More Ma Maison

Draught Suntory is pretty competitively priced at Ma Maison. Nothing like an ice cold frosty mug of it while waiting for the food.

The unagi spaghetti they have on menu displayed outside the restaurant was one of the items that drew us in.

We started off munching on some deep fried gyutan. I liked that the flavour of the tongue developed as you chewed on them. Some parts were a little too chewy though.

This was the unagi spaghetti, not as pretty as what the menu suggested. But the flavour from the sauce was nice. Nice like the tare that is used for the unagi kabayaki paired with eggs and onion that wasn't excessively sweet. Good flavour coming from the eel itself as well.

I forgot what this was called but it was basically omu rice, gyu katsu and their beef stroganoff. Not a fan of the gyu katsu which didn't taste like beef. If I had this blindfolded, I wouldn't have known better if someone had told me it was tonkatsu.

The chicken rice nasi ayam goreng from Hammee's

Back to the stall that previously provided a cheeseburger experience, I had their nasi ayam goreng with coconut rice the last time and wanted to try the chicken rice version. So this was it today with extra achar. The only things that were different was the chilli and the rice - the last time was a nasi lemak styled sambal for that coconut rice while this was a chicken rice chilli for the chicken rice. The chilli was not bad but I didn't think much of the rice. It was dry-ish and without much flavour I was looking forward to. Am disappointed to report that this wasn't one of the better chicken rice I've had.

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.