Tendon kuey teow from Gubak Kia

Here's a dry kuey teow bowl with beef tendons only. This time round, I didn't go overboard with the peanuts and simply inhaled it as they served it. Maybe with a little bit more chilli. Lovely. This tasted much like Empress Place.

Mooi Chin Place, Village Hotel Bugis

Mooi Chin Place (#03-12A Village Hotel Bugis, 390 Victoria Street, tel : +65 6339 7766) is old school. Old school like AC/DC. Like how they're still around - relevant because of their presences and still able to belt out their craft with undeniable skill. And in the repertoire - gems be hiding. Though the audience that would appreciate them dwindles by the year and mostly these days, they're largely nostalgia. Once iconic, currently not so well understood and fading through the years.

I've only heard of Mooi Chin in the recent years though they've been around for decades. We're here today for that taste of nostalgia uncommon.

We ordered their fried chicken with dark soya sauce because it looked interesting and we've never had anything like it. It wasn't a dish that was unimaginably wild or out there. The pairing just never occured to us. What arrived was exactly as the name described. Deep fried chicken slathered with dark soya sauce. The skin was very crisp but the meat was also a little hard and a little dry.

Hainanese styled ox tongue stew was in order (pun intended) because ox tongue. Those slices of tongue were tender sitting in a savoury brown sauce that had the flavour of cinnamon. I believe this is my first Hainanese styled ox tongue stew. Liked it. The execution looked tired, looked routine but I thought it was pretty delicious. This would have been good with steamed white rice. 

This was from the vegetable section of the menu and was called 'fried fish maw with mixture'. Not descriptive at all. There's fish, some squid and prawns in there as part of the mixture. What we ordered this for was the cabbage which was sweet and that savoury broth that made this one of those dishes people would consider perfect pairing with white rice. Nice. This tasted homely.

Mooi Chin's Hainanese pork chop differs from the others through the gravy that they use. This one was brown and flavoured by cinnamon, unlike the usual tomato based variety which tastes like they were made with ketchup. Never enjoyed much of those to be honest. This rendition I liked better. But they slathered it all over the pork so any crisp to the crust was lost pretty quickly.

Other than white rice, there's also chicken rice to be had because Mooi Chin also serve steamed chicken rice with zi char dishes; not dissimilar to Pow Sing, Chin Chin or Sin Swee Kee. Even Boon Tong Kee is set up that way. There's some flavour to that chicken rice. While I wouldn't say it's incompetent, there are nicer ones out there.

That's the chicken rice chilli on the left with some heat and quite a bit of lime. It's okay. Very edible but there're better ones around. The sambal on the right is pretty good with the squeeze of lime. Good enough for me with white rice and their pork chops which would have already gotten soggy in a while.

A B.L.A.T. from Bundt by The Backyard Bakers

I've never heard of these guys (#01-22 Havelock II, 2 Havelock Road) until recently. They don't exactly have a menu beyond what they update on Instagram. Most of the stuff are sandwiches and bakes; the latter appear to be mostly brownies which I've gotten a couple of to try. Picked up their B.L.A.T. (bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato) in between raisin toasts since I was getting the brownies. Not bad. Enjoyed it. Bacon was candied.

Shake Shack, Neil Road

Shake Shack like Five Guys are the burger joint darlings of this era. It's firstly because most people here hadn't had them and have heard loads about how good they were. Secondly, they're now here. The other reason I believe was that there was truth to the chatter that they were really better than the other options that we have had. 

I've never tried nor bothered with the queue that was previously at Jewel. This newly opened one (#01-01, 89 Neil Road) was more convenient.

Double ShackBurger with the creamy cheesiness that I liked and the Shack-cago Dog which I'm trying for the first time. Not bad. I seem to recall not being impressed with their fries previously. In fact, the one I had at Woodbury was outright mediocre. Today's fries were.....nice. Yes, that is indeed the ShackMeister ale in the corner. 

Being a sucker for exclusives, I had to try the pandan shake. Even if it's an "exclusive" from my own country.

We tried. At least I know I tried. That's the best two of us could do. It's that sweet. It's that bad. More coconut than pandan. Waste of money. Hong Kong's nai cha shake trumps this shit.

Fong Sheng Hao (豐盛號), Paya Lebar Quarter

I've read about this shop but never really gave them much though until I stumbled upon the shop (#B2-04 Paya Lebar Quarter, 10 Paya Lebar Road) by chance recently. The following thought that came to mind was that a sandwich and a coffee in the middle of a day never killed anyone. At least I don't know of any that did.

I was hoping for the pork floss to be less fine and also a little sweeter. Didn't expect the sandwich to be dripping condense milk. Wouldn't say that I disliked it but I wouldn't order this again. Don't mind trying the other sandwich options that they have if I happen to be nearby again though.

Coffee's drinkable stuff. Reminded me of the ones from Han's for some reason.

Shiokoji Tonkatsu Keisuke, Paya Lebar Square

Keisuke is mostly known for his ramen shops. That being said, there also seems to be some diversity in his newer businesses. I didn't see a tonkatsu shop (#01-02/03 Paya Labar Square, 60 Paya Lebar Road, tel : +65 6214 3345) coming though. Making not just a regular katsu but ones that are marinated in shiokoji for that extra flavour and fried in some state of the art fryer that results in a less oil absorption I heard. I can't verify nor pretend to understand much about the latter so let's just take this with a pinch of shiokoji.

I tried a few of their colas through the years. Have found them all to be a little disappointing except for the sakura flavour which I kinda liked. A little. This yuzu cola reminded me of Chinese preserved plums. Not that it's bad. Not that it's yuzu flavour either.

Oooo....what have we here? O-o

A breaded fried egg with golden orange molten yolk. Drizzle a little shoyu and it's good with the rice.

I thought rare salmon katsu was a good idea. The fish was light and went down easily. Might have been a better idea if they could use a cut that had a little bit more fat but I suppose that could be a lot more effort than what they're charging right now.

The rare maguro katsu was lacklustre. Some slices were just a little mushy. Not much flavour from the tuna so you could knock yourself out with the variety of sauces they have over there and not worry about missing out on what ever is "intrinsic". Tartar sauce is good by the way and so is the sweet miso.

What I personally found most impressive was the shiokoji marinated pork. This was their 200g rosu. The katsu was chunky, tender and moist. Outstanding flavour from the meat. I'd come back just for this alone.