City Donut, McCallum Street

I've been wanting to check out City Donut (2 McCallum Street, tel : +65 6223 1425) as an alternative to the overpriced and excessively sweet Krispy Kreme for a while but the place has been one of those that was out of mention and out of mind for me. We stumbled upon them by chance recently and got a few flavours to try.

The top one was the ondeh ondeh. Tasted like a coconut bun - the ones with juicy gula melaka shredded coconut stuffings. Not particularly donut-ty. 

Middle's orh nee - the most donut-ty tasting one because it was essentially a regular donut stuffed with pureed yam. 

Bottom's coffee. Didn't like it. Weak coffee taste.

Don't mind trying some other flavour another day but I'm not getting the feels that J.CO's original glazed gave me.

YouFu Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodle (友富福建面), Golden Mile Food Centre

So, this was the stall (#01-57 Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road) that had gotten some people talking because the cook for the Hokkien mee was a 21 year old lad. There's probably some divided opinions over the flavour or quality of the noodle he's been making so here's my take. I liked it. What I had was something between wet and dry renditions which I thought was good. There's enough flavour in the stock infused noodles and the quality of the ingredients were decent. They even had a pretty kickass chilli on the side which was yummy. Can't say if I prefer this or Hainan Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee downstairs but I don't mind eating this again at all. 

One week later......

This was the $8 portion with regular bee hoon instead of the thick bee hoon like the last time. They claimed that they were running low on their chilli so could not give more than that little portion that you see from the picture. Today's plate was a little dryer than the one from the week before. Still tasty.

Thailand Chicken Rice, Golden Mile Food Centre

I've only come to learn about this stall (#B1-39 Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road) recently. Even though they were located at the unit directly facing Ah Xiao, I hadn't noticed them before. I don't know if the name refers to their style of chicken rice but I couldn't really put a finger to what was Thai about their chicken rice. As far as I knew, this tasted quite local to me.

This was roasted chicken thigh (鸡尾) with a hard boiled egg and liver. It was accompanied by soup which is much better than the commonly seen bland cabbage crap. Pretty decent and for a princely sum of just $4.

There's a chicken oil flavour to the rice which was sufficiently greasy, beady and just a little bit dry. Not the most enjoyable one out there but wasn't bad neither. But if I had to compare with Thai chicken rice I've had in Bangkok, the ones in Bangkok were tastier in my opinion.

Back to what I mentioned earlier, I don't know what about this made the stall Thai chicken rice. The main difference I'm aware of were the chilli sauce used and how the chicken is treated. 

The chilli sauce from this stall was unlike the sweet and sour kind or the ones with dark soy sauce and cut chilli that I've come across before in Bangkok. This one was deliciously full of flavour from lime and garlic. And a bit of coriander which I would have preferred not to be present. There were elements that could qualify it as a local chicken rice chilli but it's also not similar enough. Beside the coriander, there was also a sweetness that one could associate with Thai sauces. 

I'll come back after the food centre is done with the renovations next year and try them again.

Gaston, Keong Saik Road

Chance had some trivia come by me. Apparently, the Burgundians (people from Burgundy) were an East Germanic tribe thought to have originated from Scandinavia. The region which they now live in is called Bourgogne (French), Burgundy (English) or Burgund (German).

Gaston (25 Keong Saik Road, tel : +65 6909 8120) the French bistro is self proclaimed to be Burgundy styled. I can't claim much familiarity with food from that region beyond boeuf bourguignon, the eponymous stew which isn't that uncommon here.

Bread was a nice sourdough. While it reminded me of that one from Belon, it's not in the same league. Liked the soft chewy insides though. So nice with salted butter.

We had Oeufs à l’Epoisses. I wanted to try it because it was something different from Oeufs en Meurette. This was poached eggs in Epoisses cheese sauce instead of red wine sauce. 

Some gratuitous yolk porn. The Epoisses sauce was slightly stinky like that cheese. What I didn't expect was that after the liquid yolk was mixed in, the slightly stinky flavour became muted. Still delicious with the sourdough.

The other Burgundian specialty they had was jambon persillé - a terrine of ham hock simmered in white wine and lots of parsley. Jellied. I enjoyed the savoury porcine quality in the meat they used but there was far too little parsley.

Pleasantly surprised by how nicely done was their chilled capellini St Jacques. There was an eggy quality to the noodles which were scented with mellow lemon. That lemon was in the flavour as well. Appropriately salted. Noodles that had texture like freshly made ones. Scallops were sweet. I would eat this again.

Gaston's steak tartare was not bad. Hand chopped and chunky with a generous shower of sour from the gherkins and caper and maybe mustard. Didn't detect any heat from this one so maybe no Tabasco. The egg wasn't raw but cooked at 60 degrees Celcius as emphasised by their server. So it's not so runny and doesn't spread very well. Fries on the side were quite salty but addictive. They had a nice crisp on the outside.

Finished with a buttery and eggy lemon tart and raspberry sorbet.

Gubak chor mee from Gubak Kia

Gubak Kia has a beef rendition of bak chor mee. I got curious and tried it for novelty's sake. Didn't fare as well as the regular pork noodles because it lacked the flavour from lard which made ba chor mee appealing. The bowl also didn't compare as well to their kuey teow from the lack of aroma and flavour from sesame oil. The toppings of the bowl included minced beef, beef ball and sliced beef - the latter had a mouthfeel like it had been processed by tenderizer. Not to mention those really lousy fried shallots which tasted like it came from a packet. Underwhelming.

I'll stick to their kuey teow in the future.

Chung Cheng Chilli Mee (崇正), Golden Mile Food Centre

I've never heard of chilli mee until recently. All signs pointed to this and only this stall (#01-59 Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road) on the island so I took the bait and got myself a bowl. Mine's $4 mee kia. The $3 doesn't have pork ribs while the $5 has more portions for the prawns and ribs. It looked and tasted like a bowl of dry hae mee with their brand of in house chilli sauce.

Speaking of which....that chilli was more of a paste than a sauce. I picked up fried shallots, hae bee along with some sweet nuttiness which reminded me of satay bee hoon. Those and the heat. It's not so spicy in spite of appearances. Ingredients tasted fresh - that included a single prawn, pork ribs which were tender but has relatively little meat, crunchy bean sprouts and some tau pok. The bowl of noodles came with some sweet herbal-ish prawn soup. Not the powerful kind mind you. 

I'm not sure how I feel about this chilli mee. Maybe another bowl another time to decide.