Cheese kasane katsu from Tonkichi

I could have sworn that the cheese Tonkichi used on their katsu was a different type but I'm not going to go there because that had been a very long while back. This one was creamy/milky like goat's cheese or feta that had little salt. Unlike mozzarella or a sharper cheddar which I had been imagining. I was still happy with it though through that dry crisp breading. 

Borscht and more other stuff from Tsui Wah (翠華)

That's the borscht. The one that I reminded myself to stick to previously because it was much better than their cream soup of the day option. Came with the western food option with a slice of buttered thick toast. Tsui Wah's rendition of the borscht is of course nothing like the Ukrainian/Eastern European renditions. This was the...hmmmm - the Hainanese variety I think; of a tomato cabbage soup with beef. The beef added depth. Would have been great if they had sour cream.

Got their lamb chops. Not bad. Better than any of our local western food lamb chops which tend to be overcooked and overly thin. I would know. There was a nice strip of fat along the edges that together with the caramelization on the surface of those chops, brought flavour. But alas, it was still too little meat to be filling. The red wine sauce on the sauce wasn't too shabby but that unfortunately detracted from the flavour of the meat. 

I wanted to try their fried rice with pork chop because I enjoyed it from the last time and was also wondering how this stacked up versus the the one from DTF. I suppose DTF had a more tender pork chop while this one had a firmer bite. Not saying which one is better here but portions here were sure small compared to Hong Kong. 

Also tried their soy sauce chicken wings which is commonly referred to as Swiss wings in Hong Kong. The dark soy sauce was dense with flavour, sweet and had what I thought was the lightest hint of ginger. I was hoping that the meat would be slurp off the bone tender but it wasn't quite there.

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.