Indulgz Bistro, 9 Tan Quee Lan Street

Dinner with Junie. This is one of those places where the aftermath of dinner makes me feel that I could definitely have had better elsewhere. Yeah, I've said it. While didn't stink big time, there was a lot that left more to be desired. In short, unsatisfying. While I'm not here to put down new restaurants on purpose, I am definitely in a position (which I prefer) to really call things the way they are. Tan Quee Lan Street while isn't really remote, isn't really pedestrian neither and with the culinary standards and little publicity, doesn't look to have a healthy life in the business. We started dinner with a White Gazpacho and a Potato & Garlic soup.

White Gazpacho

Potato & Garlic soup

The gazpacho is a Spanish cold soup. It had a raw taste of finely grated vegetables and garlic. The soup tasted also to me like blended vegetable juice.I'm not sure what to make out of this here but it lacks a certain something that might have made it special which I can't put my finger to. Potato & Garlic soup came with a tinge of rawness. That rawness seems to come from the potatoes. However with the garlic and cream, the soup itself turned out decent. If I had to make a comparison, Aerin's soups are probably better value for money in both quality and quantity.

The Deep fried Camembert cheese with Berry compote ($9.90) is apparently a specialty of Indulgz. I like cheese so I don't really have much complains about this except that it's a specialty that really involves minimal skill. of frying some triangles of breaded cheese. Camembert cheese as I discovered from an often maligned source is usually eaten uncooked as heat kills the subtleties in the flavor and texture. What gives with them being deep fried? The compote while tasting as described isn't special at all. I'm guessing that it's just cooked berries and the concoction is rather watery. For cheese lovers, this might be worth a try. Another house specialty which I personally think is constitutes a sad joke is the chicken bites with tangy sauce. Another specialty that doesn't require much culinary skill to create. The chicken doesn't look uniformly fried on the surface and really, KFC popcorn chickens taste better and probably cost less. The tangy sauce tastes atypical of sauces provided in cze char stores for fried meats. It's probably the same kind of sauce that you get when you order thai chickens from some non thai eateries. And the sauce comes with coriander.

Tangy Raspberry Salad ($7.80)

Had a Tangy Raspberry Salad to share. The salad includes mesclun in raspberry vinaigrette, an egg sliced into quarters, a few token raspberries, tomatoes and some sprinkling of sunflower seeds. I suspect about the purported raspberry vinaigrette that was used in the salad because it tasted flat of just raspberries. Definitely not something I would recommend. The house specialty mains which we got were the butterfish steak and chef's crispy pasta with chicken mushroom cream sauce. Neither of which I thought was really special in any way.

Butterfish steak ($19.80)

Crispy pasta with chicken mushroom sauce ($14.00)

I'm not really a fish person with the exception the cold water ones. The butterfish tastes like a promfet with more bite and while wasn't bad, tasted very ordinary.The taste of the fish is actually bland, salvaged by the mango salsa which doesn't taste like anything else except mango. We did get a generous portion of the fish which makes me a bit suspicious based on what I've seen in the cost to food ratio. On the side, there is a nice side of truffled mashed potatoes which comes with the strange rawness that is present in the potato soup and gazpacho. The crispy pasta looks gimmicky like cze char noodles. Angelhair pasta was used instead. The taste and texture of the crispy pasta is something imaginable from appearances. Like crispy noodles from cze char stalls in cream sauce and small strips of chicken and mushroom instead of gravy. Wow, what a surprise huh? With cream sauce which reminds me of Pasta Mania.

The panna cotta, textured like bean curd (tao huay) and comes with a milky vanilla flavor which I rather liked. Apart from that, it doesn't really feel like panna cotta to me. Brownie was simply lousy stuff. The chocolate flavor insufficiently rich and it arrived lukewarm instead of hot. It's really just a dense chocolate cake with plain vanilla ice cream. Avoid it. We didn't think well enough of it to finish it.

Egg and Corned Beef bun from Crystal Jade Macau

Crystal Jade Macau is located at the basement of Bugis Junction just next door to a Four Leaves bakery. This is the sole outlet of Crystal Jade that purports to have food that is common or popular in Macau/Hong Kong like pork chop buns. This above is the egg and corned beef bun which while a decent sandwich, didn't really have much corned beef. Which is my main beef with it.


So wedged between a crispy buttered and toasted bun are fried eggs with bits of corned beef, tomatoes and some lettuce. There's not enough meat in there for me to order it again unfortunately. I really expected more decent amount of that corned beef.

Avocado chicken @ Basil Alcove

Lunch with Gweezer today at Basil Alcove. We got the $8.80 option which included a pretty decent cream of mushroom, avocado chicken for the main and an iced peach tea. An accompanying avocado puree balanced with pomegranate seeds accompanied slightly spicy grilled chicken. There's no fat nor skin in the meat. Despite having eaten here on several occasions, I'm still impressed at the quality and presentation for the prices this place charges.

