Nusa & Tara, ABC Brickworks Food Centre

I heard the lontong was good so we came down to try it at Nusa & Tara (#01-22 ABC Brickworks Food Centre, 6 Jalan Bukit Merah).  What did I think of it? It was pretty damn good. Tender boiled sayur soaking in flavourful gravy spiced up with a splash of sambal. Savoury, a little sweet and pretty lemak. Yes, I did sneak in a couple of bergedil with the order. I rank this rendition in the same leagues as Kampong Korner,

The stall has both nasi sambal goreng and nasi lemak so I did a nasi lemak sambal goreng. Coconut rice with their creamy rendition of sambal goreng. And a fried egg, more serunding, some strips of fried tempeh and what appears to be achar. The dishes on the side may vary from day to day. Not bad but I'll pass on the nasi lemak for the nasi putih the next time. 

Idon'tknowwhattocallthisbutmasalachickenoffalricesoundedaboutright

I got this from the Indian Muslim stall at the Foodclique foodcourt (#01-132, 132 Jurong East Street 13). When I asked the proprietor what the greenish brown stuff (on the right) was, he merely replied that it was chicken liver. In retrospect, I'd call it masala chicken offal because I got two nicely tender and chewy hearts in there and some gizzards along with the livers. Not bad at all but I did wish that they'd chop up those gizzards in to smaller bites.

Still it made a comfortingly delicious and snooze inducing lunch with those beans, sambal boiled egg and fish curry over rice.

More food from Ting Heng Seafood Restaurant

Previously when we were here, we noticed that there was a frog bee hoon with bitter gourd on the menu. We came back today to try it. Not bad. The small portion came with two meaty frogs. Bee hoon tasted like it was braised in a stock similar to pork trotter bee hoon. This one was lightly flavoured with fermented black beans.

We had battered fried squids. The menu has two items for those. One was done with the body and the other, the tentacles. This plate was the latter. Pretty good munching they made.

This was a dish of minced fish paste with enoki mushrooms and fried bean curd skin. Can't say that I've come across a dish of such combinations before. Those skins were tasty but pretty oily. 

Revisiting Bakalaki

It's been almost a couple of years since we were last here.

One of the servers told us that were grilled sardines; not on the menu, so we got some. Fishes were served with some salt, olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

Chicken souvlaki was not bad. I haven't had much experience with souvlaki and shouldn't be treated like any authority on it. Liked the grill flavour in the chunks of chicken. Today's fries were also much tastier than the last time. 

Moussaka was also not bad, I thought I detected something like goat's cheese in it. The dish was not as heavy as it appeared.

While we haven't had enough similar food (except grilled sardines and lamb chops) to make proper comparisons between, Blu Kouzina does have better variety at about the same price point.

Tang Kay Kee Fishhead Beehoon, Hong Lim Food Centre

I read about Tang Kay Kee (#01-70 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) and their cze char lunch bowls some months ago. From what I could gather, the stall had been around since the 40s serving regular cze char dinner until the younglings in the family dipped the family business into lunch bowls that garnered some attention.  We came over to try their "regular food" one evening because now we know that this would be the other place one could get food in the evening at Hong Lim. Apart from Woh Hup that is.

Tried their chai por fried rice which looked very mundane. What we didn't expect and kinda liked about this fried rice was the sweet-ish chai por that they had included. The rice was also competently fried with a good distribution egg and sufficient oil over the grains of rice without being excessively greasy. I only realized the ensnarement after a few mouthfuls when I continued to shovel spoonfuls into my face wondering what's this new sweet chai por fried rice sensation I was getting. 

I did feel that a bit more of the chai por would be nicer.

We ordered sum lou hor fun (三捞河粉). Not the overall tastiest rendition out there but the folks are friendly and were willing to egg drop (滑蛋) the gravy. The rice noodles had a width that was more tagliatelle than pappardelle and was nicely scorched on wok with a smoky aroma that made this particular rendition noteworthy. Based on the treatment of the rice noodles, I would guess the other hor fun dishes would be similarly done.

Lunch at Bistro Du Vin

The last time we had lunch at Bistro Du Vin (#01-14, Shaw Centre, 1 Scotts Road, tel : +65 6733 7763) in town was almost a decade ago. This was from their current set lunch menu.

French melon and Bayonne ham salad. It's not so much different from having prosciutto di Parma with melon pairing saltiness from the ham with the sweetness in the fruit.

Green pea soup with bacon oil that didn't taste like it had any bacon oil. I had been imagining that the peas might have been sweeter but that wasn't the case.

That's their blanquette de veau with pilaf and peas - the first part of the name a white stew of veal with flavoured rice. Not bad. Pilaf was nice.  I thought this dish might have been a lot better if it was ox tongue rather than veal but that's just my opinion. The veal was chunky and plentiful though.

There was a ribeye option with blue cheese sauce so we took it. I couldn't tell what cheese it was but for a blue, it wasn't very strong or stinky. Still had a nice pungent creaminess like a very intense Camembert or Reblochon though. Today's fries were good too.

Didn't think much of the chocolate mousse.

But their French apricot melba was nice. It was mostly the cream and vanilla ice cream that did the trick rather than those apricots since they didn't have any assertive citrus.