Ramen Nagi, Suntec City

Ramen Nagi (#01-512/513 Suntec City Tower 2, 9 Temasek Boulevard, tel : +65 6266 1502)  from Japan opened up a couple of months back. Tonkotsu based and looked Hakata styled one at that. Like any ramen-ya with publicity, these guys attracted long lines during the opening.

I got a bowl of their Black King - one with obsidian broth that's been blackened with squid ink, blackened garlic and black sesame. The broth was rich, slightly viscous even after mixing with what appeared to be a ball of black pepper sauced minced meat and was quite delicious. Liked that the squid ink flavour came through along with the garlic. Even though I had opted for their extra hard option for the noodles - presumably harigane, it was still softer than I had expected. Pork belly was tender and had some nice melty fats.

I think I liked this enough to come back to try another bowl.

Din Tai Fung's black truffle chicken soup

Had this? This stuff is liquid gold and a much better application of black truffle than many places. There's enough of the truffle flavour infused into the soup that made the flavour exquisite. Enough salt for that delicious savouriness. Enough clarity to be delicate. And no, I'm neither a shareholder nor employee.

Yes! Nasi Kukus, Jurong East Central

These guys (BGAIN 130 Eating House, #01-211, 130 Jurong Gateway Road) are apparently from Kelantan. The sale pitch was steamed rice and their nasi dagang. So nasi kukus from what I gather is rice steamed in aluminium cups. The dagang version is rice steamed with coconut milk and they seemed to have differentiated it from their regular steamed rice by using brown rice. So one basically gets a rice plate with a choice of meat. The rest of the stuff like the hard boiled egg, keropok and bean sprouts come with the plate.

It's not bad but the flavour wasn't what I had in mind when I was thinking about rice with coconut milk. It didn't taste like nasi lemak for sure and it was doused with some lemak gravy. Fried chicken was tender and delicious though. Their fruity sambal was awesome.

Blue Label Pizza & Wine, Ann Siang Road

I was looking forward to this visit to Blue Label Pizza & Wine (#B1-01, 28 Ann Siang Road,). After all, this outfit was the product of Travis Masiero under his group of restaurants. Luke’s had always delivered, so a casual pizza and wine place would probably be a breeze and still deliver. Right?

We had their kale "Waldorf" salad on blind faith in the belief that it would be good since Luke's has an excellent kale salad. More goat's cheese and grapes would have made it kickass but we were just settling for "we liked it and would come back again for it". And we would.

This was where the faith got a little shaken. Their plate of Blue Label State Fair fries. I'll try to be succinct. Black pepper sauce was weak. Truffle was totally unnecessary even though I was hoping that I would be proven wrong. The pepper sauce, the aioli, the salty fries all made sure that those minuscule shavings never got a chance to even mutter. Not great fries, Les Bouchons across the road makes better ones. It was edible. Just greasy, salty and unimpressive.

It had occured to me at this point that I don't even like the fries at Luke's.

We got ourselves the pie In Honour of "Pepe". If you didn't know, Frank Pepe founded his pizzeria Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in 1925 and made famous his white clam pies with coal oven crusts which are still around today. I'm assuming it's that Pepe.

With the cheese, bacon and (maddening whispers saying) clam juice, there was quite a bit of salt. Fine for those days where one would grab a little pizza to go with beers. But not so much for nights when you’re just looking for a pizza dinner. I’m not getting much of flavour nor texture from the clams. Just mostly cheese and bacon and some garlic. Sorry Pepe. This tribute didn’t quite do you justice.

There was a saving grace. The crust was nice. The middle got soggy and was barely holding up the toppings. But the cornicione was crispy and delicious. Like what they used to say for Gardenia bread. The only similar type of crust I recall with that texture are those from Pizzeria Mozza. Must be the aged dough thing huh?

There was a killer carrot cake. It's not bad. It's a killer because after all the food, this was a large slice. And it was just half a slice. The other half had to be doggie bagged. There was a nice thick layer of cream cheese on top and an even thicker layer in the middle of the cake. That's probably the other reason why it's a killer. But as I said, not bad. Not too sweet. Cake was nice. Wished there was more cake to cheese ratio though.

Look at all those walnuts studded across the back of the cake. For some odd reasons, I got reminded of the faces of the souls trapped in the shell of Jinmen.

There was soft serve. This was a swirl of vanilla and spiced pumpkin. We liked this. It's pretty good. It's also not too sweet which was great. Those crumbs are apparently candied walnuts.

To say that we were a little disappointed would be an honest understatement. I'd give it another chance but that's gonna be a while before it happens.

Re-revisiting Brasserie Gavroche

I was thinking that the one thing in this era I can't stand about restaurants are the ones that do not bother with communicating their menu. By that, I mean that they do not update or do not manage the update of what's currently cooking. While I hold no such grievance against Brasserie Gavroche (yet!), they messed up their menu update which resulted in us being here today. An update they made that was suppose to come in next month. According to them that is.

Since we were here, we decided to just eat here. We liked their food anyway. One of their current specials was a saucisson with black truffle and a thin Parmigiano Reggiano crust. So thin you would barely notice that it was there. But there was a mild trailing aftertaste of the cheese amid the saltiness. Not bad. We stuffed ourselves with an extra basket of bread because of this.

The last time I had their fish quenelle was more than 5 years ago. I think it tasted the same. The quenelles were light and creamy. It was the cream in the bisque that was rich. Today's crawfish was especially crawfish-y. Another basket of bread we had to soak and wipe the plate clean for this.

Pan seared scallops with Jerusalem artichoke puree and black truffle. Nice. Don't know why the black truffle was there though since they didn't contribute any flavour. Pretty sure monsieur Frédéric Colin is beyond costly aesthetics that doesn't contribute to his dishes.

Their crepe Suzette was one dish we didn't expect burnt ends though. A little corner burned a little to fiercely than expected, raging its last bit of anger before I was forced to snuff it out with my breath. It's that or more of my crepe would have been burnt so I made the obvious choice. Haha. The Grand Marnier is strong in this one.

A bowl of bakkwa you mian from Yo Banmian

Yo Banmian (coffeeshop @ Blk 654 Yishun Ave. 4) looked no different from the numerous ban mian stalls that dot our sunny island. I'm normally not a fan except for that stall down at Toa Payoh Central which I know is good. The commonly seen soup rendition is way too hot for our weather. At least for me it is. So I got intrigued by their dry ban mian bowl with bak kwa. Yes, you heard that right. Bak kwa. It's chopped/cut into little bits like minced pork so one eats them like minced pork noodles. There's some dark soy sauce, some lard and the minced bak kwa with some vegetables and a poached egg.

And because of those ingredients the noodles were a little sweet. Interesting.