Soya sauce chicken from Sum's Kitchen

This kampong chicken from Sum's Kitchen (3 Jalan Legundi, tel : +65 6757 2118) was certainly toe to toe with the Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken stall in Chinatown for in terms of flavour. The meat was tender, both the sweet and savoury elements of the soya sauce seeped through the skin. But it seems that it's only available here during the Lunar New Year.

Feast of Saint Valentine at Artichoke

Well, it was a feast of sorts for two. And I certainly didn't expect an incidental sign in the form of cracks in a glass from any saint. V. It's kinda like seeing Jesus' face on a potato isn't it? Lol. I jest.

I have honest admiration for what Bjorn Shen and his team are doing at Artichoke and so far, none of the visits have been disappointing. This goes for tonight as well for what I consider to be a very good value to quantity and quality ratio of what they were serving for dinner. I have only some words and the trusty iPhone 4S to tell the story.

chickpea & sesame hummus

pink beetroot tzatziki w pistachio dukka
flat bread @ Cobram Estate olive oil

grilled haloumi cheese w Moorish tomato salad

 

Basturma cured yellowfin tuna, pomelo, chilli

grilled Angus ribeye w local exotic mushrooms

seared scallops, fried cauliflower & yoghurt

forgotten grain salad

assorted baklava, cookies and ice cream/sorbet

Majestic Bay Seafood Restaurant, Gardens by the Bay

Been hearing numerous mentions of this restaurant (18 Marina Gardens Drive, #01-10 Flower Dome, Gardens by the Bay, tel : +65 6604 6604) and their signature coffee crab that was suppose to be at present juncture, unique. The owner as I read was a chef who had previously cut his teeth under some fairly prestigious roles like the once executive chef at the vaunted Hai Tien Lo at Pan Pacific, Majestic Restaurant and Jade at Fullerton Hotel.

One of the starters we had was pickled cucumber and grapes in Kyoto dressing. The latter I'm guessing was a citrus, soy and sesame based dressing. Rather refreshing.

What was unexpectedly tasty were the deep fried lychees that were stuffed with lobster, crab and mushroom. Of which the presence of the former two came in the form of flavours and not textures. One can only stuff so much into lychees after all. The batter was surprisingly light despite appearance and there was a taste almost felt like curry in them. Pretty good for deep fried things that I often do not fancy.

Not so impressed by the seafood fried rice with tobiko. The rice was grainy, well fried and supplemented with multitudes of textures from the grains, bits of scallops & shrimp, meat floss of sorts and even rice crispies. It was just a pity that everything was bland.

I had been expecting nothing less than decent and at least a minimal of fruity flavours for the sweet and sour pork with strawberries, guava and green apples. My expectations were met squarely.

Asparaguses and mushrooms stir fried with garlic were just that.

The kopi sauce tasted like Garrett's caramel popcorn. Albeit a much more full bodied version and had  a more pronounced bittersweet aroma that was actually quite addictive. This meant that we were licking the sauce off the shells before getting to the meat because there wasn't any other way to get to the sauce unlike chilli crab. The crab itself wasn't so impressive. Meat was stuck to the shell and any natural sweetness from the crustacean was overwhelmed by their really robust kopi sauce.

Mee sua with baby abalones was quite nice. That being said, the mee sua didn't come with a rich abalone or shellfish flavour. I'm not sure if it should be. It just tasted like a nicely done mee sua. While it said portions for 3-4 on the menu, I am pretty sure one hungry person could have finished it.

These cream filled mochi were mediocre. The cream had barely any flavour and the same could be said for the bits of strawberries in them. I could hardly identify those bits as strawberries. The stir fried nian gao tasted pretty good from the aroma brought about from the coating of desiccated coconut and sesame seeds. But it also tasted more like kueh ko swee than nian gao.

Couldn't say that the double boiled Chinese pear dessert was memorable either because I'm actually having difficulty thinking of what to say about it. Nothing registered.

Salted egg custard buns were just so so. In the recent years, these buns have become wildly popular. Most dim sum eateries have started offering them because they're generally well liked. The ones made here were sadly, not the better ones around. I'm thinking that dessert is not a forte here.

Lunar New Year Eve's eve dinner at home

Apart from the home made dishes that cannot be found outside like meatballs loaded with plenty of chopped water chestnuts and a fish maw miso shabu shabu broth, the other thing I really like about home cooked reunion dinner is no ginger in the yu sheng. Huat ah!!!

pork belly for the shabu shabu

tower of stir fried leeks and portobello mushrooms

oyster sauce, mirin, pepper

oven roasted prawns

spring onions, garlic, lotsa butter

home made meatballs

spring onions, water chestnut, fried shallots

the shabu broth

miso, mirin, fish maw, carrot

chunky salmon yu sheng

tossed

Hong Kong Jin Tian Eating House, Eng Hoon Street

I found out about this place which was located just across the street from Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice (#01-15, 58 Eng Hoon Street) from television.

The food was at best average tasting. I found the carbs unappealing. It was definitely because of the slightly soggy noodles that came drenched in a starchy sauce (a dislike that I have) and the cooked rice that was dry and beady. Certainly wasn't the vision of food that had come from the claim of being Hong Kong styled roasts. Not with those dry roasted meat it would live up to their claims.

What was interesting from the stall was an item that was called ya jiao bao; a literal translation from Chinese into 'duck leg wrap' and was essentially a portion of duck feet withbone that used the skin that secured a bundle that consisted of pork, duck liver and yam. These were dipped in a sweet glaze before being roasted. While that sounded great, the final product suffered from tough and chewy meat and even chewier skin which involved more than a little effort to eat.

What was done well in my opinion was their sweet and savoury liver sausage that were packed in a slightly chewy casing. That was delicious. 

A breakfast of seafood soup, braised pork trotters and roti prata at the end of Woodlands

This was breakfast at Woodlands Centre Food Centre (Blk 4A, Woodlands Centre Road). A place that I have never eaten at before because of the location right at the end of Woodlands. So close to the border that it reminded me of places beyond the border.

The stall which we were looking for was call Wei Wei Shi Pin (#02-11) and it seemed that they only did seafood soup and braised pork trotters. We were a little early for them so we started the wait with some roti prata (Ahsia Food Stall, #02-76). 

This was the only stall that sold prata and theirs turned out to be pretty mean stuff. There was a small drama of fluffing and crushing of the pastry followed by a little plate assisted ripping before it was tossed onto another plate with a small dish of spicy tomato sardine sambal. Probably a mix of canned sardines and a anchovy based sambal. A refreshing change from the regular assam fish curry to accompany the lightly crisp and chewy prata.

Following those were braised pig trotters which were soft enough that one could easily get the meat off the bone with chopsticks. Chopstick tender it was then. Would have been great with rice if I hadn't been already eating earlier.

The long awaited seafood soup came in two options. The cheaper one which was a fish (pomfret), prawn and meat combination and the more expensive one which included crayfish instead of prawns. I don't eat a great deal of these seafood soup, I'm quite willing to go out and go on record that this one was probably one of the better ones in the country. But then again if I'm ever proven wrong about this, I hope to be proven wrong with a recommendation of a better one.

What was great for me about the soup was the rustic looking meat nuggets of minced meat that contained bits of flavour enhancing dried sole. The broth itself was rich and flavourful of the ingredients. The fish were fresh tasting and the prawns were sweet. Delicious stuff.