Kian Seng Seafood Restaurant, Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park

Was introduced to this place (4013 Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 1, tel : +65 6458 2552) via a friend that doesn't live anywhere close to here. The tze char was pretty good and on the whole, wallet friendly enough to visit with some regularity.

Unfortunately, the spinach with three eggs was a little disappointing for me. It was suppose to be a recommended rendition that was better than the usual offerings, but it tasted rather regular to me and the starchy sauce didn't help. I was expecting a base of broth.

The fried rice was nicely done. There was enough oil and char aroma (I mean wok hei) and almost no excessive residual grease. I think that's a fairly reliable benchmark dish there for tze char. It means to me that the cook has measurement and control over the base ingredients which is rather lacking these days. Yeah, they used crab sticks.

Ngor hiong was pretty ok I guess. I prefer the types with chunky textures which this one doesn't quite have. Needs more water chestnut. The accompanying sticky plum sauce made up for it.

These steamed cabbages with dried scallop was probably my favorite of the bunch tonight. The flavors permeated which lent the savory aroma from the scallops to the soft vegetables. It was also the most expensive item, costing almost a third of the total bill at the end.

And then, deep fried pork collar marinated in nam yu (fermented bean curd). The meat was relatively juicy, moderately fat laced and had enough chew for texture. Tasty.

The taste of the broth from the steamed frog legs with chicken essence was rather unexpected. I was expecting a deeper savory punch akin to a soy based flavor. This one was herbal and lightly salted. Still it was good enough that we drank it to the last drop after sucking all the tender meat off the bones of the frogs.

Kian Seng's orh nee uses a generous blanket of thickened coconut milk. So no fried shallots nor lard to be found; which I feel are essential ingredients to a solid (fragrant) rendition of this Teochew dessert.

SweetSpot Deli, Marina Bay Sands

Woah, sweet! This (Bay Level, L1-30, The Shoppes at MBS, 10 Bayfront Avenue, tel : +65 6688 8584) was definitely the best one yet and was incidentally also the answer to an indirect question that I had some time back. The mixed thin slices of warm layered Pastrami and corned beef paired with savoury melted Gruyère and the Russian slaw for texture....I think you know where I'm getting at. Oh yeah, throw that between buttered & toasted rye as well.  

While this wasn't NY sized, it was a still very generous fillings by local standards. Hmmm....this is a tough one against the hot Reuben from Nassim Hill Bakery. The latter just had that amazing bread which this one didn't, but this pretty much takes the cake for everything else on the middle. Not to mention that it's actually less expensive here.

The pastrami with mustard on rye paled side by side in comparison. It wasn't a mediocre sandwich per se, but their Reuben really blows this one out of the water.

Matzo ball soup was serviceable sick person's food. But I've had better chicken soup.

This was an unusual lemon meringue pie/tart that they had. Unusual because of the meringue which was so eggy that we had initially thought that some of the egg flavour came from the lemon curd. Until we scraped the fillings off separately to taste, then realise that all that egg came solely from the meringue. After a while, it was just unsettling considering that the eggy-ness actually powered over the lemon curd.

Wee Nam Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice Restaurant, United Square

I haven't been eating at Wee Nam Kee for years so we decided to check out their current location (#01-08 United Square, 101 Thomson Road) since they had just shifted from the original Novena Ville not to long back.

The queue was pretty long, service was still trying to gain its own footing and the prices were much higher than I had expected. In the end, the chicken rice turned out to be just passable. I don't think the poached chicken are in the same leagues as Boon Tong Kee and certainly have nothing on Sin Kee.  It was just not smooth or even tender enough (a little too chewy sometimes) for a start and made me wonder what made so many people queue for them. If I have craving for chicken rice in the vicinity again, I'm sure I'll like it better at Big Bird with their ferocious chilli sauce just around the corner. Another place I can cross off my list.

The Diamond Jim Brady

Still one of the better prime rib in town.

