Margaret Drive Chicken Rice, Havelock Road Food Centre

I saw this stall (#01-22, Havelock Road Cooked Food Centre, 22A/B Havelock Road) open in the recent weeks and was initially wondering if it was another one of those that might have been taking advantage of an old branding to sell chicken rice. Tried it and I'm happy to discover that these guys tasted very much like how Sin Kee did. The chicken was the same slurp off the bone tender type and the rice was good enough on its own. The only difference was the chilli sauce. This one was noticeably more lime-y. Which I liked too.

After checking with the proprietor, they were under the same management as the shop at Holland Drive and...*Lars Ulrich drumroll*....who also happened to be the same people who are managing Hua Kee at Redhill! Dots just connected. The stall's open from 10am till 4pm or until they're sold out.

Two Men Bagel House, Holland Village

Two Men Bagel House has a new shop at Holland Village (17D Lorong Liput). I thought it was a good idea to check them out since I've been eating at the shop at Icon Village a number of times now (一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十). Because of COVID19, they're only doing take aways.

The outlet exclusive bagel that this shop has which the other branches don't is the chocolate chip. This is their Elvis on chocolate chip bagel. Caramelized banana jam, bananas, candied bacon and peanut butter. How could I say no to that? It's nice. Deliciously messy kinda nice and I felt that the bacon, yup the bacon, brought it all together in its own way.

Mademoiselle Chantal featured corned beef, honey baked ham, Swiss cheese with a sunny side up and some Carolina mustard. I liked it as a cold cut bagel with eggs and cheese. Not out of place with the chocolate chip bagel as one might initially think.

Cheeseburger with extra cheese, pickles and mushrooms from Five Guys

Another round of trying different combinations of toppings for the cheeseburger from Five Guys. Am trying to keep things as simple as possible. Am telling myself that I may have reached the state where I don't need the bacon anymore.

Today's shake was cherry and malted milk. Very drinkable combination but pretty sweet. What I foresee to be something that I could do with more regularity is the coffee banana - an arguable throwback to the banana spin that I used to get from Spinelli's.

Revisiting Uma Uma Ramen

It's been almost a year since the last time we were at Uma Uma Ramen. The lemon tori paitan bowl which I liked isn't on the menu anymore. What they do have is their bushi tonkatsu which featured bonito in the broth and lime along with some a curly yellow noodle which one would normally associate with Sapporo ramen. Broth was delicious. Smokiness from the bonito and a light citrus from the lime.

There was a seasonal bowl that featured shaven black truffle from Alba and tamago sauce. A dry bowl where there was just enough of the creamy savoury egg sauce to coat the noodles which were also flavoured with said truffles and bits of fatty cubes of aburi charshu. Charshu that was mostly fat and flavourful.

Fire Grill Western Grill, Food Republic @ Wisma Atria

There's something to be said on the decal stuck in the front of the the stall about their philosophy. Something which they obviously do not follow or care about. Something about food being cooked on order. Everything on this plate betrayed that philosophy. The chicken chop was prepared before hand and merely seared on the griddle before they served. Less then 4 minutes all these took.

But it didn't taste bad. With the cheese powder, I found their pasta very edible. Chicken chop was nicely chao tar and if I might add, pretty tasty. Forget about the soup or the sauce on the side, it's not worth it.

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.