Viva Mexico, Cuppage Terrace

Viva Mexico (23 Cuppage Road, Cuppage Terrace, tel: 6235 0440) is a new Mexican restaurant that's opened at Cuppage Terrace after the renovation. From what I could discover, they're are run by the Palate Vine group that also manages Vintage India, Ras The Essence of India and also The Tent. I thought the food was not bad. Their prompt and polite service was definitely appreciated.

 

I don't really know much about real Mexican food and I'm sure much more to it than the usual Tex Mex stuff locally. This eggplant starter for example. Could have been served in any other Mediterranean restaurant I wouldn't have known any better. Looked like something I could have had from someplace like the Original Sin. Oven baked and stuffed with spinach and cheese with semi crunchy texture, the eggplant retained enough taste that wasn't overwhelmed by the tomato based sauces. Did I mention that it was a rather generous portion as well? The hunk of meat in the first picture on top was a beef filet stuffed with something call Cuitlacoche mushrooms in the centre. This could have been a Mexican steak of sorts. I'm pretty sure the cut was a tenderloin. Tasted quite good with a nicely charred exterior and salty nutty flavour from those bits of mushrooms inside. Don't know much about the special sauce which the menu described, but it might have been the milky stuff over the top which tasted like it has been made with goat's cheese. There're also some very sweet caramelized onions served on the side. 

 

Steak came with a side of beans and cheese as well. These guys got medium rare right so that's a good sign for me.

 

The dessert here was their pumpkin en tacha. The chilled pumpkin sure tasted like it had been stewed. Sitting in a pool of brown cane sugar concentrate call piloncillo and a generous pour of heavy cream. There were some bits of chopped guava at the bottom as well, but nothing of those could actually be tasted or identified. Also couldn't discern any of the cinnamon and cloves that were suppose to be in this dessert. No complains about the pumpkin itself but the rest of it was too sweet.

Fisherios Fish N Chips, Bugis Junction

A couple of reasons drew me into Fisherios (200 Victoria Street, #B1-K15 Bugis Junction). Firstly, I remember seeing them around for quite a while and survivability of an eating establishment usually counts for something. Secondly, I saw the salmon fish and chips which intrigued me since I've never had that before. I was actually bordering between interest and skeptism since I've had my share of over fried salmons which I really don't care for. It was quite the fortunate thing that thee ones were actually not cooked to death and to my surprise, we got a light crispy batter and the meat was actually a little fatty. I was expecting a dry filet and I guess I was wrong about that. Also noted was that, the color of the meat presented itself to be a tad faint instead of of a more vibrant shade of pink. Belly?

The other beer battered option of the snapper wasn't too shabby as well. Perhaps, I did come with really low expectations and being just borderline decent had surpassed those expectations. At this price point, Big D still takes the cake though.

Whatever you do here, it's my advice to avoid the clam chowder soup from the sets and give the fried cheesecakes a pass. Really. Unless you enjoy a predominant aroma of stale oil in a soggy skin enveloping a dry, crumbly and weak tasting stuff that was the cheesecake. It didn't even arrive warm enough to melt the accompanying ice cream and for $2.90, it was criminal. I should have been paid to eat that stuff.

Big D's Grill, Holland Drive

I've only found out very recently that Big D's Grill (Block 46 Holland Drive, #01-359, S270046) has moved to a location rather accessible to my current place of work and coincidentally in the same coffeeshop with the XO fish beehoon place down at Holland drive (sadly, their standards have fallen far).

Prices at the stall aren't what one would normally associate with coffeeshop food and this place beats the crap out of even Botak Jones for price ranges that skim the top at $90 for a 200g piece of wagyu steak. They do have a variety of cow options I must say and it's one of the reasons that will bring me back here again. Getting to the meat of the matter, we got a very decent beer battered snapper which was really probably the best fish and chips ever to date to be served in a location like this with their generous portions of fluffly white fish in light crispy batter. A pity about the lack of vinegar.

The oily anchovy pasta with bits of garlic, thinly sliced of more pan fried garlic and bits of parsley was impressive in a way that I didn't quite expect. It was one of the better aglio olio renditions that I've had which is totally unexpected because I ordered anchovy pasta and this wasn't really what I had in mind. Honestly, the pasta was saltish, garlicky and spicy at the same time. One might have surmised, that those flavors really overwhelmed any anchovy-ness that I was hoping for. A treat if you're looking for your garlic and olive oil fix, but at prices that they charge in some Italian restaurants. I didn't quite think it was justified. Dude, where's my anchovies?

Zac Cafe, Jalan Pinang

For someone who has visited Nando's, one cannot be helped but to notice parallels of their Peri Peri sauces to Zac Cafe's (17 Jalan Pinang, tel : 6295 1816) pari pari chicken. Or at least silently snigger at the similarities in the name. In seriousness, this was pretty good. There was a nicely browned half bird with some char on the exterior. Meat was still juicy on the insides accompanied by a slather of spicy sauce on the chicken. The spiciness did pack a punch, albeit, it didn't knock one out by brute force. It crept into potency as one ate along...

The chicken had on the side some toasted "Arabic bread". Those reminded me a little of roti prata.


Their lamb bohari rice featured braised lamb on a bed of spiced rice. Portions were large. We enjoyed it but at the same time felt something was missing. Like perhaps more fragrance from the rice. The meat wasn't as tender as I had hoped for and didn't slide of the bone as easily as I would have liked. What got the nod of approval were the hearty samosas which were stuffed with minced beef. Delicious and relatively inexpensive. They would have been awesome if it weren't the small bits of coriander. The only other samosa I've had that were better than these were the kolkatta shingaras from Mustard.

A beer chilli bowl from Brewerkz

I've been having really lousy food for about 2 weeks now and this is probably my first decent chow since. What do I make out of this spicy bowl of ground beef and bean porridge with a blanket of runny cheese over the top? Not too bad I would say. Not that I've had a whole lot of these beef chilli stuff apart from them being served on fries or burgers. Pretty comforting in the belly at the least on a cold day and otherwise, good to go with a pint or three of their golden ale. I kinda like that crumbly sweet and savory corn bread/cake thingy that they had on top too.

Does anyone know where to get this?

I can't really recall how I landed myself one of these but I like them and I don't remember seeing them around in the supermarkets. Does anyone have any idea?