Revisiting The Market Grill and the post lunch teh halia

This was the eve of New Year's Eve lunch at The Market Grill. I came here thinking burgers but clearly, we got distracted.

There's the black Suntory on tap here. It's rekindling my fondness of the place already.

We had lobster salad. Not the mess that many people pass off as lobster salad. This one was cleaner, pronounced and didn't make any attempts to hide the fact that there's really lobster in the salad. Think some of the liquorice flavour from the fennel got onto those tails or I'm tasting lemongrass. I'm confused. But I'm liking the goat's cheese and burnt grapefruit.

Their onion matchsticks was something I typically wouldn't have given a second look or thought on the menu. We actually ordered it today. This stuff had a great flavour on its crispy batter that made it addictive. 

Venison had me there with that spiced black current jus. Meat was tender with a nice sear on the exterior. Too bad it's only available for the Christmas period.

We don't typically order much chicken at places like this but Market Grill's sakura chicken deserved a mention that it was delicious to say the least. The meat was tender, moist, nicely brined and aromatized by the browning on the skin. So tender was that meat that I managed to debone the thigh with fork and knife.

We moved next door for some teh halia after lunch. Only in this part of the world can this be possible and I give thanks for these little blessings. So now I know their ginger isn't spicy but it's good enough that I wouldn't mind it again.

665°F, Andaz Singapore

This space (38/F Andaz Singapore, 5 Fraser Street, tel : +65 6408 1255) was intimate, a little classy and in almost dire need of upgrade for their ventilation. We left the restaurant smelling of the smoke and sizzled fat from their grill - being seated at almost the furthest spot from the grill. 

They serve garlic bread. Freshly made. Which was nice. Not sure what their recipe was but a bit more butter and garlic would have made it awesome-er. But I'm not complaining here.

We ordered their yellowfin tuna tartare after seeing pictures of it online. The amount of Kaluga Queen caviar from those pictures were easily 5 times or more of that tiny little mound we were given. So for $48, it was expensive and represented little value. The only way one would be able to taste those eggs was to eat them before the rest of the tartare. 

Crab cakes were not bad. We've had better though.

It came with some pepper dip, mostly capsicum flavoured - which we thought was totally unnecessary for those crab cakes. The only thing it did was to rob the crab of any flavours left on the meat after what I thought was grain mustard already mixed into those patties.

Double cut lamb chops were also okay. Some parts of the exterior were burnt and bitter. Medium rare was actually more medium. I'm thinking that whomever did these weren't very experienced with getting the outcome they were trying to achieve. These chops were generating an "it's alright" kind of vibe rather than a "wow, I'm coming back for this" feel on me. 

Their grain fed USDA Prime sirloin from Omaha was pretty good though. The grill and char was respectable and the meat sufficiently beefy with what I thought was a nice shade for the doneness. Didn't need the mustards or pepper sauces they had provided.

Mac & cheese was bland so we used the black pepper sauce from the steak for it. I'm not sure what these guys where thinking but something a little more sharp and aged with a little more salt was needed here.

A chicken sharwarma rice from Arabica Kebab

That's a shop located in the food court at Jurong East MRT (10 Jurong East Street 12). It looked a little forlorn at lunch time but I decided to give it a go anyway. Only chicken, no lamb. Got the sharwarma with spiced rice which was kinda like briyani. The salad was pretty much a token pinch of the tongs. It wasn't too shabby nor was it expensive. Their briyani-like rice dried out a little in the heater but it was still pretty edible. It's another one of those things I wouldn't mind if I'm in the vicinity.

Tendon Kohaku (天丼琥珀), Suntec City

Finally down to Tendon Kohaku (#03-310/311 Suntec City, 3 Temasek Boulevard, tel : +65 6333 4386). The queue that I've been hearing about was still there but we managed to get there early so the wait was much less painful. Just 15 minutes. And another 20 or so after we got seated.

Here's their Ocean Gems tendon which featured snow/king crab, oyster, scallop, squid and shrimps in a aonori batter with a small shower of ikura. And a rather large crabstick. I'm quite sure the large chikuwa-like tempura was crabstick and not crab. 

This particular tendon is apparently on limited serving per day. It passed muster for a lack of a better description. The batter was sufficiently crisp and not too heavy with little residual grease. I liked that fried oyster in there even though I thought it was a little small. The seafood tasted pretty good except for the boring piece of squid.

Dynasty Ipoh Seafood, Bishan

Heard about the fried porridge for quite a while so curiosity finally got the better of me. It's a signature dish - amongst a few others, from Dynasty Ipoh Seafood (151 Bishan Street 11, #01-195, tel : +65 9122 3993). The chef had previously been cooking at a talked about place called Royal J's at Foch Road.

How was that? Pretty good. The flavour from the dried shrimp/cuttlefish and possibly lard made it taste like glutinous rice dumplings. With a viscous porridge texture that's kinda like the dry porridge from Raan Jay Fai.  

The fu rong egg was okay. Neither the better nor worst I've encountered.

This was green dragon vegetable (青龙菜), also known as royal chives. Stir fried. Not sure if I've ever had them before. They tasted like bean sprouts with the texture of chives. Rather fibrous chives if might say so. Very little salt in this so it was a little bland.

We ordered their baby lamb chops because we were curious and lamb is kinda rare in our local Chinese cze char stalls. Almost as rare as a unicorn sighting. It came with what was described as Mongolian sauce. A sauce that was thick and nutty which reminded me of satay gravy. It was also peppery. The flavours were sweet and spicy and it wasn't that much different from a sweet black pepper sauce. The lamb was a little chewy and filled with bones.

We had pickled mustard soup. Flavour from the kiam chye was lighter than what I had been expecting but there was quite a bit of ingredients that made it relatively tasty. Ingredients like dried sour plum, sliced fish cake, sliced pork and tofu.

Their prawn paste mid wings were well fried but quite lacking in flavours from the prawn paste.

What I personally found outstanding was their Thai styled steamed sea bass with lemon and bee hoon. I liked that the lemon-y flavours were well absorbed into the bee hoon. The fish was tender and delicious while that lemon sauce/broth was also deliciously spicy. I don't know what those mint leaves were doing there though.

Wow Wow West, ABC Brickworks Market & Food Centre

A few friends and co-workers have been telling me for years about this local western food stall (#01-133, 6 Jalan Bukit Merah Lane 1). The commonality of those mentions was that they were supposed to be good. For reasons, I never had a the opportunity to check them out until today. Here's a chicken chop. 

Barely passed muster if you asked me. There was some browning on the meat but the skin was soft without crisp nor aroma. Sauce was pedestrian. Sausage was nice but they bought it from somewhere and simply pan fried it. Are these guys defining the standards for good these days? I'm don't know what's the big deal here.