Kaya toast, egg and coffee from Asian Food Mall

Asian Food Mall if you didn't know is the food court at the basement of Lucky Plaza (#B1-038 Lucky Plaza, 304 Orchard Road). We were intrigued by their "rough" looking kaya so this was breakfast over the weekend. Pretty edible stuff. The kaya toast was competent though I did feel that there was little flavour coming from their butter. Eggs looked a little underdone but was salvaged by a surprisingly fragrant dark soy sauce. Coffee was flat and unremarkable.

Some aburi kanikama from Don Don Donki

These were hot off the kitchen and made very good munching. I wonder if this would classify under guilty pleasures. Love them crab sticks. The torching caramelized the light drizzle of mayo on top and made them even tastier.

Kanda Soba, Clark Quay Central

Kanda Soba is another relatively new mazesoba shop that opened at the food court beside Don Don Donki at Clark Quay Central (#B1-31 Clark Quay Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street). Just in case anyone is mistaken, these guys are from Korea, not Japan.

That's their original mazesoba up there where they threw in a couple of meat sushi and a bowl of soup during lunch. After mixing, the noodles looked a little wet and I had mistakenly assumed that it might fall short of expectations against the dryer variety like Menya Kokoro or Enishi but I was reined back from those misgivings after the first chopstick-ful. It was full of umami and deliciously peppery amidst all the other flavour and textures from the toppings. 

They also had a cream mazesoba which featured warm noodles topped with cream made with potato and coconut. We were told not to mix them like one would normally do mazesoba and eat as it was served. Cream was pretty light and the noodles below tasted like their original mazesoba. Got surfeited towards the end of the bowl.

Their meat sushis were small. One could choose between beef and pork. One had mentaiko and neg and other had cream cheese and a dried cranberry. Not bad. Felt like a puny version of actual sushi like what sliders are to burgers. 

We meet again, natto-kun!!

I had my first experience with natto years back. It wasn't a good one. I didn't like it. I don't remember how it tasted like. So throughout these years, I've gotten curious about them again but never gotten myself to order them because I was worried that it'll be another pretty strong negative reaction towards them.

I tried them again recently at Monster Curry (#B4-52 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn). Curry rice with natto. It's not bad. Before anyone starts speculating about how the curry or that level 4 spiciness might have muted the flavour, I ate them by their own. And with rice. There was some cheesiness that I detected which is presumably one of the fermentation. And also what I thought to be something that tasted like a hint of coffee or chocolate.

I don't know the difference between the first try at Shunjuu and this one. The quality might have been quite different and hence my reaction to their flavours. But I suppose this was encouragement for me to try more in the future.

Anglo Indian Cafe & Bar, Chijmes

Have passed by this place a number of times before and each of those times, I've wondered if they were good. So here now. Lassi from Anglo Indian Cafe & Bar (#01-13 Chijmes, 30 Victoria Street, tel : +65 6873 2750) was okay. Not as thick as I would have liked but drinkable stuff.

The description of the tandoori broccoli sounded pretty good on the menu. Something about cheese, yoghurt and cardamom. The flavour was not as intense as I had imagined. There was a bit of smokiness. Not a bad tasting broccoli dish though.

We ordered their Indian railway mutton curry. Never had it before and I'm pretty sure everyone has their rendition of it. This curry was savoury and tangy.  Tangy like a lot of tomatoes or tamarind kind of tangy. Liked it quite a bit. Paired very nicely with naan or rice. Mutton was very tender. Would not mind eating this again at all.

Pretty thick and savoury palak paneer they have. Judging from the spinach puree I think I might just like their saag gosht.

Cheese naan. While I have always reminded myself to go for those without any stuffings since we're already going with dips, I still usually get distracted by them stuffings. Not bad.

Jeera pulao needs a bit more salt to be good on its own. But since we were going with the savoury pureed palak and the Indian railway curry, it worked out in the end.

Sausage McMuffin with misshapen egg from McD

McD as a business in its delivery is consistent. That, is understandably a need to manage a global franchise of many thousands of outlets. What's also consistent is how withered their product looks compared to the pictures on their menu. What's not consistent was an egg that I got recently when I up-pattied a sausage muffin with egg. The egg looked....for a lack of a better word, mutated in the the context of McD and the usual disc shaped egg that they slip into their muffins.