Fragrant Sauce Chicken & Noodles, Chinatown Food Centre

I came to know of this stall (#02-85 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) by the way of Greg's Big Eats. Had to google for the English name of the stall since the Chinese words on the signage don't exactly translate to the name. Something about 'fragrance', 'soya sauce chicken noodle rice' and 'nam yu pork trotters' were what the larger words said. What had me were the nam yu (bean curd fermented in red yeast rice) pork trotters and the char siew.

Nam yu as a fermented bean curd has a pungent and cheesy flavour profile. That's the best I can manage to describe it. Like many of such flavours, it can be an acquired taste. Got a plate of the nam yu pork trotter noodles. I've heard that there is an alkaline taste to the noodles but I didn't taste it. Better for me anyway. I found that the nam yu flavour was more concentrated on the skin of the trotters where the marinade had permeated well. The noodles with the sauce tasted weak.

Because we liked the stewed trotters better than the noodles and the portion of that in the noodles were relatively small, we ordered another plate. The sauce here was more intense. Meat was pretty tender but not the kind that disintegrated in your mouth.

The stall has char siew which is available in limited quantities daily. This was an unusual char siew - I detected five spice in the meat and it was char-less. So would that make it just a siew? Kidding. The meat was tender. Left side slices were fattier than the ones on the right side. This was the second char-less char siew after the one (largely) at Lao Ren Jia Roasted. Not bad tasting but I'm still undecided as to how I feel about them. I liked the moist tender rice though.

Xiang Jiang Soya Sauce Chicken (香江豉油鸡), Alexandra Village Food Centre

Was recommended this stall (#01-77 Alexandra Village Food Centre, 120 Bukit Merah Lane 1) by my dad for their soya sauce chicken and sui kao (水饺). The last time we were here, it was slightly past noon and they had already closed for the day. I came earlier this time round.

And got myself a chicken thigh/drumstick/leg (that's their 鸡腿) mee pok. Pretty good. The sauce was nice and I thought I detected some herbal notes in the skin of the soya sauce chicken which were really tender. Noticed that there was a light roasted flavour from their chilli paste.

What left me a deeper impression were their sui gao. These were huge - three mouthfuls by my measure. Enfolded within the smooth skin were minced pork, bits of black fungus and little chunks of water chestnut. The type of sui gao I had been searching for. Packed yet not densely stuffed that they were still tender to the bite. I'll be back for these.

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.