333 Bak Kut Teh, Balestier Road

We've passed by this ba kut teh shop (333 Balestier Road) on numerous occasions and have been wanting to give it a go, but it had never happened for some reasons until today. As of today, this would be the second ba kut teh shop that I've eaten at along Balestier. The first and only other being Founder. 

So here goes the number of half the Beast. I thought we liked pretty much everything we've ordered. What we could pick on were the stiff fried crullers and their dry and beady rice. Both weren't so great at absorbing all the drippings and broths. Those preserved mustard greens could also do with a lot less grease.

Otherwise, their tender braised intestines were superb and flavourful; tau kwa was oddly textured but full of the goodness from its braising broth and the pork ribs were so tender that I could swipe the meat off the bone with chopsticks. The main broth for the ribs was peppery and garlicky altogether, but for some reasons felt a little flat. I've no qualms eating here again if I'm in the vicinity though.

Double cheese ramyeon and other stories from ChoWon Garden

It's been quite a while since we last dropped by ChoWon Garden. So here's a quiet lunch of Korean food in a family restaurant at this little corner of the business district.

If the double cheese ramyeon had piqued any curiosity, it's actually their regular cheese ramyeon. Part of their lunch sets. Plastic wrapped processed diary over a bowl of hot, probably instant noodles in a savoury and slightly spicy broth. I merely requested for an additional slice of cheese. How was it? Very tasty comfort food. This brought extra gooiness and cheesiness to the noodles while turning the broth milky. I drank it till the last drop.

We had pan fried zucchini fritters, hobak jeon. The slices of zucchini were coated with an egg batter. Greasy, but tasty. Better with their dipping sauce because the salt helps.

There was a nurungji tang. A burnt rice soup. The soup component was quite bland and tasted like rice tea. I wonder if it was meant to be that way.

That's a clear oxtail soup. The broth was quite beefy and very enjoyable.

I forgot what this was called, but it looked like Japanese tamago stuffed with kimchi from the menu. How it arrived was totally different. It turned out to be a pan fried omelette (imagine fu yong omelette); a greasy one, stuffed with kimchi. The same young kimchi that they served as part of their banchan. Not that it was bad, but I thought it would have been a much better idea to get something more sour, more aged to cut through the grease from the omelette. 

Meii Sushi, Erskine Road

A reader had shared the change of address for Meii Sushi (33 Erskine Road #01-01, tel : +65 6220 3466). The current location is at The Scarlet - also known as the hotel previously known as Scarlet Hotel. From what I had understood from the chef, reservations are advised. The reason is due to the fact that he has to prepare his fish and they don't cater for much extras.

So I guess this was a lucky walk in.

A couple of lunch bowls here. The above is a kanpachi (greater amberjack) don and below is their barachirashi which also had bits of kanpachi in it. This bowl is not exactly the standard issue bara that most of the restaurants are doing because these restaurants don't make their bara out of odd ends. This one here looked like it might have been really made with the odd ends. The only fish they had was amberjack and salmon.

Both decent fish donburi were on shari but don't expect to be floored. I was hoping that there would be thicker fish cuts which was what they were known for. Maybe it's just only for their omakase.

And here's some supplementary aburi toro nigiri. Fat content a little low for these slices.

A pizza from Marché

Yeah, this was the other restaurant concept of Marché at JEM (50 Jurong Gateway Road, #01-03, JEM, tel : +65 6694 2501) where you do not get issued cards and there are no individual stalls for your food order. This one works like a regular restaurant that is serving pretty much similar stuff from the regular one that we're used to. So here's a pizza from them, with goat's cheese, walnuts and grapes. Sounded good on the menu.

I had thought that they would slice up the grapes and perhaps toast them with the pizza halfway through to help release the sugars which would have been great - rather than just scattering them whole on top of the pie. Those were pretty nice grapes though. The goat's cheese was creamy but the pungence was a little tame. And those walnuts, they were just shy of being rancid. It's rather appalling at how careless restaurants can be with the quality of their nuts. And for what they were charging inclusive of service, it's almost criminal.

I didn't dislike this so much, I just wanted to rant about how it could have been a lot better if they didn't treat this like an afterthought.

