Soi Thai Soi Nice, Raffles City

I've read about Soi Thai Soi Nice (#B1-14/15 Raffles City Shopping Centre, 252 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6261 7106) some time back when they had a restaurant at Alexandra Central. They seemed to be known for their Thai hot pots. By the time we wanted to go, that had closed. We stumbled upon this new outpost at Raffles City so here we were.

Their prawn cakes were nice. Crisp breading with no excessive grease. The prawn paste insides were tender and light.

That's their Thai mango sauce tofu. Wasn't sure how to reconcile the name of the dish with the dish itself. Egg tofu with green mango salad in what tasted like rojak paste/sauce. Maybe it's meant to be Thai mango, sauce and tofu. Not Thai mango sauce on tofu. It's not bad, just unexpected.

We ordered their chilli petai with minced meat to see how they were like compared to our local stir fry renditions. Also to compare against our benchmark. Flavour profile was different. The sauce was more tangy and the petai were a bit more crunchy. While they were generous with the petai, it was less meaty.

Steamed sea bass. Broth was refreshingly lime-y. Not a bad rendition but this didn't pack as much heat as those in Bangkok. If I had to compare with another local rendition of this dish, the one from Kra Pow was better.

Wen Dao Ji (文道记), People's Park Complex Food Centre

There's mixed information about this stall (#01-1014 People's Park Cooked Food Centre, 32 New Market Road) but from what I could piece together, they used to be known as Toh Kee which had been operating for a long time. Toh Kee closed and reopened as 文道记 and are still selling the same mixed roast. I've no idea if the owners are still the same but I suspect not.

We got ourselves a mixed roast meat - char siew, duck and roast pork. Pretty good. Liked the tender roast pork and duck. The char siew bits that were nicer were the ones that had burnt ends. The other parts of it were so so. I asked for fatty char siew and duck breast; those guys either didn't hear me or didn't care. Anyways, it's not bad. Would not mind coming back for them again.

The rice was drizzled with a dark sauce. I'm guessing dark soya sauce, their mix of spices and drippings from the meat they roasted.

Asked for extras because it was good with the rice but beware, it's pretty salty.

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.