Aoki 13 years after the first

It has been 13 years since I discovered and visited Aoki for the first time. In those 13 years, I've never gotten past lunch because...well, it's Aoki. Kinda expensive. And it's always easy to just fall back onto their mazechirashi. Not today though.

First time we had gotten counter seats. It has a great view for the busy hands and sharp knives at work behind the counter.

Otoshi was simmered vegetables. The sweet type with mushroom, lotus roots, carrots and konnyaku.

The salad has ice plant. Very crisp. Tomatoes were really sweet. Their salad has blown other restaurant's lunch salads out of the water. 

First time ordering their tekka don. Goma dare tekka don. With sesame dressing and handful of chopped mitsuba. Best tekka don I've had. Just imagine shoyu marinated akami in goma dressing coated in molten yolk from the onsen tamago.

Tsukemono was pretty. I like that pinky crisp pickle marinated in something that gave it a shiso flavour. 

What do we have here?

Black truffle chawanmushi. Piping hot, savoury and so damn good.

We saw them making the sweet tamago with the caramelized sugar top so we ordered some. Nice!

Dessert was sweet edamame mochi, matcha monaka and umeshu jelly.

Swiss National Day menu at Huber's

This was the first time I had ordered not a Grevensteiner at Huber's. I thought I'd switch out for a Schneider Weisse for the chilled citrus which might be a better foil to the sweltering humidity. There's a Swiss National Day menu happening in the meantime.

With something called a chalet soup which involved pasta, beans, some vegetables, Gruyère, cream and saucisson vaudois. Delicious cheesy soup which wasn't too rich.

Got ourselves a kalbsadrio just like the last year when they had it.

This chicken schnitzel sandwich was from their regular menu. While it looked like it had some cheese, I couldn't taste any of it. Pretty decent piping hot fried chicken sandwich though.

Got ourselves an order of bsoffni öpfel.

A dessert of a baked apple stuffed with cheese, raisins, mango chutney and Calvados. The apple and stuffings were mostly tart. But that's what the scoop of vanilla ice cream was for.

Revisiting Niku Kappo

It was over three years ago when we first visited Niku Kappo. Today, over three years later, the menu didn't look like it had changed much if at all. This visit today was driven by their niku sushi. I wanted to get some.

We also ordered a bunch of stuff to try that we never got to the previous time round. Like this ajitama foie gras dish which was served with foie gras that was cold and hard. We ended up pan frying the foie ourselves later.

Along the way to the niku sushi, we also made short work of their aburi mentaiko potato salad. Mentaiko which added umami to the creamy potato salad while the onions cut them through with sharpness. This was better than I had imagined.

Pleasantly surprised by the beefiness of their wagyu tsukune. Both the cheese filled one and the negi shio topped stick were delicious in their own ways. 

Truffle cheese udon was better tasting than I had expected. With the cheese, egg sauce and black pepper, this was more carbonara than most carbonara around. Note to self : this should be shared to avoid surfeit from the richness.

We were actually disappointed when we finally got to the niku sushi. The slices of beef were too thick and chewy. Couldn't even swallow some of them. Ended up a la plancha-ing the rest. Tasted loads better after searing them on the hot pan.

If anyone had been wondering about the pan frying of the foie gras and the beef from the niku sushi - we had a hot plate from an order of gyutan. Gyutan was fatty and tender and good after a short sear with either the negi shio or a dip of shoyu. 

Selera Restaurant, Mackenzie Road

Was brought here (15 Mackenzie Road) by an old buddy who felt like duck rice. Halal one that is. I don't remember having eaten here before but I think I might have heard people in the past mention their curry puffs. Which we didn't get any of today.

Here's a serving for of mixed duck and chicken. Roasted - or fried if you wanted to be more accurate. Looked very rustic and didn't taste bad at all. Meat was reasonably tender. The duck skin was a little tough at parts, but the fried taste made up for it.

Obligatory fibre in the form of stir fried mixed vegetables which came with bits of squid, fish and prawns. Slices of fishcake too. A little gingery but I kinda liked it.

Here be the rice. Very generic and weak flavoured chicken rice but their limey chilli made up for it.

CH叉R, Jalan Besar

Some years back during the time when Ch叉r (363 Jalan Besar, tel : +65 68427759) started business, I was curious about the roasts they were doing. Never got to visit until a today after we were unsuccessfully trying to get to another shop. Then we stumbled upon them. Better late than never I suppose.

Their food ordering system felt out of place. There was no physical menu and we were asked to browse what they had via their website. We feedback to them that there are no prices indicated before they asked us to try using their delivery platform Oddle. Which Oddly didn't have everything on their regular menu.

Anyways......

Not impressed by their chicken and salted fish fried rice. I'm not sure if I even registered salted fish in the flavour. Rice was also more greasy than I generally like. Needs a bit more salt or fish sauce or whatever it was. What saved this was their chilli which was refreshingly zesty.

Duck was dry. Funny thing was, even their delivery menu compared that dryness to the desert. Not really sure what was the point there. Unlike most Cantonese roast, these didn't seem to have fat underneath the skin. Meat was tender for some parts. Wasn't bad though.

Ch叉r is known for the char siew. I had initially thought from pictures that I saw that it was the KL styled char siew but getting up close, these didn't look nor taste much like them. The dark exterior seemed to be more glaze than actual caramelization. Sweet and sticky with quite a bit of fat. Nice.

Roast pork was pretty good. The roast had a balanced proportion of layers between meat, fat and the crispy crackling. Didn't expect to taste rosemary in the meat though.

Props to them for having the option of kailan stir fried with fermented bean curd for their vegetables. 

Suju : The zuwaigani croquette teishoku and the oyster miso oil zuke

This was our first time at Suju after the lockdown was lifted. Can't say we weren't looking forward to it. After all these time with them, one of the take away is never to judge their food by appearances. They usually taste much better than they look and if they already look good, one should be prepared for a treat.

Their oyster miso oil zuke was one of those starters we've been wanting to try but never did until now. These were oysters marinated in miso and grapeseed oil. Texture was akin to rehydrated dried oysters if you get what I mean - with miso flavour. Umai!

Today's special was zuwaigani (snow crab) croquette teishoku. Those croquettes looked unassuming. They were well fried without excessive grease, very tender and was a flavour bomb on the inside. If I had to one phrase them - these were the fried versions of crab chowder. 

Nama tamago for the rice. Itadakimasu!