Ya Kwang revisited

Man, this sure was a good one down at Ya Kwang Dai Pai Dong (Ya Kwang Eating House, 709 Geylang Road, Lorong 37, tel : 6747 663). I was surprised that on a Saturday night, there wasn't anything resembling insane queues or crowds outside this stall. This trip was a specific one to eat their seafood based noodles which the stall known for. And rightly so. That being said, there's also a bunch of other items made the consideration list as they looked inviting over the neighbouring tables.

Moving on to the lobster tang hoon. Price aside, this was seriously great stuff. The stock that infused those glass noodles was both sweet and savoury. The lobster was also fresh with their natural sweetness and had firm meat. There were some similarities with the crab tang hoon that I tried previously. The only difference between that this was probably just the shellfish.

The clam noodles, or also known as the la la mian from Ya Kwang was what most vongole pasta should've been. Locally. Where many have failed pathetically living up to. This one was loaded with meaty clams and garlic flavour. This plate was nicely accented by the bits of sliced chilli padi with noodles that soaked up the seriously drool inducing stock. So good that I was sure that I could easily take on a large portion by myself.

On the side we had an order of the Penang char kuey teow which looked like a phad thai and even tasted like one. Minus the crushed peanuts. Pretty decent and they were generous with the eggs. We had ordered this as a filler since the previous dishes didn't have the volume. There were a also some deep fried pig intestines call Da Chang Jing which were served like Peking ducks where one would wrap the fried intestines in some egg crepe along with a strip of cucumber and/or sprig of spring onion and then coat with a sweet brown sauce before eating. This wasn't bad at all. 

Biryani from a coffeeshop at Ang Mo Kio

This Indian food stall was located at Ik Wah coffee shop (Blk 252, Ang Mo Kio St 21). Not 10 minutes away from Hong Heng. Was quite good. Their biryani had sufficient fragrance from the spices in the rice that one could eat them on their own while the curried bone-in mutton was surprisingly tender. Would have been great if the meat portions were larger. I wouldn't mind having them again.

Kashmir, Race Course Road

The web page of Kashmir (52 Race Course Road, tel : 6293 6003) made a very confident claim that once one has visited the restaurant, said person will add them to their personal list of best restaurants in this country and will subsequently come back for more. I thought that was a rather bold statement. In retrospect I wouldn't dispute it. This was one of those restaurants where I left happy and telling myself that I would love to come back. Definitely not the first time that I've gotten such a feel about a restaurant. But I suppose that doesn't happen in many occasions.

We started off promisingly with some really good kabargah. This were lamb ribs that were boiled in milk and spices before getting the deep fried treatment. There wasn't a lot of meat for a $12 portion, but what was available was very nicely done. The dish retained the natural aroma the lamb and was quite tender to boot. I could have finished two portions of these easily by myself.

I was very impressed with this Afghani murg. Basically chicken that was marinated in almond paste, cream, ginger and garlic before being charcoal grilled on skewers. It was marked with very nice char on the surface and was surprisingly juicy inside. That robust char could almost be described as....beautiful. The portions felt a little too small though, but I would give two thumbs up to the chef.

We ordered their chilly cheese naan for novelty's sake. Turned out to be pretty good. The crumbly cheese that they used was unexpectedly light and each mouthful of the naan was accompanied by a burst of flavours of the bits of sliced green chillis.

The malai kofta was a mixed bag. Nice sweet creamy sauce of saffron and cashew that had something described as cheese dumplings. It was a mixed bag feeling because the gravy didn't taste very nutty or had much of the saffron flavour. But it was still good in its own ways especially as a dip for their naan. Those cheese dumplings didn't taste much like cheese. This one took the cake of being the weirdest tasting one with a texture that reminded me of sweet potatoes.

Known as 'Honeymoon' on the menu, this dessert was basically a gulab jamun served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Gulab jamuns were my first introductions to Indian desserts. I have thus become little wary of them since they were mostly too sweet. Adding vanilla ice cream seems to have oddly detracted from much of the sweetness. While it was still so, this was pretty good.

This would be the phirni, which was a steamed semolina dessert. The sliced almonds didn't so much enhance the flavour than the texture. Delicious as well. Pretty happy with the desserts.

More roasted meat from Jin Xing...

Kept my word from the last visit. I am back in Serangoon Ave 4 for more of their delicious roasted meats. This time I got myself a favourite sweet and savoury combination of char siew, roasted pork and roasted duck breast. If it wasn't already apparent from the pictures, they're all greasy and succulent cuts of meats with tender fatty sections that are ready to fall apart in your mouth. Not to mention the nicely charred char siew and crispy pork crackling from the roast pork. My mouth waters just at their mention....

Pity about the rice though and the sauces as well. I could do without them. Not a deal breaker.

Mixed beef laksa from Hong Heng

Quite an interesting find by happenstance at Hong Heng Beef Noodle & Katong Laksa (Blk 233 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3, #01-1194 Bing Garden Eating House). They're at the coffee shop where Uncle Leong Seafood is located in Ang Mo Kio. I was initially drawn to this stall because of their regular soup beef noodles with kuey teow. The laksa option caught my attention and I wasted no time giving it a go.

I'm not sure about the Katong Laksa referenced in the name up there but the gravy which didn't even have the right viscosity didn't taste like any of the Katong laksas I've had before. The flavour was not bad, albeit a little watery and served just lukewarm instead of hot. That's pretty much the only gripe I have. The toppings of the beef and other cow offal were delicious and not over cooked. The tendons in the bowl looked rather raw and gave me pause initially. As I put them in my mouth I realised that they fell apart easily in the mouth with little chewing. On the side, they had some pretty nice chinchalok chilli.


Notable mention goes to their beef balls which despite their regular looking appearances, didn't taste so regular. These meaty tasting ones certainly were nothing like those regular mass produced variety. I quite liked them.

Mughals Hyderabadi Biryani Restaurant, Race Course Road

Mughals Hyderabadi Biryani Restaurant (72 Race Course Road) in spite of its name does not serve just biryani. There were other things as well. We came here for their biryani because I had heard mention that they were pretty good.

We started off with some freshly fried onion pakoras. These should replace onion rings at all fast food. Crispy dram batter on the outside and still slightly crunchy onions on the inside. I wonder how come these things never got popular outside of Indian restaurants.

egg biryani

mutton biryani

We ordered a couple of biryanis which were served with a thin raita and some nutty tasting curry which was just a little spicy. I wanted to try the egg briyani because I had always been curious about the flavours came about when dum briyani is cooked with eggs. And because I like eggs. There wasn't any eggy flavors involved, but mashing the hard boiled yolk into the rice made it delicious.

The mutton biryani wasn't what I had in mind. The flavour from the mutton didn't seem to seep onto the rice. The lean meat wasn't moist but was quite flavorful. I thought that Mustard and the goat variant at Swaadhisht did a better job of infusing the biryani with the meat juices.

For both the egg and mutton biryani, the basmati rice was a little dry (that's what the gravies are for). Also quite strongly scented with spices, especially heavy with cloves.


We had a Kadai paneer on the side which didn't look like how the menu described it. We were given the impression that it would be stir fried, dry and contained dried fruits. This tasted like a cashew nut curry which wasn't bad at all. Came with those soft chunks of paneer. It was the shreds of ginger that got to me.


Tried both their Irani and masala tea just to see what were the differences between them. The menu described the former to contain bits of biscuits and the server claimed that the latter was just more spicy than the first. Having tried it ourselves, we concluded that they tasted exactly the same.

Prices were pretty affordable here. I realized after getting the bill that there was no GST or service charge incurred.