Sawadee Thai Cuisine, Tan Quee Lan Street

Sawadee Thai Cuisine (9 Tan Quee Lan Street, tel : +65 6238 6833) is slightly upmarket restaurant, not the street food kind of place for Thai food. The food is not unfamiliar, just a little more refined and for certain dishes, are elevated by more expensive ingredients. Kinda like Gin Khao. 

I gathered that they've been around for quite a while but they're obviously one of those places that has evaded my attention all these while. Apparently, they've been listed in the top 5 Thai restaurants here for a few years.

We had panaeng roasted duck curry. Panaeng curry is a type of red, rich curry that's a little sweet and salty and nutty. Something that is an excellent accompaniment to steamed white rice. Sawadee's version has shreds of roasted duck (with skin!), lychee (amazingly good in the curry) and pineapple (not the canned variety!). Recalling back, the first time I've had these was back in Baan Khanita. That one had baby eggplants and grapes.

In recent years, I've discovered in myself a little fandom for Thai salads. Namely the variety more commonly seen like som tam (papaya), yum som o (pomelo) and som tam mamuang (green mango). That's the yum som o. This particular rendition doesn't have toasted coconut but seemed to have a flavour that tasted like honey. Oddly couldn't taste the fish sauce too. The pomelo that they used also did not have so much citrus that I would have preferred.

But I still kinda liked it.

Those crab spring rolls por pea poo were supposed to be appetizers that arrived at the post appetizer stage of the meal. They were pretty good. The fried skin was really fragrant, not simply flat and greasy like many other fried spring rolls.

Stir fried bean sprouts with fish maw and eggs. Three ingredients that I like. Amongst many. Putting them together just made sense for us to order it.

We had their grilled Kurobuta pork collar - known as khor moo Kurobuta yang on the menu. This came from the appetizer section of the menu and arrived last. While it was pretty tasty, I thought that it would have benefitted from a little more char and I couldn't help but feel that the use of Kurobuta wasn't necessary in making the dish better. We've had equally good ones that was done with regular pork.

Dessert was steamed tapioca with coconut milk. These sweetened tapioca were steamed on order and tasted good. None of those old fibrous root in there.

Hajjah Mariam Cafe, Westgate

We came across this shop at Westgate (#B2-08 Westgate Shopping Mall, 3 Gateway Drive) selling nasi ambeng. It's steamed white rice topped with Javanese/Indonesian/Malay dishes which were sauce/curry rich and came in communal dining portions for sharing.

The shop was packed pretty much to the brim and it looked like it was worth a try. The food turned out to be pretty good. Both the curries and the sambal belachan added up, sending beads of perspiration down my scalp. Their sotong hitam was rich and delicious. The only thing I thought wasn't well done was the beef rendang. The gravy hadn't much of a presence and the meat was dry and a little tough.

Super Loco, Robertson Quay

Decided to check out Super Loco (#01-13 The Quayside, 60 Robertson Quay, tel : +65 6235 8900) which is opened by The Loco Group, the folks behind Lucha Loco. The only margarita included in their happy hour are the frozen ones. I had initially thought that it was not a wise move on their part. But the easy drinking icy slush was soft and after a while, it became like one on no rocks still nicely chilled.

Lucha Loca was the first time I've had elotes. These ones here were also pretty good. Juicy corn coated with creamy saltiness of the cotija cheese and was that ancho?

Those huitlacoche quesadillas were pretty good munching with the nutty mushrooms and cheese. 

This was the pulled lamb quesadilla with onions, dill, mint and parsley. The flavour combinations from the herbs were great.

We had previously thought that El Mero Mero had expensive tacos. Super Loco had tacos that costed even more. These ones with ox tongue and cheek and ghost chilli mayo were $12 a piece. But I had to admit this was pretty damn good and I liked that ghost chilli mayo.

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......