Izakaya Niningashi round 2

Unless one is here for drinks and food is merely just something to keep the mouth busy and accompany said drinks, it can get pretty costly to fill up from the small plates. The food is tasty for sure. The portions are also small and prices aren't low. It does add up.

I think their oysters are smoked in house. Not as smoky as I had expected but they were pretty tasty. The texture was a lot smoother than the canned variety.

Buri is in season. These were buri toro. The flavour doesn't have the same impact as tuna but it was also delicious.

Grilled enoki with butter. Add a splash of shoyu and you'd think this was one of the best tasting things you've had in a while.

Potato salad's decent. Decent potato salad isn't difficult. Portions were small. I think it needs much more kani miso.

Flavour from the Hokkaido king crab was pretty good. It would have been better if most of the meat were not stuck to the shell.

These was smoked tuna. Made in house as well which also meant that it wasn't as smoky. Nice though. Tasted like some sort of ham.

Not so pretty looking bafun uni gunkans but the flavour was there. While the sushi was relatively inexpensive by local sushi-ya standards, one also got less uni in those gunkans.

Did I already mention buri is in season? This was buri shirako. Basically yellowtail milt. Grilled. So it was a light smoky exterior with creamy innards.

The kawaebi was much tastier than it looked. The batter wasn't heavy and the shrimps were crispy. Soaked up the ponzu from the buri shirako well.

Buri is in season. We thought it made sense to go with buri kama shioyaki. The meat from the collar underneath the charred skin was dripping juices. 

So is it Fresh Taste or Noo Cheng?

At this point, I'm still not sure if the stall is called Fresh Taste or Noo Cheng but I'm leaning towards the latter. We decided not to go for the big assed prawns this time round. So this bowl of prawn noodles costed half of what we paid the previous time and on hindsight, this was good enough. Those pork ribs were tender like those from good ba kut teh and I noticed that the pig skin had the flavour of soy sauce. Possibly because it was marinated? A very satisfying bowl. 

Ginza Anzu, Great World

Ginza Anzu has shifted from their old premise at Japan Food Town to Great World (#01-113/114, 1 Kim Seng Promenade, tel  : +65 6262 3408). The current space looks more "open" compared to the previous one which I kinda liked better because it provided an illusion of privacy.

Scallops were nice. Still rare inside the panko crust and still sweet. But to taste that sweetness, one would have to avoid their tartar sauce.

I mentioned previously that their ebi katsu was nice. That hasn't changed. Look at all those chunks of prawn. They have these ebi katsu in sandwiches for take away so I think I'm gonna get those some day.

We wanted to see what was the Ginjo pork about. I'm not familiar with the name. According to what they said, it's a mixture of selection from selected farms and ageing that they perform that produces this quality of meat. We got the rosu. Meat was pink at the centre, tender and a little chewy. Very moist.

The meat also had a more porcine quality to the flavour as compared to most regular tonkatsu. 

Brown rice to go with the fried meat.

Redeemed a free white coffee pudding from JPassport. This was actually pretty good. There was a lot more coffee flavour in spite of its tofu like appearances.

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.