一一五糖水 (Yi Yi Wu Tang Shui), Chinatown Food Centre

I've had desserts from this stall (#02-206 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) years ago for years but had for some reasons never blogged it. Better late than never is the saying. The proprietors make traditional Cantonese desserts, many of which are bean/seed based which are ground using an old stone mortar and pestle. Sold?

They have bobo chacha (or bubur cha cha) on their specials of the day. Grabbed a bowl of their smooth soup of sweetened coconut milk with chunks of yam and sweet potato. I liked that the desserts weren't excessively sweet here.

The dessert which is difficult to find elsewhere is their stink/smelly grass (臭草) green bean soup. Green bean soup that is stewed with sprigs of rue herb. Rue herbs are called so because one would rue the day they tasted them. Just kidding. It's suppose to be cooling for the body. I don't eat it enough to get anything cooled so for me, it's just their brand of herbaceous fragrance which may be an acquired taste.

Snow cod and peas from Big Fish Small Fish

Snow cod = Chilean sea bass = patagonian toothfish. For some reasons very expensive here. Commonly steamed but it was available for fish and chips. This costed more than any fish from Smiths which uses Atlantic cod - a fish with firmer and flakier texture which I thought was a better fish than the snow cod. Probably my mistake to have even ordered this. 

Fish was not as "buttery and flaky" as they have claimed. While it looked chunky, it was probably a third batter which meant one didn't get much fish. The menu has changed lately as well with Halibut no longer on the menu. These mushy peas they gave weren't mushy. I had expected salted butter or at least salt but it was just peas and mint. Pretty disappointing, I thought I had found a fish and chips place I could turn to. It's back to Smiths it seems. 

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).