Shades of satiated Epicurious-ity

Just some shots and thoughts of the Epicurious Burger from, Epicurious (#01-02 The Quayside, 60 Robertson Quay). A friend of mine who lives in the vicinity of Robertson Quay/Mohd Sultan area has been telling me about this rather awesome sandwich of theirs. For $18+ $4 (for the works which includes mushroom, an egg and real salty chewy bacon),it was rather hefty a cost for a burger. The nice aspect to this burger was that Epicurious did manage to make the individual toppings identifiable instead of a common mixed mashed burger. Honestly, I was quite impressed by the fact that each mouthful was distinctively flavorful of the mushroom, mustard, sauteed onions, aged cheddar cheese, patty and egg. The marinate of the beef patty can be described as flavorful, but is however crumbly. This meant that if you're eating with just hands, you get disintegrated meat crumbs over the plate as your maw your way through.


One noted feature of the Epicurious Burger was that the patty, which is of regular size comes with buns that are smaller than average. Small bread make the patties look bigger?



The patty, apart from being better marinated is probably just a little better than those from Botak Jones which is along the same standards as wham!burger. Which means that it's visually more impressive than it is tasty. If you like them heftier and firm, this is definitely not the burger. There are better options as I can recall from the likes of Wild Rocket, Brewerkz, or Marmalade Pantry instead. This patty in this one is just good for epicurios-ity, not much more.

Geylang Lorong 9

Geylang is renown at least amongst the locals here to be a very recognizable district which congregates businesses that involve pleasures of the flesh. Not to delve to deeply into the lurid details of the myriad options of carnal pleasures, we have locally and possibly internationally famous food hawkers, drinks, more food and more drinks. Almost everyone knows about this. I'm sure you did.

The stalls around Lorong 9 (and possibly other areas) boasts several food outlets that are opened 24 hours of the day, so one can pretty much drop by the area at any time of the day or night.

Lion City Frog Porridge (235 Geylang Road) is famed for, obviously, frog porridge ($19 for 2 frogs and a pot of porridge). Incidentally, there is also another one at Balestier which also calls itself the frog porridge vendor from Geylang Lorong 9. So which is the original? The taste between the 2 stalls for me were quite comparable but if my memory didn't fail me, the one at Balestier has a stronger kick from the spiciness of the kung pao gravy and was also served in much more generous portions. That one also came bubbling hot which this one didn't. The frogs were hot and had tender succulent flesh that one can simply suck off the bones. The porridge unfortunately for me had shreds of ginger which along with coriander formed the bane of my eating experiences. Apart from that, the thick gruel with the claypot kung pao frogs was an almost unparalleled definition of literal and proverbial warm comfort, especially in the cool rainy nights. Really, apart from the ginger shreds, I have no complains.

Just across the road sits a famous Lorong 9 Geylang beef kuey teow. This was actually my first time having it and I really didn't know what was so great about them. It's not a bad beef kuey teow per se. The lethal combination of black bean and chilli sauce is something that I normally find quite irresistible. There was definitely a char flavor that was distinctive to the food cooked from seasoned black iron woks. However, the sauce wasn't as flavorful as I had been imagining and the beef was simply just limp pieces of unidentifiable meat. Insert your own rat jokes here. Maybe it's just a personal preference for my beef to taste like beef. I really did't think that much of this supposedly famous place.

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.