Padang styled and that we should expect their sayur lodeh to taste different from the local variety. Since I don't really have any frame of reference for actual Padang styled food, I don't know any better. In retrospect, perhaps the gravy was less rich than some local renditions, but the savoury depth was impressive. Their sotong hitam had an unexpected but welcomed hit of heat and I rather liked the ayam lado hijau too. 

This looked to be a fairly dependable frills free comfort food place I could come back to again.

Tracy's Special Udon from Tracy Juice Culture

This was the other item that we noticed many people ordering down at Tracy Juice Culture. Granted that there wasn't that many things that one could order from the shop apart from their beverages. This was a mushroom udon of sorts. Why so? The "broth" was pureed mushroom and totally delicious. Served piping hot, topped with some broccoli, a couple of cherry tomato, mock meat and some dried mushrooms. Not complaining here but I've observed that the consistency of the broth is not always consistent.

Neh Neh Pop

New ice cream shop brought to the world by the folks at Artichoke. It's at where Overdoughs, the old pastry shack selling baklava is. Speaking of which, the one encrusted with crushed nuts is the baklava flavour. Although it says orange blossom flavour for the ice cream, I'm pretty sure I tasted something like rose. It's not bad.

Black Angus Steakhouse, Orchard Parade Hotel

I had only been here (1 Tanglin Road, #01-08 Orchard Parade Hotel, tel : +65 6734 1181) once years ago for lunch and haven't stepped in ever since. This old school stage of a restaurant was actually kinda refreshing ironically.

The mains came with salad/soup options. This was their coleslaw. Never had it served that way before and it's actually not bad.

I remembered this thick stewy soup from the last time I ate here. I did not seem to have changed with those chunky pieces of beef amidst the barley and carrot.

Their fried zucchini to start had a batter that tasted suspiciously like the one next door at Modesto's. But those zucchini at Modesto's were larger and juicier. Better value for money spent there than the ones here, which were upstaged.

We ended up with prime rib which looked a lot better than the weak measly slice for lunch that I had years ago. By the way, the potato above was the one that came with the works. The toppings sure looked really sad for a steakhouse potato.

I got suckered (by the menu) for an option with lobster tail and butter. This wasn't bad but I still think Lawry's does a better job with a more tender slow roast and possibly with better quality meat paired with a more flavoursome au jus.