Saizeriya Ristorante E Caffe, City Square Mall

I liked this Japanese place (180 Kitchener Road, #B2-55/56 City Square Mall, tel : +65 6834 4878) a lot better than I had expected. Perhaps it was the fact that I had came by expecting very little since I believe that one gets what one pays for. The prices at this place were very affordable for what they served and at their price point, I couldn't complain at all. There were no frills and presentation was..... well, perfunctory. But one doesn't come here for prettied up plates.

As you can see, squid ink pasta was generously inked, so to speak. I was really pleased that they did not scrimp on the squid ink and their flavour came through with every forkful of the al dente noodles. There wasn't much but pieces of squid in the pasta, but they were quite generously portioned and I'll probably want to order a plate of these again the next time I come.

The spinach with bacon was pretty much what it was. A bunch of soft wilted spinach flavoured with bits of bacon. I actually enjoyed how straightforward it all was in terms of how it was served and how it tasted.

This was probably the cheapest mushroom soup I've had for as long as I could remember and it was also a lot better than most that would cost twice of it. It's not close to the better ones I've had, but hey, those cost a lot more too.

I could imagine this order of smoked salmon to be something I took off the cold food section at Ikea. In fact, it arrived so quickly that it might have probably been prepared in a similar fashion. There was nothing fancy nor exciting about it. Just a mildly smoked salmon.

Their mushroom pasta was also satisfactory costing probably half of what Pasta Mania charges, but tasting more than twice as good. The flavours of the mushrooms were definitely not found wanting. These guys here didn't use excessive cream sauce and that was definitely a one up there.

Dessert was a panna cotta. It's probably a pre-packed dessert that was imported in bulk, but it was served chilled in a chilled glass bowl and it didn't taste half bad.

Yonehachi, Takashimaya basement

I had been intending to try this place for a while, my curiosity piqued by the attractive looking sticky steamed rice that they have on display at the front of their counter. Apparently, the rice that the stall is famed from are a little different from the regular short grained rice that is used for most Japanese cooking. These ones are used to make mochi.

The sansai okowa and salmon okowa rice from the shokado okowa set from Yonehachi (391 Orchard Road, #B204-1/2 Takashimaya Food Hall, Ngee Ann City, tel : +65 6333 8227) tasted a lot lighter and healthier than I had expected. The only thing that was fried from the bento were the oysters and to my pleasant surprise, they weren't shabby. The rest of the dishes on the side had been stewed or simmered vegetables and a miso soup. Not forgetting also the little dish on the side with Japanese tartar sauce that had onions and chopped eggs. That was good, especially with the oysters.

Kam Boat House, Singapore Swimming Club

Here's a spread of dim sum and an order of roasted goose from Kam Boat House (45 Tanjong Rhu Road, tel : +65 6342 3659). From the menu, variety here was generally limited but the food was generally wasn't too shabby.

I'm sure I would like enjoyed a fluffier skin for the char siew bao, a creamier textured pan fried radish cake, more tender steamed pork ribs, a more distinctively defined siew mai flavors or even a lighter pastry for the char siew sou. Even the roasted goose could have been more tender. But that's just me picking on little things that I would have preferred. The food here was not bad. I could have gotten used to the more refined quality down at Imperial Treasure, which has to me been consistently one of the better and affordable dim sum places.

Was there anything that might have stood out from the food which we ordered at Kam Boat House? I guess I had enjoyed the nice flavourful aroma from the fat underneath the roasted light and crispy skin of the goose and their siew mai was actually competently done in spite of my rambling.

Milk fish and crispy pata from 7107 Flavours

Curiosity was what got the better of us when the unsuspecting order of milk fish was served down at 7107 Flavours. What we couldn't quite figure out here, was how did all the minced fish stuffings with raisins and green peas got filled out into the unbroken skin of the fish again entirely intact! There weren't any bones in there for that matter and even the head was entirely filled with the marinated minced fish. 

The crispy pata was just as the name implied, full of crispy skin from the pork. The meat was dry and was pretty much saved by the garlic and chilli vinegar on the side there. I didn't think it was impressive enough to ever come back for that again. Their sinigang however, was still as enjoyable as I remember them.

Hippopotamus Restaurant Grill, Marina Square

I was skeptical at first. Hippopotamus (6 Raffles Boulevard, #01-204/205 Marina Square, tel : +65 6338 5352) sounded neither the likes of a restaurant nor French nor both. Apparently though, these guys are a Parisian family styled restaurant that's been around for almost half a century. 

Food was pretty decent. I was also sold by their XL rib eye which was large, juicy and quite bloody. Granted that there're no special premium cuts from pedigreed bovines with exceptional marbling here, it was still a good hunk of meat. Glad that I picked a medium doneness over my regular medium rare which might have been a tad undercooked for my preferences. Portions were generous (it might have been 340g) and I enjoyed the sides. One of the gems in this restaurant was a their blue cheese sauce! Yay for that blue cheese sauce because I know there's a dreary lack of decent ones around. I'm definitely coming back for the steaks and perhaps the burgers.

french onion soup

The French onion soup was passable. Love the toasted cheese, but the flavour lacked body.

300g bone marrow

We were served a pretty large bone marrow - costing also much less than what most restaurants would charge for it. But I suspect this was frozen and not thawed nor baked well as the marrow wasn't as quivery as it should have been. Certain parts were almost as hard as warm wax. Eek!

squid fries

These not so chewy squid fries were also passable. It got boring after a couple of pieces.

A choco lamb burger from De Burg

I had ordered this from De Burg out of curiosity. Of having hazelnut chocolate spread paired with a grilled lamb patty. The flavours were..... interesting to say the least. I haven't had chocolate with lamb before. Didn't taste too bizarre as well. It was just, unusual.

There was enough of the Nutella spread in the bun for the chocolate taste to be noticeable and in spite of everything else that was piled into the well constructed burger, I could still taste some flavour from the meat. Although, I would have preferred for that lamb flavour to be more robust.