Crystal Jade Kitchen, Holland Village

We haven't been to this Crystal Jade Kitchen for many years. In fact, we haven't been to any Crystal Jade anythings for a long time - not since Imperial Treasure happened in our lives. This outlet (2 Lorong Mambong, tel : +65  6469 0300) had just been overhauled and happened to be pretty convenient for a family weekend lunch/dim sum thingy.

I was pretty surprised by their olive fried rice. Not the most memorable I've had but still pretty tasty.  There was sufficient flavour coming from the preserved olive/leaves while the beady texture of the rice marked a skilled hand behind the wok. Something I wouldn't mind having again.

These guys have a rendition of zha leong (炸兩) made with charcoal dough fritters that's drizzled with sweet sauce. Those fritters were very crispy. No chew. All crisp.

There's a osmanthus soya sauce chicken which was outstanding. The chicken was smooth, slurp off the bone tender and there was definitely a hint of that osmanthus honey sweetness with the soya sauce marinade. I'd come back here just for this alone. 

Har gows were okay. 

Char siew baos were okay. There are no in between the lines to be read here. Okay simply meant that.

Truffle siew mais were also okay.

These rolls with prawn and mozzarella cheese were also passable. What ruined them for me were the bits of coriander in them. Why?!

We had an order of prawn paste mid wings. Like the zha leong, the exterior of these were pretty crispy. Made good snacking though.

That's deep fried fish skin with salted egg paste. Most places never screw this up.

Chicken rice at YY Kafei Dian

I haven't had the chicken rice at YY Kafei Dian (#01-01, 37 Beach Road) for years so I was looking forward to getting reacquainted with them. Being the institution that it is along with the crowd it tended to draw, these guys have got to be pretty good right?

Whatever I thought I remembered of their chicken rice might have been a little rose tinted. The rice wasn't particularly memorable and I had been expecting better flavour. Their chilli was also strangely lacking punch. The positive spin to this was that the sauce that they had ladled generously over the chicken and the dark soy sauce condiment got put to use because that rice needed it.

Chicken was pretty respectable thought. Meat was smooth and tender. But if I'm in the area looking for chicken rice the next time, I'll think I would rather head to Sin Swee Kee instead. 

Dry chicken noodle from Tongue Tip Lanzhou Beef Noodles (舌尖尖兰州牛肉面)

So it seems that chicken has been introduced into their menu. I liked the chicken. It looked like it was nicely browned in a pan, was pretty tender and they had that char grill flavour that made them delicious. I guess that nets the other people who don't eat beef.

The clear broth bowl from Keisuke's Tori King

I've been curious about this clear broth bowl from Keisuke's Tori King since they introduced it and never got about to try until now. 

I had been imagining a more resonant clarity from that broth. Something that had a cleaner chicken flavour rather than this which was pretty undistinguished. Imagination often brings disappointment. The "hard" option for noodles wasn't very hard and I'm no longer infatuated with the chopstick tender chicken thigh. 

Looking back through the various shops that Takeda-san has setup, I've pretty much nailed my favourites even though I haven't tried the Lobster King. I'm pretty sure it's not going to blow me away. Their crab bowl wasn't bad though but Tonkotsu King and Kamo Soba gets my vote.

Kampong Chicken Eating House, Outram Road

Another chicken rice shop (247 Outram Road, tel : +65 6221 2522) we've been passing by on numerous occasions telling ourselves we'd try them. That obviously had happened and we're kind glad we did because this was not bad.

We had a side of stir fried sweet potato leaves with....well, that's either their sambal or hae bi hiam. Either ways, there's spicy dried shrimps in there which totally made the dish. I would come back for this. This by the way was served from the kitchen in surprising quick order. Less than 5 minutes after we had ordered. Hmmm......

To get a better sensing of their range, we had an order of boiled chicken livers on the side. Creamy chicken livers they served, doused in sesame oil and light soy sauce. Not bad at all.

Those yellow skin are a characteristic of kampong chicken if you didn't already know. Meat's pretty tender and it doesn't taste very different from regular chicken if anyone was wondering. It's just a leaner and smaller bird with more intense looking skin.

On the side, those braised eggs had quite a bit of flavour having absorbed all the braising liquid. The rice that they had was nicely flavoured, clean tasting and not overly greasy. 

Didn't have any particularly strong feelings about the chilli. It's zesty and had a bit more ginger than I normally prefer. But that's definitely not a deal breaker for me.

More from Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine

It's normally difficult to pass on the dim sum on the weekends at this place so we got a little something on the side plus dim sum so that we could have both. Their braised cuts of offal/meat were tasty as usual. Today was pig's tongue, some duck and duck liver. All nice. Thinly sliced for tenderness and to pick up the spiced braising sauce.

We tried a kuey teow dish which presumably is what's also commonly referred to as chai por kuey teow from restaurants that do Teochew food. This was more refined, had a lighter hand with the salt and altogether pretty enjoyable even though I could barely detect any of the preserved radish bits in there. Pretty sure the bits of deep fried pork lard helped.