Esmirada, Orchard Hotel

The lingering impression of this place from the last time almost 3 years back was that the food was pricey and quite forgettable. Three years later today, the experience at Esmirada (442 Orchard Road, #01-29, Orchard Hotel) turned out similar and service in this place really needs work. A service that could be described as wildly inconsistent. I've only discovered that they're the same group that manages Brasserie Wolf down at Robertson Quay.

This place is spoken of for their grills which I thought was quite decent, but really nothing to rave over. The price of the grills goes a little on the high side and portions aren't exactly generous. Esmirada does paella and the noodle option of that dish actually comes with penne instead of noodles that I thought would be. What doesn't feel right is that there isn't chorizos in the platter and the description of chicken from the menu really just involves a couple of mid wings. Really, a couple means just two if you still remember the actual definition of the word. That is certainly astounding generosity.

The rabo del toro is described by the menu to be a Spanish ox tail stew that is served with saffron rice. I really do not know what's so distinctively Spanish about the ox tail stew but it wasn't too too bad with four chunky pieces of the tail and served with boiled root vegetables. A signature dessert from the place known as Melting Moments probably has outlived it's moments. The unromantic description of it, is two tiny molten chocolate cakes with a scoop of walnut ice cream and cherries. There are places that does equally good or better renditions these days which also comes in larger portions.

Cheok Kee Duck Rice, East Coast Lagoon

This stall (Stall 29) at East Coast Lagoon seemed one of those (out of two in the stalls that was opened for lunch) which had a long queue during lunch. I'm usually not a fan of queues. I've learnt that they are usually not worth the wait and I personally dislike having to wait. I made an exception because I was told good things their duck. That and that I'm not likely to be here often so I thought why not.

   

As hawker prices go, they were a little pricier than usual. A single portion of the duck be it with noodles, rice or porridge was $4.50. Agree that the duck was good and a notch above many other braised (that seems to be the only type at Cheok Kee) ducks. I'm saying this even though I generally prefer roasted variety. Will not mind having this again if I do come back to East Coast Lagoon.

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.