Gyudons from Yoshinoya

Yoshinoya has come up with a few variations to their beef bowl lately. Here's a look at their tamago and rutan beef bowls which features a half boiled egg and a hard boiled version respectively. The egg from the latter was only briefly stewed in sauce.  Not much of the brown was on the surface.

While I'm not a fan of these guys I've to admit that there aren't anyone place else I know of that makes a savoury gyudon. Without sweetness in the sauce. With the egg in the bowl, I might just start dropping by again.

Maggi goreng from Jalan Kayu Prata Cafe

This wasn't bad at all. I wasn't too sure of what to make out of a "Jalan Kayu" branded stall right smack in town (60B Orchard Road, #01-16A The Atrium @ Orchard, tel : +65 9237 9005) but it looked like it attracted it's fair share of clientele. Beside having better dressed cooks, the place looked and smelled the part of a Indian coffee shop/eatery. What I liked about the maggi goreng with mutton was that it wasn't too wet. There was a spiciness that was respectable. Nice enough that I would definitely consider this again if I'm around town.

Breakfasting at Selera Johor

This ad hoc breakfast trip turned out to be more interesting than I had anticipated. I was brought by a friend who recommended me to this little food centre (Selara Johor Food Court, Plaza Larkin, Johor Bahru, 80350) located just beside Plaza Larkin where there was a pretty tasty mee rebus stulang. A supposed landmark of sorts of the locals. For some reasons, the stall had ran out of prawns and we couldn't get to order "the works". Still we ended up with a simple yet different mee rebus which wasn't too bad in my opinion. The gravied noodles had some savoury fritters sprinkled over the top. There was a nice consistency to the gravy and the flavour was precise.

Just across from that mee rebus stall, there was something called kachang pool which turned out to be what I think of as an Asian version of chili con carne. The minced meat and bean stew wasn't very spicy, but the chopped fresh onion and green chillis with a squeeze of calamansi made them pretty irresistible with their thick buttered toast. Bonus points goes to having an egg in there was well.

Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle, Chinatown Food Centre

I've eaten at this stall (Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle, Blk 335 Smith Street, #02-127 Chinatown Complex Food Centre) a few times by recommendation. Have never been a person for soya sauce chicken until this particular one. Surprising even myself, these few visits have seen me standing in line under sweltering heat for the food. Maybe it's because I felt the queue actually made sense. 

One of the reasons why the queue endures is that the food here is affordable. The chef/proprietor doesn't yield under the pressure of the said queue. Apparently, all the meats are done by himself. What I liked about the chicken was the tender meat and sweet soya sauce concoction that's been infused into the skin of the bird. 

The other item that got me coming back was the delicious char siew which was a nice balance of sweet and savoury deliciousness. The stall stings on the portion of neither. The pictures doesn't do any justice to the flavours.

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.