Lino Pasta Bar, Shaw Centre

Lino Pasta Bar (#03-23 Shaw Centre, 1 Scotts Road, tel : +65 6235 4653) is sister to Lino - which by extension falls under the wings of the Les Amis Group. The restaurant's small, menu's mostly focused on pasta and the setup is straight to the point - they're there to serve pasta. No frills except for the mafalde.

There was one particular wait staff that was so distracted by his mobile that for the four times that I needed him, I had to walk to him. Now that that's out of the way......

Tagliatelle Bolognese was....edible. It's a little tart with a lot of tomato and either little or no red wine variety which along with whatever herbs they used, reminded me of jarred pasta sauce. It's not nearly as bad but it was kinda disappointing.

We liked their cacio e pepe though - done with mafalde and a fried egg. Unfortunately no molten yolk there. #disappointed. I was expecting more cheese and pepper but what they put in was good enough and sufficiently buttery on those satisfyingly chewy al dente wavy ribbons.

The third plate we had was their chitarra with mentaiko and some cream topped with soft boiled egg and seaweed; flavoured with a bit of plum (it's actually ume if you hadn't already caught on). Very moreish flavours that one would more likely find in a Japanese restaurant. Very little of the ume to go round though since I didn't taste it in most of the pasta. But otherwise I liked it.

Dessert was chocolate gelato - I'm thinking hazelnut chocolate. Topped with caramel pine nuts, white chocolate (which we initially thought might have been condensed milk...haha!) and little bits of lavender. Not bad. 

Coucou, Craig Road

Maybe the Swiss aren't big on opening restaurants here. Marché aside, the one other outpost that comes to mind is Huber's. Coucou (9 Craig Road, tel : +65 6226 0060) came along, run by Yves Schmid - formerly restaurant manager of the defunct Senso for the past decade or so and its executive chef Sebastien Donati - former group executive chef of also Senso. How the transit happens from Italian to Swiss, I don't know.

We were given some spicy crispy potato skins while waiting for the food. Nice to munch, a little salty.

Their Coucou salad is apparently a thing. 

The shredded vegetables are accompanied by a little jug of dressing which according to Yves, is a recipe from his grand père. I can't break down the flavours but it's kinda like pesto. And it's good. Better tasting than what I had imagined. Refreshing with the crunchy "curly" vegetables.

We got a half platter of their cold cuts and cheese. Which was fortunate because the portion was already pretty big. Air dried beef, ham, speck and coppa. A couple of Swiss cheese which I don't know. I'm quite the sucker for these things so yes, I enjoyed them.

Those cold cuts and cheese came with nice bread. The dark one has walnuts and the other, seemed to have a cheesy crust. Would have loved to have more bread for those cold cuts.

A few of the items on the menu sounded good. We had to start somewhere. This was their pork tenderloin. Pan fried maybe with an outstanding creamy morel sauce. And a nice portion of those mushrooms. Meat was tender and pink in the middle. This was so good.

The pork came with a choice of side. We got the spatzli. Tasted like it was pan fried. It was buttery with some caramelized bits on the edges of the pasta. Nice.

Since we were in a Swiss restaurant, one had to order the rosti right? Said no one that I know of. But we did anyway with the Zurich styled veal ragout. Liked this but I was surprised that the rosti was only half the pan. The other half with the ragout didn't have any potatoes underneath.

Dessert was superb. Meringue with Gruyère double cream and berries. It came with what I thought might have been a raspberry compote. I didn't upturn the entire jug of it. A generous drizzle would suffice while allowing the dessert to preserve a nice richness from the cream. What impressed me was that the meringue wasn't too sweet. So good.

Soh Food, Empress Road Food Centre

I thought this stall selling stewed duck and salted vegetable duck soup at Empress Rood Food Centre (#01-106, 7 Empress Road) looked like it was worth a try. One could choose between the drumstick, wings, the leg or even the whole of their braised duck.

The duck leg that I got was tender but the meat was a little dry and stringy. Not so uncommon of something that's been stewed for hours even though I was hoping that the meat might have been more moist. I liked that it wasn't excessively herbal. Sauce on the kuey teow was very lightly flavoured. The outstanding item was their spicy sambal belachan which saved the plate of kuey teow by transforming it from 'meh' to yummy.

Chicken rice from Malaysia Chiak at Great World

Malaysia Chiak is a Malaysian food themed food court set up by the Fei Xiong Group - the people responsible for a bunch of chain food courts like Encik Tan, Malaysia Boleh, Tangs Market and Nam Kee Pau. Amongst a few other. We happened to be looking for dinner and ended up at the branch at Great World (#B1-102/103, 1 Kim Seng Promenade). Chicken rice it was.

It's not bad. Rice wasn't too greasy and sufficiently flavoured which paired rather nicely with their lime-y chilli. Chicken was competent. This stall serves the Ipoh variety of chicken rice which included blanched bean sprouts and a milky bowl of chicken soup. Wouldn't mind this as a convenient go to.

Morganfield's, Star Vista

Morganfield's from Malaysia has opened up here for some years now. I've never had anything from their restaurant apart from a ham that I bought for Christmas. Managed to try their (#02-23 Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green) ribs recently. Hickory on spare ribs and honey rum on their babybacks. Not bad - those ribs were reasonably tender and easily slid off the bone. These guys just outdid my ribs experience at Meatsmith Little India. 

Poh, Empress Road Food Centre

I read about Poh (#01-89 Empress Road Food Centre, 7 Empress Road) online a couple of years ago. About how the proprietor had previously been working in various hotels before setting up this stall. What made me come by was because the stall also does chye por kuey teow which isn't easily available outside of Teochew restaurants. Teochew restaurants that will charge easily three times more for a plate.

It's good. Loved the sweet and saltiness from the chye por that paired with an eggy wok hei flavour infused into the kuey teow dish. Nicely done even though I found the amount of grease a little disconcerting. Do not mind coming back at all.