Chic-a-boo Fried Chicken, City Square Mall

Chic-a-boo Fried Chicken (#01-30/31 City Square Mall, 180 Kitchener Road, tel : +65 6634 2723) if you didn't already know is run by Astons. They do fried chicken plates and those chickens aren't too bad if you asked me. The birds tasted like they have been brined with all the flavour that's in the meat and they were quite garlic-ky. But that's probably the only thing that's worth a mention since the options for the sides were dismal along with their poor rendition of cornbread. Even Kenny Rogers Roasters have better cornbread.

While I liked the fried chicken here, the other items on the plate reminded me of how big a loss it was for One Night Only to have folded their business.

Lamb chops and lobster thermidor from The Ship

There are some things that I do kinda like from The Ship. Like their oysters Kirkpatrick and prime rib; along with some local dishes like chicken rice and their fish soup noodles. That's usually pretty much the range of things for me there. 

We got a lobster thermidor and lamb chop combo recently. The former is of course a local recipe that probably has more cream than cheese but it wasn't half bad. They even fulfilled the request for a medium doneness for the lamb spot on when their usual game is well done. The meat was tender but unfortunately much too rosemary-ed for my taste.

A couple of chahan from Osaka Ohsho

The last time I ate at Osaka Ohsho was ages ago. I remember there were claims of them being the kings of gyoza (yeah, right) and I had a very vague recollection of their fuwatoro tenshinhan. Fast forward to today, we were intrigued by their chahan because they had been impressed on us by virtue of the number of times we had walked past the shop and seen the menu on display. A psychological residue from repetitive exposure I tell you.

They were okay. Not Gyoza No Osho good nor Din Tai Fung. Definitely not a match with Machida Shoten and Nirai Kanai. We've a couple of local renditions from Ju Hao and Chinatown Special that I think are better as well. Maybe the flavour needs a little more intensity and more eggs would definitely have up the ante. The kuro version below simply included dark soy sauce. Probably not the expensive better quality type I might add. But it was quite edible.

Murugan Idli Shop has shifted

We hadn't been back to this area in a while and realized that things have changed. There's a bunch of restaurants we hadn't seen before. Raj is gone. For a moment, we had also thought that Murugan Idli Shop had folded until we realized that they've relocated down the road less a minute's walk away (76 Syed Alwi Road). At where Raj used to be.

We did get the obligatory idli. On top of that also a delicious ghee onion uttapam. Nice buttery greasiness with the fragrance of pan toasted onions and their tasty chutneys. So now we know what else is good here.

I've seen these mini meals around for ages and have wondered what went into them. Later on I understood that they were just a variety of the flavoured rice plus a little something on the side. This had some curried tomato thing, raita and achar. I've tried their lemon rice previously and this mini meal happened to have pretty much all the rest. The sambar rice (right below the papadum) was savoury and delicious while the tamarind rice was appetizing. I believe that sweet at the bottom right was some rice kesari bath/bhath.

Note to self : There's coriander in their curd rice.

The Rillette Bar above Le Bistrot du Sommelier

In the few years that we've been going to Le Bistrot du Sommelier, we've never ventured up to their Rillette Bar which has been around probably as long as the bistro has.

Chance has it that we wanted something warm from the Rillette Bar menu and it was suggested that we ate at the bar instead since the bistro usually only brought down their charcuterie. Turned out to be a good idea.

We were plied with items from their board and ended up with some Bayonne ham which was just the ideal passenger for their crusty bread.

Nom nom nom......

Fresh from their spring rotation was a pâté en croûte stuffed with goose, foie gras and confit orange. This was outstanding. Everything from the stuffings to the gelatin and even the crust were well flavoured. The latter must have been infused with much lard.

Nom nom nom nom......

The something warm which I had mentioned earlier was their croûte au fromage. A Swiss dish of cheese melted over bread which isn't very dissimilar from a croque madame. There was some smoky ham beneath the cheese and it was topped with a fried egg.

We were recommended to try the Alain Milliat chardonnay grape juice. So awesome a nectar it was that we unwisely spent 25 bucks for two bottles of it. Ouch but yeah, it's delicious like clear liquid raisin.

Perbacco, Ann Siang Road

For a moment sometime back, we had thought that Perbacco was gone for good. What we found out was that they've relocated from the former location to Ann Siang (#01-02 Ann Siang House, 28 Ann Siang Road, tel : +65 6224 1069). Current premise looks spiffier but there was a sort of cosiness that we missed from that previous spot. Menu's updated but I noticed that they've retained some of the old goodies.

We started with some burrata and prosciutto di Parma.

Followed up by some crispy air dried sea urchin shell. Just kidding.

Their tagliolini with truffle sea urchin emulsion was one of the old goodies that I've mentioned earlier. Savoury creamy richness scented by truffle and some sweet uni. We wished that the portions were bigger.

We were impressed by their bone in ribeye that came with an outstanding dark chocolate glaze. Pretty sure there's more than just dark chocolate in there like maybe veal jus, but can't figure out what. Loved those Brussels sprouts and potatoes.

Another awesome item which they had retained was their hazelnut panna cotta. It would seem that they have had the texture improved to become more wobbly.