The beef burger at The Naked Finn

The Naked Finn has introduced a beef burger on their lunch menu which features meat from a blend of dry aged grass fed beef with Japanese A4 wagyu. They said it was done medium well but the actual patty bordered almost on well done which I felt was too cooked for a better appreciation. Anyway, I couldn't tell much of a difference with the pedigreed and aged meat blend. The intensified flavour which I was hoping for simply didn't come through. Which was a pity. While I don't dislike it, I think I like their seafood options much better. Certainly not gonna beat my current favourite soon. Oh yes, seems like these guys aren't immune to the Truffle Fries Syndrome that's been sweeping the country.

Cod fish soup noodle from Amara Hotel

To be precise, this was at Cafe Oriental at Amara Hotel (1F, Amara Hotel, 165 Tanjong Pagar Road). One of numerous symbolic Asian retro-ish type of restaurant that one can find in local hotels to represent local cuisine - often at the upper crust. A friend had recommended me some time back to try their cod fish soup bee hoon. The broth was really lightweight - perhaps even a little bland for some. I had been expecting a lot more flavour coming from a hotel's kitchen but I supposed it was nothing a splash of soy sauce and a few slices of chilli padi cannot fix. I was also hoping that they'd add evaporated milk even but there wasn't any of that. The thick chunks of fried cod were pretty good and the vegetables were of good quality. Still it was kinda expensive at $20 for food that I could only hanker for when I'm ill.

The Okamochi Box barachirashi set from Ryu's

I saved myself from damnation and came back to Ryu's. This time, we tried their barachirashi served in the Okamochi box. A wooden box with drawer compartments for food. Gimmicky? Perhaps - but it was an experience and more importantly, we enjoyed the food.

This was part of the amuse bouche. A lightly spiced carrot bisque. I couldn't tell what spices were in it but the soup was creamy and very pleasant.

The Okamochi box. The bottom drawers contained the barachirashi.

Top drawer was grilled chicken and a vegetable side which I believed was gobo.

The barachirashi came with cubed let's see - kanpachi, maguro, hotate, ikura, ika, bit of what looked like minced ebi; and there were thinly sliced & marinated shitake and renkon.

In the Okamochi box, were some seaweed sheets, a dollop of wasabi and a makisu. We tried our hand at rolling our first maki rolls ever. The virgin experience if you would.

Truthfully, I sucked at it. I had no idea what I was doing and certainly couldn't grasp how the chefs could work these things so artfully on YouTube. My clumsy hands ended up rolling the seaweed sans the mat. It looked rustic. But hey, it tasted good!

The grilled chicken look like torched chicken. The skin was charred like it had gone through aburi. But there was a familiarly sweet flavour like pandan. 

And the set ended with the same warabi mochi with kinako and drizzled brown sugar as the last time.

Home made ham and cheese sandwich with otah

I cannot imagine a sandwich like this, as simple as it might have been, to exist anywhere else but this part of the world. 

Guzman Y Gomez, Star Vista

Guzman Y Gomez (#01-32 The Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green, tel : +65 6694 2044) is a chain Mexican taco/burrito shop from Australia that opened up here a few years ago. Their initial outlets were located at places I never needed to be so I never got to try them until this one at Star Vista opened recently.

You know what? I rather enjoyed what I had. And it was cool that you could choose different fillings for their set of tacos rather than having all of the same. The grilled chicken and carnitas tasted better than their flank steak which was oddly tasteless as a meat. But three tacos didn't exactly fill me up so we tried their burrito bowl with barramundi. I liked their chicken and pork options better.   

Chee cheong fun with chai por

That's steamed rice rolls (chee cheong fun) topped with preserved turnip (chai por) if anyone needed translation. Story goes when we were trying to get ourselves some chwee kueh from a particularly popular stall down at Whampoa Market Food Centre and they happened to be sold out. Which exacerbated the craving for them. There was left over chai por and the stall still had some steamed rice rolls and so the improbably inevitable happened. It's actually quite nice; nothing unexpected or surprising with the flavours since it was precisely flavours of those chai por over a starch cake.