A tea, a cake and a pie from PS. Cafe

The tea was Prana Chai from Australia. Black tea, probably a package blend with the masala spices and honey already included. The milk was soy. Was slightly apprehensive initially because of it but I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Liked the flavour that managed to come through from the masala. 

The cake was their burnt cheesecake with rum syrup drenched macerated raisins. Plump those raisins were. Cheesecake was soft and creamy. Not bad.

The pie which was more like a tart was a Normandy apricot pie. Pastry crust topped with slices of apricot and what might have been custard. I'm not sure. Not bad, but the crust would have benefitted from being more buttery. I'm thinking this could have been better heated up than at room temperature.

Fatty Cheong (肥仔详) Wanton Noodles, ABC Brickworks Food Centre

Fatty Cheong is pretty well known for their roast meats. They also have another stall (#01-52 ABC Brickworks Food Centre, 6 Jalan Bukit Merah) at the other end of ABC Market which sells wanton noodles with bu jian tian char siew (不见天叉烧). One doesn't have to specify the cut of meat during order - all char siew that is served with their wanton noodles are 不见天.

You're probably wondering how was this particular wanton mee? 

The char siew was nice. It was actually the highlight for the plate of noodles. Fatty, readily falling apart yet with that bit of tender bite of contrasting texture to the sweet caramelized exterior. Good stuff. The noodles weren't much to speak of since they were lacking the bite of springiness which I was hoping looking for. Wanton was okay and chilli sauce was so so.

Ryan's Kitchen, Great World

Ryan's Kitchen (#B1-146 Great World, 1 Kim Seng Promenade, tel : +65 6767 0118) is an attachment to Ryan's Grocer next door. The former, an Aussie styled restaurant which gets their ingredients from the latter. From what I gathered, the food they sell are allergen free and organic. And in my opinion, frills free in a down to earth manner. 

Tried their 100 day grain fed ribeye. Straightforward piece of steak that was grilled a proper medium rare with salt and pepper. Their mushroom cream sauce was pretty good. This was a much more enjoyable steak than a certain dry aged one at a neighbouring restaurant.

Pork chop was also nice. Hearty, boned in and had a nice aroma from the grill. Delicious black pepper sauce on the side. Will come back another time.

Rong Ji Traditional Hainanese Chicken Rice (荣记傳统海南雞飯), Redhill Food Centre

Tried the chicken rice from Rong Ji (#01-42, Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane).

This was an order of their chicken cutlet rice with additional boiled chicken drumstick and and egg.

Pretty decent. Chicken cutlet was drizzled with some lemony sauce. The drumstick was quite slurp off the bone tender.

The rice wasn't greasy. It also meant that less chicken oil was used which resulted in lesser flavour. The bright spot to this was that it meant I didn't have to hold back on their chilli sauce - a chilli sauce that was appetizing in a garlic-ky and limey manner which also packed some heat. Creamy and no sediments like the kind that Boon Tong Kee has.

More food from Sari Ratu

Haven't had Sari Ratu in a while so we dropped by at an opportune day for lunch.

Ordered some of the stuff we liked like their sambal goreng.

Had to get an order of the sambal merah as well for the rice.

Some gnarly looking begedil that looked like they were dug out from the bowels of the earth.

This was our first encounter with this dish of gulai tunjang - tendons simmered in a gravy that appeared to be made with their sambal hijau. Delicious stuff.

Some telur dadar.

And tapioca leaves stewed in a savoury coconut gravy.

The portions of rice they serve are kinda tiny. There's never enough of it for the gravies and sambal in one serving.

Revisiting Tang Kay Kee

Zi char dinner at Tang Kay Kee.

Sliced fish stir fried with kailan. A dish that I once thought was favoured by old uncles and aunties. Firm slices of fish were nice but the kailan was a little fibrous. As a whole, it was delicious.

Stir fried fish belly with bitter gourd and black bean sauce. Also was a good eat from that sharp salty flavour spiked with heat from a little bit of chilli padi.

I haven't had this particular style of sweet and sour pork before. It's different from the others for various reasons. I liked that it was not excessively coated in their sauce. The sauce that they concocted was not overly sweet and I could taste tomatoes in them. 

On top of that, it appeared that the pork was only covered in a dusting of flour. No crunch on the exterior of the meat which was softer than most other renditions out there. But there was a smoky wok hei. Nice. Important to understand that while the exterior was soft, it was not soggy. There was a balance of lean meat and fat in the pork which along with the rest of the elements of the dish made it tasty.

I wonder why they don't do pineapples.