Breakfast at Kampong Corner

Today's serving of lontong (which I've mentioned previously) literally had our lungs flooded with the gravy. Well, not my own lungs obviously, but that from the additional top up of the paru goreng which soaked up the gravy in their tiny lung cavities. It's become a little bit like a beefy chewy tau pok if you would. 

There's also that soft roti jala which was accompanied by a bowl of nutty rich chicken curry on the side. This was so much better than I had in mind. And definitely one of the better breakfasts I've had in a while. If you're not doing your heart any favours, be sure to not do them for the right reasons.

I hope these pictures do justice as a tribute to our local "artisanal" dishes. Each individual component was an effort. I don't know how to cook them, but I do know that the sambal takes a lot of ingredients to simmer over hours. Ditto for the rempah for the gravy which eventually also serves as the cooking gravy for the long simmers that soften the vegetables. Those beef lungs need laborious effort cleaning and deep frying as well. Roti jala is something that many don't make in house anymore and you'll find that most of them aren't tender because they're probably mass produced stuff that's chewy. These local eats need some recognition.

Re-visiting Swaadhisht

We're back in Swaadhisht for a re-visit. No goat meat for us this time round, but there was lamb.

We ordered a neichoru with mutton ishtoo. The former is ghee rice.

While the ishtoo is stew. One that was made with quite a bit of coconut milk, curry leaves, onions and generous quantities of cracked black pepper it seems. As the name implies as well, there's chunks of mutton inside. This stuff packed slow building heat and was pretty darn good. Ghee rice or not. It got me spooning mouth after mouth.

We ordered curd rice. Which is rice mixed with unsweetened yoghurt. There's generally a variety of other items that can be added into the rice and yoghurt mixture. This was the first time that I've had them with both coriander and ginger. That really got to me. Note to self, never order curd rice here again.

That's gobi 65 which wasn't on the menu. But the restaurant was able to fry them up on request. Very nicely crisp cauliflower done here. The batter had excellent flavour and texture.

Big prawn noodles from Albert Street Prawn Noodles

In my limited experience, big prawn noodles seldom live up to their names. They seldom if ever feature prawns which are genuinely big. But then, I'm always thinking along the lines of those river prawns from Thailand. As my memory serves, Wah Kee and Island Cafe are possibly those that live up to the description. The latter didn't even call theirs big prawn noodles and was already a different class altogether.

So this is the one from Albert Street Prawn Noodles (#01-10, Old Airport Road Food Centre, 51 Old Airport Road). I ordered the most expensive bowl to see what theirs is like. The stall it seemed started off back in 1963 but was manned by a relatively young chap. He didn't look like he was around 51 years ago, much less selling prawn noodles then.

Their prawns weren't so large after all. I wouldn't even consider them meaty. What bothered me most was that some of them weren't even cleanly de-veined. Yikes. Broth had a pleasant crustacean flavour and was sweet; a noticeable contrast to the more savoury broth from the Whitley Road Big Prawn Noodle stall nearby. I quite liked those firm yellow noodles that were paired with some crunch from the blanched sprouts. Those noodles were strongly scented with fried shallots and their spicy pungent sauce.

All in all a pretty decent bowl but for $12, I expected better. While I didn't dislike it, I also won't be in any hurry to come back since there's so many other options for food at Old Airport Road.

nydc, Wheelock Place

I don't remember when was the last time I had actually stepped into nydc (501 Orchard Road, #02-19 Wheelock Place, tel : +65 6736 3253). Like Modesto's, they were a fixture back from the times when I was still a student and at that time, they were the American restaurant/café that was the place to be seen in. For a time, they did well, expansion took the natural course and even later on, downsizing occured. Time took its toll and today, they're not so talked about anymore. Not with the souped up hotpot of eateries that are opening up in this era. Apparently, the nydc chain was founded by a real American couple back in 95.

I'm sure the menu has changed some throughout the years. I remember them being American Italian-ish with pastas, pizzas and meatballs along with their mudpies and chocolate what have yous. They're still on the menu, but some of the former have kinda become focused; if you catch my drift. How I ended up here today is happenstance.

We ordered their Lolli Pork Ribs purely out of curiosity. Man, this was actually quite good. As much as these guys don't look like a barbeque joint, the managed to do some decent ribs in a cocoa sauce coated in their chocolate soil. The last item tasted like dried brownie crumble which I suspect they are. The meat was quite tender and slid off the bone with relative ease. The flavours were savoury, sweetish and rich from the chocolate. Something to be enjoyed in small but cherished quantities. Certainly didn't see this coming.

What they called a Double Beef Booster was pretty much a Reuben sandwich. Which was on its own, pretty decent. By local standards. Unfortunately, we've had better at the same price point which left us not as impressed.

Then came the Hookin’ Brooklyn Chicks. Or their rendition of Buffalo wings. The marinate packed a light heat, but was quite sour. One wing was all it took before we decided that one was enough. On the bright side, they provided a pretty decent blue cheese sauce for their vegetable sticks.

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.