An Ji (安記), Chinatown Complex Food Centre

An Ji (#02-193/194 Chinatown Complex Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) is the other shop beside Cheng Ji that whips up $13 steamed fish heads. We were here for a zhi char dinner with intentions of getting a fish head and a bunch of other dishes. Because we've tried the one with the fermented bean sauce before, we got the one with fermented black bean sauce this time round.

To fulfil the quota for the obligatory greens, a plate of stir fried nai bai. These were rather large bunches, tender yet filled with crunch. We quite impressed with the quality of the vegetable and how tasty it was after the stir fry.

This was sang meen with beef and black bean sauce. The first part of the name translates to 'crispy noodles'. These noodles are deep fried to a crisp before being laden over with the stir fried beef in black bean sauce. The beef was tenderised with sodium bicarbonate, but fortunately, that was not overdone to the point when it became a gooey mess of protein matter. We could still tell that it was beef. Sauce was adequately flavoured. It was definitely not the standard starched up goo that is commonly passed off as gravy.

Usually, I like these crispy noodles to absorb the sauce. It might defeat the purpose of eating crispy noodles but I've always liked them for the fried aroma rather than the crunch. These ones remained crispy for a really long time.....to my dismay.....somewhat. I think this would be excellent for takeaway. That would give it ample time for the sauce to seep in.

This dish above was just described as stir fried fish intestines with sliced bitter gourd. There were also chunks of fish eggs and fish liver. The "other" ingredients were a pleasant surprise and I was sufficiently bought over that I intend to come back in the future just for this. Judging from the cuts of the egg and liver, they must have been taken off a sizeable fish. One of those things that's just made for pairing with white rice.

And then there was sliced fish bee hoon soup. The broth was both light and flavourful in a savoury way. It didn't look like very much when it arrived but if you would believe me, that tasted better than it looked. If I had to complain, it'll be about the stingy portions of the sliced fish.

Ah Tai Hainanese Chicken Rice (阿仔海南鸡饭), Maxwell Food Centre

The story behind Ah Tai (#01-07 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street) is a local legend amongst these parts. With people who are fans enough of chicken rice to bother with anyway. Word was that Ah Tai used to be the chef at Tian Tian and struck out on his own after a fallout from a disagreement. The rest of the details, you can Google.

Tian Tian as many would know was catapulted into international arena by Anthony Bourdain. I ate there years ago and never had the opportunity to return mainly because I don't come here so often these days and their queue tells me that I have better ways to waste my time. If word was to be believed that the standards of chicken rice between Tian Tian and Ah Tai are similar, Bourdain was definitely missing out on the world of chicken rice.

Let me try to keep this short. What I liked about Ah Tai was their tender slurp off the bone chicken and the lime-y chilli which was a very good accompaniment to their rice. What I didn't like about them was the weak flavoured beady rice which has got nothing on my numero uno stall (I wonder where those guys went) and possibly a slew of other stalls. Which to me was ironic for the oft measured trinity of chicken rice since a lesser rice meant more opportunity for the use of the chilli sauce. Those starchy brown sauce that they ladled over their chicken also didn't quite work out for me.

I probably will not remember them for an awesome chicken rice experience even though they were definitely pretty decent. I've had better. And I certainly wouldn't waste my time over at Tian Tian because as nice as it could be - it cannot be that good.

A tsukemen from Sanpoutei

I was at Isetan over the long weekend and decided to try the tsukemen I had seen on menu and been interested in previously. Their tsukemen used the same type of noodles that they're using for the other bowls, so essentially there's just one type of noodle they're making here. The dipping broth was thick, umami and moderately smoky. Rather enjoyable. I thought I enjoyed the one from Tetsu better but I cannot be sure. What I'm sure about though was that the bowl that definitely works for me here is the shoyu one.

Essen @ The Pinnacle

This space (#01-01 The Pinnacle @ Duxton, 1 Cantonment Road) certainly has evolved much since the last time I passed by. I remember it used to be a generic food court that was more than half empty and looked to be dying. Lo and behold, it’s a lot more spiffy today and a lot more expensive as well. And with it the crowd.

So here's a pizza and fried chicken dinner. The former came from a stall called La Stalla, non-Neapolitan styled thin crust. The menu mentioned mortadella ham, but it didn't look like those to me. And those odd loosely scattered raisins. Wasn't too bad though. Those fried chicken wings were from Two Wings that has another shop at Salut. Speaking of which, the folks from Immanuel French Kitchen at Salut have another French food stall by the name of Garçons here. By the way, there's Asahi Kuronama on tap!

The Sushi Bar, Ngee Ann City

nama yuba uni

My understanding of the word chirashi or chirashizushi has always been the standard definition of “scattered sushi”; representing scattered fish over sushi rice. Later on, I got acquainted with another similar type of donburi known as the kaisen don which is a literal translation of seafood rice bowl. From what I had understood, the main difference for the layman (that includes myself) was that the chirashi - as a variant of sushi uses vinegared rice while the kaisen don uses regular rice. Today, I found out that there was actually a kaisen chirashi don. Yes, this (#05-34/35 Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road) was the same place as the one back in Far East Plaza with a waitress asking about a curry fish head order. They’ve expanded and this is the other newer outlet with a lot more seating space and staff.

ankimo tofu with uni and ikura

The menu had expanded with the same magnitude as the seating space. There was quite a lot of stuff and for a casual Japanese joint, it was kudos for effort. Their ankimo tofu was a surprising find and so was the nama yuba which honestly tasted quite nice. Then, their chirashi bowl which was a coalition of the usual suspects of sashimi/sushi - sake, mekajiki, maguro and hamachi....with some scallops. The quality of their seafood was decent if unexceptional and portions were quite generous to boot. I didn't dislike anything in particular, but there was something about it all that didn't quite make me feel that the food was truly satisfying. In fact, as I was finishing up, I thought that I wouldn't have minded at all topping up a few dollars more and dropping myself something that would have more than just the usual suspect variety at Kaiho Sushi over this.

aburi-ed chirashi don

Sanpoutei Ramen, Shaw House

This was a ramen shop from Niigata. I'll admit that in spite of having seen Sanpoutei (#B1-04 Shaw House, 350 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6836 4644) around for a while, I've always avoided them because of the connotations with the Breadtalk Group which brought them in. Eventually I buckled under curiosity and since I didn't even dislike the tonkotsu experience at the other ramen place, why not? 

Here's their Niigata shoyu bowl with a broth that featured a blend with dried sardines. I liked it. The broth was lightweight and savoury while those noodles were springy. The menma fortunately didn't have that pungent flavour that gets most people worried and the lightly smoky charshu disintegrated readily in the mouth. I'm glad that curiosity didn't kill the cat here. Also quite sure I'll come back when I'm considering a light bowl. I did spy a tsukemen which I could be interested in as well.