Seng Kee Ba Chor Mee, Changi Road

I've visited this place before sometime September last year when I was brought to try for the first time this rather special "liao" laden noodle. I had no clue the name of the stall, so I've actually found out the name of the name some months back and also realised that they're only open during lunch hours. Seng Kee also sells an interesting fish maw noodle. Fish maw is usually used in soups and I've never encountered them served with noodles like this. Today, probably because of the crowd, I got noodles that weren't drained as well so it turned out a tad soggy. The overall taste wasn't much as affected as the texture though. The soup was as marvellous as I remember, dense, cloudy and flavourful.

Of black pearls and blue cheese...

fromage bleu ribeye

I remember seeing this item on the menu from the previous visit here at Perle Noir so I decided that I just had to try it to see if it's any good. I often avoid steaks in non-steak places but the blue cheese beckoned and won over the tenderloin stuffed with oysters and wrapped in bacon! It was unfortunately not the hunk thick juicy steak which I was hoping it to be and judging from the quantity of blue cheese used, the flavour or stench was less than exceptional. This turned out to be a thin sliced ribeye. Not even close in terms of taste to the one that I had at Ember.

Bread pudding from Brewerkz

I've never been much of a fan of bread pudding. The only one that I recall ever thinking was good was from Miss Clarity. It's usually far too starchy and sweet and it's normally not warm enough for my liking. This one from Brewerkz falls in the same category as most where it's not warm at all. But the taste was actually pretty good so I could just imagine if it had been warm and it would have been awesome. What made this was the whiskey caramel sauce and the generous raisins which broke the monotony of sweetness. If I ever come back and have this again, I'll have to remember to ask for them to be heated before serving.

Shunjuu, Robertson Quay

Beside a couple of items which we thought weren't bad, the rest of the food was quite disappointing. To venture a guess, I speculate that there was a poor system of batching up the grills that are ready to be served. Most of what we had were already cold by the time it got to the table. We were thinking that there was no way the standards of the kushiyaki here can approach the quality at Kazu or Kushigin. To top off the experience, there was a cocky serving waitress that believed this restaurant made exceptional garlic rice which was better than what she labels as "other places". But there's more - the servers were apparently very adapted to "professional eye aversion" when you're trying to get their attention anytime after you've made your orders. This could be my first and last visit.

pitan tofu

Pitan tofu was quite good. Suitably chilled. The century egg sauce made with its yolk was sweet. This tasted almost like a dessert. The tobiko on the top added a touch of saltiness to this dish. We were pleasantly surprised.

natto meshi

I was feeling adventurous when I ordered this against the recommendation of the waitress. I'm not sure what her reasonings were for asking me not to try. I haven't had natto before and I didn't like her, so I went against her recommendations anyway. This was not very pleasant. While I'm not discouraged enough to be adversed against trying out unusual stuff, I don't think I'll order natto again. Not exactly tasty and the smell was pretty pungent. Having a raw egg over the top did add to the flavour.

ox tongue & chiizu aburage maki

Had to admit that the ox tongue was pretty good. The tongues were sliced thinly and then packed onto the skewers. They looked like they were in chunks but unfold as you pulled them out. The main gripe I had with Shunjuu's grills were that they weren't served hot which made them a vastly different experience from the other two Ks. The chiizu aburage maki are bean curd sheets that were stuffed with cheese. I couldn't taste much cheese in them so I though they were no good at all.

quail eggs wrapped in pork belly & shishamo

yaki mentaiko

lamp chops

The lamb chops were quite good. Comparable to what we had at Kazu but much more fatty. This was hot off the grill unlike the other items we ordered. While in that temperature, the fats are usually easy to eat but this one simply had too much.

japanese sweet potato

We were thoroughly disappointed with the sweet potato. Looked almost totally a different thing from what we had in Kazu. The sweet potato here wasn't as fragrant and it was very dry. And also not served with butter which would have helped greatly. Do not order this here. It's not worth it.

grilled yellow tail

This yellow tail collar tasted fine but the meat disintegrated easily. Pretty sure that's now how the texture of this fish is supposed to be like. This made messy eating with chopsticks. While the fish was properly flavourful, the crumbly meat made the quality suspect.

I'd clearly rather pick Kazu over Shunjuu anytime. Both experiences that I've had there made the former a clear winner in experience and value.

Lunch @ 85 Fengshan Centre

This place (Blk 85 Bedok North St 4) is supposed to be pretty popular I hear from some colleagues. This was one of the old styled hawker centre/wet market places that isn't so much of a common sight these days. Think Tiong Bahru Market. Strangely, half the stalls in this hawker center seemed to be closed in the middle of the day and the lunch crowd was almost threadbare. I was pointed out to a Hainanese styled curry rice which reminded me of the ones that had in Tiong Bahru Market and Maxwell Food Centre a very long time ago.

One gets a plate of rice with 2 meats and 2 vegetables at a very affordable $2.50. It looked to be a rather good lunch deal. One might get the idea that portions aren't very big because of how cheap it was but I personally thought it was a fair portion. I only wished that they were more generous with the crispy breaded pork chops.

 

Located in his hawker centre was also a stall call Western Food 85 that does fried pork knuckles. I'm not going to even compare to the German restaurants. Suffice it is to say that for $12.50, you get pretty much what you pay for. There's not much in the way of presentation. The meat wasn't too bad but watch out for the excessive fats under the skin. Tasted like something that's good to go with beer.

Godzilla Handmade Tim Sum & Pau, Elias Rd

These baos (meat buns) were really large. Each of them big enough to make a meal with stuffings that were pretty generous. There were mushrooms, boiled egg, salted egg, pork, crab sticks and lup cheong. I remembered reading somewhere saying that there was supposed to be abalone but I didn't find any of those in mine. Quite similar to a $2.50 bao that East Ocean Court use to do years ago. Those as I recall were smaller but much tastier. This shop was at GC Foodcourt, 623 Elias Road, #01-01.