Greenwood Fish Market, Valley Point

Greenwood Fish Market has just opened up at Valley Point (#01-21/22/23 491 River Valley Road, tel : +65 6732 3788); which is a much more centralized location than their other two shops - the original being Greenwood Ave. and another at Quayside Isle in Sentosa. I just realized that it's been quite a long while since I've had anything from them.

We happened to stumble in on their oyster day which is every Tuesday. Those oysters are no longer a dollar each. It's almost double that these days. Still a pretty good deal considering how much oysters cost here. We had half a dozen and realized that these went down far too quickly and ordered another half dozen. 

They have a lobster bisque on menu. Deliciously salted and competently flavoured if you asked me.

Greenwood does their own version of aglio olio which also comes with some fried shallot, spinach and anchovies. Those melted anchovies added a punch to the flavours. Not to mention a bunch of saltiness as well.

I wanted to get monkfish but they weren't available so I thought why not the curious sounding fried smoked chicken. Applewood smoked and then deep fried sans batter. I liked that all the smokiness managed to get into the meat but the meat was a little dry and the chicken was a little too salty. Not feeling it for their fries which were really pale.

We had to get a fish since we were here so it was a pan fried barramundi which was their recommended style of preparation for the fish. While the fish was delicious and of good quality, this one had the soggiest skin. Running a fork through that skin doesn't make that scraping sound. It was silent and merely ruffled up the fish skin.

Tai broth ramen from Tampopo

Tampopo has a tai (red snapper) broth ramen this month by a certain award winning Kawase Yuya. It was actually kinda nice. That broth had a certain light fishy sweetness which one doesn't find in their other bowls. There was a bit of yuzu peel in there for flavour as well. What's also cool was that those menma didn't have the least bit of pungent taste at all.

For some reasons, I was expecting slices of the fish in the bowl but that turned out to be just charshu.

Din Shan Vegetarian (鼎膳素), Tiong Bahru Market FC

I'm not sure if I've ever had vegetarian noodle from this stall (#02-14 Tiong Bahru Market, 30 Seng Poh Road) previously. There was a constant queue and business looked brisk so I thought it was worth a try. It wasn't bad at all. The proprietress even successfully upsold me with an add on of their "drumstick" - the ones made of rolled tau kee (dried beancurd sheet) which I liked. Their "char siew" was sweet and smoky too rather than being salted pieces of rubber. If my memory serves, the food was also less oily than Seng Kee Vegetarian down at Beo Crescent.

Xin Heng Kee Chicken & Duck Rice, Pek Kio Market Food Centre

I came across this stall (#01-14 Pek Kio Market & Food Centre, 41 Cambridge Road) by chance on the rare occasion I found myself in this area. It seemed that not so much of the stalls are open in the afternoon. Anyways this was an easy pick since nothing much looked interesting and chicken rice is generally a pretty safe option. The quick verdict? It's not right there at the top in my rankings but it definitely passed muster for something reliable and frills free that fills the stomach - sitting comfortably in the category of the everyday food for the average person. Enjoyed their chilli.

Astons Steak & Salad, Centrepoint

I found myself enjoying the food here and a part of that was because of the nostalgia of the old days of Ponderosa and later on Sizzler - the restaurants with the bottomless salad bar and beverage experience. Astons Steak & Salad (#03-28/28A The CentrePoint, 176 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6235 0556) had recaptured those old moments and replicated them at a cost which I thought was very reasonable for today's standards.

The other part that made this memorable was the availability of lamb short rib. For a limited time only since it wasn't part of the regular menu. The meat on those ribs were reasonably fatty, moderately spiced from the dry rub and importantly, had a good combination of flavours (including the natural ones from the lamb) that made them enjoyable. I'm actually thinking about coming back already.

Zai Shun Curry Fish Head (載順咖喱魚頭), Jurong East

Zai Shun (#01-205, 253 Jurong East Street 24, tel : +65 6560 8594) has been on the radar for a while now but I've never really figured out exactly where it was located until very recently. We came by for a brunch.

Which include side orders like stewed hairy gourd.

Some sweet leeks stir fried with tau kwa.

And some pretty delicious hae bi hiam that you could enhance with a squeeze of lime. This stuff kicked ass with rice.

You can trust me on that.

Their steamed golden pomfret was delicious. We had thought that the fish might have been cold and mushy but instead was served slightly warm and had the firm yet tender texture of a fish that was fresh. Paired with some savoury kiam chye.

We were recommended some thick sliced giant grouper steamed Hong Kong styled.

Along with steamed shovel nose ray cartilage with tau cheo - or also known as spicy fermented bean paste. Those gelatinous bits on the cartilage were nice and slurpy.

The food wasn't cheap but the quality of the fishes were superb. I could understand why the stall was so well liked. Would definitely come back again.