Sandwiches at Nassim Hill Bakery Bistro Bar

Wow, I'm quite impressed with the sandwiches here (56 Tanglin Road, #01-03 Tanglin Post Office, tel : +65 6835 1128) so far and these guys do mean business when they claim artisanal bread; which is sadly not the case in many other establishments with business brains only capable of cashing in dated marketing words.

One of the things that really hit the spot for me was their signature Grimbergen Ambrée beer bread which was a winning combination of being in the state of dense, granularly coarse yet soft without being crumbly all at the same time. Those combined textures in my opinion made great holders for filling, in which a very decent job was done of their Reuben sandwich. Featuring warm sliced corned beef, enough Emmental that one could taste the nuttiness, sliced red onions and what tasted like a lightweight sauerkraut.

I would be remiss to neglect the mention of their their ham and cheese sandwich in between sliced raisin and walnut bread that wasn't quite the Grimbergen Ambrée beer bread, but delicious as well. Emmental inside too. If you haven't caught on already, it was really the bread here that was the star. Nicely washed down with some of their Grimbergen Blanche and a cappuccino.

Will. Be. Back.

Omakase Burger, The Grandstand

I like the direction of that Omakase Burger (200 Turf Club Road, #01-05 The Grandstand, tel : +65 6763 2698) is heading. Which is making better burgers at a more affordable price point. While we're talking about them being more affordable, one has to remember these are by no means "standard fast food" kind of prices and them burgers were actually a tad small. YMMV. 

But what I enjoyed about them are their blend of ground USDA Choice beef grilled into a medium rare to medium patty which was flavourful and juicy to boot. The proportion of ingredients (mushrooms and onions!) with their deluxe cheeseburger was great as well while the salty melted American cheese came through it all between the soft buns they had used.

That being said, I thought there was certainly room for improvement. The soft buns were a little too porous and light that the juices from the patty would soak through and turn them soggy. Truffle oil saved their fries. Let's hope this becomes part of an ongoing trend to raise the "less expensive but still good" burger standards in this country.

Nam Nam Noodle Bar, Wheelock Place

Here's a mixed beef pho from Nam Nam Noodle Bar down at the basement of Wheelock Place. Since I have not had pho in Vietnam before, I have no real basis for comparison except for those from the local Vietnamese joints. The broth was disappointing. One could say it was a little bland. Coming from Annam (and by that virtue, Les Amis as well), I had expected better. Sure the tripe was tasty and the miserable portions of sliced beef were nice and pink. But the briskets were rubbery and tough that I couldn't eat them at all. Is this how pho is suppose to taste like?

I would also recommend a pass on their Viet "drip coffee".  It didn't taste anything like it. I'm not sure I could bring myself back again even if I was curious about the bahn mi.

Smoke Shack, Republic Plaza

the New Yorker

I have been wanting to try the sandwiches at Smoke Shack (9 Raffles Place, #B1-06 Republic Plaza, tel : +65 6557 2214) for the longest time. Due to the cosmic alignment of their operating hours and the place that I work, it was impossible for me to. Then chance presented itself one day.

I suppose I had been expecting to be impressed rather than just thinking that they weren't bad. I wouldn't mind eating them again if the opportunity presented, but we weren't left with "I need to come back again and soon".

Honestly, these guys are indeed on of the better sandwich places along with what I remember of Simply Bread. Sadly as well. Brewerkz still takes the cake for their pastrami fillings to date.

the Reuben

Nasi Lemak Kukus, Upper Thomson Road

It's amazing how difficult it can be to find good nasi lemak rice these days. Most vendors today have either succumbed into sloth or subscribed to the religious fear of cholesterol resulting in their food becoming downright bland and /or mediocre.

I'm not saying that Nasi Lemak Kukus (908 Upper Thomson Road, tel : +65 8222 9517) falls in either ends of the spectrum. I think they did a pretty decent job being somewhere favourable in between.

Their rice was moist and fragrant with coconut. They also had a very decent & savoury sayur lodeh and treated the ayam goreng in the correct manner that the meat wasn't overly dried out and fell off the bone with relative ease. I enjoyed their mutton rendang too, though their dry and very chewy paru goreng really wasn't my style at all.

I guess what else was attractive of from them was that we got to serve ourselves (free flow of rice?) what we wanted and there were options for the sides. Their appeal altogether so far has gotten me to drop by twice. But all that came with a cost as well since it didn't cost anything close to cheap for their food. Still I think this stall is doing something in the right direction.

Wok to Walk, La Rambla, Barcelona

We were to an extent, pretty amused by this dinner of Chinese food from a chain stall in Barcelona. Wok to Walk (95 La Rambla, Barcelona, tel : +31 02 06250721) does Chinese stir fried noodles and rice takeouts in those iconic little paper boxes. I don't think that people in China use them too, but I could be wrong. It was for the first time in our lives eating with them.

How this place worked was for the customer to select their choice of carbs from a small variety of noodle type or rice, followed by additional ingredients and then a sauce of choice. The bar of ingredients looked like something from a pizza place, but most if not all Chinese food places don't even provide options with such variety. This did and in a way, was great. Before anyone scoffs at them, we had seen real Chinese cooking videos uploaded by tourist from the streets of Beijing and they cooked exactly like those street hawkers in China!

In any case, the food was actually reasonably tasty. No surprise considering the consistent queue that this joint generated even off the peak meal hours. Their hot sauce was expectedly a little milder than I had in mind, but the options of chilli that one could help themselves with resulted in a respectable heat more fiery than any chilli char kuey teow I've ever had.

I normally avoid faces in photos, but I thought these guys that were sweating behind the bar churning out endless orders of stir fried noodles looked amusingly bored.