Charco's The Flaming Chicken, Ang Mo Kio Ave 5

There's a new western food place down at Ang Mo Kio (Blk 608, Ang Mo Kio Ave 5) run by an Australian guy where Botak Jones used to be. A place for roasted chicken, chicken burgers, ribs, kebabs and salad. The food reminded me of Nando's and Kenny Rogers, Coffeeshop styled of course. The stall looked to be still at the teething stages of getting into their groove with spotty service, wrong orders and a noticeable wait time for the food. Ordered a quarter Hawaiian chicken ($6.50) on the grounds that this was basically a roasted chicken joint. For a dollar top up, one can get a Portugese chicken instead of the regular Charco's chicken. The difference? Portuguese chicken was spicy while Charco's wasn't. So does that make it a Hawaiian Portuguese chicken?! 

The chicken, to it's Hawaiian namesake came with two slices of pineapple fritters. Those were not bad when you ate them fresh. The meat from the bird was a little dry and didn't taste like it was different from any other roasted chicken. The spices weren't really special. What was notable though were their tangy, smoky and spicy bbq sauce on the side. This sauce was so smoky, it tasted almost carcinogenic. Seriously, but it was pretty delicious.

Mimigar, Gallery Hotel

Aside from being the name of this Okinawan restaurant, Mimigar (1 Nanson Road, #01-08 Gallery Hotel, tel : 6235 1511) also refers to pig's ears which happens to be one of the specialty of the restaurant. Okinawan cuisine as I have learnt share similarity in style or are influenced by Chinese/Taiwanese food. There seemed quite a bit of stir frying involved. Pork is widely used and considered to be an important ingredient. Seafood here seemed to be much less visible then in other Japanese restaurants. More interestingly, Okinawan cuisine also features taco rice. Tomato salsa, melted cheese and shredded lettuce over rice. Those taco rice here comes in the regular variety and also a chef's special which include curry.

Ambience was nice. The location suggest that the restaurant would be pricey, but that is apparently not so true. That being said, the bill does add up. Servings are mostly small plates and you tend to add on. This place charges for their otoshi which consisted of some simmered vegetable, pickled vegetables and a fried potato ball. There was no mention on the menu or by the wait staff on that. Considering that most of the dishes were priced less than the otoshi itself, I thought it was quite expensive at $10 per person.

mimigar with peanut paste

The mimigar was essentially the skin from the pig's ears with cartilage. The texture was both chewy and crunchy. Beside the texture, there wasn't much flavour beyond the creamy peanut paste. Interesting as it might be (it didn't taste bad), I'm in no hurry to order them again.

umi budou

These umi budou are also known as sea grapes. I hadn't any idea what sea grapes were until the proprietress/chef explained that they had texture akin to tobiko but was actually an aquatic plant from the sea. These pretty jade coloured globules did look like bunches of flying fish roe. The taste was akin to a very mild flavoured seaweed. Bursts in the mouth. They were served with ponzu.

rafute

Was quite impressed with the rafute which was simmered pork belly. They were served hot in a sweet soy broth and had fat that disintegrated in your mouth. What impressed me about them also was that it stayed soft even after the dish got cold and tasted still as good. Would get more of these if I come back.

rayu-ae

The rayu-ae was actually an appetizer, the first of it's kind I've had and I enjoyed it a lot. There were cubes of maguro, cream cheese and shredded leek tossed in what is described on the menu as Ishigaki Island special chilli oil. Which was very fragrant stuff. What impressed me about this dish was how that chilli oil harmonized in flavour with the tuna and cream cheese. Very mouth watering.

hirayahci with curry and cheese

These hirayahcis were some sort of Japanese pancakes. The curry and cheese flavour didn't quite turn out the way I imagined. There was little cheese in the pancake. The curry had the spice but not the edge from any heat. The menu mentioned daikon which I could neither see nor taste. It was supposed to be served with a citrus sauce which didn't come with the dish. Instead, there were bits of minced meat (I think it was beef) and the pancake reminded me of murtabak. This was actually quite good. Comfort food that I was happily stuffing my face with.

nakami-jiru

This was pork innards soup. The main difference between nakam-jiru and the pretty commonly found Chinese variety here was that the dominant flavour was mushroom rather than the other pork innards. I was tempted to ask for pepper. Haha. Not because it tasted bad. I guess it's just a reaction to pork innards soup which I think rocks with healthy dose of pepper.

macha baravoi

I was initially a apprehensive of this dessert because green tea and matcha based desserts are everywhere. The pairing has become a diluted replica of a flavour profile with little depth and originality for the most part. Fortunately this green tea mousse of theirs was retained a good amount of the green tea fragrance. I enjoyed this one.

On the whole, the food at Mimigar was unexpected but also pleasant. Liked this place enough to consider returning to try more of their food in the future.

