A carrot cake breakfast from Choh Dee Place

Choh Dee Place is a local coffee shop (Blk 233 Yishun Street 21) in case anyone was wondering. I haven't had carrot cake for ages and decided to get a plate of black and white. This was actually pretty good if a little expensive. A portion of sweet and savoury with some heat from the chilli.

Ramen Gallery Takumen, Circular Road

This was my first visit to Ramen Gallery Takumen (66 Circular Road). The concept behind the shop was the feature of multiple offerings from different ramen-ya under a single roof. With regards to that particular concept, I had always been curious as to how it had worked and I found out today. It is as advertised but the shop wasn't run by the actual folks behind the respective brands. It was manned by a couple of Hokkien speaking aunties. So I'm guessing that all they do behind the counter is cook the noodles and everything else is made either from a central kitchen somewhere or imported ready for use with minimal preparation.

Isn't this place a little pricey for almost instant noodles?

Anyways, here's a bowl from Bigiya, a Michelin Tokyo Bib Gourmand winner. The more interesting of the bunch in my opinion. This bowl featured a fish and chicken broth with yuzu and had wheat noodles. My expectations were accordingly inched up because of their accolade (I should have known, right?), so a fair assessment would be that I was a little disappointed. I suppose I had been expecting a more of the yuzu flavour than just a hint and also better standards for their ajitama.  It wasn't a bad bowl per se, just nothing to get excited over or come back for again. On the other hand, the cheese gyozas were tasty.

Otoro katsu from Suigei Sake Salon

Suigei Sake Salon has a new teishoku set for lunch. One with otoro katsu! The side dishes included in this set were minced crab and sazae. No kegani croquette. Like their other lunch orders, it is limited to 5 sets a day.

The meat of the tuna was lightweight and tender. Amongst the condiments to be used for the otoro katsu, I felt the accompanying mustard and salt together were the better. Not so much the tonkatsu sauce.

Because the kegani croquette did not come with the lunch, we ordered it as an add on anyway. There was dessert, we took the pumpkin pudding again because the other option which was soya bean pudding didn't sound as good.

Lucca's Trattoria, Robertson Walk

Really? The year is just halfway through and Wine & Dine has already officially decided that this (#01-12 Robertson Walk, 11 Unity Street) was one of the top restaurants for 2016? I'm sure we can do better, no? Little wonder my regard for the publication has dipped progressively throughout the years.  

Food was ok, but I'm not sure Lucca's Trattoria was deserving of that accolade. I have little idea too what is that Lucca's style of cuisine that the restaurant claims to serve. Does Lucca even have their own cuisine type? Most of the menu items could be found in most of the other Italian restaurants around. I'll admit some of the stuff were inventive takes, but.... Lucca's cuisine.... really?

Service was brusque and superficial. Didn't know why the waitress even bothered asking how the food was when all we got in return was a blank stare. She didn't looked like she cared, only that she asked. Pretty sure that she wasn't going to bother to feedback to the kitchen.

That's their Caprese. Not exactly a showcase of the restaurant's capability. Except of one to import produce and perhaps, a bit of fanciful plating.

We had a shot at their Gorgonzola e Frutta pizza. Gorgonzola, dried prunes, dates and apricots. Sounded like my thing. Sounded' was the operative word. What was wrong with this picture you might wonder? Well, the pie glaringly lacked the mottled blue bits for one with Gorgonzola. While some of the flavour from the cheese were present, they were at the middle of the pizza. Did I just imply stinginess? You betcha ass I just did. A good half of it was nothing but crust and tomato paste. 

The chicken liver and bacon pasta with Marsala sauce sounded like it might have been good as well. The sauce oddly reminded me of those found in the pork and potato with onion stir fry that my parents used to do. Very Asian kind of flavours which I did not expect coming from a fortified wine sauce and butter. Their bacon was neither salty not smoky. Hell I couldn't even taste any of the pepper. While I couldn't say that I disliked this, I would not order it again. I had a hard time trying to reconcile that taste with the word 'Italian'.

Old House (老屋), Neil Road

We've passed by this shop (25 Neil Road, tel : +65 6223 1633) numerous times and have been intrigued by the "dinosaur prawn noodles" that they advertise at the shop front. I was of course under no illusions about the description. Anything that isn't at least the size of those Thai river prawns doesn't deserve to be called dinosaur prawn noodles and I was pretty sure these weren't.  

I was right about them. But the broth was intense from the crustacean flavours and pork bone. There was the aroma of pepper amidst the flavours and each mouthful left the lips glazed with grease. Prawns were pretty tender but the pork ribs weren't anything to write home about. At $15, it was also rather small portions.

What was unexpectedly good was their white lor mee. The creamy broth was sweet from the cabbage accented by just a little bit of smokiness from the scorched thin strips of pork belly. The chewy noodles were just what I was looking for. I'd come back just for this alone.

We ordered steamed sting ray topped with garlic and chilli. While I couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that this was frozen meat because of the odd texture, the ray was actually pretty tasty. It also bestowed upon us dragon's breath. Hahaha!

Sap Thai Food, Amoy Street Food Centre

Wow, the food was not bad at all from Sap Thai Food (#01-58 Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road). Their som tam mamuang was refreshingly tasty from the lime and fish sauce, boosted with those perspiration inducing chilli padi. Great textures from the toasted whole peanuts, fragrant thin strips of crunchy mango and things turned up a notch after I added some of those crushed peanuts and sugar. This mango salad packed more punch than the one from Gin Khao. I'd eat it again in a heartbeat.

The plate below is their fried Thai basil MaMa noodles. Yes, they're exactly those delicious chrome packet toasted instant noodles, stir fried with some krapow gai and topped with a fried egg. It's a pity they don't do pork here and these guys don't open in the weekends.