Nadai Fujisoba Ni-Hachi, 100AM

This was a new soba shop (#03-14 100AM, 100 Tras Street, tel : +65 6443 8827) that's part of the Itadakimasu cluster along with Numazu Uogashizushi located just beside Keisuke Tori King - which seemed to have become part of that group without having actually moved.

Besides soba and mazesoba, there's tempura to be had. Of which the tori tempura was actually pretty good. Thick, chunky yet tender pieces of freshly fried chicken. We tried a couple of their mazesoba. There was the kamo bowl featured tough pieces of duck (#disappointing) and duck meatball. The yuzu accents were welcomed and altogether, the soba was rather pleasant once the onsen tamago was mixed it but was otherwise in my opinion not as delicious as the mentai bowl. 

The Coconut Club, Ann Siang Hill

These folks (6 Ann Siang Hill, tel : +65 6635 2999) have gotten by with word of mouth and social media that they've gathered themselves quite a crowd over the weekend. It certainly helped from the curiosity angle that the place is out of reach of many and the opening hours are short. The main stay is nasi lemak - an elevated version with possibly better ingredients along with careful treatment of those ingredients in the cooking that takes this traditional rice plate beyond where it's been before. At least that was likely to be the intention.

Unfortunately, this doesn't quite cut it for me. There was coconut fragrance in the rice for sure. But - it's not rich enough, not satisfying enough. I could name a couple of places where we've had better. The basmati rice rendition from the defunct Island Cafe beats this hands down and hell, it was more enjoyable even at Nasi Lemak Kukus. So while there's a story to be told about the founders spending a couple of years finding their fresh coconut milk from their perfect hybrid of the fruit and a fair share of R&D on the recipe, the outcome was that their rice was just passable. 

Sambal's not too bad, had some shrimpy flavour. While the chicken was good frying done, the tumeric was overwhelming. Otak-otak was not bad too - looked a little like those from Muar but doesn't quite taste like one. Would I come back? Maybe just to try the cendol. 

Fusion mee pok from Ah Hoe Mee Pok

Here's a bowl of fusion mee pok from Ah Hoe Mee Pok. The fusion element in this bowl stems from the Japanese styled charshu which they included on top of sliced boiled pork, minced pork, pork meat balls, deep fried lard and some abalone. Altogether making this a very porky bowl of mee pok. Similar but not the same with our local bowl. I couldn't help but compare this to the recent ba chor mee from Capitol Bak Chor Mee which cost a dollar less but didn't have half the ingredients that this one did and wasn't quite as hearty. I am aware of the differences in rental of both stalls, but they are what they are.

Back to this bowl from Ah Hoe, I maintain what I had previously mentioned about the first time about their noodles. It's a balance of flavours with nothing that was particularly dominant. As much as I enjoy the strength of the chilli and vinegar from our local rendition, the equilibrium wasn't such a bad thing. This shoyu bowl was unexpectedly sweet though. I wonder why's that.

Jumbo prawns simply grilled with olive oil at Les Bouchons

Well, they are really known as jumbo prawns simply grilled with olive oil on the menu at Les Bouchons Rive Gauche, which by the way has shifted to the current premise (#01-02, 60 Robertson Quay, tel : +65 6733 4414) still by the river. This new location seemed much less cosy than the old one at the Tyler Print Institute.

But those prawns were really nice. The fragrance from the char, the moisture in the meat and were pretty easy to shell with fork and knife. Couldn't get any of that olive oil that they were talking about but they're still nicely grilled prawns. In the same note, the fries were rather tiny and their creamed spinach was dry and fibrous tonight.

Grandma Ban Mee (老妈子板面), Amoy Street Food Centre

Maybe because of the name, I had expected the stall (#01-07, Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road) to be manned by an old lady. As it turns out, a less than middle aged couple were the proprietors. 

I've never been much of a ban mee person. Never understood why people would cumulatively waste so much of their precious lives queueing for it repetitively. Or how they could enjoy something that was served steaming hot in the sweltering heat of our climate. This one is different. It's dry and there's some edgy looking chilli paste in it. Along with shredded wood ear fungus, marinated mushrooms, fried shallots, dried shrimp and dried anchovies. And what looked like a poached egg. This bowl packed a helluva umami punch if you asked me.

The heat from the chilli was "more bass than treble" if you know what I mean. It had a presence from a slow burn, isn't particularly sharp or prickles so much as far as edgy looking chillis go. But it was fragrant and had enough heat to make one sweat. Played nicely with that umami flavours going on from the other ingredients. I picked up some of their sambal belachan to go along  - added a nice tangy zing and more heat. I'm liking this.

Cumi Bali, Tanjong Pagar Road

I've walked by this shop a number of times and wondered throughout all those times if they were good. Yes, it's one of those things and we finally dropped by to find out. According to their website, Cumi Bali (66 Tanjong Pagar Road, tel : +65 6220 6619) has been around for 21 years. From when those 21 years came about I don't know but by my deduction, it's probably been a while since that claim was made. 

Don't think these fellas are very much into updates or the internet. The site is still saying things like 'Best viewed on Internet Explorer 8 and above' so I gather that it could have been 6-7 years back since the last time they updated and apparently they don't know that these days Chrome's the boss.

Sayur lodeh (coconut curried vegetables) was quite nice. I think there was quite a bit of shredded coconut sediments in the gravy - the flavours of which were quite dangerously addictive over white rice. Vegetables were stewed till soft.

I've had countless fried potato balls and these ones are possibly the largest and freshest tasting ones I've come across. They're known as perkedel on the menu, which is pretty much the same thing as the local bergedil - the eggwashed deep fried potato patty. These ones tasted like they were made to order; had a faint crisp on the exterior and didn't feel overly greasy for something that had just gone off the deep fryer. Nice.

One of the items that Cumi Bali is known for are their sate madura. As the name implies, it's satay which is done in the style similar to how it is done in the Javanese island of Madura. These are made with chicken. Definitely the largest satays I've had - ever. I'm pretty sure these are the largest satay in the country. Look at how these big ass skewers are relative to the fork! And because these were glazed with plenty of kecap manis, it was sweet, smokey and caramelized with burnt ends. Damn these were good.

There was some sambal belachan was served in a little stone bowl. This thing made the addictive gravy from the sayur lodeh even more addictive.

Cumi Bali is also apparently known for their cumi bali - a namesake dish of barbecued squid with a nutty rempah which tasted like satay gravy. It was also the most expensive item we had for the night. The tentacles of the squid are chopped up and stuffed in the body. While it was relatively tender, I thought more char would have really up the ante on this dish.