Moc Quan, UE Square

We've seen Moc Quan (#01-23 UE Square, 81 Clemenceau Avenue, tel : +65 6736 0123) around almost every single time we're in the vicinity for quite a bit. While I've been curious, we never got around to visiting until today. If I had to describe it in a few words, it's luxed up Vietnamese street food. There you go.

Sipped on what the menu called ya ua. Tasted like the sữa hột gà. Contained yoghurt, lime and condensed milk. Sounded fun but the drink was quite diluted. I was hoping that it would be richer.

The goi cuon was for comparison and we generally liked them anyway. These were thicker and larger than previous summer rolls we've had. 

That's their goi du du with beef jerky. I didn't really like this much because of the dressing they had used. I don't know what those flavours were and there was even some Sriracha drizzled over the top. Very much preferred the cleaner tasting rendition that Mrs Pho had.

Being luxed up also meant that they had a com tam with grilled Kurobuta pork. The meat had a good char and the sweet sauce on them was delicious.

In our opinion, their pho gau was pretty good. The beefy broth was mostly savoury with a light hint of sweetness. Briskets were fatty and tender.

Pastaria Abate, Craig Road

Perbacco has closed. #sad. It seems that in return, Craig Road has been left with a recently opened Pastaria Abate (43 Craig Road, tel : +65 6909 0672); a frills free family run Italian restaurant where prices are kept low and much pasta is fresh and made in house. There is no table service; one helps themselves to the necessary cutlery and condiments and food is likewise self collected when the buzzer goes off.

According to the owners, wine drunk at Italian homes is normally in drinking glasses and not wine glasses. So wine is served in drinking glasses here. Part of their home/casual dining theme that's the style they're going for. I thought this was a smart way to keep cost and labour down as well.

We had a half portioned cold cut board. Salami, coppa and prosciutto that came with some obligatory salad and dry crispy bread. I could have sworn tasting nutmeg in their salami.

There's fried mozzarella on the menu. They're served with a strawberry sauce. Ask for more sauce.

One of the pasta specials was tagliatelle with porcini and white truffle. It's less than $19 so no, none of that shaven stuff here. What form did that white truffle come in you might wonder? The answer is in the first picture in the post. But importantly, this pasta was pretty good. I'm encouraged to come back and try the others.

There was something called Martini grilled pork on menu as well. I loved this. That Martini sauce they used made this remind me of ba kwa, char siew or even a Barolo wine reduction. Yes, it would be one of those caramel-y sweet flavour profile which works with meat. I'd eat this again.

More lunch at The Naked Finn

Lunch at The Naked Finn. The menu has changed, probably constantly evolving from the last time I was here.

They have a baked otah made with the gonads (a.k.a. coral) and mantle (a.k.a. wings) of Yesso scallops. I thought I detected a light lemongrass fragrance. That and a nice warmth from the heat from the spices. It's not too bad, but don't be expecting any scallop-y flavours because there was none of that. It was however texturised by the chopped bits of mantle though. Otherwise, it tasted pretty much like a regular otah. An expensive one at that.

Tried their Mozambique lobster risotto. I had the misconception that there would be some crustacean flavours in the rice but there wasn't any. It tasted ordinary for the laziness of thinking of a better word. The sweet fleshed lobster was really good though.

Mak Hong Kee (HK) Kitchen, Keong Saik Road

This was a relatively new Cantonese stir fry restaurant that's popped up along Keong Saik (2/4 Keong Saik Road, tel : +65 6909 0414) recently by my guesstimate. Just a minute's or so walk from the still popular Man Man. I guess that tells which end of the road the restaurant is located at. The vibe reminded me a little of Sum's Kitchen. But the roast duck here is better.

So here's said roasted duck. Coupling a ducky flavour from a little bit of fat and reasonable moisture in the meat, this roast was pretty tender. Tasty both with and without the sour plum dip. But at $14 for a drumstick and some breast meat, it was also a little expensive. 

We tried a minced beef and crab meat soup. The soup was bland. So bland that the sweetness from the chunks of crab was predominant. Imagine that. This definitely needed a splash of vinegar, soy sauce and a good measure of pepper.

There was stir fried scallops with crispy fragrant bits of conpoy and toasted pine nuts. And broccoli obviously. Scallops which had their bit of natural sweetness which I thought were pretty well done.

This was described as black bean sauce bee hoon with spare ribs. Didn't see that fried cake of bee hoon coming at all. It's meant to be eaten after dipping/being soaked into the black bean gravy. Couldn't say I was impressed. I like my black bean sauce black and strong. This was relatively mild and personally, I thought it would have been tastier without the sweetness from the capsicum.

Dessert was good though. That's Chinese almond cream with egg white. Judging from the aroma and flavour, this was very decent quality stuff.

Revisiting Masa Steak & Hamburg

Here's us back at Masa and it's been quite a long while since the last time. Yes it's hamburg and other things again; none of their premium cuts since they are really pretty expensive.

That's their Masa salad which was not bad. For a salad. The ingredients were of nice quality and had a variety to boot. I liked that there was enough of the other things like olives, prosciutto, eggs, potatoes, mozzarella cheese and all to make it feel like we weren't just eating vegetables. Couldn't taste much of the honey dressing that they mentioned though. There was some light dressing going on, just not getting any of the honey.

We were curious enough about their saikyo miso marinated foie gras to order them. That's a sweet miso which carried over to the foie. Torched for that little bit of caramelized fragrance. Very nice and portions were very small.

Today's hamburg seemed tastier than the last time we had it. I'm not sure if I had imagined it but the grind seemed less fine than what it was previously and that was a good thing. There was a also more of the beef flavours going on in that patty. And they've brie cheese for topping these days.

Their baked curry beef rice was another pleasant surprise. It wasn't slathered with unnecessary cream for fillers. Just some cheese, curry and beef with the rice. Possibly one of the tastiest I've had. Not that I've had that many of these.

To top up with more greens (hah!), some creamed spinach came into play. Nicely done with cream and a healthy dose of garlic.

Durian King pizza from Pezzo

Pezzo's a local pizza joint that's been growing themselves quite successfully judging by the number of outlets that have proliferated in the past few years. The Durian King is the one on the left obviously - the other's their pepperoni which is surprising dependable. That is if one does not mind the local variety with a bready crust.

That durian pizza - I think it had mixed reception and I'm guessing that it's largely positive. I missed their first round before they stopped selling and they're apparently back "by popular demand". Made with a mixture of D24 and mao shan wang durian. No prizes for guess which variety is used in greater quantity for the paste. It's not bad. Read of what what you will. Those durian paste were pretty legit. The problem I have with it is how Pezzo sells pizza which doesn't quite work well for this. It has to be piping hot which this wasn't since their turnover isn't that fast. This was where Tino's actually did better for made to order pies.