A recent bowl of prawn noodles

Those may not so remotely resemble dismembered fingers, but are actually "slurp off the bone" tender pig tails from a tasty bowl of home made prawn and pork rib noodles. And yes, the picture below shows off the bits of freshly fried bits of crispy lard to go with them. Thanks for the delicious dinner Alice!

What happened to L'Entrecote Express and &Made?

L'Entrecote has an express outlet sharing the same premise with &Made down in Pacific Plaza. So you can pretty much order anything from both menus. Since I liked both of them, it sounded like a rather ideal setup right smack in the middle of town. What surprised me was that the quality of the food has gone noticeably downhill.

The beef tasted a little flat and the sauce, while creamy, lacked the liveliness that I remember. Some of the vinegar tart seemed to be lost. This was certainly not the steak I had at Duxton. Even the fries tasted a little grease logged and boring. The other shocker was how dry and lacking of flavor the B Burger from &Made has become. I'm not so sure it was that same aged beef patty that was used and I certainly didn't expect that obvious slide in quality coming from some place run by somebody who has had 3 Michelin stars. Even if that was in the past.

Trattoria Nonna Lina, Craig Road

Hey, I think I actually quite like this place (4 Craig Road, tel : +65 6222 0930) even though it was just a first visit. The people and the food here were humble and homely. But lesson learnt is that I should avoid ordering two cream heavy pastas at a time since it all got pretty darn heavy for lunch, encouraging the z monster right after.

The chilled chopped tomatoes from their bruschetta was surprisingly refreshing. I didn't quite agree with their Gorgonzola sauce in the pappardelle because it wasn't as pungent as I was hoping for. I suspect that it has to do with the cut of the cheese that was used which contains less of the blue mold and hence less stinky. But preferences aside, the food was very decent and generous in portions. Their carppacio di manzo tasted a lot more flavorful and tender than the looks suggested and their signature baby octopus with porcini in Prosecco reduction were so packed with good flavors that we mopped the sauce up with bread.

I quite liked their carbonara di mare. I think a balance was achieved from both the cheesy creamy portion with smokiness from the bacon and the clam/crustacean flavors that were mingling in the sauce. Textures from the bits of seafood and bacon were plentiful.

Revisiting MTR 1924

This was an anticipated return to MTR as we were rather happy with the experience in the previous visit. We dropped by over the weekend for dinner ordering some snacks and their Sunday menu specials.

We started with a couple of vada - a regular one and the curd vada, the latter which was soaked in curd/yoghurt and sprinkled with boondi. Frankly, I liked both. The one in the curd was more refreshing.

One of their Sunday specials was the neer dosa, which translates into water dosa. From what I had gathered, the origins of this particular type of dosa is Tulu Nadu, a region in Karnataka. It wasn't browned like the regular one and was chewier. The batter didn't have the sour of fermentation as well. This was served with coconut chutney and a mix of jaggery and grated coconut which made me feel like it could have been a breakfast item rather than dinner.

The other Sunday special was their pudina (mint) rice. Even though mint was used in the cooking, that fresh minty flavour was barely residual. Instead, this was largely a savoury dish. So delicious that we didn't have the slightest problem inhaling the bowl of it. I'm quite impressed by how these guys can dress up starch.

MTR apparently manufactures canned drinks as well. We had initially thought the drinks were made in the kitchen. Still the badam milk was smooth and sweet with bits of almond and flavoured with saffron and cardamom while the creamy lassi was rose scented. Another delicious meal.

The last customer at Punggol Noodles (榜鵝乾麵) on Sunday......

...was me. I had reached the stall (Hougang 105 Hainanese Village Centre, Blk 105, Hougang Avenue 1, #02-24) at about 1.30 pm and only knew that they were closing when they started refusing orders after mine. Lucky me.

Ordering food as they were winding down for the day also meant that options were limited and I had to settle for mee kia since they were out of mee pok. I think I like this stall. The noodles were well drained as the dry option should be, springy and the ingredients on top were both tasty and generous. One can also taste the bits of dried sole from their rustic looking and tender meatballs.

Hai Tang Lor Mee, Mei Ling Food Centre

I'm normally not one for lor mee because of the gravy. It's usually an almost tasteless, textureless and non nutritional excuse of a glop that is passed off as gravy. But I've had this (#02-14, Mei Chin Road Market, 159 Mei Chin Road) a couple of times before and I think I like it because they remind me a bit of the type that I used to eat as a kid. And also in some twisted logic that works for me, it was a lor mee with not so much lor. 

What really worked with them for me were the generous bits of hand ripped (some that is) deep fried fritters that created crispy textures to go along with the noodles that were just sufficiently coated with sauce. And then, the vinegar, chillis and dragon breath inducing chopped garlic bits are a bag of sour, savory with a piquant spicy and pungent that really gets you perspiring.