Man Kee Hong Kong Style Roasted (文記港式燒臘), Clementi West

Bought a whole duck from Man Kee Hong Kong Style Roasted (文記港式燒臘) (#01-247, 710 Clementi West Street 2)which makes curry roasted duck. What's curry roasted duck you say? 

To summarize what proprietor explained, their ducks were roasted with curry stuffed into the bird so that they would be marinated throughout the roast. After the roasting was complete, the duck would be sliced open to release all the curry that was in it and collected as gravy for the rice. It would be a duck flavour infused curry.

The roast standards were unimpressive. The roasted ducks were of average standards at best and there wasn't much of the curry flavour in most of the meat which were also a little tough. Not exactly what I had expected of "restaurant standards" as they had claimed.

Curry was nice - made good accompaniment to steamed rice even though we couldn't taste any duck in it. Pretty oily though.

Pandan Leaf Nasi Lemak, Tanjong Pagar Food Centre

I tried to get nasi lemak from this stall (#02-25 Tanjong Pagar Food Centre, 6 Tanjong Pagar Plaza) a couple of times over the past years but have never managed to because they open early and close when they're sold out for the day. Which can be quite early. Was surprised to see them still open recently while looking for lunch.

I liked it. Nice coconut flavour from the rice and the sambal had the flavour of ikan bilis. What stood out the most for me was the fried chicken drumstick. It's batter-less chicken like those from Ikea and had a savoury sweetness to the marinade which reminded me of fried chicken from my school canteen as a kid. Or a less salty version of the fried chicken from Babas Peranakan. I think I like this better than Makan Sutera Nasi Lemak Pandan Rice just around the corner.

Burger Bar New York, Amoy Street

A few years back, I came to this place (#01-03, 115 Amoy St, tel : +65 6221 8648) for burgers. They were Burger Joint New York then and I didn't remember the bar section that they have here today. It might not have been there then. I also recall not being very impressed with what I ate at that time. We came back today because there is pastrami on rye on the menu now.

There's the classic pastrami on rye, the Reuben and the Rachel. The latter had spicy coleslaw stacked on the pastrami instead of sauerkraut. Kinda liked that spicy coleslaw for the heat which was respectable; respectable meaning nice and also more than I had expected. There was also a nice smokiness and pepper coming from the pastrami as well. A better sandwich than what we had from the defunct Sacha & Sons but no, it's not Katz's. Not as moist nor as tender.

Cereal fried rice with sliced fish from Tang Kay Kee

There's been a bit more fried rice than usual in the past month. Here's one from Tang Kay Kee. The local rendition that doesn't get as much media coverage as say Din Tai Fung or King of Fried Rice. Local styled fried rice can be reasonably tasty - you just need to know where to find them.

This was their cereal fried rice. One with onsen egg and a light breath from the wok. Topped it up with sliced fish. Menu mentioned crab meat but what they actually put in were crab sticks. Still nice though. There was a bit of sweetness from the cereal and lup cheong bits plus pickled green chilli for the sour. I liked the onsen egg because you could get richer flavour and a creamy texture to the rice by stirring them in. 

Pickle Bakery, Everton Park

Heard about this bakery (#01-61, 2 Everton Park, Whatsapp : +65 8322 9500) so came over to pick up something for breakfast one morning. A number of items that sounded interesting but I had limited space.

Ended up with something that sounded savoury. A pastrami and egg salad pide with sauerkraut.

Only a little bit of the pepper and smokiness came through for the pastrami because there wasn't much of it. Most of the flavour came from the tangy egg salad and their house made sauerkraut. I liked the nice toasty flavour from the sesame seeds on the greasy (pleasantly) pide.

Speaking of pide, it didn't taste freshly baked even though I bought this at 9am in the morning. Hmmmm....I had assumed that if one bought stuff from a bakery in the morning, the bakes would be fresh and would taste fresh. Bread was a little chewy and cold.

Happy Ending Pizza Parlour

I was intrigued initially by the name and subsequently the toppings of the pizza from Happy Ending Pizza Parlour (#01-35 City Gate Mall, 371 Beach Road, tel : +65 8912 1408). While those weren't all new, it seemed like some thought had been put in. Pizzas were kinda small though.

Here's a safe marinara. Tomato sauce, garlic and oregano. The menu mentioned basil but there wasn't any of it there. Couldn't taste the EVOO as well. So we now know what kind of pizza place they are.

One of the toppings I was curious about was the one with blueberry, bacon and ricotta. Not bad tasting. Came with bacon jam on the side that for some reasons reminded me of the pork miso from Nirai Kanai.

Their Hawaii 5 O is a Hawaiian pizza with pancetta instead of regular ham and cinnamon on their pineapple ring. It said "whole pineapple rings" on the menu but there was just one ring. Just that one with cinnamon. Would have made sense if all the pineapples had cinnamon to save us the pain of divvying up that one ring. What the hell were these guys thinking?