Craterous plaster

I noticed that my plasters from Ali Fatimah looked particularly craterous today. And in spite of appearances both the eggs had molten yolk. Now that's a showcase of skills right there griddling pratas on the fly and yet knowing exactly when you needed to get them off that griddle through that seemingly endless queue.

The Masses X Heavens Appam brunch and other stuff

The Masses currently has a collaboration with Heavens serving appams for the weekend brunches. Because of the nature of The Masses, one would expect a woven cross cultural cuisine......thing. EuroIndian above the usual Franco Asian that they like to call themselves perhaps.

We discovered today that their kombucha is made in house. The flavour is potent with a vinegary punch. Loved it. These were their mango & cinnamon and the white peach & mint. Guess which is which.

C&C&C&C pasta. Reliable dish which has evolved and come ways since the lean and trim rendition from the old Saveur days. It costs more compared to the old days obviously and even has option for uni. 

There's char siew lamb rib on the menu so we couldn't ignore it. It's nicely done with a sweet dark glaze and caramelized exterior which one could reasonably construe as a char siew marinade.  Meat was fall off the bone tender. It's delicious. If there was anything I thought could have been improved, it was that the the flavour of the lamb was subdued due to the glaze.  

To the appam. This one had prosciutto and on the side, mushroom ragout with egg. There was no instructions on how to eat them so we had it however we thought was appropriate. 

There were a couple of sauces/chutney. One red that tasted like chilli with passionfruit and a burgundy that tasted like it was chilli with some burnt onion thing. I'm just guessing at this point. Both were delicious in their own ways but were overwhelming everything else on the plate.

The prosciutto alone with the appam was already delicious.

What we thought the better was their triple cheese appam - which looked to me like an upgraded take on Heavens princess appam. Nice mix of cheese (Mimolette, Parmesan and Halloumi) with egg in the middle of the appam.

Back in Black (spicy and Keisuke's)

Been wanting to come back to Tonkotsu King for another bowl of their Black Spicy which I didn't remember thinking much of years ago. Now that I've dug it up, I've also realized that last time occured more than eight and a half years back. Oh the stealthy march of time......

I enjoyed it today. I hated the queue to get into the shop under the sweltering humidity. But I appreciated the bowl much more than I did that last time. The black peppery warmth that made me think of a richer, oilier and cloudy bak kut teh minus the herbs and a lot less garlic. Am not sure why I didn't enjoy it the last time round but I won't be dwelling on it.

More Shake Shackery

We wanted to try the mushroom and chicken burgers so we came back to the Shack. Couldn't fathom why I even contemplated putting up with the crazy queue but as fate would have it, we were bumped up ahead of most of the people because they needed more than two seats. Two seats were exactly what we needed. Only waited for a just little more than 10 minutes and I'll take that win.

To the Shroom Burger. A battered and deep fried portobello cap stuffed with melted Muenster and Cheddar in between the buns. So one gets crisp from the exterior, a moist mushroom and runniness from the cheese. I tried "the squeeze" after a couple of bites but it didn't look like there was so much cheese that would ooze out. Heh. It's something that I wouldn't mind eating again though. Once in a while.

Shake Shack's chicken burger looked fantastic at a neighbour's table the last time we were here. What we were served today looked like it had greased locked batter. Didn't look promising but after a couple of bites, I admitted that I enjoyed it. Nice crunch in the oily crispy batter and relatively moist and flavoured chicken breast on the inside with pickles to cut through the grease. Would eat this again.

South Union Park, Jalan Kembangan

I've seen a number of social media posts of the food from South Union Park (101 Jalan Kembangan) so we decided to come down to check them out. The pictures did look promising.

Nursed a couple of their fruity slushy drinks while waiting for the food and.....

.....enjoying the view of the erm.....rosemary outside the window?

This was their squid ink bone marrow. Squid ink soffritto, the menu mentioned, on roasted bone marrow. Very nice. I was looking forward to just the flavours from the squid ink and the bone marrow and this delivered. On top of that, the bread had great charcoal grill flavour going on. 

Short rib katsu was kinda bland. Menu mentioned moist but it wasn't. Totally needed the sauce on the side to make it work. Didn't know what the sauce was but it tasted pretty good - there was mustard in it. Burnt onion puree was light, sweet and green-y. Not much bacon to be found on the dish. Napa cabbage was sweet and tender. As a dish, it didn't feel like it held up together.

Chocolate pappardelle - menu said braised beef, beef jus, sherry and parmesan. Not getting the cheese, not enough sherry to matter so I guess it was predominantly the beef jus that flavoured it. I was expecting a taste that was more robust but it simply didn't get there. The texture of the pappardelle was more hor fun than pappardelle. Soft and not much of bite.

Wasn't sure about the braised beef component of the dish. I tried to eat some and couldn't finish it because it was bland, dry and hard. Not beef that was braised for hours with the sauce for sure. It looked like meat that was diced frozen because it held the shape so well.

Millennium Glutinous Rice (千年糯米饭), Chinatown Food Centre

Millennium Glutinous Rice sells only glutinous rice. The only choice one has is between sweet and salty. I was introduced to them (#02-092 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) in the past year and what made the stall memorable was the sweet glutinous rice option. They're so rarely found that uncommon is an understatement. I've tried both and I think I like the sweet variety a little better. Nicely paired with the fragrance and pronounced flavour from the freshly fried shallots in oil.