Lunch at Nogawa Japanese Restaurant

It's been quite a long while since the last time we were here for lunch at Nogawa (#03-25 Concorde Hotel Singapore, 100 Orchard Rd., tel : +65 6732 2911). 8 years to be precise - I didn't realise so much time had passed since then. This hotel which the restaurant is located was once known as Le Meridian from back then.

There was some sort of special omakase lunch set for the month. I wouldn't know if it was really omakase as the term intended but there was a variety and the food was prettily plated. The largest items from the tray was grilled sake (salmon) and sakura ebi kakiage that had mushrooms.

The set came with three types of appetizers. A sawagani tackling a ball of fried pumpkin concealing a chestnut core, some pickled vegetable which I couldn't identify and a fried ayu. Look at the burnt looking leaf on the right. It was carved out of steamed pumpkin.

There was a little pot of dobinmushi with maitake mushroom.

And five negiri sushi.

The closure for that set was some yuzu sorbet and oolong tea.

We also tried Nogawa's sukiyaki set

This was rather good. The thinly sliced beef was of good quality and delicious.

We ordered a asari and seaweed tempura which was done with a crisp batter. The flavours of the seaweed came through nicely in that batter and there were slices of mushroom in the tempura to make them "meatier" if you know what I mean.

An interesting looking rock. Or not.

The English menu describes this as steamed foie gras but it's a foie gras mizore mushi. Pretty smoky tasting and the foie was much more cooked than what we had expected.

And testing Google Map embed.

More desserts from Ji De Chi (記得吃)

So we came back for more desserts. That pink stuff up there was soya bean curd flavoured with rose. In essence (pun intended), the taste was a little bit like bandung. The bowl at the bottom was double boiled milk pudding with durian puree. See the stuff that's peeking out of the fissure in the middle of the bowl. In retrospect, while it didn't taste too bad, it wasn't such a good idea. The durian puree as flavourful as it was pretty much drowned out anything the milk pudding had to offer so the whole bowl tasted pretty much of just the fruit.

Hong Kong Street Lung Kee (香港街龙记), Ang Mo Kio Ave. 5

This cze char stall (Blk 151, Ang Mo Kio Ave 5) was previously Hong Kong Street Chun Kee, but it seems that they have rebranded themselves. I'm pretty sure little beyond the name has changed but I honestly have little to go by apart from their XO fish bee hoon tasting the same as I can remember. We tried a few dishes which we hadn't before from the stall. Their prawn paste chicken was competently fried - little residual grease and moist meat on the mid wings but I felt would have benefitted from a little more of those prawn paste. Sweet and sour pork was competent and it seems that these guys are upping the game with their rendition of the three egg spinach. This rendition has minced pork and wolf berries and the flavour of the broth was pretty impressive. Certainly a departure from the traditional lightweight version.

Simply Wrapps

Believe it or not, I've been wanting to try the wraps here for some time. I'm pretty sure it was because I've strolled past their shop so many times looking into those bright colours of seduction and soon enough, the repetitive play of the luscious ingredients have insidiously insinuated to my subconsciousness suggesting "come get some....you know you want to...". Yes please.  Like a moth to a flame.

Actually, they aren't bad. I kinda liked the Iron Rich wrap with the feta cheese, raisins and beans. It tasted a lot more satisfying than a fruity spinach edamame roll which I concocted. 

Durian mousse double shot from Dessert Bowl

So Dessert Bowl has come up with a double shot option for their durian mousse which includes...*cues Dave Lombardo drum roll*.... another lump of durian pulp. So that's two there instead of just one. Still a guilty pleasure, albeit costlier than before. 

Chomping @ Chomp Chomp

Been a really long time since I last ate at Chomp Chomp (20 Kensington Park Rd). I recall that there was once upon a time when we would have visited at least a few times a year. This visit was probably the only one in quite a number of recent years. I'm not sure if it's just me but it has gotten a lot more smokier than I remember.

Here's a plate spinach wanton noodles from Swee Heng Wanton Noodle (#01-12). Pretty decent plate and what made it really palatable was their chilli sauce which packed some umami heat. Wantons were smooth skinned, had rather tasty stuffings and I liked those caramelized bits from their char siew. If they had been located somewhere else more accessible, I could see me eating this more regularly.

At the entrance of Chomp Chomp is a shop called I-Chai (#01-19) that is known largely for their poh piah, kueh pie tee and Fuzhou oyster cakes. The roll with visible stuffings is known as their sushi poh piah. They've added a seaweed wrap around the skin and some cheap but deliciously creamy melty plastic wrapped cheese. The other roll has century eggs in the stuffings. You know what? Both spring rolls were pretty good. But as poh piah went, this stall was also kinda pricey.

We ordered a dozen skewers from Chomp Chomp Satay (#01-34), the stall that was selling at 60 cents a stick when the rest of the other stalls were going at 50 cents. We told ourselves that we've interpreted that as confidence but honestly, I have no idea why these guys costed more. In retrospect we had no complains. Those satay was quite nice but we hadn't any idea if the others were as good since we haven't tried any of them.