Menya Sakura, Boat Quay

Menya Sakura (69 Boat Quay) had not even been on my radar until I came across the 1 for 1 vouchers for their foie gras ramen from JPassport. What was their foie gras ramen you might ask? It's apparently something that's on a limited run featuring sous vide foie gras wrapped in chicken charshu. Soft chunk of liver that was creamy and chicken that was super tender. There's pine nuts, some mushrooms, menma and watercress in this bowl.

I read that the broth was a mixture of chicken and shoyu. What I could definitively tell was it didn't taste like the sum of its parts. I might have imagined that there was something slightly herbal in the flavours and couldn't quite related it to any of the regular bases that most of the ramen use for their broth. Not getting any of the yuzu that's supposed to be in there as well.

I liked the chicken with foie gras and the ajitama but I don't think the rest of the bowl made much of an impression.

Re-revisiting Keria Japanese Restaurant

We're back in Keria. Today we had an interesting otoshi. It's a shumai and the stuffing was some sort of tofu with seafood flavour. A seafood flavour that was reminiscent of those frozen Ajinomoto shrimp dumplings that I used to eat as a kid.

We had some kanpachi sashimi.

And of course, their stir fried mentaiko cabbage too.

Keria has some delicious stir fried gyutan with negi. Those savoury sliced tongue were chewy and beefy, contrasted by a mild sharpness of the raw negi and the sweetness from the stir fried ones.

Their mini steak don came with some kind of wafu dressing. Sweet, tangy and a hint of ginger.

A bit more chewing had the fat in the beef melted and the flavour came through.

There was a spaghetti with aonori (green laver), some dried chilli and karasumi. The latter is dried mullet roe, the Japanese equivalent of bottarga. Interesting combination of the delicate laver, umami saltiness from the karasumi, garlic and a very mild heat from the dried chilli.

Unfortunately, their hamu katsu was a bore. It's a ham katsu that was so thin that there was possibly more breading than the ham which tasted like the cheap pink variety.

Siak Ann Cooked Food, Havelock Road Food Centre

This was a curry rice stall (#01-07 Havelock Road Cooked Food Centre, 22A/B Havelock Road) not a few units away from Covent Garden Kway Chap. I have reason to believe that the name of the was retained from previous tenant which did cze char. Anyways, the current stall seemed to have been around for some years operating with a little yellow signage which says '大牌38咖哩飯' (Block 38 curry rice).

Stall's run by an elderly couple and the food's old school. Well, to be a little more precise here, it would be old school to locals who are at least about as old as I am. 

These folks do the kind of pork chop which are pretty much red lard crisps - a similar style to that nameless Beo Crescent Hainanese curry rice stall. Crispy and kinda dissolves into a savoury lard-y flavour once you've crushed them between your teeth. There's stewed cabbage which were tender and light on flavour, curried squids which were actually pretty good and hard boiled egg. Just a handful among the offerings that the stall had. Made a very satisfying weekend breakfast. Will be back.

Update 13/8/2017

Very satisfying breakfast of delicious curry over rice. Meatballs were tasty in a homely manner. Luncheon meat nicely pan fried and not forgetting those crispy, lardy pork chops.

Alt. Pizza, Suntec City

Alt. Pizza (#01-602 Suntec City Tower 4, 9 Temasek Boulevard, tel : +65 +65 68369207) came up perhaps three years ago or thereabout. The executive chef is a Matthew White, previously from Extra Virgin Pizza and was American based until earlier part of this decade.

Pizza here is a little smaller than the usual. Just 11 inches with a thin and crispy crust. One can pick from what they've come up with on the menu or simply make your own. This was a Truffle Shuffle with extra sausages and pineapple. Speaking of pineapples, Alt. Pizza uses fresh pineapples. The other place which does, Butcher's Kitchen, is coincidentally located in the vicinity.

Coming back to the pizza; there's mushrooms, fennel sausages, onions, a generous drizzle of truffle oil and of course, pineapples. It's actually quite delicious if I might say so. It's also probably the only pizza on the menu that looked like it might be good, so if I ever come back, I might have to try making my own.

Red Eye Smokehouse, Cavan Road

American styled barbecue joint located a short distance from the main Lavender Street (1 Cavan Road, tel : +65 6291 0218) that also dispenses brews from RedDot BrewHouse on their taps. This would be the second and possibly only other American styled barbecue specialist here other than Decker Barbecue down at Robertson Quay. 

We picked up some Brandt briskets and lamb chops along with their maple corn bread and mashed potatoes with bone marrow butter. The food was pretty good. I liked those briskets which were smoky at the edges, tender and flavourful from the fat. Lamb chops were full of bite and pretty lamb-y. The latter was my kind of thing for lamb so no complains from me on that.

Buns and pickles are served on request with no additional charge. I'm pretty sure I'd like to drop by again sometime.

Covent Garden Kway Chap, Havelock Road Food Centre

Came across this stall (#01-05 Havelock Road Cooked Food Centre, 22A/B Havelock Road) while looking for breakfast over the weekend and decided to join the queue.

This was delicious kuey chap. Old school and delicious. Their cauldron of ingredients had been simmering to the point where the flavour of the braising liquid was in every morsel of offal and meat. Braising liquid tasted like how I remembered kuey chap broth as a kid. Flavourful yet clean and balanced without any particular spice being predominant.