Hougang 6 Miles Muah Chee, Toa Payoh

These black sesame muah chee were pretty good (480 Toa Payoh Lor 6, HDB Hub B1-01, Stall 21). It was definitely more aromatic than the regular variety due to black sesame that's been added into the chewy dough and I noticed that each piece that was pulled off was glazed individually with shallot oil before being coated in the sugared peanut powder which also had crushed black sesame seeds in them. I wonder why do they have 6 Miles in their name. 

Yi Jia South Village Seafood Restaurant, Toa Payoh

Heard about this tze char from a friend and decided to check out the scene from their outlet up north (#01-298, 21 Toa Payoh Lorong 7, tel : +65 6250 6537). Most of the plates of food from what we had observed from the neighbouring orders looked good. But I think we made a few mistakes ordering as newbies here.

Their stir fried sweet potato leaves with garlic, ginger and fermented bean curd was pretty good. Really appreciated the fact that the leaves were not fibrous.

Stir fried kang kong with garlic was competently done as well. There was enough savouriness and the vegetable had the prerequisite crunch to denote freshness.

This was when things started getting a little "off the main path". These deep fried prawn balls in Thousand Island sauce were a little too single dimensionally sweet. So that meant that you probably wouldn't want to eat more than a couple before all that cloy got to you. Oddly, their Thousand Island sauce actually tasted like greasy Sugus. Don't know what that is? Go Wiki it. 

Funky dish number two was deep fried chicken with strawberry sauce. This and the previous item were in the orders because they sounded interesting and were also signature dishes by Yi Jia. It turned out that these experimental pairings didn't work together well. At all. There was too little balancing tart from the strawberry of their creamy/milky sauce. Couldn't even pretend it was lemon chicken and the cloy manifested again after a couple of pieces. To top that off, the quality of the meat was really mediocre. This was mistake order number two.

Thankfully, their royal pot which was their take on a sort of traditional Chinese frutti di mare made the cut. Am pretty sure I would like to come back judging from the crowd and what we spied coming out from the kitchen. Hey, no fake crab sticks in the fried rice here! We'll stick to more conventional items from the menu the next time.

Keng Seng Abalone Noodle House, Upper Thomson Road

This was the much less crowded looking of the two ba chor mee neighbours (246A Upper Thomson Road). The other being Meng's Kitchen that offered a much more satisfying looking (prettier?) bowl of noodles which drew much more crowd. The operative word here is look.

Keng Seng's differentiates themselves by adding a slice of abalone into their noodles. It's $3.50, noticeably cheaper than the above mentioned neighbour and doesn't include the sliced pig liver nor shrimp that the picture in front of the stall depicts. But I thought it was done decently and I liked the texture of the noodles here better. The sparing amount of deep fried lard hidden in the noodles were crispy and fragrant. What really got to me though, was the accompanying no-nonsense bowl of soup that came with the noodles. My not so Spidey senses told that it was definitely pig stomach soup. A peppery one at that and it was good. Good that I asked for refills.

Now that I'm encouraged, I'm likely to come back another time for their more expensive bowl that features crayfish.

Burnt Ends, Teck Lim Road

I've been hearing about the mentions of Burnt Ends (20 Teck Lim Road, tel : +65 6224 3933) quite a bit as a result of it being a new establishment that's a joint venture by Loh Lik Peng and Andre Chiang of Restaurant Andre. This particular one is helmed by a bearded Australian David Pynt running the counter-seating open grill kitchen with a custom built brick kiln serving up elegantly plated offerings straight from their fires. And others. With such a pedigree and theme, how could I not be suckered in? 

sea urchin & cauliflower

First impressions was sea urchin, slivers on cauliflower puree. This was on the whole, nice, but the flavour of the uni was quite lost. As strange as this might sound, the cauliflower puree had actually overwhelmed the sea urchin.

salmon skin and roe

Following was crispy salmon skin slathered with oyster emulsion and dusted with some seaweed powder and ikura. This was textures and subtle shifts of layers of flavour rather well done. It didn't escape us that these looked like crispy flattened oyster shells.

smoked quail eggs & truffle

We made the mistake of ordering the smoked quail eggs with truffle which came in the form of truffle salt. None of the truffle flavour from the salt came through so I guess it was a waste of $5 against the regular smoked eggs which was actually quite nice if predictably so. The molten yolk scored here.

warmed oysters

We didn't know what to expect of the warmed oysters, but these were damn good. As aptly named, the oysters were merely warmed and not cooked. Couldn't quite catch what the server had mentioned about the liquids that was in them, but I thought I had heard rice wine vinegar. The oysters themselves were large, fat and juicy. Good for returns.

duck hearts, endive & aioli

Then, very nicely grilled and sliced duck hearts. What was it that I liked? I think it struck a good balance of achieving a moderated char aroma from the grill without drying out, leaving the insides a shade of medium doneness. The accompanying endives which were caramelised were mindblowingly sweet and fragrant. The medley of sweet and savory flavors was finished off with their smooth aioli.

fennel, orange & burrata

Here were some lightly softened fennel with charred ends that were richened by some creamy burrata and enlivened with what appears to be oils from oranges. Appreciated the fennel fronds.

onglet, burnt onion & walnut

Onglet a.k.a. skirt was nicely shaded medium rare. I think this was even better done than the one from Skirt. Having bits of bone marrow certainly greased things up for the grainy textured meat. As much as I liked this, I'm certain that I could have gone without the burnt onion and red wine sauce. It wasn't bad for that matter, it's just me.

pineapple, rum & vanilla

banana & caramel

Desserts were okay. I guess they were done to the theme of ovens and grills. Not entirely impressed with the banana as I was expecting some of the tart flavours akin to goreng pisang. But I am not adversed toward coming back for the rest of grills.

