So Good Char Chan Tang, Capitol Piazza

So Good Char Chan Tang has opened another outlet at Capitol Piazza (#01-17/18 Capitol Piazza, 13 Stamford Road, tel : +65 6570 2266) recently. Which was a good thing because the one at Triple One Somerset is often a pain in the ass to queue for and has limited seats. This space was much larger.

Nothing like creamy ice milked tea and astringent lemon tea to make like having the real deal in Hong Kong. Milk tea was not as strong and lemon tea packed less punch here.

I like the sesame sauce in their cheong fun. Thick and creamy.

Hor fun with prawns were better than I imagined. The egg drop in the gravy was generous while the rice noodles were smoky. Prawns had a natural crunch to the texture. It's not visible in the picture but there were also bean sprouts in the hor fun - which made this dish reminded me of sum lou hor fun. With prawns that is. 

Pork chop fried rice with eggs - similar to that baked tomato rice thing we had previously with black pepper sauce instead. Pork chop was tender and nicely browned from the pan fry. Liked the black pepper sauce which was savoury and not sweet.

Char siew bao was pretty decent.

Steamed radish cake was also not bad. Without making any cost comparisons, I like the one from Victor's Kitchen a bit more and the one from Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine much better. Need I even mention that this rendition definitely didn't have the radish sweetness like those from the defunct Wai Kee or even Sai Kee in Hong Kong

Mee kia from Covent Garden Prawn Noodle

Still trying to figure this bowl out from Covent Garden Prawn Noodle with the $4 order of mee kia today. The differences I discerned from the $3.50 bowls previously were that this had prawns with shell on the tail and a larger portion of noodles. Though I'm not sure if it was luck of the draw that had gotten me those prawns with shell-less tails the last time or does cheaper bowls get one those. 

I asked if I could exclude the pork slices, they said yes and I told them I didn't want pork. In the enduring enormity of 5 seconds, the order taker forgot my request to omit the slice pork. Which was technically the only "customization". Simple one at that. *billows forth a long sigh*

Belly Lucky Noodle (招财面), Hong Lim Food Centre

What attracted me to Belly Lucky Noodle (#02-25 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) was their kolo mee and their fatty char siew. On hindsight, the noodles were a little soft and lacking in the bite I was looking for with a sauce that was a little too sweet for my liking. The meat in their dumplings were also marinated to the point where it was also sweet that much of natural flavour of the ingredients in the stuffings weren't there. What basically helped me to finish the plate was their chilli sauce.

Speaking of the chilli, it had a good bit of heat but not exactly super hot as they had claimed. I recall the chilli from Eng's being more potent.

Sabamiso teishoku from Suju

(一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四)

It's been more than half a year since we ate at Suju. The last time was our last dinner of 2020. 

I ordered their sabamiso teishoku this time because I've seen in on the menu for the longest time and have never tried it. Mackerel that was stewed in their house miso. I don't recall the last time I've had mackerel that was so moist. This was definitely a first pairing with the salty sweet miso. Not bad at all but beware the bones.

Teishoku means rice and miso soup and pickled daikon for me at Suju. It also means seconds for the rice and daikon. It can also mean nama tamago. The fermented beans are finally back!

Itadakimsu!

Eddy's (艾迪1号), Hong Lim Food Centre

The dish that caught my attention at Eddy's (#02-52 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) was their chicken chop laksa spaghetti. That laksa gravy was rich, creamy and savoury with a sweetness that I hadn't been expecting and a nice laksa leaf flavour infused in it. Didn't taste like the traditional one but it wasn't half bad. Chicken chop needed a lighter hand with the salt though.

Kyoten Japanese Cuisine, Yong Siak Street

I have mixed feelings over Kyoten Japanese Cuisine (5 Yong Siak Street, tel : +65 6223 0213). First that comes to mind was that they're pretty expensive for a representative experience. That being said, we picked their Kyoten omakase at $280. Second highest tier in terms of cost and I would assume, what they choose to deliver with us leaving up to them.

To be clear, the food's not bad. For what they charged, we weren't expecting entry level ingredients and they did deliver on that front. Ambience is pretty local, not so much Japanese-y. Or at least it was for the night we ate with raised volumes of conversation from whom appeared to be regulars in Cantonese and Hokkien punctuated by occasional hyena-ish guffaws. We were sharing the counter with a rich old uncle and a Rolex wearing ah beng character that were buying rounds of drinks for the staff.

Anyways, here're the pics. I missed out one of the ishigaki gai nigiri.  

No alcohol tonight, just iced matcha.

First of the starters was some citrus-y jellyfish and squid with roe.

Followed by uni tofu with...some shiso flower buds, dashi jelly and a tiny bit of wasabi. I couldn't taste the uni in the tofu.

The otoro appeared fast. Oily and melts mostly in the mouth as one would expect. Again, shiso flower.

There was kanpachi with a blob of house made seaweed puree. That puree was quite nice. Punchy flavour but it kinda overwhelmed the fish.

Pretty impressed by their Kumamoto abalone topped with abalone liver sauce. Both the abalone and sauce were good though the latter reminded me a bit of pureed century egg yolk that's common in pitan tofu. I liked the tender chewiness of the abalone.

This we did not see coming. Shark's fin in seaweed soup. Since it was part of the omakase, we ate it.

Their grilled nodoguro (blackthroat sea perch) was delicious. Tender and flaky. I had embarrassingly thought that the pink squiggle for some sort of sauce (maybe beetroot?) and attempted to prod it with my chopsticks. The chef noticed and added that I'm not the first to have mistaken the plate design for something edible. 

This was tachiuo (silver belt fish). Another white fish with flaky tender meat which happens to look like a silver belt. Hence the name...ahem. This was the item I liked least because it was fried like a katsu with in my opinion, bad ratio of fish to crust. What's worse, it was drizzled with tonkatsu sauce which overwhelmed the fish.

A5 wagyu. Portions were small. But delicious. 

Tsukemono was served at this point as a palate cleanser. This was a citrus-y daikon with a bit of yuzu zest. The chef mentioned that we need not finish them. But I liked it so much that I cleared my plate fast. It must not have gone unnoticed and they gave me another portion.

The sushi starts at this point. They're all a little petite if you asked me. The first was a nicely done akami with shari that was a little lukewarm. This has got to be one of the better akami nigiri I've had.

Next was botan ebi. So so.

The smoky kamasu (barracuda) was tender and delicious.

Tai with kinome (pepper leaf). As I've discovered kinome are harvested young leaves from sansho.

This was a briefly torched kinmedai. I've previously voiced my opinion on preferring them cooked to raw in sushi. I guess this might constitute semi-grilled because it wasn't entirely raw. This was good.

Nodoguro - liked this.

I was told that the uni handroll is their pièce de résistance. T'was a yummy uni surge. Never had so much in a portion before.

The sweet tamago castella marks the end of the sushis. Cake egg cake. I've been confused about what these things are called. There's the term atsuyaki tamago which I've come across and I'm not sure if that's the name for them. I've also been told that they can be simply referred to as tamago.

There's fish in their miso soup and that flavour from the fish came through. I liked this.

Dessert was musk melon and peach. Both were sweet and juicy but the peach wasn't as fragrant as those Yamanishi ones I've previously gotten.