The grilled aubergine and hummus sandwich from Sarnies

There...... trying out a meatless sandwich from Sarnies for the first time. I was thinking that those aubergines might have been freshly grilled but it turned out to be chilled instead, making the sandwich oddly refreshing? Especially when everything else including the roasted capsicum were chilled as well. The only gripe I suppose was while I could see the hummus that was spread onto the bread, I couldn't quite taste it in the midst of all the flavours. Still I thought this was pretty enjoyable. Would have been even better if there was more of that feta cheese to go around though.

Update on 18/10/2015

So we sat near the kitchen today so everything looked a lot more blue. The sandwich today had extra feta cheese which was requested for. There was indeed more feta than the last time, but they were lumped together in the centre that the flavours concentrated in the middle while the edges of the sandwich didn't have any. Speaking of more, there was a lot more hummus as well. Each bite was oozing hummus around the edges of the bread. The greens were totally different from the last round.

The verdict was, it's been inconsistently made. There appears to be more people at the sandwich counter these days, but they gave me the impression weren't too serious about what they were doing. I hope this doesn't signify a downfall in their standards.

Casse Croûte, Park West Condominium

Nice little outpost cloistered within a private residential estate (8 Jalan Lempeng, Park West Condominium, #02-02 The Club House, tel : +65 9630 4526) by Patrick Heuberger, formerly of Au Petit Salut and Le Bistrot Du Sommelier. I had never really gotten familiar with his former bistro but the latter, I liked so we made the trip down to have some of his food.

Waiting time was spent on some charcuterie. Most of them - like the duck rillette and the pig head terrine were made in house. Which was the point because as much as they have been derived from traditional recipes, it was unique to this place.

We tried their house made andouillette, pan fried and served with mustard.

The spiced pig intestine and tripe stuffed sausage was delicious. People tend to classify these items as an acquired taste. We've acquired such a taste a long time ago and thus enjoyed all of it. The grind of the stuffings were more fine than those served at L'Angelus.

Their ribeye au poivre was delicious. The meat was a nice shade of medium rare as requested for, crusted with a salted peppercorn crust and paired with an outstanding brandy cream sauce. The sauce was so good that we simply had to help monsieur Heuberger wipe down his cocotte with an extra order of baguette. I'd order this again in a heartbeat.

With all the meat, we needed to balance off the dinner with some vegetables.

And some profiteroles to end. By the way, Le Loups dans la Bergerie was a pretty decent bottle. Enough body to be paired with steak, not too tannic and relatively inexpensive.

Kanda Wadatsumi, Tras Street

Here's a barachirashi lunch with an additional side of a grilled ayu from Kanda Wadatsumi (50 Tras Street, tel : +65 6221 6264). The rice bowl was rather small and honestly not very impressive at all if not for the uni. We also didn't quite understand not having vinegared rice with the barachirashi. Apparently, they provide a small pot of bonito broth which one could use on the rice like a sort of chazuke. But really, with such a small bowl, how much rice did they honestly expect us to have left for that purpose. 

While it could be argued that one could top up the lunch with an option for zensai/dessert which comes with unlimited refills of rice, I'm not sure the correct idea is to expect everyone to do so. Fortunately, one could easily find a similar and more satisfying option down at Sakari Sushi which was also more straight forward; and in my not so humble opinion, tastier as well just a few literal minutes walk away.

The grilled ayu was quite good. Loved the bitter sweet innards. But it is a little difficult to convince ourselves to come back on the merit of a pricey small grilled fish.

Boca, Bukit Pasoh Road

Don't remember having had Portuguese food before. Not even when I was in Malacca ages ago or at Macau so Boca (6 Bukit Pasoh Rd., tel : +65 6221 0132) sounded interesting for something a little different. Well, maybe it's not all so different.

We started off with some of their bread. The basket came with three types - a regular one, one with pine nuts and the shadowy looking pieces are squid ink with sweet potato. The latter two were good. The former of the latter was fragrant with the nut (that good) and the latter of the latter tasted slightly crustacean. Not what I expected of squid ink, but it was quite nice. Especially with their very fruity EVOO. 

This was their bacalao fritters. I'm not sure if there are good representatives of Portuguese bacalao but they're quite different from the Italian ones. I'm not talking about the fried part. The mixture in the cod was probably just of different ingredients. If you wanted to know, I didn't think these were impressive. 

What got our attentions was their bife à café, or coffee steak. A seared medium rare tenderloin in cognac and espresso cream sauce. The experience of each mouthful felt like a teaser of a strong latte just before it reaches the lip before it transforms into a savoury velvet sauce in the mouth. We liked it. Wiped the plate clean with bread. A little expensive though.

The coffee steak came with almond rice. This was nicely done with the flavours of the nut infused into the rice. With a little bit of salt, it would have been awesome. The rice did have the aroma of almond.

The other interesting looking item on menu was their bread porridge. Made with bread obviously - doused in olive oil and seafood stock and folded in with bits of shrimp as far as we could tell. Quite nice, should be eaten hot or warm. Don't wait for it to cool.

On hindsight, what we ordered were a little too heavy on the carbs. But now we know.

The Hainanese chicken rice stall at Tangs Market

As ordinary as this might have looked, this chicken rice was pretty good (Tangs Plaza Basement 1, 310 Orchard Road). Rice was flavourful enough that one could simply eat them on their own or with the chilli sauce which was pretty competent too. Their roasted chicken drumstick had meat that was smooth and delicious while the soup that they had provided on the side was real chicken soup rather than the sorry excuse for cabbage broth that many stalls try to pass off as soup. I'm definitely coming back again.

