Peng Lai Ge Taiwan Delight, North Bridge Road

This shop across the road from Swenson's at Bugis Junction (520 North Bridge Road, #01-01 Wisma Alsagoff) serves Taiwanese food and was operated by mainland Chinese. For some reasons, I was expecting the staff to be either local or Taiwanese. That aside, I noticed this place previously and was curious. They apparently have another outlet at Joo Chiat as well.

lu rou fan (steamed rice with braised pork belly)

steamed rice with minced meat

deep fried chitterling

egg rolls with pork floss

The gravy for their lu rou fan here tasted different from the one at Lai Lai. This concoction was more savoury/umami while the one at Lai Lai was a little sweet. In any case both were good enough that I could wolf down in short order. Their deep fried chitterling (pig intestines) which were served on bean sprouts were palatable but lacked much flavour compared the braised rendition. The fried surface was thin and didn't have a good crisp as what I've had imagined. The chilli however provided a nice kick. Egg rolls with pork floss would have been much better with more floss for sure.

Vintage vongole!

Fancy a 4 century old clam?

The Cellar Door, Bukit Timah

We came upon this place (619 Bukit Timah Road S269720, tel:64635296) by happenstance while in the vicinity looking for lunch. Originally, we wanted  to check out Karma Kettle and Rhapsody or the recently opened gourmet burger outlet Relish down in Cluny Court. Didn't feel like the former location and the latter was fully occupied; didn't feel like waiting either. Just past Culina, I noticed the Cellar Door and it wasn't until I had entered and sat down that I remembered that Bottomless Pit had made mention of this place before about their burger. A don't particularly remember seeing a burger on the menu, but there was a lamb burger that was listed under their Specials on the board. That alone was good enough to pique my interest. Happenstance decided that I would have my burger after all.


I kinda liked the place form the start. Interior was cosy and armed with a crew of polite staff that apart from being a friendly, actually knew enough of the menu to answer questions on about their food. The small space and knowledgeable wait staff reminded of Wine Garage. Along with the bottles of wines that line the wall. We went with a cheese board. Speaking of cheeses, the portions here were generous and a bit more exotic than what we were used to. This will probably be my first and last encounter with Iron Gate. Lol.

cheese board ($28)

The selection of the day featured a few cheeses which I've never heard of. Feeling adventurous, we picked five of the stronger sounding options out of six. The platter was served with with dried apricots, black seedless grapes, some walnuts, rice or wheat crackers. There was also some Rutherford & Meyer quince paste and Kato roasted peach chutney. The peach chutney had an unexpected ginger flavour. On the whole, the cheeses were enjoyable apart from the Te Mata Iron Gate which was the one with shrivelled looking sides beside the walnuts. The pungence of could almost be described as out of this world. Here I had thought myself capable of meeting almost any challenge of the fromage kind. Notable mention goes to the Awa Blue which was different from other blue cheeses I've had. This was infused with a spicy and heady aroma of an almost ethereal quality. Swirled up from the tongue into the nose and I was more than a little surprised at spicy blue cheese. I'm pretty sure I'll be remembering this one.

lamb burger ($19)

"one all lamb special seasoning no lettuce no cheese cucumber relish tomatoes in a buttered and toasted super sesame seed bun!"

I have good things to say about this lamb burger. One of the better burgers that I've had around. The texture of the heavyweight patty was uncannily similar to the Ultimate Beef Burger from Marmalade Pantry with two main differences. This was lamb and that the taste of the marinade was Middle Eastern-ish. Which kinda made it unique. Topped on the juicy lamb patty was a cucumber relish which added a lightness to the lamb flavour of the lamb. Lamb patty was enclosed in a buttered and toasted bun that was absolutely studded with sesame seeds. Had a nice sesame aroma. The crinkle cut fries had a nice salty seasoning. Not over fried as well. Definitely wouldn't mind returning for this again.

turkey and cranberry pie ($19)

The turkey and cranberry pie was something also on the specials. Haven't made it a habit to order pies unless it is recommended. Most of them I've had were just filled root vegetables soaked in a unidentifiable yet generic starchy gravy which I'm not a fan of. The exceptions were the chicken pies from M Hotel (a great chunky chicken filled potato-less pie here!!) and Don's Pies. This one was pretty decent pie filled with chunky pieces of turkey and some carrots without potatoes; swimming in a hot and light creamy sauce with cranberry flavour. We were told the pies rotate through the weeks. Each order was a 20 minute wait as they were made to order.

green apple sorbet ($3)

The green apple sorbet didn't taste as refreshing as I was hoping. They were are the slick and sweet. Too sweet for my liking.

