Xun Qin Ji (寻秦记), Seng Poh Road

We noticed Xun Qin Ji (#01-17, 58 Seng Poh Road) the last time we were in the vicinity. Piqued our interest since they were supposedly featuring food from the Shaanxi province and thought we'd check them out the next time we were here. I shot straight for the sesame paste cold noodles (凉皮).

The sesame added little to the noodles. Wasn't fragrant like I imagined. Slightly disappointed. The spicy option wasn't spicy either so I had to add extra chilli which ended up making the bowl look dangerously red but still didn't pack as much heat as it looked. I did enjoy the texture of the noodles though. They were less chewy than I had thought.

There was sliced mutton on the menu. I thought it was a pity that a restaurant that supposedly featured Shaanxi cuisine only had just a couple of dishes with lamb/mutton. This was one of them. I'd say that this would be akin to some sort of mutton ham or corned lamb. Delicious with the natural meat flavour. The garlic sauce on the side packs potency so if you dip too much, that mutton-y flavour would be lost. Otherwise, I liked this. Tender.

Since we were at it, an order of their Chinese hamburger/rou jia mo (肉夹馍). The fillings weren't as much as pictures suggested but the pork fillings were deliciously moist and packed with flavour.

Cheese soba and kombucha from Healthy Soba IKI

Did not see this coming from Healthy Soba IKI. Lured by their cheese soba which was just recently announced to be part of their dinner option. I liked it. The noodles were chilled. Predominantly flavoured by cheese, pepper and unexpectedly - olive oil. With a light perfume of truffle. I might just get this again without the tomato paste which tasted a little "jarred" to me.

There's kombucha now too. Lavender and mint flavoured ones. Those flavour were just a little above subtle so it's mostly still that regular tangy kombucha flavour for me.

More Market Grill-ery

First time back in The Market Grill since Umbrella Corp had the accident. There was a one for one tenderloin offer over the recent weekend and we wanted to take advantage of it.

Lobster bisque seemed to have lost some of its crustacean punch today. It's still not bad but......

We ordered sides of charred broccolini to go with our steaks. The broccolini came first. Before the steak that is.

Tried to eat them very slowly while waiting for the tenderloins. While I kinda like this dry char for the vegetable, aren't they supposed to be served with the steak?!

Those grilled tenderloin finally did arrive. Took a little longer than what I thought was the norm. Seemed like they didn't think steak knives were necessary for such a tender cut. Steak was nice. Nice meaning proper medium rare with a charred crusty outside. Everything else's forgiven at this point. Liked their Béarnaise sauce. Was happy with the fries.

So we decided to do desserts. Burnt cheesecake. It looked browned rather than burnt. Cheesecake was lighter than the looks suggested. Delicious cinnamon flavoured pears. That white scoop on the side was yoghurt. Loved those buttery bits of walnut streusel. Importantly, I liked that Market Grill doesn't attempt to kill with excessive sweetness in their desserts.

Still I appreciated a bitter coffee at the end. 

Ma Maison Kitchen, 100 AM

Ma Maison Kitchen (#02-11, 100 AM, 100 Tras Street, tel : +65 6694 7383) is the second newest outlet by Ma Maison. The menu appeared to be consisting of stuff from their regular outlets + some tapas-y small plates.

This was disappointing coming from them. The idea was fresh cabbage served in an dutch oven that would wilt from the heat along with anchovies. Didn't expect to find a fried egg. Most of the cabbage slices were too thick. The dutch oven didn't stay hot for very long. Most of the cabbage ended up being very crunchy and raw tasting. Which was a waste of those melted anchovies that wouldn't cling to stiff half raw cabbages.

I had imagined that they would have the experience to set this up with smaller leaves to do this.

Their gyutan was in the small plates section of the menu like the cabbages above. They were anything but small. Not complaining about the portions. The meat was sliced a little too thick as well. Which made them a little tough. Still delicious in the pepper sauce. Just have to chew harder and longer to get those flavours out. Tasted like something one could find in cze char stalls if only cze char stalls ever offered ox tongue.

That's daikon in porcini cream sauce. Don't know what was the brown sauce at the bottom. Wasn't bad but it shouldn't have been there since it drowned out whatever little presence from the porcini cream. Poorly conceived this was.

There was white asparagus with cheese on menu so we ordered it. Delicious because the asparagus was crunchy and sweet and the cheese was milky and chewy. Nice.

In the spirit of All Hallows' Eve, we had their Scream Curry Rice.

Our Ghostface looked like it had double chin. A visually poorer cousin compared to the menu. Too much rice has the tendency to remove definition from one's jawline. Hahaha! 

Curry's not bad. The sliced chillis packed serious heat so I liked what it did for the curry. Those pieces of sirloin were unexpectedly delicious. Suitably salted and surprisingly tender with a beefy fattiness. I need to re-look into their sirloin steaks methinks.

Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill, Tanglin Place

I've seen Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill (#B1-01 Tanglin Place, 91 Tanglin Road, tel : +65 6738 2800) around for years. Make that decades. Have never walked in till today. As much as they looked retro-American, these guys were originally from Hong Kong. Didn't know that until recently.

We didn't get any complimentary basket of bread. Didn't even get crackers for the clam chowder. Cost cutting certainly has taken its toll on hospitality. Anyways, clam chowder tasted as retro as the restaurant itself. Creamy, starchy with sparse bits of clams and bacon. I wouldn't say that it's bad but I also probably wouldn't order them again.

Ordered a cheese burger with blue cheese. Guess what's wrong with the picture?

To their credit, they recovered themselves by offering the blue cheese which I did not refuse.

I added it into the burger and all was good. Think that's a Danish blue that they used. This turned out to be very similar to the bistro burger from Brewerkz. I enjoyed it.

Made the mistake of thinking that their 10oz US ribeye was a decent deal for under $50. The menu never specified USDA Prime. While I may not be an expert at telling, I knew it wasn't. 

The steak was flaccid and full of sinews. I didn't think it was worth even half of what they charged. This was shockingly low quality which spoke volumes about how little the restaurant's reputation mattered these days because it probably no longer did.

Was thinking that I'll never come back, but I just might for that blue cheese burger.

Springleaf Prata Place, Safra Yishun

Springleaf Prata has an outpost inside Safra Yishun (60 Yishun Ave 4). We came by for prata seeing that it had been a long while since we've had anything from them.

I wanted to get something that wasn't available elsewhere. Ended up getting their old 2012 Ultimate Hawkerfest murtabak with Mozzarella cheese, tandoori chicken and portobello mushrooms because their later Hawkerfest pratas looked like bad ideas.

The standards of their signature prata appeared to have declined. It looked and tasted much better when I first had it. Couldn't taste the smokiness from the tandoori chicken. 

Tried their banana egg prata. I kinda enjoyed this.  Pisang raja and egg in their prata - good with fish curry or sugar. Speaking of which, I might have gotten more sensitive to how their pratas were done. Springleaf's method tasted like the pastry was shallow fried than griddled on a hot pan. A little too greasy for my preferences these days.