Fried chicken wing rice from Tony Cafe at The Adelphi

Pretty good fried chicken wings from Tony Cafe (#02-23 The Adelphi, 1 Coleman Street, tel : +65 6336 7869). There was an exemplary crispy battered surface that was appropriately flavoured, coupled with tender meat that was quite slurp off the bone. 

The flavour from the chicken rice was as light as it wasn't greasy, but that also meant that the chicken rice styled chilli sauce on the side easily overwhelmed those light flavours. Then again I'm pretty sure the rice and the chilli weren't what people were coming for here for. It's them wings. Only Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Rang Mahal, Pan Pacific Singapore

I'm really glad this dinner happened because I've been wanting to come to Rang Mahal (Level 3 Pan Pacific Singapore, 7 Raffles Boulevard, tel : +65 6333 1788) for the longest time and the cost always deterred me.

The restaurant looked nothing like how I imagined it. I suppose it was actually more pleasant looking that the slightly old-ish look I had in mind. These guys have been around since 1971. That's a couple of years shy of half a century. Today it is run by Milind Sovani, previously from The Song of India. 

Everyone gets papads. They're spicy and pretty good with the spiced fruit chutney.

Amuse bouche was a deconstructed vada pav and some plum drink. It didn't look anything like a vada pav, deconstructed or not. It did taste like one though.

Their ajwaini tandoori black cod was good. Ajwain is a spice - carrom seeds. Not a nation lost in the mists of time. This cod was expensive but very nice. The meat was flaky, delicate yet also a balance of spices and lime with the flavour from the fish and smokiness from the tandoor.

More from their tandoor were the duo green and white asparaguses. These were enveloped in a tangy mustard cheese that paired up pretty well with the sweetness of the asparaguses. Again, great balance in flavour.

We had lamb chops. Smoked in applewood the menu mentioned. Nice. Lamb-y and smoky with the spice marinade that coated it. Tender that we worked through the ribs with just butter knife.

That's Roquefort kulcha. No prizes for guessing why this appeared in our orders. This brought a smile on my face. But I couldn't in fairness credit that smile to the skills of the restaurant. Because Roquefort.

We ordered this because it sounded like a curiosity based on the description on the menu which said 'Mumbai’s special minced masala lamb with soft eggs & buttered buns'. Keema with egg on a cast iron plate to make like shashuka I'd say! Most expensive keema - or shashuka with bread I've had. But this was really well done. Again, flavours and the balance.

Dessert was a rasamalai. We were a little worried that these would taste like wet cardboard but they didn't. It was nice and juicy.

And masala chai to finish. It was a $12 chai. I had initially thought it would be just a cup. It came in a pot which made 3 cups so $4 sounded especially reasonable in a place like this. The masala mix was very toned down which would normally not be my preference. I'm one for more strength from the spices and perhaps some heat from the ginger but this was still a pleasant tea.

Kyushu ramen and apple yoghurt salad from Tampopo

I've had my first taste of Kyushu styled ramen from Tampopo. It's always been a sort of reference for me for tonkotsu based bowls because I liked their creamy but thin broth and it was about the time I started learning more about ramen and their broth. These days we have plenty of other options for tonkotsu. I can't even differentiate if they're Kyushu, Hakata or Fukuoka styled these days. Or even if there's a difference.

There's an apple yoghurt salad in season now. Personally, yoghurt's much nicer than most other creamy salad dressing.

But back to this. I don't think much has changed for their Kyushu styled bowl. Charshu's thin sliced and flavoured with fat. As much as these guys aren't a ramen-ya, I like theirs. Still not getting much of the mentaiko until the end of the broth though.

Waffles & chicken from Clinton St. Baking Company

I've noticed quite a number of people ordering the waffle & chicken in the previous occasions at Clinton St. so curiosity got the better of me. I didn't think much of it. The chicken meat didn't taste brined like that last time I had their buttermilk fried chicken even though this was supposedly the same thing. Could hardly taste their honey Tabasco through all the maple honey. Here's a first and last for this.

East Treasure Chinese Restaurant (東寶之東方明珠), Clark Quay

I don't know how long this restaurant has been around but it looked relatively new. I was pretty surprised that East Treasure (Clarke Quay, Block B, #01-16, 3 River Valley Road, tel : +65 6252 4645) was managed by the folks behind Astons. Yeap, it's that Aston Group that has the Steak & Salad, Chic-a-boo and Javier's.

Hawthorn sweet and sour pork was not bad tasting. I liked that there was a mix of meat and fat in those pieces of pork. We also couldn't shake off the thought that we've had better done ones elsewhere. This one didn't hold the crisp well.

There's a herbal crocodile soup on menu. This was nice. It wasn't too heavy with the herbs and there was lots of pepper in the broth of savoury sweet. As well as slurpy tendon-y cartilage-y parts from the crocodile.

That's stir fried chive flowers. The dish was a little sweeter than I had imagined. Didn't like it.

Soy sauce chicken with Chinese rose wine was pretty good. This was expertly done with the flavours infused into the skin and the meat on the bird was tender.

Fried rice was not bad. The bits of pork in them didn't have any flavour though. For some reasons, eating this reminded me of Chinatown Special which I thought had better fried rice.

So the sambal helped. This sambal tasted like the ones that was used in the crystal dumpling stall from the old Tiong Bahru market.

There was a KL styled Hokkien mee. Pretty disappointing. Not much fragrance from the dark soy sauce and lard. Those tiny bits of lard that were in the noodles also didn't taste like they were deep fried.

More food from Victor's Kitchen

There are a few items that's worth the trip to Victor's Kitchen. First thing that comes to mind is their milk tea which is served iced in a bowl rather than ice in the tea. Like how they do it at Tai Hing.

Digressing from the topic of things worth coming for, we never realized that this place doesn't have char siew pau. We found that out today. They do have char siew bolo buns though so we ended up with these instead.

The fillings were not bad. Unfortunately, the buns weren't anything like those at Kam Wah though. Or even Tim Ho Wan. The crust here simply didn't taste very crusty at all.

We had a few other "regular" stuff like cheong fun with char siew.

Har gow. I still feel their skins were a little too thick.

Prawn and spinach dumplings which I thought weren't bad at all.

Back to those things worth coming for was their steamed radish cake with XO sauce. It's not going to be fair comparing this to the one at Wai Kee Congee so I won't. Hah!

Digressing from the things worth coming for again, Victor's has a bunch of modified items for this CNY. One of them were their abalone siew mai. The abalone on these were tinier than the ones we had at China Classic. They were chewy and without much flavour but the siew mai themselves tasted better than the last time.

Back again to the things worth coming for is their steamed chicken rice. This one was a CNY edition that featured lup cheong. The regular bowl doesn't. It's good because the rice and the chicken are both steamed together. The result was that both the rice and chicken were moist and tender with rendered fat and soy sauce flavouring the rice.