Burger, pasta and Ryan's Kitchen

This was their three cheese burger - Cheddar, Parmigiano Reggiano and Mozzarella. There was an option to add cheese on their order tablet and I was wondering if all the three cheese would be added in that option. After clarifying, they said that only the Cheddar would be but one could choose to add any one of the other two instead. 

Liked their beef patty. Could have done without the onions since they added little to the burger. Didn't mind the tomato relish at all. But if you asked me, the burger didn't feel very integrated as much as a bunch of ingredients that were piled on.

There's truffle pasta where they've added white wine vinegar - something which I haven't had in truffled pasta. That made the noodles pretty refreshing. Oh, it was chilled too.

Re-visiting Afuri (阿夫利)

I've been wanting to come back to Afuri for their yuzu shio bowl since the last time we were here. Yes it was as refreshing as their shoyu bowl. I liked it enough to finish all the broth.

They have a wagyu ramen on menu. The thinly sliced beef was tasty but the broth they used for this was the regular shoyu without the yuzu. None of the flavour from the wagyu were infused in the broth. So after the yuzu broth, this tasted somewhat....hollow.

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.