Pra Ram Thai Cuisine, Toa Payoh Central

This shop (179 Toa Payoh Central) was a good find.  The fact that the people running the place were all Thai and serving common representation of their food inspired confidence . While I don't pretend to know what forms the range of authenticity for Thai food, they felt like good renditions. I'm pretty sure that there's some nuances that cannot be replicated from perhaps a particular brand of fish sauce that cannot be gotten here or the quality of the pork that was used for the khao kha moo or even the type of mango for their som tam mamuang. One thing we noticed for sure was that the pork that we had in Bangkok were a lot more tender. They were certainly also less shy about having rendered pork lard in their braising liquid than our local Thai food did.

That being said, the food was very enjoyable. I especially liked the spikes of heat in the sour from the mango salad that paired up well with the aroma from the bits dried shrimp; we also felt that the olive fried rice was straight up comfort food. Notice the intensely yellow eggs that they have.

Honey roast pork from Keith Crackling Roast

I had previously mentioned Keith Crackling Roast in passing so here's a picture of their honey roast pork (or in my opinion, char siew). To put colloquially - this stuff was pretty dope. It's caramelization without artificial colouring and their meat was fatty if not so juicy. Lots of sweet & savoury from the charred exterior and the container of rich dipping sauce which really pushed those flavours to another level. 

Smiths Fish and Chips, Balmoral Plaza

This was one of a few succeeding outlet (271 Bukit Timah Road, #01-02 Balmoral Plaza, tel : +65 6737 9313) of Smith's Fish and Chips. They've done quite well for themselves that it seemed they have been opening themselves a new shop almost once a year since then.

I found out today that one can get fish without chips so it was a cod with beef & Guinness pie. The pie had a pretty soft and buttery crust. The crisp on the crust was so light it almost wasn't there. But the fillings were quite tasty. The cod was a decent fried fish as I remembered it.

These could be my first fried Mars bar. It was actually pretty good. The flavours got more pronounced because the insides melted in the heat from the fryer while the batter provided crunch on top of the gooey innards.

Chicken cutlet from No. 1 Western Food at Tanglin Halt

No. 1 Western Food (Blk 1A Commonwealth Drive, #01-13 Tanglin Halt Food Centre) is one of of two institutional Hainanese western food stalls at the Tanglin Halt Food Centre. British influenced Hainanese styled western food which we affectionately term as local western food here. A necessity borne from a bygone era that has endured with a legacy till this day. 

I've eaten on occasions over the years at the other stall. I'm not sure if I have ever at this. Their old school chicken cutlet that they do was actually rather tasty. The meat was tender and the golden brown breading was dry and crispy without retaining excessive grease. Ubiquitous canned baked beans and frozen crinkle cut fries to complete the works for that nostalgia. Don't think much of that sauce that they ladled over though.

Vacherin Mont d'Or at Le Bistrot du Sommelier

The Mont d'Or cheese season is back and it can be had at Le Bistrot du Sommelier! We missed the last season so we came early for this one.

Since we had interest in some of the cheese items from the menu, we avoided being too ambitious with the orders. While waiting for the Mont d'Or to be prepared, it was a salad of chicory with blue cheese on figs. This was pretty good.

And of course, the Mont D'Or. Light tasting, creamy and rich at the same time served with small potatoes and bread to dip. These waxy little potatoes were nice. The skins were smooth...almost human. A single order of this feeds 2-3. 

Pizza Express at HKIA

We've seen a number of outlets of Pizza Express over town and have never paid them much attention. This time round, we just needed to get a quick meal before boarding and since the rest of the restaurants in the departure area were pretty much filled to the brim, it was a good opportunity to check them out.

This was something with burrata, olives, cherry tomatoes and basil. While this might not have used the better quality burrata around, we thought this was noticeably much more enjoyable than Motorino.