Yu Mei Mei Shi, Havelock Road Food Centre

A few people have asked me if I've had the fish soup at Yu Mei Mei Shi (#01-03 Havelock Road Cooked Food Centre, 22A/B Havelock Road). I haven't. But I decided to give them a go for breakfast recently. Here's a bowl of ee mian with chunks of red grouper. Soup's sweet and pretty light tasting. The fish was F³. Fresh, firm and flaking. And it's a whopping $10.

Here's also a call out to those old fogeys who like to comment on how people are willing to shell out dollars for ramen and won't do so for local food.

While arguably a bowl with minimal effort in the form of a thin broth, instant factory bought noodles and fish that only needed scaling and slicing in a cheap rental, I'm pretty sure they'd easily double the charge of such a bowl if they went to town; along with the people who actually use hand made noodles, undergo the arduity of making charshu and the numbing hours of getting a rich broth.

Chicken rice from Koufu at Fusionopolis

I've eaten from this chicken rice stall at the Koufu food court (#B2-02 Fusionopolis, 1 Fusionopolis Way) a couple of times so I thought it was worth a mention. It's not bad. Chicken was respectably smooth and tender. A little greasier than what I generally prefer after it's been plated and oiled up but still enjoyable. Chilli was more garlicky than gingery which is what I also generally prefer. I wouldn't recommend the roasted pork though. While it was edible, it also wasn't particularly flavourful nor tender. A little dry and stiff was what they were.

Chicken rice bento from Duck Master

Beside their duck bento, Duck Master also has one for their chicken. I haven't gotten anything from them for a while because their duck bento has gone up by a dollar and on top of that, they've switched their rice to regular white rice from the chicken rice. So that's more than a simple dollar of inflation right there.. 

I thought to give the chicken one a go since I've tried their chicken previously and didn't remember disliking it. Apparently, the way the chicken is done has changed. Well, at least I'm pretty sure that I didn't remember it being like this. Didn't taste bad if you didn't compare them to the ones that one can get in restaurants. It also seems that they've swapped out their chicken rice to regular rice for good. One more reason not to come back.

Revisiting Matsuo Sushi

Wow, it's been 11 years since we were last at Matsuo Sushi. Matsuo-san has been quietly operating his little sushi shop almost under the radar for a long time. For some reasons, I thought of them that thought was what prompted this return.

I did a little Googling and came across their nigiri matsu online. Thought it looked good and they had a set for that at dinner. The set which included just a miso soup.

But it looked nothing like the picture I saw online. There were no scallops and the umaki was served separately. I had almost mistaken that for otoshi. The maki that came with the sushi was cucumber and not kanpyo. Both the uni and ikura weren't on a gunkan, just piled on top of a little dish of rice. Speaking of rice, the shari seemed very lacking in vinegar. What's happening?

Miso soup was a bore as well. I had difficulty identifying it as miso especially with the flavour from the salmon muddling it.

Cô Hai Bánh Mì, Beach Road

Came to know of this Vietnamese (359 Beach Road, tel : +65 6291 6435) joint recently. They're located near to Mrs Pho.

There's soursop smoothie on the menu. Chilled, sweet and citrus-y. Just the thing for our weather.

We ordered a gỏi xoài (mango salad). How the salad looked reminded me of the goi du du from Moc Quan. For a moment, I was a little wary but it turned out to be delicious. You know - the salty fish sauce with a bit of sweetness and citrus tang coupled with fresh crunch kind of delicious. There was also something that tasted like laksa leaves. Pretty sure they were those.

They had a variety of banh mi on the menu so we tried their bánh mì cô hai. There was pork belly, some sausages, ham and pate. Sans cilantro/coriander of course. I thought it was ok. Tasted pretty much like how it looked. I had expected to be more impressed since banh mi was in the name of the restaurant. 

We got their fried banana spring rolls because we've never had them before and were curious.

I'm very often biased against cooked bananas that aren't of the pisang raja variety. This wasn't. Hence the lack of pisang raja's brand of balance between the tanginess and sweet. The bananas they used were just sweeter. Definitely didn't need all that maple syrup that they had drizzled over the spring rolls.

This was called xôi thập cẩm. Sticky rice with shredded chicken, ham, something like lup cheong, meat floss and a couple of quail eggs topped with peanuts and sesame seeds. I liked this. I couldn't identify the flavour in the sticky rice but it was pleasant and almost like chicken rice.

There's a pretty good cháo gà (chicken porridge) on menu as well. It's light on the rice and more on the broth which was lightweight yet increasingly addictive after each spoonful. This one had laksa leaves as well.

Himonoya, Robertson Walk

In the era before refrigeration and canning, fishes were salted and dried. These salted and dried goods were referred to as himono. The techniques are still in practice today but the purpose is for flavour rather than preservation. Himonoya (#02-14 Robertson Walk, 11 Unity Street, tel : +65 6235 9110) is an izakaya. They have a few himono of their own and I wanted to try them. 

We started with some of their little plates. That's potato salad with bits of crab, ikura and kani miso.

Followed by shishamo. Not the most pregnant ones we've had. These were pretty good though.

Ankimo ponzu was delicious.

So was the creamy shirako ponzu.

The himono we chose for tonight was kinki. Not so impressed by the flavour. Then again, we didn't really know what to expect since it's the first time we've had it. The meat was a little fishier than I had expected. Perhaps I shall stick to kinmedai the next time.

Surprisingly good was their shoyu butter onigiri. The rice ball was infused with shoyu, grilled and butter was melted over. The grilling created crusty caramelized bits on the surface that had flavour that was akin to coffee. The savouriness from the soy sauce and the bit of richness from the butter crept up from behind and killed it. Would eat this again.

Then came croquettes with more bits of crab meat and kani miso. I'm not sure I even tasted crab from the creamy innards of the croquette but the kani miso pretty much saved it.

Slices of buri and chutoro they served were nice. Both fishes were fatty.

The aburi-ed wagyu roll with blobs of uni we couldn't taste much of served as a filler to close the meal. The maki wasn't exactly a flavour bomb on it's own but with the left over ponzu from the shirako, the rolls became pretty tasty.