OLD WORLD Bakuteh (老世界肉骨茶), Yishun

Heard about the fried porridge from Old World Bakuteh (Hiap Hoe Eating House, #01-108, 747 Yishun Street 72) so we grabbed the first opportunity we needed to be in the vicinity to visit their stall.

It was delicious. My mixed pork innards porridge was fried on order and done so in very short order. I had mine on the tray a couple of minutes or so after the order. There's a nice smoky wok hei along with the aroma of hae bi (dried shrimps) and fried shallots. Not the factory variety mind you, these were shallots that were made in house. There were chunks of tripe, liver, kidney, intestines, sliced pork and little cubes of tofu puffs in there. Not as viscous or complex as the one from Dynasty Ipoh but I'd still come back just for this.

They served pretty generously portioned pork ribs. For $6, we got four meaty ribs that were so tender that the bone slid of the meat when I tried to pick them up. I liked that there was a mixture of fat and meat. The peppered garlic-ky broth was less intense than I normally prefer but it's not a deal breaker.

Braised tau kee was decent. I liked it.

Ramen Kiou, &JOY Dining Hall @ Great World

I've been wanting to come back to &JOY at Great World to try Ramen Kiou. Don't know much about them except that they're from Osaka. After some "research" I also came upon the realization that most of the media event bloggers are equally clueless.

Was largely drawn to the tomato cheese ramen because I was curious about the tomato broth. I got a bowl with extra cheese. The flavour was a sweet tanginess from the tomatoes coupled with a cheesy rich viscosity and aroma from basil. Not bad.

Their tonkotsu looked nice so we got a deluxe bowl of their shoyu tonkotsu ramen. Broth was milky and robust with that porcine punch. This was like Bari-Uma with with lesser shoyu. Pretty enjoyable. In fact, I thought better of this than my last experience with Ikkousha. 

Eggs were not marinated in shoyu. Charshu was fatty and so tender they were breaking apart when we picked them up with chopsticks. Had a nice smokey flavour from the pronounced caramelization which I thought also imparted a faint bit of the smokiness into the broth.

And for dessert, their ebi chahan. Good stuff under the radar here. The first thing that got me was the aroma from the dried sakura ebi. But oddly when I put my nose up close for a whiff, I couldn't smell it anymore. Anyways, this was filled with the shredded bits of their charshu which imparted its brand of flavour into the fried rice as well. That and the sakura ebi. I recommend having this with the takana they provide. 

Criticism? Those little shrimps that looked/tasted "processed".

Yuan Cheng Wai (源成威), Boon Tiong Road

Came across this stall at the Food Paradise coffeeshop at Tiong Bahru (11A Boon Tiong Road) by happenstance. Chance paved my way to them over the other roasted meat stall because the other one had a queue and this one didn't and also didn't look too bad.

I didn't dislike it. There was relatively tender soya sauce chicken. Decent stuff though I don't think they're in the same leagues as the ones I've had in Chinatown market food centre (一, 二, 三). One of my yardsticks is "slurp off the bone" tenderness which the chook didn't quite meet. Liked that their gravy wasn't starchy though. Char siew was edible and unmemorable. What impressed me were both the red chilli sauce and sambal. The former had a bit of heat and a nice hit of lime like chicken rice chilli while the latter was robustly flavoured with ikan bilis. Delicious chillis.

Sin Song Kee Teochew Fishball Noodle, Holland Drive

Haven't been here for a while so we stumbled upon Sin Song Kee Teochew Fishball Noodle (Chang Chen Mee Wah Coffeeshop, 40 Holland Drive) right in the spot where Sin Kee used to be. Looked like they've opened up recently. I've never heard of them but apparently they've been around, moved around and are known for their handmade fishballs and fish dumplings.

I thought they were okay-ish. Didn't taste bad but I also didn't think they were special that I'd scramble back for more anytime soon. Would have liked them better if the mee pok hadn't clumped up together. Couldn't get much out of the chilli so maybe I should be asking for more if I ever come back. The fish dumplings were nice though.

Syohachi Wagyu Hamburg, One Raffles Place

Enough has been written about Syohachi Wagyu Hamburg (#01-01 One Raffles Place, 1 Raffles Place tel : +65 6223 0755) - the newly opened casual hamburg restaurant by Syohachi Yakiniku from Hong Kong, so I won't parrot. We came over early for breakfast to take advantage of the 50% discount over the weekend. While the queue to order was a little less than 10 minutes of wait time, waiting to collect took over 45 minutes.

I liked it as a sandwich. What pushed the right buttons for me were the generous buttering on the pan fried toast and the melted cheese (this was added on by the way). Those became pretty much most of the flavour in the toasties. The wagyu patties were fully cooked, very tender and had flavours drowned out by the other ingredients. I'm just saying that this wasn't the best use of the meat or configuration for a sandwich if the flavour of the beef were to be showcased. And of course, there's the overcooking......

HK Mong Kok Kui Ji Kitchen, Chinatown Food Centre

We ate at this cze char stall (#02-217 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) once many years ago and remembered liking the food. Have been wanting to come back again over those years and never happened until now.

One of the dishes we remembered liking from the previous visit to HK Mong Kok Kui Ji Kitchen was their fu rong dan (芙蓉蛋). The omelette looked different today. Used to be more voluminous and had onions. This one didn't and was much flatter. Didn't taste bad though. Those cubes of char siew were still there.

The other dish we recalled liking was their steamed chicken with black fungus. It used to also have golden needle mushroom/enokitake (金针菇) and red dates which sweetened the dish. These ingredients were no longer there so the flavour had changed. Wasn't bad steamed chicken, just not mention worthy anymore like the old rendition they did.

Ordered steamed fish head with fermented black bean sauce and chilli. Awesome. Loved those black beans and chilli on rice. The steamed fish from this stall is as good as any of the competitors in the vicinity.