Now Noodles +, Square 2

I guess the main reason why we headed down to Now Noodles + (#02-65 Square 2, 10 Sinaran Drive, tel : +65 6251 0177) was for their century egg mee tai mak. Mee tai mak is also known as lao shu fen in Mandarin or lou shi fun in Cantonese which translates to rat noodles or more accurately rat's tails noodles. Because they look somewhat like rat's tails. I grew up knowing them as bee chai bak. The convolutions of dialects but things are as such.

Anyways, it was ok. I've heard it being compared to the X.O. rendition that was previously served at The Canteen by Les Amis but I personally think this has got nothing on that. It's unusual for sure, didn't taste too bad but needs to cost less to convince me to come back. I think that's something missing from this bowl of rat's tail noodles. It needs a bit more salt perhaps and the flavours feel like a heap of good intention with no soul.

The nameless noodle stall at 40 Beo Crescent

This noodle stall was from the same coffee shop (40 Beo Crescent) as the Beo Crescent nameless Hainanese curry rice. Old school with chewy mee pok tossed in a prickly chilli sauce.

The sui gao are minced pork and prawn dumplings wrapped in their skin. No wood ear fungus, water chestnuts nor mushrooms.

Tasty in an old school way because many stalls did them that way back in the day.

The nameless noodle stall also sold chicken claw noodles. Flavourful and tender slurp off the bone chicken claw where the taste strangely reminded me of wet pork floss. Pretty competent, made delicious breakfast.

A couple of interesting milks from Mustafa

You read that right. It does say 'Camelicious' and it is indeed camel milk. How did it taste? It is more similar to goat milk than cow's. There was a certain "meaty" flavour but nothing that was off putting. It was actually pretty refreshing chilled from the fridge. We bought this natural flavoured one because we had wanted to taste how it was going to be like before attempting the saffron and date flavours which the supermarket also had. That'll be the next time.

The other thing which I've been getting from Mustafa is cardamom milk. It's cardamom flavoured evaporated milk for use with our caffeine fuelled beverages. Actually helped me through a mistake purchase of the Nescafe Original freeze dried coffee when I was supposed to be getting the Classic instead. The Original is pretty lousy stuff so having that cardamom flavour kinda made up for it.

Man Man, Keong Saik Road

Hear ye. The Teppei Group have advanced themselves and set up a new Japanese unagi shop Man Man (#01-01, 1 Keong Saik Road, tel : +65 6222 0678). By Japanese unagi, we're specifically referring to eels that are sourced from Japan (from what I've read, a "respected unagi farm in Aichi prefecture") rather than China or wherever else they're sourced from. Imported live into tanks, freshly slaughtered and charcoal grilled. Making Man Man the second Japanese unagi shop here after the pricey Chikuyotei. 

How was it? Pretty impressive I must admit. The unagi had a nice caramelized surface with a healthy char from the grilling with meat that was fall apart tender. That's the kimo don which included a portion of the eel liver. There's even a little root of wasabi on the side for you to grate. Considering that the seating spaces are a little small and the tables just that little shaky, it required some finesse to do the grating. But I'm not complaining. Looking forward to returning assuming that the inevitable queues that will find their way there doesn't kill it for me. 

Tsukiji Sushi Takewaka, Japan Food Town @ Wisma Atria

Tsukiji Sushi Takewaka's (#04-43, Wisma Atria, 435 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6262 3247) claim to credit is that the fish is imported directly from Tsujiki Market in Tokyo and that their product uses only the freshest of ingredients. That's what they all say, don't they? So nothing new here. Besides, some fishes go through ageing before the flavour is developed so freshness while applicable to some seafood is irrelevant to the others.

From what I've been hearing, these guys are originally from Tsujiki Market and have been there for about three decades and this is their first outpost outside of that shop.

The menu listed this as crab innards so we confirmed if it was kani miso before ordering. This stuff was awesome with a deep sweet crustacean oceanic flavour.

That's the isobe tempura Camembert. Seaweed wrapped Camembert cheese tempura. The batter was quite light and crispy.  

