Diandin Leluk, Golden Mile Complex

We noticed Diandin Leluk (#01-67/68/69, Golden Mile Complex, 5001 Beach Rd, tel : +65 6293 5101) the last time we were here at BeerThai House. A bit of Googling told us that the restaurant had been around and well known for quite some time. Since we were exploring Thai food here, why not? Their iced green tea with milk was stronger and creamier than BeerThai.

That's some deep fried catfish with mango salad. The catfish meat seemed to have been shredded and deep fried into a crispy floss cake. I'm generally not so big on something so deep fried and crispy and it was pretty much the mango that kept me going.  Couldn't say that I could actually taste fish. Now that we know, we'll just stick to the regular som tam mamuang in the future.

Their pad krapow moo was quite tasty. There was a generous portion of the minced pork, savoury with some heat from the chilli padi. I would eat this again.

This was larb muang moo or is it just larb moo? A pork salad with innards - there were bits of chopped liver, intestines and maybe kidneys. The porcine flavours were a little too heavy for us. While I could work through this, I'm pretty sure we won't be getting it again. I had been expecting that vibrant hit of lime and mint like the larb moo from Gin Khao.

We had oyster omelette too. Not too bad, but this looked more like the local variety than the ones we had seen in Bangkok.

In retrospect, BeerThai had left a deeper impression than Diandin Leluk - but I don't think I'm going to discount this place without another try.

Lunch at Adam Road Food Centre

Been quite a while since the last time I came here. We were looking for something local and frills free so Adam Road FC (2 Adam Road) was as good as any with that regard.

Saw the maggi goreng at Ibrahim Mee Stall (#01-04) and decided to try it. Yes, it is stir fried instant noodles with crinkle cut fries drizzled with mayo and cheese sauce, a fried egg and the local Indian mutton steak. A greasy carbo plate with some protein and just a tiny bit of fibre from the bits of cabbage in the fried noodles. It wasn't too bad, but I think it could have been improved with a bit more salt and heat from the spices. There was nothing about it that would make me come back for again.

Here's kambing/mutton soup from Bahrakath Mutton Soup King (#01-10). What got me interested was seeing the proprietor in the stall snip chunks of boiled mutton from a large hunk to be put into the soup. Mutton that was tender. The soup was not bad -  I thought that the fat from the the lamb might have been well emulsified in it resulting in creaminess. The bread they had was dense and absorbed the broth pretty well. I'm definitely coming back again - I see brain, tripe and tongue on the menu.

I'm pretty surprised that I survived this without a post lunch coma!

A carrot cake breakfast from Choh Dee Place

Choh Dee Place is a local coffee shop (Blk 233 Yishun Street 21) in case anyone was wondering. I haven't had carrot cake for ages and decided to get a plate of black and white. This was actually pretty good if a little expensive. A portion of sweet and savoury with some heat from the chilli.

Ramen Gallery Takumen, Circular Road

This was my first visit to Ramen Gallery Takumen (66 Circular Road). The concept behind the shop was the feature of multiple offerings from different ramen-ya under a single roof. With regards to that particular concept, I had always been curious as to how it had worked and I found out today. It is as advertised but the shop wasn't run by the actual folks behind the respective brands. It was manned by a couple of Hokkien speaking aunties. So I'm guessing that all they do behind the counter is cook the noodles and everything else is made either from a central kitchen somewhere or imported ready for use with minimal preparation.

Isn't this place a little pricey for almost instant noodles?

Anyways, here's a bowl from Bigiya, a Michelin Tokyo Bib Gourmand winner. The more interesting of the bunch in my opinion. This bowl featured a fish and chicken broth with yuzu and had wheat noodles. My expectations were accordingly inched up because of their accolade (I should have known, right?), so a fair assessment would be that I was a little disappointed. I suppose I had been expecting a more of the yuzu flavour than just a hint and also better standards for their ajitama.  It wasn't a bad bowl per se, just nothing to get excited over or come back for again. On the other hand, the cheese gyozas were tasty.

Otoro katsu from Suigei Sake Salon

Suigei Sake Salon has a new teishoku set for lunch. One with otoro katsu! The side dishes included in this set were minced crab and sazae. No kegani croquette. Like their other lunch orders, it is limited to 5 sets a day.

