White radish cake with chilli from Heng Heng Cooked Food

White radish cake with extra eggs and chilli from Heng Heng. Their queue seems to be much longer at 7+ in the morning than I remember.

Qin Ji Rougamo (秦記肉夹馍), One Raffles Place

I seen this shop (#B1-28/29 One Raffles Place, 1 Raffles Place) a number of times and curiosity had finally gotten the better of us. While the name of the shop was Qin Ji Rougamo, what they were selling is known as rou jia mo (肉夹馍), something quite commonly referred to as Chinese hamburgers. The ones that I've had previously at Huang Tu Di Xi’An Delights (黄土地西安小吃) and the already closed Xun Qin Ji (寻秦记) had pita like bread. These here were much like flaky pastry.

The stuffings of minced pork and sauce were savoury and delicious. The top one was the original flavour (秦记肉夹馍). The other was cumin pork (孜然肉夹馍). Can't say which one was better because I liked them both. That flaky pastry crust was also kinda nice and held up well with all the stuffings. Gonna come back again and try these with another filling. 

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.