Raan Jay Fai, Thanon Mahachai, Bangkok

We've heard mentions of this lady with about five decades of cooking under her belt whipping up not the usual stir fry (not cheap as well if I might add) and so we just had to come to this time capsule of a location (327 Thanon Mahachai, Bangkok, Thailand,  tel : +66 2 223 9384) to try the food. The place isn't exactly Bangkok city centre, but it's located a literal stone's throw away from a certain Thip Samai which is supposedly the holy grail for phad thai. I mean, really? 

That above is their pad khee mao, or also known as drunken noodles. It's actually stir fried rice noodles and that can't really be seen from the picture. The ratio of the chunky ingredients to the said rice noodles are probably 2 to 1.  This stuff was smokey caramelized good if you catch my drift. From the sugars and fish sauce and whatever else that might have added to form that nice browning on the surface of the noodles. A pleasant blend of heat and smokey sweetness with overtones of basil would probably be a good description for the flavours. Oh, those white chunky pieces of meat at the top are neither chicken nor poodle. It's crab. 

That gnarly nugget is their famed crab omelette. Just in case you were wondering, it was a little more than 20 cm across.

And fully loaded with egg and chunks of crab meat. I never thought that I would be crabbed out from this but that was enough flesh to make at least 3 or 4 of those crab cakes from Morton's.

This was described in English on the menu as dry porridge. It was a lot more viscous than most porridges that I'm used too, hearty and delicious. Fascinatingly lightweight in flavours compared to their stir fried dishes and also, loaded with large chunky pieces of seafood. Like!   

Mamacitas Costa Rican Cuisine, Lau Pa Sat

Yikes, I didn't enjoy this casado much at all. The meat was heavily salted and the food was greasy in a not so good way. I'm not sure how much of a representative this is of Costa Rican food since I'm not familiar with them at all.  But I'm pretty sure this stall at least localised themselves with regards to how much they're charging for their food with their given portions while trying to pass the easily available ingredients with minimal skills required with the preparation off as some "exotic" option in the food court.

Everything on the menu seems to be a rehash of a few same ingredients that has been sitting in the troughs; be it the burritos, their chalupas or rice plates. Also certainly did not expect bottled sweet chilli sauce for default condiments. For what they are charging, they could do better than just picco de gallo, shredded lettuce and a sad slice of plantain. I'm pretty sure there's more than a handful of other better ways to spend my money down in Lau Pa Sat. 

Moments before The Age of Ultron

Yeap, a delicious meal before a equally delicious movie from our home grown joint. Of juicy tender fried chicken with thin crisp skin and a soothing milky iced bandung to wash down. The meal that is.

Have you watched The Age of Ultron? I've caught pretty much all the Marvel movies since the first Iron Man and they've mostly been a blast. Well, maybe I didn't like the second Thor so much because of the CG saturation that reminded me more than a little of the last trilogy for Star Wars.

I dug the first Avengers movie. As an ex-comic reader, I can certainly appreciate that these recent years have been a realization of many dreams for many fans. I had especially looked forward to this one because the bonus was Ultron. Or the voice behind it. And as I had been anticipating, an Ultron with the snarkiness of a particular concierge of crime - Raymond "Red" Reddington. James Spader of course. An excellent actor that could recite a line of not so thinly veiled threat while charming the pants off you with that very same line.

Xi Yan Shaw, Shaw Center

This restaurant (1 Scotts Road, Shaw Centre, #03-12/13, tel  : +65 6733 3476) was obviously an offshoot of the private kitchen down at Craig Road. I visited that Xi Yan some years ago, didn't think very much of them then. Apparently, some or all of the dishes that they have on menu at this casual dining branch of the restaurant are signature dishes from the private kitchen. Seems to be a whole lotta  signature dishes for a private kitchen to have.

I have mixed impressions of this one.

That's the radish pizza with XO sauce. XO sauce was nice, the "pizza" was okay. Didn't think so much of it and will not be ordering it again the next time. But on the bright side, it also means that there will be a next time!

Their sake dongpo rou was not bad too. Actually, I liked the sweet preserved mustard greens much more than the pork belly. This is stuff that will make you eat loads of white rice.

Spinach with three eggs was competent if ordinary. The garlic needs to boil for a longer duration so that it softens up nicely and more century egg would be nice.

Xi Yan obviously hasn't escaped the need to start using truffle in their dishes as well, so here's their black truffle and Yunnan ham fried rice. Having Yunnan ham was a little more than a marketing gimmick since none of that bodied aroma nor texture gets through with these tiny shreds. It would have worked almost as well with good old salted fish. As for the truffle component, there's definitely better around.

That's the deep fried fish with shrimp paste in a pomelo and water chestnut salad. I had this previously from the private kitchen which was served as a whole fish rather than just cuts of the fillet. I couldn't tell what kind of fish this was.

I remember liking their salad/sauce that they used because it was such an excellent blend of citruses with onions and pomelo. This time round, I noticed that there was also lot of sugars going on too to balance off the tangy elements. Still excellent, but the fish itself didn't taste very good. The meat was crumbly and thin with little to no flavour. I'm pretty sure I'd order this again in a heartbeat, but the quality of the fish would have nothing to do with the decision.

Ginseng and chicken soup. Not bad. Don't mind drinking this again.

We liked their tan tan mian. Nicely nutty flavour from the sauce and ground peanuts along with generous portion of minced meat in firm noodles with bite. I couldn't really ask for much more out of this dish.

Some salted yolk prawn with pumpkin. The salted yolk crust was garlicky. Pretty good, but the prawns were of just average quality. And I suppose I like the those pumpkins to stay in the steamer for a longer period so that the crunch in the texture goes away.

These are fried meat patties with salted fish and diced water chestnuts. Not bad at all. Really. I thought the browning was sufficient and well done.

Dessert was kind of a let down. It says lychee ice cream and osmanthus wine. I could only taste the lychee. I always feel it's bad form for a restaurant to list something in the ingredients and not put them in or don't use enough of it that the person eating it can actually taste them.

Teppei Syokudo, Takashimaya Food Hall

scallop kaisen don

salmon & ikura don

So this is the takeaway shop from Teppei right smack in town serving up their shoyu marinated kaisen/barachirashi donburi. Often claimed to be the place to go to if one doesn't want to endure the reservation for Teppei or the queue at Hana Hana. I guess that the main difference with these takeaways are that it doesn't come with piping hot rice like how it is served in their proper sit downs. Or furikake when those generous chunks of seafood run out.

Tanuki Raw, Orchard Central

I have heard of Tanuki Raw (#02-03 Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6636 5949) from their association with Standing Sushi Bar which I've never been too. Had never been interested because I've always assumed that since they're both bar and a kitchen and if they're as affordable as they say, neither of which has got to be good. Besides, they're doing a contemporary slash bastardised slash Americanised form of Japanese food. Which is pretty much everywhere so I didn't find them compelling.

Long story short, we heard numerous mentions about their truffle yakiniku don going for an affordable $14.80 at lunch and decided to give it a go. Presentation aside, this was actually pretty good. Though I had expected those short rib to be pan seared instead of just being aburi-ed. I would not mind coming back to eat that again. Oh, I finally figured out that those fox like things lurking at the entrances are actually the tanuki.