Swedish Crayfish Party at Ikea

This was a event that was hosted by Ikea and it ran for a good deal at $10 per person for members with all you can eat crayfish which is supposed to be in season now. They're all chilled and dill-ed by the way. I had actually secretly been hoping that they were served hot but I guess it was simply not possible setting those up for so many people at a time. I think I managed a couple of dozens before I got tired and checked out the other stuff that they had included in the spread like some savoury salmon cakes and some shrimp and mussel salad. Most of the other food were items that could be gotten from their cafeteria anyway.

I thought this was quite well organized on the part of Ikea. Even if it was marred by a bunch of almost rabid aunties heaping their plates like there was no tomorrow. They looked almost feral.

Smith, Sukhumvit, Bangkok

Smith (1/8 Sukhumvit Soi 49, Sukhumvit Road, North Klongton, Wattana Bangkok 10110, tel : +66 2 261 0515) was another of those nose to tail dining places headed by a Ian Kittichai, a Thai celebrity chef of apparently impressive resume. Like Georges V in Paris, French Laundry in Napa Valley, El Bulli in Spain and Four Seasons Chinzan-so in Tokyo to name some.

The menu is international, nice label I must learn to use by the way, and featured foraging and purchase of ingredients from sustainable sources. Rustic was also the name of the game they play here. Quite similar to Quince and to a certain extent, Linguini Fini. I'm guessing that the root influence is Fergus Henderson?

Some drinks to whittle the time away while waiting for food. This was a beer cocktail of lager, strawberry and cinnamon. I think a little more cinnamon was in order.

I forgot what was this drink, but it came with a stick of grapes and cheese rolled around figs.

Some time was spent also staring at the empty plates occasionally while people watching. And twiddling of thumbs.

House bread was served finger burning hot with garlic butter. Pretty good bread.

Amuse bouche. I don't know what this was. It had cheese, some fruit jam and dried meat. Couldn't understand what the waitress said neither. It looked interesting, but didn't taste like so much.

First starter was tuna, bits of braised pig tails and a foie gras torchon along with a scattering of florets of some vegetable/greens. This tasted like how it looked, which meant that it was pretty okay.

While this was called a mini spicy haggis, it didn't quite look like any haggis I've seen nor did it exactly taste like what I had expected. This tasted like a spiced up gamey, livery sausage. Which would have been okay if they had called it just that. The little square at the bottom was sweet potato puree which was almost insignificant in portion. It was pretty tasty though. This would probably be a contender to be Chopped.

Timing at the kitchen needed plenty of work. We waited so long after the starters that I decided to order another cocktail to help pass the time ingesting something. This drink sounded very interesting on the menu. Something about lush and aromatic forests and raspberry vodka and cognac and fresh grapes and figs and rosemary and citruses being shaded with sparkling wine. Hell, it even looked pretty in a sylvan way. 

It tasted of almost nothing the menu described. Just cheap vodka and ice. Not even a tiny bit of rosemary. I had to console myself by eating the thinly sliced sheets of grape in the lousy drink.

Smith's Black Label Burger has nothing at all to do with Pat LaFrieda. It's a black label obviously because of the squid ink brioche. The gimmicky Australian wagyu patty was not very good at all. The texture was nothing to talk about and the meat wasn't as flavourfully juicy as I was hoping for. Should have forgone wagyu and opted for regular aged beef with a nice fat to meat ratio which would have seriously elevated the burger experience. So would getting rid of that nasty salad that served no purpose but mess up the palate.

Cheese and meat and perhaps some onions/pickles would have sufficed. This here looks to me like doing too much and ruining a good thing without even trying hard to do too much.

A small upside was that the fries were actually darn good. Dry crisp exterior and hot moist insides.

The name of the steak just sounded cool. In fact, everything about this was pretty good except for the kiwi marinade that they used, which kinda killed it for me. It added a dimension onto the hanger steak that I personally would have preferred without. It was otherwise, a nice piece of meat. Pretty hefty one too sitting atop some cheesy polenta. As a beef lover (I shall avoid the word purist), I condemn the marinade.

Just some Brussels sprouts and Parmesan shavings here.

All in all, I thought it was a pity. I thought that I would have liked the food. Idiosyncrasies and preferences aside, their menu tried to be adventurous with flavours and were not successful with those attempts while blotching certain fundamentals. That was especially so for the hobbit cocktail, burger and haggis wannabe.  It made me feel that the exercise here was gearing towards style than substance.

The lamb of rack across at the next table looked and smelled so darned good.