Bakalaki Greek Taverna, Seng Poh Road

Nice Greek restaurant (3 Seng Poh Road, tel : +65 6836 3688). The decor looked like quite a bit of work had gone into making the place look the part but we've had mixed feelings over the food.

Their patates tiganites were described on the menu as handmade fried potatoes with Graviera cheese. Those potatoes definitely look like regular shoestring fries to me and who would've known they're handmade. Pretty sure I can get frozen ones that look and taste the same. So much for that Graviera cheese. Here's where the flavour from the fried potatoes have drowned out whatever there might have been from the cheese. I recognize this as a bad call and a waste of money on our part.

Moving on to the keftedes which were suppose to come with mint. Not seeing nor tasting any of that mint. We had imagined them to be grilled or in sauce but these were just fried beef meatballs that were lacking in fat and texture and flavour. The thing that might have saved it a little would be salt and that was also lacking. Boring would be the right word. 

Thankfully, their pan fried feta cheese was tasty. The cheese was done with a light and slightly crisp skin with honey.

Their paidakia was nicely grilled with respectable char marks to a medium doneness. Meat was tender that only the butter knife was needed. While we enjoyed it, we found the lamb-y flavour lacking. Potatoes were nice.

For some reasons, we were given a complementary dessert of Greek yoghurt with honey and walnuts. Not bad.

The nameless Teochew ba chor mee at Seng Poh Road

Stumbled upon this minced meat noodle stall in a time capsule of a coffeeshop (71 Seng Poh Road) just across the road from Tiong Bahru Market. It’s coincidentally located in that same coffeeshop where Loo’s Hainanese Curry Rice can be found currently.

Why was this bak chor mee stall mention worthy? A few things that had gotten my attention. It looked really old like they’ve been around for ages. Their bowl of accompanying soup was light yet peppery and sweet. Couldn’t identify what was the base flavour but I’m presuming that it has something to do with the ingredients which they used that required boiling. I had almost finished that soup before I started on the noodles.  

How was the bowl of noodles you might wonder? It was not too bad. The kind of "not too bad" that I wouldn’t mind eating if I was in the vicinity and they didn’t have a queue. There were only about four people ahead and it was a half hour wait. While they weren’t soft or soggy, their noodles didn’t have that firm consistency that I typically prefer. The taste was a little different from the usual flavour profile of bak chor mee even though the only thing I saw them adding was the chilli paste, vinegar and lard. Sure beats Hua Bee though. 

But there's more! Those prawns were unexpectedly tasty. Imagine flavours of prawns and their sweetness coming through all the sauces. Not forgetting their minced meat dumplings which had dried sole in them, packing extra flavours from the desiccated fish.

Fried chicken sandwich from Park Bench Deli

I haven't had much fried chicken sandwich for comparison but I thought this one from Park Bench Deli was not bad. To their usual form, there's no skimping on the fillings. That buttermilk fried chicken was the size of the onion bread they used - end to end. While I appreciated the little bit of extras from the cabbage slaw and cucumber, they were subdued in both flavour and textures by the chicken. Imagine that. Sure went down easily with a bit of Sriracha.

Nasi padang from Hajjah Mariam Cafe

I decided to go a la carte at Hajjah Mariam since I've already tried their nasi ambeng previously. Nothing too special or exotic a selection. Some paru goreng, sambal goreng and ayam goreng. Yeah, it's all goreng there with a lemak gravy and some sambal belachan for invigorating heat. You know what? It's kinda pricey at $9.50. If I had to put in my two cents, I prefer a slightly less chewy paru and thought that the chicken while deliciously spiced had lost some of the crisp after staying out in the trough for a bit. Still, there was a very competent representative of each of the dishes I had even though I have favourites elsewhere.

Re-revisiting Nirai Kanai

Nirai Kanai just gets better and better. We've been avoiding them for so long (from a first lacklustre visit) and missing out at the same time. Happenstance decided that we would get the counter seats today - which was pretty spacious.

This visit also happened to be a re-evaluation of their peanut tofu. It had that nutty flavour with a texture that was creamy - somewhat akin to panna cotta. I didn't remember it being that good the first time we had it. We had some chilled umi budou to start with that tofu. Those sea grapes, bursty and refreshing with the also chilled ponzu dip.

So I finally got to try an Okinawan taco rice. A dish that was a result of the Americans that were stationed in Okinawa back in the 60s I heard. Shredded lettuce, tomatoes & salsa, spicy minced beef and cheese over rice.

I was initially wondering where had all the cheese gone. It was somewhere inside. It's not as much cheese as I would normally prefer but after all the tossing, this was delicious. Those beef bits were so good. I believe comforting and tasty are suitable adjectives for this bowl.

Their hamburg was well seasoned and quite peppery. While it was not normally the kind of beef patty that I shoot for, it was pretty tasty. What was outstanding was that brown paste beside the pickled daikon. I believe it's something they call pork miso. The texture was like a paste with bits of dried pork. The sweet flavour was a cross between char siew bao fillings and pork floss. I found them very addictive with the rice.

Here's their chanpuru which we are ordering for the first time. A different beast from the rendition at Keria and also appears to be the more commonly seen rendition. This was good. The bitter gourds weren't as bitter as I had imagined. Altogether a dish without pretence and great comforting flavours.

Spicy shrimp fried rice from Machida Shoten

The last time we were here at Machida Shoten, the neighbouring table had ordered this spicy shrimp chahan and we had thought that it looked pretty good. We didn't like it much. It was greasier than we had imagined. Whatever chilli they had used got inevitably compared to hae bi hiam which was invariably much tastier. Stick to the regular chahan we will.