S'Mao Barbecue, Cluny Food Court

Les Amis Group has opened Cluny Food Court - their very first food court located at one of the edges of Botanic Gardens (1J Cluny Road). One of the stalls in that food court was S'mao Barbecue which I had read about some time ago that operated Texan styled barbecue in some kind of pop-up-esqued mode at the defunct Casa Verde, helmed by a CIA graduate who also did a stint in North Carolina and a popular food truck in Austin. Sounds legit. I think.

I confess to having trouble navigating to the food court coming in from Bukit Timah Gate. I had to Google Map my way to the place.

We were there lunch time. No barbecue for lunch 😢, only a couple of sandwiches so I settled for the pulled pork. The sauce was smoky, not bad tasting and not outstanding either. Meat portions were kinda skimpy. The sandwich included bits of basil and mint. Didn't like the coleslaw and fries were kinda limp without much flavour or salt. Their rosemary scented corn cakes were not bad tasting though. I'm curious about their barbecue but it's kinda pain in the ass getting there and out.

Meat n' Chill, 6th Avenue

Mixed feelings about Meat n' Chill (#01-04 6th Avenue Centre, 805 Bukit Timah Rd, tel : +65 8812 4455). These guys are a local steak and ribs joint and appeared to know what they were doing. They don't make the best ribs in town - in fact, their slogan said 'meanest ribs'. 😂 But they seem to have hiccups with the operations on the day we visited. Strange that since they've been around for a while.

Anyway, their garlic bread sucks. We asked for extra garlic butter but these didn't even have enough for decent ones. Twice the amount of garlic butter they put on these wouldn't even have made good garlic bread so yeah, this sucked and I wouldn't waste money on them again.

I wanted to try some of their unusual glazes for their ribs. This was Journey to the Yeast - with Guinness, Marmite and molasses. Sounded fun. Not getting much yeastiness from Guinness and I'm guessing that the sweetness were from molasses. But it wasn't particularly molasses-y either. No idea how a strong flavour like Marmite could simply not show up in a three main ingredient glaze.

The meat was tender. Not glistening with juices and slip off the bone kind of tender but still tender. It didn't taste bad. It just tasted ordinary considering the description of the ingredients. Coleslaw had chopped pickles and raisins and I liked it. Cornbread was not bad but the flavour and quantity of that smudge of sauce seemed half assed.

For some reasons, our order of the lamb ribs didn't go through. Curse these newfangled and poorly implemented digital menus. The wait staff in charge realized something didn't go right and came over to get our orders and then got us the wrong lamb rib. She was apologetic (and appeared very busy) and we didn't want to further complicate the issue. We ended up with the original barbecue instead of the orange mint.

I didn't dislike this in spite of the fact that some parts of it were dry. Left to cook for too long kind of dry. Maybe it's also "I'm not sure this is lamb jerky or lamb biscuit" kind of dry. Yes, it got that far. Some parts which I had initially mistaken for bone were actually dried bits of lamb that was more biscuit than jerky. Kinda nice tasting because of the lamb flavour but that wasn't the point. Did not expect the ribs to be accompanied with yoghurt.

A disconnect happened between the making of their apple blueberry cobbler and it being served. The waitress brought over the stewed apples and blueberry - sans the crumble and ice cream. She really didn't have a fucking clue what the cobbler was supposed to be like. Sigh....

Thankfully, the other waitress in charge saw and corrected it. This tasted pretty good with the blueberry and spice infused apples which had a soft crunch. And with the crumble and ice cream that is. 

Revisiting Mrs Pho House

This revisit to Mrs Pho House was to hit up some of their barbeque/grill items and also take advantage of the half price promotion for their hotpot broth which has been extended till the end of the month. It was specifically the crab bisque broth for the hotpot that we came back for.

So before the food arrived, a glass of Phoever Young. Tacky sounding drink made with pennywort, coconut water and green bean. Supposedly good for health but I'll never drink enough to find out. Tasted like it was made with pennywort, coconut water and green bean. A pretty green-y flavour which wasn't very sweet.

Grilled mussels were not bad. Not the plumpest but still meaty resting in their juices on the shell. Would have been nicer if the crushed peanuts weren't just a token sprinkling. 

Marinated pork belly on skewer were not bad too. These were single long strips of pork belly folded in the the skewer so it was a pretty large mouthful. 

Nice tender lady's fingers made more delicious with their fermented beancurd sauce.

Got ourselves their mountain styled chicken again. Looked different from the last time but still delicious.

Another mountain styled item, this time it was zucchini slices which were tender and pleasantly sweet, paired with the salty "mountain spice".

Their stuffed squid sounded interesting. Not bad also. Squid was stuffed with minced meat and had a nice char at the tentacles. It was mentioned on the menu to be "Mrs Pho's childhood favourite". Who the hell is Mrs Pho? I thought it was just a name. 😱 Anyway, they did this with a pineapple sauce which had a good flavour from the fruit without being overly sweet.

Here begins the hotpot stuff. We had some fish maw. Not the better ones we've had but I think I was forgiving because the idea was for these to soak up the crab bisque.

