Anjappar Authentic Chenttinaad Restaurant, Syed Alwi Road

I've on numerous occasions passed by the outlet of this franchised restaurant from Chennai (102, Syed Alwi Road, tel : +65 6392 5545) down by Race Course Road and have been wanting to check them out. Today, I ended up eating at this particular outlet instead because I happened to be in the vicinity.

Without being sure of what to expect, we ordered what looked like might be interesting from the menu. Ended up with some really spicy and peppery mutton sukka varuval which tasted similarly to the coconut mutton fry which we've had from Spice Junction and a kaadai (quail) briyani. The briyani came with a bird that seemed to be overly cooked. The meat was little tough. I'm probably not going to try these again since it was too much hassle getting the meat out of the bones of such a small bird. The taste just didn't justifying the effort. What I didn't like were the chopped bits of coriander that marred the pretty decent paneer kuruma.

Still, I thought that the food wasn't too shabby. Wouldn't mind coming back.

mutton sukka varuval

cheese naan

paneer kuruma

kaadai briyani

Duck macaroni from Kwee Heng

This was a pretty good find (#01-13, Newton Hawker Centre, 500 Clemenceau Avenue North) down at Newton which I haven't been to in ages. Apart from the portions which I had thought to be a little measly, these macaroni in the mixture of their vinegary and spicy sauces turned out very appetizing indeed. On top of that, one also gets the nice textures of chopped duck and crunchy sprouts. One might not have expected from an ubiquitous looking stall facing the car park, selling ducks and chickens.

Green tea dough fritters from Bread Bar Cafe

I got these green tea flavored dough fritters out of curiosity after seeing them down at Bread Bar Cafe (10 Sinaran Drive, #02-08/09, Novena Square 2, tel : +65 6397 6076). From a distance, they looked like they were moldy but that's just the green tea coloring infused into the dough plus a dusting of sugar on the surface. I couldn't say there was anything particularly special about them even though it was the first time I was having flavoured dough fritters. There was some green tea taste. Along with the sugar, made them a sweet fried pastry rather than the savoury one that we're used to. The tuna mayo wrap however, was surprisingly quite good.

Sawagani from Tampopo

Tampopo often has affordable seasonal items on their menu. So far, they've been doing a pretty good job of luring us back again and again. Lately, it seems that they have brought in some sawagani and so there we were again!

These little river crabs here tasted a little bit more greasy than the ones I remember having at Chikuwa Tei. They were also handled with a little less finesse as seen from a broken claw and some legs. Otherwise, these lightly salted deep fried river crabs tastes pretty much the same everywhere. The squeeze of lemon was a good idea even though the juice pretty much flowed off the crabs.

Seeing numerous orders of their tonkatsu ramen from various neighbouring tables, we decided to give it a go. The tonkotsu broth was heavily masked by the chilli oil. Wasn't bad at all if rather non indicative of tonkotsu broths. The fried tonkatsu however was disappointing. The battered surface was laden with oil. It was a greasy fried piece of pork but not in a way that I would have liked.

We had cake. Their matcha chiffon cake wasn't bad. I guess the appeal for me was the light milky cream that they use. That same cream that makes me want to get their scoop cake every time.

Soup kuey teow from Hong Heng...

I can never seem to get enough of this stuff. Now that the novelty of the laksa beef noodle has worn off me here, I'll be sticking to regular smooth and ricey soup kuey teow to get my fixes. I'm even willing to make exceptions for hot days when I don't normally like anything that has hot soup.

Morrocan lamb burger from Burger Shack

This lamb burger from Burger Shack was pretty good. The meat patty was robustly flavourful from the lamb pairing up nicely with what passed off for their Moroccan spice in a good way. Minimal frills to detract from the natural taste meat. My only complain was that one needed the fries as a filler since these things weren't really that huge. But it was good enough for me to come back for.