Chilli hot chocolate from The Providore

This chilli hot chocolate from The Providore (333A Orchard Rd, #02-05 Mandarin Gallery, tel : +65 6732 1565) was unexpectedly pleasant. Each sip sent motes of tingling heat down the back of the throat which lingered for a little bit.

Wah Lok Cantonese Restaurant, Carlton Hotel

I've been asked a number of times by a few friends if I've had dim sum at Wah Lok (Lvl 2 Carlton Hotel, 76 Bras Basah Road, tel : +65 6311 8188). Well, I haven't until today.

This was their steamed radish cake. I was hoping that it would impress me like the ones from Wai Kee, but this was really just a nicely done version that we have locally. Nothing more.

We ordered some bolo buns with char siew fillings.

The fillings were quite sweet, but wasn't cloyingly so for me. So I guess I liked that, but didn't quite think so much of the bun itself.

These were described as deep fried octopus tentacles and was on the chef's recommended menu. It was surprisingly not so expensive for a recommended dish. Lol. But seriously, this rocks. It's actually, deep fried octopus tentacles with prawn paste. And that prawn paste really elevated the flavours.

These are one of my yardsticks at dim sum. I don't know why since it's an illogical method, but I'm pretty sure many other people measure the quality of their dim sum experience by the standards of har gao of the eatery, amongst others. These were just okay I guess. Definitely had more satisfying ones.

Deep fried century eggs which tasted pretty much like how they looked. To be a little more specific, they were rather decent if unremarkably so. The brown stuff on top are hae bi hiam (chilli dried shrimp).

I forgot what these vegetables were, but this dish tasted a lot better than the looks suggested. The light brown broth was actually a full flavoured savoury chicken soup.

Lobster mee pok. Not bad, but nothing to get excited over as well.

While it cannot be seen on the picture, these cheong fun (rice flour rolls) are stuffed with scallops. Quite liked them.

The other common yardstick of many, also one of mine, siew mai. My expectations may have been elevated by all the queries about this place, but these were really just okay.

These are chicken and diced abalone pies. Sounded and looked better than they tasted. While it was obvious that there were meat inside, it was a little difficult to tell which was chicken or abalone. The pastry had a heavy cloy of oil which wasn't pleasant.

Phoenix claws which were competently steamed and flavoured. I rather enjoyed these.

Passable egg tarts.

These were known as mei ren yao (美人腰), or beauty's hips? They were essentially pastry puffs that were filled with custard and topped with what tasted like burnt cashews. The custard quality tasted retro if you catch my drift. While I couldn't say that I disliked them, I probably will never order them again.

The fillings of their liu sha bao were disappointing. It was a simple case of having a mixture with too much custard and too little salted egg yolk. It turned out to be too sweet and flat to be enjoyable. With these buns on everyone else's menu, I had expected Wah Lok's rendition to be competent.

Some large dumpling in broth. This one was really quite good. 

Empress Place Beef Kway Teow, Toa Payoh Central

We stumbled upon this stall while getting Thai food at Toa Payoh. This beef noodle stall is located in the very same coffee shop. I've long heard of the famed Empress Place beef noodles, but have never gotten a chance to try them. Certainly didn't know that they had opened a branch at Toa Payoh. This beef noodle stall by the way, from the point of its founding, forms part of the legacy of the more well known Hock Lam beef noodle business. Story can be Googled so I won't be going into the details here.

How was it? This was a bowl of their rice noodle with tendons. It was not bad. I think I liked this. From what I could detect, there was just their broth, sesame oil and some of their chilli sauce that flavoured the kuey teow. Which was really the main reason why I was keen to give them a go as it didn't come with the regular brown starchy gravy that Hainanese beef noodles are usually topped with. This one is apparently, Teochew styled beef rice noodles. Their stewed tendons were soft that you could just slurp them.

More food from Jing Hua Restaurant (京华小吃)

Here's another visit to my current favourite guo tie shop and a look at the other stuff that they have on menu which we did not try previously.

These above are blanched bean sprouts topped with the minced meat bean sauce that they use for their zha jiang mian. Those sprouts were well timed in the hot water and cooked to the point where the raw edge was off while retaining a great deal of crunch. Good stuff.

We tried their (pan fried?) pancake stuffed with the same fillings for their guo tie. Crusty on the outside, juicy on the insides.

This was their tasty spicy and sour soup. There wasn't so much heat from the chilli oil and the sour element seemed to taste like sour plum rather than vinegar. I kinda liked this.

That's a fried pancake filled with lotus seed paste, a departure from the common ones stuffed with red bean paste. While I generally don't quite appreciate thick pancake skins, this was actually not bad. The skin tasted like fried mochi.

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.