Fresh Fish Seafood Soup, Sembawang Hill Food Centre

This place (590 Upper Thomson Road, #01-36 Sembawang Hill Food Centre, S574419) is a little hideaway for fish soup introduced to me by a friend which we could go to, off the lunch hour since that time of the day does away with the horrendous queue under the usual relentless and sweltering humidity of the afternoon.

We normally grab the fish soup with instant noodle option and I like mine with an additional topping of fish eggs. I couldn't really say what is truly compelling for me in this particular stall. Perhaps, it was the clear tasting soup lightly flavoured with pepper, garlic and fried shallots that could be spiced up with accompanying chilli padi. Perhaps, it was the rustic looking and fresh tasting fish slices and curly instant noodle. Not that those noodles were undercooked as I normally would enjoy them. But I've always found this stall to be a nice sanctuary for a late lunch.

New Victory Restaurant, North Bridge Road

I've been wanting to come down to this place (701 & 703 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6298 6955) for the longest after Zam Zam to see what were the differences between the two since they had similar looking murtabaks. Funny thing was, according to them, this shop was also a hundred years old this year too. We have by happenstance, visited two neighbouring stalls that are well known for the same food in their hundredth year.

To be honest, it has been more than a year since Zam Zam and there were so much similarities in their murtabak that I was hard pressed to detect much differences between the two. Both had the signature look of folded prata layered with egg and crusted with bits of ground mutton. Both were also loaded with sweet chopped onions and were served in pretty large portions. Perhaps New Victory lacked a little punch from the flavour of the ground mutton. I cannot be sure. I think I'll need to head back to Zam Zam again soon if I had to differentiate them. This locale at North Bridge Road offers an unparalleled option for murtabak which probably cannot be found elsewhere.

Canton-i, Orchard ION

The wanton noodle down at Canton-i (2 Orchard Turn, #03-14 ION Orchard, tel : +65 6509 8368) was not bad. Portions were kinda small though. What pleasantly surprised me was the firm and chewy texture of the noodles that felt almost like Tsim Chai Kee in Hong Kong. Almost. To compare between the two, I would have to hands down pick the latter as the better bowl for both the taste and the level of satisfaction. Portions were definitely more generous and it was less expensive. The wantons here in Canton-i might have been larger than many, filled with fresh crunchy prawns. Still not a match for the flavours and size for the king prawn wanton noodles Tsim Chai Kee. 

I ordered their Japanese sweet potato with cheese out of curiosity and those turned out to be two little dry bars of sweet potato with a textured crust at the top that had so little cheese that I couldn't taste them.

Lunching at Your Woul

Headed back to Your Woul to try their lunch sets priced at $9.90 and landed ourselves a heo dup bab and a jab che bab. These items turned out to be pretty good. The former was almost a riot of flavors (in a good way) from the fish roe, seaweed, sesame seeds and what tasted to me like some sort of powdery fish floss. I definitely would have loved for this to be in larger portions.

The jab che bab set as I've learn from previous experience were glass noodles and some assorted vegetables that came with rice. The rendition of the jabchae here was savoury and peppery compared to the ones done at Arirang. I couldn't say which one was better since I enjoyed them both.

I'm starting to like the chilled cinnamon and ginger date tea stuff that they serve at the end of meals.

Burger Shack, King's Arcade

This place (559 Bukit Timah Road, #01-01 King's Arcade, tel : +65 6466 3477) which was opened by Island Creamery wasn't too bad at all. The double burger from the menu had did come with nicely char grilled medium well patty which contained enough flavors to be both beefy with the grill aroma at the same time. Albeit, neither of which were as intense as I would have preferred. I guess having just some onions and a leaf of lettuce helps things not to be detracted from the original flavors they were trying to build here and it was probably a good thing that I forgot to ask for additional toppings of cheese. I did like the lightly toasted and airy buns which they used. Fries were pretty ordinary and I thought that having more variety of beers apart from just Tiger would probably spruce the place up in the arena of options.

Nothing over the top or mind blowing, but good enough for me to come back again to.

Arirang Korean Restaurant, Liang Seah Street

Unusual how we were led to this restaurant (1 Liang Seah Street, #01-07/08 Liang Seah Place, tel : +65 6333 0025). We were looking for a place to eat where we could pay by card because we had run out of cash. Coming in from Beach Road and hungry, this happened to be one of the first places that we came across that looked decent and with the recent Korean food craze we were in, it looked like it was a good idea.

We were quite glad that we gave it a chance despite the initial apprehension I had after seeing the crazy crowd seated indoors for their all you can eat "Korean" BBQ buffet.

We started off with a plate of japchae (sounding suspiciously like a Nonya chap chye) which was a large portion for something that came from the appetizer section. I was initially worried from the first mouthful that the sweet flavour of the vermicelli would become overwhelming like the jajangmyeon experience previously, but the taste actually grew on me. The sweetness were relatively mild and the play of textures between the chewy glass noodles and mix of vegetables were enjoyable. Will definitely put this under a re-order consideration.

The spicy seafood soup here put the one at Crystal Jade Ginseng Chicken to shame. It was a notch spicier. In the unassuming pot of orange broth beneath the vegetables and tofu, were 4 large prawns, mussels, fish and squid. In spite of being slightly overcooked, the natural sweetness of the prawns came through. This soup was a daily special of the week and the setback for it was an affordable $10. Considering that it came with rice and refills of banchan, I thought it was a pretty good deal.

What took us by surprise for the spicy beef soup was the beefiness in the broth which we had assumed would be subdued by the spiciness. Again, another interesting bunch of textures coming from the meat, sprouts, spring onions, egg and vermicelli. The fact that there wasn't really that much beef in them didn't even matter.

I think I'm willing to overlook the mediocre banchan and come back again.