It's matsutake season and there's matsutake tempura nigiri which we thought could be interesting. This was the cheapest option since the next up which was for a serving of matsutake tempura was priced considerably higher. For $20 a pop, this was more expensive than most wagyu. The flavours were a letdown considering how much each piece costed. These tasted nothing like how I remembered them. 

We took the plunge and went for the maguro zanmai set which involves the common variations of hon maguro. Akami, chutoro, otoro, an aburi toro nigiri, a negitoro gunkan and some toro maki. Tuna was pretty good, but kinda expensive for the portions which we inhaled rather easily. I think we went a little overboard tonight chalking up quite a large bill in the process. Large enough to get pretty decent omakase in some places. Ouch!

Marutama Ramen, Liang Court

I've only eaten Marutama Ramen a couple of times in the past at their shop in Clark Quay Central. I recall being quite impressed the first time I've had it. I thought it might be a good thing to re-visit, this time at Liang Court (#02-01/02 Liang Court, 177 River Valley Rd). Was just thinking to myself what could go wrong with the one in Liang Court right?

The noodles were much softer today. While it wasn't soggy, it didn't have the bite that I remember. Not to mention my preferred harigane. I'm guessing it has been tuned to local preferences. The broth was also much less robust than I recalled. The taste was not much like how I remembered it. While it wasn't bad per se, the bowl didn't quite pack the punch from those first couple of times. The only thing that was still impressive was their shoyu infused ajitama. Did they change or have I? Menya Takeichi blows this out of the water now.

Face To Face Noodle House (面对面), City Square Mall

I admit to coming here with tempered expectations but these guys were (#02-23/24 City Square Mall, 180 Kitchener Rd, tel : +65 6509 0182) actually rather good. The wiry Sarawak kolo mee was fragrant from the fried shallots and those spicy bits of chilli things that they had provided on the side really elevated things. Now the char siew - I wouldn't say that their dark caramelized char siew is one of the better representative of that style around but I suppose it was all forgivable. Has anyone noticed that their fried wantons tasted exactly like fried spring rolls?

We tried a bowl of their house specialty pan mee which the menu described as having a rich broth. It's not so rich. It was a little herbal and it tasted a little light. But empty the hot and sour sauce they provide on the side with the fried anchovies and stir it up with the soft boiled egg in the broth - it's a different beast with a kickass heat.

Sin Kee Famous Cantonese Chicken Rice, Holland Drive

My previous visits to Sin Kee back when there were located at Mei Lin Food Centre had always been on weekdays so this is the first weekend trip down to their stall. Their current stall (Chang Chen Mee Wah Coffeeshop, 40 Holland Drive).

I guess I'm glad we came down since this kinda reminded me why I liked them in the first place. The light yet flavourful rice and those chunky slurp off the bone tender boiled chicken. Skilful strokes of the cleaver that leaves no bone fragments behind as one slurps off those meat. Chilli not necessary but something that's a nice to have for me. 

I'm not going to comment if standards have remained the same because I haven't had them for quite a while and there isn't a metric for it. Assuming that I haven't been imagining it, there seemed to be something a little different from the past. I'm not sure what but it's not changing my opinion of them.

By the way, the teh c in this coffee shop is pretty good. 

Aini Muslim Food, Holland Drive Food Centre

This was a random order of lontong for breakfast encouraged by a short queue at the front of the stall (#02-14 Holland Drive Market & Food Centre, 44 Holland Drive). It turned out to be pretty damn good. The vegetables were stewed soft, gravy had a good amount of lemak in it and the heat was respectable. In spite of appearances, there wasn't really so much of that gravy in the bowl. Guess what? There was actually some tung hoon in all of that. 

I'm gonna give their other items a go the next time.

OSAKA きっちん (Osaka Kitchen), Japan Food Town @ Wisma Atria

This (#04-46 Wisma Atria, 435 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6262 3271) was the teppanyaki/okonomiyaki joint down in Japan Food Town. Both of which are largely what their menu are comprised of, featured prominently in their omakase set and are popularly associated as food from Osaka. Here's a look at their $80 omakase with add ons.

That's potato salad with black pepper and spicy pickled Japanese cucumber. Chilled starters of the omakase set.