The large butadon from Butahage

Here's the large butadon from Butahage featuring what turned out to be a chewier US beef in comparison to the more tender Premier Japanese option. I'm definitely sticking to the Japanese one in the future since that was noticeably much more tender, fat laced and flavourful. There was so much contrast in the flavour that I had even suspected that the glaze that they used for both meats were different.

Chicken rice from The Ship

I had heard about the existence of the chicken rice from The Ship some years ago but have never had the chance to try it since the only time that it was available was during Thursday lunches. So today it finally happened. It seemed that almost every neighbouring table is either having this or their fish soup noodles.

To be fair, it was a competent chicken rice. I would have preferred a bit more flavour in the rice but being lightweight meant that I could decisively use more of the chilli which was lime-y and pleasant. The amount of chicken that came with it was the equivalent of at least two regular servings (or more depending) than if you had gotten chicken rice from a regular shop.

While this is not going to give me yearnings like Sin Kee does, it was good enough to be an anytime fall back option. A go to that I wouldn't think twice about. Assuming that I happen to be here on Thursday afternoons and felt like spending $12.90 for a chicken rice lunch. Oh, it's a dollar twenty for an additional bowl of that rice there.

Dessert today was a cream puff.

And perhaps one last Shashlik

Got swept up with the rest of the lemmings and ended up at Shashlik for lunch for another taste of their shashlik before they are closed for good as reported in the news. I had actually read about this online which happened to have a writer who's more imaginative than factual, describing the trolleys in the restaurant as rickety. The trolleys that are in the restaurant look anything but rickety to me.

But anyways, it's an opportunity for a bowl of their localized borsch soup with an extra scoop of sour cream and their really delicious chicken livers with caper sauce. These are the items that I'll be missing if the restaurant closes. The actual shashlik was fine if not fancy. A flavour of nostalgia which one cannot quite get elsewhere here.

Fei Lou Porridge, Telok Blangah Crescent Market & Food Centre

Although the name goes by Fei Lou Porridge (#01-116 Telok Blangah Crescent Food Centre, 11 Telok Blangah Crescent), this shop serves much more than just porridge.

The stall does serve up a variety of porridges. This one that I had comes with ham and century egg. The texture was smooth and the flavours lightweight with a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil. Comfort food it was.

Here's some boiled cabbage with cuttlefish. This was nicely done too. The cabbage were just soft enough with a light residual crunch and the flavours of the cuttlefish permeated the dish. The only thing we didn't like were the fried shallots. It came from a plastic pack which meant that apart from a little texture, there wasn't much flavour to speak of. This dish would have been much better served without those shallots.

Fei Lou does poached chicken as well. This came on a bed of toasted peanuts which was a nice addition. The meat was pretty tender but the skin was a tad dimply and for some parts, too thick for my preferences. Decently done but otherwise, nothing to raise brows over.

I read that they were famous for their deboned fried chicken wings and since this was a first visit, we tried them out. I don't think this works for us. This was greasier than I had been hoping for and the flavour of the batter wasn't my thing. Another reminder telling us that long queues sometimes doesn't mean what we think it means.

On the side, the braised tau kee (dried bean curd sheets) with pig stomach was excellent. Both the bean curd and tripe were suitably tender from all the braising sauce.

And because there was bee hoon, we ordered some and it actually quite nice. Both with and without the chilli sauce on the side. The texture had a good bite and the flavours were present. Best of all, it didn't make me feel overly greased up.

Both proprietors of the stall looked dour, worked quietly and never did I see them speak to each other. I don't think telepathy is at play here though.

Kaiware Japanese Restaurant, TripleOne Somerset

shiro maguro don

some pretty smooth seafood dumplings

gindara mentaikoyaki

I found out about this place (#02-15 TripleOne Somerset, 111 Somerset Road, tel : +65 6735 2345) from a tip off. The location was actually where Ikkousha used be in the same building. Would not have gotten my attention to if not for that fact that I had been informed that Peter Ho - formerly of Wasabi Tei and Chikuwa Tei, runs this joint. I never understood the reasons for his patterns of running restaurants and then leaving them. But I'm not here to understand his business model. I'm just visiting for a hit of nostalgia.

There's a shiro maguro don on menu here. They only response they could give to my inquiry was oil fish but I'm pretty convinced it's escolar. So proceed to eat with caution and responsibility. The bone white slices of the fish were smooth and buttery, comparable to chutoro. There's some rather tasty seafood shu mai which I've never seen them do before and a very decent gindara mentaikoyaki to be had too. One can even get a similar cod hotpot just like the ones they used to do that came with a fantastic lemon/chilli/soy  sauce dip.

Nobu-ya (信屋), Middle Road

baigai

soy braised hijiki

 what the menu describes as grilled squid tentacles and guts

Miyazaki beef tataki 

tamagoyaki 

 buta kakuni

tempura hamo (pike eel)

tempura maitake 

suji nikomi (soy braised beef tendon stew) 

oden mori

If I had to gripe, I thought the maitake tempura had a bit too much batter and was more grease logged than I liked. That kinda robbed the mushroom of its delicate flavours. But otherwise, I think we rather enjoyed all the other food that we had at Nobu-ya (#01-05 Fortune Centre, 190 Middle Road, tel : +65 6338 3450). Special mention goes to the baigai, the rich livery broth that the squids came in and those braised pork belly that simply fell apart even from the chopstick. Will be back.