La Strada, Shaw Centre

I'm slowly but surely getting to appreciate how the Les Amis group position themselves as one of the best restaurants in their business here. I walked out of La Strada (1 Scotts Road, Shaw Centre, #02-10, tel : 6737 2622) after a leisurely lunch feeling good about the place, pretty much the same good feel I had from Aoki a couple of doors down the same pavement. Thanks ice, for making the lunch arrangements. The quality of the food and the unobtrusively attentive service did merit justification of their heftier price tags. This place was quite close to stellar. Anything more comprehensive would have been fine dining or my personal butler. I can't begin to describe how good a thing it was for the server to actually know what was on menu instead of the usual "please hold on, let me check" or the baffled mask/sheepish grin.

The starters for lunch were a smoky pan fried scamorza cheese, wagyu carpaccio in truffled mayo and foie gras.

No complains with the starters. The lightly fried scamorza was delicious, clad in simplicity. I could just almost call it juicy and I'm not talking just about grease. Wagyu carpaccio was wasted on me since the way they were done would never impart any of the additional flavours associated with that breed of cattle. The saving grace of the carppacio di manzo for me was the heady truffle mayonnaise with the thinly sliced Parmigiano Reggiano which made it memorable.

I haven't had a good piece of pan fried foie gras in a while and this definitely deserved a mention. You know, the tell tale shades of bronzed char that shading the edges thinning out onto the centers that forms part of the lightly crisp shell of the liver that is still slightly pinkish on the insides and quivery soft. My last recollection was simply disappointing. This was as I said, nice and on a crisp piece of toast with some excellent pear compote.

tagliolini al granchio

spaghetti alla chitarra con salsa carbonara tartufata

oven roasted french baby chicken

We had some idea of what we wanted and that was reinforced by the recommendation from the server. I wouldn't call it a blind leap of faith in this instance to make our choices by virtue of suggestion. Like I said, we already had some idea.

The tagliolini al granchio of shredded mud crab, garlic, chilli and white wine turned out to be remarkably Asian in flavours. To put it into a local context, this was mee pok in a sauce that tasted as unanimously agreed upon, like that of the three egg spinach/boxthorn. The better pasta I felt was definitely La Strada's rendition of the carbonara featuring truffle butter, shaven parmesan and a nicely done confit egg. I rank this rich rendition as one of the better pastas I've had

I generally don't do much chicken in a western dining and I know nothing about French baby chickens - however this roasted baby chicken was indeed as tasty as the server had recommended. I found the roasted crisp of the exterior well endowed with char fragrance and to our pleasant surprise, juicy and tender meat inside. With little excessive grease and condiments apart from its own roasting jus, this was definitely not your regular chicken chop.

Wouldn't say that the tiramisu was bad. It was far from being bad. It just lacked the edge from sufficient marsala wine and the mascarpone cream probably didn't have enough body to be served in anything else but a container. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I generally prefer mine with a bit more alcohol. The molten chocolate tart was also a little better that what I had imagined. Was good, but didn't quite wow. I actually enjoyed the accompanying bitter-ish orange sorbet better.

By the way, La Strada serves a mean brew of beans of a brand of roast which they claim exclusively for their own. If you're in town, love good strong coffee and are looking for a cuppa, forget Starbucks. Come here. It's only $5.

Baikohken, North Canal Road

If you're wondering about the amount of golden yellow at the top, this butter corn shoyu ramen from Baikohken (7 North Canal Road, tel: 6534 3808) normally doesn't come with so much butter. I had topped the bowl up with extra butter, corn and an egg. I did manage a couple of spoonfuls of the broth before everything was mixed up. Found it to be both less robust and salty in comparison with those at Ramen Santouka. The thick sliced braised pork was also rather lean. It was also soft that there were several occasions, I thought that it could have been tuna as ther meat crumbled rather easily. This was quite unexpected. As usual, I found the noodles to be too soft for my likings.