The meat of the tuna was lightweight and tender. Amongst the condiments to be used for the otoro katsu, I felt the accompanying mustard and salt together were the better. Not so much the tonkatsu sauce.

Because the kegani croquette did not come with the lunch, we ordered it as an add on anyway. There was dessert, we took the pumpkin pudding again because the other option which was soya bean pudding didn't sound as good.

Lucca's Trattoria, Robertson Walk

Really? The year is just halfway through and Wine & Dine has already officially decided that this (#01-12 Robertson Walk, 11 Unity Street) was one of the top restaurants for 2016? I'm sure we can do better, no? Little wonder my regard for the publication has dipped progressively throughout the years.  

Food was ok, but I'm not sure Lucca's Trattoria was deserving of that accolade. I have little idea too what is that Lucca's style of cuisine that the restaurant claims to serve. Does Lucca even have their own cuisine type? Most of the menu items could be found in most of the other Italian restaurants around. I'll admit some of the stuff were inventive takes, but.... Lucca's cuisine.... really?

Service was brusque and superficial. Didn't know why the waitress even bothered asking how the food was when all we got in return was a blank stare. She didn't looked like she cared, only that she asked. Pretty sure that she wasn't going to bother to feedback to the kitchen.

That's their Caprese. Not exactly a showcase of the restaurant's capability. Except of one to import produce and perhaps, a bit of fanciful plating.

We had a shot at their Gorgonzola e Frutta pizza. Gorgonzola, dried prunes, dates and apricots. Sounded like my thing. Sounded' was the operative word. What was wrong with this picture you might wonder? Well, the pie glaringly lacked the mottled blue bits for one with Gorgonzola. While some of the flavour from the cheese were present, they were at the middle of the pizza. Did I just imply stinginess? You betcha ass I just did. A good half of it was nothing but crust and tomato paste. 

The chicken liver and bacon pasta with Marsala sauce sounded like it might have been good as well. The sauce oddly reminded me of those found in the pork and potato with onion stir fry that my parents used to do. Very Asian kind of flavours which I did not expect coming from a fortified wine sauce and butter. Their bacon was neither salty not smoky. Hell I couldn't even taste any of the pepper. While I couldn't say that I disliked this, I would not order it again. I had a hard time trying to reconcile that taste with the word 'Italian'.

Old House (老屋), Neil Road

We've passed by this shop (25 Neil Road, tel : +65 6223 1633) numerous times and have been intrigued by the "dinosaur prawn noodles" that they advertise at the shop front. I was of course under no illusions about the description. Anything that isn't at least the size of those Thai river prawns doesn't deserve to be called dinosaur prawn noodles and I was pretty sure these weren't.  

I was right about them. But the broth was intense from the crustacean flavours and pork bone. There was the aroma of pepper amidst the flavours and each mouthful left the lips glazed with grease. Prawns were pretty tender but the pork ribs weren't anything to write home about. At $15, it was also rather small portions.

What was unexpectedly good was their white lor mee. The creamy broth was sweet from the cabbage accented by just a little bit of smokiness from the scorched thin strips of pork belly. The chewy noodles were just what I was looking for. I'd come back just for this alone.

We ordered steamed sting ray topped with garlic and chilli. While I couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that this was frozen meat because of the odd texture, the ray was actually pretty tasty. It also bestowed upon us dragon's breath. Hahaha!

Sap Thai Food, Amoy Street Food Centre

Wow, the food was not bad at all from Sap Thai Food (#01-58 Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road). Their som tam mamuang was refreshingly tasty from the lime and fish sauce, boosted with those perspiration inducing chilli padi. Great textures from the toasted whole peanuts, fragrant thin strips of crunchy mango and things turned up a notch after I added some of those crushed peanuts and sugar. This mango salad packed more punch than the one from Gin Khao. I'd eat it again in a heartbeat.

The plate below is their fried Thai basil MaMa noodles. Yes, they're exactly those delicious chrome packet toasted instant noodles, stir fried with some krapow gai and topped with a fried egg. It's a pity they don't do pork here and these guys don't open in the weekends.

