The recent tragedy at the Golden Arches

So here's a look at the recent what seems to me to be a disaster from McD. Their salted egg yolk burger. This item has been plagued by not so positive feedback about the quality and the quantity of the said sauce and I'm hearing that they're using the powdered variety from a known distributor which uses chicken egg - not duck eggs as salted eggs are usually made from.

Salted egg yolk sauce has been around in some form or another for a while. I gather that quite a lot of people here like it and have their opinion of it. And one doesn't expect to fly by without some form of criticism if it's not done at least decently. I expected that the local McD should be well aware of that. I have no idea if the guy in charge of this was incompetent or simply couldn't care less - but take my word for it, this is nothing like the real deal. For what they charged, I expected something that tasted like the real deal even if it wasn't the real deal.

I requested for more of that salted egg yolk sauce. This stuff is actually more like a paste. And possibly because of the initial backlash feedback, they probably have already started increasing the quantity of the sauce in the regular distribution. So that kinda compounded to the point where the entire chicken was buried in that pasty stuff.

Which would not have been so much of a problem had it tasted good like how salted yolk sauces should. This actually tasted pretty milky and a little sweet. The salted element of the salted egg yolk sauce was virtually non existent and it along the way, wiped out any that might have existed in the fried chicken with its flavour. Imagine a poorly done liu sha bao. This is one step below. 

So while it was too measly, people made noise. Now that they've upped the amount, I'm making noise. So it is damned if they do and damned if they don't. Capitalism doesn't hand out awards for trying.

I was kinda hoping that their grilled chicken salad would save them and wipe the taste off the burger. For grilled chicken, it was a little sad. The skin wasn't particularly crisp like grilled chicken should be. In fact, it was soggy. The marinate was sweet and I didn't like it. Here's a first and a last time. 

The current burger gimmick comes with the option to get twister fries with what they called a salt and pepper crab mix. A shaker twister fries item. I get the salt and the pepper, but none of that crab. I didn't expect any crab in the first place so I guess I wasn't surprised. I recommend that one eats this sans that powder. It tasted like a MSG bomb.

Yeah, they are having some spicy nuggets to go with the current setup as well. It was indeed a little spicy but I didn't quite enjoy that additional flavour that came with the spiciness. I couldn't make out what it was and the skin of the nugget was thicker than usual. I wouldn't recommend it.

Hardcore Vegetarian at Mustafa Centre

Saravanaa Bhavan, Syed Alwi Road

I've been wanting to try the food at Saravanaa Bhavan (84 Syed Alwi Road) for quite a while so this visit was made possible from a reminder when a co worker recommended it. The name is part of an international chain that has its roots in Chennai. As humble as this shop looked, it was part of an intercontinental presence.

Those on top are mini idli in a pot of sambar. If I recall, the dish was called 14 idli because there are fourteen of those little steamed rice cakes. The sambar in this place was pretty kickass so this dish was a no brainer good kind of thing.  

That's a North Indian thali. Pretty good, but doesn't quite beat the one from Komala Vilas in quantity value there. Clockwise from the top right - vegetarian briyani, some long bean korma, a raita that unfortunately contained ginger, dhal and the ball at the top was a sweet made with rice. In the middle, naans and papadum and oddly - gobi 65. I'm certainly not complaining about the cauliflowers though.

This was a little bowl of soup that came with the thali. Some vegetable soup of the day with long beans and it was actually pretty good.

This was not soup. Those green stuff floating on top were not long beans neither. It's supposed to be their masala milk if they had gotten their order right and those green stuff were bits of pistachio. But I'm pretty sure this was a badam milk instead and it was really sweet. Certainly not the masala milk as I had been expecting.

I wouldn't mind coming back again if I'm in the vicinity.

Hotate katsu at Saboten

The ebi katsu season had just passed by about a month or so ago and now it's hotate katsu! I suppose it was fine. Just scallops clad in the same breading that they do for their regular tonkatsu. For some reasons, I had been expecting the scallops to be much larger than the ones that they were actually serving. That would have been something. Now that I've tried it, I suppose the next time round wouldn't get me excited. I think their prawn cakes taste better.

Ah Heng Curry Chicken Bee Hoon Mee (亞王咖喱鸡米粉麵), Hong Lim Food Centre

I do not remember if I've ever patronized Ah Heng (#02-57/58 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross St) before so here's a clean slate. Their curry noodles was not bad. The broth was a thin and savoury drinkable stuff with a thin film of chilli oil that gave it a moderate heat. Those chicken slices in the bowl were tender if ordinary and while I'm normally not one for tau pok, these ones were pretty damn good. I can understand why they have their fans but as much as I thought the bowl was a decent eat, I would definitely think twice if I had wait at the back of a long line for it. Maybe I should give the other curry noodle stall below a try.

Menya Takeichi, Suntec City

We watched from a distance as Menya Takeichi (#03-313 Suntec City Mall, 3 Temasek Boulevard, tel : +65 6235 3386) opened up shop and beckoned waving its tori paitan fingers while we were continuously serenaded by Maguro Donya Miura Misakikou Sushi & Dining. It took a while but finally we made our way down. In summary, these folks are from a successful chain of chicken broth ramen empire from Tokyo. Ranked currently at #12 in Supleks. 

I find truly odd that even Google Japan's search result's first page are pretty much Singapore related links when one searches for Menya Takeichi. It seems like Google felt all that they were before now, was not very relevant.

But.......here's their truffle ramen and tori tempura. The noodles were thin, akin to mee sua rather than a thin straight and chewy type like those from Kyushu. I was expecting the latter, but I suppose this one wasn't too bad. The broth was actually pretty tasty, creamy even. Obviously also enhanced by that dollop of truffle paste which added its own aroma. Those chicken tempura were pretty good munching too.

Those bits of truffle left in the bowl swirled their oracles pointing to a chance that I could come back. That was all they said. Not much left of the remnants to tell more of a story.