More Zion Riverside Food Centre-ing

More dinnering at Zion Riverside. I grabbed a half spring chicken with rice from Seng Huat Western Food. Chicken was kinda dried out from the deep fry but otherwise I hadn't any complains. I also much preferred their beef burger with rice.

We got ourselves a bit of satay supplement as well from Chong Pang 1 Chicken Wing & Satay. Yes, these guys do barbequed chicken wings and satay. I've heard people mention that the satay aren't the best in town. Seriously, what the fuck does "best in town" even mean? These aren't bad at all in my opinion and I certainly won't let the "best" get in my way of enjoying them.

I guess it's finally settled that this stall is known as Fresh Taste Big Prawn noodles. They're also a new inclusion to this year's Bib Gourmand. The soup's still good but I think I've outgrown their big prawns so I'll order the cheaper bowls in the future. 

Getting Lucky

It seems that New Lucky Claypot Rice have gotten themselves into the Bib Gourmand List of our 2018 Michelin Guide. I've always imagined that getting listed is a luck of the draw. To be sifted out systematically requires two important and very improbable variables. Categorization and coverage. Does categorization even exist for a sub genre like this? I'm pretty sure it doesn't. And we're all pretty damn sure that the inspectors haven't tried even an eighth of all claypot rice around to determine that this makes Bib Gourmand and the others don't. No?  Tell me that's not just Lady Luck smiling.

Since this entry has been written, I might as well inject a little more verbosity. About how one could eat claypot rice. We normally remove the ingredients onto a separate plate as a first step before drizzling the dark soy sauce and oil into the rice. I've personally known someone who hadn't done that before the mixing and accidentally had a piece of hot chicken fly into their face. True story. So I guess this particular method has been vindicated. Haha!

By the way, I've just noticed that there's actually waxed pork belly that they've added as part of the ingredients. Never realized that those were available.

So the next involves getting the dark soy sauce and oil into the rice and mixing them up. I feel it's optional to have the rest of the toppings back again into the rice for a second round of tossing since it helps coat them with the dark soy sauce and also to distribute the bits of salted fish around. Still not a fan of "soccarat".

O Mamma Mia, Clementi Mall

I've been holding back from visiting this pizza shop (#01-11 The Clementi Mall, 3155 Commonwealth Avenue West) which originated from Spain for a while. But since I needed to be in the vicinity, I thought I could give them a go.

To begin, the toppings of their pizza were pretty thin. I would have enjoyed them more if they had been more generous with the ingredients but I suppose all the money had to go to better things like the rental for the location with such footfall. Pity cos I kinda liked the one with mushroom, egg and ham. The pizza also had a crust that didn't taste anything like the pizza al taglio it might have resembled. Not even close to the defunct Pizza da Donato. I didn't dislike them but I'm not keen on coming back.

I was initially surprised by how their ravioli was swimming in oil from the pesto. In the end, it didn't taste too bad. Just fish them out from all the oil.

Roasted pork and char siew from Soon Heng

Just a quick update with this roasted pork and char siew combo plate from Soon Heng. I asked for fattier char siew today which the stall mentioned is available only on request since they actually had people complaining about the fat. This was better than the first round. If you asked me, I like the char siew more than the roasted pork which seemed to have some really hard bits in the crackling.

A lamb chops with rice lunch from Renga-ya

Renga-ya has some pretty decent looking lunch sets. The one in particular that caught our eye was the set with lamb chops - something which we have had previously and thought they did a pretty good job of. No reason for us to think this wouldn't be as good since it costed the same.

A salad came with the lunch. Crisp leaves with some perky goma dressing and some hijiki.

The lamb chops were as good. Tender, medium doneness and nothing on but pepper and salt. Awesome with rice. I neglected to mention previously that the accompanying black pepper sauce was delicious as well. Sweet, spicy and savoury in a creamy consistency. Reminded me of the one from Wooloomooloo Steakhouse. What was subpar were those accompanying asparaguses that were too fibrous.

Yes, it's that strawberry snow again. Because it was nice.

Blue Ginger, Tanjong Pagar Road

I've been wanting to try Blue Ginger (97 Tanjong Pagar Road, tel : +65 6222 3928) for a long time. The restaurant has been around for at least a couple of decades but I never really knew how long they've been in business until they were listed under the Bib Gourmand last year.

Each table was served with some achar and sambal belachan. The dangerous pairing of pickles and chilli were just the tip of the iceberg to what makes some eat copious amounts of rice in such restaurants. But if I had to put in another two cents, the achar would have benefitted greatly with more generous amounts of crushed peanuts. I suppose the matriarch either didn't know or didn't care.

We had a serving of their signature ayam panggang which was topped with a lemak curry gravy. It's not bad. I was hoping for a "wow this would make me come back" but it wasn't quite that. The grilled chicken didn't quite have that edge that many freshly grilled chickens do. While I enjoyed that coconut laden gravy, it was just half of what made the dish.

Their sotong keluak was interesting. There was something that tasted like fermented bean in the gravy for the squid besides the buah keluak. The menu mentioned tamarind juice but we couldn't taste any of that. Still those squids were impressively tender and together with its gravy, made very good pairing with servings of their white rice.

We sidestepped the usual chap chye and went for a kangkong lemak that was cooked with sweet potatoes in coconut milk, dried shrimp and whatever spices it was that flavoured the dish. Not bad at all. It was fragrant from both the coconut milk and hae bi. It wasn't not too rich yet still enjoyable. I had secretly hoped that it would be more lemak.