Burger vs. Wings + Bar, Orchard Central

I had only heard about his place (#11-03/04, Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6634 0423) a couple of months back so I decided to check them out. To my surprised this place (run by the Kitchen Language group by the way) had taken over the unit that was previously occupied by Ochre (also by the same group).

It was a little sad to see Ochre go. I had the opportunity to eat over there four or five times and even held a very important event over at their premise. Sadly I never got the chance to talk about their food. This was back in the times when it was run by the Japanese chef Kentaro Torii who did a pretty good job keeping the food straight forward and well done. Even the weekend pizza and pasta buffet was no slouch when it came to simple homespun styled Italian food. Service was attentive and unintrusive.

That was then. I've never got the chance to re-visit after the departure of chef Kentaro. Prices went up noticeably and I guess they had just fallen along into the wayside of inviablity in this cold and unforgiving city that doesn't not hand out award for efforts.

But I digress. 

Burger vs. Wings + Bar sounds just weird for a name and while the menu looked interesting............the people in the kitchen didn't quite look like accomplished cooks. They look like they were just paid to work there.

Here's their Tyson Peanut Butter Burger which was apparently a signature of theirs. Pretty decent except for the beef patty which ruined it. These guys who ran the restaurant knew nothing about burgers. The fat to meat ratio was not thought out for flavour and the beef was marinated to death. I mean, it tasted like a beef kebab. Not a proper beef burger patty. Who gives a flying fuck if it's Angus beef? Nothing that Angus beef is known for was present in that patty which was suppose to be medium done and ended up more like medium well. I could go on.

The peanut butter spread was nice. Liked that it was filled with bits of crunchy peanut. However, there was much too much going on as well. Let's see....there's lettuce, tomato, a fried egg, some sauce, cheese and even bacon. The fuck would I know if that was a sun dried tomato brioche they had used if I hadn't read it on menu. You see what I meant about these guys knowing nothing about building actual burgers? They do know a little about building sandwich monstrosities. 

I'd take Mean Packing District over this any time, but unfortunately they're closed for good.

This was a pork cheek burger of sorts. The pork cheeks were a little tough, but it was okay if unremarkable.

There was also wings with strawberry habanero sauce. The sauce was pretty damned good actually. It had the prerequisite strawberry flavours that actually worked with the tangy heat. Great with fries too. But I didn't like the wings. The battered wings are really boring. As much as I liked their strawberry habanero, that barely saved the wings. These things should do away with batter.

I'll stop short of lambasting how cheap those things that were passed off as cheese fries looked.

I got through this with a 30% discount from Hungrygowhere which applies till the end of the month. Even with that discount, I didn't think it was worth the money.

A Double Double from Triple O's

This wasn't on their menu but it is apparently something that can be ordered. I had only discovered this when I was asking about the possibility of them doing an equivalent of a double cheese burger and behold, they do have something that they call Double Double. No sauce for me the next time!

Tom yum pork noodles from MK Restaurant at Westgate

This looked like a bowl of street cart noodles from somewhere in Bangkok but it wasn't. It was one of those lunch options from MK Restaurant (#B1-12, Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive) which I was against visiting since I've tried the one in BKK and it was so much more expensive to eat here. I was pretty much resigned to getting a lacklustre bowl of regular tom yum noodles when the first spoonful came in and it hit me that this wasn't bad at all. The broth was tangy, a little sweet and didn't rack up much on the heat. But it was light and delicious together with the thinly sliced pork, generous portions of minced pork in the broth and crushed peanuts.

By the way, this came with the little bamboo basket on the side which contains a steamed taro with ginko nut bao. While the yam component wasn't very fragrant, the bun was still piping hot after the noodles with creamy fillings. I can't say that I disliked it.

Island Cafe has updated their menu

And in the process, they seemed to have taken off the prawn noodles and my favourite drink as well. I'm not sure if this was for the better or worse, but it seems like the management felt that a refresh was in order and some of the newer items look a lot more up to date, especially in the western section of the menu where I spied cod & chips and even Reuben sandwiches.

The Hokkien mee was something carried over from the old menu, I've never had it so it was a first time. And last. There wasn't a robust enough flavour in the stock that was used to stir fry the noodles and the grilled prawn was dry and puny. The only thing that saved it was the squeezes of lime and their chilli. What's new was the wagyu beef with black bean sauce hor fun which was actually, not bad at all. The sauce was flavourful with mild tones of heat.

However the wagyu label has a way of diluting the experience by virtue of its name. If they had just called this beef hor fun, I would probably have thought that this is pretty damned good since they didn't use any tenderiser that I could detect. So in effect, one got what tasted to be naturally tender pieces of meat that tasted like beef rather than an unidentifiable protein matter with barely any meat texture.

Lei cha fan from Tracy Juice Culture

We saw the lei cha fan being served numerous times previously when we here (#01-34, Fortune Centre, 190 Middle Road, tel : +65 6336 0754) getting some of their juices and they looked pretty good. Quite a number of people were having them. We decided to come back since we were in the vicinity and give their thunder tea rice (擂茶饭) a go.

This was as we already knew, a slightly different thing from the previous time I had 擂茶饭 at Toa Payoh Central. I'm not sure if there are any fixed bunch of vegetables that has to be included or if it's one of those things that are subjected to the whims recipes by each maker. The liquorice flavour in the creamy green broth was almost non existent and the vegetables that they used here were slightly different. Was it good? I thought so. I liked how it tasted light and clean. Being healthier than many other eats is a bonus.

Miscellaneous eats to round up

We were on our way to breakfast one morning at Prince Edward and we passed by this sandwich shop (G/F 783 Nathan Road) which had melted cheese toasties that were made to order with the choice of bread, type of cheese and meat fillings.

Here's one with their "liver sausage" and cheddar cheese option. The liver sausage was actually pâte. The simple sandwich was built on the fly and toasted with a nice light crisp that had appealed to the salt and fat craving for the morning.

This was a shop we passed by with food steaming in baskets at the stall front down the end of Fa Yuen Street in Mongkok.

We got ourselves a bowl of sausage and glutinous rice to go. It was a little too greasy as a snack, but the lup cheong was pretty tasty.

A trip back to the shop that sold our favourite beef brisket rice.

And a breakfast re-visit to Wai Kee after discovering that Yue Hing was closed. Apparently, the owner of the latter had broken his arm.

Yet another re-visit in Mongkok for some delicious bean curd with evaporated milk.

Osmanthus jelly with wolf berries and on the left, with white fungus. The coconut jelly with corn in the middle sucks. 

During this trip, we were graced with an opportunity to do a hot pot dinner down on a off coast at Yuen Long on a floating platform (kelong!) with a private kitchen. We were requested not to provide any names. This visit was pulled off by a friend of a friend who knew the chef who was chilling the winter away. Because he didn't feel like cooking, it was hotpot.

The setup was simple and pretty good. Lots of good quality seafood that featured abalones, gigantic oysters, lobsters, prawns....well, the works. After some time, it got a little too chilly at the waterfront.

One of the stars of the kelong dinner was a locally bred beef. We were informed that it was a good hunk of meat that money couldn't quite procure and the chef had depended on his connections to land himself some. It's not available in the market unless you knew people. Does anyone know anything about Hong Kong bred cows? This stuff was pretty amazing man.

Some evil vegetable crackers.

And off 7-11, the winter edition of the strawberry flavoured Vitasoy and some ginger milk. The former tasted like how one can imagine them. Nothing really special. Ginger milk on the other hand was good!