Japanese Restaurant Suju, Mandarin Gallery

I've been wanting to try Suju (#04-05 Mandarin Gallery, 333A Orchard Road, tel : +65 6737 7764) since I discovered them a few years back, but I haven't had the chance until very recently. Their food is not exotic by most stretches of imagination. They do not serve unusual frutti di mare or bugs. But they do deliver a solid teishoku experience.

tamago yaki

premium tempura course

australian wagyu sirloin steak teishoku

The quality of the food spoke for itself. Which was good. And so was that spoken for by the crowd during the weekend lunch and a tell tale sign of a rather large percentage of Japanese clientele. Their tamago yaki was bouncily delicious, piping hot with a sweet and savoury taste. Steak was competent and tasty while the sashimi from the tempura course was pretty good quality. Hell, even the tomato from the 6 appetizer tray was sweet. Loved the miso topped nasu too.  I think you get the idea.

But as much as I thought that their quality commensurated the prices they charged, the food can cost quite a bit. But hey, it's not like I'm not willing to drop a little more dole for good food. The only gripe I had was the pickles that came with the rice. I had expected radish but this place serves cabbage - spiked with ginger.

I wished we had started coming earlier though. 

Janggut Laksa and the Queensway Original Curry Chicken

I've had the Katong styled laksa (an appropriate description?) at Queensway Shopping Centre (1 Queensway) from some years back but have only taken note of the names of the stalls in the more recent ones. This Janggut stall which claims to be the original Katong laksa started off in a push cart stall from the 50s. And there's the other 328 Katong Laksa stall located in the same floor nearby which also claims to come from Katong. 

I'm not about to go into which came first or into their history. Just this Janggut stall which also shares its triangular premise with the curry chicken stall. This laksa was fairly rich with coconut milk, flavoured with the aroma of dried shrimps and had a humming heat from the chilli. Pretty good stuff. Pretty generic of me to describe as such as well but I know of no metrics to measure the quality. 

The chicken cutlet rice with curry ladled over coming from the curry chicken stall kinda surprised me by how delicious it was in a homely sort of way. Even if the chicken cutlets were mostly pre-fried. And yes, I had both servings in a single seating. A guarantee if any to send one into a post lunch coma.

928 Yishun Laksa

I've had laksa from this shop (Blk 928 Yishun Central 1 #01-155) several times over many years but had somehow never mentioned it. Until now that is. It's the laksa without prawns. Pretty popular laksa without prawns. One gets crab sticks instead. And the prices have been creeping up, albeit slowly. But their rempah has a pretty good flavour and the resulting gravy has what I opine to be a good balance for flavour, coconut milk and viscosity. It's not thin like some pathetically weak bowls, nor is it so rich that it cannot endure. That and their chilli paste with a nice hum of heat and the flavour of dried shrimps.

All in all a very decent bowl. 

Balestier Frog Porridge arisen from the ashes

Not exactly trotting along the metaphorical lines here but this coffee shop (567 Balestier Road) was gutted by fire a couple of years ago. If you Google Map this address and get the street view at this point of time, you can still see the 2015 picture that shows the place still boarded up from the renovations. I remembered that the place was left as a charred husk for a while before they fixed the place up. And yes, in that literal way it is back from the ashes of the old stall.

Anyways, the stall is called Balestier Fresh Frog Porridge today, a different name from previously. One might assume that it's a different stall, but I'm thinking it's the same. The same luxuriant kung bao gravy that works its comforting sweet slow burn from the sliced bits of chilli padi and tender slurp off the bone frog meat. I should come by more often.

This year's last reunion dinner

Last reunion dinner here simply refers to the last one possible before the lunar new year begins its next cycle. So this usually happens in an informal fashion at home. Not at a restaurant where proprieties of any sort when eating with others are observed. 

This is usually the time when I get the yu sheng I want. The one without the horrible shreds of ginger which I detest.

Where we pop in things like loads of pomelo and pomegranate seeds to spruce up flavours.

We skipped the raw fish this year and substituted those with smoked duck. 年年有鸭? Though I'd rather 年年有鹅 so that I can look forward to an annual fix at Yat Lok or Kam's.

Made a similar mess out of the yu sheng tossing. Huat ah?

We had fried squid balls.

Bacon wrapped sausages oven roasted with a brown sugar glaze.

And a feeble attempt at making zucchini pasta which we've tried to mimic from the one we had at Afterglow. We'll do better the next time round.

Speaking of my current favourite burger...

I've gotten rid of the fries. I liked pretty much everything I've had at Luke's but their fries. Maybe it's their seasoning that doesn't agree with me.  So this was a kind of a trip back to reassure myself that the Travis burger is still as good and also to divest myself of the memories of some of the not so good ones I've had lately. The next time, I'll lose those vegetables that comes with the top bun. And maybe after that, lose the steak and burger routine for lunch. Speaking of buns, they're using black sesame seed buns these days instead of the old poppyseed ones. I liked those poppyseed buns!