Roasted meats from Tampines Round Market food centre

3 days of chicken rice in a row. I can feel the DNA of the chickens melding into mine and I think wattles are growing. This one from Tampines Round Market food centre (Rong Sheng Roasted Chicken Rice Noodles, #01-43) was not bad. The rice had a nice flavour going on and the meat wasn't tough or dry. I requested for an addition roast pork which turned out pretty tasty too. Notice the clean cuts of the firm meat on the pork belly strips. The portions here are pretty good as well. This plate with an egg cost $4.00. Which makes it much better value for money in comparison with the previous chicken rice I had at Nan Xiang.

Nan Xiang, Square 2

I came by this chicken rice place at Novena (#01-156/159, Square 2, 10 Sinaran Drive S307506) by way of recommendation from a friend and it did look like there wasn't a need to queue or a wait since we were looking to grab a quick dinner. Usually when an eatery is mostly empty, it raises alarms, but I've been having some cravings for chicken rice of late and the food did look decent if unspectacular. From the menu, the chicken rice were sold in combo sets but it is actually possible to order them like how it is done in hawker stores with just the chicken and rice minus the extras. One of the rice option comes in the form of balls. I'm not sure how these are done, but each of these chicken rice ball came in wrappers when served and I don't know how they stack against the original ones from Malacca or even the Goodyear store at Toa Payoh. The rice balls fell apart when I put a fork into them. Taste of the rice itself was quite the norm.

Chicken options are the usual steamed or roasted (fried if you will) variety. Meat was rather ordinary if a little on the dry side. Came drizzled with some unidentifiable and forgettable brown gravy instead of the usual soy sauce and sesame oil sauce combination which did little to help with the dryness of the meat. Doesn't quite stand out.

Mud Ooze

Yep, that's the Mud Ooze from Miss Clarity (Talib Court, 5 Purvis Street, #01-04, S188584, tel : 6339 4803). Thought it was a good recommendation from the restaurant because it tasted pretty good and it wasn't expensive. There's no novelty or gimmick about it as it was basically a molten lava chocolate cake. Everyone's doing them. What made this a good recommendation was how much it cost ($4.50) and that it tasted almost as good as any others I've had. No Grand Marnier flourishes of course. No flames. And no vanilla bean in the ice cream too....hey! This was likely microwaved and hasn't much discernible differences. I believe that the molten chocolate here was more robust than another place which cost more.

Hainanese (De-Bone) Chicken Rice, Yishun 81 Food Court

This chicken rice store at Yishun 81 Food Court (Blk 925 Yishun Central 1, #01-249, S760925) is often crowded. If you come late, the stall is probably closed already. I've eaten here on several occasions but lately the rice seems to have changed. Previously they were the soft fluffy types which was pretty good. The rice now has become less fluffy, more oily and heavier. Hence the chilli sauce and dark soy sauce are actually put in to use since I don't like the rice as much. Also, I recall some vegetable dishs which do not seem to be available anymore. I wonder if any of the regulars noticed the change since business still looked as good. There was a waiting time of 10 minutes at lunch hour. The one that hasn't changed would be the portions. They are still as small as ever. The tender chickens (only steamed ones here) at least are still pretty decent for a saving grace.

La Braceria Pizza and Grill, Ban Guan Park

I've been hearing about La Braceria (70 Greenleaf Road, Ban Guan Park, S279356, tel:64655918) for some time now and it's been on my list of places to check out for while. Located in a very old shophouse at Ban Guan Park on Greenleaf which is just off 6th Avenue. It's rather secluded, if not also remote. Being around that area felt like stepping into a capsule of another era. But that's for another day. Maybe. The food here's fairly straight forward with minimal frills. The food definitely looked more appealing than the recent disappointment at Trattoria Lafiandra.

To start, I opted for the trippa alla Fiorentina which is essentially tripe in a light tomato broth with cheese. The tripe turned out to be pretty good. The taste of the meat was beefy, soft and slightly chewy. Having soaked up the tomato broth, each bite was also somewhat "juicy". This turned out to be a rather pleasant warm starter of meat and broth.


There was this salsicci de maiale al finocchietto which was their famous home made pork sausages which I had thought could be interesting. The sausages here were densely packed in their cases and served with a small side of salad and pan roasted potatoes. Hearty would definitely be the word for them and I thought they were not bad at all.  Except for the fennel seeds which were part of the seasoning. I don't usually like them because they remind me too much of liquorice.


Their molten chocolate cake turned out to be similar to the lava cake from Borgo. From the menu, I had expected the cake to come with a hot melting core. Served with Grand Marnier and flamed. This one was actually better than the one at Borgo which didn't have enough of the chocolate.

The Universal, Duxton Hill

I didn't find this place (36 Duxton Hill, S089614, tel:63250188) agreeable. Half an afternoon of repeated phone calls failed to get through to the restaurant which resulted in my attempt to do a reservation via their website. The web reservation had no acknowledgement and by the time I managed to get through to someone sometime in the evening, it became apparent that the web reservation didn't register. An email which I had sent inquiring the menu didn't get any replies. By the time I was seated in the restaurant, I found that most of the items on their website is no longer being served. Can you spell bummer?

amuse bouche

The current menu from the very recent change (why is everyone using the same excuses?) didn't quite seem as interesting. At this point, there wasn't much other options and I wasn't about to adjourn to another location. I didn't feel that these guys were worth the money and ended up with pastas for mains.

cappucino of mushroom

The impression I had was that they were trying and not quite getting there. Service was very polite if somewhat sculpted. Their  amuse bouche of a pan fried scallop and parma ham on a cheese cracker did look promising but the promising pretty much stopped at that point. A cappucino of mushroom, thyme infused milk and white truffle oil tasted just like a plain, albeit decent mushroom soup with none of the other mentioned ingredients detected. This paled very much in comparison with a cappucino of cauliflower veloute which I've had some time back. 

The very modestly sized pan fried foie gras with duck breast, caramelized banana with rum and port reduction at $36 turned out to be too mushy. The first thought that came to mind when I put the first piece into my mouth was "I've definitely had better". Better and less expensive ones too. And in larger portions. It had almost none of the crispy exterior to speak of to contrast. Duck breast's so ordinary, I can hardly find words to describe them. Help me out here.

risotto

I found the spinach gnocchi with home made tomato sauce and smoked scarmoza cheese unimpressive. Sauce didn't taste good. It was tangy, but not in a refreshing way. I have a suspicious feelings that it was probably mixed from something that came in a can/jar. Did not detect any scarmoza. Parmesan, yes. Scarmoza, definitely not in there. Visually, it looked a mess with bits of unidentifiable vegetable bits in the sauce topped with what tasted like fried tapioca chips. From the way the melted cheese looked, it looked like it had been heated in the microwave. Their wild mushroom risotto with octopus perfumed with truffle oil featured the same tapioca chips. It was served with mussels instead of octopus because they were out of octopus. The reason they gave was that there was no delivery for the weekend. On a Friday night. After I had made the order. This restaurant has serious communication issues.

Or maybe, they just don't like me.