Pasta Bar, Keong Saik Road

Mixed feelings about Pasta Bar (#01-05, 55 Keong Saik Road, tel : +65 6222 0637). Didn't enjoy half of what we tried. Wait staff has attitude and the food is pricey. These guys are by the SJS Group - the people who are behind Bar Milano.

Bread. Not bad.

Their smoked ricotta was nice. Smoky from the first mouthful but oddly lost the smokiness which came back later. Loved the quince/apple compote and marinated grapes that brought in an enjoyable tart sweetness to the creamy ricotta. Those stuff on the top were spiced nuts.

This one was probably me because I didn't know what to expect of the stuffings. Like many contemporary menus, they can be confusing because it says veal & mortadella tortellini, chicken, ricotta, pistachio & sage butter. 

I'm assuming the mashy stuff in the tortellini were the veal and mortadella because I couldn't tell. Don't know where the chicken or ricotta was unless they were also in the tortellini. I thought I tasted rosemary but they convinced me it was sage. Didn't enjoy the sage then because it was a little too much. 

Those pistachios were soft, not crunchy and not flavourful. That's on them.

So pretty their fettuccine black truffle. This deserves another picture because it was the tastiest pasta we had and was also the most expensive single serving portion. I'm not griping over how much it cost because it was delicious.

From what I saw, just truffle butter, shaven black truffle and Parmigiano Reggiano. Simple and nice and pretty generous portions of the nutty truffle. Love the texture of their fresh fettuccine.

This was their reginette with smoked duck. Check out those chunky duck fat croutons.......on this picture in their social media. 

This was the real thing. Don't know where the duck fat croutons went unless those bread crumb-y things were it. Pretty sure no one can tell if they were really duck fat croutons. Nothing particularly Italian about this. Tasted like a stir fried mee hoon kuey with cabbage we could do at home. For $36, it was borderline criminal.

Home made shepherd's pie

Home made with no peas, corn or carrot. But there's blue cheese in there somewhere. And goat's cheese too. The only vegetable in them were diced onions that were cooked with the minced lamb which subsequently had the rendered fat folded into the mashed potato with butter and pepper.

Delivery from Goobne for a whole chicken

These oven baked chicken from Goobne survived delivery pretty well. They were still hot and juicy that something hot squirted out when I bit into a piece. Which doesn't happen often. 😬

134 Yong Ji Carrot Cake (永記菜頭粿), Bukit Timah Food Centre

I realized that I've been having a few radish cakes this month. It wasn't planned. I happened to be here in the morning again and wanted to see if this stall (#02-134 Bukit Timah Food Centre, 51 Upper Bukit Timah Road) was good because I'm not big on He Zhong and alternatives would be nice.

I'm not big on this either. I guess it was a little too wet and the radish cake didn't stay in the pan long enough for anything to caramelized into those aromatic crispy bits. There seemed to be this bitter edge in their chilli paste too.

Ikea's black (uh oh) hotdog

Hello darkness my old friend......it tasted like a cheese sausage hotdog if anyone was wondering. Limited edition for this month. A curious jet black for both buns and sausage but there was nothing weird tasting about it. The innards looked grey though.

Revisiting Happy Lamb Hotpot (快乐小羊)

Heh, we are back at Happy Lamb Hotpot (快乐小羊). The crowd's a little thin at the weekend so that worries me, but hey, look at that ewe! 

Like the last visit, the focus is mainly on the lamb. And the prawn paste with tobiko which I forgot to take a picture of which I will mention so that years later I could remember that we did like it as well.

After we processed the bill the last time, we were given a voucher which we could use to redeem some of their food items. One of the items included was their lamb skewers (羊肉串). No prizes for guessing what we used that voucher for. Man it was good.

Like I said, the main focus goes to the lamb. We got ourselves three cuts with their Nourishing Marrow Chicken Broth.

No Melaleuca rib this time. Picked the Sun Lamb Roll (太阳卷) which seemed to be undergoing some promotion. Pretty good meating.

Upped the number of mutton balls from 6 to 10.

Although no dip was necessary or provided, we paid a dollar for their sesame paste. That paste was creamy and aromatic from the sesame - like a Chinese tahini. I can see why they charged for this.

More tofu because these were good with the hotpot.

Daikon that got thrown in the hotpot at the start so that there was enough time to soften and absorb the lamb infused broth.

 Told ya we'll be back for the Mongolian yoghurt.