Gandos from House of Gandos

We've never heard of gandos before. We came across these kueh from a neighbouring table at Geylang Serai Food Centre and thought it look both interesting and tasty so we ended up with a plate from the aptly named House of Gandos (#02-157 Geylang Serai Market and Food Centre, 1 Geylang Serai). From what we were told by the stall, these were made with rice flour and coconut. They're kinda like pancakes. The texture was soft, creamy on the inside and was lightly salted. Yes, you dip them into the orange sugar before popping them into your mouth. I'm sure they'll be excellent for breakfast.

Izakaya Nijumaru after 2730 days...

It has been a very long while since the first and last time we were in Izakaya Nijumaru. Little has changed as far as I could see and the restaurant seemed as packed as I remember. I think perhaps, this particular re-visit was steered by a subconscious drive to understand the popularity behind this joint. Today, we sat very close to where we did the last time. Right at the opposite end from their little counter where one could steal occasional glances at a window into another world while waiting for the food.

The servers recommended that we try their grilled beef on skewers claiming that it was very juicy. We topped that suggestion with an order of asparagus wrapped with bacon. As far as grills went, I couldn't say that it was bad. But we've been pampered by great places and as long as one doesn't start comparing with the King two floors up, these were actually quite edible. That comparison almost never ends well so we will not start.

Won't be ordering that beef skewer again though. I'm usually a meat with salt and pepper kind of person usually and this was very marinated.

Their teishoku are well received here. We had one with gindara teriyaki. That particular one was quite sad. Two points to be made here. The quality of the fish was mediocre and it was doused with that same garlic sauce used on the beef skewers which pretty much buried any teriyaki flavours - not that I could even tell that there was teriyaki sauce. The second was that one could easily get very decent stuff at a similar cost or less at Nakajima Suisan Grilled Fish.

Fortunately there was a omureto (omelette if you didn't catch it) set that made up for the cod. Who would have thought this? The egg was light, tender and piping hot with bits of mince pork inside. An almost childhood-like simplistic tray of comfort food. By the way, the stewed hijiki that's part of their teishoku was forgettable. These don't even come close to those that the old Wasabi Tei provided.

We had a horensou salad which the menu described to be a bacon and spinach salad. I'm not sure what the vegetable was but I was imagining baby spinach. After being thrown off for a little bit, I realised that these were actually pretty similar to baby spinach. Meaning that there wasn't much flavour in them and after I had accepted that, this was actually a pretty good eat. Thanks to the bacon and their rendered fat of course.

And a nasu dengaku that arrived right at the end. The grilled juicy eggplant glazed with sweet miso was definitely something to be enjoyed while it is still hot.

Thai Gold Food, Sunshine Plaza

Here (#01-14 Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, tel : +65 68831575) be affordable home styled and tasty Thai food. When I mentioned home styled, I am describing the style - it's not meant to be a metaphoric abstraction that many people use for the sake of using because they don't understand what it means.

Normally the salads are the first to arrive because of the preparation time. But they got the salad order mixed up and we ended up with the yang moo (grilled pork) first.

Their pad krapow moo tasted very homely - unpretentiously tasty but needed a bit more salt. I think we liked the one from Diandin Leluk better for the flavour for the krapow moo.

I've never seen green curry fried rice in Thai restaurants around before. This one from Thai Gold Food was actually quite good - even though the flavour wasn't as robust as the punch from an actual green curry. It would also be the first time where I would describe such a dish as licorice-y from the basil. Embedded in the slightly damp fried rice, were also chunks of chicken and Thai eggplants.

I liked their yam mamuang. It was good after a spoonful of sugar and more than a few spoonfuls of crushed peanuts. Much tastier than the rendition that Sawadee Thai serves. 

If there was anything Thai Gold Food didn't do well at, it was their iced tea. I'm actually surprised this was lacklustre. These days, it's not so difficult to find a better representative of this beverage as it was some years back. 

Hajjah Mona Nasi Padang, Geylang Serai Market

Believe it or not, this was our first time at the current Geylang Serai Market. My last memory of the market was the old single storied place by the road - which if I remember correctly was at a different site? Anyway, since it was a first time, we were a little overwhelmed by the options. As chaos theory fate would have it, we ended up at Hajjah Mona (#02-166, Geylang Serai Market and Food Centre, 1 Geylang Serai).

Which also lead to my first urap. Aside from my first urap that is. This salad was more raw and herbal. There were bean sprouts, wing beans, something that looked like sweet potato leaves and some herbs which I couldn't recognize. I don't think all that rawness worked for me and it was precisely because there was some cooking of the vegetables that enjoyed it previously. But we managed to finish up the whole plate with help of the nutty sweet and spicy gravy from the quail eggs.

We had curried tripe - a curry that was rich and flavourful with coconut. That gravy was awesome with rice.

There was paru goreng too. In case anyone didn't remember, these are fried cow lungs. They aren't weird in flavour or texture and are more delicious than the looks suggest.

These were the quail eggs I mentioned earlier. Just quail eggs in a nutty/sweet/spicy chilli sauce.

Bonta Bonta, Japan Food Town @ Wisma Atria

I gather that Bonta Bonta (#04-39 Wisma Atria, 435 Orchard Road, tel : +65 62623207) is a rice specialist that uses kinme mai - a rice from Japan that is processed with a patented buffing technique that helps preserves the nutrients by retaining the nutritious sub-aleurone layer. It is supposed to taste better too but I couldn't detect anything special from the rice which they served with their kaisen dons. In fact, it tasted ordinary.

The seafood for their rice bowls were pretty decent quality but not top notch if you catch my drift. These guys are rice guys anyway so I guess pretty good was good enough. That botan ebi had some deliciously sweet head fat and the uni they served turned out much better than what I had imagined in my apprehension. I may just come back another time.

White asparaguses and purple potato at 2it & drink

We returned to 2it & drink must faster than I thought we would. This would be largely because of the white asparagus season and we were pretty impressed with their white asparagus pizza the last time.

Today we had those asparaguses with tagliatelle in a butter sauce. This was amazing. The sauce even had the aroma of the asparagus. Pasta had great texture while the vegetable was tender and sweet with its asparagus-y flavour. Something not to be missed as long as they are in season.

That's their lamb shank with purple potato mash. Another good call here. The shank was tender but not fork tender. There was a nice flavour on the meat flavoured by the jus and some bits of fat. The mash was pretty tasty. I wished it were bigger though.

Profiteroles for dessert. Cream inside, not ice cream. Enjoyed this.