Nakhon Kitchen, Ang Mo Kio Ave. 10

Believe it or not, sitting down at a shop house along Ang Mo Kio and having some pretty delicious Thai food while being serenaded with Thai heavy metal blasting in the background can be somewhat surreal. And there I once was, thinking that Dream Theater was it. That was Nakhon Kitchen (#01-2371, 529 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10, tel : +65 6451 1332) for me, two separate visits so far. Heavy metal on both visits.

We've had quite a number of dishes from the two visits, so I'm going to just keep it down to those that I thought were memorable or mention worthy.

That above was the pineapple curry with mussels. It was rather good in a lemon grass-y sort of way that was also creamy and somewhat spicy. The draw for this was the meaty mussels - shelled, and the chunks of pineapple in curry. I'd come back again just for this.

We were initially skeptical about the prawn cakes. While I might not have had a lot of these Thai styled prawn cakes before, I remember having had pretty disappointing ones. These were actually pretty good. I'm gonna be lazy with the description this time and just say that these are best tried to understand what brand of goodness they pack. Again, good for returns.

Yes, that's their som tam mamuang, or commonly referred to as the Thai green mango salad. Not bad a rendition, but didn't beat Pra Ram Thai Cuisine for me. I suppose this one felt a little more muted in comparison without those more noticeable spikes of heat and pronounced fragrance from the dried shrimps.

I liked their pad krapaw with squid. It was pretty straight forward stir fry that was served hot and spicy and satisfying. The sauce, wonderful condiment to the rice.

I've never been a big fan of tom yam locally. But this clear rendition from Nakhon Kitchen was enjoyable. 

Revisiting Baja Fresh

We were pretty sure that we weren't impressed at all the last time we visited; but for some reason, I was compelled to come back again and this time round, we had rather enjoyed it. Well, the food isn't mind blowing by any means, but it was certainly a lot better than we remembered of it. 

What possibly left the deepest impression were their smoky grilled shrimp which we had in both the tostada salad and their quesadilla. We had totally not expected the fact that we'd enjoy them as much as we did. The savoury tortilla soup was surprisingly tasty with bits of melted cheese, smoked chicken and avocados.

Dislikes? All the cilantro in the pico de gallo. It's just me and cilantro. And most of the sour cream in the food was probably unnecessary.

The churros were free, thanks to social media promotions. Go figure. It actually didn't taste too bad.

Burger-ed up!

At this point of time Burger Up is probably the top drawer for fast food burgers. Not counting Omakase Burger of course. This hefty double patty sandwich of theirs puts the sad excuses for quarter pounders and whoppers to shame. Sure there's room for improvement. For a start, they should drop those individually wrapped plasticky cheese and use something nicer. Even the American cheese from McD is a significant mile better.

More sarnies from Sarnies

Here's back at Sarnies, one of my favourite out of the way sandwich shop which unlike many cafes, does not rely on gimmicks to sell what they do while providing one of the best frills free "between sliced bread" option around town.

While I certainly had nothing against their smoked salmon sarnie, it's usually not my thing and I don't think I'd be too enthused about a next. The chicken schnitzel on the other hand was pretty satisfying. Soft chewy rye with mayo spread wrapped around a chunk of piping hot and freshly fried chicken on a bed of lettuce. 

The Plaster Blaster from The Prata Place ......wait, or was that Springleaf Prata Place

This was the Plaster Blaster, the entry to the Ultimate Hawker Fest in 2014 by Springleaf Prata Place. That's "the location formerly known as The Prata Place" for you if you didn't realise. It would seem that as the years went by, the items that get cobbled up by this shop gets less thought into them. The borrowed idea this time fuses eggs Benedict with the plaster prata - a prata with the egg plastered over the top rather than on the inside. Hence the name I suppose. And because of the former counterpart in fusion, it's a poached egg with supposed curried hollandaise.

Idea was somewhat interesting but I didn't think much of the actual outcome. While they managed a nice molten yolk out of the egg, their hollandaise was a little too sour and didn't taste of the curry it was supposed to. I'd be quite happy to order their previous Hawker Fest items again but I've no interest left in this. It felt sloppy and didn't taste that good.

A rava idli from MTR 1924

I was initially concerned after seeing some of the coriander leaves peek out from those rava idli, but as fortune favours the bold, I was glad that I took the chance anyway. It turned out that the flavour of those coriander were washed out to the point where it was merely a residual overtone of aroma that I didn't quite mind. In fact it contributed to the overall fragrance (much to my surprise) of the steamed rice cake. Having that little container of glee ghee to perfume things up helped as well.

Say, this rava idli from MTR are the largest ones I've come across.