More food from Xing Hua (兴化)

Trying more food from Xing Hua. Would recommend the tenggiri (Spanish mackerel) to my enemy. Fish was too thinly cut to survive deep frying well so the meat ended up being dry and hard. Not to mention pretty fishy tasting. I've had enough fried Spanish mackerel in my childhood to know that these were poorly done and not good eating.

The red wine chicken mee sua (红糟鸡面线) was pretty tasty though - liked the tangy creaminess from the red yeast wine gravy pairing with the smooth vermicelli. Those chunks of chicken were tender.

Pretty good dish of amaranth in a salted yolk infused supreme stock gravy (上汤笕菜). The flavour is pretty similar to the commonly seen three egg spinach dish with a gravy that is creamier.

Hammee's - from a nasi ayam goreng experience to a burger experience

These guys started with a cheeseburger experience. Then they became a nasi ayam goreng experience - for a while. Today they're a burger experience. The fries have changed but otherwise, I couldn't say that I could tell the difference between their old cheeseburger and the current one.

Bee Kee Wanton Noodle (美記雲吞麵), Market Street Interim Hawker Centre

I had the idea that the powers that be wanted us to disassociate with the word 'hawker' for some reasons. That's why they're mostly called 'food centres' these days instead of hawker centres. But Market Street Interim Hawker Centre is still called a hawker centre. Hmmm....anyways, this was Bee Kee Wanton Noodle (#01-15 Market Street Interim Hawker Centre, 5 Cross Street) - a local wanton mee stall with a truffle flavour option.

I ordered the large bowl. Liked the wiry noodle texture. Wantons were pretty okay-ish and so were the slices of char siew. Fried crispy pork lard (猪油渣) wasn't very crispy though. Not a bad plate. To answer the question that may have been on everyone's mind, yes there was flavour from truffle oil. It was a unique characteristic as flavouring for wanton mee. Not necessarily the best feature of the bowl though.

Do you Lokal?

It's been some time since we last ate at The Lokal. They had venison on menu for the end year season so we found ourselves getting a table one evening.

But first a refreshing cold yuzu shandy or two - made with Pilsner Urquell.

Much like the chicken liver parfait we had previously, there was also a creamy and smooth goose liver parfait with toasts and onion jam. Nice.

That's a mettbrötchen - minced raw pork served on toast. The pork had a taste that was quite similar to pate/sausage. The meat was spiced with pepper (among other things I couldn't tell) and topped with diced onions & chopped spring onions. We liked this.

Their seared venison loin looked awesome. That's their picture above by the way. The one that lured me into getting a reservation. 😬

What we got looked different. The venison loin looked much smaller than the picture led us to believe but at least we got the delicious seared spatzle. Would have loved a bit more sear/charring on the venison to up the flavour game but I'm not complaining. If anyone's confused, this plate was delicious!

Smoked wild trout - also delicious. There's a Bearnaise-y potato salad on the side with pickles and capers that was awesome. What's more, this came with shaven horseradish. I wonder if this is a permanent item on the menu.

Lovely sticky date pudding to end. Wished it was bigger. Heh.

Stinky's by 99 Old Trees, Teo Hong Road

Came across this shop (1 Teo Hong Road, tel : +65 8792 4589) by chance and it was their opening day today. I don't know where Stinky's is in the shop but that's their name from their website

They're one bent on a new world odour apparently. Not the first of its kind around but who knows.

They do durian desserts and confectionary and were previously located at Pek Kio area. We got ourselves a couple of stinky bowl double shots. Durian mousse was well chilled, robustly flavoured and pretty darn good. Loads of mao shan wang richness in the scoops of fibre filled pulp.   

30 days dry aged USDA Prime porterhouse from The Ranch

I've been searching for dry aged steaks in our local restaurants after a conversation with a friend lately so that was part of the reason how I ended up with this 30 days dry aged USDA Prime porterhouse from The Ranch. 

But first, foie gras. With jellied apple, apple foam and crushed nuts. Not bad, a little overcooked but well salted with a well formed crust.

I actually had a hard time looking for something with dry aging of more than 21 days but maybe, just maybe, I haven't been looking hard enough. It was a lot easier to find wagyu.

Not bad tasting beef. I was hoping for some of the funk that the flavour is suppose to have but this one did not. Apparently, 30 days might not have been aged sufficiently for that......or is there something that I'm missing? I also prefer to have the meat sliced thicker though.