Teochew Restaurant Huat Kee, RELC Building

We read about this Teochew restaurant (30 Orange Grove Road, #02-01 RELC Building, tel : +65 6423 4747) that previously hailed from Amoy Street from Makansutra which mentioned a young second generation taking over of the family business from the parents and it sounded like it could be pretty good. While I don’t eat these Teochew dishes so very often, I’ve had them numerous times over the years and I have an idea of what I like or not about some of their commonly known dishes.

This one was not as good as I had been hoping for. Hence I'm constantly reminded to take reviews with more than a pinch of salt. Take this with a pinch as well.

We had cold crabs, one of those things we liked and is unfortunately rather pricey these days. These ones from Huat Kee were a little smaller than the usual small crabs that we had been expecting. The process of molting had probably been going on into the later stages so the softer inner shell was starting to get....not so soft. No roe in there as well so I guess it's just not the right season. The meat was chilled and sweet, but didn't seem quite match up with expectations from the last eating we had.

The pork aspic was quite nice. Those jelly were quite packed with flavours from the stock and were also nicely chilled.

I liked the liver rolls too. The stuffing was like pate - wrapped in a crispy fried bean curd skin.

Their orh luak was unfortunately a bore. It was a little too greasy and too much flour and eggs with too little oysters. There's definitely much better around. 

I forgot what this was but it was braised chopped spinach. The flavours were light and unexpectedly quite enjoyable.

Those are sea cucumber stuffed with with pork and prawn paste. Didn't find those very enjoyable. And I generally like sea cucumber.

The other item that turned out to be quite good was their braised goose web. The flavours of the braising liquid was absorbed into the goose webs and the texture was enjoyable. Something akin to a chewier tau kee (dried bean curd sheet).

Olive fried rice. Would have been passable if not for the fact that it was too greasy. Certainly didn't expect them to screw up fried rice.

These were the Teochew kuey teow, also known as cai por kuey teow for the preserved radish that is used in the stir fry of the rice noodles. Nothing exceptional and their wok fry it seems at this point, always does poorly with the grease control.

An average orh nee. Nothing to write home about nor did it suck.

RELC isn't the most convenient of locations unless you have a vehicle. To add on to that, the food here was a little expensive as well. And then there was this odd server that recommended us against ordering their chive noodles citing that it is not done well by the cooks when they have a lot of customers. Oh yes - hot sugar cane drink that was in the colour of diluted chrysanthemum tea and tasted nothing like sugar cane. Something definitely went wrong with that with no admission from the staff.

Fat chance we'll come back and I think we'll enjoy ourselves more trying our luck at the Boon Keng area.

Balaji Bhawan, Syed Alwi Road

We came to Balaji Bhawan (103 Syed Alwi Road, tel : +65 63417797) because there was something that I had been reading about that they have on the menu. Namely the dal batti churma thali which was what I was interested in trying. So I’ll just be talking mostly on that and omitting other points of interest. Like the restaurant being a little dim and dingy and also that service was slow and reluctant. Air conditioning needs upgrade as well.

Back to the dal batti churma thali - well, it’s apparently a food item representative of Rajasthan in India. A thali (platter of dishes often with rice or bread) that contains dal batti churma. Which comprises of the dal, batti and churma. The dal which is the commonly known lentil stew, the batti which is a hard wheat roll/ball eaten with the dal and the churma which is also made of wheat and cooked with ghee and sugar (or jaggery as well) to make up the dessert. This thali here was also served with curried potatoes, vegetable korma, dah/dhal, raita, some spiced basmati rice, a couple of poori, a papadum and also gulab jamun.

The two doughy lumps were the batti and the one on the right was the churma. The former was a dense, dry and chewy bread which could be eaten with any of the dips or curries while the latter had the texture of a lump of wet ball of crumbly sand that tasted buttery and sweet. All in all, I had thought that the entire thali was quite enjoyable. Until the sweets. Both the churma and the gulab jamun were a sugar overload for me.

Their pudina parotha was also quite nice. Could taste the mint in the bread.

While waiting for the main orders, we passed the time with a raj kachori as dinner was only served from 7pm and there was chaat available. This was like a giant puri done up like the yoghurt version with peas and potatoes stuffed in the crispy shell. But this chaat looked sloppily made with insufficient lashings of chutney. Looked nothing like the regular chaat of any sort which would generally appear more messy and with more toppings. This looked quite sad.