Trio of pork from 38 Curry Rice

While '2 Become 1' have recently evolved into a duo of headlines that have represented the Spice Girls - in particular between two specific members, somewhere out in the far east - 2 have become 3. Curried pork, pork chop and braised pig skin.

More sushi-ing at Sushi Shiki Hanamaru

Here's us back to the fast food sushi place at Hokkaido Marche.

We didn't get uni the last time. In spite of their slightly mushed up appearances, these sea urchin gunkans were pretty good. 

Bintoro. Albacore tuna which was pretty similar tasting to the regular toro that we normally get.

Maitake slightly roasted with a pinch of salt. This was a good. A mouthful of maitake intensity with vinegared rice. Would get more of them if they were still available the next time. 

Engawa aburi-ed with a shoyu glaze. Nice and melty.

More taraba fundoshi.

Hamachi which was pretty fatty. Nice.

More shoyu marinated sujiko, more bursts of oceanic saltiness...

Nice melty chutoro as well. They might not look as pretty from the visual marbling but the flavour was there.

Nanban ebi. Sweet little shrimps.

Hotate aburi-ed with shoyu glaze. Delicious.

Tamago sand. Chilled. I thought this might have been better warm.

We got some kani miso gunkan. The kani miso did not fail us.

Minced toro with takuan.

And aburi salmon with mayo. Guilty pleasures.

Gyu & Tori, Paragon

I wouldn't wish this sandwich on my enemies. Wait, maybe I would......

This was bad. Waste of money. Should have picked up the signs from the bunch of shifty uninterested eyes that manned the counter.  

Wagyu fat melts around 25-30 degrees Celsius. That's why it "melts in your mouth" when it's in your mouth. I had to rip the meat from this premium Wagyu katsu with my teeth and fork because nothing melted in my mouth. We gave up after half the sandwich. Meat was tough and didn't have much flavour. Those mac & cheese on the side with nacho cheese sauce tasted better than the sandwich.

Minang House Traditional Nasi Padang, Lucky Plaza

Meanwhile, not too far away from Sari Ratu is Minang House (#02-04 Lucky Plaza, 304 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6887 4702) which serves nasi padang. I've heard of them for a while but haven't gotten a chance to visit until now.

If I had to describe, I'd say that their sambal hijau/merah were decent. We've been used to and still prefer the ones from Sari Ratu which had more dimensions and intensity. Especially for the red one which was much smokier than this particular rendition.

We got ourselves some nutty fried tempeh. These tasted better eaten with their sambal.

Couldn't pass on their curried beef tendon. Gravy was good with rice.

Gulai cubadak or gulai nangka - tender curried jackfruit.

The obligatory greens was kangkong. I'm not sure what's the style of preparation. The flavour was rather lightweight compared to the other dishes that I'm not sure if there was any sambal involved. Not really spicy.

Omelette was not bad.

The blurriest picture goes to the tastiest item we had which was their chicken rendang. The flavour was sweet, smoky and spicy with a similar nutty gravy to match that reminded me of our local satay sauce.

Soon Heng Pork Noodles (顺兴肉脞麵), Neil Road

There's been recent chatter on Soon Heng Pork Noodles (120 Neil Road). Comparisons have been made with that supposedly famous other soup ba chor mee stall from Bedok and even associations with the word 'ramen'. Curiosity was piqued.

The broth was not bad. Better than what I remember of Xing Ji. There was sweetness from the pork and the flavour from garlic. Couldn't associate the bowl with ramen at all though. 

Minced pork was good quality and those wanton that they made themselves weren't bad at all. But noodles tasted like just regular mee kia. Not extra firm like I was hoping for.

I realized there was fried pork lard on self service when I was getting more chilli and added a heapful into the bowl halfway though. The lard they used were soft and didn't have much flavour. The differences they made to the soup was barely marginal. But I liked them noodles with the sliced red chillis. 

Arigato and sayonara Machida Shoten

Japan Food Town seems to have lost quite a bit of it's allure. There used to be much more than twice the crowd back in earlier times even in the weekdays. Tenants have changed and shop units haves been left vacant. The menu of some of the still surviving restaurants have changed and not necessarily for the better.

If the food at Machida Shoten was of any indication of things, that decline could certainly be understood. While I wouldn't miss the spicy shrimp chahan, I certainly did the mentaiko butter rice and those shrimp gyozas that were pretty good. All of them no longer in their current menu.

There was a limited time tsukemen. Ingredients were not bad. The charshu was tasty but kinda tiny. The dipping broth was also nice in a tangy, spicy and bonito-y sort of way. But it wasn't viscous so it didn't cling well to the noodles. It also wasn't served very hot. Before half the noodles were done, it had become almost room temperature. I went through rest of the chilled noodles pretty much cold all the way to the end. Pity.