What I did like was their charshu don - a bowl of rice with generous chunks of the braised pork topped with scallions. Turned out to be simple yet tasty comfort food. Didn't see this rice bowl coming from a ramen shop becoming what I enjoyed the most. Am pretty sure I'd come back for this again. Even if the soft crumbly pork tasted like tuna.

Handlebar, Gillman Village

Some years back, I used to work around the vicinity of Alexandra and it was only today that I've visited Handle Bar (1 Lock Road, Gillman Village, tel: 6475 9571) for the first time. The affliction of looking far out ahead instead of just simply forward is a curse that plagues many, myself included. Now that this location is truly out of the way from any place that I may be in most circumstances, I've chosen to take notice and visit it. But it was a pretty decent place. At least for steaks and beers with friends it is.

The food was pretty decent I must say, if a little pricey in comparison for the ribeye which I had. At almost $40, one gets a decent 350g slab of fatty beef - but I didn't think they got medium rare right. It was definitely more cooked that I had wanted and I guess that the bright side was that it would have been worse for it to be undercooked than over. There was an amusingly named "Silence of the Lambs" rack that came thickly cut and in generous proportions, but was unfortunately lacking in the natural flavours of the meat and further drowned out by the wine sauce. Stuffed jalapenos were quite good actually. I'm not an expert in those since I don't eat them often at all, but I though those cream cheese stuffed chillis were rather tasty with a noticeable bit of spicy kick.

Coming back for the steaks and beer is definitely not out of the question.

I'm lovin' it. For real.

In spite of the insidious smothering cheap evils of fast food, the greatest of them all came out with something that had gotten me enthralled. A long time ago, it was their biscuits. Today, it's McGriddles. Their very recognizable breakfast chicken patty with a disc of egg and salty cheese snug between two slices of corn syrup soaked hotcakes. A simple yet yummy marriage of sweet and savoury. I think I'll be making efforts to go for breakfast more often.

Hotshots Flame Grilled Burgers, Lau Pa Sat

This stall which makes flame grilled burgers came from a chain in the Philippines and has made its debut here in Lau Pa Sat. I read that they started off as a stall in a car park and has slowly grown into the chain it is today. A little voice in my head told me that this was likely to be better than another burger stall with a weak knockoff for a meat patty. To fast forward into retrospection, this wasn't too bad at all. What I got from the ultimate cheese burger ($8) were two slices of quarter pounder beefy tasting patties marked quite distinguishably with the charred flavour of real flame grill. In line with the guys working at the stall reminding us that Rome wasn't built in a day and that their flame grill burgers likewise took time, it did take a while for the orders to arrive.

My gripe was the cheese sauce. While that was tasty in its own ways, didn't feel adequate for a cheeseburger. It had melted to the point that barely any of that cheese could be seen. Or registered. I saw a blue cheese burger in the menu so maybe I'll come back another time. There's also some Irish nachos thing which seems to be criss cut fries with beef chilli and cheese which wasn't yet available.

Popeyes Chicken and Biscuit, Changi T3

Happenstance that brought me to Popeyes (65 Airport Boulevard, Basement Level 2 South, #B2-LF1 Changi Airport T3, tel: 6247 5521). I had originally intended to visit Brewerkz at Terminal 3 but I hadn't realised that it was not accessible for the public so plans had to change.

Their fried chicken weren't too bad if a little expensive. I had never been much of a fan of KFC or most fried chickens in general; so apart from Waffletown and those from Ikea, I don't really have much basis for comparison. These though appeared less oil soaked than the KFC ones and their spicy crispy batter was quite good. They do charge extra if you decide that you want to specify which parts of the chicken you want though.

The other thing I found appealing were their flavoured fries and the biscuit that came with their fried chicken meals. A little bit of extra flavour that did a lot of good for the fries these tasted like the ones at Long John Silvers. There was some fruit jelly/jam for the biscuit which made them a lot easier to eat. Those might probably be a draw for me if I ever come here again. The dried looking rice with beans on the side taste tasted absolutely microwaved so you might wanna stay away from that. It was amusing that they actually provided plastic sporks.