Tsuta Japanese Soba Noodles, Pacific Plaza

Much had already been said about Tsuta (#01-01 Pacific Plaza, 9 Scotts Road, tel : +65 6734 4886) and its world's only Michelin starred ramen parentage from Tokyo so none further of that is going to be printed here. The queue as I've heard/read was quite mad at the start but nature took its course to normalise things. Not much of a queue this particular evening; we barely waited for five minutes before we got a seat. 

New on their menu was a kamo abura soba and a kamo paitan soba which were said to be new bowls to commemorate the passing of their first anniversary in Singapore. This above was the kamo abura soba - no soup and tossed in their mixture of duck oil and shoyu...perhaps also amongst other secrets that might not have been revealed. This was pretty good. The noodles were slick from the duck oil and texturized by the crunch from bits of cashew and diced yellow onions. I thought the noodles had a umami nuttiness to it. 

The portions were kinda small though. If I had realized that it was only two slices of that duck, I would have gotten additional.

This was their shoyu bowl which had tongues wagging. There was some truffle in it. It was a nice amount of truffle that added to the bowl rather than destroy the broth. Very easy to drink and enjoyable as well. Noodles were thin. Charshu was thin sliced, tender and had a nice texture from the grains of the meat.

I'll definitely be back to try more another time. 

Green goddess pizza and fish & chips from PS. Cafe Petit

The last time we were here, we noticed a number of neighbouring tables with their Green Goddess pizza. Peas, beans, spinach and capsicum. I'm not usually a fan of the latter. The flavour doesn't resonate well with me but I didn't mind them on this pie because it wasn't very strong. With the bits of goats cheese, it was delicious. And that roasted sambal to go with the cornicione is definitely starting to grow on me.

We also picked up a fish and fries chips this time. Fish was white, firm and flaky. Red snapper the menu said. It wasn't bad per se but it's also not Smiths or Oxwell's. Still, it was quite edible and definitely way overpriced for the portions and quality.  

Tiong Bahru Fried Kway Teow, Tiong Bahru Market FC

We had previous tried the other char kuey teow stall nearby so we thought to give this a chance too. This particular stall has been around (#02-11, 30 Seng Poh Road) judging from the news clippings at their front so there's the possibility that I might have had it some time in the past...decades? Anyways, it looked very light. We were expecting it to be in a more luxuriant coat of dark soy sauce. It would not be untrue to say that were a little disappointed by the appearance.

But good news was, it tasted much better than it looked. Even though there was probably no lard in it. There was more flavour than the colours suggested and in the end, we liked it. Even those usually neglected lup cheong were well fried and flavoursome.

Tian Bao Szechuan Kitchen (天寶閣), Ngee Ann City

In the span of the past year or so, we've walked by this Szechuan styled restaurant (#05-06/07 Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6734 4216) a few times and have always wondered if they were any good. They have quite a variety on menu and some of those items have been such a common find here that I wonder if this was truly Szechuan or localised Szechuan.  

In an attempt to get some greens and fibre into our diet, rolls of lettuce leaves bound with strips of cucumber with a sesame dip. The thick nutty dip was unexpectedly sweet. For some reasons, I had been expecting something savoury. Tasted better after it was mixed with some vinegar and chilli oil.

I forgot what this was called but it's marinated chicken in chilli oil. Kinda like the spicy version of Shaoxin marinated chicken with the aroma of Szechuan peppercorn.

Dan dan mian. Nutty, meaty and I suppose it was okay-ish.

That's spinach with three eggs. Albeit a slightly different rendition from what's usually available. This one had century and quail eggs. The salted egg component came in the form of the sauce. 

We tried their steamed dumplings with pork and spinach. Apart from the spinach component, these tasted like xiao long bao sans the "juice". I found them agreeable.

And then there was gong bao prawns that came with loads of cashews. Cashews that I wished had been toasted for their aroma before they were stir fried into the dish. Wasn't bad at all but I had been imagining a more luxuriant sweetness and heat that this one didn't quite live up to.

A lunch at Grand Copthorne Waterfront

We had originally wanted to check out Grissini which had replaced Pontini at Grand Copthorne (392 Havelock Road), but those guys didn't do weekend lunches. Why the hell would they not do weekend lunch? That makes poor economical sense there.

But - the lounge menu included pizza which comes from Grissini. No lunch service, but provides pizza to the hotel lounge. Here's the salami pizza featuring their truffle salami. Decent pizza, needs more salami.

The outstanding item was their Super Laksa. That's what they called it. Primed with nuggets of fried lobster, fried scallops, prawns, fish cake and tau pok. Not forgetting the heart clogging and smile inducing richness from their tasty rempah used for the gravy. But why no quail eggs?!

I'm not going pretend that this bowl was not expensive. Exorbitant even by some considerations. But we were happy with it. Till the last drop.

Nasi lemak from Swensen's

There are apparently a couple of outlets of Swensen's that have the Asian menu with nasi lemak. This was from ION Orchard (2 Orchard Turn). While it was not outstanding, it's argueably decent quality considering the dismal standards of most nasi lemak these days. Would have been much nicer if they had bothered to toast the peanuts and ikan bilis before using them.