BurgerLabo, Malan Road

This is the restaurant formerly known as Nekkid and was also formerly Naked Finn (which has since relocated to a short distance across the road). It's BurgerLabo (41 Malan Road, tel : +65 6694 0940) today - a culmination of the burger forays which has started at Naked Finn years back. 

That's their basic burger with double patties. What the menu describes is...

"Blend of 100% grass-fed Aberdeen Angus (Argentina) & Kuroge Washu from Toriyama Umami Wagyu (Japan) A4 patty, grilled a la plancha. Topped with red onions pickled in IPA, American cheese, wagyu fats and house-made shio kombu mayonnaise-based sauce. Sandwiched in a toasted bun baked specially for us by Bakery Brera. Served with shoestring truffle fries topped with grated Parmesan cheese."

Sounds impressive? I thought so. But they've always been quite good at marketing what they sold. Pretty good tasting patty with a coarse mince of meat described in the menu I'm assuming. It's hefty and stout. It has presence. I liked the nice browning of the crust. What slipped here was the light hand with the salt. Just thought it would be nicer with more salt. With the mayo/onions, this burger tasted like the grand father of Big Mac. Seriously. The flavour profile as a whole was similar. So the outcome of all the r&d was an atas Big Mac.

This is their atas Filet O Fish. Deep fried cod burger. What the menu describes is...

"Deep-fried breaded line-caught blue cod (Parapersis colias) fillet from New Zealand. Topped with American cheese and shio kombu mayonnaise with smashed avocado and chopped pickles. Sandwiched in a warm toasted bun baked specially for us by Bakery Brera. Served with shoestring truffle fries topped with grated Parmesan cheese."

You could double the fried cod or add an aji fry for a bit more intensity to the fish flavour. We did both. To be fair, this was a step up from just an atas Filet O Fish because the aji added depth to the sandwich. Not just physical depth but also the flavour. That shio kombu mayo + avocado and pickles was basically BurgerLabo's spin on Japanese tartare sauce. Presumably the avocado takes the place of the eggs. Tasted like tartare sauce with dill and avocados. Not bad. Had that tangy smooth richness which paired nicely with the delicately flavoured fried cod.

BurgerLabo has milkshake. Only three flavours - yes that three. This was the Madagascan vanilla. It's creamy and not very thick so it's easy to drink with the straw. Flavour was a pretty intense vanilla. Nice.

A Bun Dance

Here's revisiting Abundance. Starting with a glass of craft beer on tap - the Ondeh Ondeh Porter from Sunbird Brewing Company which was a pleasant surprise. Why? The caramel malty sweetness with the coconut-y taste pretty much delivered the ondeh ondeh promise. I couldn't tell when the malt ended the gula melaka began.

Today's fizzy lemon tea also had more fizz. 👍🏼

Intrigued by the bacon cabbage dish because it was cabbage stir fried in garlic, chilli oil and bacon. It's the same chilli oil/sauce/thingy they used for their red hot chilli dumplings/红油抄手. Bacon added smokiness. This was nicely done because the cabbage was properly cooked without rawness while maintaining a good crunch in their textures.

There's a prawn bao. Only for this month according to them. Very competently done egg floss with curry leaves and chilli on top of the chunky prawn patty doused with salted egg sauce. I'm gonna stop at 'this was so good'.

Just to get it out of the way, I thought this beef noodle was better than the one at Din Tai Fung. The reason I started getting the beefless beef broth noodles there was because I had beef with the beef. Whew! 

The beef in this bowl was tender and readily yielded to even the toothless. The robust and glassy oxblood broth had a good intense flavour consisting of spices, a savoury depth and a bit of heat. Love the undulating smoothness of their broad noodles as well. Yes - it was better then Din Tai Fung in my opinion.

Mala popcorn chicken was pretty decent munching. This was Taiwanese fried chicken in popcorn form with some mala powder. There's a nice bit of heat and aroma from the Szechuan peppers but it's doesn't exactly 麻 nor was it very 辣. I don't think it was meant to be.

So there - the peanut ice cream roll that was suppose to pack coriander. The coriander couldn't make it and that was absolutely fine by me. Not bad tasting.

Rolina Traditional Hainanese Curry Puffs, Tanjong Pagar Food Centre

I've heard mention of Rolina (#02-15 Tanjong Pagar Food Centre, 6 Tanjong Pagar Plaza) for years but had never gotten a chance to try the curry puffs that they're known for. Apparently, the name of the stall was a mispronunciation of Novena where they used to hawk their wares many years ago. Rolina has stuck as their name ever since. 

Managed to get a couple of their curry puffs recently. Liked the crisp pastry shell and robust tasting curry fillings but these puffs were kinda small. I like the one with potato fillings more than the one with sardines. That being said, I think I like them enough to want to get them occasionally if I'm in the area. Will likely not go out of they way for them because I didn't think it was that good for me.

Soto ayam from Queenstown Lontong

Queenstown Lontong doesn't just do lontong. They've a bunch of other local favourites like nasi lemak, mee rebus and mee soto to name a few. This was their soto ayam which I got for breakfast. I lapped up the savoury chicken broth infused with the prickly heat from their chilli. Most of the mouthfuls were also accompanied by the flavour from the fried shallots that went in the bowl. Nice.

Burger House, Beauty World Food Centre

So I read about this guy who used to be the head chef at Omakase Burger whom has started a business of his own selling *Nyango Star drumroll*...burgers (#04-42 Beauty World Centre, 144 Upper Bukit Timah Road). I was curious and wanted to find out. 

It's similar but not the same. Omakase Burger had more vibrant looking lettuces, their potato bun which this doesn't and a cheesier cheese. One could see where this particular burger fell short.

To be fair, this was definitely not as expensive and they did a commendable job out of the beef patty. Again, not the exact same kind of flavour nor crustiness that Omakase Burger had but still a very respectable one that was reasonably beefy and dripping with juices in the wrapper between toasted buns. Not bad at all. I would have liked mine to have a bit more char though.

King of Fried Rice, Chinatown Food Street

Just as I had suspected, the mala fried rice from King of Fried Rice (Stall 11, 41 Smith Street) wasn't very spicy. They had to accomodate people who couldn't handle spice after all. There was a bit of heat that gave a light prickle but that was all there was to the 辣. Just don't expect any 麻 from it. Not much of fragrance coming from their mala spice mix either so the additional chilli helps if one is looking for a bit more flavour and heat. These guys are also really careful with the salt. So now I know.