Hillman Restaurant, Kitchener Road

I found out about this place (135 Kitchener Road, tel : +65 6221 5073) years ago after having visited Manhill Restaurant a long while back. Yes, it's Manhill and Hillman. Same difference. 

I recalled liking the paper wrapped chicken (纸包鸡) from Manhill. I think Hillman here does it the same. Sweet, savoury and a hint of ginger that I didn't mind. The pieces of thigh meat were dripping with grease and juices. Leagues ahead of those from Union Farm Eating House.

Haven't had mui fan in years. This one was nice. Reminded me of those that I used to have as a kid. No excessively starchy gravy. Gravy had a simple but nice savoury flavour.

This was their claypot roasted pork belly and sea cucumber. The same dish that I had then at Manhill. Rather liked this too.

Because the mui fan was single serving and small portioned, we had to get some rice. So that I could mop up the grease from the 纸包鸡 on my plate and that the gravy from the claypot wouldn't be wasted as well.

Got the apple soup again. It's exactly like what I described at Manhill. Not one of the better Chinese fruit soups I've had.

Merci Marcel, Club Street

It's not exactly news but Merci Marcel has a branch of their restaurant at Club Street (7-9 Club Street, tel : +65 6438 3913). The menu is a little different from the one at Tiong Bahru. 

Like these raclette toasts which were nice. Underneath the cheese was coppa, mushrooms and some gherkin puree. Bread's lightly toasted.

Their tarte flambée toppings here were Bayonne ham, black cherry jam and Ossau-Iraty. Enjoyed munching this too.

This dish was called 'cauliflower trilogy'. Or 'three ways' as some restaurants would put it. There's the roasted one, the pureed ones at the bottom and some that were crunchy flakes. I think. Nicely done. Great pairing with the ham. I'd eat this again.

There's a half cooked salmon on menu. I'm impressed that with such thin slices, they've still managed to half cook it. I thought the passionfruit vinaigrette was a good idea. Croutons lent texture and hid the fact that you were munching on the passionfruit seeds.

Xin Cuisine, Holiday Inn Singapore Atrium

I've been curious about Xin Cuisine (Level 4 Holiday Inn Singapore Atrium, 317 Outram Road, tel : +65 3138 2531) for a while. Finally came for dim sum.

Their pan fried radish cake was pretty greasy. Without rehashing what I've previously been saying about how Imperial Treasure has set the bar for us (haha!), these weren't even close. In fact, I thought it looked amateur-ish. Like how I would cut or fry them. Couldn't finish these.

Skin was a little thick on those har gow. But otherwise, it was okay. I think there might have been some roe in the dumplings beside the prawns.

Char siew bao was not bad - if it was something I had bought from a neighbourhood pau shop. Skin was a little dense and the stuffings were a little dry and blah blah. For restaurant prices, I wouldn't spend money on it.

Couldn't put a finger to the odd flavour in the siew mai. Something tasted off (as siew mai flavours went). What exactly it was eluded me. Left one untouched.

These were bbq pork puffs with macadamia nuts. The bbq pork fillings were the same as the ones from the char siew pau. Puff pastry wasn't buttery and not prettily browned. I admit to being partially drawn to ordering this because of the nuts and I couldn't taste any of the macadamia.

Their rice rolls were mediocre. No rice flavour in the rice sheets. Which I think is simply substandard for hotel restaurants.

The menu described pork neck stuffings. Couldn't taste any pork. If no one had told me, I wouldn't have known there was meat. The greasy flavour from the fried spring rolls in the rice sheets were the predominant flavour just below the mushrooms and soy sauce.  

Not coming back.

Inaniwa Yosuke, Japan Food Town @ Wisma Atria

Inaniwa Yosuke (#04-45 Wisma Atria, 435 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6262 3279) belongs to the group of original shops that opened when Japan Food Town started a few years back. Their specialty is udon. Hand made for each batch through a process that takes 3-4 days if what I read were to be believed. The noodles are of the thinner variety as compared to say Tamoya Udon.

We got the seiro option and the scallop kabosu udon. The udon was smooth and had a nice chewiness to the bite. Was delicious with either the shoyu/goma dips or the lime/dashi broth from the scallop bowl. Scallops were sweet. I was thinking that less yuzu kosho would have allowed better clarity of the ingredients.

Not too bad kaki fry. Oysters were creamy and tasty.

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.