35 days whisky dry aged Black Angus ribeye from Collin's

We have eaten at Collin's once. In a coffeeshop stall. Chicken chop and pasta thingy. Chicken chop had soggy skin and the pasta wasn't salted. Shitty food and I'm beyond mincing words here. We decided to give the restaurant outfit (#B1-106/107 Great World, 1 Kim Seng Promenade) of Collin's another chance because some people have insisted it was good and maybe it was just that particular stall that had lousy food. Here we were and that's their 35 day whisky dry aged Black Angus ribeye.

What's whisky dry aged? Haven't a clue. The meat was supposed to be tender and better flavoured as the ageing should have done but it wasn't well flavoured because the marbling wasn't so good in the first place and fat is flavour. What greatly disturbed me were a few things.

• Why the fuck did they al taglia the steak without asking?
• The wait staff did not understand the word 'marinate'. We had to cycle through two of them before someone gathered the initiative to ask. I find it shocking that a restaurant selling meat failed to answer a query on marinade because they didn't understand what the word meant.
• Business too cheap to educate their staff on what's on menu and then selling shit that your wait staff have no fucking clue about.
• Salting and peppering the meat is apparently not a thing here
• So the restaurant thinks they're in the league to work with dry aged meat and didn't think it was worth the effort to hire people who know how to handle the meat? Come on, trim the bloody sinews away.
• Do away with the fancy tile plates. The big steak boys don't do it. Fancy plating implies that you're overcharging not because of the quality.

Hmmm....the peach Earl Grey had one piece of canned peach. Being sweet as it is with so much ice meant to me that there's a truckload of sugar in there. Din Tai Fung upstairs has better ice Earl Grey. 

Ham & cheese toastie from The Providore

Finally got to try the ham and cheese from Providore (7 Raffles Place, tel : +65 6533 1352). Not what I had imagined but I liked it. The bread was generously buttered and that helped. Nothing like the hard sourdough from their club sandwich. I was initially apprehensive about the tomato and pepper relish but it turned out almost fruity and I didn't mind them at all. 

Finished up with their chilli hot chocolate. I've been trapped in the repetition of getting this (and maybe a couple of times of their masala chai latte) because I don't know what else is better or worth drinking here. Maybe I should try asking the next time if they can make this spicer! :D

Healthy Soba IKI, One Raffles Place

Found out about this shop (#04-47 One Raffles Place, 1 Raffles Place, tel : +65 6438 6022) from social media not too long ago. Apparently they've been around for years but I haven't heard of them until recently. What appealed to me from their menu was that they had a variety of cold soba - something this country has a dearth of considering that we're under sweltering heat most of the time.

Got a set which came with one mini rice bowl, a soba and tea. This was the lemon soba from their seasonal menu which I knew I had to get. Shredded chicken, daikon oroshi, some sliced okura and lemon in a chilled tsuyu. Very nice and perfect for the sweltering heat that I was talking about. The broth didn't have a similar smokiness like the one from Tokyo Soba and the lemon didn't match the citrus fragrance from the sudachi bowl from Keria but hell yeah it was still enjoyable.

Picked the mini rice bowl that had shirasu and avocado for my set. The only rice bowl option that was only available as part of their set and not available for a la carte in normal size (but then again, maybe I should try asking the next time). I also knew I had to get it because shirasu. And maybe avocado too. This was so good. Warm rice with the saltiness from the fish. 

That chilled lemon dashi broth was so enjoyable. 

Miz Japanese Restaurant, Kampong Bahru Road

Miz (17 Kampong Bahru Road, tel : +65 6225 5761) is a hole-in-the-wall-ish Japanese shophouse eatery I was introduced to a year ago. Didn't take any photos then so here's some from a recent revisit. 

The restaurant serves a variety of commonly seen Japanese food here and function somewhat like a diner/izakaya minus the kushiyaki. Minus frills to so one can also understand why their food and beer is very affordable.

They had some aburi otoro on the cheap(er). Not bad actually but I totally didn't understand why they had to include minced ginger on top.  

Miz has surume tempura. If you didn't already know, surume is a Japanese dried marinated squid/cuttlefish snack. It's salted and also sweet from sugars that are added in the preparation. These are tempura-ed versions of them. Enjoyed chewing on these.

Sashimi was not fancy but pretty decent quality. Maguro's not that great but salmon was better than I had imagined. The hamachi came in thick slices. If I had to critique, the hotate were to thinly sliced. The restaurant even agreed to fry the heads of the amaebi for us.

Sweet tamago. 

Their mentaiko mushrooms were yummy. Portobello caps filled with mentaiko mayo that were grilled/broiled. Juicy and umami.

I've gotten cosier with natto in recent times so that's a natto maki there. I think that was vinegared rice they were using in that maki.

Garlic butter udon was kinda nice. The chewy noodles were chilled and the garlic flavour was pretty well moderated.

Wouldn't recommend the curry udon though. Curry's thin. Improved to the point where I found it addictive as a drinkable broth after adding shichimi but I still don't think it made a good curry udon.

Teriyaki chicken was surprisingly tasty. Chicken was the frozen variety and the sauce was very generic teriyaki if you catch my drift - but it wasn't bad.

I like their shishamo. They don't look very fat but they were filled with eggs. The fish was also well salted. Had seconds

Grilled teriyaki squid was a little chewy and for some reasons, a little gingery too. Meat was a little chewy. Didn't enjoy it as much as the chicken.

That's hamachi kama. It's not bad per se but we've definitely had better.

Beer's $5 a mug during happy hours. Sapporo on tap or Orion from bottle.

As-Shifaa Cafe, Lucky Plaza

I've heard of this nasi ayam stall (#06-52 Lucky Plaza, 304 Orchard Road) for some time already but have never gotten to try them until today. These guys were generous with their fried chicken which was deliciously savoury and crispy. Even the breast meat was tender. To top that, I loved how the flavour of their chicken broth has been well infused into their tasty rice. If a sweet and spicy sambal is your thing, it's there as well. Personally, I would have preferred a bit more heat in that sambal but that's not a deal breaker.

Pray go

It's been about 13 years since we were last at Prego. In retrospect, this dinner reminded us why we never came back. This time, I think the lesson will stick.

There was something called candied orange Gorgonzola. I didn't know what it was but it looked like Gorgonzola that was ripened with orange. If it was truly such a thing. Sounded fun. Anyways, there wasn't much orange and they tasted salty for something that was supposedly candied. #wtf We requested for honey and extra crackers which they obliged. Very nice with the honey.

Green risotto. Pea flavoured I think with spinach and asparagus. Pink things were smoked tuna. The rice was subtly sweet - to put it euphemistically. We asked for Parmesan cheese, a few healthy twists of black pepper from the mill and then dumped the rest of the candied orange Gorgonzola into the rice and it became quite delicious.

Got suckered into ordering their ribeye because there was an option for a sauce of Gorgonzola and veal jus. Not much Gorgonzola flavour in the sauce but it didn't taste bad. 

Regretted immediately when I saw the steak. Didn't look much like ribeye. Meat felt flaccid and lacked char. Was thinking it would be with just salt and pepper but it was scented with rosemary and some other herby stuff to mask the fact that the steak was bland and cheap tasting. Pretty shocked at the standards. Aston makes better at about a third of what this place charges.

Did I mention the meat was sinewy?