An introduction to Azhang, 6 Mohd Sultan Road

No I'm not introducing you to Azhang. Some of you probably have visited this place long before today. This refers to me being introduced to the oft mentioned restaurant. Azhang has it's roots from Joo Chiat before moving to the current location of Mohd Sultan. The owner is Patrick Zhang and his partner Ava. Having heard the name and food mentioned over numerous occasions my curiosity was piqued. During the call for reservations, I was informed (by Patrick) that we had to at least eat once from the regular menu before we could experience their customized ones. Which is essentially what dinner tonight was about. To taste the what Azhang had to offer for the first time and to qualify ourselves to their special menu items. I think the forumers at Makansutra probably have done Patrick a measure of disservice with all their talk which have set our expectations too high. I know for fact that I'm not the only person who felt that way.

Dinner was various items we picked off the limited menu of the restaurant. There were the pretty goods and there were the not so goods. When I left,  I found my self not so impressed. Sad to say it is.

Here's their famous freshly roasted corn salad which I've heard ravings about. I think it was roasted after an order is made so it's as freshly prepared as could get. Truly, it was tasty. I haven't actually had roasted corn salad before so this was an experience. The corn salad contains raw bits of garlic and onion, so it could get a little zesty. The only gripe I have with the salad is that it was mixed with coriander. Which is the bane of my eating experiences. I cannot express my dislike for that vile herb enough and I don't know what about them that enhances the the flavours of this salad. I certainly didn't like it. But that's really a personal thing. Apart from the coriander, I really enjoyed the roasted corn salad.

Initially, the ribeye here appeared rather impressive. It's a decently sized hunk of meat over pilaf, topped with onions sauteed in red wine. At least that's what it tasted like. And I thought those onions were appetising and well flavoured from wine. However, this was pretty much the highlight of the steak. The doneness of the meat wasn't consistent and for medium rare it wasn't exactly tender like we had expected. I think it's quite accurate to describe it as a tad too chewy. It was edible. Nothing more. Couldn't help thinking that this is really way below expectations and comparing the steak to the prime ribs at Hog's Breath. Yes, I am aware that they're of different cooking styles and it isn't a fair comparison.

The Azhang combo platter was visually very impressive. Visually. One can imagine the size of this platter in comparison with the rib eye off the top right corner. This was basically their surf and turf platter with lamb/beef kebab skewers and tandoori chicken. Of it, the squid scored some for having a fragrant char grill. The salmon belly is pretty tasty, oily and flavourful of the fish. The large and delicious looking prawns on sticks were unfortunately quite disappointing. It's actually a lot smaller when stripped of the shells which were stuck onto the flesh which was a tad too tough. I know I've had better. The tandoori chicken's dominant flavour was bitterness. It tasted burnt, and I couldn't really make out the spices involved. The lamb and beef skewers were drowned in the seasonings resulting in a whole lack of the natural meat flavour. For something that looked that good, I was honestly disappointed that it didn't quite go right.

What was commendable at Azhang was the very attentive service which we appreciated thoroughly. Something that was seen and felt, which was more than can be said of many other restaurants. Funny it seemed that most of the hospitality was extended through Ava and Patrick hardly said a word.

Whitley Road Big Prawn Mee, Novena

I've seldom seen prawn noodles that have enough prawns that can be considered generous. This place was one of them. But at $8 for a medium sized bowl, I didn't expect any less. Whitley Road Big Prawn Mee is located along the stretch of eateries at Novena across the road from the church.

Prawn and pork rib noodle

Prawn mee dry(regular)

Prawn mee soup (medium)

This shop does whip up some decent prawn noodles. The soup noodles comes with more diluted prawn soup as compared to the bowl of soup that accompanies the dry noodles. You also get to choose the type of noodles which you prefer. All in all, it was quite enjoyable, albeit not really filling for how much it cost. The large sized portions is priced at $10 which was quite expensive. Maybe that could be the reason why the place also sells fried bee hoon and wu xiang which helps fill'er up.

OOO : Inequality Street

I am not a partisan player in politics. Now that we have that out of the way....you know how the colloquial saying about the rich eating venison and the poor eating each other. Today in Today, the PM as quoted from the paper has said

"Do not go overboard and end up with excessive welfare" for those with lower incomes, said Mr Lee. "Do not over-extend subsidies to people who are not poor. We would only have to raise taxes from the middle-class to pay for these subsidies.

Have you gotten that through your craniums? Yes, all you middle class wage slaves out there. The PM had delegated the honourable duty of assisting the financially disadvantaged to you. The money has to come from somewhere so better you than me. So that the upper echelons do not have to be sullied with that burden. The rich get richer. The poor get help. Now the middle class eat themselves. Are you ready to cannibalise?

Bak chor mee from Fei Xiong

This was one of the memorable bak chor mee amongst myriads. Fei Xiong (Fat bear? lol) is one of those that had either franchised their brand or managed multi branched noodle stores. The quality of the food can be questionable in some outlets. This one located at the coffeeshop in 651, Jurong West Street 63 was good. No excessive chilli oil. The bowl was topped with sliced pork, minced pork, sliced liver, pork balls and mushrooms. Made a simple and delicious quick lunch.

