Back in Banoo

My previous visits to Banoo had always been positive experiences. This weekend lunch made another another one of them. From the food to the service, I have had little to complain about eating here. Food has been great and the people here are well.....friendly. In comparison with the other restaurants down in Mohd Sultan Road, Banoo was even relatively inexpensive.

Shiraishi, Ritz Carlton Millenia (lunch)

Lunch with sinquanon88. For how much Shiraishi charges, I had expected to leave lunch feeling much more satisfied than I actually did. I'm not sure if this was a bad day for the restaurant but I opine that expensive places cannot afford bad days because they not charge bad day rates. No one comes in paying for your bad day service. And if that wasn't a bad day, I ought to be getting my friends avoid it. Not much of ambience while the food and service didn't cut it. Don't know what had people been paying for.

The lunch menu here run from $30 to $85. I ended up with a Hisago bento ($50) because of a mistake by the waitress. Impressions kind of went downhill from there. Getting a wrong order on a manageable lunch crowd in a small restaurant was pretty bad. Especially if you still tried to argue that you had gotten it it right and I was sure as hell that I had asked for something else. I let the mistake slide because I had been waiting for some time and was hungry. The thought of waiting through a change of order just didn't sit.

I was charged $5 for their otoshi (pickled vegetables). That looked to me to be hefty for a tiny amount of vegetables which I could fit in my mouth at a go. Lol. The Hisago bento came with rice that was laid with tempura fritter bits of prawn and sweet potato. That came with a serving of sashimi, miso cod, soup (a choice of clear or miso), a small salad, some fried tofu stuff and ankimo. Wrapped up with a dessert of fruits (sliced watermelon and mango). Since this was a first visit, I couldn't resist doing an uni test.

rice with tempura prawn bits and sweet potato

mixed sashimi

miso cod

uni gunkans ($30)

Shiraishi for lunch was very pricey. While the food was pretty decent, I didn't feel it was worth what I paid for. To credit where it is due, the sashimi was of fresh tasting and the uni was definitely better than some other place which I've paid more for. Still I left slightly disappointed with the entire experience. For what they charged, I would much rather re-visit Aoki which I thought was a much better deal.

Lunch @ Garibaldi

Lunch with fatpig. I'm quite enamoured with Garibaldi. The restaurant has a certain charm or class which I don't quite sense elsewhere. Service was attentive and the ambience could be pleasantly peaceful for a romantic dinner or warm for a gathering of friends...depending on when you turn up. Just some thoughts on the place.

Garibaldi does a 3 course lunch plus coffee at $29++ from 12pm to 2.30pm which I think is pretty good deal when other spots in town are having theirs for ten or twenty dollars more. The lunch menu is changed every Thursday and options are available for starters and mains.

Today, mine was a Vitello Tonnato (thinly sliced and cooked veal in tuna sauce and capers), followed by a penne al salmone spinaci e crema di zafferano (penne with salmon and spinach in saffron cream) and a dessert of hazelnut chocolate and pistachio gelato.

Vitello Tonnato

"Magnum"

"Blue Steel"

penne al salmone spinaci e crema di zafferano

hazelnut chocolate and pistachio gelato

The vitello tonnato really got my saliva flowing, I meant, it's the tuna sauce. That sauce was applied in moderation that you could taste the veal. In comparison, the one which we had a Papi was totally smothered you couldn't really taste anything else apart from the tuna.

The penne came with hot saffron cream sauce which was delicious. Some of those sauce actually squirted out as I bit into the pasta

Chin Chin Eating House, 19 Purvis Street

Located near to the Beach Road end of Purvis Street (across the road from Yet Con), this old school coffee shop serves Hainanese food in the form of various stir frys, braises as well as chicken rice (both roasted chicken and boiled variety). These guys are one of the eateries known for  chicken rice amongst other things. The locale in this area between Bugis and Beach Road is also a hub of chicken rice stalls. Competition is about and Chin Chin lools to be doing better than the next door, also another Hainanese coffee shop that too sells chicken rice.

We got ourselves a serving of their chicken rice for two along with stir fried sliced fish in black bean sauce and Hainanese pork chop. Does anyone know what makes Hainanese pork chop distinctively Hainanese?

sliced fish in black bean sauce

Hainanese pork chop

Chicken rice here was pretty regular tasting. Not outstanding as far as I could tell. The rice wasn't fluffy and was little dry. Wouldn't call it bad - just unremarkable. Still it seemed to be the the thing to be getting here as evidenced by the neighbouring tables. The sliced fish in black bean sauce disappointed with their sauce. There wasn't much of that fermented black bean flavour. The portions of the fish were generous though and tasted pretty fresh.

