The case with Eggs Blumenthal

oven grilled cheddar on sourdough toast  

pan fried cheddar on sourdough toast

 yum yum...something wicked this way comes

leftover sausages from Le Bistrot du Sommelier 

what I just labelled as 'eggs Blumenthal'

It's just breakfast porn over the weekend again. With a misleading and intriguing title to it. We tried the "perfect" scrambled eggs, as taught by Heston Blumenthal over YouTube. The double boiled stirring method if you would. It didn't quite turn out the way his did, but it was still buttery good. I liked too, how the residual whites are still present.

Steamed bread with butter and kaya from Ya Kun

This picture doesn't really show very much but I thought this new item from Ya Kun was quite nice. It's basically quartered bread with spread steamed in a bamboo basket. The result was piping hot airy bread with a slightly chewy texture. In between, melted butter soaked in the thick fluffy slices and a smudge of kaya. Local comfort food.

Extra Virgin Pizza, United Square

mushroom bianco

spotted pig

grilled skirt steak salad

cauliflower romesco

United Square is starting too look like a place where I can find myself heading for food. Ramen Bari Uma and Tamoya Udon have opened up lately. The old yakiniku place at the corner has been taken over by Extra Virgin Pizza (#01-14, United Square Shopping Mall, 101 Thomson Road tel : +65 6247 5757).

The food wasn't shabby. I don't think I would mind coming back for the pizza again. Their crust was a little thin, chewy and generally doesn't hold the weight of the toppings very well. And the spotted pig was generally a tad salty, even for me. Still, the things we had ordered were quite tasty. Special mentions to the cauliflower that had a nutty almond capsicum sauce. Don't expect precision from the doneness of meat here. They generally just do pizzas.

Monster Curry, ION Orchard

The curry from Monster Curry did remind me of Go!Go!Curry! which was the previous tenant of this unit. Both shops made thick and rich Japanese curry that was more nutty and sweet and packed relatively little heat. Now I'm not insinuating that this place is possibly the same one that's been repackaged with a new look and menu, the wifi scanning from my phone still picked up the GoGo Curry network somewhere while I was seated at this stall (#B4-54, ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn tel : +65 6509 4555).

This was the Mountain Monster curry rice (with added "onsen" egg and cheese) which was good for two. Or more. Depending. The fried meats that they did were much better than I had expected while the shabu pork slices were much more mediocre than I was hoping for.  The egg was unexpectedly chilled.  In retrospect, the spiciness was really what kept the curry going for me. For without, became monotonous after a bit. While I won't be in a hurry to come back, I'm not against the idea of returning. Spiciness level 3 at this shop is okay, I can crank it up a notch the next time.

A feast for a martyr

Here's a dinner to conveniently commemorate a once man that was clubbed, stoned and decapitated after he was tortured. I'm sure he never meant to die such a death.

But what of bee keepers, epilepsy and plague?

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.