Cafe de Amigo, Funan the IT Mall

Heard this place mentioned a few times and decided to check it out with my brother whom uncharacteristically asked me out for dinner. Nothing against my bro, but he's usually not into traveling out to eat unlike me. Lol.

What I read about this place was that it had recently shifted from Specialist Shopping Centre to Funan. This restaurant is located on the 2nd story and relatively easy to find. Overheard from a conversation from the neighbouring table from ours that it was just opened here about 4 weeks back. The restaurant looked pleasant, had a wine section and even private dining rooms. Each seated table was served with a basket of warm baguette. Warm baguette with butter and sugar sure tasted good. :p 

The menu is separated into specials, salads, soups, mains, desserts and wines. The specials looked interesting.

Angels'n Horseback

These fritters which were from the specialty section of the menu were interestingly called Angels'n Horseback. They'r oysters wrapped in bacon which are breaded and fried. Actually quite good. The bacon wasn't overly salty and the oysters didn't have too much of the oyster-ly flavour. I've had some bad experiences with fried oysters previously so I suppose this is me being twice shy. These here were fortunately pretty good and definitely worth a try. 

Oysters Florentine

The Oysters Florentine were served shortly after the orders were made. So I'm guessing that they're all prepped to baked and they were also not baked for an appropriate amount of time. If you're wondering why I thought so, it's because the cheese didn't melt properly. Even though there were char marks. These oysters were shucked, filled with creamed spinach before the oysters are placed back into the shells and covered with parmesan cheese for baking. The menu described the creamed spinach as spinach moose. Hmmmm......moose. On the whole, they were decent. Just not remarkable.

This was when we waited really long before the soups were served. Choice of soup for tonight were the French Onion and the Not the Same Potato.

French Onion soup

Not the Same Potato soup

Damn straight this ain't the same potato soup. This was the first of these kind of potato soup I've ever had. This tasted like just a potato flavoured starch that's made from powder. I had this very distinct impression that everything was pureed by machine because of the creamy smooth texture. Didn't think it was that good tasting.

The French Onion soup was on the other hand was heart warming. I found it odd that it was served in a small clay pot instead of a regular soup bowl. It's also starchy but the flavours of the onion were robust. There were also shreds of real onion in the soup. What made me happy was the generous portion toasted cheese.

An unexciting dish of Soft Shell Crab

An even more unexciting Seafood Platter

I was disappointed with the Seafood Platter. It was sad and it's not a platter. Not even close. It's a piece of fish, a single prawn and a piece of squid. It's not even Fish & Co. In fact, I felt cheated. The garlic sauce used tasted suspiciously like the jarred variety used in food courts teppanyaki. Totally unimpressed. In fact, I'm negative about it and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Apple pie

I liked this apple pie. It came with light flaky crust topped with thinly sliced apples and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It would have been nicer if the apples were thicker sliced. It all went down quite easily even though it was big.

In retrospect, Cafe de Amigo was a bunch of hits (Angel's N Horseback, French Onion soup and maybe the apple pie) and misses (the rest). Would have thought a bit better of them if they were less expensive. Couldn't shake the feeling that most of what made dinner filling were fried flour and oil.

Seah Street Deli, Raffles Hotel

Lunch with Junie today at this NY styled deli located at the perimeter of Raffles Hotel.

What we ordered today were beefy.

Tornado in a bowl

That's what this salad was called. Tornado in a Bowl. And it came with the option of blue cheese dressing which I liked. Above the bed of lettuce, were generous slices of roast beef, mussels, prawns, avocado and bacon. This was my second time having this. Recalled that there seemed to be more roast beef during the previous time. I meant, it was "jaw aching from all that chewing" amount of roast beef. A salad that's worthy of recognition as meat dish.

Beef pot roast

Seah Street Deli served a delicious pot roast of beef. This stuff actually tasted better than it looked. Because it's thin sliced, the meat was tender and juicy. Their brown sauce was tasty. Came with a small portion of mashed potatoes on the side which were pretty decent. This is something that I could return for.

Ribeye steak

The steak at this place was passable. It also tasted better than it looked. I was actually apprehensive about the quality after having seen the first slice off the steak which reminded me vividly of E.Blackboard. In spite of appearances, it was honestly not too bad. Strange but true. The steak came with a side of a dry baked potato that's topped with sour cream that also felt a little too dry. The boiled broccoli and cauliflower were just that but topped with toasted almond slices.

Pumpkin tart

Their pumpkin tart was a disappointment. I ordered this because I remember seeing it on the menu the last time I visited. The disappointment was my fault. Perhaps I've been imagining butternut squash instead of pumpkin. Not sure how I got that thought in my head. This pastry was compact and the fillings did have pumpkin flavour - though it wasn't how I imagined it to be. The cream topping was unexpectedly dry.