Tian Tian Hainanese Curry Rice (天天海南咖哩飯), Bukit Merah View

I had been introduced to this stall (#01-253, 116 Bukit Merah View) by an ex co-worker years ago. Didn't leave much of an impression at that time but for some reasons, I got reminded of it and came down for lunch.

To be more accurate, there was more than curry going on. There're six sauces which was ladled with varying quantities over the rice - three of which are curries. I don't think there's a formula there or at least I couldn't figure out how they decided. The result was a melange of flavours with each mouthful determined by how and how much you mixed things up or where you took that spoonful. I wouldn't say what I had gotten was a definitive curry flavour like say the one from Hong Seng.

Cabbage was tender and garlicky. There's pork chops which do have meat in them but are thinner cuts than those at Loo's. I got some fried prawns as well. The latter didn't taste as good as those from the Beo Crescent curry rice stall though.

Chicken claw noodle with sui gao from Lucky Wanton Noodle (好彩云吞面)

I remember getting dumpling noodles from Lucky Wanton Noodle years ago and having a good impression of them. I wanted to relive that and instead got distracted by the braised chicken claw so I ended up with the chicken claw noodles instead - with additional sui gao (水饺). 

Love how the herbal savoury sweet braising sauce had been infused into those slurp off the bone tender claws. Sui gao was well stuffed and filled with minced pork, shrimps and black fungus but I've been spoilt by Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Noodle Rice (香港玫瑰油鸡麵饭) and Xiang Jiang Soya Sauce Chicken (香江豉油鸡) that I'd have to rank this one below them. Not that these weren't good. They were.

Unfortunately, their noodles didn't do it for me. I prefer something with more bite. In a twist of irony, I also found myself liking the dark soya sauce concoction for their wanton/sui gao noodles over the braising sauce from the chicken claws. 

Riverside Grilled Fish (江边城外), Tiong Bahru Plaza

Riverside Grilled Fish setup shop (#02-109/136 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road, tel : +65 6270 9646) a while back. We had a pretty good experience at the flagship at Raffles City some years ago and have been wanting to try this one out for a while. Never happened until now.

Sour plum coke. Nice but a little sweet.

There's 麻酱拉皮. I'm not sure how to feel about their rendition.

The sesame dressing was sweet - not that it was bad but it tasted exactly like the goma dressing in Japanese salads. No heat incoming even with the dried chilli in there. While I'm not an expert on this dish, I thought what it lacked was fragrance. Fragrance from the sesame and/or chilli oil that would transcend the bowl of ingredients.

Abundance's red hot chilli dumplings were way superior than these 红油抄手 here. The former had more skilful wrapping and were firmly packed with stuffings along with better tasting chilli sauce/oil. These weren't even close. They didn't taste bad with the pork/prawn stuffings but were just easily forgettable.

Didn't think much of their stir fried French beans too. It's not so much the inferior quality in the ingredient than how they concocted their rendition. It's a little too sweet and not savoury enough without much heat.

Fortunately, their sliced fish in pickled vegetable soup (酸菜鱼) held up. To be specific, it's pickled mustard greens. There's enough saltiness, sour and heat with the light aroma of the peppers that made them moreish. Not to mention pretty generous portions of those firm slices of fish.

Gotta have rice with the pickled vegetable soup because they were made to go well together.

Jin Fa Traditional Hainanese Chicken Rice (金发传统海南鸡饭), Tanjong Pagar Food Centre

We were getting lunch Tanjong Pagar Food Centre and noticed that Jin Fa (#02-16 Tanjong Pagar Food Centre, 6 Tanjong Pagar Plaza) looked pretty decent. Hence this plate of 鸡尾 with gizzards, liver and egg. I liked it. Not a big fan of the gizzard though. The flavour in the rice was light yet fragrant that the chilli sauce wasn't necessary. Couple that with competently smooth and tender chicken, I though it was a pretty good plate. They even included a bowl of herbal soup on the side.

Will definitely come back another time.  

Penang Home Made Beef Ball, Beauty World Food Centre

I noticed this stall (#04-43 Beauty World Centre, 144 Upper Bukit Timah Road) the previous times I was here and decided to give them a try. They have ran out of the "dry" bowls for some reasons so I got my beef tendon kuey teow with soup. Tendons were nicely tender and had the slightest of chewiness which I thought was good. Broth wasn't very robust so I ended up emptying the chilli sauce and the pickled green chilli into my the bowl. That perked it to the point that I finished up till the last drop.

Doesn't change the fact that the beef broth was a little thin though.

Happy Lamb Hotpot (快乐小羊), Pacific Plaza

We were intrigued by Happy Lamb Hotpot (#02-10 Pacific Plaza, 9 Scotts Road, tel : +65 9030 6897) because lamb hotpot. A few of these have sprung up in recent years so we thought it was time we gave them a try since we've previously been lamenting over the lack of them. This restaurant is from Inner Mongolia - a region lauded as Lamb Gourmet Capital of China. Sounded interesting to try something from that part of the world.

From what I gathered, lamb served here are either from Mongolia or Scotland. Couldn't tell which were from where though but the quality of ingredients we had were good. Dips aren't available by default and were chargeable.

We kept the focus on lamb, picked a few cuts to try and tried to keep the list of the other hotpot ingredients short. The above was an order of lamb shoulder (羔羊前腿条) - a lean but tender cut of meat.

The other cut we tried was Melaleuca Rib (千层肋腹). More flavour than the shoulder because there were more fat.

There was platter of Happy Spring Lamb (快乐羔羊卷) on the menu. Don't know which part it was but the fat lacing and thin slices made it great for the hotpot.

Their mutton balls (羊肉丸) were pretty good and packed with the lamb-y flavours.

We had a tray of assorted bean curd (营养豆腐拼). Liked these. The frozen tofu (冻豆腐) was amazing because it soaked up an incredible amount of broth from the hotpot.

Pretty good quality prawn paste with tobiko (手工蟹籽虾滑).

King oyster mushrooms (杏鲍菇).

Some daikon (白萝卜) to soak up the broth.

We picked two broths. The one on the right was the Nourishing Marrow Chicken Broth (滋补清汤锅) which tasted herbal and clean. What's left (pun intended) was a Spicy Sour Pickled Cabbage Broth (金汤酸辣锅) which was sour with a bit of heat and Szechuan peppercorn flavour going on.

Damn these spicy lamb skewers (羊肉串) were so good. I would come back just for these.

Lamb dumplings (羊肉水饺) weren't as impressive because the meat was marinated to the point that I couldn't tell. The vinegar with garlic dip that came with it was good for the lamb shoulder though.

We were told by the staff that the Mongolian yoghurt (蒙古酸奶) was good and that she had one daily. I liked it. Don't get the sweet one because the original one already had an almost citrus like sweetness that reminded me of Yakult. I gotta come back for this again.