Nasi lemak from Toast Box

I'm afraid I'm about to do the inevitable comparison again with a recent eat for this nasi lemak from Toast Box (#01-110 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road). I thought this wasn't too bad at all. What could have been improved was a little more salt for the flavouring in the rice but it was otherwise, personally, a more satisfying eat than The Coconut Club. Well, it's a bit more satisfying. This one had nasi lemak sambal which wasn't too shabby but possibly because of the savouriness, the other sambal which is normally reserved for their laksa works with this rice nicely. They could also work on toasting their peanuts.

Not that this was that much cheaper given all considerations.

More from Sari Ratu

We were so taken in previously by the curried beef tendon from Sari Ratu that we came back for more of them. And more of other items as well.

Other items like their begedil/pergedel (eggwashed and deep fried potato patties) and telor dadar (omelette).

They do a very nice chunky sambal goreng too. The cubes of bean curd and tempeh were much larger than what I'm used to seeing in most Malay cooked food stalls.

And tender sweet brinjals.

These are their sambal hijau/merah. Green and red chilli....well, salsa would be a rather accurate word to describe them rather than sauce. The red chilli had an amazing depth of smokiness and much less heat than I had imagined while the green chilli was a little more tangy. Both were great with the brinjal, begedil and white rice. They charged a dollar fifty for it and it's worth every cent.

So other than the starfruit juice, we finished up with some tel botol. I've seen these bottled tea around before but never had them for some reasons. Today's a first time. These tea are unexpectedly smoky tasting.

Eat Chicken Rice, Koufu @ Cineleisure Orchard

At $8.90, I couldn't resist trying the truffle chicken rice from Eat Chicken Rice (Koufu Food Court, B1-01 Cineleisure Orchard, 8 Grange Road) and finding out for myself what it was all about. Even though I had some idea how it would probably taste like. I suppose I was spot on about the truffle that they used which was of the jarred variety and that the chicken while tender would not be slurp off the bone tender since these are the smaller non-GM-mutants - which most of us aren't so used to having. The chilli was lime-y, garlick-y and a little ginger-y at the same time while packing a respectable heat. Soup on the side was also kinda nice.

So what did this all mean? I felt there were too much flavours going on for the truffle chicken rice. Wanting to taste the truffle meant no chilli and the chilli was actually kinda nice, so something got plain wasted there. I didn't think it made much sense to have the soy/sesame sauce ladled over the plate that contained the rice since things would definitely get wet and mushy. Also I've had $4 chicken rice, good chicken rice by the way, in town that felt like it had more meat that was more satisfying so I'm not driven by much at all to pay $8.90 unless something was truly compelling.

So what did that all mean again? I'm not sure. I might not mind giving them another go if I'm there, but I don't think they would be worth any special trips down to the basement of Cineleisure.

Singapore Blond Ale by Archipelago Brewery

I haven't had anything from Archipelago Brewery for a long time. Not that I could specifically recall in the last decade anyway. Their business model have obviously expanded over the years and their brews are distributed throughout a number of watering holes and restaurants. So I came across a tacky poster promoting their Singapore Blond Ale featuring calamansi and pandan leaves. Really?

Maybe the finesse the brewers are trying to incorporate into craft beers don't always work for me. I'm reading sweet grain, sweet malt, pine, spices, yeast, coriander spice and mango sweet. Reading from somewhere else that is. I think that's all bull. Personally it's bitter yeasty and sour. A more genteel Tiger perhaps. 

Not quite getting the pandan and nothing on the calamansi unless the sour is all they managed from the fruit. For the ingredients list that have made marketing, I expect the flavours to be discernible or it is otherwise deemed a failure in my books. This is a beer - any subtleties are lost beyond the first couple of sips. And to me, many of these pretentious craft brews are but swill with attached psychosis.

Well, first and last glass with the local blond I'm sure.

Buttermilk fried chicken plate and country breakfast from Clinton Street Baking Co.

