More Camelicious camel milk from Mustafa

So here's another two little bottles of flavoured camel milk from Mustafa. The date flavoured one strangely reminded me of oat milk. Not so much of dates. You know that brand of oat milk which is the name of a flower and it starts with the same letter as the word 'mother'. The saffron bottle tasted like how I thought it would - a little sweet, lightly perfumed with the flavour of the spice. I liked that better than the date one.

Revisiting Fat Prince in the Ottoman Room

The Ottoman Room exists at the back of Fat Prince in the very same unit. The decor in that area is chic opulence - a smidgen of richness like the clotted cream that they use to clog your heart with.

I had a brunchy drink call Moroccan Mary, an variant of the Bloody Mary using tequila. While the flavour was quite respectable,  I couldn't help but feel that this drink was more style than substance. I've had a number of these in the past years and my favourite - the most expensive of the lot remains the same. The one at Luke's.

Bread, clotted cream and honey with quince. So simple yet so good.

I wanted some over easy eggs to dip stuff in and yeah, eggs.

There was a roasted mushroom menemen. I don't know what they did with the mushrooms but they were pretty amazingly tasty.

Their smoked cheese and rocket pide was a little disappointing. You know, the kind of disappointing that you get when you read smoked cheese on the menu and the item doesn't taste like it had any? Yeah, that kind of disappointing but otherwise it tasted pretty decent. Smallest pide I've ever come across though.

Extra chicken portions from the chicken rice at Tangs Market

Wow, did the chicken rice stall person at Tangs Market feel extra generous or what? This was the $4 portion which featured breast meat - in double the portions of what one would usually expect. It certainly was a lot more value for the money compared to the drumstick plate. I'm guessing that we don't get lucky like that all the time here but I'd still come back because their chicken rice is pretty good.

Update 12/11/2016 2000hrs
Here's round two. Portions still look good. This might just be the best valued chicken rice in Orchard Road. I don't understand this......

Swedish meatballs from Fika

I've never had Swedish meatballs before except for those in Ikea. So I guess this would be my first time. These meatballs from Fika (257 Beach Road, tel : +65 6396 9096) were gristly and had a lot more texture. The sauce was creamier in a good way and the lingonberry jam was different. I definitely don't mind coming back and also checking out their bakery Konditori. I hear that they have semla over there.

Revisiting Piedra Negra

We finally came back to Piedra Negra. And wow, it's been four years since the first time. Time does fly.

More ceviche from them. This one is named Mango Madness done with red snapper and sans cilantro. Sharp and refreshing but I'm sure it could have been improved if the mangoes were a little sweeter to balance the acidity in the ceviche.

These are tacos de camaron - shrimp tacos. Beer battered shrimp it was, pretty tasty but nothing much to write home about. Certainly didn't expect to see star fruit in tacos.

That's octopus stewed in its ink with capers, olives and onions. Chopped up bits of octopus that is. The flavour of the stew was amazing. I never knew that capers would work so nicely in there with the octopus flavours thinking that they might be overpowering - which in this case they were not. It's a pity the portions were a little small. The rice on the side was good too.

And then cochinita pibil, a Mexican slow roasted pork of sorts served with white corn tortilla. I Wiki-ed it and found out that the orange hue of the dish comes from annato, the seed of the anchote tree which also imparts some flavour. It tasted a little nutty and I thought it could have been awesome with more salt. I realised that after adding the pickled onions, habanero and some lime, it worked too. 

Fucking Hell at Artichoke among other things...

I ordered the beer because of the name. If anyone's wondering, it's a light golden lager from Germany named after an Austrian town which is actually called Fucking. The bottled brew was little bitter, light and pretty easy drinking. 

We had their babaganoush while waiting for the rest of the food. It's Artichoke's babaganoush so it's beyond the regular babaganoush as befits their contemporary Middle Eastern methods.

I was recently just thinking about how much octopus plates have been going around a number of menus of restaurants in recent years. Those tentacles have apparently entwined around the menu here as well - Artichok-ing out a plate of grilled octopus on truffled hummus. This octopus was very tender, very delicious sheathed under the fragrant char on the surface. Things that make you go hmmm. Very nice pickled peppers too.

What we really headed down for tonight was their smoked chicken which they had explained would be served in six pieces. Those six were much smaller than I had imagined. The preceding sentence should be interpreted as portions for one guy. But the bird was deliciously tender and smoky. Worked with that toum or not.

Dessert was their yoghurt muhallaebi. A creamy pudding/custard. Served with poached apricots, orange blossom honey, pecans and those brown crispy stuff call kataifi. This actually tasted like panna cotta. With the crunch and flavour of the kataifi, it kinda transformed into something else which reminded me of kunefe which are essentially made with those too. But we couldn't taste any of that orange blossom honey.