More Good Year

We came back too Good Year based on the recommendation to try the regular chicken rice. You know what? I liked this too. The regular rice actually tastes the same as the rice ball so in effect, there's only the textual difference. And it was definitely good enough to eat naked which isn't a problem since I don't really think much of their chilli sauce. The portions of the chook were indeed generous.

Personally so far, I think they're just good for their chicken rice. Nothing much could be said of their sides of greens or the just passable braised pork skin. 

More tales from the French river horse

I was initially bemoaning about how Hippopotamus had started to lose the identity it has created here by selectively trimming the menu. Trimmed what I felt were some of the good stuff I meant. They've taken off the old XL ribeye which they sold for a song (not exactly, but...). The burger with foie gras was also off and there's totally no longer any foie gras at all on menu. Fast forward to today, the blue cheese sauce on the side is not longer available too. That was a travesty! :P Along with a couple of sides options that I liked like the beans. Basically, the menu was really starting to look very generic and the place could've been Sizzler's for all I knew. 

But we happened to be here and order we did some items that we hadn't had before. Their blue cheese burger turned out satisfying beyond expectations even though it was a little small. Though the patty was little overcooked from what I normally prefer, they had the decency not to load junk into the meat. What obviously worked for me with the burger was the generous amount of blue cheese that they used. 

There's a new item which was basically fried bacon with poached eggs and a beefy red wine sauce. That's really good as well. Steak tartare was surprisingly, quite edible. Our only gripe was that the beef wasn't quite as well chopped up as we would like resulting in stringy bits of connective tissue. The spicy sauce that they used for the tartare was unexpectedly heady. Tasted like Thousand Island, rum and Tabasco.

A hotdog from The Brat

This unit (#B2-39 Plaza Singapura, 68 Orchard Road) used to be the Bratwurst Shop. I'm not sure how many times it has changed hands, but I vaguely recall that the original used to be set up by a family that lived in Australia for some time before coming back to set up a sandwich shop. I'm pretty sure that the original owners from that time are no longer around though.

Well, it's now just The Brat. A hot dog and burger place (the same...) and here's their English brat with some stinky sauerkraut. It was baguettes, not hot dog buns and they were toasted before filling the dog. I liked it; the pork brat was fatty, flavourful, smothered in a little bit of creamy mustard and the baguette was crisp. But I just couldn't shake off the feeling of knowing that even I could probably do this up at home for a small fraction of the cost. By the way, there's bottled Asahi Kuronama here.

Kimchi fried rice from Kim Dae Mun

This fried rice was pretty damned good. I liked that they used enough kimchi in there to flavour and that the rice was wok fried upon order. There were bits of miscellaneous vegetables for texture, some thinly sliced pork, enough grease to be good without being excessive and topped with a fried egg. I'm definitely coming back again.

On another note, their gamjajeon (potato pancakes) were quite good eating with crispy edges and their garlic/soy/chilli/vinegar dip. It didn't look pretty at all. Just tasted savoury and delicious. Today's kimchi on the side also tasted a lot better than the last time as well.

Ya Hua Bak Kut Teh Eating House, Havelock Road

pickled mustard greens

pig stomach

braised fallopian tubes or pig intestines?

watercress

boiled pig livers and kidney

This was decent bak kut teh.

What I liked a lot more was the braising liquid for the fallopian tubes which made a good dip for the dough fritters and was also simply good ladled over rice. There was a noticeable bit of garlic flavor in that soy based broth. More than what was the bak kut teh.  I actually preferred most of the other stuff we ordered to the actual bowl of pork ribs here.

Han, Odeon Towers

As far as I am aware, Han (#01-04, Odeon Towers, 331 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6336 2466) is the only kushikatsu specialist here. The chef, a Seiichiro Arakawa who formerly ran a cool little place called Si Bon at the Amara Santuary Spa at Sentosa serving kushikatsu that I never got a chance to visit, heads this place.

This would be another one of those places that I've been wanting to visit for quite a while. It's also one of those places that constantly went out of sight and out of mind for me, so until recently when I stumbled upon a piece from a certain someone who might have grown up eating rubbish that coincidentally shares a similarly pronounced first name as a certain Mr Sinister, I stopped the procrastination and forgetting and made my way down.

The menu isn't too extensive, but it offers a variety. There's sashimi to be had and a dedicated counter for that. There's rice bowls, sushi and sukiyaki. A curated list of offerings. But who are we kidding? I didn't come to a pricey kushikatsu specialist to eat all that other stuff. Not on a first visit anyway. I wanted to try the deep fried things on sticks.

Actually, we kinda took the advice from the previously mentioned article and ordered the cheapest lunch set along with supplementary sticks of their kushikatsu.

Otoshi. I think it's salmon.

There's generally nothing much to say about accompanying salads from these Japanese sets. I just had to mention that the dressing for this particular one was refreshingly tangy. It made me want to finish up everything.

First up from the order of 3 sticks of supplementary kushikatsu was the angel prawns. It had a nice firm texture, was slightly sweet and very fresh tasting. I can't tell if there's supposed to be any difference from regular shrimp.

Next came the scallop.

Sweet and juicy inside.

Cherry tomato stuffed with cream cheese.

Light tang, some sweetness and rich creamy insides.

The main lunch item was the Ohmi beef tendon omelette rice with kushikatsu. The bits of beef were probably trimmings off those cuts that made the sukiyaki. And because they were just bits, all I could taste of it was a pleasant beefy flavor that was fairly pronounced, but not exactly robust which I was really hoping for. The pork kushikatsu sticks on the sides were done with shiso leaves. The meat was remarkably tender.

At this point of time, we were more than convinced that the man behind the copper frying dome was indeed an expert in his craft. None of the batter and panko mixture had the slightest excess grease.

The yuzu ice cream was...well, okay. I think the fruit works better as sorbet.

This black sesame ice cream in wafer shell thing with red bean was very nice.

I think I like the food at Han so far. The prices are on the high side, I'm kinda cool with lunch. There's definitely no dispute about the quality of their kushikatsu while service was attentive and prompt if not altogether unintrusive. I'm not sure about dinner though.