Re-revisiting Baba Wins'

A quick one from a recent eat at Baba Wins'.

We had the sambal lady's fingers again. 

And something that was called nonya scrambled eggs on the menu which was eggs stir fried with tomatoes, mushrooms and those crispy grago. This would really benefit from a bit more salt.

We tried their ngoh hiang. It's got a nicely fried skin and bits of water chestnuts amidst the minced pork in the stuffings. While these were competently done, I'm not such a fan of these rolls when the five spice powder is the predominant flavour. 

One of the current updates to their menu are pepper squids in dark soya sauce. Those squids were exceptionally tender.

Basilico 2017

The last time we were here was about 3 years ago. I remember that that episode didn't leave such a good impression. Fast forward 3 years to today, we found ourselves back again. I think we liked the antipasti and dessert buffet. There was Ghedetti Provolone Piccante which was outstanding, sweet rock melon that paired off beautifully with their prosciutto di Parma and truffle honey which was kinda nice with almost everything. 

The mains were still not up to scratch as much as they sounded good. Execution simply fell short compared to the idea of the dishes.

Like the haddock fillet wrapped with smoked pancetta. It was a reliable setup. Possibly infallible too. It even looked good on the plate. But the fish was dry and being the main item, it was kinda disappointing. Edible disappointment. 

I ordered the persimmon risotto mascarpone because it was one of those things that was a "what? I've never had that before....gotta try it!" Couldn't identify the persimmon nor mascarpone in the rice. That's a total failure when the primary and secondary ingredients end up being unidentifiable. Reiterating that while the idea was good, execution floundered.

Marinated tofu bibimbap from Paik's Bibim

My thoughts on what draws me into Paik's bibimbaps are the vegetables and the fact that their bowls taste like a savoury warm rice salad. Something I can see myself falling back to on a fairly regular basis. Yeah, I kinda enjoy this stuff. Here's the bowl with marinated tofu, a meat free configuration which in retrospect, didn't taste very different from the minced pork bowl that I had previously. It's the vegetables.

Quan Ji (權记), Amoy Street Food Centre

Seems like I've found a good spot (#01-56/57 Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road) for black bean sauce hor fun. This changes things now, knowing that there's a very decent cze char that opens in the even at Amoy FC and it located just right beside SAP Thai Food which also operates these days into the evening too.

Anyways, it was supposed to be a sliced fish black bean sauce hor fun. For some reasons, there were also chicken and prawn in there. The flavour of the sauce was pretty good. Not as intoxicatingly potent as those from the days of yore but what the heck. I'd return for this.

Quan Ji makes very competent prawn paste chicken. The golden brown and crispy (sounds familiar?) skin dry without excessive grease and the meat's really moist. What's more, sufficient flavouring from the prawn paste. There's nice kang kong too but the sambal needed more aroma. Maybe a step up with the heat and more hae bi would be great.

Revisiting Sawadee Thai

We ended back in Sawadee Thai for a few reasons. The food was enjoyable, the place was comfortable and it didn't have the queue that Ah Loy Thai had.

We ordered their por pea poo again because we liked them previously. Have these fried rolls gotten larger or am I imagining it?

Sawadee Thai's stuffed chicken wings were pretty good. Those wings were clad in a nice golden brown crispy skin with no excess grease. Look at those fat mid sections. We could even find entire caps of small straw mushrooms in them.

Unfortunately, the som tam mamuang was a little weak. For some reasons, these guys hold back on the fish sauce for their salads. More crushed peanuts would have been great.

Tom kha gai was awesome. This was the spicy counterpart to Gin Khao's rendition. The flavour from the coconut milk was just brilliant. This alone would be worth a return trip.

We fell back on the panaeng roast duck curry because it was just so damn good with white rice. I can't get over those warm lychees in the curry.

Some stir fried vegetables were also ordered for the quota of dietary fibre. This was actually a pretty good stir fry.

Dessert this time round was khao neow turian - their rendition using mao shan wang durian over the sticky rice accented by the aroma of the black sesame seeds and coconut milk. I'd eat this again. In a heartbeat.

Kuro Maguro, Tanjong Pagar Centre

This shop (#01-04 Tanjong Pagar Centre, 7 Wallich Street, tel : +65 6386 8561) is from the people who operate Maguro Donya Miura Misakikou Sushi & Dining at Suntec. What they do is mostly various kaisen donburi using seafood that is shipped in via the parent partnership business. Their toro aburi meshi featuring torched sliced and minced toro was pretty good but that was to be expected for the amount that they were charging. The other bowl with sake and hon maguro akami was a less impressive than the picture on the menu led us to believe. 

Still, it's an option in this vicinity for a frills free raw fish rice bowl when the craving hits.