From dandelions...

This was our first visit actually to the current location of Tampopo (177 River Valley Road, #01-23/24 Liang Court Shopping Centre, tel : +65 6338 3186). It was previously located at the basement in Liang Court. If you didn't know already, this family restaurant is quite well known for their fried kurobuta pork cutlets. Those are not bad but also tend to be overrated. 

The thing that caught my attention was a maguro head don that they had on the specials menu. According to them, they're on a limited serving each day. Probably because there's only so much meat in the head of a tuna. Sounds like Santouka. We were here for dinner and managed to snag a bowl.

The bowl included slices of shoyu marinated tuna. Those were nice. What was strange was that the bowl also came with two pieces of sushi - both of which aren't tuna.

A serving of the pan fried pork livers with chives. This was one of those Japanese dishes that bore much similarity to Chinese cooking. The combination of ingredients for this particular dish made it tough to go wrong. Unsophisticatedly, if there's such a word, good.

Felt like having ramen because I had one recently that I didn't enjoy. The basic kyushu ramen with creamy tonkotsu broth did the job. I also much prefer the slim straight noodles in this than the other types. What I wondered about kyushu ramen is, how much mentaiko was there suppose to be to flavour the broth?

Kuro ma-yu ramen from Menya Shinchan

This kuro ma-yu bowl from Menya Shinchan smturned out a quite different from what I imagined. Their pork bone broth ramen featured scorched black sesame and I was assuming that it was toasted in some way in the process. To my dismay, the flavours were just of regular sesame. Beside being rather oily, the broth tasted a little bland as well. I guess this was just not my type of soup.

Hatched, Evans Lodge

Relatively new establishment that serves almost everything with eggs, hence the name Hatched (26 Evans Road, #01-06 Evans Lodge, tel : +65 6735 0012). Most of the dishes look like breakfast food - which is a good idea since breakfast menu items are normally available till the early afternoons and this breaks that circle of practice. Probably makes many people happy to have the options that they offer.

I must have been lucky to have gotten a table without reservations on a weekend since the word around is that they seem to be under spotlight.

Food on the whole was pretty decent. Since I like eggs, I'm bent towards being more forgiving than usual and gripe on less things...... gripes like the foie gras from their Le Rossini being a little overcooked and not having a crispy enough exterior. Truffle oil on that was a nice touch. The Burly Benedict (nothing burly about them) had a bland tasting corned beef. That I didn't expect since I was imagining the salted and hashed variety. Cappuccino needed a lot more body with the foam.

There seems to be little or no salt on their food. For the beer people, there's a variety of bottled stuff that includes Trappist brews and the small selection was really nicely thought out.

Location within Evans Lodge was definitely a charm though.

Fatboy's the Burger Bar, Upper Thomson Rd

The birth of Fatboy's (187 Upper Thomson Road, tel : +65 6252 8780) might have been a baby step moving forward for the state of burgers in this country. The sort of place to be raising the standards of the burgers that is. That being said, the quality of the beef patties were a disappointment. Especially so for a place that sells itself as a burger bar. Truly.

We ordered the Fat Basterd which was on menu, the largest burger available with 150g patties X 2. There wasn't anything particularly special about it - unless you counted the fact that it was larger than the rest of the burgers and featured a dubious sounding "homemade bbq sauce". Cheese slices were thin and looked like they were of the individually wrapped variety. That cheese was also overwhelmed by everything else in the burger.

The liquids that oozed out of the patties didn't look nor taste like meat juices to me. It tasted like water squeezed out of cooked meat. The meat was far too lean and bland. Note to self : never order beef burgers from this place again.

On the positive side The Elvis kinda rocked as a burger. The pork patty was a league above the beef version. Cooked pink on the insides, it had much more of meaty flavour coupled with the char fragrance from the grill. The grilled bananas and peanut butter just made it better. Am likely to come back just for this.

Somebody needs to tell them that their peanut butter and banana shake should just be called peanut butter shake. Where're the bananas people?

Izakaya Nijumaru Restaurant, Cuppage Plaza

So here are a couple of teishoku sets from a izakaya place (5 Koek Road, #02-10 Cuppage Plaza, tel : +65 6235 6693) down at Cuppage. The restaurant actually consists of quite a few units and business must be really good for them to be able to afford such space. There seemed to an even mix of local and Japanese clientele. I've heard about this place from a few sources so decided to drop by for what looked to be the the popular items that people order.

The food here was definitely straight forward and frills free. It was also probably not someplace that I would like to order sashimi based on the samples I've had from the Nijumaru bento which also came with some forgettable grilled saba, pieces of mixed tempura and a piece of braised pork which was really the best item from the set. Even though as my memory serves, it probably wasn't as tasty as the rafute from Mimigar, it was definitely still good. And there was also a decent unajyu set which featured fatty eels as well.

I've yet to order much of anything else beyond a agedashi tofu so I couldn't really say if I liked this place much or not. I'm sure there must be an appeal somewhere and perhaps, it lies with the grills.

Le Bistrot, Stadium Walk

I've been meaning to come to Le Bistrot (2 Stadium Walk, #01-03 Singapore Indoor Stadium, tel : +65 6447 0018) for quite some time. I'm not sure how many people were aware of its existence but it didn't look as filled up as I was expecting on a Friday night. The location probably had a part to play with the crowd as well since it wasn't all that accessible. Since it was our first visit, we took a while to actually find it. But all was good and I'm pretty glad we made this trip.

Gravlax (Saumon Cru Mariné), Oeuf Mollet Croquant, Crème Fraîche à la Menthe

I'd have to admit that their cured salmon slices were actually pretty good and tasted refreshing with their mint crème fraîche. There was also the flavour of the dill from that added to it. This was also the first time I've had a deep fried soft boiled egg. Must have been some effort to get an egg cooked to the point where it was almost solid enough to hold shape; and then to finish it with a light breading and deep fry. The salmon was supposed to come with truffle oil It was only at the point when most of the fish was done that we realised that the flavour could hardly be discerned. A feedback to the restaurant resulted in a fresh portion being brought in as replacement and subsequently doused with a generous dose of the oil. Wow.

foie gras terrine w/ Cadillac

The smooth and creamy foie gras terrine came in a generous slice, topped with what I thought were forgettable pan fried pineapples. While the fruit was to serve as a counter for the rich foie, the accompanying Cadillac did a much better job. In fact, I really liked that white wine.

Crumble au Joue de Boeuf Wagyu, Pommes Sarladaises

Haven't had beef cheeks much. I picked the wagyu beef cheek crumble to try their savoury crumble and was curious how wagyu beef cheek would be like. It was in the end like decently done beef pie with cheese and crumbles. Wouldn't say it was impressive. The duck fat potato slices were on the other hand very nice.

herb crusted spring lamb

I hadn't expected the spring lamb to be a baked dish at all. In fact, I was thinking along the lines of what I had at Mietta's. Still it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Lamb was tender and despite lacking the natural flavour of the meat, was quite enjoyable. I liked that they didn't overdo the herb crust. Liked the sliced potato gratin that served as the base - that had goat's cheese in it. 

Pastilla au Pistache-Chocolat Noir

Don't think we were wowed by the dessert. Most of its saving grace came from the dark chocolate. The skin of pastilla was tough and the pistachio cream did taste oddly soapy. I'm quite sure it wasn't imagined on my part, but I couldn't understand what could have happened.

While I didn't quite agree with all the things we had, I was impressed by the service. Am quite sure I'll be back.