Kanada-Ya, Paragon

Kanada-Ya opened a year plus back. I had gotten the impression from misleading headlines that they were from London but their site states that the ramen-ya started in Yukuhashi in the Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. They've built themselves credentials and are known for their truffle tonkotsu ramen - something I had been curious about and wanted to try. We had a bowl at their shop in Paragon (#04-09 Paragon, 290 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6962 0505).

This wasn't a shabby bowl. I chose the extreme hardness for their noodles which was probably the proper harigane. Besides the truffle flavour which obviously came from the puree/paste/oil, there was an obvious porcine depth in the tonkotsu broth. Not as refined as Ippudo which has a cleaner taste but I don't mind them again. Will probably not get this truffle one again though.

I kinda enjoyed their charshu which was fat laced and sliced so thin that dissolved into rivulets of porkiness once I popped them into my mouth. 

I liked the broth enough to finish it. Might come back again someday to do another bowl.

Flash Coffee, One Raffles Place

Never noticed Flash Coffee (#B1-34 One Raffles Place, 1 Raffles Place) before so we bought an Americano (which was neither aromatic nor strong coffee) and a turmeric latte. I liked the latte. There's turmeric powder, some spices (I detected cinnamon) and sugar in frothed milk. It was a much more enjoyable drink than their coffee, cheap as those might be.

Crispy Carrot Cake, Commonwealth Drive

No. No. No. No chilli, add yourself. No extra eggs. No black ones. Geez...these guys (70-73 Commonwealth Drive) were pretty inflexible. Anyways, they're located at Peking Room in between Old Village and Tanglin Halt Roti Prata & Nasi Briyani.

Their radish cake wasn't crispy. Didn't taste bad but I didn't think it was exceptional as well. Thought that the chilli sauce on the side would be sweet but it wasn't. I'm not sure if I had imagined it but there was a dried shrimp-y flavour to them. While I didn't dislike it, I think it's unlikely that I'd come here specially for this.

Al Azhar, Cheong Chin Nam Road

Let me first rant. A peeve of mine that's emerged in recent years are QR scan menus. I don't begrudge that they're used in the name of hygiene these days but it doesn't change how I feel about horrendously designed interfaces for tiny mobile screens that originated from larger menus. Menus like those from Al Azhar (11 Cheong Chin Nam Road). I won't go into the details.

Anyways, these guys have been around for years and I'm pretty sure I've eaten here maybe a few times. Never wrote about them for some reasons. So here's a start. Teh tarik. How is that teh tarik? I don't see the effects of any tarik-ing. QR menu had some options for the teh which included something in the effect of having stronger tea. We chose that stronger tea checkbox but this tasted a little weak even for regular teh.

If you're wondering, this was two roti plaster stacked up. The top one had the yolk say about 75% solid so I was kinda disappointed. The floury chewy prata was nice. I enjoy them that way as well. In fact, I like these kind better than the crispy ones. But the eggs still got to me because it was poorly done. Chicken curry on the side was spicily moreish.  

We ordered a vegetable briyani. I didn't feel like this had enough vegetables in a vegetable briyani. Frozen peas/carrots/corns, a couple of cauliflower tops and wedges of potatoes. Kinda pricey for $7.50. But. Yes there's a but. There's a load of ghee in there. Which was what saved it. So much ghee that I did a 0.2 second pause for every spoonful of that buttery flavoured rice. I feel confused now.

Not much flavour from mint or coriander from their chicken hariyali tikka. Just salty, a little smokey and maybe a little yoghurt-y. Meat was frozen, not fresh and that was apparent from the texture. Not to mention that they were also kinda dry and stringy. Will not get these again or any other chicken tikka/tandoori thingies from this shop.

Tempura Makino, Suntec City

There's been a bit of chatter on Tempura Makino which has opened at Suntec City (#02-305/308/311 Suntec City Mall, 3 Temasek Boulevard). I had the impression that these guys are supposed to be tempura specialists. I think. Right? While I was curious, we were also skeptical. After all, social media is always full of buzz even through the sludge that is mediocrity. More often than not - especially so when it is through the sludge that is mediocrity.

I know it's not fair to compare this guys with Tenshin so I won't. Not even going to talk about Tenjin which I liked better on hindsight.

But I did want to point out that we were graced by the other half of Jeff Goldblum's character in his 1986 horror which could be spotted quietly hanging out on the bronzed tempura dome.

The first two thirds of our order for some reasons came together in a plate. There's scallops (not bad but Anzu kinda got their timing better), corn (couldn't beat Suju) on partial cob, kisu fish, maitake (tasteless mushroom that was mostly batter, have had better), prawns and nasu. Was very disappointed with how these people had handled the maitake.

Bacon wrapped asparagus and mentaiko were decent. Actually I liked the mentaiko but it had nothing much to do with them being tempura. It was salty, spicy and delicious with rice.

Oysters didn't taste bad but the batter was kinda thick. And soaked with oil if your eagle eyes haven't caught on.

The tempura steak was being sucked dry of juices as it was served. Most of the flavour came from the shiso at the beginning and at some point, if you were still chewing and not swallowed already, a bit of the beef flavour came through. Wouldn't bother with this again.

I had hoped that they would surprise and do something good with the fried Okinawan mozuku. Also disappointing. Not much flavour coming from the seaweed. Most of the taste was the batter and the oil that was trapped in it. For better tasting tempura seaweed, there's Nirai Kanai's rendition.

Should have read the warning signs on the uni from how much they charged. This wasn't enjoyable.

Their tempura egg was pretty good though. Came with a nice tare.

Good with their rice but not yet.

More like this with the bleeding molten yolk.

Chilled soba was not bad tasting.

Wild Child Pizzette, Circular Road

Wild Child Pizzette (50 Circular Road, tel : +65 6970 6592) is a new pizza bar/restaurant by The Cicheti Group, the folks behind Cicheti, Bar Cicheti and Caffe Cicheti. What they've done to distinguish themselves from their previous restaurants are a focus on their 10" Neapolitan styled pizzas. I've generally thought well of Cicheti and their pizzas so it would be inevitable that we'd come by.

There's roasted kurobuta pork belly on the menu. By another name - also known as siew yoke/shao rou (烧肉). Meat had a salt and pepper marinade and I had perhaps caught a subtle star anise in the flavour. I'm not sure. Pretty tasty but as we got to the last pieces, it became less peppery and more salty. The crackling was also inconsistent with texture ranging from a enjoyable crispiness to "I gotta spit this out!". Those house giardiniera sure helped cut through the rich fattiness of the pork though.

We tried their spianata calabrese because I wanted to see how different it was from their sopressata. There was a bit of heat but I'm not feeling any Sichuan from the Sichuan chilli honey. Between this and that sopressata, I was more impressed by the latter.

Other than satisfying the curiosity in having another fried pizza, this fried Margherita was for comparison to the pizza fritta from Bar Milano. In my not so humble opinion, Wild Child wins by a mile here. The texture of the crust was chewy with a light crisp without being greasy. That along with savouriness and bite which kinda reminded me of you tiao (油条). Loved the milky creaminess from their stracciatella and cheesy saltiness from the Parmigiano Reggiano.

I liked how each ingredient came through for this pizza.

Pistachio gelato also pretty good. Creamy and had a good flavour from the nut. I liked the bits of salt inside.