After which was the first item from the teppan. Omelette with pork belly. The thinly sliced pork belly were seared on the teppan and spatula ripped to shreds.

The shreds of the pork belly were then placed in the omelette....

...and the omelette was folded.

Into a roll it became.

Served with mayo and their okonomiyaki sauce. This was not bad.

These teppan grilled jumbo asparaguses, add ons outside of the omakase were tender and crunchy. 

Then came the grilled avocado with melted cheese. A slice of avocado was placed on the teppan with dried shirasu and mayo to cook for some time before shredded mozzarella is piled on them. The melted mozzarella formed a crust which toasted and browned. Mine looked like some strange butterfly. The strange butterfly tasted very good. 

Following that was the goma tofu. We had been assuming that this would be just tofu made with sesame as the name might have implied. The texture of the teppan grilled tofu was more akin to mochi, very wobbly and just slightly chewy unlike regular tofu. It was served with a little bit of sweet grated wasabi on the side.

Next up was stir fried cabbage and gyu suji. The cabbage was seared on the teppan before the stewed beef and tendons were ladled over for an a la plancha. 

They were served with a sprinkle of shichimi. Likely because of the spices the beef had been stewed with, the flavours tasted Chinese. That was an observation, not criticism.

Their prawns and scallops were competently done. Both were sweet and tender.

The squid tentacles were an add on. There wasn't so much searing on the squid since it appeared to be just a short stir fry. A longer time on the teppan might have coaxed a lot more flavours out.

Then came the ohmi gyu. It was flambeed with some alcohol.

For a moment, a small towering inferno appeared almost as quickly as it disappeared.

We ended up with delicious, tender and disintegrate in the mouth cubes of seared ohmi gyu after the short display of pyrotechnics.

The okonomiyaki which had been cooking on the teppan for about half the time we had been eating arrived as the last course. Well, the last before the dessert that is. The pancake had a base of fragrant spirals of pork belly and the insides were creamy. This was nicely done.

Dessert was yuzu sorbet.

Has anyone ever had almonds coated coconut?

I'm thinking probably not eh? Well, neither have I nor anyone else.

Three Little Pigs, Tiong Bahru Plaza

What's up with these places in Tiong Bahru Plaza serving their sweets before the rest of the food? Three Little Pigs (#01-106, Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road) seem to have also scrambled their food serving sequence as well by using order chits. Should I even wonder how service processes or the tech that goes behind it has no common sense human touch integrated behind them to support the users that very obviously have none and/or couldn't care less.

The menu, has changed from the last time. 

That's their Thai tea cake. Yes, it was the first item that was served. Don't waste your money on it. It came so fast that you knew it never went into the oven before being assembled. It's just sweet and didn't have much of the said tea flavour. Totally shattered my imaginings of flowing molten Thai tea from a hot moist cake.

Their pork skewer rice was quite good. The kailan on the side was tender and sweet and the pork in skewers were fatty and moist with a sweet marinade that is not unlike satay. Even the spicy sour sauce on the side with that little bit of coriander flavour was appetizingly delicious. Portions were kinda small though.

The most memorable thing from their pork chop rice for me was the accompanying sauce which they had ladled over the rice. It tasted like it had some meat juice and a lot of butter in it. We asked for extras. That said, the pork chops were pretty decent - kinda reminiscent of those from Din Tai Fung.

Grain Traders, 100AM

I've been wanting to check out Grain Traders (#01-03/04 100AM, 100 Tras Street) since I've heard about them opening up at Market Street. Never made my way there. I was kinda glad that this outlet at Tanjong Pagar opened since it was a lot more convenient.

It's a plate meal approach where one picks a protein, a starch/grain and some vegetables along with sauce/toppings. The food tasted pretty good. Mushrooms were flavourful, butternut squash sweet and creamy, coconut curry was fragrant and had some nice heat and blah blah. Maybe the pulled pork was a little stringy and boring. What did not work out for me was $16 for small portions. 

I've nothing against paying more for food. What irks me is inadequacy. In this case, portion was a little small for a supposed plate meal. I fail to see the point of eating here when I'll have to go somewhere else after to grab a snack. So as much as I enjoyed the food, I don't think I'm coming back with any regularity.