Lao Gu Ban (老古板), Cantonment Road

This stall at 243 Cantonment Road had taken over the same unit that belonged to Hosay Mee Pok. They seem related because the design of the stall signages are similar and they also sell the same prawn cakes in soup. While it looked like they were doing regular minced meat or fishball noodles, Lau Gu Ban wasn't. This was their bowl which featured their own type of noodles with their prawn cakes, something that might have been sliced abalone, minced pork and fried sole with mushrooms. I got the bowl with chilli and I liked how savoury and tangy the noodles were with good quality ingredients.

We ordered another bowl of prawn cake soup on the side. I don't know what these were actually called but I'm calling them prawn cakes for now. These were pretty good - were tender and had the sweetness of prawns in them. Similar tasting to the ones that can be found at Hosay Mee Pok, Bai Nian and even Guan's Mee Pok. Soup likewise had a natural sweetness that tasted like it came from the cabbages, prawns and pork. Nice.

Dry megamen with extra bean sprouts from Brothers Ramen

I like both the dry and regular megamen from Brothers Ramen but if I had to choose between the two, I'm likely to pick the dry bowl. I've been wanting to come back for this again. Since they no longer have tsukemen on the menu, there's nothing new to try and I can actually fall back onto the dry spicy megamen. Topped up bean sprouts today and so the bowl looked a lot taller. All the noodles were below the rim so the protruding pile were mostly bean sprouts if anyone was wondering.

Zhao Ji Hainanese Chicken Rice (趙記海南鸡饭), Chinatown Food Centre

We noticed this chicken rice stall (#02-180 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) the previous times when we were around. What in particular got my attention were the amount of older folks that ordered from them. These guys drew a queue even before lunch time. Which prompted me to get a closer look to see what was different about them compared to the other chicken rice stalls in the food centre. 

They have brown chicken rice and also kampong chicken. I ordered a plate of kampong chicken 鸡尾 with their brown chicken rice and livers. Pretty good tasting actually. Liked how that regular chicken rice flavour has infused into the brown rice. Chilli was pretty lime-y. This is where I also got a little confused because the 鸡尾 that they gave me was the rear end of the chicken when I've been getting the thigh portion in the past.

A couple of limited items from Sushiro

We're back in Sushiro. Ordered a couple of items that we haven't seen before on limited run. That above was the broiled Hokkaido sardine nigiri. It's pretty good. Like the oils and flavour coming from the fish. I wished they hadn't decided that it needed the tiny dollop of ginger though.

The other item that caught our attention was their whole squid sushi. Made me think of those ikameshi that I used to get from Isetan. This was tastier than it looked. Squid might have been pan fried or something. Had a nice squid flavour. The body was stuffed with rice but it wasn't those flavoured rice like the ikameshi.

Alan Banana Leaves BBQ Seafood, Pasir Panjang Food Centre

Alan Banana Leaves BBQ Seafood (#01-23/24 Pasir Panjang Food Centre, 121 Pasir Panjang Road) came about as a suggestion for dinner. I haven't been much to this parts so I thought it might worth checking out.

We had boiled sea snails. These were not bad. Tender and slightly chewy like squids. The sambal provided was deliciously spicy and tangy.

There's sambal petai. These were stir fried with onions and ikan bilis. The onions lent a bit of sweetness to the dish, quite similar to the rendition done at Xin Curry Fish Head Zhu Chao at Tanglin Halt. As opposed to the more savoury and meaty ones from say Tian Tian Seafood Restaurant or Sin Hoi Sai.

Also got ourselves some stir fried kailan with garlic. Vegetables were nicely salted and not fibrous.

We ordered mui fan to see how their's was like. The gravy was starchy and they had decent ingredients but I wouldn't consider those portions generous. Taste was okay but if you added the sambal from those sea snails into them, it became quite delicious. Without that sambal, the one at Hillman Restaurant beats this.

That's sambal lala. Clams. In sambal. Not too bad.

Not forgetting sambal stingray. This wasn't as good as I imagined. Firstly, there was a lack of char on the surface of the stingray which kinda defeated the purpose of getting grilled stingray. On top of that, we could easily tell from the texture that it was frozen. That texture ruined the experience. For some reasons, this triggered the memories of the good ones we've had at Newton Food Centre many years ago. This was not of the same league.

Bai Nian (百年), People's Park Complex Food Centre

I had 百年 once a few years ago at Albert Food Centre. Remembered liking it so I got a bowl after discovering that they had also set up shop at People's Park Food Centre (#01-1144 People's Park Complex Food Centre, 32 New Market Road). Nice as I remembered it. Maybe this one has much less spring onions. But the yong tau foo ingredients that were hand made in the shop was still tasty and good quality.