Pumpkin latte from Japan Rail Cafe

This drink of the month from Japan Rail Cafe was obviously in line with the Halloween season and in spite of the name, isn't a coffee of any sort nor does it contain caffeine. Instead it's kabocha blended with steamed milk with a dusting of cinnamon. It was delicious. 

More mazesoba from Kajiken (歌志軒)

Kajiken has taken over the premise (#01-03 Orchid Hotel, 1 Tras Link) vacated by Fujiyama Dragon Curry. The menu has changed with some new bowls that suckered us in. I mean - mentaiko, butter and cheese? Who could resist? I don't blame myself.

The bowl on top was the grilled cheese and mentaiko bowl. Cheesy as it should be with just a hint of the spicy roe. More mentaiko and browning of the cheese would have been nice-r. The one below featured salmon flakes with very miserable portions of ikura and butter. The butter of course, brought it all together.

A 12 skewer kushiyaki lunch set from Nanbantei at Chinatown Point

The thing that I've always wondered about Nanbantei at Chinatown Point (#02-40, 133 New Bridge Road, tel : +65 6443 5659) was - who's doing all that grilling if the master is at Far East Plaza? We were curious enough to give this branch a go at their lunch. This was a 12 skewer option that was a part of a lunch set which came with oshinko, miso soup, rice and some adzuki bean dessert with mochi.

One could view this as the upgrade to their obento lunch.

The picture on the menu showed a platter of 12 skewers. In reality, the skewers were served in three batches. Which made sense since serving them altogether would only mean that some of them would turn cold by the time you ate them. The were competent enough but also lacked that something which food from the original shop had. The negima was tiny and I didn't like the stick of beef that was slathered with miso/ginger. Well, at least now we know.

Steamed roasted peanut dumplings from Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine

These roasted peanut dumplings (潮州家乡茶果) were part of the dim sum list at Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine. They were pretty good. The stuffings were crushed peanuts, sesame seeds and sugar with a skin that was tender and chewy like mochi. If you were thinking that the descriptions sounded familiar and that these could be just like the dumplings in tang yuan or a reversed muah chee, you would be right.

Fatburger, Novena Square

Fatburger (#01-08/09 Novena Square, 238 Thomson Road) from L.A. (I don't exactly think much of burger joints from there) has one of their newly set up shops over in the space that Burger King used to be in. I was curious because they were new here and also apprehensive because I've already been reading some things about them.

We weren't impressed. That's a triple up there if you were still trying to figure out from the blurry photo. Burger was hefty with patties that were kinda lean. Was a little beefy. What I didn't expect was that most of the rest of its flavour came from pepper. I also couldn't taste much of the vegetables that they put into the burger in spite of the fact that it looked so stacked - except for those pickles. There were additional two slices of cheese which we could barely taste too. On hindsight, their chicken burgers looked better.

This burger has got nothing on Black Tap or even Five Guys and Shake Shack. And since we're at this, In-N-Out and Wahlburgers were better too.

Tendon Kohaku's Autumn

I've never fully understood Tendon Kohaku. I've eaten at their shop at Suntec once at the end of last year when they were featuring their winter tendon. This was their autumn bowl at Chinatown Point (#02-34 Chinatown Point, 133 New Bridge Road, tel : +65 64434355) in the space previously occupied by Kin Cow. Looked not much like those pictures in social media.

At least the maple leaf didn't. I was given the impression from the maple leaf pictures from their tendon I had seen online that these guys might have had the kekkei genkai of Tenshin. I was sorely mistaken. Batter is on the whole a little too much which in turn held on to too much grease. The bowl represented pretty good value for the ingredients but I don't think it's worth coming back for the tempura.