These Southern styled buttermilk fried chicken from Clinton Street Baking Company were pretty good. While these things aren't exactly commonplace in this part of the world and I have little frame of reference, I could judge them by the nicely flavoured crisp on the exterior, the lack of excessive residual grease and the tender meat that was on the bird. Just good fried chicken if a little expensive. That corn bread with jalapeño was nice.

Unfortunately, their country breakfast was disappointing. Their biscuits were shockingly dull - tasted like something that was mass produced. I had honestly expected better biscuits than the kind at Popeyes. Meat Smith sure whipped the ass of this one. My over easy eggs hadn't the yolks I wanted!

A Christmas dinner at Keisuke Tokyo

This was the first time we had noticed Keisuke Tokyo do something like a Christmas special. A 3 course dinner which I had initially mistaken the main course for a stew when it was actually a ramen. A ramen that possibly brings  Takeda-san back to the days of doing French food.

Starter was rice with shoyu marinated egg yolk and black truffle that was shaven at the table. While those truffles lent their aroma, I personally felt the star of this was the marinated yolk which brought the richness and the salt to the dish. I'd eat this again easily.

This was the bouillabaisse ramen that was the second highlight. A thick lobster flavoured ramen broth, much thicker than their previous ise ebi tonkotsu from their Four Seasons outlet, with seafood imported from Niigata. Lobster, pan fried sea bream and abalone. The thick broth was rich and robust with flavour as opposed to the accompanying seafood which were more delicate tasting. There was even some garlicky mashed potatoes at the bottom and little bits of charred bacon in the broth.

Dessert was a Shine Muscat blancmange with mint. This was quite sweet and we were glad for the small portions.

Hot oyster tamago toji soba from Yomoda Soba

This was an especially satisfying bowl of soba from Yomoda Soba. I think it might have been done as part of the Christmas specials for Japan Food Town. Little oysters in egg and soba in a lightly sweet broth that is also flavoured by the shell fish. Just add negi and a bit of sansho and that broth springs into life in another dimension. An oyster soup for the soul if you would. I wonder if this will stay on as part of the regular menu.

Due Italian at Ramen Gallery Takumen

I had read about Due Italian some years ago on a blog that featured food in Tokyo so I was kinda surprised that the shop’s ramen turned up as an offering in Ramen Gallery Takumen. I’ve previously mentioned my thoughts on how I felt about how these guys operated, but I was curious enough about Due Italian and decided to see if it was any good.

The guy who started Due Italian is a Kazuo Ishizuka who had been honing his skills with Italian cuisine for more than a couple of decades before going into ramen. What his shop is apparently known for is his fromage ramen which features his blend of cheeses and the inclusion of sliced prosciutto with the bowl. And from what’s mentioned, the shop has been the Bib Gourmand winner for Michelin Tokyo 2015, 2016 and 2017.

So here’s a bowl of their special fromage ramen. The special as it is the practice in ramen-yas, refers to the bowl with the works. For this case, the slice of prosciutto di Parma draped over the rim of the bowl and an ajitama. The broth is chicken based shio. For a start, one gets the melted cheese over the noodles as you eat. After a while when the cheese fully melts, the shio broth becomes milky and cheesy tasting. And kinda salty right at the end.

Wanton Seng's Noodle Bar, Amoy Street

I've been wanting to try this (52 Amoy Street, tel : +65 6221 1336) for a while. A noodle bar that's doing things with our local wanton mee. This bowl was named twosome - to describe the roast pork belly and the char siew that came with the wanton noodles. Char siew that seemed to be made from exactly the same pork belly cuts as the roasted pork belly. Hmmm....

I liked it. This would be one of those successful elevation updates of our local food which did not destroy what it had traditionally represented. It tasted like a nicely done bowl of wanton mee. The roast pork was tasty with crisp crackling and I think I liked the char siew a little better. Wantons were pretty decent if a little tiny. Those egg noodles were probably the best part. They had a nice bite tossed with lard and fried shallots and whatever soy/sesame sauce they were using. Too bad their "shiok" chilli sauce wasn't much to go with. I wouldn't mind trying them again for dinner.

