Yellow Submarines, Toa Payoh Central

We noticed this shop (Blk 177 Toa Payoh Central, #01-110, tel : +65 6352 7890) opening last year doing a local rendition of Philly cheesesteak inspired subs with an eye catching yellow submarine signage and had been wondering if that was any good, so since we were in the vicinity, we decided to give them a try. By the way, I hear that this joint is Halal certified.

I've never had a real cheesesteak before so I haven't any real basis for comparisons. But I've an inkling of it via Food Network/YouTube. The sliced beef didn't quite look like it was on the any griddle. In fact, it looked boiled. Topped with their sunflower yellow cheese sauce and softened onions between some soft rolls.

It's actually not bad. The meat was juicy for one and one could certainly tell that it was beef and not some unidentifiable protein matter. The only gripe I have are the portions. For what they where charging, I think it's a little small. And I don't feel for the fries.

La Nonna, Holland Village

La Nonna (26 Lorong Mambong, tel : +65 6468 1982) of the Senso Group has been around for some years. It had somehow never been a place that has gotten me interested enough to check out. I'm thinking it's because of Italians and their grandmothers. No offense to the matriarchs, but it's a little tacky as marketing for their food. You know, the home spun and old recipes that they all claim as a source of their cooking. I may not be Italian, but I think grandmother's recipes all over the world tend to have certain defining attributes. Looking rustic aside, it's generally filled with more love and richness than food that one generally can purchase outside. I don't feel that love there. It was a Chinese guy making the pizza today.

So we had a couple of pizzas, a crab and tomato cream pasta linguine and some tiny looking bruschetta. Their linguine was a little more savoury, garlicky and less creamy than the one from Da Paolo.  I like Da Paolo's rendition much better. The squid inked frutti di mare pizza was not too bad though. The toppings were rather generous, crust thin that it was folding down from the weight of the said toppings and the flavour of the ink came through.

I'm not really getting that "I'll be back" vibe though. 

Pontian wanton mee with cheese sauce

Yeap, if you had just done a double take. It was definitely the old Pontian noodles with cheese sauce from their outlet at Toa Payoh (177 Toa Payoh Central). A curiosity if you would. But then again, these guys haven't changed their menu for the longest time and as bad an idea this might have sounded, it was new. It didn't taste half as bad as I had imagined. In fact, this was even cheesier tasting than the cheese noodles at Sun Kee. It kinda gives you an idea how poorly I think of the latter.

Small Potatoes Make The Steak Look Bigger : Year Eight

Another slightly late anniversary marker. It's been 8 years, hasn't it?

This picture up there is the cover of Scorpion Swamp, the 8th from an old series of Fighting Fantasy game books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone that used to be the thing back in the 80s. For adventurous little boys with greater ambition than that of being a chosen one destined to defeat a dark lord through a battle of wands that is. I kinda grew up with those choose your own adventure games along with stuff like Joe Dever's Lone Wolf and Blood Sword by by Oliver Johnson and Dave Morris.

Scorpion Swamp was memorable for one thing. It was the first of those books where you could map the terrain through the game like a grid. Even though it didn't have one of the better artworks or story lines.

Fun times then.

Familiar comfort food at Pow Sing

Brow-sing Pow Sing?

Tonkatsu & Sake Bar Tonzaemon, Chijmes

Tonzaemon (Chijmes, 30 Victoria Street, #01-09, tel : +65 63385907) is a pretty new joint by Ma Maison, which seems to be making a bid for the tonkatsu market. They started branching the fried pork offshoot opening their first, followed by an outlet at Westgate. And now this. As the name of the place implies, it does tonkatsu and sake. And some other small bites on menu.

If the question at this point is if they're any good, I'd say that there's definitely room for improvement and they could certainly learn more about what they're trying to sell.

These are foie gras gyozas. They aren't entirely filled with the foie, but there's probably enough inside to flavour the pork stuffings. Very decent and if they're trying to achieve a balance of flavours between the liver and the pork, they've succeeded. It came with some balsamic vinegar concoction and a mixture of chilli oil and soy sauce on the side. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would use them because it would simply mask all the flavours that they're trying to create.

Their hire katsu stuffed with foie gras sounded promising. Truly. The pork was well fried to a good crisp, well drained and honestly, rather competently done. What unexpectedly didn't work out so well was the foie gras. In spite of the quantities that was used, the flavours were barely there. I mean, how can that be? In a similar ball game, there's definitely a better player. This didn't fail as a dish. It just didn't turn out quite like how I thought it should have. 

While it was nice to have a change of dips with their Japanese mayo and tonkatsu sauce mixture, it simply doesn't quite work out for this katsu. I want to taste foie gras when I eat this. Why else would I be ordering it?

And that's the rosu katsu with cuttlefish ink. The meat was a beautiful light pink shade of white, thick and tender. And no, the flavours of the ink didn't come through. What surprised me was that the flavour of the pork itself didn't quite come through as well. 

And rice with pickles and tonjiru. These are ordered and charged separately. Yes, the price tags of the katsu aren't large enough to cover these. So on hindsight, there are definitely more economical places to have tonkatsu in town. The older players here have been around for a while and are still around for a pretty good reason. The tonjiru here doesn't even contain the slightest morsel of pork. Two bowls of it and nada.

Definitely room for improvement methinks.