Chin Chin's pork chops shone in comparison with the other dishes. The fried pork were not sliced overly thin and had a tasty crust. My only gripe was that it didn't taste freshly fried. The total cost of for this dinner plus two lime juices came to $22.

Queen's Tandoor, Robertson Quay

I'm not sure if I got the name of the place right. This was apparently a new Indian restaurant down in the courtyard of Robertson Walk. The menu separates between Indian and Fusion; the latter comprises of food that are described to be Chinese, Indonesian and Japanese. I didn't notice anything particularly Japanese about the menu and the rest of the fusion portion looked pretty much like Peranakan food. Opting for the Indian items was a no brainer and despite it looking quite run of the mill, it turned out pretty good. The first thing I didn't like though was that the papadums were soft. They've been hanging around for pretty long. Their mint yoghurt dip also had way much to much of coriander and you probably know already what I think about them.

What they had were very nice fish and lamb (in flavourful creamy curry sauces that rings cholesterol bells). There was also an exceptional palek paneer which was lighter than usual and was more buttery. The cheese naan were also delicious and were freshly made.

fish makhanwala

Mutton handi (claypot masala mutton)

palek paneer

cheese naan

I had my suspicions about the mutton handi being cooked in clay pots as opposed to being just served in a clay pot. It was still on the whole, enjoyable. The fish makhanwala were chunks of firm white fish (I don't know what kind) in a creamy and spicy sauce. Very satisfying. Dinner for two was a little below $60, which I think was a little pricey.

Magma, Bukit Pasoh

My initial skepticism of this place is totally dispelled from this dinner. Magma is located at 2 Bukit Pasoh.

Atypical of German places (I guess), the menu at Magma was filled with many options for meats, sausages, wine and beer. This shop-house restaurant houses a partial open concept kitchen without any glass walls so some the smoke crept into the dining area. Fortunately the restaurant didn't smell like it had any problems with proper ventilation. Being a partially open concept kitchen, we observed that not all of the food was prepared in the main kitchen and we knew because we were seated right beside it.

Sausage platter

A regular plate of mixed sausages which was on the whole pretty good. I wasn't really able to identify specifics, but they were generally juicy and some were spicy as well. Liked the coarse ones.

German pizza (Flammkuchen) with smoked pork loin, garlic sauerkraut

What I liked about the German pizzas at Magma was, instead of having a regular tomato based sauce, the bread was topped with cream cheese (woohoo!). They also come with a nice garlic flavour (woohoo again!) and bits of fragrant smoked pork loin that were lightly charred. The pizza actually looked like a sort of giant naan and the crust wasn't as thin as the Italian types. With the addition of sauerkraut, the pizza was savoury and sourish. It got thumbs up from me because there was cream cheese.

A mixed platter of supposedly pork specialties (Gemischte Schlachtplatte) , but I detected chicken and beef

This is pretty much a meat lover's dream. Big platter filled with thick slices meats, various sausages, a small pork knuckle and dumplings (German dumplings which look like meatloaves, not the wantons things). One of the sausages from this mixed platter was the boiled variety - it having a softer and squishier texture. The heap of meat sat on potato salad, sauerkraut, mashed green peas (which were not bad actually) and cabbages braised in red wine. This serving was meant for 3.

Hands with forks and knives get busy in the process...

There was a selection of interesting desserts. We did manage a toasted cheese dessert in cranberry sauce, chocolate mousse and a Gebackene Apfelscheiben mit Zimthonig (a tongue twister for baked apple slices in puff pastry with honey and powdered cinnamon).

Gebackene Apfelscheiben mit Zimthonig

a quaint cheese dessert with gooseberries and doesn't really taste of cheese at all

An interesting and not so regular chocolate mousse

The chocolate mousse was different because the white portion was made with jalapeno giving it a prickly spiciness. It was akin to eating wasabi ice cream. I'm not generally a mousse person so I haven't really paid too much attention to the dessert. It did come with a rather nice almond-y marzipan sauce. It was nice because I liked it and I generally dislike marzipan.

From first impressions, Magma seemed to be pretty good. The food portions were pretty generous but leaned towards being salty. On the top of that, we had very polite and prompt service from the staff that actually knew about what they're serving you. I think I'll come back another time.