Seafood platter from Fish & Co @ Paragon

I've noticed that the prawns in the Fish & Co here (290 Orchard Rd, #B1-35/36 Paragon, S238859, tel: 6733 0938) are meatier and the seafood platter for two came with scallops instead of mussels. The portions have fortunately remained as large as I remember them and most of the time, I find it quite difficult to want to order anything else than this. The wok was laden with the usual suspects of the grilled prawns, very generous portions of salty peppered grilled squid, four scallops, a forgettable fish fillet, the delicious orange raisin rice and fries. All good to go into the gut with the tangy spicy chilli and dragon breath inducing chopped garlic. Prices seem to have gone up from what I recall last by about $7 or so. I'm not sure if it's just this particular outlet or has it gone up across the board for all the other outlets as well.


Another regular item on their menu which I've only started ordering recently are the mussels in garlic butter. More than a half dozen mussels swimming in a garlicky butter broth which makes good a dip for bread. Yep, even the uninteresting focaccia at this place become tasty after a couple of dunks in that creamy and heart clogging broth which happens to be also pretty awesome when slathered over the rice in the seafood platter too. It's been around for ages and I've only started noticing them last year.

Nogawa, Le Meridien

I've been contemplating this restaurant (100 Orchard Road, #03-25 Lobby Level, Le Meridien, tel:6732 2911) for a while now, wondering about how much it might cost to eat here since this place is associated with the now defunct Akane - a bastion of quality Japanese cuisine. That translated into expensive. Fortunately, lunch was still a viable option. While one cannot reasonably expect to eat for low cost here, there is still an element of value for money as the restaurant did appear fairly affordable if you picked the appropriate options.

The food here was good. No complains at all. What I have are comparisons between the other places. Chiraishi ($35 with chawanmushi) here looked visually slightly less impressive than say Sushi Yoshida, Botan or the mazechiraishi from Aoki, but the quality was by no means inferior. Let's just say that frills are minimal, but the quality remains unquestioned.

The order of otoro ($24 for 2) and uni ($20 for 2) came out exquisite as I had anticipated. They were very enjoyable. The well marbled otoro had arrived with the requisite smooth fattiness and I thought that it was almost buttery as the tuna belly fell apart in the mouth. The uni was very well chilled and creamy and was definitely one of the better ones I've had. I'd eat loads of them if they weren't so costly.

Here's their chirashi set with the sashimi served in a separate container. The sashimi box included sake, maguro, chutoro, ama ebi, some white fish which I couldn't identify and something which appeared to be a cross section of a thick sliced squid tentacle. On the main box with the rice were some boiled vegetables (root and green), tamago, ikura, shredded egg, nori and sakura denbu which I like. The steaming chawanmushi came with a single fat shrimp and a chunk of chicken. Miso soup was likewise, just a plain miso soup with the usual tofu cubes and seaweed. It would seem as they claim, that their focus is on the freshness of the ingredients, not embellishments. Accompanying fruit dish comes with a fragrant and sweet slice of rock melon.

Spice Junction, Race Course Road

This restaurant (126 Race Course Road, S218585, tel : 6341 7980) serves cuisine from the coastal Indian states of Goa and Kerala. Which likely meant that seafood is a specialty. For some reasons, we had overlooked all that seafood stuff and picked a bunch of other dishes like the coconut mutton fry, some mutton with tapioca dish which was a serious carbs overload, an interesting and a pretty tasty stir fried cauliflower dish called gobi manchurian. Of the three mentioned dishes, the coconut mutton fry and the gobi manchurian turned out pretty good - the former was fried lamb which was very fragrant and quite spicy. The slivers of coconut was crunchy and quite tasteless though. The heat from the mutton gave me the prickly sensation up the scalp so that said something about the level of spiciness. Topped onto the orders were a puttu, kashmiri naan (again!! this will be the last time) and of course, lassi. Service from the restaurant was excellent and very polite. Many others could learn a thing or four from them.

coconut mutton fry

mutton with tapioca

gobi manchurian

kashmiri naan

puttu

I think we ordered a little too much for two persons. The steaming hot puttu looked like it could feed three. There was already a large quantity of starchy tapioca and then there was still naan. I think we might have gotten a little too greedy and overestimated but we willl learn from this (again!) for the next time round. One of the specialties of the restaurant seem to be the Malabar briyani. That might be perhaps, for another time.

Pork knuckles from Werner's Oven

Lunch with fatpig. Finally got down to this place (6 Upper East Coast Road. #01-01/02/03, S455220, tel : 6442 3897) to try the fried pork knuckles which we have been hearing good things about. Turns out that it was bit of a disappointment and it wasn't much of a big deal. The crispy crackling was fragrant and the size of the knuckle was pretty big, but the knuckle was filled with so much fats that at the end, it felt overwhelming. I prefer the ones down at Brotzeit and Paulaners which were cleaner in taste, a bit more costly and also strangely, had better separation between the fat and the meat in the pork knuckle. This has possibly given me a week's worth of cholesterol in a single seating if not more. I'll be laying off these things for some time and definitely in no hurry to come back if ever.

Jaggi's North Indian Cuisine, Race Course Road

Jaggi's, located at the fringe of Little India (34 Race Course Road, S218553, tel:6296-6141) serves pretty good Punjabi/North Indian food. Pretty good like I'm sure I'll come back kind of good. Prices weren't cheap but it was still affordable and frills were minimal. One orders at the food counter like a cafeteria and it's all self service to the table for everything that can be served upfront. The other items that require preparation (like naans which are made to order) will be brought to you when they are ready. The selection of food was pretty decent if not extensive.


Notable mentions for me were the butter chicken. While it was lacking in much of the edge from spices as compared to others we've had before, it was rich, creamy and delectable. Filled with chunks of smoky tasting chicken tikka. That smoky gravy made one want to eat them with copious amounts with rice. The kashmiri naan here was also pretty unique. So far, I've had them with a mixture of candied fruit and dried fruits, fully candy fruited and also wholly with dried fruits. This one here had finely minced candied fruit with cheese. Found myself liking this rendition. The cheese naan which they made was also loaded with generous amounts of cheese. Quite different from the usual variety which generally just has cheese sprinkled over the top of the bread. There is no charred cheese thus. But as I said, the portions of the cheese were pretty generous.

There was also pretty tasty mutton keema simmered with vegetables, a mild and delicious lentil stew and some potato filled with cottage cheese. The latter didn't turn out as I imagined it to be. Thought little of it. Lassi was of course one of the drinks that they served. I grabbed the mango flavoured which turned out to be much more of mango than the yoghurt flavour. It did look excessively yellow. Maybe I'll just go for the regular version the next time.

The damage for dinner for 2 came up to $33 which I thought a pretty good deal.

Nam Kee Chicken Rice, Upper Thomson Road

I'm pretty disappointed with the chicken rice at this place (201 Upper Thomson Road, S574343, tel:6253 4502). Having passed by this area on various occasions, I've noticed the crowd and had assumed that the chicken rice ought to be good at least. Instead, what was delivered through their half steamed chicken ($12) was reasonably tender breast meat and soggy everything else. There wasn't much flavour in the meat which was drowned in the soya/sesame sauce and there was quite a bit of fat scrapping which I had to do. With a soft and limp looking skin and what I thought to be excessive fat, the plate didn't look so impressive after it was reduced to just meat. Rice was just passable which didn't really make me want to go beyond the first plate. Chilli sauce while decent, tasted too much of ginger for me to like. I've definitely had better, and easily at that. There was salad prawns on the menu which didn't look nor taste impressive. I guess this can be one chicken rice stop that I can cross out for the future.