Urban Bites, Telok Ayer Street

The general wisdom is that if a restaurant has been around for some time, it's probably good or at least decent. But that's not always true isn't it? This was Urban Bites (161 Telok Ayer Street). Lebanese they styled themselves. And style it was, over substance.

Their sambouski wasn't too bad. Minced lamb and onions in a puff. The stuffings were tasty, moist and piping hot. It was a promising start.

This stuff was called hummus with meat. Sliced lamb tenderloin at medium rare doneness. It looked pretty darned good. A nice looking char with pink in the centre. But - the meat had little flavour. I could tell that it's red meat but I would absolutely have had no idea that was lamb. That's a sin there. The hummus was too sour. Too much lemon, too little olive oil and garlic and it was mashed into puree without much texture. Not even grainy. Glad was I this wasn't my first hummus experience or I would have thought little of them. 

Halloumi cheese needed more time on the grill. It arrived barely lukewarm. So it's either under done or service is an uncontrolled mess in the restaurant.

Wasn't getting much squeakiness from them cheese. I can sense the shifting of priorities in the food because their online menu which hasn't been updated doesn't mention toast but the current printed menu does. I'm pretty sure the were thinking bruschetta when they decided to add "toast" in to the cheese. That toast was hard. Not freshly toasted at all.

These chicken livers were tender and properly cooked. But at this point, everything was pretty much tart or sour. The balsamic vinegar from the Halloumi cheese before, their hummus with too much lemon and now pomegranate molasses on the liver that was more tart than sweet. But look - there's even a slice of lemon that might you might want to squeeze onto those livers. Or perhaps they were just for decoration.

I'm sensing that a lot of what's being done is copying of ideas without any understanding of what's being done. The chicken livers doesn't need more lemon.

That's sea bass. Baked according to the menu. Looks pan fried to me. The fish was nice. But it was destroyed by the tahini and hummus which took out the crisp from the skin and drowned out all the natural flavours by being hummus-y and tahini-y. I didn't think these combined well. So it was sour and a little spicy and a little nutty. Waste of a nice piece of fish if you asked me.

This was what they called arabica affogato. Very obviously, these guys know little to nothing about making/serving affogato. It wasn't very difficult to deduce that they had just wanted to do one and impress people. 

Generally fucking stupid to be serving them in a martini glass which was already filled with an oversize scoop of ice cream. Not much room to pour the Turkish coffee which was suppose to have cardamom flavour but didn't. How the hell does one eat this shit? The Turkish coffee wasn't even as flavourful as espresso. That and we could only pour a little before the glass was about to overflow and we had to eat ice cream to free space before we could pour a little more of coffee. We left more than half of this untouched.

Muhalabiah was nice. But then again it's not something that's easy to screw up. We were too sugared up at this point to even bother with those namoura that came with them.

Casa Tartufo, Erskine Road

Seven years ago, we saw Casa Tartufo open up at Forum Galleria. We were skeptical because of the name but still curious. For a long time. What was it that they said about having being bitten once before? But the menu looked proper. We made a mental notes to return. For a long time.

Seven years later today, we visited for the first time. Man, it just all went by didn't it? All those years. They're now at The Scarlet Singapore - or the place formerly known as Scarlet Hotel (33 Erskine Road). 

Bread was well appreciated. Some nicely greased rosemary (and olive maybe) focaccia and some other sliced bread. We (read as I) had seconds. Save some for their scrambled eggs.

So the scallops. A la plancha styled. Nicely seared that it had a light char aroma and the insides were barely cooked. I thought that was nicely done sitting on a light Parmigiano and truffle fondue.

This be the dish known as uovo on the menu. Nicest truffled eggs we've ever had. Shaven winter black truffle on top and more in those scrambled eggs. This alone would be worth a return trip.

The restaurant's risotto casa is made with truffle and sea urchin. The uni flavour was subtle. Could detect them in occasional mouthfuls and for the other times, it was an after taste. Savoury rice dish that was also nicely done.

We had Iberico pork collar in masala sauce. Seared to a medium doneness. The server said there was cherry in the sauce but we couldn't taste it. But the pork was good.

