Face To Face Noodle House (面对面), City Square Mall

I admit to coming here with tempered expectations but these guys were (#02-23/24 City Square Mall, 180 Kitchener Rd, tel : +65 6509 0182) actually rather good. The wiry Sarawak kolo mee was fragrant from the fried shallots and those spicy bits of chilli things that they had provided on the side really elevated things. Now the char siew - I wouldn't say that their dark caramelized char siew is one of the better representative of that style around but I suppose it was all forgivable. Has anyone noticed that their fried wantons tasted exactly like fried spring rolls?

We tried a bowl of their house specialty pan mee which the menu described as having a rich broth. It's not so rich. It was a little herbal and it tasted a little light. But empty the hot and sour sauce they provide on the side with the fried anchovies and stir it up with the soft boiled egg in the broth - it's a different beast with a kickass heat.

Sin Kee Famous Cantonese Chicken Rice, Holland Drive

My previous visits to Sin Kee back when there were located at Mei Lin Food Centre had always been on weekdays so this is the first weekend trip down to their stall. Their current stall (Chang Chen Mee Wah Coffeeshop, 40 Holland Drive).

I guess I'm glad we came down since this kinda reminded me why I liked them in the first place. The light yet flavourful rice and those chunky slurp off the bone tender boiled chicken. Skilful strokes of the cleaver that leaves no bone fragments behind as one slurps off those meat. Chilli not necessary but something that's a nice to have for me. 

I'm not going to comment if standards have remained the same because I haven't had them for quite a while and there isn't a metric for it. Assuming that I haven't been imagining it, there seemed to be something a little different from the past. I'm not sure what but it's not changing my opinion of them.

By the way, the teh c in this coffee shop is pretty good. 

Aini Muslim Food, Holland Drive Food Centre

This was a random order of lontong for breakfast encouraged by a short queue at the front of the stall (#02-14 Holland Drive Market & Food Centre, 44 Holland Drive). It turned out to be pretty damn good. The vegetables were stewed soft, gravy had a good amount of lemak in it and the heat was respectable. In spite of appearances, there wasn't really so much of that gravy in the bowl. Guess what? There was actually some tung hoon in all of that. 

I'm gonna give their other items a go the next time.

OSAKA きっちん (Osaka Kitchen), Japan Food Town @ Wisma Atria

This (#04-46 Wisma Atria, 435 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6262 3271) was the teppanyaki/okonomiyaki joint down in Japan Food Town. Both of which are largely what their menu are comprised of, featured prominently in their omakase set and are popularly associated as food from Osaka. Here's a look at their $80 omakase with add ons.

That's potato salad with black pepper and spicy pickled Japanese cucumber. Chilled starters of the omakase set.

After which was the first item from the teppan. Omelette with pork belly. The thinly sliced pork belly were seared on the teppan and spatula ripped to shreds.

The shreds of the pork belly were then placed in the omelette....

...and the omelette was folded.

Into a roll it became.

Served with mayo and their okonomiyaki sauce. This was not bad.

These teppan grilled jumbo asparaguses, add ons outside of the omakase were tender and crunchy. 

Then came the grilled avocado with melted cheese. A slice of avocado was placed on the teppan with dried shirasu and mayo to cook for some time before shredded mozzarella is piled on them. The melted mozzarella formed a crust which toasted and browned. Mine looked like some strange butterfly. The strange butterfly tasted very good. 

Following that was the goma tofu. We had been assuming that this would be just tofu made with sesame as the name might have implied. The texture of the teppan grilled tofu was more akin to mochi, very wobbly and just slightly chewy unlike regular tofu. It was served with a little bit of sweet grated wasabi on the side.

Next up was stir fried cabbage and gyu suji. The cabbage was seared on the teppan before the stewed beef and tendons were ladled over for an a la plancha. 

They were served with a sprinkle of shichimi. Likely because of the spices the beef had been stewed with, the flavours tasted Chinese. That was an observation, not criticism.

Their prawns and scallops were competently done. Both were sweet and tender.

The squid tentacles were an add on. There wasn't so much searing on the squid since it appeared to be just a short stir fry. A longer time on the teppan might have coaxed a lot more flavours out.

Then came the ohmi gyu. It was flambeed with some alcohol.

For a moment, a small towering inferno appeared almost as quickly as it disappeared.

We ended up with delicious, tender and disintegrate in the mouth cubes of seared ohmi gyu after the short display of pyrotechnics.

The okonomiyaki which had been cooking on the teppan for about half the time we had been eating arrived as the last course. Well, the last before the dessert that is. The pancake had a base of fragrant spirals of pork belly and the insides were creamy. This was nicely done.

Dessert was yuzu sorbet.

Has anyone ever had almonds coated coconut?

I'm thinking probably not eh? Well, neither have I nor anyone else.

Three Little Pigs, Tiong Bahru Plaza

What's up with these places in Tiong Bahru Plaza serving their sweets before the rest of the food? Three Little Pigs (#01-106, Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road) seem to have also scrambled their food serving sequence as well by using order chits. Should I even wonder how service processes or the tech that goes behind it has no common sense human touch integrated behind them to support the users that very obviously have none and/or couldn't care less.

The menu, has changed from the last time. 

That's their Thai tea cake. Yes, it was the first item that was served. Don't waste your money on it. It came so fast that you knew it never went into the oven before being assembled. It's just sweet and didn't have much of the said tea flavour. Totally shattered my imaginings of flowing molten Thai tea from a hot moist cake.

Their pork skewer rice was quite good. The kailan on the side was tender and sweet and the pork in skewers were fatty and moist with a sweet marinade that is not unlike satay. Even the spicy sour sauce on the side with that little bit of coriander flavour was appetizingly delicious. Portions were kinda small though.

The most memorable thing from their pork chop rice for me was the accompanying sauce which they had ladled over the rice. It tasted like it had some meat juice and a lot of butter in it. We asked for extras. That said, the pork chops were pretty decent - kinda reminiscent of those from Din Tai Fung.