Steamroom with The Pillar and Stones, Orchard Central

The name is definitely unusual. Steamroom with The Pillar and Stones (#03-08 Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6592 0571) is a retail and restaurant business. I can't see any connection between the both of them. We were just here for the food which the restaurant described as borderless. I can understand that. In another time, it would have easily been labelled fusion.

We had a petite looking and pretty tasty steak tartare. Most of the flavour came from the mustard dressing and chives and the truth is, it's not just pretty looking. It's also pretty tasty.

Steak tartare came with sourdough. These were pan fried with olive oil and butter just before they were served. God damn - these were good. The restaurant volunteered seconds for us which we readily agreed as it would have been a disservice to say no.

There's a lobster bisque based fregola that came topped with an onsen egg. The flavour on the pasta was excellent from the bisque and the fact that there was a soft boiled egg for that additional richness, this was really really good. Lots of the crustacean flavour and a little peppery heat along with quite a bit of minced crab meat.

Here's be some gratuitous egg porn. 

That's the coal smoked red snapper. At least the menu says it is. I thought it was pan fried. The fish was very good quality and very nicely done. Skin was crisp and meat was firm. Underneath was broccolini and parsley risotto. The latter was delicious and I tasted generous portions of butter that made it delicious. 

Those artichoke chips and pea blossoms on top were simply overdoing things. Absolutely unnecessary and I couldn't help but smell the blatancy of the attempt to look good - which failed. Those chips didn't even taste good. What the menu mentioned as saffron bisque which I'm guessing is that sauce thing which didn't register any saffron flavours.

The flavours and quality of the base ingredients were exceptional. I think fish, broccolini and risotto would have sufficed.

Some dietary fibres which included heirloom carrots and sweet tasting asparaguses.

The only thing we ordered that we thought they screwed up quite spectacularly was their hot chocolate. That was a little surprising considering that they did pretty well with the food we had ordered. Not so hot and not very chocolate-y. It tasted like cocoa flavoured warm milk with too much milk. Starbucks makes much better hot chocolate. Strange thing was, it came with some sparkling water. 

Oxwell & Co, Ann Siang Road

English/British fare by and large isn't so common here for some reasons. In spite of the fact that this island was once a British colony, the only culinary legacy Her Majesty's people left behind, and not by design, was Hainanese western food. 

I never knew Oxwell & Co (5 Ann Siang Road, tel : +65 6438 3984) served English food until this visit which was admittedly triggered by watching fish & chips being consumed in Broadchurch. That got a craving going on.

Pea soup was delicious. The pea-y tasting soup had a sweetness, was savoury at the same time and also a little smoky - filled with bits of pulled ham hock. 

This was their fish & fries chips. I suppose on a technicality, it's fries and not chips. Those fries were actually pretty good eating though. There was a house made tartare sauce that had dill so that kinda wins. The menu stated that the fish was Pacific ocean perch. Honestly I'm not very good at telling the difference. All I knew was that there was something about the texture that set it apart from cod or haddock. The crisp batter was salted, flavoured with something and was quite tasty.

We ordered their honey glazed carrots on the side. Not sure if that was buttermilk or sour cream or a mixture of something similar - those carrots tasted good with them together with the honey that pooled at the bottom of the bowl. By the way, that honey mixture with the carrots was also an awesome dip for those fries. Butt kicking kind of awesome. You heard it here first.

Al Tasneem Restaurant, North Bridge Road

Al Tasmeen (709 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6291 1781) is the other shop right after Zam Zam and Victory which does pretty much the same food as the latter two. Namely briyanis and murtabaks and whathaveyous of the Indian Muslim variety. The shop is actually located at the junction connecting North Bridge Road and Jalan Pinang. Al Tasmeen however does have a lamb shank briyani which the other two doesn't seem to have on the menu. For $15, the portions were huge and it can feed two. The shank was sufficiently tender and could be removed from the bone with relative ease, draped in their spicy curry. Wasn't bad at all if you asked me.

Maybe I'll try their murtabak someday and see how it stacks against the other two.

The Masses, Beach Road

Remember Taste Affair which is run by one half of the former duo behind Saveur/Saveur Art? The Masses (85 Beach Rd, tel : +65 6266 0061) is opened by Dylan Ong, the other half. From the vibe, this feels like Saveur 2.0 that has drifted away from the French roots and a restaurant interior that feels more brightly lit.

