The Beef House, Syed Alwi Road

I've been wanting to visit this stall (Gar Lok Eating House, 217 Syed Alwi Road) for the longest time after having heard numerous mentions of their beef balls on multiple occasion over the past years. They are apparently still the only Hakka styled beef ball makers in this country in these years. I hear that each of their beef balls are painstakingly molded by hands.

How were those beef balls you ask?

The surface had interesting looking terrain for one. Those hand molded bovine orbs were also both beefy tasting and impressively springy in texture. I dare say that these are the best beef balls I've ever had so far, bar none. What got me though, was that I couldn't figure out which was the regular beef ball and which were the ones that had tendon in them for a mixed bowl of balls since they tasted pretty much the same together. These were served in a light beef bone broth which didn't quite blow me away, but was unexpectedly 'cheng'.

There was also some rather ordinary mee kia that one could opt amongst a few noodle options. It's the variety with minced meat and lard that can be found in countless second rate yong tau foo stalls all over, but these are probably nicer and they don't clump up. What makes them really good is the garlic spiked chilli sauce which the stall also provides. 

Beef House also serves abacus seeds, another traditional Hakka food item and these were pretty tasty. Springy, lightly chewy like a sort of Asian flavored yam gnocchi with mushrooms and dried shrimp.

The soon kueh had thick chewy skin. They tasted pretty rustic and greasy, but the stuffings of chopped vegetables and mushrooms were generous and tasty.

Ohsumi Japanese Restaurant, Cuppage Plaza

This would be our first attempt at the simplicity of real Japanese shabu shabu down at Ohsumi (5 Koek Road, #03-24/28, Cuppage Plaza, tel : +65 6235 6178) which I've been passing by on multiple occasions and eyeing for quite a while. From what I've heard, this shop specializes in pork which constitutes half of more of their shabu options on the menu. Of course, wagyu can always be had for those with the intent to splurge. We picked the all you can eat pork option since this was a first visit so that we could gorge ourselves and decide if we like it enough to come back another time for their pricier kurobuta or beef equivalents.

The pork shabu came with loin, shoulder and belly cuts along with a platter of vegetable and oddly, two house made meatballs which were actually pretty damned good. Quality of meat served was pretty good; if a little lacking in natural flavour which I was hoping to experience from a clean cooking in a broth that was so lightly flavoured by little but wong bok and a bit of mushrooms. Still, the accompanying house made ponzu and goma sauces along with some unexpected options of sliced chilli padi and finely chopped garlic rescued that. What I was wondering was, are those chilli padi a thing in shabu shabu?

And since it was all you can eat, we hit up another large platter of meat and vegetables after the initial serving along with extra orders of those tasty meatballs. I'm not sure if there had been another time when I had so much pork in a seating, but we were pretty porked out by the time we finished.

The service here was attentively polite and snappy though they seem to tend to forget orders. The feelings are mixed over here. I would like to be back for another shot at something else, but it's easily a triple digit bill.

Poulèt vous?

I was initially skeptical about this French themed roast chicken joint / rotisserie (#01-175/176/177, VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk, tel : +65 6376 9087) as it was opened by the people that ran Thai Express. I didn't like Thai Express. And the bunch of other chain restaurants that the group manages. In retrospect, I can see why the place draws such a crowd and that people talk about it. The chicken was pretty decent and I did like some of the stuff we had. Which left me wondering if the quality of the food was consistent across the board for each outlet or did we just get lucky here at VivoCity......

We could also see that what they're trying to do, was to simplify the food setup to let the ingredients shine along with some well managed cooking processes in the kitchen.

Mushroom soup was creamy, smooth and not lacking in flavour. This was actually better than I had imagined so I guess that's a good thing.

I thought that a name like salad de Paris was tacky. Overlooking that, it was a pretty good one. There was the piquant from the olives, fruity sweet and tart from the dried cranberries, fragrant nuttiness from the generous sprinkle of pine nuts along with the chopped up greens that lent a great deal of texture, tossed up very well with olive oil and apricot jam. I was thinking, if the food sucked, I could come back just for this. I swear.

The claim to fame for Poulèt was obviously their slow roasted chicken. It's pretty good. The meat was tender, moist and apart from their brine marination, had no other flavouring. And then the sauce. This cranberry one tasted like it had roux with the dominant flavour being cinnamon. Which was not what I had expected since I had imagined a fruity cranberry jam/compote thing. But I suppose if it had been the latter, it'll mess itself up with the smear of mustard that they had also provided.

The regular sauce option was some sort of mushroom cream which tasted like a less mushroom-y rendition of their soup. It was still rich from the cream and made you feel like you've had enough when you're done with the chicken.

Mash was good. Smooth, velvety machine blended good. It was however not the buttery type.

Dessert was caramelised apple in puffy tart. It was okay.

A lunch at Le Bistrot du Sommelier

Another delicious meal from Le Bistrot du Sommelier. There were some mackerel rillettes, fragrant and freshly steamed artichokes from Brittany in season that were served with a tangy onion salsa, some very fresh tasting tenderloin tartare where the quality of the meat spoke for itself in the midst of the spices that was mixed in them and a very delicious hanger cut onglet with an intense beefiness that was amazing with the sweet shallot confit with soft garlic cloves. I had that onglet back in Au Petit Salut ages ago and this one seemed to be bigger and better. All those juices from the meat and confit got soaked up in the fries making them extra tasty.

Dessert was a recommendation from their wait staff, a frangipane tart with smooth pistachio cream, toasted pistachio and luscious raspberries which was pretty awesome.

A Cheeseburger from Ootoya

No, this is not a an actual cheese burger but a Cheeseburger. Basically it's a hamburg with melted cheese and some pesto, served in a piping hot tomato broth with vegetables. How did that fare? I thought it was pretty edible but also didn't think they make the tastiest of hamburg patties. Intrinsic flavour of the beef was muted and there are definitely better around. The tomato broth was unexpectedly enjoyable though. This dish was definitely very good cold weather food. If only it ever got cold here. Would I eat this again? Sure, but I'll probably want to run through some of the other items on their menu before. 

Riverside Indonesian BBQ, Food Opera @ ION Orchard

Here's a grilled chicken and squid set from the Riverside Indonesian BBQ at Ion's Food Opera (ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn #B4-03/04). It seems that their outlets/franchises hasn't changed very much over the years, consistency not withstanding. Which is actually a good thing. Apart from the price hikes. I'm pretty sure that the coconut laden gravy that they had used back in the old days at Riverside Point was tastier, but that being said, the existing concoction that they do are still delicious over the moist rice. I guess a huge draw for the queues would also be because of that sweet dark sauce that they use to baste the chickens over the grill. And that not so spicy sambal with onions and ikan bilis which comes in handy when the gravy runs out. Speaking of which, are they serving coconut rice these days or was I mistaken?