MooTeow Chilli Beef Kway Teow by Empress Place Beef Kway Teow

I read that the guy who opened this stall (#01-31 Shaw Towers, 100 Beach Road) had been under apprenticeship of the owner of the original Empress Place beef kuey teow so I was intrigued by the outcome which is presumably Teochew style. Which is the style I prefer over the commonly seen Hainanese style.

The owner wasn't around. It was some other guy cooking so I will rightfully assume that standards differ depending on who's behind the stall. After all, recipe and ingredients alone don't make the bowl of beef kuey teow.

This was the $10 mixed beef parts and tendon bowl. Beef balls were served with a bowl of their broth on the side. It's not bad. Kinda pricey though. I enjoyed the lime-y chilli mixed with the sesame oil which formed a large part of the flavours. I liked that I could still taste the rice noodles through the other flavours. 

What was different from the Empress Place Beef Kway Teow stall at Maxwell was the ingredients that made their chili sauce and that this bowl was thoroughly drained of broth while the original stall had a bit of the broth in their dry bowl for additional flavour. Beef balls here tasted a little bland. Otherwise I kinda liked it.

Breakfast : two fried eggs from Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice

Many people have their "I ate these while growing up" moments. Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice is one of mine. There wasn't so much variety in those times and people often went back to their favourites much more often than one did these days. If you asked me whether the food tasted the same all these years, I'd suppose they did. If there were any truly any differences, it was probably negligible. These pork chops were in my head, still the standards I hold to when comparing with other curry rice pork chops. Even though I admit to enjoying the crispy variety in the recent years.

In the delicious mess above was two fried molten yolk-ed eggs, pork chop and chap chye. Curry squids were unfortunately not ready at that time of the morning. Yummy and not everyone's plate in the morning as most of the people in the coffeeshop were queueing for the next door ba chor mee which is probably a more breakfast-y item around.

Doubled boiled milk custard with durian from Honeymoon Dessert

I've tried these a couple of times from both the shop at Vivo and ION (B3-15/16 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn) and decided that I liked the wobbly milk custard. While the scoop of durian pulp helped, it was really the ethereal milk custard that got me hooked. They're not the same thing as those durian mousse from Dessert Bowl but I liked these almost as much. 

Kumamoto wagyu ramen from Seizan Uni Ramen

I've numerous thoughts as I tucked into this bowl. One of them questioned if Seizan actually staked any reputation behind Seizan Uni Ramen because this stall didn't feel like it housed the dedication and care that would be needed to earn their accolades. Pretty sure the lackadaisical  attitude of the guy behind the stall and his young appearances had nothing to do my impression of them and how their food was made.

Maybe it's a partnership where their name was used for branding and this was merely just another local business just like the other local shops in Picnic. Back to topic then.

Those briskets (I think) were pretty tender but not particularly flavourful. Nothing about the taste clued wagyu because it was unexceptional and lacking in flavour. Not much beefiness coming from the broth which was also honestly, pretty pedestrian. Noodles - nothing mention worthy. Not worth the $20 they charged.

In fact, I popped over to Tangs for one of these straight after because the bowl was so unsatisfying.

Considering the density of food blogs to square kilometre ratio this island has, it's shocking how little one can learn about new stalls because everyone's just ripping content off each other or regurgitating some marketing material.

Uni torobutsu meshi and more from Kuro Maguro

This uni torobutsu meshi was part of a current limited time J Passport promotion with Kuro Maguro. You get the discarded end cuts of toro in a rice bowl and for $4 more, they would top it up with a bit of uni. The uni didn't have good flavour and I wouldn't recommend it but their toro has always been very decent quality. Didn't matter that they were from the end bits.

Ankimo ponzu was available and I usually never refuse one of these. The remaining sauce with bits of ankimo and spring onions were good for drizzling over the torobutsu meshi.

Kinmedai was on the menu. We got a head grilled. Meat was delicious especially on the parts right at the base of the fins. Those were the chicken oyster or thigh equivalents on the kinmedai with dark meat. So delicious.

Revisiting Rumah Makan Minang

We've been wanting to come back to Rumah Makan Minang for a long time. It seemed that the wanting had being going on for the past nine years.

Rumah Makan Minang does serve brown rice. But whom are we kidding? We didn't come here for brown rice when the traditional nasi putih isn't broken. This stuff is tender and absorbs gravies well. Everything we ordered was good with the nasi putih.

Stir fried kang kong was okay. It's a dish that was what it was - mouthfuls of vegetable crunch flavoured by a little garlic and ikan bilis with just a bit of heat from the chillis. Not bad with rice.

Begedils here were awesomely peppery.

The gulai nanka, or curried jackfruit is much more tender than the ones from Minang House at Lucky Plaza. I'd pick this over the latter if I had to choose.

Very competent sambal goreng here. There was a particular sweetness perhaps which I couldn't put my finger to. But still addictively delicious especially with white rice.

Pretty decent ayam belado hijau. Wished the chicken were meatier though. The belado hijau itself was pretty salty so that's another solid reason for their nasi putih. I liked the flavour from the green chilli which oddly reminded me of a particular taste that can be found in green beans as well.

Spiced omelette. I never found out what was the proper name for these things. Not bad too. 

Their teh halia doesn't have much of that halia flavour so I'm sticking to the regular tarik drink the next time.