Off the Eatin’ Path with Anthony Bourdain

Having visited very recently, Anthony Bourdain is up on the press with a take on his eating experiences in Off the Eatin’ Path in New York Times.

$6.00 and 10 minutes

If you recall my mentioning earlier, I talked about the fried rice with beef from Han's. So here it is, another steaming plate of delicious stir fried carbo lunch fix topped with tfried egg. This plate has no ham and shrimps. Both were replaced by slices of beef. I liked the other one better on hindsight. The beef was in the Chinese stir fried style which didn't taste beefy at all. As far as I'm concerned, it could've been pork. 50 cents more, I was hoping for some beefiness which couldn't be found.

Paulaners Bräuhaus, Millenia Walk

Paulaners seems to be limiting their drinks to just their Ockoberfest brew lately. I'm not sure if it's a one off affair that night or it's promotion for their current brew, but it doesn't seem a bad thing. Its more robust than their lager and smoother than the heavier dark which leaves a more bitter aftertaste. Basically, a right mix in the middle between both ends of their regular brews.

We tried their sampler platter containing a few sausages (cheese knacker and I don't know what's the other) and a meatloaf over some sauerkraut. It's turned out all pretty good and meatloaf tasted like a less saltish luncheon meat/spam. I think that went for about $25 and there's actually enough meat in that plate to make a hearty meal for one.

Ten-Jyaku Japanese Sushi, Millenia Walk

First thoughts about the food here was that it was costly. The restaurant is located just next to überburger along Millenia Walk. We got interested enough to check it out. The interior did make an interesting business lunch/dinner location if one needed to make impressions and your pockets have some depth. On top of that, there were waitresses clad in kimono and wooden clogs.

I had not heard of this place until recently when I passed by on the way to the next door. Also no idea if they were any good. This dinner was on company expense but I am guessing that it will also be the last time it will happen in such a place. Heh...

Since this was a "business dinner" of sorts, we took things slow and also avoided the sets meals to see how their food is. We started off with appetisers (puffer fish and vinegared seafood) and the rest consisted of sushi, noodles, prawn teppanyaki and egg.

marinated pufferfish

This was the marinated pufferfish. I was actually thinking fugu sashimi, but I guess they don't serve that here. Tasted just like the one at Beppu, which meant fish ba kwa. Well, I'll know never to order these things again.

assorted seafood

octopus

The above were described as vinegar-ed dishes in the menu. I am assuming that they're in the way of appetizers. They all came in dainty portions. The assorted seafood also didn't contain much in the way of assortment. What we basically got were octopus slices, scallop and a prawn. It was pretty good and fresh tasting though. The octopus wasn't chewy at all and the natural flavour permeated from the first bite even though it was vinegar-ed and with lemon. The scallop was lightly seared but rare inside. Some effort has been made with presentation.

tuna rolls in seaweed

tuna and salmon sushi

Californian maki rolls vs. a solo Mr uni sushi

From the name of the restaurant, I assumed that there might be something special about their sushi. They're made to order and they run from $8 and upwards. The uni sushi standing alone up there was a mouthful of $18. Ouch! But hell it was good. The uni was smooth, creamy and light. I didn't get enough of it but at $18, I needed to exercise restrain. The Californian maki rolls tasted a lot better than I imagined. I could feel the ebi roe burst in my mouth which was nice.

Prawn Tempura

The prawn tempura wasn't exciting but it was pretty well mad. It was also a little expensive for what they were charging for 5 pieces.

Dashimaki tamago

Their dashimaki tamago was probably the most expensive fried egg I've eaten. Ever.

Wheat noodles. Uninteresting stuff.