Ham, cheese and strawberry pizza

Dr Oetker has been providing me moments of fun with making pizza since their frozen pizzas provide a pretty good base. What I liked about their crust was that they weren't too thick and also not overly thin. This meant minimal fillers and still a base which was firm enough to heap a bunch of toppings without having to worry if that crust was able to hold the weight. I happened upon some sliced strawberries in Cold Storage going for $2 a pack. That pack contained enough cut strawberries to quite generously top 2 regular sized pizzas so I grabbed one with some shaven breakfast ham, scrounged my supply of shredded mozzarella and parmesan......and this was the result.

The good toppings to use for this are their mozzarella and the quad formaggi since they contain mostly only cheese. This one was made from a mozzarella sprinkled with the above mentioned shredded cheese, carpeted with sliced breakfast ham and then laid over with the strawberries. Scattered more cheese over the top and it was ready to go into the over.

The lesson learnt from this time round was that, the strawberries lose their moisture by oozing out their juices, so the idea would be to to keep them closer to the centre or they'll drip over the edges of the crust. Not so different from pineapples - adding some sweetness and tangy flavour to the salty cheese and ham.

Generic food court beef noodles

The so dubbed Hainanese beef noodle has become ubiquitous everywhere. Meaning almost every food court sees a stall that sells them and I'm sure most people don't really think of them as a Hainanese dish anymore. It's just generic food court beef noodles which uses mass produced ingredients and can be whipped up to serve the masses in short order with relatively little sophistication in the course of preparation. For $4.50 as a set, this beef noodle from the food court at Century Square (2 Tampines Central 5, S529509) was actually something I had little complains about apart from the fact that the sauce was uninspiringly flat and the beef balls tasted of flour fillers. Still, it beat numerous others of a similar kind and the notable thing about this dry beef noodle was that the gravy didn't have the starchy lumps that are commonly in other unnamed places.

Some pizzas from Mondo Mio

Mondo Mio (Riverside View #01-02A, 30 Robertson Quay, S238251, tel:67362503), an Italian restaurant just out of the courtyard at Robertson Quay does a very regular array of the usual Italian stuff. They also provide delivery of their pizzas down to Wine Connection. One can actually request for a menu from Wine Connection as a drinking customer with a phone number to reach Mondo Mio for orders.

Speaking of which, the pizzas were pretty decent. The parma ham and rocket was reasonably tasty and their Mondo Mio flavour which featured prosciutto, mushroom and a very nicely done egg was pretty awesome. The awesome part came mostly from the runny egg. I'm considering a visit for pasta. I spied gnocchi on their menu and their prices looked pretty affordable as Italian places go.

Kazu Sumiyaki 2008

The reason for this visit to Kazu (5 Koek Road, #04-05 Cuppage Plaza, tel: 6734 2492) apart from the great grills was the attempt to get some more of their seasonal items from their menu for the winter harvest before it goes away soon. Primarily it would be their creamy ankimo (angler fish liver) which I enjoyed. I'm sure a lot been said in this blog about most of the regular items that we tend to order from our previous visits, so the pictures will be doing the majority of the telling. Despite that, I find myself discovering new things every time we visit. One of the discoveries was that the owner and chef was apparently a star of a certain Japanese drama serial before turning his chef skills of 13 years into use in this restaurant. 

What we also noticed from the regular items, was that the fatty pork with apple have gotten larger pieces of apple in the skewers and a more flavourful apple sauce over the top. Which was a good thing. The lamb chops were still as tender, oily and full of flavour from the charcoal grill. Chicken hearts were as chewy and well salted as I remember them and the hot, tender foie gras skewers were still dripping with heart clogging oil. Oh, did I mention too that Kazu also has oysters and they're still filled with briny juices in each bite, sweet potato's as sweet and fragrant and I remembered them with that awesome butter melt and the crunchy prawn and scallops in pork belly that hasn't disappointed yet even once.

uni tofu with ikura

ankimo

asparagus in pork belly

kurobuta pork

avocado in pork belly

halibut

chicken with mentaiko

chicken hearts

chicken skins

foie gras

fatty pork with apple

shishamo tempura

oysters in bacon

cheese hotate

lamb chop

sweet potato

australian wagyu tongue

scallop and prawn in bacon

...and finally, the score cup

Some items were apparently new on the menu and the choices are still dizzying. Previously a salmon tofu with ikura has become a uni tofu with ikura. I thought that the salmon rendition was more flavourful in comparison with the current uni version which didn't quite carry the flavour of the sea urchin across. This was especially so when paired up with those ikuras that were firm and bursting with flavour. We also had a tasty avocado wrapped in pork belly that held up pretty good on it's own, some pretty good grilled halibut and chicken skewers with a generous portion of mentaiko. The cheese hotate didn't turn up as cheesy as much as it was creamy and it probably would have been great if it was served hot rather than lukewarm. In spite of their fairly hefty prices, this joint still places the smile of satisfaction on my lips when I leave and that's a good thing.