Butterhead in a juice

I came upon this in Marketplace at Raffles City and was quite intrigued by it since lettuce wasn't something you normally found in juices. To quell my curiosity, I bought it for a go at this interesting drink. The first scent that hit me was a quite overpowering "green" smell from the lettuce. I remember crinkled noses. After taking my first few gulps of the thick greenish fluid, I found that this wasn't too bad at all. The lime flavour was predominant followed by a very recognizeable lettuce taste. Couldn't detect the kiwi at all. It turned out quite invigorating. The down side was that, it wasn't really thirst quenching.

The BBC pork chop rice

It has been about 10 years since I was first introduced by a friend to this particular stall which was then located in an air conditioned coffeeshop just beside Allson Hotel. Since then, it had moved to the food court in Shaw Leisure Gallery and now currently resides in another food court at Bras Brasah Complex (Coffee Express 2000 Food Court). As far as consistency went, nothing much has changed since the first time I've had these pork chops which are fried on order. Which was incidentally the thing that make them good. No cooled grease nor soggy batter on the pieces of meat. It's all fried upon order.

They're $3.30 a plate and if my memory served, it has been going at that price for a very long time too. There is nothing very fancy to their plate. A tasty piece of pork chop with rice, some cooked (probably frozen) corn/carrot/peas and salted vegetables. The eggs cost extra if you want and they're actually pretty good for hard boiled eggs. Notice that the colour of the braising sauce seeped into the egg whites from all the simmering. The egg was flavoured rather than just coloured from the sauce. I like to mix the vegetables and the rice together with the chilli. Makes everything more appetizing.

Botak Jones, Yishun

Seems that Botak Jones has yet opened another outlet (Blk 732, Yishun Ave 5) recently so I thought I'd drop by and grab a bite for a very late lunch so as to avoid the crowd. Picked up a gammon ham and cheese sandwich with a side of jalapeños which turned out to be pretty good as the pickled chilli worked its spicy kick on the salty ham and cheese. Hmmmm......Does anyone else do a ham sandwich like this? The heartiness of it won me over more than anything else. I also decided to try a small serving of their whoppass chili con carne to see what it was about. Apparently, it just a spicy ground beef bolognese which came with whole jalapeños inside. Similar to most other chili. This stuff was not too bad as a stew.

added 27/07/2008

Encouraged by the previous visit above, I dropped by for another late lunch. This time it was for the chili dawg.

The dog turned out to be quite large and slathered with a generous portion of the chili con carne and chopped onions. Was pretty good. Not something that you could actually eat with your hands considering all the mess from the sauce and that you'd probably need to have a rather large mouth to fit the dog and the buns. Probably one of the better tasting dogs I've had but then again, it would have been nicer if I could eat this with my hands.

Curry chicken at Killiney Kopitiam

I've never really known about the curry chicken here (67 Killiney Road) until quite recently. I had the distinct impression that the claim to their so called fame is by the kaya toast and coffee but lo and behold, this stuff was actually pretty good. There was enough spice and coconut in the thick gravy to make me happy and curry like that makes me want to eat a lot of rice. At the end of one these, one would have to battle the z monster though.

Freshly Baked by Le Bijoux, Killiney Road

Beware for you gaze upon death by chocolate salty balls. Lol! Kidding. This was quite a delicious salted caramel chocolate mousse tart from Freshly Baked (57 Killiney Road, #01-01, tel: 6735 3298). I liked that the light chocolate mousse wasn't excessively sweet. The salted caramel added to the tart a swab of savoury sweetness that was accented by the cocoa powder. Creamy and rich as a whole....and made crunchy by those chocolate balls. Quite a few sensations triggered by a tart eh?

We decided on a piece of brownie which didn't look promising at all from first glance. Sometimes... just sometimes it pays to go against instincts in the spirit of adventure. Because one just might discover something good unexpectedly. This was definitely not one of those times. I didn't like the brownie. It lacked the fudge factor. There wasn't enough chocolate in it too. It didn't even have enough chocolate to match many other regular chocolate cakes. What in the world was it doing there as a brownie, I don't know.

Burgers from Dubliners

Well, here's a burger from the Irish watering hole Dubliner (165 Penang Road, #01-00 Winsland Conservation House, tel: 6735 2220) and it pretty much looked like any of the other burgers that they serve here. The differences are the cheeses and whether if there was bacon or not. I'd say that the burgers here were pretty decent with a nice firm patty that wasn't too crumbly. Decent if not spectacular. My gripe was that it could've been a little bigger since the patty was noticeably smaller than their very regular sized bun. This was in no way a match for the one at Molly Malone's which had better toasted buns and a heartier patty.

The unexpected surprise was the salad on the side. It was a mix of romaine lettuces, rocket, diced tomatoes and bits of onions tossed with some mayo dressing. What's good was that this guys really tossed the salad instead of giving a token dressing drizzled over the top. Which coated the greens nicely and the raw onions added a much appreciated depth. A sharp aroma not over the top. So despite its relatively simple appearances, this salad was actually pretty good.

I had a blue cheese burger and as I've mentioned, was pretty decent but lacked the satisfaction of volume. I recall something similar which I prefer. Also, crinkle cut fries aren't really my thing.