Ya Hua Bak Kut Teh, Raffles City

Finally decided to give Ya Hua (#B1-44B Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 +65 6264 7066) a go after passing by this shop so many times and wondering if they were any good. I didn't recall not liking the food from their Havelock Road shop.

Was pretty surprised that their broth tasted weak. We had initially thought that their fish and pork ball mee sua might have been served with another broth that wasn't for their pork ribs. After we had accepted a top up of that soup, we learnt from them that it was the same as the one they used for their pork ribs. I'm not sure if it even had pepper.

The fish had a muddy taste of fresh water fish. The meatballs had a nice soy sauce flavour but were a little too soft. Almost mushy with no yield to the texture. If I had to do an apple to apple comparison, we've had better mee sua. Portions here were also little small.

Speaking of small portions, the menu mentioned that the mee sua came with dough fritters. We got exactly two pieces of those. Could taste the oil that they used to fry those fritters and I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

Their chap chye wannabe tasted not bad. Generous with the tau kee which I liked. Tau kwa wasn't too bad too but this was usually difficult to mess up. Don't think these dishes alone were good enough to be an incentive for a return.

Didn't try any of their pork ribs but we felt this was an indicative experience. Between Old Street and this for a convenient go to, the choice was pretty easy.

Wolfgang's Steakhouse, Nanson Road

This was a lunch at Wolfgang's (#02-01 InterContinental Singapore, 1 Nanson Road, tel : +65 6887 5885). Legends speak of the owner, a Wolfgang Zwiener whom was a waiter for 40 years at Brooklyn’s Peter Luger before starting his own. Guess this would be the closest I would get to Peter Luger until I actually get to visit Peter Luger.

Bread basket's not bad. Their onion loaf was quite delicious.

We ordered a wedge salad because blue cheese. That dressing was half the victory with winning us over.  

The other half came from the chilled crisp lettuce and the delicious chunks of their bacon. I couldn't decide if I like this or the one at Morton's better because I enjoyed them both.

Shrimp scampi was pretty good. Shrimps were large and meaty. The lemon garlic butter that was drizzled over the dish tasted fresh. The servers mentioned that it was made on order so when we asked for more, we had to wait for them to make a new batch.

The Wolfgang burger was okay. It was hefty but the meat didn't have much of beefiness I was looking forward to and needed a bit more salt. Didn't like the fries because there wasn't much of potato flavour. For the first time in a long time, I used ketchup and the ketchup was actually quite nice. This isn't gonna beat my favourite burger or even Black Tap.

Pecan pie was delicious. Nice toasty pecans with a butterscotch-y base on a buttery crust. Unfortunately, we didn't dig the schlag. It tasted odd without any milkiness 

Coffee's not bad but kinda pricey. Wouldn't mind coming back again.

Famous Treasure, Capitol Piazza

Not too long ago, this spot that Famous Treasure (#02-28 Capitol Piazza, 13 Stamford Road, tel : +65 6881 6668) occupy belonged to Four Seasons Roast Duck. Guess that didn't last long. Here's hoping that this one does better because we kinda liked the food here.

These sour plum marinated cherry tomatoes were chilled and refreshing. Every table had one of these.

Like the tomatoes, every table appeared to have a dish of their sambal belachan too. This was pretty good. It wasn't masochistically spicy and had a good amount of perky citrus that made it dangerous. 

Tried one of their signature dishes which was squids and lady's finger stir fried with chinchalok. Not really getting the chinchalok from them but it was still a delicious stir fry that was both tangy, spicy and savoury. Texture of the squids were superb.

The salty sauce from the stir fried Chinese romaine with shrimp paste was also dangerously good with steamed rice. I know because I finished a bowl of the rice with this and the previous dish before the next one was served.

Never had green curry fish head before. This tasted neither Thai nor Chinese. Well, maybe it could pass off as Peranakan. The curry was creamy and nutty and didn't have much heat. It was good though. The constant heat seemed to caramelize the curry and made it more flavourful as it went along.

