A return to the Les Bouchons at Ann Siang

It's been years since we've last stepped into this outfit of Les Bouchons (7 Ann Siang Road, tel : +65 6423 0737). For the previous times we had eaten, it had usually been the Rive Gauche branch at Robertson Quay. Tonight's food was good. Creamed spinach was tender and not fibrous like the last visit. Fries were not overly shrivelled. Prawns were delicious and the nicely charred tenderloin couldn't be better with their blue cheese sauce.

I should order something other than just steaks and prawns the next time but it's so hard to break out of these reliable options. Fear of change stems from not wanting to lose what currently is good about things isn't it?

Hua Kee Chicken Rice (華記雞飯), Redhill Food Centre

Woah, I liked this stall (#01-72 Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane). I was initially apprehensive in spite of the queue which honestly, was formed through a rather leisurely pace of preparation rather than a overwhelming crowd. I had barely moved a couple of metres in the queue for the first 20 minutes. But all was forgiven when we started eating. 

Hua Kee's rice was flavourful, suitably greasy without being excessively so and it didn't taste heavy. Sounds familiar? Yeah, it reminded me of Sin Kee too. So good that I was torn between chilli or no chilli. Speaking of that chilli sauce, it had a nice heat with ginger and garlic. Totally respectable if not outstanding. 

What about the chicken, you might ask? I believe they were chilled before getting acquainted with the cleaver. Bird was chunky and tender, skilfully chopped up without accidental fragments of unwanted bone. Not quite Sin Kee's slurp off the bone tender in that regard, but still tender - even for their breast meat. All propped up by a pile of thinly sliced cucumbers. The ladled over sauce seemed to taste different from the usual variety. Soy sauce, sesame oil and maybe something else. Different but still enjoyable and wasn't overly salty. I'm definitely coming back again.

The mentaiko spaghetti from Ma Maison

Ma Maison's mentaiko spaghetti is tasty for some reasons - in spite of the fact that it doesn't have as much mentaiko as one would usually expect for a mentaiko pasta. There's enough of them for the flavours to come through and I'm thinking the stir fry adds on something akin to a light char aroma. The noodles have a clean flavour although it's usually a little greasy. And there's the other stuff they put in like mushroom, onions, clams and shrimp.

Imakatsu, Guoco Tower

Imakatsu has opened up another branch at Guoco Tower (#01-06 Tanjong Pagar Centre, 7 Wallich Street, tel : +65 6822 7912) not too long back. The menu hasn't changed very much. I'm actually pretty happy that they retained some of the things that I liked their old menu.

One of which was the rosu katsu with garlic. It's a little smaller in size than the other tonkatsu options which they have. A thin slice of garlic is wedged between the meat and the flavour of that goes into the pork. This set comes with shoyu and wasabi which the other sets do not. Sauceless, mustard or shoyu is the way to go.

Their mentaiko rosu katsu is another one of their tonkatsu offerings that I liked. It didn't used to be on the regular menu. Now it is. Yay to that! The portions of the mentaiko are still as generous as ever. There's enough of the roe to go around the katsu and rice.

I don't remember noticing their cheese katsu before so we ordered one to try. It's actually quite tasty. Slightly stinky in a cheesy way and I think there is a layer between the breading and the cheese that tasted like mochi.

Back in Banana Leaf Apolo

It's been quite a while since we've last visited Banana Leaf (56 Race Course Road, tel : +65 6293 8682). A lot of people come here for their curry fish head. We didn't get that today.

We had fried fish roe instead. While the dish on the menu simply called it fish roe, there's actually fish milt in it as well. This stuff is pretty good.

A decent gobi 65 can be gotten here, tasty with the mint chutney on the side. If you're wondering still, these are cauliflower florets battered in a spiced gram flour and deep fried.

Their mutton masala was nutty and spicy. Actually, it was more spicy than I had imagined.

To accompany the naan and rice, a rich and creamy paneer makhani - or butter paneer. Cubed cottage cheese in a spiced creamy tomato gravy. This rendition from Banana Leaf was pretty good. 

The only thing that was disappointing this time round was their peshwari naan. The menu described powdered almond and cashew nut spread. Didn't quite look like what I had in mind. The flavours that came through were strangely just garlic and butter though we were pretty sure this was not their garlic naan. But now we know we're never getting this again.

More from La Tapería

We're back. Here's a bunch of other stuff which we haven't had before. Before the food, a rant. The tables for two at La Tapería were rather small. But the plates that they used tends not to be. The setup of the restaurant is optimized for as much seating as they can comfortably squeeze and honestly, it wasn't very comfortable when the room was packed.

There was white asparagus on the menu so we took advantage of the season for more of them, wrapped in prosciutto di Parma and soft boiled egg. 

Some Galician styled octopus. Not the most tender we've had and the potato slices were pathetically thin. But otherwise, it was quite tasty. The quality of the olive oil they used was good. Won't order again though.

We had frog legs with broad beans. These amphibian legs were chopped up and served sizzling. The main flavour we were getting was heat from whatever spice and garlic - that tasted rather Asian. Not to mention also a little bland coming from a Les Amis restaurant.

This was their Welsh lamb rack - the other lamb dish they had on menu. Grilled rather than confit and was also quite good in its own way if I had to compare with the other. There was enough char on the meat for it to be respectable and little to muddle up the natural flavours. Grilled vegetables with fried potatoes on the side were nicely done and not just an afterthought.