Gyo gyo gyo gyooo....za! Gyooo....za! Gyoooooooo....za!

Here's more gyoza from Gyoza-ya. There're now toppings of cheese, mentaiko miso and one with snow crab stuffings. The former which is actually not on menu has both sliced cheese and shredded mozzarella. With all these intense flavoured toppings and aburi, I'm pretty impressed that they managed to not overwhelm the pork fillings in the dumpling. The one with the crab isn't too bad as well.

So I finally got to try their jya jya men which was basically a bowl of flat noodles tossed with sliced cucumber, scallions and a miso meat sauce. I liked this, I think the combination of textures were pretty good and the miso made everything savoury and tasty. 

63Celsius, Asia Square Tower

It's a little less straight forward categorising 63Celsius (12 Marina View, #01-03 Asia Square Tower 2) and their food, but I guess a simple description for the former would be a specialty coffee and gastro bar of sorts. 

The food as they claimed is supposed to be "without borders". International in variety and techniques which simply places it as one of numerous of the small plate joints that are still trending these days. Word out is that this place is helmed by one of the owners of the defunct Foodbar Dada, which I never had the chance to visit before it evolved its way out of business.

Stracciatella Cheese, Artichoke Caponata, Taggiasca Olives

We started out with the small plates and this stracciatella cheese was nice. A bunch of flavours married with a bunch of textures coming from the creamy shreds of cheese, sweet and sour softness of the artichokes, tartness from the olives and the fruitiness of the olive oil. Very Italian. But also a very ingredient based starter that largely depends on the quality of the produce.

63Signature Baby Squid In Enoki Egg Nest

The baby squids on enoki mushroom was designed for umami impact and comfort. Both the squids and the mushroom were roasted to bring out flavour. Reminded me of the eggs on potato nest at FoFo.

money shot for the egg I suppose

And these flowy molten yolk would be the reason why these things are so well liked. That rich liquid velvet of comfort across the textures of the umami nest of flavours.

Hokkaido Scallop, Smoky Pork Bacon, Spicy Squid Ink Sauce

Scallops were medium done, which retained a good bite while being tender. The smokiness from the bacon suggested that it wasn't mass produced. Spicy squid ink sauce actually had a respectable kick to the heat. Like. Would eat this again.

Black Rice With Deshelled Prawns and Tomato Air

The black rice was painted black with squid ink. Flavours were robust though very a heavy hand was had with the salt. As much as it looked like risotto, it was more of a squid ink mui fan. With gold flakes and tomato foam which really contributed nothing but aesthetics to the dish since the delicate flavours of the latter were literally a whisper among waves. If anyone's wondering, those deshelled prawns were buried under the rice and tasted pretty good. 

a dissappointing burrata burger

Things started going downhill at this point. The menu described truffled burrata, but it didn't look like it had much of burrata and what truffle? The meat was well done and was derived of all the beefy aroma. It's sad when the tastiest things were the fries. This was a waste of money.

Salted Egg Custard Lava Cake, Balsamic Berries, Tahiti Vanilla Gelato

We weren't too convinced by dessert. There was too little salted egg in the custard that they would have been better off just doing the filling without it. What's good were the sesame tuile and the pile of Pop Rocks on the cake. Think we'll pass on the desserts if there would be a next time.

SweetSpot., Marina Bay Sands

I was previously under the impression that SweetSpot Deli had closed for good and was wondering what was wrong with this world. Until a little bird whispered and I learnt that it's just been moved across the road from The Shoppes to the lobby of Block 3 in the hotel. Have you not yet been enthralled the golden sheen of butter on the toasted bread already?

This new shop has noticeably less space for eating in and prices have gone up by a dollar. The sandwiches felt a little smaller as well. But who am I kidding? I'll still come back for these. Again.

To digress, I think I've figured out what's wrong with how they serve the pastrami at Sacha's. The sample that they lure you in with aren't the same state of meat as the one they serve you in their sandwiches. I'm pretty sure the sandwich goes into the oven and the result is dry chewy pastrami. 

LeNu (樂牛) Taiwan Beef Noodle Bar, Bugis Junction

This was a Taiwanese styled braised beef noodle shop by the Paradise Group (#B1-22 Bugis Junction, 200 Victoria Street, tel : +65 6336 7965). I noticed them some time last year and got curious but didn't manage to try them until today. The options were pretty simple; one chooses from the type of broth, the cut of meat and the noodle based on what's available on the menu.

This above was a bowl with broad noodles and the spicy broth.  Pretty enjoyable except for the broth which was something I hadn't experienced before. It's like mala without the 'ma' nor the 'la'. Chilli oils and spices that had some of the aroma and none of the heat. Not like what I had come to expect from my previous experiences with Lai Lai either. I managed to try the other two broths and I kinda liked them, even though everything was pretty salted.

Not very impressed at this point but I guess I liked some things enough that I wouldn't mind coming back to try something else.

A burger and a hotdog from The Brat

I've been passing by their grill behind the glass whenever I'm at the basement of Plaza Singapura and each time I did, I wondered if their burgers were any good. They did look promising in a basic sort of way so we dropped by. The smell was pretty enticing and honestly, there were only two things that didn't quite settle well with me. 

The first was the cheese. They need to use something better like proper aged Cheddar or even American cheese; the latter tastes better than these things they use here. The other thing that just didn't quite work out enough for me to want to return for them was the flavour of the meat. There was something inside that was more than just salt and pepper. Perhaps a marinade? I couldn't tell, but it was a not so subtle detraction of the beefy flavours which the grill aroma had suggested.

Well, at least their hot dogs are still good. 

More tuna from Isetan

Happened by on a weekend with tuna slicing demonstration going on so we decided to get a box of mixed cuts. It was certainly a lot cheaper eating out here without the additional cost of a restaurant with service. That aside, it tasted pretty much as good.