Frog Porridge on a cold rainy night at Balestier

Previously in my mentioning of My Rice chicken rice stall, I had mentioned about it being located in the same coffeshop as a frog porridge stall. So that said stall with frog porridge is actually located just beside My Rice. And a pretty good frog porridge they served. It seems from the name on the stall that it originates from Geylang Lorong 9 before shifting to the current location along Balestier Road.

The frog porridge options comes in a few variations. One can choose to have the frogs in the porridge or served separately. The ones that you see here are the separated ones where the frogs are done in a spicy kung pao gravy and served bubbling hot in clay pot. Well actually, I think everything's served in clay pots, whichever variation that is ordered. You'll get to specify during the order how many frogs you want to have at $8 a frog. This kung pao gravy version which I had worked wonderfully in the cold rainy weather along with the piping hot gruel like porridge that came with minimal condiments. The porridge eats well on its own or even better, drizzled generously with the spicy gravy from the clay pot frogs. The frogs themselves are tender in the flesh and can easily be eaten simply by sucking the meat off the bones. Much easier than eating crabs.

Noodle House, Park Mall

I have no idea how long this place has been in operation and I probably would not have known about it if not for recommendation by a friend. Hidden at the basement of the often ignored Park Mall is Noodle House, a Chinese eatery offering Sarawak noodles. At least that's the claim. One of their signature items is wanton noodles which looks very similar to the Kolo mee that one can find around the Chinatown region. To point, the noodles were differentiated because they aren't the regular yellow egg noodles which gives the bowl a different textual feel. I've mentioned a couple of times previously that I didn't like a particular alkali flavour in regular yellow noodles and this one didn't have them. I like this better than the Pontian store at Yishun. Will come by again if I happen to be in the vicinity looking for something to eat.

Dressed simply in what tasted mostly were sesame oil and fried shallots, these noodles were pretty delicious by themselves without other condiments that one gets with wanton noodles. There's also marinated minced pork and meatballs as well. That above was a large bowl at $4 and came with a small bowl of wanton soup.

Peach Garden, Novena Garden

I've been wondering about this place for a while now because I've passed it by on numerous occasions and it was the only restaurant along the stretch behind closed doors. Turned out from what I've been told, I've been here once for a Chinese New Year dinner some years back. I had totally no recollection of that event. So I decided to come (back) for dinner with my family after recommendation from a good friend that told me it was worth checking out. Peach Garden is a Cantonese restaurant. They've two outlets, the other's located Thomson Plaza.

To start, a couple of starters. Haha.

crispy eggplant with pork floss

This dish was deep fried eggplants topped with pork floss and fried garlic bits. Never had something like this before. It got the unanimous thumbs up for being tasty though.

roasted pork

This was roasted pork minus the fat and sliced into cubes instead of strips. Underneath the crackling was just lean meat. Tender ones though.  The dish was served with a powerful mustard that packed a bit of kick. Suspect the purpose of the mustard was to musk the pretty prevalent porky-ness. The taste of pork was much stronger than usual. We were told it is because that young pigs are used for them. Not sure how that made sense.  The toasted peanuts on the side were nice.

The other dishes we got were the signature roast duck, wasabi prawns, kung pao fish noodles with venison, fried cereal crusted fillet of sea perch, poached seasonal vegetables with garlic, century & salted egg in superior stock and braised legs of lamb.

roast duck

We had originally wanted roast goose, but were told by the server was that the import of goose from Hong Kong has been banned because of the bird flu. Had to settle for duck. The roast duck came with a sour citrus sticky sauce which I didn't really think much of. Not bad as roast ducks went, but nothing exceptional.

wasabi prawns

The wasabi prawns it seemed to be a popular dish in this restaurant. It was present in almost every other table. They were lightly battered deep fried prawns that are coated in a mix of wasabi and mayonnaise and sprinkled with prawn roe. Tasted like how it looked. Pretty looking dish.

fried cereal crusted fillet of sea perch

Thought their fillet of sea perch was one of the better dishes. Pictured is a single portion at $12. Was really enjoyable with the sweetish cereal crust that's paired with bits of chilli and curry leaves. Definitely recommended. This item was not in the menu though.

poached seasonal vegetables with garlic, century & salted egg in superior stock

Liked this dish. Probably because of the eggs and the rich tasting soup.

kung bao fish noodle with venison

I'm not sure why these were called fish noodles. I was thinking that there might be slices of fishes in the noodles along with the venison, but no, there was only venison. Noticed that some of the noodles have burnt marks on them so I think they must have been stir fried at some point. Loved the texture (not being too soft) and I thought it was enjoyable. My gripe with it was that the plate is filled with inedibles - chunks of onions and dried chilli. What's edible was half of what's on the plate.

braised leg of lamb

This tender braised leg of lamb was not on the menu. What I found compelling was the simplicity of the taste. There weren't any complex flavours involved, just simple light oyster sauce and the natural flavour of lamb. Paired nicely with the fresh vegetables on the side. Another recommended try.

I forgot this dessert was, but it tasted pretty good. In the husk of a young coconut, chilled bubor hitam with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. There was a thin layer of coconut flesh in the husk. Easily scraped out with a spoon. This was much better than it looked.