Mooncakes from Shang

I don't usually enjoy this stuff because I find them cloyingly sweet. Once a year, some of them get distributed around because of the Mooncake Festival some of them will inevitably end up with my family. The only fond recollection of those I enjoyed was something that Raffles Hotel once sold. That was mostly because, the fillings were cream cheese and raisins. I was actually kinda sad that those aren't available anymore. Anyway, this was one of those uncommon instances when I decided to eat some and thought that they weren't bad. Having those salted yolks to offset the sweet lotus paste was important.

I'm curious about how quadruple yolk mooncakes are like though since no one I know have ever bought them.

Ristorante da Valentino, Jalan Bingka

Woah, that was quite a bit of good food here down at Valentino's (11 Jalan Binka, S588908, tel 6462 0555). I daresay it was one of the better Italian places around with cost and quality taken into consideration. Certainly was very encouraging for a return. And it's taken me such a long time to visit for this first time. This must be one of those places that has lived up to its hype eh? Almost everyone had good things to say about the restaurant. Thanks to fatpig for organizing the dinner.

Service here was a notch up. And was also very discreetly patient towards a table of people whom were late for the reservations and were taking a long time with deciding what to order. For a rather busy restaurant, the magnanimity of the host was unquestionably obliging. That aside, I enjoyed the food.

The table started off with some ubiquitous looking bread with an excellent emerald tapanade that had pesto with parsley, anchovy and garlic. Ordered some imported vongole off menu which came in a delicious spicy sauce that formed instant kinship with the bread on the table. I was quite impressed by the meaty shellfish. Following closely were the mains of pizzas, pasta and a very good tenderloin that's made itself quite unforgettable.

pan fried, tomino cheese sheathed in Parma ham

This was very good if rather small for what it costed. Tasting rather delicately of the goat cheese aroma (or pungence if you will), it was certainly as delicious as it looked, cloaked in that crispy prosciutto de Parma and their combined grease.

buffalo mozzarella and Sicilian cherry tomato

This twisted looking bundle of chilled creamy mozzarella was both appetizing and refreshing with those sweet tomatoes. Enthusiastic and hungry, I really couldn't find anything to dislike this. The last statement shouldn't be read negatively in spite of how I said it.

fettucine al granchio

Valentino's crab and squid ink pasta in tomato cream sauce easily made the top of my favourites. This was at least on par with that tomato cream tagliatelle from Da Paolo with the bonus of chunky bits of crab meat.

Filetto Di Manzo al Gorgonzola

The tenderloin drenched in a mild Gorgonzola sauce was definitely my highlight of the night. I was initially a little apprehensive at the estimated 170-200g of steak, but I guess the choice paid off tonight. The creamy sauce seeped in its flavour wasn't too overpowering from the blue cheese while the tenderloin was expectedly tender. In the right doneness at medium rare too. Amazing steak well done. I would have no qualms ordering it again even though it was smaller than what I would normally go for. A side of small potatoes were there and I had to just mop up all the sauces with the salad.

Bismark

porcini, rucola and prosciutto de Parma

The pizzas here were quite tasty but nothing out of the ordinary. It had a generic thin and crispy crust that was barely able to hold the toppings. I personally preferred the flavour of the bitter rocket on Parma ham versus the bismark of bacon and egg. Not that any one was in any way inferior to the other.


There was more than a handful of desserts going around the table so I'm going to just mention what made the deepest impressions. The house made profiteroles were decidedly the one that reached out to me despite being the simplest. It was a cream stuffed choux pastry coated in a milk chocolate that wasn't too sweet. Apparently, their profiteroles used to be brought in frozen but are now made in house. Couldn't have asked for much more out of them actually. A chocolate and pear tart didn't quite turn out quite as delicious as I had hoped. With a light whipped chocolate and a limp buttery crust, the tart tasted tired and felt like it's been around for a little too long. The slices of pears were amazingly thin though.

Great coffee here too.

Jellied pork trotters and shark meat from Lao Liang

Hey, this stuff was pretty good. Lao Liang (Jalan Berseh Food Centre, #02-37, 166 Jalan Besar, S208877), a Teochew stall serves a chilled (plus that handful of crushed ice bits), gelatinous and possibly collagen rich pork trotters in jelly. The flavour was light and even refreshing when accompanied by their home made plum sauce with crushed peanuts that they provided. Subtle taste of pork coupled with a firm jelly texture together with some soft crunch from what looked like pig's skin. We also had some shark meat that tasted like freshly boiled fish. Pretty good with and without their chilli sauce.

