Red bean soup from Tanglin Halt Market

This was the second time I'm getting this from stall #10 at the food centre beside the market (48A Tanglin Halt Road) which actually sells bee hoon. I thought it was good because of the mandarin peel that was used to flavour the soup and the beans were whole and soft rather than mushy and broken. Just the thing for the recent rainy days.

Recent developments with McDonald's

So, here's the ebi burger from McD. I'm just wondering out loud here if any other countries are getting this as well. I'm sure that generally, fast food is not terribly exciting and this largest chain out there would probably qualify as one of the least interesting ones. What I didn't expect to find in the ebi patty was that there were actually whole little shrimps in them. The texture was there if not any exceptional flavours. Which would probably have been drowned by that wasabi mayo anyway. 

In other news, they are also doing this green tea latte which comes with a shot of espresso. I've been drinking this stuff more often that I'd like to admit.

Hanare Japanese Café, Tanjong Pagar Road

This casual shophouse eatery (99B Tanjong Pagar Road, tel : +65 6222 1976) was opened by Teppei-san of Teppei/Hana Hana, both of which were merely a couple of minutes walk away. We came by for lunch. This was one option for a taste of their talked about barachirashi bowl without having to queue (at Hana) or put yourself though an outrageously advanced reservation (at Teppei).

Their barachirashi set includes some of the buffet spread during lunch. This represented very good value for a couple of reasons. The first being the quantity of raw fish that one gets in that barachirashi bowl. There's a very generous portion of cubed raw fish with ikura. While one doesn't get premium cuts of fish since this isn't priced for it, it's a decent meal with decent quality freshness that you won't walk away hungry from. Which leads me to the unlimited rice that you get as well. It's excellent with the furikake if you're out of fish. What was pleasantly surprising, was their use of grated wasabi rather than the paste. 

This was the rice meal portion that came from their buffet set. It's steamed anago with rice. Steaming soft rice steeped with the sweet sauce and flavours from the eel.

Salted egg curry chicken from Curry Times

By happenstance, I chanced upon another monthly special at Curry Times (238 Thomson Road, #02-33/34 Velocity @ Novena Square, tel : +65 6354 3206) a day or two before the dish git rotated out just like the previous time I visited. This time, it was a salted egg curry chicken. Really? I've never come across something like this before and it sounded too good to pass up. When the dish was served, it looked disappointingly nothing like what was shown on their menu. I was initially feeling a little let down thinking that they had passed off what they claimed to be salted egg curry chicken by sprinkling some crushed salted egg yolk over the top.

Until I took the first bite of the cubed chicken without the salted egg crumbs. The flavours of the salted egg hit me and I realized that they had, as I initially imagined, infused the salted egg into the curry itself. There were also some finely sliced chilli padi that added additional spikes of heat on that already moderately spicy nutty curry. This was so good.

Grilyarch from Laman's Delight

So, now you know where I've been revisiting. I bought this partially based on a mention previously and decided to try out the Grilyarch from Laman's Delight. What does the name even mean? Anyway, it's as one can tell, a layered chocolate cake with cream and caramelized walnut bits in between. And supposedly brown sugar as well, but I can't tell. It was actually all quite nice eating from the tip end. The cake was largely moist and crumbly at the same time and the flavours played nicely with bits of bite from those nuts. Until we got to the back part which had noticeably more walnuts plastered across. And because there was much more of those caramelized walnuts, it was wayyy too sweet.  Didn't enjoy the last part.

Gorgonzola Bacon Burger from Omakase Burger

So I got suckered again by the specials at Omakase Burger. This time round, it was their Gorgonzola bacon burger so I guess it's not my fault. I hadn't really read anything about it before ordering and as it turned out, it was a Gorgonzola cream cheese mousse rather than crumbs of the actual cheese And the bacon came in the form of crumbs that were scattered onto the cheese mousse rather than strips laid between the buns.

If you're wondering how it tasted, it the flavours of the blue cheese was really mild. I couldn't say that I could taste any of those bacon crumbs either. And I should have known that a mass market friendly place like them wouldn't have gone the whole nine yards with Gorgonzola. But then again, doing so would have really muted the flavours of their liquid steak oozing patty. Between the rock and a hard case then. Speaking of which, today's buns were a disintegrating mush by the time I got to the end of the burger.