Hainanese Delicacy, Far East Plaza

This shop (#05-116 Far East Plaza, 14 Scotts Road, tel : +65 6734 0639) remains a sort of an institution to locals for chicken rice. That being said, I collect myself with a little refrain by acknowledging that I don’t really know the history behind the stall and if in the past decades, ownership remained the same. But the first times that I had eaten here was a long time back (yes, I was once a school kid with little money to eat better while hanging out in town) so I know it has been around. Straightforward, fuss free and occasionally, a little brusque.

To trim the proverbial fat of verbosity, to the chicken rice! It’s not bad actually. I liked it then and I still find them a decent rendition now. There’s no excessive use of sesame oil (not that it’s always a bad thing but…) and the tender meat tasted clean flavoured with the light soy sauce. Rice wasn’t overly greasy or heavy which is on hindsight a good thing. The after-burps will not be a bother and it also simply means that there’s less guilt when you silently exclaim to yourself ‘...I like it. Another!’. The chilli was just okay, nothing particularly memorable. But then these guys are old school and sometimes, old school simply means stopping at just adequate.

Ghost Pepper Wings from Popeyes

I'm not sure if any real ghost peppers were involved in the flavouring of these things, but they're only a little spicier than usual. Which means that it's not getting anybody looking for a level up excited about the heat. Seems that the biscuits are honey glazed these days and they've stopped giving out the jams because of that.

London Fat Duck, Scotts Square

The name was a little misleading upfront. For a start, this fairly new restaurant (6 Scotts Road #B1-16/17 Scotts Square, tel : +65 6443 7866) was not from London, hadn’t anything to do with that Four Seasons (which has also opened here recently by the way) from London that is famed somewhat for their Cantonese styled roast duck and was certainly in no way associated with Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck in Bray. What I read was that the ducks here were imported from Ireland. Otherwise, this place was local as local as can be - a joint venture by the Akashi Group and the Fei Siong Group.

Compared to the other Chinese restaurants of their market, food was passable and service was pretty atrocious. The wait staff looked like they were reluctant to serve and importantly, overwhelmed by a morning crowd that filled only half the restaurant. The crew looked like they didn't have experience running the shop and every request took a long time. I'm rather surprised at the management considering that the groups that collaborated have more than a fair bit of experience across the ranges in the F&B sector.

Obviously, what they are known for are their roast ducks amongst other things. Those weren't bad, but I honestly thought I had a better time eating ducks at Dian Xiao Er. Truly. I'm not even sure what getting ducks from Ireland had brought to the table here.

We tried egg tarts. Those were rather boring. The crust was neither fragrant nor buttery.

Har gow was decent but very small. Not something I can see myself looking forward to.

It sure took quite a long time, but I'm seeing local restaurants starting to up the ante for char siew in recent years. This was actually quite nice. But you do get better portions and equal if not more satisfaction for the same price at Grand Mandarina.

Pan fried carrot cake was passable.

This was their black pepper London duck bun. The other thing that was quite nice because it was different from the other crusty buns with sweet fillings. The strength of the black pepper was quite moderated for balance. Very present, but not overwhelming as many black pepper items can be.

We had originally though these "signature" rice rolls from London Fat Duck to be regular zha leong, which were steamed rice rolls wrapped around dough fritters. As it turned out, the dough fritters themselves were also stuffed with shrimps.

There was actually more food that we had ordered, but they never arrived and we decided that with the poor service and the generally average quality of food, it wasn't worth wasting our lives waiting further and shortening already shortened fuses by trying unsuccessfully to get the attention of the overwhelmed (and clumsy too if I might add) wait staff whom obviously didn't want anymore attention from the crowd.

Mentaiko rosu katsu from Imakatsu

The mentaiko that they used were pretty generous in portions and very tasty. Totally worked with their well fried rosu cutlet. Unfortunately, these guys seemed understaffed during this visit and somebody in particular had been getting the orders wrong that some of the orders never arrived while others came in the wrong portions. But still, I like this enough to come back again.

Hot Reuben now with Guinness Stout bread at Nassim Hill Bakery

This was the third beer bread at Nassim Hill Bakery for their sandwich, with the previous ones being made with Asahi Kuronoma and prior to that, Grimbergen Ambrée. What seemed different from this visit was texture (and flavour) of the bread. Previously, they were soft, chewy and warm. This time round, it had lightly toasted and didn't seem to taste as good as the previous visits. The toast had taken the chew and the soft out of the equation.

I'm guessing that it's probably a better idea to visit in the morning when the bakes are fresher; which was exactly when the previous two visits occurred. Hopefully it's not the downfall of their bread because of a change in recipe.

In the other news, they have a Po Boy on menu. It's didn't quite look like what I expected out of a po boy but it was a decent sandwich I wouldn't mind having again. Shrimp, ham and lettuce between a cheesy sun dried tomato focaccia.

Royal Noodle, Circular Road

This (27 Circular Road) was kinda disappointing. The only thing that helped me finish the bowl was an extra helping of their tasty chilli paste. The noodles were ordinary and I didn't find anything memorable with the sauces. What's worse was that the peanuts where just shy of turning stale. Those nuts really bugged me about the quality of their food here.