Chalong, Guoco Tower

This thinly shaven Black Angus sirloin over rice from Chalong (#B2-21 Guoco Tower, 7 Wallich Street) was tender and pretty damn good. So was the accompanying red wine sauce they had and the soft boiled egg with molten yolk. Those mushrooms that they had on the side were also delicious. I can certainly see the appeal of what they're doing as a single serve comfort food with sufficiently hearty portions.

I'm going to have to come back and try their sous vide Iberico pork jowl which they claim is their best seller. How the story went was that the owners have had a similar pork dish in Chalong, Phuket. They were so impressed by it that it inspired their grilled pork jowl and they named their shop after the region.

Bikinis from Park Bench Deli

The edible kind of bikini after the small Spanish sandwich. This came with jamon, a couple of cheeses and mayo maybe. It was hot, soft, salty and cheesy. Works with beer, for breakfast or both together.

And while at it, one last dip of their Hot Butter Ball before it goes away.

Tomi Sushi, Millenia Walk

This was my first time at Tomi Sushi (#02-12/13 Millenia Walk, 9 Raffles Blvd, tel : +65 6238 1123). I've seen them around for a while but had for some reasons felt that they're a little expensive. Every now and then they have a maguro fair where the tuna items goes at discounted prices. We took advantage of it to see if the food was good. It probably matters to some that these aren't hon maguro. Just yellowfin tuna.

Some aburi mentaiko to start. Spicy, salty and excellent with drinks.

Apparently ankimo is in season so we had to have some. I always find it difficult to resist these creamy and delicious foie gras of the sea harvested from an ugly-demon-fish-with-a-bioluminescent-bait. :P

What interested me was their maguro zanmai. It featured the almost all the usual suspects of tekka maki and the pairs of akami, chutoro and otoro nigiri. Their otoro was sublime and I guess the rest were okay. Actually I was disappointed with the chutoro because obviously they don't provide very good cuts which some places do. Also, I'm not so sure these shari had the right ratio of vinegar to rice.

This platter would have cost more than half a hundred dollars if not for the maguro fair and honestly, the portions were kinda tiny.

JPassport holders get to redeem a free pair of aburi toro nigiri for every meal sets ordered. These were pretty good.

There was chi ayu tempura on the seasonal menu so we ordered some. The bittersweet fish was crisp and delicious.

We also had maitake tempura. I've recently just learnt that these mushrooms are also known as Hen of the Woods.

Paik's Coffee, Tiong Bahru Plaza

We've seen this coffee section just on the side - back when we visited Paik's Bibim and we've had their espresso before. Granted it looked like a rather run of the mill kind of place that sold various types of iced coffee drinks and didn't look nor smell like it did serious coffee. We stopped by one day for some more of the espresso and tried their salad bun.  Which was mushier than I had expected. Not that it tasted bad. It tasted like the generic Japanese kind but I suppose a dryer potato salad would have made quite a bit of difference. Before I forget, this place sells pretty good espresso. That's a double up there bound to perk pretty much anyone up.

Fish & Chicks, Cineleisure Orchard

We didn't like this salted yolk fish and chips at all. It was a waste of time, money and stomach space kind of bad. The fish was mushy and that sauce (and fries too) was forgettable.

Trying more stuff at Tsukada Nojo

We managed to return to Tsukada Nojo at another one of those times when there wasn't a line out at the front. The restaurant was still pretty filled up though. And yes, this was exactly the same place as the last time in Chinatown Point.

This time, we tried the nikumaki onigiri with cheese. That was basically a rice ball wrapped in pork belly and topped with some torched cheese. This stuff was pretty delicious. One could just wrap the leaf of lettuce around the rice ball to eat.

We also tried the regular tori nanban after having had the spicy one the last time round. The difference was that this wasn't spicy. That was me being Captain Obvious.

The noodle option this time round was what was described as 'beauty noodles'. I don't know what that was exactly or if it was green tea or spinach that coloured it.

Tasted the same as the egg noodles the last time round. Some of the green colour seemed to have bleached into the broth though we didn't detect any change or addition of flavour.