Re-visiting Mustard

I discovered Mustard and first ate in the restaurant back in 07. It was another of those places that I've been meaning to go back to and it's never happened. Until now. About 11 years later. I'm glad they're still around.

Started with a Kalibadi chop which was described as a potato chop that was stuffed with green peas. This was delicious. Came with a dip that they mentioned was made with mustard. I thought that dip tasted like tamarind chutney.

I wanted to have another go at their Kolkata Special Mutton Biryani. It was quite obvious that the recipe has changed from the last time I had it. The briyani was lot more savoury (colourful as well) and appropriately salted. We were getting a lot of fragrance from what appeared to be fried shallots and the delicious raita that they served with it were nicely spiked with cumin. It was good. But the irony was that it now tasted like a regular briyani which I'm not likely to miss in the future.

Gandhi Restaurant, Chander Road

I'm surprised that I had never noticed Gandhi Restaurant (31 Chander Road, tel : +65 6299 5343) until recently when we were heading towards Jaggi's. Anyways, the place was a unpretentious and frills free South Indian meal eatery. 

We got ourselves a set meal which included a couple of vegetables on the side with pickles, papadam and a choice of curry that would be ladled over the rice. It was between chicken and fish today. We had the chicken which was pretty good. 

One could also order add ons either by indicating from the troughs of food or from a menu which was stuck on the door. Rice and curry were bottomless but I never verified if that were true because I only had room for one refill. :p

The question was never if we added on but what we added. That's curried mutton tripe and fish cutlet - the latter a fried ball of minced fish and potato. That chewy tripe was a little more offal-y in flavour rather than mutton-y. More of the mutton flavour were in the curry than the tripe. Fish cutlets were pretty good. 

Of offals and turtle shells at Toa Payoh

I was looking forward to giving the noodles at Master Shifu (#02-30 HDB Hub, 500 Toa Payoh Lorong 6) a go because I liked what they did with the lamb broth at their parent restaurant Chuan Yang Ji Mutton Steamboat. So I got myself a bowl of lamb offal sliced noodles (刀削面) only to be disappointed by how bland the broth was. To be more precise - it was floury, a little herbal and had just a tiny bit of the mutton flavour. Couldn't even save itself after I had dumped in the salted vegetables and roasted chilli. Even Curry Times made a better lamb broth.

It's too bad because they did a bloody good job out of the sliced lamb meat (they didn't give me offal) which was in the bowl. Tender, appropriately salted and readily falling apart in the mouth with fats.

So we moved on because I never finished the bowl of lamb noodles. Was brought to this Lau Pa Sat Pig's Organ Soup Bak Kut Teh Kway Chap at Super 28 Coffee Shop (184 Toa Payoh Central). Yeah, that stall name was a mouthful. I don't know if these folks were originally from Lau Pa Sat though.

This single serving portion featured added on braised intestines. The braised stuff were flavoursome. Loved that braised-in taste of their hard boiled egg. Also liked that their kuey had a rice-y flavour which is often missing from others.

Moving on to desserts. I've had guilin gao since I was a kid. Was told that it was made with turtle shells. From what I've heard, not everyone makes these bitter jellies with them. I don't know if the guilin gao here (Koong Woh Tong, 190 Toa Payoh Lorong 6) contained powdered turtle shell but the herbal flavour for theirs wasn't too intense. Ducking into this shop for a bowl was definitely a reprieve from the warm humidity.

A chilli crab 'O from Old Chang Kee

Here's a chilli crab 'O from Old Chang Kee. I'm not exactly one of the bigger fans of chilli crab out there so I'm definitely not an expert on their flavours. I don't recall the last time I've had those things. But I do remember how they tasted like so I guess I could venture an opinion that these puffs do taste like chilli crab. I guess it's just the gravy and a little of the minced crab meat mixed into the potatoes. Good enough as a curiosity I suppose.

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".