Gravy, Hoe Chiang Road

Gravy (1 Hoe Chiang Road, tel : +65 9101 5824) used to be known as Delhi Express Restaurant. Funny thing was I had never noticed them at this corner of Tanjong Pagar before. Now that I have, it was time for us to pay them a visit.

The papadums they served were spicy.

Tried a tandoori pomfret for the first time. Not bad. Didn't think that a fish with such delicate meat would survive the tandoor intact but it did.

We ordered butter chicken. The rendition at Gravy was sweet, rich and creamy. Which was almost ideal. What could have been improved were the smokiness from the chunks of chicken tikka and the gravy itself. Needed much more of the smokiness.

Palak paneer was good. The puréed spinach was also rich and creamy with fragrance from cumin and had heat from both ginger and dried chilli. Yes, there were piping hot cubes of paneer inside as well.

Cheese naan was chewy and stuffed with Mozzarella cheese...

...while the garlic naan was thin and crisp without chewiness. Nice garlic flavour for this. Both were good in their own ways with the butter chicken and palak gravy though.

Liked that their sweet lassi wasn't so sweet. Would come back again.

Instant noodles with spice pork cubes and crunchy peanut butter

Home made of course. The spice pork cubes were from a can - the Narcissus branded 五香肉丁 which has been part of my life (and many other lives) sporadically since childhood. Mixed with crunchy peanut butter, La-Yu (辣油). Dare I say it was inspired by dan dan noodles (担担面). 

Swapping toppings at Healthy Soba IKI

Have been missing the lemon soba since I've been distracted by the monthly specials at Healthy Soba IKI. I didn't like the dry and stringy shredded chicken topping on that so we asked if we could swap that for toppings of equivalent value on the menu. Noguchi-san obliged so that's how the avocado and boiled egg up there came about. Still can't get past how refreshing the lemon infused broth was.

We also swapped the same stringy shredded chicken for smoked duck for this month's kuro goma soba. The duck wasn't very smoky though.

Uncle Ho Tuckshop, Pasir Panjang Road

So is the restaurant Uncle Ho (#01-04 Old Behn Meyer Building, 100 Pasir Panjang Rd, tel : +65 9624 5761) or Uncle Ho's? If you didn't know, this is a Vietnamese eatery with chefs from Vietnam if what I had read were true. We came over to their main restaurant because the menu at Republic Plaza doesn't have everything.

We had gỏi cuốn/summer rolls, not bad tasting. The rolls were packed. For some reasons, I got reminded of the ones at the defunct O Banh Mi where they were noticeably smaller and had mint in them even though these didn't. All good with the nước chấm.

Pretty impressed with their chilled green mango prawn salad with mint. There was a medley of textures from the mango strips, toasted peanuts, prawn and onions. This medley was paired with another medley of flavours from the green mango, sugar, fish sauce and what I really enjoyed from this, the mint. I'd eat this again.

Their turmeric fish (chả cá thăng long?) was nice. The slices of fish were firm and crisp with the flavour from the turmeric. Wished there were a lot more dill to go with it though. This was served with bún and some fermented shrimp paste (mắm tôm?). That was a lot of shrimp paste because even a little of it packed plenty of the briny pungent fermented shrimp flavour. 😅 

I didn't get a photo of their beef stew but as a note to self, the gravy was nicely spiced and delicious. The chunks of beef were however hard and stringy. Avoid if I ever come back.

Starbucks priced Vietnamese drip coffee. Not bad though. I liked that it wasn't as sweet as how other places tend to do theirs.

The permanance of Chicken McCrispy from McD

Who would have foreseen that we would be ever buying a bucket of chicken form McD. Not that it was impossible. Just improbable. Chicken McCrispy has apparently made it into the permanent menu of McD.  I remember having them in the previous times they made their limited appearance but don't really remember if the flavour was the same. I do have the impression that I thought that they tasted better previously though. 

What's slightly little odd about about them were the chicken thighs. They were thoughtfully prepared with just one bone in the the meat but that meat looked flattened. Shaped out for some reasons. There were juices but not real moisture. Otherwise, we found the skin too crusty. I detected garlic, some very mild heat and felt like I was eating a lot of fried flour. Surely they do not think they could compete with Jollibee with this?

Meatless at Babas Peranakan

Going meatless there with takeaway from Babas Peranakan. Also noticing the hae bee flavour from the long beans. I'm normally not so big on lemongrass in curry but this lemak rendition was delicious. Heftily portioned for princely sum of $3.