Ambience of this place was quite nice I guess. Service was polite but far from prompt considering that it wasn't very packed. There were a few wait staff around which seemed to be always busy and not taking note when one needed to get their attention. The bill ran up to about $183 and I felt that I could still eat more after that.

e.Black Board, Bedok South Road

I'm not so sure about the tagline from the signboard above the store though. In fact, I intend not to return.

e.Black Board is located in a coffeshop at Blk 18 of Bedok South Rd. I heard about this place from it's mention on the web by another blogger who then advertised his discovery in Makansutra. The number of thumbs up given to this place again, seemed to me to be in questionable light. The only conclusion I can think of is that the thumbs up were either given by people who wasn't really picky about food (if you detect euphemism, you are probably right) or are too interested in hitching onto the bandwagon of new food discovery. Interesting in outlook, it definitely didn't really live to expectations as the mentioned reviewer conveyed.

The store owner was a friendly chap whom suggested that we take a seat while he brought us the store menu. Having some idea of the food that place offers, we didn't really take long to decide on what we wanted.

The Waldorf Salad was something we thought was a "must try" in this place. No other local western cuisine does Waldorfs and it really didn't look too bad. However, the more apt name for this salad could be the 'Two Olive and Four Walnut Salad'. LOL. This wasn't that bad really, but I thought having the olives halved or sliced made a significantly better presentation. There's sliced lettuces, cubes of green and red apple, strips of bell peppers(why?!), raisins, some chopped celery and a mayo based salad sauce. For $3.50, this comes recommended. The neat thing about it was that it actually came nicely chilled. This gets thumbs up. And this is probably the only thumbs up I'm giving.

I'm going to make the comparison to Botak Jones with their Cajun chicken here. It shares the same name as the dish from Botak Jones but was definitely different. And not up to the mark. I personally felt that Botak Jones did theirs more than significantly better in taste. I'm not an expert in Cajun styled food, but this seems to suffer from over infusion of herb. It was in the end edible, unremarkable and not worthy of the good things I've heard of it.

The granddaddy of disappointment came in the form of the 300g sirloin steak. It was the most compelling reason I've had after reading the reviews of this place and I was hoping to find a gem in e.Black Board. I found a dusty old rock. I could have attributed the surprise of finding it drenched in mushroom sauce to the review I saw which the steak came clean without condiments. Back to the point, this $11 sirloin did sound like a tempting steal. Unfortunately, there was nothing to shout about. I wouldn't recommend it. In fact, I'll advice staying away from this. The meat was tough and stringy. That much was noticeable from the moment we made the first cut into the meat. Following that was the overly chewy bite on the meat which contained fibrous sinew. It's probably from a very old cow. I ended up not finishing the steak. Says something about how it tasted.

The owner did mention that he had a change of supplier for the meat and the current one wasn't supplying the food items that are up to his standards. This, he mentioned he intended to rectify. And so it would seem that I have had the misfortune of being here at the wrong time. However I think I should just call what I had as it was. If I had to be forgiving for every time that a reason like this was given for a poor show, everyone would be serving great food at great prices.

Lunch at Tiong Bahru Market again

This was a second visit to this place in recent times. The first visit was not a month ago. The options still looked alittle overwhelming. We tried the roast duck store with photos of celebrities stuck on the front of the store (I didn't get a shot at the store front). I thought that the fella standing at the front of the store at this arms constantly spread out and walking around acted like some kind of a retarded clown.

That on the left is the mixture of roast duck, char siew, hard boiled egg and roast pork belly from Tiong Bahru Roasted Pig Specialist. On the whole, it was really quite good. This place has a well cooked and presented portion for all the items we ordered. The thickness of the char siew slices is irregular, but some came in thicker portions which gave a nice meaty bite. I particularly enjoy the ones with charred edges. There's some plum like sauce for that duck was a nice touch for the meat.

Something else from the above mentioned store is the fried large intestines of pigs. Comes crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. More than a handful of people are totally disgusted by the thought of eating pig intestines and the taste can be a little too strong. I actually like them and try not to think too much about what they are and could possibly contain when I eat them.

Knowing that I probably wouldn't be frequenting this market often, I had to have an order of chwee kuay again. Tasty steaming rice cakes laden with chai por(pickled minced radish) and delicious chilli again. It's going to be difficult for me not to order them everytime I visit this place.