Because the food had been good, we made it to their gelato. Pistachio and truffle (how could we not have?). Both seemed to be salted lightly, very creamy and well flavoured.

We left the dinner pretty pleased thinking about when's the next excuse to come back. 

Fishball Story, Yishun Park Hawker Centre

We were at Yishun Park Hawker Centre (51 Yishun Avenue 11) looking for food and I came across Fishball Story. I recalled reading good things about them before and apparently they had received the Bib Gourmand. Man it sure was disappointing. Their mee pok was run of the mill, totally unexceptional and came with chilli sauce that had neither much heat nor flavour. Didn't get very much flavour from their fishballs as well so I was definitely unimpressed. These guys are way behind Li Xin where I would rather spend my money on.

Another meal at Luka

I couldn't decide if I liked Luka from the first visit so we came back again to try some more of their food. For some reasons I had decided not to write them off just yet.

I'm starting to gain acceptance of the fact that Luka does is their rendition of Italian food. No it wasn't a simple matter of Italian food done by Japanese nor was it Italian food with Japanese influences. Take the crab arancini for example. It's more like a cream croquette than a real arancini. Crispy shell with creamy crabby flavours. Not much rice. So little that it cannot be regarded as an actual arancini as such. Flavour's not bad though.

We ordered their pizza Americano. Supposedly house made sausages were involved but those sausages that came with the pizza didn't look very house made. Great quality mozzarella, a not too tart base of tomato sauce on a chewy crust and interestingly - it tasted pretty good with all those fries. I noticed that a bunch of their pizzas were simply their Margherita with additional toppings. This one included. Notice the basil.

Their agnolotti is apparently a signature dish. Little dumplings filled with minced veal. It wasn't bad but it's not going to end up in my list of favourites. More cheese for would be great. 

Didn't like their tiramisu. There was a slick quality to their mascarpone layer like maybe it had just that tiny bit of gelatine in the mixture that lost it an airy texture. Couldn't taste any alcohol in it so that's a sin right there. My opinion is that it's overpriced for what it was, Luka's version or not.

Re-revisiting Restaurant Manchurian (满族全羊铺)

Here's back to the only Chinese lamb specialist that we know of right along the touristy grease perfumed Chinatown Food Street.

We spied mala lamb tongue on the menu which we didn't notice before in our previous visits. The mala spices were rather subdued. There's an aroma but not so much heat. Most of the sliced tongue was tender and delicious while some parts had bits of cartilage in them. Totally delicious with those toasted peanuts. Portions were kinda large for two though. 

One of the reasons for coming back was for their barbecued lamb skewers. These seemed to have gotten chunkier though and appeared to be much more like our local satay with pieces of meat and chunks of fat between some of the meat. I've never had Chinese yang rou chuan like these. Definitely felt different compared to the first time we had them here.

Another one of the reasons for this visit was to get those skewered tendon. I'm still not sure why/how these are tendons. They also appear to be chunkier than the last time we encountered them. Some parts were a little dry and hard. Definitely tastier previously. Something/someone must have changed along the way.

This was one occasion where being adventurous didn't really pay off. We had some of their barbecued lamb kidneys. The livery offal flavour was intense and the spices couldn't help mask that intensity. Not getting these again for sure.

And of course some vegetables in a feeble attempt to balance our meal that was meat heavy. This wok of stir fried cabbage tasted not much like the last time too. Pretty sure it wasn't the same standards as the cook from our previous visits. I sure hope that things haven't headed for a downturn permanently.

More mazeudon-ing at Tamoya Udon

Tamoya has come up with a bunch of differently flavoured mazeudon. Presumably, it's a follow up to the reception of their mixing udon. From what we could see from the neighbouring tables, these seemed to be equally well liked. Their oooh mami udon was especially umami (insert groan). Much more so than their other bowls which were already umami in general. Enhanced much by the ebiko (or was that tobiko), bonito flakes and dried sakuri ebi.

They also have a pesto bowl - with pesto that was oddly made with some coriander. Coriander normally drives me away but this particular pesto was....balanced. The flavour from the herb wasn't overwhelming like how it normally is and after a while, I even enjoyed it. True story.