A chicken rice & laksa dinner at Food Opera

That would the medium sized serving from Sergeant Hainanese Chicken Rice (#B4-03, Stall 20, ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn) above. The only difference with the regular serving as I was informed by the stall was that it comes with more meat. For a whopping $7.50, it was easily twice (maybe more, depending on where you eat chicken rice) what most places charged. Have to admit that it was pretty good as a whole. The rice was flavoured sufficiently without being overly greasy and the chicken was smooth and tender. Still, it's not cheap for a quick fix or guilty pleasure in town. If I had been famished, the portions would have been inadequate.

Below is a bowl of medium sized laksa from 3rd Generation Laksa & Prawn Noodle also from Food Opera. The broth was quite creamy and it came with usual suspect ingredients of rice noodle, hard boiled egg, shrimp, tau kwa, some fish cake and cockles. Even as it might be not an apple to apple comparison, this looked better, tasted more satisfying and had better quality ingredients than what I had at Laksania. For just 30 cents more. Which also incidentally implied that Laksania was pretty expensive too.

The Mini Miyazaki Buffet at Triple Three

Here's some looks from the Mini Miyazaki Buffet held at Triple Three (Level 5, Mandarin Orchard Singapore, 333 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6831 6271). The highlight of the buffet was the availability of A4 graded wagyu from the Miyazaki prefecture. Yes, good quality wagyu on buffet that is prepared slow roasted, aburi-ed a la minute on sushi, shabu-ed or teppanyaki. The teppanyaki station which generally had the longest queue was our favourite. My guess is that most of the people must have found it to be the best treatment of all the options that they had for the meat.

Personally, I felt that there was definitely room for improvement in the skill and care that was required to deal with such a delicate premium cut of meat. But I'm not complaining. What they're charging for the buffet was a steal.

Those aburi wagyu sushi could have benefited with a bit more char and certainly some salt. 

That's a new platter of that thinly sliced wagyu for the shabu station. Each portion of the meat is painstakingly prepared with accompanying vegetables by the attending station chef that portions each handout to the queue. 

As a result, one doesn't actually get it hot from the pot to the mouth or at a specific doneness as preferred. This was the lightest tasting option for the wagyu that literally dissolved in the mouth. And it was lighter than the tofu.

The honey baked ham station looked forlorn, so we gave it a little love. The ham was awesome. It's been a rather long while since I've had such good ham. The meat was warm and tender, fats were soft with the smoky saltiness in tandem with the sweet from the permeated honey. Very good stuff which looked to be under appreciated by the throngs of diners at the wagyu station.

The cuts of wagyu at the teppanyaki station were so well marbled with fats that it stopped hearts simply by being present.

This chef along with the one manning the shabu station had the heaviest work cut out for them since the queues never subsided unless the beef ran out.

This we agreed was the best treatment for the wagyu here. There was nothing but pepper and salt to flavor and aromatized the caramelized meat.

The slow roast wagyu on the other hand, lacked identity in the department of flavors. It was crowded at the station at the start. And only then. 

While we could taste that it was a good beef, that slow roast seemed to have robbed the meat of the distinctive flavor that most of us recognized of the wagyu.

Somehow, people forgot that there was a pasta station that did pasta with shaven black truffle. I didn't.

Miso cod was competently done. The fish was oily and rich, paired off with the char and sweet miso.

This foie gras chawanmushi didn't quite turn out the way I imagined. While it was a deliciously savory  chawanmushi, there was no flavor of foie gras at all.

Oyster station saw that the shellfish were shucked on request. These oysters were impressively fresh tasting, briny but lacked the usual pull on the buffet crowd due to the wagyu stations. 

At this point, I needed some fruit to cut the richness. Cherry tomatoes did the trick.

The Indian food also received little attention. So it was just unfortunate for the people that repeatedly queued for the wagyu that they didn't realise that there was a rather awesome and smoky butter chicken to be had along with some nicely done paneer mutter masala. The nondescript looking prata was surprising light and delicious at the same time.

And then some fruit, cheese and bread. There was a cheese crusted bread filled with seeds that was actually pretty good. Good to the point that even when we were rather stuffed, I was still popping piece after piece into my mouth. It's another one of those items along with numerous others which were a good showcase of the quality of food at Triple Three.

Most of the desserts were unexciting for me unfortunately. The only items that were good enough that I got past a sample licking were their yuzu cheese cake, yuzu sorbet and sliced nectarines from the fruit station.