A few more items I haven't tried before at Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐)

For some reasons, there's a pineapple drink that's come up on Din Tai Fung's menu. It's one of the less impressive drinks they have. A little too sweet and lacked citrus methinks. I expected better from them.

We'd seen this vegetarian fried rice during one of our visits in the past but hadn't a clue what it actually was and how we could order it because it's not on the menu. Chanced upon it on the online order form recently so we wanted to try. It's not as satisfying as their regular ones. No eggs. No garlic. A little bland. But otherwise, it's not bad with splashes of light soya sauce.

This rice dumpling stuffed with pork has been on their menu for as long as I can recall. Never tried it until now. Flavour's not bad. Read of that what you will. Meat was a little dry-ish but the rice was moist and tender. 

Sanma katsu from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison

I've never had sanma katsu before. What's neat about these from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison was that they were also deboned. I'm guessing gutted and cleansed of the innards as well because I didn't get any of that tasty bitterness in there, but hey, so nice not to have to deal with their bones. To address the unasked question if anyone was wondering, yes - nice crisp breading and moist tender meat from the fish. Liked it as much as I did the aji. I wished they offered the option of only sanma sans the tonkatsu for their teishoku.

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.