Revisiting Nirai Kanai

The last time we were here (#B1-01 Liang Court, 177 River Valley Road, tel : +65 6339 4811) was quite a long while back. I remember being unimpressed then and compared them to the defunct Mimigar. Fast forward to today, Nirai Kanai remains the only Okinawan restaurant left in our sunny little island.

We had marinated chicken liver. This was super marinated. The sweet soy permeated every bit of the offal. It was unexpectedly chilled though. And also because it was thoroughly cooked through, it was a little hard, a little chewy and powdery. Probably good for slow eating with drinks.

Their onigiri was quite nice. Made with rice cooked in some broth that tasted like it might have mushrooms and other vegetables. There were small chunks of meat (I actually failed at this point to identify if those were pork or chicken) and bits of hijiki in them. And some pickles for zest. A viable substitute I say, for a bowl rice.

Minced pork and beef katsu. Not bad. It's the hearty sort of fried panko-ed meat patty that's meant to be filling, tasty and not impress your pants off.

There was hiyashi soba. Chilled noodles with sesame dressing.

The sesame dressing was outstanding paired with the chewy noodles. Perky and nutty if you know what I mean. Came loaded with vegetables and sliced pork belly. This bowl is awesome for our weather. Only gripe? The pork's kinda tough.

And finally some tori momo shioyaki. Grilled chicken thigh with salt on skewers. Flavoured with little blobs of yuzu pepper. Tasty but too much yuzu pepper which made the chicken really salty.

To wash down the food, we had calamansi and pink grapefruit beer!

This was a much better round of eating than the last time. Would consider coming back.

Fujiyama Dragon Curry, Orchid Hotel

This shop which originates from Hiroshima has taken over the premise of a sole Korean shop down at Orchid Hotel (#01-03 Orchid Hotel, 1 Tras Link, tel : +65 6444 9260). The Japanese have won. Haha!

There's a spicy option for each order of their curry rice. This was it. Didn't look like it would bite. As much as I remember Japanese curry not being so spicy (that is probably not so true these days), this had the barest of heat. The curry was little savoury and a little sweet, filled with minced pork and topped an onsen tamago. In the end, the chilli powder helped a little. 

Cotechino with lentils and a puttanesca. For Pete's sake!

This will likely be the last time we're eating at Pete's Place for a quite a while. Perhaps for the next 20 years or so. The quality is pretty mediocre; considering how much they're charging I think it's pretty overpriced. With tasteless olive oil and table pepper, I'm surprised it's survived this long. Even their fried calamari was astonishingly bad with a batter that was already soggy when it hit the table.

The cotechino dish we ordered was served barely lukewarm after a long wait. Unless those lentils were cooked to order, which I'm sure they're not, this dish takes 5 minutes to assemble. Tops. Stingy with the mostarda they were. La Strada has a much better rendition for lunch.

Well, maybe their spaghetti alla puttanesca was okay. It's spicy and salty and everyone has a rendition. Something that's pretty damned hard to screw up, no?

Panko, Arab Street

Yet another venture from the Unlisted Collections (33 Arab Street, tel : +65 6291 3323) group. This one named after the breadcrumbs used on all the kushikatsu that the establishment makes. I suppose one could say that the place was aptly named.

asparagus, garlic mayo

The food was competent; just so with properly fried katsu that have ingredients of decent quality. Everything was served piping hot.

shishamo

That being said, I also didn't think that the food was outstanding as a whole. 

baby corn

While it was affordable compared to a place like Han, the fried skewers also felt less impressive. I suppose we do get what we pay for.

anago, nitsume

Well, sometimes we get what we pay for. Sometimes, the skewers just feel a little too small.

Brussels sprouts, tomato sauce

A few of the sticks we ordered were noteworthy.

Hokkaido scallop, uni, dashi foam

The scallop with uni and dashi foam was delicious. A no brainer combination that was executed well.

Scallop was wrapped in seaweed and retained moisture. Probably the first of the kushikatsu that left an impression after the shishamo which I also enjoyed.

satsuma

Their Japanese sweet potato was disappointingly dry and lacking of the sweetness that one would expect from them.

foie gras, saikyo miso, blueberry sauce

Certain ingredients like the foie gras simply sold themselves. Panko's rendition with the blueberry sauce thingy was nice, smaller portion than what Kazu serves grilled and costed more each stick. #justsaying

ika, ink sauce

There were also things sounded nice on the menu but felt underwhelming when they arrived. Like the squid with ink sauce. Not really getting much from that ink sauce; these flat parts of squid are also not the best parts for deep frying.

chicken stuffed shitake, truffle

The other memorable skewer which I enjoyed apart from the shishamo, scallops and foie gras was their shitake mushroom stuffed with chicken with shaven truffle.

While not much could be tasted from those shaven truffles, the meaty mushroom cap and chicken formed an umami and juicy combination that was pretty kickass tasty.

the score cup

That's about how much we ate.

A mini tiffin from Saravanaa Bhavan at Westgate

This is from the Saravanaa Bhavan outpost at the Westgate food court (Stall 15 in Food Republic, #B1-25, 3 Gateway Drive). The menu was of course much smaller than the one from the restaurant. Apart from a few of their "thali" it's pretty much just the snack items. But I happily picked up a mini tiffin from them that came with a made to order masala dosa.

How was that? Not bad at all. I finished the meal satisfied. The pongal had a nice ghee aroma, mini idlys were tasty in those sambar and definitely no complains on the chutneys. Enjoyed the kesari sweet too. I don't know if I'm over thinking it but the standards of dosa from the shops at Little India seemed better. Not that this was bad. 

Frogs, lamb, mushrooms and mirabelle plums at Le Bistrot du Sommelier

As we traipse into the end of summer, fall approaches. And winter is coming. For the menu at Le Bistrot du Sommelier that is.

Cosying up in the cast iron casserole with some salad are their meaty frog legs - sautéed with garlic, onions and parsley. These aren't seasonal. I remember seeing them all the time on the menu. They're pretty good.

Spring and by extension, summer, brings lambs to the slaughter. Here's their oven roasted Welsh lamb leg. Not so much fat, so not so much of the lamb-y flavours to savour as well. Still quite delicious with its jus and sweet root vegetables.

The summertime specials include sautéed wild girolle mushrooms. Or also commonly known in these parts as chanterelle. Meaty and mushroomy, these were priced dearly. But good they were.

Summer is also a chance for their mirabelle plum soufflé. This soufflé was nicely done. Light and airy they were with the hot cooked fruit settled at the bottom. The stuff that the ice cream was sitting on was pain perdu; tasted like some sort of dense bread pudding.