Lek Kee Authentic Teochew Braised Duck (陸記正宗潮洲鹵鸭), People's Park Food Centre

Have noticed the queue in front of this stall (#01-1104 People’s Park Food Centre, 32 New Market Road) every time I've been to People's Park Food Centre. Curiosity finally prevailed. I was told that I might have eaten from them many years ago but I don't remember. Since I don't remember, today was a fresh take on their Teochew styled braises.

This was a portion of mixed braises which included the bottom quarter of braised duck, pig's skin, pig's tongue, a stewed egg and some livers. Duck meat was moist and had a good bite to the texture. Tongue was less tender but had a flavour from the stewing sauce thoroughly infused into them. Pig's skin was tender and chewy. I like the sweet/savoury braising sauce which was in my opinion, all that was needed for the platter.

Not that the chilli wasn't nice. These had a tanginess from lime and a savoury bit of heat from the darker chilli paste. But I found myself getting by without much of them

The extra braising sauce from the platter can be generously drizzled onto their rice for more deliciousness.

Ah Seng Teo Chew Minced Meat Noodle (亞誠潮州肉脞面), Hong Lim Food Centre

Ah Kow's minced meat noodle stall has ended their business. I'm not gonna miss them because I didn't have a good experience. That in spite of glowing reviews of their bak chor mee. A couple of months back, I noticed that in the unit that they used to occupy has become Ah Seng Teo Chew Minced Meat Noodle (#02-42 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) selling the same local minced meat noodle.

Ah Seng did significantly better in my opinion. Their mixture of sauces and chilli was deep and savoury. The vinegar wasn't potent but I guess that's just their style. This $6 bowl came with a couple of their in house wanton that had huge wings. I'm getting quite a bit of that dried sole (ti poh) flavour because the meat stuffings of the wanton, a piece of crispy one they threw in the noodles and the soup on the side had those flavours. Mee pok was well tossed and coated with their sauce.

Speaking of the soup, don't ignore it. This one had the blanket of savoury ti poh taste amidst a gentle sweetness and was robustly salted to bring out flavours. Those fishballs in the soup tender and fishy in a good way. Pleasantly surprised by that.

I like their cut chilli. If you need a bit of additional heat, these would do the job nicely.

More weekend specials at Etna

Like the title says, more weekend specials at Etna. By the time this post was published, this would have been last week. It's also been 10 years since we first ate here.

We were given some onion focaccia today along with some in house chilli infused oil which they recommended. That had a bit of slow burning heat and a fragrance from the chilli they used.

There were some fried sardines this weekend. They were beautifully done with a proper crisp and moist meat underneath. No excess oil and much better eating than most that we've tried. True story.

There was Prague ham. Not sure what exactly constitutes that but the ham had some leopard spotted charring and was deliciously salty like good ham is, stuffed with an also delicious bastardo del Grappa cheese. Like a ham steak foldover. Paired with light pickled onions along with some bitter and also charred endives that broke the banks of saltiness. Nice garlic bread to go with too.

The other thing we wanted to try from this weekend was their pizza special with Puzzone di Moena cheese and Lardo di Colonnata. Those and mozzarella with stracchino cheese topped with walnuts and a light drizzle of honey. Here's where I mention the umami savouriness from the creamy lardo pairing well with the bit of sweetness from the honey. This was one rich pizza. 

Same old pistachio tiramisu there. There's a layer of pistachio paste in the middle which I heard referred to as an Italian equivalent of Chinese/Japanese red bean paste. Make of that what you will.

Coffee has never been that great here but after all the cheeses and salt and sugar, the bitterness was welcomed.

TamJai SamGor Mixian (譚仔三哥), VivoCity

I've come across the mention of this shop online a number of times but for some reasons, had associated them with Thai food until I saw the Cantonese name 譚仔三哥 that I understood what the name was and also realized that it was a Chinese soup noodle shop from Hong Kong. We came across one of their shop at VivoCity (#B2-28 VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk, tel : +65 62549803) and was intrigued by the broth options for their noodles.

This bowl was their SamGor hot and sour soup with pig's stomach, fish and premium sliced beef. Flavour was akin to Szechuan pickled mustard with a bit of mala styled heat. I think I went halfway up their spice meter because I had no idea how spicy things could get and I wasn't interested in not tasting the food. Heat was manageable so maybe I could up a notch in the future. 

While the menu described this as Hunan cumin mid wings, we were intrigued/amused by the Chinese 湖南土匪 (Hunan bandit) name. So we got some. Not bad. The wings were tender enough that we could slurp them off the bones and had a nice spice flavour topped with toasted sesame. Will come back another time to try another soup for their noodles.

Curry kolo mee from Traditional Sarawak Kolo Mee (传统砂拉越格罗面)

We saw curry kolo mee from Traditional Sarawak Kolo Mee (#B1-14 Connexis Building, 1 Fusionopolis Way) and immediately imagined the noodles soaking in curry gravy. But both the noodles and curry were served separately......

Curry looked not bad though. Nonya styled and creamy.

So after a couple of mouthful of noodles for the original flavour, the curry went in to reconcile what the mind had initially perceived with reality. Yummy.

Ko Ryo Jeong Korean Restaurant (고려정), International Plaza

I noticed this Korean restaurant (#02-59 International Plaza, 10 Anson Road, tel : +65 6324 3120) the past couple of times we were at Enishi as they were literally strides apart. We managed to make it down today. I supposed the initial plan was to give what might look nice on the menu a try. 

We never made it to the menu items. We've seen a few mukbangs featuring ganjang gejang on YouTube that we kinda knew what to expect and was curious enough to want to try them.

There's banchan. The left bottom banchan was wood ear fungus with thinly sliced beef which was pretty good. Kimchi was also refreshingly sour. Those chilled pickled chilli things on the bottom right were also invigoratingly sour, sweet and spicy at the same time.

Rice was saved for the sweet flesh of the raw marinated crabs and the tomalley/roe we could squeeze out from them. Like I mentioned, we kinda knew what to expect with how to manage the ganjang gejang.

Part of the ganjang gejang set came with dak bulgogi. I haven't had/ordered these things since...I can't remember when. I guess these were decent tasting.

A steaming gyeran jjim. Light, savoury and we finished it at the end so it wasn't bad.

Need to get used to calling these godeungeo gui rather than saba shioyaki. Heh! The meat was firm and flaky. Not a bad grilled mackerel at all.

That's a sundubu jjigae that had quite a bit of clams and shrimps. Something we enjoyed and demolished at the end. But at this point, we were already started to fill up even before the crabs were served.

These were their anticipated ganjang gejang. While I had some idea how to eat them, I didn't have much of a clue how to work the claws which were a little thorny if you catch my drift. In contrast with the steamed Sri Lankan mud crabs where the claws were easier to eat, these flower crabs had bodies which were less of a pain to get meat from compared to the claws.

Not a bad try for a first time. The meat had a crustacean sweetness that paired with that soy marinade which tasted like it had some sort of wine in them. I've got a couple of nicks from the dead crabs but I'll learn to do better the next time.