Preserved veg and braised pork (梅菜扣肉) rice from Li Li Kway Chap

Again, I did not manage to get the kuey chap from Li Li Kway Chap. Ended up with their rice with preserved veg and braised pork rice which was also described as 梅菜扣肉. That preserved vegetable tasted more like 咸菜 than than 梅菜 to me. 扣肉 wasn't as tender as how I imagined it but it wasn't bad. Just not what I had in mind. I suppose this was their rendition which is arguably a different thing from the traditional dish. I added pig's skin and boiled egg. Not a bad eat but I didn't like their gloopy sauce. Gotta remember to get this without that gloopy sauce the next time.

Jia Wang Cafe (佳旺), Bukit Ho Swee

We learnt about Jia Wang Cafe (4 Jalan Bukit Ho Swee, tel : +65 9362 6359) recently and wanted to see if we liked them enough to make them a go to for cze char. They're located at the ground floor of an old HDB block at Bukit Ho Swee. Has it's unique charm. The weather was cool and breezy when we were there twice, but what do you care about that.

The bunch of food below were the outcome of the two visits.

Very competent stir fried sambal kang kong they did. I liked that the vegetables were stir fried with lard. So the main flavours came from both the lard and the dried shrimps. Good for returns.

Assam fish head served on opeh leaf - apparently a signature dish from them. Again, very competently executed. There was a nice heat to the tamarind sauce - I thought I tasted ginger flower but I'm not sure. The lady's fingers were well cooked in spite of the colours and didn't have any of the slime. Fish was fresh, firm and tender. I don't know what fish this was but it's not the freshwater variety - meaning that it won't have any muddy taste that repels many people.

This garlic pork dish is also another signature of theirs. While the name simply mentions garlic and pork, there's more to it. The meat which we think is sliced pork belly has been marinated in nam yu (南乳) - fermented bean curd for those of you who don't know what they are. It's deep fried with garlic and then drizzled with the sweet sauce that is normally the dip for hae cho (虾枣). 

So if you've skipped the previous paragraph, the flavour was a mixture from the nam yu, garlic and the sweetness of the hae cho sauce along with the fat from the pork belly. Sound good? You betcha. 

Two days later...

This dish was called 'special beans'. I feel that the world special has many bad connotations but let's not go there. The Chinese name is 虾米小毛豆 which translates to French beans with dried shrimps - which is a much more accurate name as they mention the two main ingredients. This was nicely done. Liked the slighty sweet savouriness and umami from the dried shrimp bits/hae bee.

Sweet and sour pork was okay. The fried meat were shaped like balls and didn't have a crusty exterior. Found the sauce addictive.

Tried their kung bao prawns (宫保虾球). Pretty decent cze char standard for kung bao and the prawns had a nice fresh crunchiness. It's a little pricey at $20 for a few prawns.

Re-revisiting Putien at Great World

Dinner at Putien. Wanted to try another of their oyster dishes from the Oyster Festival before it was over.

So we ordered an seaweed oyster omelette made with their first harvest of seaweed. Pretty good.

This was their braised bean curd with Chinese cabbage. Looked a lot soupier than the menu picture suggested. Also pretty good. Beside their spongy bean curd and big leaves of tender cabbage, there were also strips of pork belly, bits of garlic and clams in the soup. Flavour was more complex because it wasn't just bean curd and cabbage.

I remember having had their lychee sweet and sour pork before. Did not remember them to be so tender though. Love those warm lychees.

Chang Ji Gourmet (昌记美食), Chinatown Food Centre

We happened by Chang Ji Gourmet (#02-110 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) one weekend and noticed the queue for their porridge and bee hoon.  Not that we haven't seen them around but in the previous times, I never taken a closer look to what people were queueing for.

Just porridge and bee hoon. That was pretty much all the stall was selling. So I queued up for a bowl and a plate. A dollar twenty for each. Porridge was peanut and fish. Bee hoon had a nice old school flavour that reminded me of days gone by. And I've been missing out on this all these years I've been to this food centre.

More food from O Banh Mi

S'been a while since the last time we were here. Came across some items on the menu which we haven't tried before. Like their Vietnamese ham bánh mì which I have actually been trying to order since the beginning and it's always been not available. Managed to get it today. Sans coriander. The picture on their menu is a lie. But it didn't taste bad. Liked the thick slices of ham. I thought it would also have pate or chilli but it didn't. There were only pickles and fried egg.

The beef porridge is new. At least to me it was. Porridge was prepared on order and we needed to wait 20 minutes for it. Noticed that it was made with broken rice. Broth might have been the one from their pho bo. This was a flavour bomb made with their beef broth and fried shallots. Deliciously savoury but a little too heavy handed with the salt.

Never noticed that they had dry chicken pho before. The bowl also didn't look like the picture in the menu but I kinda liked it so it didn't matter. While it might not have looked so, the noodles were served warm. Flavour was light, savoury and with some citrus. I liked it and liked it more after adding more squeezes of lime and crushed peanuts. 

Revisiting Zazz Pizza

I've been wanting to come back to Zazz Pizza to get more pizza.

Tried their smoked salmon carpaccio. Looked a little nicer on the menu picture -  the blood orange pieces were bigger. I did like that they had both blood oranges and figs but I wished there were more of them. Otherwise, this wasn't bad. 

Zazz Pizza did a good job of getting those saffron flavour into their arancini. You'd be surprised how many Italian restaurants are incapable of properly getting saffron into their food.

We thought they did a decent job from their spaghetti vongole as well. Love the garlic flavour and those clams. Doneness of the noodles were impeccable.

Hawaiian pizza with Gorgonzola. I'm trying to figure this out. Not the Gorgonzola part because that's me -I asked for the blue cheese. It's the pineapples which look different from the other pineapples that I've seen/tasted on pizza. These reminded me of honey pineapples. Sweet and seemed to have less acidity even when compared to the canned variety. Ham was nice. This might be one of the best Hawaiian pizza I've ever had.

This was where we pretended that the yuzu lychee sorbet actually helped quench thirst. Jokes aside, it tasted refreshing.

Affogato's not bad. Espresso was sufficiently bitter which paired quite well with the ice cream. I could compare and mention how the one at the defunct Senso was nicer because the coffee had a better aroma but I won't.