WOW Bistro (威旺美食酒馆), Bencooolen Street

Read about WOW Bistro (#01-02/03, 47 Bencoonlen Street, tel : +65 9654 7947) and got curious because of some of their featured dishes. They're located at the side of the lobby of Hotel Bencoolen. We tried a walk in one Saturday and were turned away because they were filled up. So we made reservations for the next one and it was mostly empty when we were there. Hmmm......

Kwirk Belgian White on tap for $11. Pretty good deal in town. Note to self : can come for beer.

We ordered radish cake. Black one. I expected it to come with cheese but it didn't. Instead there was a lot of coriander on it. Who the hell puts coriander on radish cake? Anyways the wait staff tried to explain that only the white radish cake had cheese.

Really? I wouldn't have known. No one told us. 

The black radish cake was actually pretty good. House made fried onions, a hae bee infused sambal, loads of egg and not excessively greasy. I wouldn't mind coming here for these.

The dish I was curious about was their durian curry fish. I know right? Durian curry sounds kinda out there. But it was also kinda good with a lot of richness, some heat and spices. First in the world they said. I detected curry leaves, laksa leaves, black peppercorn and chilli padi in the creamy durian infused curry. The portions were huge.

While it tasted unusual, I thought it kinda worked. There was sufficient flavour from durian and we even found a couple of seeds of those D24 that they used. Which was awesome while the dish was still hot. 

The pan fried sea bass felt left sidelined even though it was a huge piece. Not bad tasting but my mind was still trying to reconcile the savoury fish with the sweet-ish spicy durian curry.

The other dish that got my attention was their lamb kut teh. Basically lamb rendition of bak kut teh which was something I had over a few occasions in the past wondered if they existed. Now I know it does. There's a rich herbal broth infused with lamb flavour and a herb infused rack of lamb. That fork tender rack of lamb had at some point been on some grill because we could taste the caramelized parts which were delicious.

I prefer the broth to be more savoury rather than the dominant herbal sweetness that this had.

The dish had a couple of cloves of garlic on the side which were....melt in your mouth? These definitely qualified that description. To think of it, they were already borderline melting before they were in our mouths.

Aloha Burger from Jollibee

The Aloha Burger from Jollibee has the same beef patties they use for their "burger steak"/Yumburger - which tastes semi mysterious in a cheap manner but also strangely addictive to the point that I might describe them as delicious. That and lettuce, bacon, cheese and a ring of pineapple with their Aloha sauce. I don't actually know what's in that Aloha sauce but...

...the page that many burger joints can take from this particular humble fast food is not to over-sauce the burger. Especially if the rest of the ingredients in said burger are good enough to sell themselves. Unless those burger joints had never thought that way about their burgers. 

I liked that this wasn't over-sauced. Delicious without being overbearing and there was that tangy sweetness from the pineapple which made sense with the salt from the other ingredients in the sandwich. I'd eat this again.

Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup, Pasir Panjang Food Centre

I've generally never been someone for our local Chinese herbal mutton soup. Usually prefer my mutton soup not herbal and without ginger or coriander to detract from the natural flavour of the meat. But I had also been curious about Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup (#01-14 Pasir Panjang Food Centre, 121 Pasir Panjang Road) for some time after reading about them. They looked richer than the "more common" variety around. 

I liked this in spite of the fact that I had just mentioned not being big on herbal flavours masking the flavour of the lamb. The herbal flavour from this one complemented those mutton-y flavour resulting in a delicious rich intensity that was it's own brand of sweet savouriness that also happened to be collagen rich. Thankfully I also couldn't taste ginger and I could order the bowl sans coriander. Love those tender mutton and fruity goji berries.

This wasn't from the same stall obviously. It was a jackfruit shake that I had ordered from a stall that only sold fruit juice nearby. First jackfruit shake I've had in my life. Thought that this one deserved mention because it tasted good with sufficient flavour from the fruit and it wasn't overly milky. For some reasons, I also enjoyed the light pulp in the drink.

Fade to Black (Tap)

Been a while since we last came over to Black Tap.

Decided to try a couple of drinks to get out of the Brooklyn Lager cycle. Not that I didn't like it but I just wanted to see if there was anything else that might have been good. The Yum Yum Yuzu was okay, not memorable even though that yuzu flavour came through. The other was the Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk Stout from Lost Coast brewery. I understand the peanut butter part because I tasted it but I don't get any chocolate milk. Nice for novelty. Not getting them again though.

I was kinda lured in today by the picture of their Reuben Burger that they posted on their social media. Notice the thick moist slice of pastrami they featured. The picture was deliberately misleading and it's kinda sad to know that these guys aren't above doing that.

The actual pastrami looked like this. Flat, pan fried and functioned like a bacon substitute rather than a disintegrate in your mouth slab of smoked brisket I was imagining. Didn't taste bad but this was way off expectations.

Chicken noodles at Lucky Chicken Rice

We came back to Lucky Chicken Rice for their noodles after seeing someone enjoying it online and waxing lyrical about how delicious they were.

But first some stewed eggs in spiced dark soya sauce. The flavour from the sauce was intense and the eggs were tender.

We ordered a plate of 鸡尾 hor fun and 鸡尾 noodles. Both had the same gravy and cut of dark chicken meat so the only thing to compare between the two were the noodles.

I have to admit that liked both through their own merits. The rice noodles were smooth and slurpy while those egg noodles had a texture that was firm to the bite. The sambal that they had was delicious so here's a note to self to ask for extra potions whenever I'm getting these noodles.

Fei Zhai Pork Rib Prawn Noodles (肥仔排骨蝦麵), Pasir Panjang Road

Prawn noodle stall (114 Pasir Panjang Rd) located at the junction of Pasir Panjang and Pepys Road. I was curious because I've read a bit about them and that there's always been some queue when I happen by. I happened to be in the vicinity one morning so breakfast was a bowl of bee hoon mee dry with additional stewed pig tails.

Wasn't a bad bowl of hae mee but I didn't think they were so good that I'd be yearning to come back. 

What I enjoyed from the bowl was the sambal and the generous infusion of flavour from the fried shallots. Those stewed pig tails were gelatinous textured, deeply flavourful from what they had been cooking in and were slurp off the bone tender.

What I didn't like? Noodles were very generic and didn't have the bite I had been hoping for. Prawns weren't de-veined. Soup was sweet with only a light crustacean flavour - not one of the better (can also be read as robust) prawn broths I've had. It was also telling for me that the thing I liked most from this prawn noodle stall weren't the prawns, the noodles nor the soup.