Tsuta, Funan

Tsuta's first outpost at Pacific Plaza is gone. I have some fond memories of their kamo soba which doesn't seem to be available anymore. They have a few shops now so presumably business is doing well. This one was the shop at Funan (#01-04 Funan Mall, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6734 4886).

They have sui gyoza on the menu. These ones that they do were flavoured with shiso. I liked it. The flavour of the perilla bumped the boiled gyozas from ordinary to pretty good for me. Tempted to say that I'll be back just for the gyoza but they were kinda pricey at $1.36 a piece.

Their shio soba listed a lot of ingredients. Like kurobuta loin, Iberico belly, white truffle oil, bottarga sauce, black olive powder, dried grapefruit, dill, spring onion and bamboo shoots. There was a fishy aroma (in a pleasant way though) which might have been the bottarga sauce and there was an appropriately subtle flavour from the truffle oil. Not a bad broth but the noodles were too soft.

The crab ramen had a pretty good broth as well. Nice crabby flavour that was smooth and refined as opposed to one that's in your face. Not so impressed by the crab meat which were pretty minced. For what they were charging, I would prefer to get my fix from Keisuke's Kani King instead if I wanted crab broth. Again, noodles too soft for my liking.

Tried their luncheon meat onigiri. It was okay.

Vegetable briyani with paneer tikka from Komala Vilas

I was truthfully thinking of getting something else but I saw the special while waiting in line and got suckered into ordering it. Yes, it's just a couple of pieces of the paneer tikka with onions added to their usual vegetable briyani. Not exactly special. But I liked it. It's been a while since we were here and it was great getting re-acquainted with their flavours - like the savoury vegetables, beany dal and creamy korma. Not forgetting the mellow sweetness from their payasam. Loved those toasty chunks of cottage cheese.

Nothing like a masala chai to wash down all that heavy vegetarian food. Who am I kidding here?

Si Chuan Ming Xiao Chi (四川名小吃), People's Park Complex Food Centre

Came across the mention of this stall (#01-1044 People's Park Cooked Food Centre, 32 New Market Road) online which serves Szechuan small eats - or more commonly referred to as 小吃. Was recommended their liang mian (凉面). Damn this was so good. This bowl was a melange of flavours ranging from sour from the vinegar, heat from the chilli and an overall umami-ness that paired with the texture of the firm thin noodles, crunch from bean sprouts and peanuts. And others. Spicy and sour and I need to come back again.

Was intrigued by their hei tang dou hua (黑糖豆花) so I got a bowl to try. Being the noob, I hadn't realized that this wasn't meant to be sweet as 黑糖 might have implied. I had initially thought it to be a dessert until they started adding spring onions and coriander and the proprietor followed up with a '要辣吗?'. It's sour and savoury and actually, pretty good. Same bean curd as the local variety, just not with syrup.

Update: One week later......

We came back again and ordered again the 黑糖豆花. I was reminding them about the coriander that I didn't like and also wanted indicated that we didn't want it spicy. The proprietor looked baffled today and responded that there is only 黑糖 and nothing else. Dum dum dum......so what I supposed happened the last time was that they probaby heard my order wrong and I had gotten that wrong order without any of us being the wiser.

This was nice. This was what we had been looking for with the brown sugar syrup with those ethereal bean curd.

As-Shifaa Cafe with chicken offal and begedil

Same nasi ayam as the previous time but I've added offal. That included some crunchy gizzards, very cooked liver and a heart that looked like it was stir fried in sambal. Not bad. Their begedil seemed to only contain potatoes. Needed a bit more flavour. Possibly the softest begedil I've ever had.

Ponggol Nasi Lemak : The plate with the fried chicken drumstick

This plate from Ponggol Nasi Lemak was satisfying. The combination on the plate simply pushed the right buttons. Toasted peanuts, lightly sugared ikan bilies, sambal that wasn't too sweet, a molten yolk-ed fried egg, chilled slices of cucumber and sufficiently flavoured coconut rice. At about half of what it cost to get a plate at Lemak Boys. Pretty impressed by how they got the crisp on that meaty chicken drumstick while retaining sufficient moisture in the meat that it could almost be called juicy. 

Oyster Festival at Putien

We came to Putien for dinner as they were having their Oyster Festival. I think it's an annual event that they do when the oysters are in season. There'd be a bunch of oyster dishes that would be available. 

Ordered a couple of the juices we liked from them. Some vegetable/fruit one that goes by Nature's Goodness and their warm sweet corn juice.

We picked just a couple of those oyster dishes instead of more of them so that we wouldn't be oyster-ed out. This one was seasoned in salt and ginger. Very oyster-ly. Good for pairing with something else like rice or noodles.

Chilled pork trotter jelly.

Tried their deep fried yellow croaker for the first time. These were really nice. The skin was crispy and the meat was tender. Delicious in their house made chilli sauce. A killer combination if you had those with steamed rice.

Braised luffa was our obligatory greens.

The second oyster dish we had was their pan fried oyster bee hoon. Oysters, egg and bee hoon. This was well done. While many would be tempted to eat this with Putien's chilli sauce, having them without allowed the light flavour of those oysters that were infused into the fine bee hoon to come through.

Can we ever escape steamed rice?

Or their lime-y house made chilli sauce?