More pig's stomach which was good with their spicy fermented beancurd dip.

Their house made prawn paste which I didn't get to show the last time. These were pretty well done with chunks of shrimp in the paste. Loved how the dill integrated with them. Works with their sweet calamansi dip.

Beef balls. Decent but nothing special. Great with the spicy fermented beancurd dip.

Frozen pork belly which were oddly folded. We had initially thought that they were thick slices but that was because each piece was folded in half. Pretty good stand alone or with both dips that they provided. 

Frozen beef slices which were also pretty good on their own. I don't know if the salt came from a marinate or the crab bisque. Hmmm......

Some watercress for fibre. These were pretty stem-my and those fibrous stems took a long time to soften.

There - the sweet and fruity calamansi dip with a hint of garlic which I had been mentioning. And also that delicious spicy fermented beancurd dip.

Tried their avocado coffee. I liked that the coffee itself was strong. I'm not assuming that all Vietnamese restaurants makes nice strong coffee.

Hui Mama Kitchen @ Eatbox

The last time I stepped into Eatbox (#01-55 to 59 Tekka Place, 2 Serangoon Road) was quite a while ago. The foodcourt looked a little forlorn and I didn't eat anything then. We were in the vicinity today and ended up there for lunch. Bustling wouldn't be the word I would use to describe the food court. The stalls also have changed vendors from the last time. Got some Vietnamese food from Hui Mama Kitchen this time.

This was their sticky rice special which was basically a little meat from each of the sticky rice plates that they were serving. Stuff like pork ribs, chicken, meat floss, some sauce that tasted like pate which was delicious, pickles, fried shallots and curiously....half a quail's egg. What's with that half of a tiny egg? Anyways, it was edible but I didn't think so much of it. Meats were a little tough and the sticky rice was dry-ish.

What actually got my attention at the stall was their súp cua óc heo - a soup of minced crab and pig's brain. I didn't realize it was a sticky soup. Didn't have much flavour except from the fish sauce and chilli which they added to it. Too little crab meat to make an impression but they gave a whole pig's brain.

Warm Up Cafe, MacKenzie Road

I wouldn't say that this spot is obscure (110 Mackenzie Road, tel : +65 8723 2332). It's not. It's just off the main road. Sequestered among a few other equally off the main road condominiums close to the back of the Istana. And also a few minutes walk from one of the entrances to Little India MRT. A single Thai eatery in a location that one might not generally expect.

We had iced Thai green milk tea. And also cha yen later on. Having Thai tea here is akin to getting Hong Kong milk tea. While the standards may be better these days from some restaurants, it's never really going to taste like the real stuff where it came from. Tea here is a little thinner than what would garner a thumbs up.

Wanted some vegetable so their cabbage stir fried in fish sauce sounded good. Cabbage was very crunchy and thankfully cooked enough without any residual rawness. Pretty tasty but not exactly how I imagined it.

We noticed Thai river prawns on the menu and wanted to get a couple to see if they do nice Thai river prawns. Did not see any indication that they were grilled even though they were supposed to be. Didn't recall any smokiness or char but the prawns were pretty tasty and not dried out. Pretty good with the accompanying nam jim. Just not as large as I was hoping them to be.

That's shrimp paste fried rice. Loads of flavour and texture from the vegetables. The chilli burnt my lips.

There's crab bah mee which wasn't a quarter as spicy as its dark reddish looks suggested. There was a dark sauce with a gentle sweetness coupled with flavour from garlic. Wasn't expecting that dark sauce though. Quite a bit of crab meat in the noodles. Not bad tasting.

LINO, Forum The Shopping Mall

Lino by the Les Amis Group has been expanding. They started out as a more or less traditional-ish Italian restaurant at Binjai Park. That was followed by their pasta bar at Shaw. This new outpost (#01-01/04 Forum The Shopping Mall, 583 Orchard Road) took over the space left behind by Jamie Oliver's restaurant at Forum The Shopping Mall. Felt more like a mall restaurant than an Italian one though.

Managed to be upsold by one of their wait staff to buy an expensive bottled serious beer for not so serious people. This was malty, chocolate-y with a sweet aftertaste. Not spicy even though the label indicated that it was made with chili.

I was quite convinced that these were potatoes even though I knew I ordered smoked scamorza - right till the moment I put them into my mouth because they looked so much like them. Even the texture had just the slightest mealiness like potato. But they were scarmoza, albeit unlike those we've had previously. Not bad tasting though. A little smoky and not overly salty, paired with prosciutto and rocket drizzled generously with balsamic glaze.

Liked the trofie though the basil pesto seemed to lack cheese and garlic so the punch and umami was kinda lost. Pine nuts would have benefited from a bit of toasting. Otherwise not bad tasting. 

The ingredients of their foie gras pizza were set up not to fail - bacon, caramelized onion, sweet slices of peaches with the foie. That was multi layered sweetness and savoury saltiness with slices of buttery liver on melted cheese bread. I liked it.

Was expecting them to heat up their pecan tart but it was served chilled. Not bad though not one of the better pecan tart things I've had.

Espresso was sour. No more getting coffee if we come back.