Ahhh...the rice. Second bowl went with the green curry.

The sweet ending was chilled double boiled hashima with red dates. This was much better than the last one we had. After the gravy soaked rice, three glasses of Asahi and then this, I was ready to burst at the seams.

The port wine burger from Omakase Burger

That's not what I had up there. That's the product shot that can be found on Omakase Burger's social media. But that was what had gotten me interested in the port wine burger.

This was what we had. It wasn't so much blue cheese that was in the burger than a blue cheese composite. It tasted light and buttery - like cream whipped with blue cheese. Wasn't even a real slice of dolce variety like what Market Grill has. Those caramelized onions, presumably with port were sweet like grape jelly. It wasn't a bad burger though.

Guang Fa Laksa, Havelock Road Food Centre

Guang Fa Laksa (#01-08 Havelock Road Cooked Food Centre, 22A/B Havelock Road) is just the next unit to my previous go to curry rice stall. Previous because that curry rice stall has shuttered for good. From what I've heard, the elderly folks that were running it had retired.

Anyways I've probably gotten myself used to the Katong-esque style of laksa in the past decade or two so I generally expect the gravy to be lemak. This one wasn't so much. It felt thin. Thin need not necessarily be bad but I didn't feel this gravy had sufficient character. Nothing particularly pronounced.  

Sum Kee Food, Telok Blangah

I don't remember if I've even been to Sum Kee Food (Yeo's Building, 2 Telok Blangah Street 31, tel  : +65 737 3233) before even though I used to stay relatively close to this area for years a long time back. This place I gather is an institution of their own. They're old school. The place looked old school. 

A friend had once recommended me to give them a go to try their Ultraman chicken. *snigger*

Sum Kee is pretty well known for their curry fish head. I could understand this. Creamy and flavourful with enough heat. What I particularly enjoyed about it was the pronounced flavour of hae bi (dried shrimps) in the curry. I was drenching my rice with it.

Pleasantly surprised by the simple and innocuous looking bitter gourd omelette. Well fried with no excessively grease trapped in the egg. The texture was firm yet light with a nice light bitterness from those bitter gourd slices that worked with the savoury egg.

We ordered their X.O. sum lou hor fun because X.O. sauce. Never had these two together before. But first the hor fun. Not bad. Had wok hei and firm slices of fish paired with enough savoury in the gravy. A little oily but was otherwise pretty competent. I felt that the X.O. sauce worked with it. The umami spiciness added something to the rice noodles. I just wished they gave more of it. 

I normally avoid these gloopy gravy dishes because in general. The people who cook them these days never learnt how to make them properly. The majority would taste like an unidentifiable flavour with msg, salt and starch. 

That being said, this crab meat tofu wasn't too bad. Maybe the result of being steeped in old-school-ism also meant that the chefs had to make dishes the old way.

That's stir fried green dragon vegetable (a variety of chives) with bean sprouts (青龙银芽). Not bad. Would have be awesome if there were salted fish.

If you've actually been reading (not just swiping/scrolling through pictures) and have had your feathers ruffled by the mention of the Ultraman chicken, this was it. They're bite sized battered and fried chicken coated in a sweetened salted egg sauce. It was kind of addictive. I suppose I like them. Not doing my heart any favours though.

I've only learnt in recent years the reason why they're called Ultraman chicken. Ultraman is also known as 咸蛋超人. One could consider that as a....term of endearment rather than direct translation of meaning or the words. 咸蛋 is salted eggs and dude's got eyes like the yolks of salted eggs.

Their sambal prawns were the weakest link in this dinner. Prawns weren't very fresh with meat that kinda stuck to the shells. The sambal had absolutely no character. It was mildly spicy and mostly oily. For some reasons, I had been imagining the sambal to be like those with the crayfish at Liang Kee. Guess this was not like that.