Trying more dishes from Kai Duck

Revisiting Kai Duck because we found some of the food pretty good the last time round.

Spanish kurobuta pork char siew was...ordinary. One can find with little difficulty in non-pedigreed barbequed pork that would taste as good or better so I didn't think this was worth the money nor the space in the stomach. Restaurants need to recognize that kurobuta isn't everything. It can be easily underwhelming.

Sautéed sweet corn with pine nuts and diced duck was kinda nice. Would have been nicer if the pine nuts were toasted before the dish was stir fried.

This was the other duck skin dish on fried man tou and cream cheese. Not bad.

Was quite taken in by their braised pork knuckle in fermented bean curd sauce. Those knuckles had a good mix of meat, skin, tendon and other gelatinous parts. Liked the soft peanuts and chunks of lotus roots in the dish as well.

Pistachio Middle Eastern & Mediterranean Grill, Wheelock Place

This restaurant (#02-04/05 Wheelock Place, 501 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6262 6400) was formerly known as Pistachio Grill and was formerly located at Zhongshan Mall. I'm glad they moved out to a more centralized location because it is difficult these days to find a reason to get to Balestier.

I haven't had mohamara/muhamara much. Last I remembered them was from Shabestan. This rendition from Pistachio was more tangy and refreshing and also had a smoother texture. Made short work it with pita.

Pistachio's kibbeh were pretty meaty on the inside. Lots of moist ground beef in that crisp bulgar wheat shell. Nice.

Lamb chops with moussaka was pretty good. The meat from the rib was of medium doneness and dripping with juices. Love the chunky yet tender slices of eggplant in the moussaka with the chewy toasted cheese. Possibly the most delicious one I've had yet.

How the menu described their prawn singary didn't paint an accurate picture of how the actual dish was. Something about them with chilli garlic sauce and salad. Nothing mentioned about the prawn-ception of little prawns within tiger prawns. For some reasons, not much of the grill aroma came through. There were also some tender crunchy stuff with the small shrimps that reminded me of the stewed turnip in poh piah. 

We ordered their konafeh because we thought it might have been kunefe. Which it probably was. It was served with salted caramel ice cream instead just heavy cream. Definitely prefer the rendition with cream over this one. Not a fan of how the texture of the filo pastry was and for a dessert, it was surprisingly lacking in sweetness.

Izakaya Niningashi, Craig Road

Izakaya Niningashi (2 Craig Road, tel : +65 6970 0224) is an offshoot of Himonoya. How did I know that they were? The menu was exactly (well, almost) the same. But since there were other things from Himonoya that we didn't get to try when we were there, it'll be more or less the same getting them here.

Shirasu tofu was nice. Portions were also tiny for the price. They use Otokomae tofu here and the quality showed in the flavour.

There was a smoked potato salad. The smokiness came from the slices of smoked herring which they included. This one wasn't as smoky as the one from Hokkaido Izakaya.

Couldn't resist a bit of ankimo and shirako in ponzu while these were still available.

Shirasu tamago kake gohan. Great with shoyu, great with the leftover ponzu from the ankimo/shirako.

One of the things we had been looking forward to was their cross sectional cut of their hon maguro which featured the trinity of akami, chutoro and otoro. This was so good. If only they had served it with better quality wasabi.

The other item I was waiting to get my chopsticks into was their grilled kinmedai. Yummy.

Five Guys, Plaza Singapura

Woah, was that a resounding endorsement of Five Guys from Peter Parker, Mike Costa or Bob Iger? Anywayyys, the burger chain has finally set up shop on our sunny shores (#01-23 Plaza Singapura, 68 Orchard Road). We happened to be nearby one weekend early enough that the queue hasn't become discouraging.

I liked it. Liked it as much as I did in NYC. Well, maybe I liked it in NYC a little bit more. Got ourselves an "all in" sans ketchup and on the right, a cheese burger with only sautéed mushrooms. With nothing else for distraction beside the mushrooms, the flavours from both the beef patties and creamy cheese came through. You heard it here now.

I remember saying something about their fries being the best, possibly, for fast food fries. I maintain that statement here.

Since it's not visually obvious - that's a peanut butter, banana and bacon shake. Not quite getting the banana there though.

Tokyo Soba, Icon Village

Tokyo Soba is the current incarnation of what used to be Yomoda Soba at Japan Food Town. For some reasons, these guys moved out and landed up in this location (#01-16 Icon Village, 12 Gopeng Street, tel : +65 6410 9353). We were here this past New Year's Eve for the last dinner of 19. Coincidentally, it's a tradition of sorts in Japan for soba to be had on the eve of the new year and the shop was selling toshikoshi soba for that.

Which we didn't get.

We got a bowl with shirasu wakame kakiage. The broth was smoky like I recalled it. While I didn't dislike the kakiage, I also didn't think much of it. Maybe I'm just not a fan of shirasu after it has been fried. The fritter was crisp, a little oily and tasted better after it had been dipped in the soba broth.

We also had a kitsune soba. Broth was not as smoky and also slightly sweet because of the kitsune - which I loved by the way. Something about the tender spongy texture and the sweetness appealed to me.

We wanted some vegetables for the dinner and the menu had spinach with bacon and butter. The butter and bacon made the spinach go down so much easier because grease lubricates. True story.

More pasta and pizza from Trattoria Pizzeria Logic

Remembered seeing that there were some pizzas on the menu at Trattoria Pizzeria Logic that I wanted to check out. Fortunately or unfortunately, I got distracted by a new black truffle pizza that they had. But this wasn't just a regular black truffle pizza. There's Gorgonzola on that. All those fresh black truffle slices were shaved after they brought the pizza to the table. There was supposed to be hazelnut honey but I couldn't taste any of it. But still, very nice.

Tried their Iberico pork sauce spaghetti and topped it up with a burrata. This would be a pork Bolognese if you would. Savoury and cheesy after being paired with shaven Parmigiano Reggiano (or was it Pecorino?) with a meaty richness. And then there's the creamy burrata. I liked that there wasn't excessive tomato in their ragù. In retrospect, this pasta was tasty with or without the burrata. 

The thing which we found disappointing was their shrimp and zucchini fritto. While the ingredients were fresh and of good quality, the batter was a little heavy and held on too much grease for them to be enjoyable as starters. For some reasons, the fried stuff in the plate also included cherry tomatoes.