Skirt & Dirt, Tiong Bahru Food Centre

A new stall Skirt & Dirt (#02-66 Tiong Bahru Food Centre, 30 Seng Poh Road) has opened up in the food centre selling burgers. The selection's very curated - if you catch my drift. They've a cheese skirt beef burger that features a crusty "skirt" of cheese on the burger. That crusty cheese was nice and salty. Meat patty was an okay effort but it's basic and not particularly beefy. Nothing that I'll be looking forward to. 

If I had to compare the meat, I'd say that Hammee's does it better.

Lolla this year

It's been a while. Every time we come here to eat, it feels like they're more expensive than the last time. Or we're paying for more food. Or both. But so far, we've always walked away happy.

Tonight was the first time we've been seated in their pretty dungeon in the basement. The past two visits have always been at the counter.

From the specials - burrata with grilled soursop. I liked it. The grilled soursop with all its sweet tanginess took the place of what might have normally been balsamic vinegar. And it worked.

We've always liked their squid ink pudding with uni. It's a little more chilled than what we remember today. More chilled means less wobbly and flavour is also less pronounced. When life gives you overly chilled squid ink pudding, just wait it out for a bit.

Patagonian prawn tartare - nice sweet prawns. The green stuff in the middle was a dill something and those strips were preserved orange peel. The latter tasted like Chinese preserved plums.

That's their steamed crab lasagna. Lasagna with Hokkaido scallop mousse (I thought it was egg white) and chunky crab meat in between along with some lemony butter sauce. This was so good. Lots of chunky crab. There was an almost delicate but very present crustacean flavour.

Nicely done rack of lamb. No nonsense marinate to the meat, just salt and pepper like we like it. The brown stuff tasted like some jus reduction. The blob was parsnip puree. Think it had cream and vanilla in it. Loved it.

Some crusty duck fat fried potatoes.

And then we chocolate-ed ourselves out with their steamed chocolate pudding. Rich stuff.

Penang radish cake from Malaysia Chiak at Great World

Got this radish cake (char kueh kak) from the Penang Carrot Cake stall at Malaysia Chiak. I can definitely see the differences from the local variety (chai tow kuey). This plate had a lot more crispy bits of lard, plenty of chopped spring onions and plenty of bean sprouts. The local rendition doesn't have as much fried lard, usually a token handful of spring onions and no bean sprouts.

The radish cake were shaped into triangles wedges. Hmmmmm... it's not bad though.

Ru Ji Kitchen (如記小厨) (the one next door)

That's right, this was the stall next door (#02-29 Holland Drive Market & Food Centre, 44 Holland Drive) from the Ru Ji that sells fishball noodles. This one sells ba chor mee. It tasted very similar to the mee pok from the fishball noodle stall. Apart from the mushrooms, minced pork and vinegar, it might have been the same. 

There was something else that seemed missing. Can't put a finger to what that might have been but I think I like the fishball noodles better.

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