Dassai Sakura Rice Burger and an update of the mussels nuggets from MOS Burger

MOS Burger hasn't inspired much confidence in the past years. I remember that they used to be tasty a long time back but their food standards have since declined. And that's not because we have gotten used to better alternatives. Still once in a while, I get lured in by something from them. Like their disappointing Impossible burger.

Things still look pretty good at this point. I was looking forward to trying the Dassai Sakura Rice Burger. I've had the mussels nuggets before and I remember them being not bad. These looked fat.

This didn't look much like the picture in their banner. I would construe the images of the sakura ebi in the picture of the burger to be deliberately misleading. The spear of asparagus was tiny enough to be hidden entirely between the rice buns.

I'm not tasting much from the sauce that they're trying to sell here. It didn't taste bad. It was just ordinary. For some reasons, it didn't pair with the prawn patty and vegetable kakiage which tasted like they were separate from the sauce.

Sadly, a large proportion of those "fat" mussels nuggets were batter that I had remove them. Some of them nuggets were at least 50% batter.

Paninoteca by d.o.c, Tras Street

Paninoteca (#01-01, 32 Tras Street, tel : +65 6223 0206) is a sandwich shop by d.o.c.. They're just about a minute's walk from each other. Besides a slew of panini, there's actually also a bunch of pizza, pasta, salads and desserts. We were here for their sandwiches today.

That's their Il Padrino - porcini cream, spinach, roma tomatoes, salami, prosciutto di Parma, pancetta, boiled egg, pecorino and walnut oil. According to the menu. I'm not sure how walnut oil tastes like so I couldn't tell but I'm pretty sure they forgot the pecorino. I liked this. The bread was crisp on the outside while tender and chewy on the insides. Fillings were solid, had great texture and deliciously salty.

Another sandwich type they had was a folded pizza. Was pretty good as well, not to mention generously portioned. This one had sliced octopus and salad which paired nicely with the briny bottarga. Couldn't get past that cold tomato and pesto dip on the side which was very refreshing. They obliged when I asked for extras of that dip.

Caffé B, Club Street

We first noticed Caffé B (64 Club Street, tel  : +65 6887 3311) years ago when they were at MBS. They've moved to Club Street since, have been operating there for some time and eventually announced that they were closing for good at the end of September 2021. We visited about a couple of weeks before that. 

These guys by the way are Japanese Italian. Like Trattoria La Vita, Trattoria Pizzeria Logic, goo Italiano, Luka and Enoteca L'Operetta.

That's salad.

And bread. They were served to everyone who ordered food.  

We ordered Farmer's Egg with sea urchin. This was good. The menu description was clam cream espuma, shio kombu, lemon jam, chives, caviar. Pretty sure most of the ingredients were lost to me. I identified the lemon jam, clam cream, uni and molten yolk. 👍🏼

Loved the sea urchin capellini with ikura. There's a lot more stuff in it though. Like shoyu, white truffle oil, julienned ohba leaf, shio kombu and chives. Pretty sure there's EVOO as well. The flavour is not unique. There're plenty of restaurants, especially Japanese ones that have a few tweaked recipes of their own which tastes similar. Doesn't stop these from being good though.

What I thought was outstanding was their pepperocino shirasu spaghetti. Look at how fine those shirasu are. The flavour was a good balance between the light heat from the chilli pepper, toasted garlic and the brininess from those shirasu.

This came after the pasta because we ordered it midway. Cold cuts of prosciutto di Parma, speck, coppa/capocollo and Mortadella. Prosciutto was very good. There was a sweet and full body to the taste that was beyond many of the cheap hams that gets put into a generic salumi platter. Loved the smokiness from the coppa and speck.

Lobster risotto also pretty good. There's a whole lobster of meat, pairing with the flavour in the rice which was a good balance of tomato, butter and crustacean. That and the parmesan cheese crisp.

I liked Caffé B. A pity that they aren't going to be around anymore.

又来莆田

The Eel Festival is happening at Putien again. We didn't come here specifically for that though. It was coincidence that we happened to be here for dinner when it started. Eels are flown in from farms in Guangdong, China live and showcased in the form of dishes for the run of the festival.

So we tried something called crispy eel in red wine sauce - what I gathered to be a traditional Fujian dish cooked by coating fried eel fillets with red rice wine from Fujian. The deep fried eel that wasn't very crispy though. For some reasons, the aroma from the red wine sauce reminded me of 排骨王. Lightly sweet, slightly tangy and savoury like a subdued rendition of sweet and sour pork with the earthy flavour from the meat of the eel. Served with a generous portion of kailan. Nice.

I thought the small portion of the red mushroom seafood lor mee was a little small the last time so we upgraded it to the medium sized portion today.

This deep fried yam stuffed with duck has been on Putien's menu for the longest time but we've never had it till today. We thought it was more delicious than it looked. This dish was a showcase of how a proper deep frying should be done - creating sufficient crisp without trapping excessive grease. There was a crunchy exterior layered underneath by piping hot creamy yam and chunks of duck meat stuffings that were more tender than they looked. So good with their chilli sauce.

The milkfish from Milkfish. And other stuff....

We came back to Milkfish and ordered one of their sets which featured the eponymous dish - grilled belly of milkfish. From what I gathered, it's the same as the Filipino bangus. Tender, somewhat flaky but not so firm in texture. Cooked with a glaze which might have been sweet/dark soya sauce with some garlic. Pretty delicious but doesn't have the intensity of say a well done gindara teriyaki. 

Deep fried prawn rolls/hae cho were pretty good with their light crispy skin and was packed with moist pork/prawn stuffings. No unpleasant bits of herb/vegetable that I didn't like hiding inside and ruining the taste.

Chilled tofu, century egg and pork floss...tasted like they looked. These are pretty common these days and this was just another one of those.

Springleaf Prata Place, The Rail Mall

Service was slow. With the restaurant half filled during off peak, it took them a half hour to get a couple of pratas and some tea/coffee to us. Didn't think that their coffee halia was very gingery so here's a note to myself never to get it again. Guess which one was that coffee halia.

This was the Praclette - their Ultimate Hawkerfest prata for 2021. I've previously had their Prata Blaster (2015), Murtaburger (2013) and Ultimate Murtabak (2012). The ideas that they've thrown out for each year gets progressively humdrum-ish. It feels like each year's entry is done for the sake of doing. 

The Praclette was kinda small. For almost 10 bucks, it felt like a light snack. Onions, olives, shiitake mushrooms, turkey ham and truffle oil I couldn't even tell if I had tasted or imagined. What else is new? Oh - raclette cheese. Not bad but not worth my dollars for the portion.

Even the portobello mozzarella prata looked kinda small. For that price, one might have scored a murtabak which would likely be more satisfying. Again, it didn't taste bad.