Wrap & Roll and the Obama Set

I haven't been to Wrap & Roll (#B3-19 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn, tel : +65 6509 1555) because I had never been sure if the place was worth the time even though I've been curious about them. But I saw this Obama set which had apparently been created in response to a shared picture of the man having bún chả with Anthony Bourdain in Hanoi. Low plastic stool, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer? Maybe not quite there from Wrap & Roll, but someone had been fast to capitalize on that frozen moment in time. 

But as the kind wait staff had pointed out, nobody's getting the bún chả that the POTUS and Bourdain had been having. The portions that they had whipped up here weren't quite the kind that one would get in Vietnam and there was seriously way too little bún. But the sweet grilled pork was delicious with flavours that were quite akin to our local satay.

We had a gỏi xoài tôm khô. How do I even pronounce that? That really tasty mango salad with fish sauce and chilli, bits of dried shrimp, peanuts and laksa leaves?! 

And then a pretty enjoyable cơm sườn nướng. How does one pronounce this again? Again tasty pork chops that might have been marinated in the same stuff as the grilled pork from their bún chả. Loved the egg pudding on the side.

Lunch at Nogawa Japanese Restaurant

It's been quite a long while since the last time we were here for lunch at Nogawa (#03-25 Concorde Hotel Singapore, 100 Orchard Rd., tel : +65 6732 2911). 8 years to be precise - I didn't realise so much time had passed since then. This hotel which the restaurant is located was once known as Le Meridian from back then.

There was some sort of special omakase lunch set for the month. I wouldn't know if it was really omakase as the term intended but there was a variety and the food was prettily plated. The largest items from the tray was grilled sake (salmon) and sakura ebi kakiage that had mushrooms.

The set came with three types of appetizers. A sawagani tackling a ball of fried pumpkin concealing a chestnut core, some pickled vegetable which I couldn't identify and a fried ayu. Look at the burnt looking leaf on the right. It was carved out of steamed pumpkin.

There was a little pot of dobinmushi with maitake mushroom.

And five negiri sushi.

The closure for that set was some yuzu sorbet and oolong tea.

We also tried Nogawa's sukiyaki set

This was rather good. The thinly sliced beef was of good quality and delicious.

We ordered a asari and seaweed tempura which was done with a crisp batter. The flavours of the seaweed came through nicely in that batter and there were slices of mushroom in the tempura to make them "meatier" if you know what I mean.

An interesting looking rock. Or not.

The English menu describes this as steamed foie gras but it's a foie gras mizore mushi. Pretty smoky tasting and the foie was much more cooked than what we had expected.

And testing Google Map embed.

More desserts from Ji De Chi (記得吃)

So we came back for more desserts. That pink stuff up there was soya bean curd flavoured with rose. In essence (pun intended), the taste was a little bit like bandung. The bowl at the bottom was double boiled milk pudding with durian puree. See the stuff that's peeking out of the fissure in the middle of the bowl. In retrospect, while it didn't taste too bad, it wasn't such a good idea. The durian puree as flavourful as it was pretty much drowned out anything the milk pudding had to offer so the whole bowl tasted pretty much of just the fruit.

Hong Kong Street Lung Kee (香港街龙记), Ang Mo Kio Ave. 5

This cze char stall (Blk 151, Ang Mo Kio Ave 5) was previously Hong Kong Street Chun Kee, but it seems that they have rebranded themselves. I'm pretty sure little beyond the name has changed but I honestly have little to go by apart from their XO fish bee hoon tasting the same as I can remember. We tried a few dishes which we hadn't before from the stall. Their prawn paste chicken was competently fried - little residual grease and moist meat on the mid wings but I felt would have benefitted from a little more of those prawn paste. Sweet and sour pork was competent and it seems that these guys are upping the game with their rendition of the three egg spinach. This rendition has minced pork and wolf berries and the flavour of the broth was pretty impressive. Certainly a departure from the traditional lightweight version.

Simply Wrapps

Believe it or not, I've been wanting to try the wraps here for some time. I'm pretty sure it was because I've strolled past their shop so many times looking into those bright colours of seduction and soon enough, the repetitive play of the luscious ingredients have insidiously insinuated to my subconsciousness suggesting "come get some....you know you want to...". Yes please.  Like a moth to a flame.

Actually, they aren't bad. I kinda liked the Iron Rich wrap with the feta cheese, raisins and beans. It tasted a lot more satisfying than a fruity spinach edamame roll which I concocted.