Crystal Cafe, Killiney Road

The website at Crystal Cafe (Orchard Grand Court, 131 Killiney Road, tel : +65 6830 2020) mentions Taiwanese porridge buffet but I'm not sure what exactly makes this Taiwanese porridge. Food appears to be local to me. Anyways, the spread was not bad. That's specially so for the braised/stewed dishes. 

We had a few rounds of the sweet potato porridge because of the food and the sodium spiking preserved/fermented accompaniments. 

There's char siew bao and siew mai in the buffet. I kinda like the former and they're actually pretty good eating with those preserved olive leaves (橄榄菜). Didn't see that coming did you? Neither did I. Siew mai was not that great.

Stewed chicken claws were nice. I'd qualify it as slurp off the bone tender but they just about made it. What was impressive was the spice flavours that were infused in it. Tasted a lot of cinnamon. The other thing in the bowl were chopped pieces of pork knuckles. Those weren't as good.

Preserved and pickled mustard greens. Sweet, salty and delicious with the porridge.

Braised duck and some fried fish that looked like shishamo but wasn't. That fried fish had a light turmeric flavoured batter. Not bad.

Stewed eggs, tau kwa and pork belly. While the flavour from the stewing sauce didn't permeate deeply, I enjoyed them.

Curried vegetables were not bad as well.

Chicken was so so. Meat was dry-ish and not particularly well flavoured.

These things alone made me go through more porridge than I usually have in a week. That doesn't say very much because I don't have porridge often. 🤣

I was surprised they had char kuey teow. Not as good as those freshly fried from a competent hawker but coming from a buffet trough, it wasn't half bad.

What was unexpected was how much I liked that chocolate cake. Not excessively sweet and had crispy bits of stuff that reminded me of Chocolate of a Thousand Leaves from Coffee Bean. Remember that one? The mango mousse cake was soft and light. We had thirds.

There were fruits.

And a piping hot red bean soup with sago and dried orange peel. This was a lot nicer than I had imagined.

Yam ice cream.

And Hainanese coffee that also wasn't half bad.

I thought that we were done with stuffing our faces until the mini chocolate cream puffs came out. Haha.

Allaudin's Briyani, Tekka Food Centre

It can be a little overwhelming getting briyani at Tekka Market because there's a number of them clustered in the food centre. The other briyani which I remember having here was Yakader some years back. Don't know if I've ever had Allaudin's (#01-232 Tekka Market & Food Centre, 665 Buffalo Road) or if this was my first.

Allaudin's doesn't do dum briyani. Their rendition is the regular one where the meat is cooked separately from the rice. While some may think that it takes away from the flavour of the rice, I could taste the spices infused in it and if you're looking for more, there's also the side of tangy achar and a pretty solid dalcha. The mutton was delicious and fork tender. Let me take a step further and narrow that description down to something a little more precise. It's plastic fork tender. I could extract all the meat cleanly off the bone using those irritatingly flimsy plastic utensils.

What's special about the dalcha? It's creamy and packed with the flavour of mutton along with a light manageable warmth from the spices. The cloudy and curry stained piece floating in the bowl is a chunk of mutton fat. Tender almost like bean curd and disintegrates in the mouth almost like bean curd as well. So good with the rice, egg or the papadum. 

Meet 4 Meat and char kuey teow at East Coast Road

Chanced upon Meet 4 Meat at Brunners Coffeeshop (228 East Coast Road). While I've heard of their mention before, we weren't specifically looking for them today. This was happenstance. Story's that the chef used to be from Wooloomooloo Steakhouse and he's put the skills to use in this stall bringing to the table options that one normally doesn't find in local coffeeshop western food.

Like smoked sea bass for starters. Pun intended. This was a trio of flavours with regular smoked fish, black pepper and dill. The meat from the smoked fish was like dry thick sliced ham...with the texture and flavour of smoke and fish. Not bad tasting but it wouldn't be something I'll be looking forward to come back to. The smoked fish was served with some chilli chive oil on the side which tasted mostly of olive oil. And some pickled vegetables they called veggie achar. Not a fan of those.

