Xing Wang Hong Kong Cafe, Anchorpoint

In general, I'm not big on Hong Kong cafes. Not big on their type of food. Not big with the perceived lack of effort in their food preparation. Not big on what they offer. There are a whole lot of them around making them feel like clones of each other. I've eaten couple of times and haven't thought much of the food. Most of them cannot even do a decent luncheon meat and egg noodle. 

This place (370 Alexandra Road, #01-07/08 Anchorpoint, tel: 6474 4498) came by recommendation of a friend who mentioned a good French toast. Needless to say, I was initially rather skeptical about French toasts in such a place, but it turned out to be a good call after all.

French toast arrived with a generous amount of honey drizzled over. This was actually coated with a visible layer of egg. It definitely tasted eggy and request for extra butter and honey was met with a generous response. The staff was also polite to the point that I almost felt that it was a strange thing. I'm picking up good vibes here and I'm encouraged to re-visit.

One of the pleasant surprises here was also the pork rib bee hoon which was again, much better than what I thought I could be getting. I'm not sure if the ribs were of the canned variety, but it was soft and slid off the bone with ease. Not to mention that the bee hoon was flavourful and moist.

Weekend roast at Molly Malone's

It seems that Molly Malone's does a weekend roast which rotates between beef, lamb, chicken and pork for $25 with accompanying soup. It turned out to be a little disappointing for the portions and the taste wasn't impressive either. Didn't think very much at all of the thinly sliced roast in pepper sauce which has got one of the saddest looking (and tasting) Yorkshire pudding I've ever come across. Looked quite shrivelled. Here's a first and a last time for that. Will stick to the regular items from the menu. They're much better.

Another lunch at Paulaners...

This pork loin stuff from the a la carte menu at Paulaners Bräuhaus (9 Raffles Boulevard, #01-01 Millenia Walk, tel: 6883 2572) was pretty good. Well, it was just a tasty piece of salted pork loin on the bone, but in medium well doneness.  Must have helped in preserving the juices in the meat. I'm not too sure why is there a frankfurter in there though. I guess with all the salt in the cooking, the sauerkraut helped take some edge off. The starter of the boiled asparagus and air dried ham on rosti turned out to be pretty tasty as well, especially with the thick creamy mushroom sauce. That sauce was magic!

Riverside Indonesian grilled squid rice

Here's a grilled squid rice from the Riverside Indonesian BBQ store at the Kopitiam at Plaza Singapura. I've some mixed feelings about it. It was on one hand pretty darn good with the mouth watering sweet dark sauce and the coconut ladened curry sauce on the soft steaming rice. It tastes just like the chicken curry served at the restaurant down at Riverside Point. What I didn't like was that the squid had been so hastily grilled that there was barely any char fragrance. The squids done at the mentioned restaurant were grilled to much better standards. And that curry was only a little ladleful.

So I can't decide if this was a good thing or not, but I guess I wouldn't mind having it again and I'll be sure to ask for an extra ladleful of the curry if I do.

Shish Mahal, Albert Court

Beside the ill fated attempt at findg Gorkha Grill some months back (does it even exist anymore anyone?), Shish Mahal (180 Albert Street, #01-20 Albert Court, tel: 6837 3480) was our second foray into Nepalese food. To be more precise, this place does both Indian and Nepalese. We weren't too impressed with the chicken momo which was in many ways like Chinese xiao long bao.

We had an order of the garlic prawns which weren't sure was Indian or Nepalese. The prawns were quite crunchy and de-shelled (yay!). Their starchy sauce was unremarkable and the garlic flavour fell short of what I expected from garlic prawns. Definitely had a much better rendition at Mango Tree.


There wasn't much to comment about their tandoori chicken (which was quite tender), the boti kebab (some chewy lamb heavily marinated in a tandoori paste that left nothing of the meat's original flavour) or the chewy cheese naan. I don't think we'll be coming back though.

Mini sliders from Barracks

This was my second visit to Barracks (8D Dempsey Road, #01-01 to 06 Tanglin Village, tel: 6475 7787 / 6479 9212) and I have returned (mostly) for their sliders ($22). During the previous visit, I had a foie gras ravioli soup which turned out quite disappointing with a single wanton like ravioli that didn't taste like it had any foie gras inside. But that's not what this was about; it's the sliders that took centrestage for this time. These tiny burgers were delicious. Small, thick and hearty patties with a choice of toppings along with the sides of truffle oiled fries and sugared sweet potato nibbles.

I like beef and burgers and generally tend to pick on the quality of the patties and the doneness. No measureable yardstick except my gut. I liked these sliders enough that I didn't even think to pick on the well doneness of the meat. Still tasted good. Perhaps, the blue cheese and bacon topping needed a bit of improvement. That blue cheese which was more creamy than pungent. No complains for the subtly accented truffle aioli which kept the beefiness of the patty intact along with a light buttery truffle flavour. Great stuff. I'm definitely coming another time.

Barracks does have a bunch of cakes that one doesn't often see in run of the mill cafes and confectionery. They're however, not always as interesting as they're described. Specifically the zucchini chocolate which really didn't taste like it had shredded zucchini. There was an apple cider and butterscotch cake which wasn't too bad. The hot butterscotch was what made it good and there's really nothing of apple cider in the taste if you're looking for that.

I recommend coming for the sliders and truffled fries.