Luke's before dining out is out

This was the first dinner we've had at Luke's in town. The other time we've ever had dinner was at their first restaurant at Gemmill Lane.

Seems like the coarse salt flakes are gone for good. Just like their poppyseed buns. The Bloody Mary is still as delicious though.

Corn bread are still good.

Haven't had their clam chowder for a while. Tasted also as good as the first time we've had it back in 2011.

Got their USDA ribeye medium rare done "Luau" style. There was a sweet glaze that was similar to char siew on the surface of the nicely charred steak. A first sweet and savoury steak for us. Can't say we didn't enjoy it.

We had their Dutch veal chop. Very tender. Not as much flavour as I had imagined from the anchovy Marmite butter though even though the name strongly suggested otherwise.

Luke's refreshing kale salad is always welcomed as a side.

Had their old style hash brown on the side. Crisp and buttery. There's Boursin cheese in it that made it richer than just an ordinary buttery hash brown.

Brown sugar pancakes from Nirai Kanai

All these time that we've been to Nirai Kanai, we've never tried their brown sugar pancakes until recently. Man this was good. I don't know if they were freshly made or merely heated up on order but they were delicious with the whipped cream on the side. In case anyone was wondering, they were crepe-like, rolled up then sliced even though they were called pancakes on the menu.

SLATE., Purvis Street

Slate (#01-00, 24 Purvis Street, tel : +65 6261 1724). Food's okay. Cafe in the day time and from what I read, contemporary Asian restaurant in the evening. Which means plenty to plenty of people so I'm not going into that territory.

Their lemongrass lemonade drink was not bad, but kinda small for what they were charging.

Ordered their G&G sandwich because there was suppose to be Gammon ham and Gruyère and fried bread. It was open faced. I hadn't been expecting that. Liked the ham and pretty okay-ish truffle Gruyère sauce. It's one of those I don't mind eating if I'm here or in the vicinity but wouldn't come all the way here for it kind of thing. I did enjoy their salad on the side......

...salad that also came with their Side Way Omelette. Side ways because it's filled with crab and crabs walk sideways. So beside crab meat there was also smoked crab fat (obviously kani miso) and tobiko. It's okay, not outstanding. Omelette had a Asian style to it. 

Back to the salad. It's kinda like a mix between a generic mesclun + Thai mango/papaya salad. Minus fish sauce, heat and sugar. Also tasted nicer than how I described it. Yes, there were strips of mango  (or was that papaya) and fantastic crunchy textures. 

They have smoked fish fried rice on menu. It's edible. Wished there was more smoked fish and tobiko in it because those would have made up for the fact that it wasn't an incredible fried rice. I had initially thought that this might have been some sort of kedgeree but I guess not.

Briyani from Tanglin Halt Roti Prata & Nasi Briyani

I've heard mentions of the briyani from the Tanglin Halt Roti Prata & Nasi Briyani stall. Since I haven't tried it before I decided to come down to see if they were good like how their queues suggested.  

The flavour was local - meaning that it was less intense from the flavour of the spices, be it from the briyani rice or the chicken curry. Didn't taste bad. The food was comforting in an old school sort of way. But I wouldn't say that they were particularly memorable. The meat from chicken thigh was very tender though. 

It was mentioned that their stewed vegetables were good. It's not bad. The first words that came to mind were tender and salty.

I get their prata and wouldn't mind coming back for that. Pretty sure there are more flavourful briyani that can be easily found. 

Steak dinner at Huber's Bistro

We haven't come over to Huber's Bistro for a while and decided to for a couple of reasons. The restaurant has now a bunch of steak options that are dinner only and - nobody wants to tar pow steak home. This was shortly before the prohibition of dining in for restaurants as part of the local government's "circuit breaker" .

Got the Argentinian grass fed tenderloin because there was a Gorgonzola topping option. 220g, so not a large steak.

That's the said Gorgonzola topping - which I had initially imagined to be some sort of sauce like what they used to have. 

The other steak we tried was their Australian wagyu spider steak - a cut near the hip bone of the cow that contains reticular structured fat filaments that is reminiscent of a spider’s web. Hence the name. The flavour was outstanding that I thought it needed nothing beyond salt and pepper. Not that a good sauce wouldn't be nice but....

Ordered an Australian Angus flat iron with mushroom sauce. Because the steaks were small and we needed more. Again, a cut with sufficient flavour that only salt and pepper is required though I kinda enjoyed it with their mushroom sauce too.

Maddie's Kitchen revisited

Remember I said we'd come back to Maddie's Kitchen. Here we are back.

As far as I can remember, their beef tenderloin hor fun in black bean sauce is likely the only one I've ever truly enjoyed. The wok hei infused rice noodles came with seared slices of beef tenderloin that hadn't been tenderized to death like most if not all beef hor fun. It's actually difficult to find in such a dish where the meat had the texture of meat rather than that of an unidentified meat substance. Liked that there was enough of the fermented black bean flavour in the gravy. 

Was taken in by their rendition of oyster omelette. I liked that there was a good ratio between the flour and the eggs and the outcome had a fragrant and savoury light crisp to it. Oysters were fat. While it was greasy, it wasn't excessive to the point that one would easily suffer from surfeit after a couple of bites if you know what I mean. You know you want this.

Enjoyed their slice red grouper soup. Soup had a light hint of ginger, appropriately salted and had a good flavour going on. It's a bit more expensive but a lot more satisfying than the one from Yu Mei Mei Shi.

The dish we didn't think much of was their pork trotter bee hoon. The flavour seemed a little different from most trotter bee hoon we've had. Portions were hearty and the noodles were well coated with the braising gravy; but the taste didn't quite push the right buttons for us.