What kicked ass were their lamb cutlets. 4 ribs and double cut with their claim of a secret marinade cannot be not found anywhere else in the world. Technically not a difficult thing to achieve but let's not go there. I tasted the burnt sweetness of caramelized balsamic vinegar and that was one of the flavour that made this awesome. 

That and those thick succulent slices of medium doneness laced with flavourful fat. 

Here's their Beef Wellington with foie gras. There's a bit of empty chatter online gushing about this Beef Wellington. Even claims of restaurant standards by some, though I struggle to reconcile that claim. The crust here was eggy, not even buttery like how it was for the one we had at Wooloomooloo; which by the way also benefitted from a Madeira sauce. 

The lack of butteriness and some sweet acid kinda made the flavour profile different. It wasn't bad tasting by any stretch. Just not impressive. I think I've had another non-restaurant rendition that might have been more nicely done. I liked the chickpea salad on the side though.

This char kuey teow was not from Meet 4 Meat. It's from a stall called Katong Jago a couple of units away in the same coffeeshop. Greasy and not bad tasting. Lup cheong was close to getting stale though.

Seaweed pretzel with caramel dip from Aunt Anne's

Yes, seaweed pretzel with caramel dip. I've been wanting to try this for a while.

Kinda nice actually. The seaweed tasted better than I imagined. Would have been great if the caramel was more aromatic and not just very sweet but I take what I can get.

Awadh, Centrepoint

Have been wanting to try the food at Awadh (#01-33H The Centrepoint, 176 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6909 9971) for a while. Finally happened. 😬 From what I gathered, the name of the restaurant is eponymous to the region of northern India from where their cuisine type is native.  

There's rose lassi. This was nice.

We were recommended their Bhatti ka murg. The menu described the dish as pan seared chicken marinated in whole spices - vague-ish like many Indian menu descriptions. This tasted like a smoky tandoori chicken with some cheesy yoghurt. Very nice. Chicken was moist and tender. For the first time ever, I even scraped the wilted/caramelized bits of purple cabbage and onions off the hotplate because they were also delicious.

Got ourselves some butter and melon seed naans so that we could mop the curries that we intended to get.

The first of their curries was their mutton dal gosht - spiced lentil curry that was infused with the flavour of mutton. There was plenty of tender chunks of mutton in there was well. Savoury, creamy and nicely salted. This was awesome. I'd come back just for this.

This was methi mahi Kaliyan - fish in fenugreek curry. Those pieces of fish in the curry were fried before so they reminded me of those that one could find in fried fish soup. Same dory/sutchi kind of fish was used. It wasn't bad but it paled totally in comparison with the dal gosht.

Dessert was rose phirni. If anyone is wondering, phirni is a rice paste and milk dessert. Kinda like kheer. This one was texturized by dried fruits and bits of pistachio. Sweet and nice.

Kodawari Katsuya, East Coast Road

Kodawari Katsuya (85 East Coast Road, tel : +65 6344 8183) has been around for around a decade or so. I've heard about them from their earlier days and have been intrigued by their lamb katsu - possibly the only one of its kind here. And it's not even on the menu anymore. Now that I may have gotten your attention...

The lamb katsu teishoku came with two ribs of meat. There's rice, some julienned takuan and a delicious red bonito miso soup. I'm not so sure about the bonito from the last item but it tasted like just aka miso soup.

Underneath the crispy panko, the meat was like fatty steamed lamb. It wasn't marinated nor did it have any salt and pepper so it was just pure flavour from the little sheep that gave its life for this. Even the usual caramelization normally associate with the meat wasn't present because this meat was cooked beneath the breading; breading which wasn't as golden brown as I was hoping for. Not a deal breaker that.

I should have asked for some salt to go with the mustard. I now know better. Like I mentioned, the lamb's fatty so one has got to enjoy the lamb-y flavour to like this.

Tried some oyster curry rice. Oysters were not bad. Curry's a little salty. Their rice didn't taste like those that Tonkatsu by Ma Maison serves. Oh yes, I kinda use them as a yardstick these days for tonkatsu teishoku. These were dryer...less starchy.