Tan Yu (探鱼), 313 Somerset

We finally got a seat at Tan Yu (B3-30/31/32 313@Somerset, 313 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6509 8887), a Chinese grilled fish chain from Shenzhen that's not so different from Riverside Grilled Fish. Just to be clear, it was never really difficult to get a seat here. These guys don't do reservations during the weekends and we just never had the patience to wait through peak hours.

There was a green pepper limbo fish that was not bad. The broth was more salty than spicy in spite of appearances and those Sichuan peppercorns were more 麻 than 辣. Heat was pretty manageable. Does anyone know what exactly is a limbo fish?

There's grilled honey toast that you could order on the side. This was a little buttery and quite nice.

The grilled lamb skewers looked better than they tasted. Some of the meat was so hard that I couldn't eat them. Expensive as well. Better to just get these from a place like Restaurant Manchurian which makes better skewers which are less expensive.

That milky beverage on the right is their 'lemon and lime lactic acid milk drink'. Name was a mouthful. Taste was kinda like Yakult or Calpis flavoured with lime or preserved plums. Not bad a drink if you're into that sort of thing.

The lunch before Easter at Suju

We were at Suju for lunch and I was reeled in.

Reeled in by a spicy maguro yukke don. Something off the regular menu. Not bad. There was ginger bits in the rice but fortunately not so much that I couldn't remove them. The chunks of tuna that they used were pretty good. Some of them tasted like chutoro.

Wanted some grilled chicken and so it was the torimomo shichimi yaki.

Mellben Signature, Tanjong Pagar Plaza

I haven't eaten at Mellben for years. This particular outfit (#01-105, 7 Tanjong Pagar Plaza, tel : +65 6220 5512) was largely cze char though many people still come for their crabs. It's what they've always been known for. But there were no crabs in this dinner. 

There was sweet and sour pork with longan on ice though. Kinda similar to that one from Social Place. The cuts of pork here weren't as fatty. The ice kept the fried pork from getting soggy. Not bad.

Stir fried French beans with dried shrimps had a nice texture and was deliciously savoury. Bits of  thinly sliced chilli padi gave spikes of mild heat.

Their seafood fried rice needed salt. Or fish sauce. I don't think these guys are known for their fried rice.

Liked their home made fried bean curd with chicken floss. This had quite a bit of textures going on from the mushrooms, broccoli, bean curd and chicken floss. Not to mention it was both sweet and salty.

We had prawns in creamy butter sauce. Prawns were not bad. That creamy sweet sauce scented with curry leaves and some heat was addictively delicious.

That's the salted egg pork ribs. Meat was pretty tender. I think these ribs might have been boiled before they were deep fried and then stir fried with the sweet and salty salted egg sauce. 

Uma Uma Ramen, Forum The Shopping Mall

I've seen this ramen shop (#01-41 Forum The Shopping Mall, 583 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6235 0855) around for a long time but for some reasons have never gotten interested enough to come by until today. Apparently, they were established from back in 1953 in Fukuoka. So the Hakata style influence is in the menu and the broth for their bowls are mostly tonkotsu. 

This one wasn't tonkotsu but a creamy chicken broth. What intrigued me into getting this bowl was that it came with lemons. The tori paitan wasn't very rich. It tasted unimpressive initially. After crushing the lemons into the bowl, the broth perked up from the citrus. The heat also mellowed the lemon slices that I ate them. This bowl turned out to be nice. I'd eat this again happily. Only 10 bowls a day though.

That's the dry ramen with mentaiko. That mentaiko and dried seaweed combination is an unassailable umami bomb that results in almost surefire deliciousness. This bowl was like that. Savoury and yummy with those thin Hakata styled noodles.

Didn't like their grilled beef. Overcooked and chewy. Menu mentioned truffle salt. Couldn't taste the truffle but the beef sure was salty though. I was hoping that there would be nothing but salt for flavouring but the meat was marinated. Very tangy salty chewy beef I guess I just didn't agree with.

There's coffee jelly with vanilla ice cream for desserts. Think we started to like coffee jelly from the past year. This one felt like a Japanese-esque version of affogato.

L'Angelus......after 1990 days

I remember thinking the same the last time we were here. About how time has streamed by quietly - almost stealthily. That was almost five and a half years back.  

Bread seemed to have changed. This one was good because of what we had ordered. But we first made short work of the first basket with butter. 

That's a half portioned salad with Roquefort and bacon. I was a little disappointed by how tiny the portions were and how the salad tasted as a whole. Bacon was dry and the greens were not well tossed with the dressing. As Roquefort salads went, this was totally outgunned by the one at ABC Kitchen in Hong Hong.

L'Angelus' tartare de boeuf was made table side where one could indicate the level of spiciness. What I didn't expect was that one of the condiments that went into it was ketchup. O-o The tartare was pretty good though. The spices that went into it tasted balance compared to say, the feistier ones from Le Bistrot du Sommelier or La Cabane in Hong Kong.

The fries that came with the tartare were soft, suitably salted and delicious.

That in the copper pot was their fricassee of roasted half spring chicken in a truffle and morel cream sauce. Chicken was nice. Potatoes were sweet. The rich velvety sauce which was infused with the mushroom flavours was awesome. We mopped the pot clean of it. Wished the chicken was bigger though.

One the left, brandy marinated Griotte cherries with a nutty pistachio ice cream. Loads of cherries with the cream and more at the bottom of the cup. On the right is strawberries and vanilla ice cream. 

Coffee was drinkable - not outstanding. Bitter and lacking in body.

A DIY pizza at Picnic

This was from the pizza section at Picnic. Yes, that's the Picnic at Wisma (#03-15, 435 Orchard Road). The one where Omakase Burger is currently located. We were pretty impressed by the effort the person at the counter put in for the distribution of the ingredients. The chap that was on the dinner shift on 13th April. Nice!

We noticed that a number of the ingredients they were using were a notch better quality than most. This one had fresh mozzarella, blue cheese, mushrooms and pepperoni. Each of that nicely portioned topping came through. Pretty good eating with the crisp thin crust.