Open Farm Community, Minden Road

Been meaning to visit Open Farm Community (130E Minden Road, tel : +65 6471 0306) for quite a while. While the names of many restaurants could be frivolous, abstract, meaningless or whatever, it's actually a theme for OFC. The restaurant is what could be described as a locavore - as much of that can be achieved and grows a bunch of their own herbs/vegetables. That on top of their claims of the use of sustainable urban farming methods, farming education and the hosting of farmer's markets in the weekends. I've never used the word 'farm' so much in a single paragraph.  

Obviously, the Suntory Malt Dark isn't local or farmed. But it was a good drink for the sweltering heat which seemed to not fully relent even in the air conditioning of the restaurant. Chilled smoky chocolate bitters. Nice.

Warm broccoli salad was good too. Flavours were clean, richen by the goat's cheese.

This came from the menu of the OFC X Paris Popup collaboration called Kampung French. It's a current "French styled cooking with local ingredients" event. The menu called these froggets. The bill itemized them as Mcfroggets. They're just fried frog legs that came with a sweet and salty fish sauce thing. Six pieces, the menu mentioned. Three thighs and three calves was what they meant. 

The crust on those legs were crispy but because of the size of those legs, it's a little higher on the crust to meat ratio than I would prefer. Not sure what's French about these though.

We tried their lamb scotch eggs because they were lamb scotch eggs. Meat was robustly spiced. The word that came to mind to describe the flavour was 'Indian'. Here's the thing, the spices weren't bad. But I like my lamb to taste like lamb so this one didn't do the trick. 

There was a mud crab tagliolini that was awesome (also from the collab menu). This wasn't just a simple mud crab in pasta. The menu mentioned bisque which I couldn't really see. But there was a flavour akin to crab oil or essence that were infused into the noodles, perfumed gently by lemongrass. A little pricey for the portions but it was delicious. 

A chicken kopi O from Old Chang Kee

I was curious after passing by Old Chang Kee seeing that they have a coffee flavoured chicken puff. The flavour's in the sauce with the fillings. New and gimmicky but I was intrigued. Look at the silly grin.

The lady at the stall said it's good and especially good for those who like coffee. I took that with a pinch of salt. It does have some coffee flavour. Less than what I was hoping for but then again, I'm someone who expects at least half espresso level (make of that what you will) of aroma when coffee flavoured whatever is mentioned.

A chicken nanban teishoku at Suju

As the title goes, I had a tori nanban teishoku at Suju. I can't say that I do tori nanban much but since Japanese tartare sauce agrees with me and even their tori karaage was good, I thought it would be worth a try. This was also our first time sitting at the counter.

So it all started with a wait while nursing a glass of Suntory.

There seemed to be some sort of skin on the tori nanban. I'm not quite sure what it was through the sauce but I thought it might have been dipped in egg before frying. The meat was from the thigh - tender, a little fatty and dripping with juices. 

Their tartare sauce was a more refined rendition - all the ingredients were of a fine mince. That's not a good or bad thing. It's just their thing I suppose.

The tsukemono with their rice is no longer the cabbage/ginger. It's now crunchy pickled daikon. Yay!

And because it was such an enjoyable lunch, I decided to complete it with their annin tofu.

Revisiting Smiths at Balmoral

This was a craving that came about after a recent unsatisfactory episode with fish and fries so we came by for some proper fish and chips at Smiths. It seems that they've upgraded to a nicer looking menu with a little bit of changes and there're also selling Melton Mowbray pork pies now. So here's haddock and chips and fried sausage. Still as good as I remember them, washed down with some hauntingly good beer.

Le France pear from Yamagata at Takashimaya's Japan Fair

We came across this booth at the Japanese Fair this weekend that sold those Le France pears which we had bought in the past. Nope, can't remember from whence. But we recalled that there were good so we popped a couple of those samples they were giving out. These were exactly like we remembered them. A fruity and clear salty sweet with a fragrance. So we bought a pack of four.

Re-re-revisiting Nirai Kanai

Came by Nirai Kanai for dinner after some groceries at Meidi-ya. A glass of grapefruit beer to slake the thirst while waiting for the food to be served.

These were some sort of deep fried taco spring rolls with minced beef and cheese. Freshly fried and piping hot. I didn't dislike them but I don't think I'll be interested in eating them again.

We got a large serving of their chanpuru this time round. This stuff is pretty good if you didn't already know.

There's chahan with mustard greens. Tasted pretty much like how it looked. Simple and pretty satisfying. More mustard greens would be nice too.

They do pretty tasty fried somen with mustard greens too. I liked that those noodles were sufficiently salted and their thin firm textures definitely agreed with me.