2it & drink, Valley Point

2it & drink (#01-01 Valley Point, 491 River Valley Road, tel : +65 6737 3001) - I couldn't understand the thought processes that came out with that name but it's a casual dining joint by Otto Ristorante. While I haven't been to Otto myself, I've heard things about them and I supposed that by virtue of that association, these guys shouldn't be too bad.

The atmosphere was really casual. Reminded me of iO Italian Osteria because of both their naming styles and the setup. It was so casual that the decorum of sequence was totally ignored when we informed them that they food can come as soon as they are ready. We were served our starters just before dessert. :p 

We had a pizza bianca special from the board for the Chrismas season. Mozzarella, goat's cheese, porcini and speck. The speck brought a nice smoky aroma to the pizza. For something that was made on order and had to go into the oven for a little while, this was surprisingly the first thing that hit our table. Not complaining, just an observation.

That's a pappardelle con salciccia from their menu. We requested for blue cheese to be added. Plus a healthy sprinkle of black pepper it made their regular tomato ragu more mellow and rich.

The bruschetta arrived last. Next to last. It's something I normally don't do because I don't have much good experiences with, but these ones had chopped octopus in the tomatoes. And whole olives. Not bad.

Because we had a very positive episode with tiramisu recently, we decided to give this one here a go. It's not bad, however the mascarpone cream to sponge finger ratio was wide.  There was a lot more of the mascarpone than the cake, but it was cake well soaked through. If only the flavour from the alcohol hit harder.

More Cameliciousness

I bought the chocolate flavour this time round. Not surprisingly, it tasted like any of the other chocolate milk out there. It's probably the most regular tasting out of the other ones which I've tried and my favourite is still the saffron one.

Nadai Fujisoba Ni-Hachi, 100AM

This was a new soba shop (#03-14 100AM, 100 Tras Street, tel : +65 6443 8827) that's part of the Itadakimasu cluster along with Numazu Uogashizushi located just beside Keisuke Tori King - which seemed to have become part of that group without having actually moved.

Besides soba and mazesoba, there's tempura to be had. Of which the tori tempura was actually pretty good. Thick, chunky yet tender pieces of freshly fried chicken. We tried a couple of their mazesoba. There was the kamo bowl featured tough pieces of duck (#disappointing) and duck meatball. The yuzu accents were welcomed and altogether, the soba was rather pleasant once the onsen tamago was mixed it but was otherwise in my opinion not as delicious as the mentai bowl. 

The Coconut Club, Ann Siang Hill

These folks (6 Ann Siang Hill, tel : +65 6635 2999) have gotten by with word of mouth and social media that they've gathered themselves quite a crowd over the weekend. It certainly helped from the curiosity angle that the place is out of reach of many and the opening hours are short. The main stay is nasi lemak - an elevated version with possibly better ingredients along with careful treatment of those ingredients in the cooking that takes this traditional rice plate beyond where it's been before. At least that was likely to be the intention.

Unfortunately, this doesn't quite cut it for me. There was coconut fragrance in the rice for sure. But - it's not rich enough, not satisfying enough. I could name a couple of places where we've had better. The basmati rice rendition from the defunct Island Cafe beats this hands down and hell, it was more enjoyable even at Nasi Lemak Kukus. So while there's a story to be told about the founders spending a couple of years finding their fresh coconut milk from their perfect hybrid of the fruit and a fair share of R&D on the recipe, the outcome was that their rice was just passable. 

Sambal's not too bad, had some shrimpy flavour. While the chicken was good frying done, the tumeric was overwhelming. Otak-otak was not bad too - looked a little like those from Muar but doesn't quite taste like one. Would I come back? Maybe just to try the cendol.