Deep dish egg tarts from Sun Moulin

Sun Moulin (350 Orchard Road, Isetan Scotts Basement, tel : 67341915) makes these cute deep dish egg tarts ($1.80 e.a.) which are a different from the regular ones. For a start, they are deep dished which makes them taller. The crust which held the egg custard was akin to biscuit ones which more textually more cake-like and also crumbly in comparison to the more common pastry variety. I'm guessing that the reason for that might be to house the extra volume of egg custard which the pastry shells might not be able to hold. The fillings didn't taste as eggy in comparison to the Portugese renditions or from the ones at Tong Heng. I thought that these were quite enjoyable. Do remember to remove the plastic sheets on top of the fillings before you eat.

Trattoria Lafiandra Al Museo, Singapore Art Museum

This place didn't not serve warm water. It didn't not serve iced water. It also did not provide bread at dinner. One of the wait staff didn't like the Italian beer in this restaurant that he recommended against it for Tiger instead. The price of beer for some reasons wasn't not on the menu so if you need to know, it's $14.50 for that Tiger. And apparently, the waiters opened up bottled water so quickly that you didn't even have the time to mouth the words 'Panna' or 'Pelligrino' before they chose it for you. Now that I've gotten those out of the way, I have to admit to being quite disappointed with the recently opened outlet of Trattoria Lafiandra (71 Bras Basah Road, #01-02 Singapore Art Museum, tel:68844035) down at the Art Museum. Personal preferences aside (I thought the pastas are pretty uninteresting), the food was unexceptional. I hadn't intended to order pizza for dinner, but ended up eating mostly that because nothing else looked particularly appealing to me.

The starter of the buffalo mozzarella and parma ham ($25) was passable. I felt that those was more nicely done at Stiff Chilli which used rockets instead of lettuce which was hidden underneath the cheese. What I felt about the pizzas was that their toppings needed work. The word that came to mind was threadbare. Their pizza con porcini had so little porcinis. A slice of mushroom pizza from Da Paolo Gastronomia had more mushrooms than the whole pie here. I shit you not. The diavola was quite ordinary featuring salami that was mildly spicy, prosciutto e fungi ordinary with pathetic portions of ham and I couldn't really get into their prosciutto crudo which was recommended. I had the feeling that everyone was expecting to see some rucola on top of the pizza but it wasn't the case. Despite the fact that all of the pizzas featured thin crust, they were pretty tough to cut (some were not portioned and some were which made me wonder why) and not crisp to boot.

prosciutto di parma con mozzarella di bufala

pizza diavola

prosciutto e funghi

pizza con prosciutto crudo

ossobuco

There was some sharing going on and I managed to try some of what was going around. The ossobuco was an odd curiosity, appearing like a stumpy phallic tower of undulating sedimentary build up of something that looked like chai por (Chinese pickled radish). The meat was very tender. Very. At certain points, I wasn't sure if I was chewing on the meat or the mash on top of it. This bone definitely didn't have the marrow which I was hoping for. The saffron risotto tasted fine and did have the saffron flavour.

Their recommended seafood soup turned out to be quite unpleasant. Not trying at all to pick on the food unnecessarily, but the smell was weird and rather off putting. It arrived with a generous portion of seafood which included clams, mussels, squid and prawn. Ingredients did not taste fresh. One seafood soup and eight people at the table, it was left mostly unfinished. I think you get the point.


This salad looking thing covered in rocket is actually a sliced ribeye steak and is probably the most tasteless ribeye I've ever tasted. In fact, it might have been a very bland cut of tenderloin since the meat was rather soft, but I wouldn't know better since I only had a bite and the menu did say ribeye. If anyone should consider their iced lemon tea in Lafiandra for $3.50, consider yourselves informed of what you are getting. This one's for you Pet, if you're reading.

Having been in operation for some time previously at Princep and also now with the capability to be in the business in the Art Museum, I had thought better of Trattoria Lafiandra. Pretty sure I can take this place out of my list now since I'm never returning after this today.

More from Ma Maison

Here's a mentaiko spaghetti tossed with onions, mushrooms and some prawn topped with nori strips from Ma Maison (#03-96 Central, 6 Eu Tong Seng Street, tel: 6327-8122). What I like about it was the blend flavour from the mentaiko and seaweed. Gotta love that smoky edge that they gave to the pasta. If anyone has any good mentaiko pasta to recommend, please let me know.

This was fried Camembert cheese. Had an unexpectedly light crispy batter. Cheese was soft and gooey inside. Liked it much better than I had thought. The sauce on the side was lemon honey with a sprinkle of coarse grain pepper. Works with the cheese but they were also good on their own.

The beef stroganoff ranks somewhere on the top my list of comfort food. The scrambled eggs over the buttered rice was so good. Don't know if it's anything close to original Russian versions, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a Japanese interpretation of the dish.