Ordered some kuey chup assortments which were pretty competent as well. Those included a broth drenched mixture of stuff like pig's skin, tau pok, eggs, sliced pork belly and tau kwa. We got ourselves the small portions - which were really pretty small but the food was enjoyable. The only gripes I had was that mild, yet perceivable coriander flavour in the gravy that they ladled over the rice. Which I would rather do without. That and there was additional charges for extra servings of that plum sauce if you wanted more.

Vada Pav from Maakan Mumbai

I've only learnt about this Indian street snack recently. It was a type of vegetarian burger known as vada pav or wada pav. Apparently quite popular as a snack in India. There seemed to be another stall down at Lau Pa Sat that also sold this but I got this from Maakan Mumbai (18 Raffles Quay, Stall 60, Lau Pa Sat Festival Market) based also on a recommendation. After some sniffing around, the bun didn't quite turn out to be what I expected. It was cold and the dry bread wasn't even heated up. Certainly didn't look like it was pan fried in butter and sprinkled chilli powder. The deep fried spiced potato patty tasted sweet instead of savoury (in my mind, i was imagining something like a begedil ). Is that how they're suppose to be like?

Hainan Chicken Rice Ball, Jalan Besar

I've been waiting to try out these chicken rice balls for ages despite being told that there was nothing much to them apart from being shaped into balls. I'd like to think sometimes that experience is the best teacher in life and nothing replaces the experience of actually eating them. I just had to come down to this stall in the coffeeshop at the end of Dickson Road (Boon Hwa Food Centre, 43 Jalan Besar). How was it? I wasn't impressed by the taste nor the portions which were quite small for $3.60. Two balls of rice were a little puny for my appetite. The dryish chicken drizzled with dark soy sauce wasn't anything much to be writing about. Heh! I had also imagined the rice to be more firm, akin to ketupat instead of crumbling apart when I dug my spoon into them. The chilli however was pleasantly filled with a spicy kick and the meal came with a bowl of herbal ba kut teh soup(?). Any better players for these stuff?

 

Dracula Romanian Food, Alexandra Village

I was repressing a silent snigger as I saw this place (Blk 127, Bukit Merah Lane 1 # 01-230, Alexandra Village, tel: 6270 5464) at first glance. Not sure if I had actually smirked. In my mind I had ominously envisioned the Joker and Vlad the Impaler standing side by side since this store was located just next door to Funny Lasagna. In the end, there was nothing really sinister looking about this Dracula place as it was not comical in any sense for their neighbour.

Romanian food was something I've never had before and didn't think I would experience here. The food did look pretty rustic and I imagined them as dishes that might have originated from the poor back in the day. Anyone who's in the the know, please enlighten.

We started off with some sour Romanian meatball soup (is that ciorbă de perişoare?) of sorts and home made sausages.


The sour soup tasted much like borsch minus the ruddy hues that one commonly associates with them. In the broth were a bunch of potatoes, carrots and enough chopped parsley for their flavoor to be quite pronounced. Along some other herbs which I couldn't identify. The meatballs were quite generously portioned. Of a make that one can associate to food of perhaps peasants of history where meat could have been expensive and starch fillers were used. In this case, there was rice in the peppery tasting meatballs. Dracula must have made it rain tonight for me to enjoy this stuff. Ahem!

The home made sausages were pretty good. Greasy, salty and filled with grits and bits of unidentifiable stuff. These sausages weren't packed that tightly and the cases were also not snappy. The stuffings fell apart and spilt as I tried to cut them. Notable mention goes to the flatbread (it tasted more like Turkish bread actually) which the sausage was served with. This stuff was definitely freshly made as evident from the taste.


This dish is described as fried meat with polenta and cheese (is this sărmăluţe cu mămăligă?). You know what's the irony? Cornmeal isn't expensive and this was probably the largest serving of polenta I've ever had. Ever. It was hearty. It was good. The salty meats in the middle were chicken and some other minced meat which I couldn't identify. Could have been pork. All slathered in some light creamy cheese that tasted like yoghurt.


This dish looked dubious initially since they had a templated dish of various meats that looked suspiciously like the local Hainanese styled westerns. To digress, there was even a Romanian steak of sorts. When inquired about, the server merely said "the chef's Romanian, the boss is Romanian and hence, the steak is Romanian". Lol. In any case, this lamb was surprisingly quite good in spite of the fact that it was a almost well done. The meat retained tenderness and had a nice amount of fat. The natural flavour of the meat was definitely there despite being covered in that peppery mushroom sauce. I saw the chef peeling a truckload of potatoes back in the kitchen which were to be cooked and mashed for servings. Nothing came with fries and you know where your mashed spuds are from.

I'm certainly not adversed to trying more of their food another time.