Foo of Taste Hainanese Chicken Rice, International Plaza

Interesting name this stall (#01-06 International Plaza, 10 Anson Road) has. Should one Google the name of the stall, there would be only one other relevant result from a particular website that's either shamefully incompetent and/or didn't care the least about their generic writeup since it technically imparted no information to anyone who knew chicken rice and even had to pilfer an image of Thai chicken rice for that writeup.  

Back to Foo of Taste. Rice was flavoured and lightweight. Chilli was of the slightly more gingery variety without lime. I suppose that and the rice together wasn't particularly outstanding but I liked the rice with the achar which they also sold. That's the $1 portion below.  

Their boiled chicken wasn't those of the tender slurp off the bone variety. Meat's a little grainier and more bite with a bit more pronounced chicken-y flavour from both the meat and the skin. That was also because the serving wasn't doused with as much sesame oil and soy sauce as most. What I didn't expect were the bits of gelatin underneath the skin. Flavourful bits of gelatin.

Scrambled, Icon Village

I've heard about how the owners of Scrambled (#01-33/34 Icon Village, 12 Gopeng Street, tel : +65 6221 0289) came from pedigreed culinary backgrounds. Scrambled reminded me of Eggslut. But something didn't quite click here. All that cooking background had somehow reduced themselves a signature sandwich of eggs that were a little too scrambled than most scrambled eggs; using cheese that wasn't very salty in conjunction with sweetness from both the buns and caramelized onions that were performing the roles of a foil over an almost non-existent saltiness. 

I like my breakfast sandwiches savoury. This wasn't it. No hot sauce to make up for it neither. For more than double the price of a McD breakfast minus the satisfaction, I didn't think it was worth what they charged.

Re-revisiting Tian Tian Seafood Restaurant

Came by for a late dinner at Tian Tian Seafood. Pretty grateful that there are places like this in the vicinity that take their business well past 10pm in times like this. So - we ordered their luncheon meat fried rice to see if they were as good compared to the neighbouring Lao You Ji. Can't decide which one I liked better. Both were nice. Properly fried without residual grease.

Couldn't resist getting their delicious sambal petai since we didn't get them the last time. 

That's above is a dish of kang kong stir fried with sliced beef in prawn paste. Pretty good. The prawn paste sauce from the dish would have been awesome with white rice. While the meat didn't taste particularly beefy, it wasn't one of those that had been mutated into some unidentifiable meat substance by tenderizer. Gotta remember to tell them to exclude those ginger shreds the next time.

I guess not all things were so tasty. Like this dish which was described as braised fish brisket and eggplant. It's fish belly I think - cuts of it with many dangerous bits of bone that made it a chore to eat. I had thought that these would be without any bone. The braising did nada in imparting flavour of that braising liquid to the fried fish; which by itself had a muddy flavour. Eggplant was sweet though. Will not get this again.

Impossible™ Juicy Lucy quarter pounder from Oriole Coffee + Bar

If I ever had the need for the little nudge to tip me over into the believer camp for Impossible, this might just be it. But I didn't because I'm already pretty much there thanks to the first/last try at Omakase Burger. So now this. It's been quite a while since we've been to Oriole but I saw that they had a Impossible Juicy Lucy so I thought why not. I liked it. More than I thought I would. While I'll give credit to the other ingredients like the melted cheese, sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions that made the burger, I was mostly impressed by how much the patty resembled meat.

Paint it Black (Tap)

While it may not be very apparent from the photo, this was a Filet Au Poivre burger that featured an 8oz prime filet mignon with crumbled blue cheese between the buns. The meat wasn't a regular minced patty. T'was a f-i-l-e-t m-i-g-n-o-n.

It was an off menu and probably limited time item which was almost the same as the Steak Au Povire that we had previously had; which been taken off the menu apparently. The only difference between this and that was an actual cut of tenderloin versus their regular beef patty and some fried onions.

Meat was so tender that it yielded with ease to the bite. With a nice hit of salty blue cheese and delicious creamy green peppercorn sauce. It all went down pretty easily.

Trattoria Amanda, Stanley Street

Their (14 Stanley Street, tel : +65 6222 5808) bread was hard, didn't have any smell and didn't have much taste. Don't know why the restaurant felt it was suitable for bread gratis. I'm not sure that these could even be used for panzanella. They might have been good for croutons at best but I couldn't even tell if they would actually absorb anything. Strike one.

Tried a foie gras with brandied apples and oranges from their specials menu. The sautéed fruits were delicious. There was a problem with the foie. It looked nicely seared with a crusty browning on the surface but the inside was slightly chilled; with a texture like the terrine variety rather than the soft quivery ones with rendered fat. That meant it wasn't defrosted properly. Strike two.

Scallops were the frozen variety. Had a nice aroma from the sear but didn't have the natural sweetness of fresh ones. But I wouldn't blame them for using those since it was meant to be paired with Parmigiano Reggiano and prosciutto di Parma. Each scallop in a single bite made very good chewing with the prosciutto. Saffron sauce was nice and creamy.

This was their cacio e pepe. Google 'cacio e pepe', click Images, examine them and then come back. Menu said 'rich blend of 4 quality cheeses'. Didn't taste very cheesy. It was creamy though. Much too creamy for just cheese and pepper. There was quite a bit of pepper but nothing beyond what one could achieve with a pepper mill. Not sure if that Kampot pepper made any difference. Strike three.

That's their pistachio and mortadella pizza. Menu mentioned 'buttery pistachio puree'. There were some crushed pistachio on the pizza; not nearly enough for aroma or even texture. No puree of any sort to be found. The flavour was mostly mozzarella, tomato and the mortadella. Strike four.