Five Star Hainanese Chicken Rice, Bt Timah

I had almost missed this place (6/7 Cheong Chin Nam Road, tel : 6466 3000) walking past despite knowing roughly where it was located since I had noticed it on numerous occasions previously. Five Star certainly didn't look like a very chicken rice place at all now that I've taken a much closer look with the plethora of other cze char items found on the menu.

 

I don't know if all that diversification is doing the place much good for their core specialty since everything else looked pretty mundane and for a place that is supposedly well known for their chicken rice, it was nothing outstanding in my books. Now I'm not saying that it's bad but I don't suppose I would head out here again or even think about wanting to have chicken rice when I'm in the vicinity. The preserved vegetable with pork (mei chai kou rou) wasn't quite what I had hoped soaked in that mildly viscous gravy. There are places that have diversified and done a much better job at the preservation of their core dish. I'm surprised that no one has ever mentioned that their chilli sauce is way too salty.

Chellas ella ella, eh eh eh.....

It seemed that my favourite spot for masala chai has gone upmarket. Prices of their tea went from $1.50 to $2.50. That's a whopping 66.6% increase. Besides changing cups nothing had changed with the tea. This was an unexpected surprise after having not been visiting for a while. There was an updated menu, a bit of new decor and the place was still as crowded as ever. I may have to search for a new spot for a similar cheap beverage. The only thing that I'm gonna miss I never come back is the masala milk.

A recent eat at....

...guess where.

Ballsy?

So apparently, the local fast food joints of McD and Burger King are suddenly embroiled in some form of competition in an attempt to measure which has the larger e-peen in the form of their quad stacked patties in their burgers. Damn, didn't anyone notice how many 'in's I had used in the previous sentence? I was (being me) nonetheless intrigued despite somewhat knowing what to expect out of them and here's the supposedly ballsy option from BK which features 4 patties and their crappy turkey bacon slices. It didn't quite pack the satisfaction as the triple whopper did and it's probably because there wasn't any onions. Then again, the triple whopper didn't have so much cheese. They probably would have won McD hands down if they had used real bacon, but that aside, really, it's cheaper to just eat this. Doesn't take a lot of balls really.

Ristorante de Parma, Kensington Park Road

This post took a while to be completed due to other "pressing engagements" which I've had over the past fortnight. Heh. Anyways, this was a long overdue commentary on my visit to Ristorante de Parma (14B Kensington Park Road, Serangoon Garden Estate, tel : 6281 3380 / 6280 1096) at Serangoon Gardens. One of numerous outposts of Italian restaurants secluded amidst private housing estate which I've been hearing about and haven't had the chance to visit until now.


We started off with some pomodori al forno and a mixed mushroom soup with pine nuts. Despite being described as just tomato baked in the oven, it contained bits of minced crab meat inside and was topped with a bit of mozzarella cheese. The portions of the crab would have benefitted with more generosity. Mushroom soup was creamy, comforting and passed muster. I liked that those pine nuts added fragrance to the soup. Wouldn't have minded more of them.


Didn't personally find the selection for the mains very interesting (in the realm of my humble opinion at least) but we managed to try their 4 cheese tagliatelle and pizza di menzo. Not enough Gorgonzola in the sauce for the pasta. Your mileage may vary of course. Not much to say about the pizza except that it was decent, fairly meaty and was better than those back in Finalmente Gastronomia.


Their tiramisu was not bad despite the lack of alcohol in taste. This was possibly one of the better done I remember having. The dessert was creamy and moist, yet not overly so. It would have been great if I could taste the marsala wine. Was there masala wine even?

Screening Room, Ann Siang Road

I suppose I can say that I've found another place for pretty good steak down at the Screening Room (12 Ann Siang Road, tel : 6221 169) along Ann Siang Hill and it happens to be at a rather unsuspecting looking location that does proper restaurant food along with gastrobar snacks along with movie screening options to go with your food. It must be coincidence that a place like this is located within proximity to Les Bouchons and L'Angelus which serves very decent steaks as well.

What I'm talking about here were their wagyu new york strip and boneless ribeye (both at a decent 340g) from Australia. Admittedly, I had expected a little more flavor out of the cattle type that the meat is gleaned from and the servers weren't even informed of the meat marbling grade. Since it was suppose to be wagyu, I would presume the grading to be much lower than they had claimed, but it still didn't stop them from being the properly medium rare done hunks of juicy pieces of cow, professionally browned on the exterior without char while the insides remained prerequisitely pink and moist. Not that I mind a little bit of char at all for the fragrance.

Clean and straightforward with a little salad on the side with extra options for side orders which we then decided to go for the duck fat potato cake which was basically a hefty potato lump patty deep fried in duck fat and seemed to be infused with a very distinct flavor of rosemary. I'll say all these warrants a return in the future.