More hon maguro-ing at Kuro Maguro

Back in Kuro Maguro for a quiet weekend lunch. It seems that the menu has expanded from the last time we were here.

There's a zuke meshi which features their hon maguro akami marinated in shoyu and sesame oil over vinegared rice. That aroma and flavour from the sesame oil on those tuna slices were delicious. I could definitely come back for this.

We had a chutoro aburi meshi that came with a truffle shoyu sauce. Also on vinegared rice. That aburi could have been better done for a more robust char aroma. Still the quality of the fatty bluefin belly was apparent. While truffled stuff has been overdone in recent years, this truffled shoyu worked. 

Stir fried pork with cumin from Tian Fu Ren Jia (天府人家)

孜然猪肉

The menu has this item for chicken and beef but they were willing to do a pork version of the stir fry which was pretty good. There's a nice cumin flavour on the meat while the green chillis added a bit of heat and aroma. Liked those softened onions too. It's such a pity that there's no lamb on the menu.

Tonkotsu Pink from Tonkotsu Ikkyu from Ramen Champion

Ramen Champion has a new outlet at Clark Quay Central (#03-97/98, 6 Eu Tong Sen St) which operates a little differently from their other premises. There are actually wait staff around that take orders and deliver the food to you instead of having to wait on the buzzer to collect your own. However, this seemed to have inadvertently taken away the options that the ramen-ya ask of order preferences. At least I wasn't asked when I ordered. But then again, maybe they've decided that they're not letting you choose the strength of your broth, how much oil you want and the doneness of your noodles. Not that most of them get my preferred harigane right anyway.

So here's a refreshing dusky pink bowl of Tonkotsu Pink from Ikkyu's shop. I've had their green bowl a couple of years back. The most obvious difference apart from the colours was that the broth today had less viscosity. That tonkotsu broth - infused with blueberry and beetroot was light yet creamy. There's no berry or grassy beetroot flavour. It was just a tiny bit sweeter. I actually didn't mind that at all. And there's happiness to be found in the bowl if you finish your broth. Double happiness.

Joyden Canton, Shaw House

Joyden Canton (#04-00 Isetan Scotts, 350 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6908 3833) is part of the Joyden Concepts group, a local group which manages a few Chinese/Cantonese restaurants which bear the Joyden name. I've heard of them for a while but this would be my first visit to any of their restaurants.

These guys serve a lor mee with quail eggs. It's part of a bunch of local inspired dishes that they're doing for a limited time. The menu states that it serves 4 but if one were to order nothing else, it barely feeds two. Pretty decent rendition that got better once the vinegar and chilli paste are kicked in. My gripes include the portions and the misleading pictures on the menu which suckered us into ordering it.

This picture.

Along with the lor mee threading the local flavours is a Chinese carrot cake stir fried in rojak sauce. Not bad.

To fulfil the obligatory greens quota, we had some braised luffa with egg white and conpoy. Actually, I didn't order this just out of any obligation for having vegetables in the meal. I like these.

If I remember correctly the name of this dish was something along the lines of twiced baked egg gratin with you tiao. The fried crullers are embedded in baked eggs which was filled with vermicelli, jellyfish and some stuff which reminded me of Khong Guan lemon cream biscuits.  

What kicked ass was their "Hak Gam" (黑金) olive fried rice. I hear that those olives that they used are imported from China. The generous application of dark soya sauce and pork floss made the flavours while the minced pork and prawns that were in them barely registered. But this was very delicious. I would come back for this.

That's grilled slow-braised ribs with an aged mandarin peel sauce. There's a very good flavour from the mandarin peel in the sauce. The meat was unexpectedly lean but still fork tender. I'd eat this again.

Five Ten, South Bridge Road

I read that this place (237 South Bridge Road, tel : +65 6924 7352) was supposed to be serving Taiwanese inspired food. While it is apparent that quite a lot of us locals visit Taiwan (I'm one of the oddballs here who has never been there) and many of which mention about how good the food is over there; we don't exactly have so much in the way of Taiwanese eateries here. I suppose Taiwanese inspired would do then.

We had sautéed chicken hearts. Tender yet chewy, these little morsels were pretty good in that sweet soy glaze. Ordered this sans the fried ginger shreds which wouldn't have agreed with me. I wouldn't have agreed with them neither.

There was poached red snapper in a dashi broth. The fish was delicious and I liked the clean flavours of the broth with fried garlic bits.

Their grilled squids were passable. They needed more char. Tasted like they had the same glaze as those chicken hearts. While I supposed that each restaurant has their way, I thought they could take a page out of Gerry's Grill with the grilling. 

That's sirloin steak, seared to a medium doneness served with fried garlic bits and picked cabbage. Very edible.

For some reasons, their tripe was served on skewers. These were the only things on skewers. But they were good. Tender, nicely flavoured with that soy based braising. These tasted like they hit the grill for a little bit after they were braised. I could be wrong. Thought this was pretty good.

Rice was free of charge. I give brownie points for this.

And there's Asahi Kuronama on tap.

The king of kings this year

It's been quite a while since we've last bought durians and I believe we're currently in the midst of the season for this year. This was a whole wang zhong wang (皇中皇) that we've gotten and it turned out a lot better than the one we purchased from Balestier last year. One that lived up to its reputation of bittersweet creamy richness. The prices of these things are still hefty and from the look of things, will remain so.