They have a chicken collagen veloute which has clams and according to the menu - duck fat and scallion oil. It tasted like buttery chicken broth.

I'm pretty sure their chilled C&C pasta is the spiritual successor to the other pasta with sakura ebi back in Saveur. This has crabmeat and caviar. The crab meat which is in the gloopy sauce that tasted almost like kani miso. I'm pretty sure it wasn't but it had that sweet crustacean-y flavour. Pretty good.

There's octopus tentacles which seem to be trending in many restaurants in recent years. The tentacle was well roasted with an accompanying char and the respective aroma from the char. The orange blob on the side is a gochujang aioli and the other thing is pickled lotus root with fennel seeds.

Foie gras on brioche was delicious. Don't know why the need for the granola though. I'm not so sure that chewy oats make a complementary texture.

Their U.S. Black Angus striploin was okay. Competently done if not particularly outstanding. The potato mille feuille was nice. Each layer was light and the edges were crisp.

The deep fried Camembert cheese was small and not exactly outstanding if you asked me. The yoghurt ice cream wasn't particularly yoghurt-y (I'm measuring them against llaollao) and the gula melaka granola's flavour eluded me.

Victory Seafood, Neil Road

We came across this cze char stall at the end of Bukit Pasoh (120/122 Neil Road, tel : +65 62224889) by chance. The shop looked unremarkable but their food was not bad.

We had claypot tofu. I was surprised that these guys didn't use those circularly shaped egg tofu which most cooked food stalls do these days. Which isn't a bad thing since these ones were quite nice. What's not visible from the dish are tau kee (dried bean curd sheets) and strips of pork belly that's in the bottom of the claypot. 

There was a deep fried chicken with some chilli glaze. The Chinese name of the dish translates to 'Mala roast chicken' but the flavour is nothing like that. This was much less spicy and even had a little bit of sweetness from what I'm guessing to be caramelized sugars. The bird had pretty crisp skin that's well salted, featured tender meat and those garlic chips on the top were crisp and fragrant.

I thought their stir fried kailan was pretty awesome. There was enough soy sauce flavour which made it deliciously salty and a smokey wok hei to the crunchy vegetables.

Another brunch at Geylang Serai Market

We came back to Geylang Serai Market for another round of good eating.

That's a mutton dum briyani from Azizah (#02-127 Geylang Serai Market and Food Centre, 1 Geylang Serai). From what I gathered, the style of the briyani from their stall is Pakistani which uses less spices and oil than the Indian variety that we commonly see here. The traditional ingredient of ghee is replaced by low fat milk and yoghurt. Some may consider the differences in ingredients a travesty. And yes, it did taste noticeably lighter in flavour as compared to the others but I didn't think that much was diminished.

For one, the texture of the lighter basmati rice was more defined because those grains were light and separated. Their achar was a fruity tasting type that I've never had before and I loved it. Sweet, salty and sour very much like sng boey (Chinese pickled plums). There was a bowl of dalcha on the side and a little gravy from the curried mutton as well so nothing is really lacking in the department of flavour. Definitely coming back again some other time.

Geylang Corner Food Stall (#02-121) serves mee rebus, mee soto and satay. There's a mee rebus special that involves some peanut-y satay gravy and three sticks of satay in the bowl of noodles. I thought this was actually pretty good. One can immediately draw parallels with the mee rebus power from Rahim Muslim Food. This plate inches up a notch in comparison because the flavours of the gravy are enhanced by fried shallots. 

We also liked that those yellow noodles don't have the alkali taste. I'd eat this again.

And for desserts, some lontong from Warong Solo (#02-123). If you aren't local or don't know what these are, I'm joking. The dish is a curried vegetable stew of sorts with rice cakes. The rice cakes here had a pandan aroma. Portion in the picture features extra shredded coconut (serunding kelapa) which was requested for. This was reminiscent of the bowls we had from Kampong Corner.

Today's hearty brunch was washed down by a stiff brew of Hainanese coffee from Hainan Kaya Toast (#01-125). This stuff was thick - like how it should be done instead of the watered down excuses for coffee that's rampant all over the island.