Miznon, Stanley Street

Miznon (#01-01, 6 Stanley Street, tel : +65 6223 0716) as I gathered is contemporary casual Israeli. Meaning it won't be traditional in the traditional sense of the word (heh!) and there will be borrowed elements that originate from other food cultures. The name means cafeteria in Hebrew and they're a chain with presence in New York, Paris, Vienna and Melbourne; run by a Eyal Shani who is a judge in Masterchef Israel.

I don't think they're Kosher though.

Without further accolade brandishing......

...they offer free pita with tahini.

Which we helped ourselves to. The pita was pillowy, better than any I've had so far. Nice munching with the creamy nutty tahini.

That's their Run Over Potato - a flattened baked potato with sour cream, dill, olive oil and salt. That's all my tongue told. Gimmicky but I did enjoy it. There's also a story behind why it's called run over potato that you can Google. It involves a heinous crime once in Tel Aviv.

Pitas are their thing. There's a bunch of them with different stuffings. This one's Folded Cheeseburger. The menu doesn't state cheese but look at that beautiful golden brown fan of a crust there! Ground beef patty, that crusty cheese, tomato, fried egg and pickles. Very hearty. So not Kosher.

We had a chicken liver pita. Liver was pink and tender, lifted by the spring onions and chilli.

Miznon is known, for some reasons, for their roasted baby cauliflower. It's nice. I tasted salt and olive oil. I heard that's grey sea salt (sel gris) they used. That and the cauliflower with the smoky char. The "world famous" status seemed overblown if I might opine. Either this shop did a lousy job and I wasn't as impressed as I should have been or the world has been eating really bad cauliflowers. But like I said, it's nice.

Little House of Dreams, Seng Poh Road

Not the sort of place (#01-15, 58 Seng Poh Road, tel : +65 9030 4959) I would usually hang out but came over I did. Once. One evening. For cakes.

Butter cake's not bad. Not as buttery as the home made ones I used to have as a kid but I don't think anyone makes these with that much butter and sells them without fear of accusations of murder. With this, I was judging how much it appealed by how fast it disappeared.

Carrot cake's not bad too. The cream cheese frosting was whipped and light and it never became cloying. There's definitely better around but I have no complains.

If you've made it here and are still reading, I didn't like their espresso. Sour, acidic and bitter. No smell coffee when we walked it.

Lemak Boys, Shaw Centre

Whaddayaknow? Les Amis Group does nasi lemak with Lemak Boys (#03-10 Shaw Centre, 1 Scotts Road, tel : +65 6235 3218). 

There's always a challenge selling stuff like nasi lemak at prices Lemak Boys do because it's local food. Someone is bound to voice out that there's better and cheaper elsewhere. Others will balk at the prices because, local food - and that most of us are used to not paying a premium for them. There will always be somebody's need to justify the price tag because we all want them cheap and good. Or at a minimal, great value for the money we're expected to fork out. Understandable.

And because of what they sell, Lemak Boys will also invariably be compared to the likes of Coconut Club. So how did they fare?

Ingredients and cooking were fine in my opinion. What they included in the basic plate were quite nice but not particularly outstanding. It's the "getting there and not quite there" kind of standards if you catch my drift. Not mediocre, but also not quite there. Heh.

But I'm sure there'll be those that think that 'getting there' isn't good enough because of how much one is made to pay for a plate and in the other end of the spectrum, there'll be those whose standards are so low that they'd claim that this is one of the best nasi lemak in town/they've had.

The rice was forgettable. Not enough flavour. In fact I think I like Lee Wee Brothers' rice better. Ponggol Nasi Lemak was more satisfying as well since we're comparing. And if we're beating yet another dead horse, the defunct Island Cafe's basmati rendition blows them all out of the water. If I were to come back, it wouldn't be for the lemak rice. 

Sambal was interesting. There's heat and it was tangy - a tanginess with a quality that was almost fruity. Not traditional but also not bad.

Sayur lodeh packed a bit more heat than I had been expecting. This was rich and redolent of dried shrimps. Would make great pairing with steamed white rice.

I ordered the chicken and yam patty because I've never had one before. Made with minced chicken and strips of yam. Tasted like chicken and strips of yam. I didn't mind this though.

Chuan Hung Noodle (川巷米粉), Telok Ayer Street

Chuan Hung Noodle (#01-01, 51 Telok Ayer Street, tel : +65 9755 1058) is a noodle shop by the folks at Szechuan fusion restaurant Birds Of A Feather. The place has been around for more than a year I think and I've been wanting to come try their Mianyang rice noodles since I heard about them. Finally happened by chance today.

This canned hawthorn juice was delicious. Does anyone know where I can get these? 

We started with some chilled braised eggplant. The tender eggplants were topped with an awesome green chilli thingy with a smoky finish that packed a bit of heat. Delicious this was.

There was deep fried pig intestines. These slightly fatty intestines were braised with spices previously before they were fried and one could tell with all the flavour that had gone in to it. They were also stuffed with sweet leeks. Nice.

Had a bowl of their ox tongue noodles in vine pepper broth. These bowls featured the Mianyang rice noodles which had a silky texture like mee sua. These rice noodles had a lot more bite than mee sua though. Broth was peppery with some tanginess. There's chilli padi inside. Felt a bit of my lip tingle from the beginnings of numbness. Not bad. Wished there was more ox tongue.

We tried their bing fen (冰粉) because we haven't had anything similar before. Here I am tempted to simply describe it as textured.

BUT - there were a lot of flavour from the toppings. Sweetness from the red beans, sultanas and bits of hawthorn flakes. And then tanginess from both the raisins and hawthorn flakes along with a deeper caramel sweetness from the brown sugar in the jelly. That's all topped with lot of crunchiness and bite amidst the wobbly jelly.

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.