Run Ji Cooked Food (润记熟食), Chinatown Food Centre

Spurred by the delicious meal of braised duck at Tai Dong, I was encouraged to seek out another similar stall to continue changing my opinion of braised duck. Run Ji Cooked Food (Blk 335 Smith Street, #02-140 Chinatown Complex Food Centre), a straightforward stall as such was another which was brought to my attention recently.

Being hungry, we pulled little punches and topped up the order of the bird with innards and eggs. I enjoyed this one as well even though they didn't have a sauce which was as flavourful as Tai Dong. The interesting thing that set this stall apart from the rest was that they had hae bi hiam (spicy dried shrimp) as a topping option for the rice that they served. While it wasn't one of the best I've had, it did add a dimension to the relatively tame flavour of the sauce. The food wasn't mind blowing but it was also a simple and comforting meal with little fuss. I couldn't say that I would mind returning.

Revisiting Canton-i

Encouraged by the wanton noodles from the previous visit at Canton-i, we decided to return to try some of the other items that they have on menu.

This would be the equivalent of the twin roast meats with rice. Surprisingly good was their char siew, which was nicely caramelized with the sweet fatty half of each slice melting nicely in the mouth. The roast duck was unfortunately lean and dry. The lack of fat also rendered the meat of the duck a little bland.

Nicely done too, was their stir fried Chinese chives & bean sprouts with dried shrimp, dried cuttlefish and cashew nuts. The dried shrimps used were of a much larger variety than usual. The flavors from the sauce of this stir fried vegetable dish was robust and definitely paired very nicely with white rice. Can't really break down what that was in there apart from the listed ingredients, but it was good stuff.

The XO sauce radish cake was decently executed and probably might have made a better better dim sum or breakfast order rather than dinner because of the grease, but we had wanted to try them out. Each piece was coated with a light layer of crisp with creamy insides.

Another order of wanton noodles here. This time round, we opted for the dry noodles. Strangely, the firm and chewy texture of the noodle that was experienced previously was less apparent in this than the one in the soup rendition.

There wasn't that much in the way of desserts on menu, so we settled for the jiang zhi zhuang nai. Milk curdled in ginger juice. Moderately spicy and sweet and textured like very soft bean curd, this was not bad at all.

Back in Anatolia

Decided to head here (14 Scotts Road, #02-58/59 Far East Plaza, tel : +65 6836 3352) for lunch because of some kebab craving that sparked off by Deli Turk. Invariably, comparisons were made since it was just a day ago that we were eating Turkish food.

Here's just talking about the doner kebabs here and the most obvious difference was in the serving of the meat. I had noticed that the spits were only switched on when the order was taken on a quiet weekend lunch and presumably, things were not as warm compared to a busy spit. Still, the beef kebab was pretty tasty and the half green chilli added a nice spicy depth to the food. Chicken was kinda boring and the cold fries which had been laying around somewhere were totally forgettable.

Regarding their "special" rice. It's merely the same butter rice that was used with the frozen peas/carrot/corn and some almonds.

Deli Turk, Suntec City

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I used to work in the vicinity. Deli Turk (3 Temasek Boulevard, #03-004, Suntec City Mall, tel : +65 6336 8082) was yet another one of those places that I must have passed by countless times and overlooked until today when I decided to give these guys a try. Even though I thought that the proprietor looked like a insurance sales person with a chip on the shoulder.

We started off with a safe order of hummus which was quite generous with the lemon and also had enough paprika to almost paint the dish Szechuan. Lol! I thought it was strange having chopped spring onions sprinkled on the top since that really added to the effect of making the dish look really Chinese and spicy. But all was good with the nicely chilled and creamy chick pea paste served with warm bread.

This yoghurt slathered dish, Kara lahana domasi was something we got off the daily special menu. The tubular shapes were cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and minced meat. It was altogether quite good.

The lamb doner kebab was delicious with sufficient gaminess from the meat on top of moist butter rice. In spite of the grease from both the meat and rice, I did feel that portions were a little small. My not so spider sense detects a repeat order item here in subsequent visits.

The kunefe was a dessert that was recommended by the grumpy looking proprietor and wow, this was pretty good stuff indeed. I would come back just to have them again. It appeared to be a shredded filo pastry like tart/thing/disc with unsalted cheese on the inside. The pastry which was lying on cream was sweetened by a topping of syrup and served piping hot with a shower of crushed pistachio over the top. The texture of the kunefe allowed it to soak up the cream from the bottom, so it ended up being cool yet warm, and was both crispy and juicy (from the soaked cream) at the same time.

Nantsuttei, Parco Marina

Finally visted this ramen-ya (9 Raffles Boulevard, #P3-06 Parco Marina Bay, Millenia Walk, tel : +65 6337 7166). I've been curious about them since the time I read about them opening up here. Thinking to beat the novelty crowd, I had decided not to be in such a hurry to visit them like I did for Ippudo but apparently the queues have not abated. Good thing that the turnover was pretty quick. I may just have found my favourite tonkotsu ramen shop!

Overlooking the other options, I went straight for the maru-toku negi chashu-men which was their basic ramen with additional portions for the negi and chashu. The rich creamy broth was lightly accented by the flavour of the black ma-yu which was to me a bit of a curiosity. It was a fragrance rather than a intense flavouring of garlic that had been fried multiple times. Their slightly stiff slices of chashu relented after being soaked in the broth for some moments having the fat softened. Resisting the temptation for more enhanced flavours, I gave the extra garlic options a pass this first time. Just so that I can experience their ramen straight up as they were done. Got a little enthusiastic over the order and forgot my usual topping of egg.

On the side, we gave their Fuufu Enman Gyoza (amusingly named Happy Couple gyoza by translation) a shot and it arrived slightly burnt. They were just small gyozas, albeit a little meatier than I was expecting.

Definitely coming back again.

Skinny Pizza, Raffles City

Yet another outlet has opened for Skinny Pizza (252 North Bridge Road, #B1-63/64 Raffles City Shopping Centre). What drove us to visit this time was their expended menu which looked like it has much more than what we remembered from the last visit.

We got ourselves the 'salami & pesto' pizza this time round. Turned out to be one which we thought was pretty good with a smattering of different flavours coming from the salty salami, bitter rockets, sweet roasted capsicum, sour from the bits of chopped olives and pungence from the crumbled goat cheese. I'm surprised that I even managed to list all of them out.

Nibbles on the sides now come in a three item option (costing a little less than three separate orders) which we decided to take advantage of. The truffle fries were an obvious choice. We picked a seared brie crusted with pistachio and garlic grilled prawns with cauliflower cous cous. Damn, the cous cous (which was just finely shredded cauliflower) was good! I wished they had been more generous with the portions though.

Dessert was a rumbaba which was served with a shot of rum. I'm not sure how these cakes are done traditionally but I thought this rendition was pretty good with the vanilla bean sauce and preserved orange rinds.

There was a red latte which was basically roobois tea with milk. If the color of the drink wasn't apparent, this was a robust brew of the tea. Didn't taste as milky the looks might have suggested. There was definitely more tea in this stuff.