Lamb chops from Hot Tomato

Came to know of this at Hot Tomato (#B1-24 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6970 0679) from a co-worker. I had to admit that this wasn't bad - a rib with a couple of t-bone-ish cuts for what some restaurants would charge for just a rib. That and pasta on the side with a small salad. The meat was also beautifully browned with a respectable crusty surface. Not sure how I feel about that sweet mint sauce on the side though.

Chun Seng Noodle House (春成面之家), Ghim Moh Food Centre

This stall (#01-12 Ghim Moh Food Centre, 20 Ghim Moh Road) originated from ABC Brickworks Food Centre and seemed to have re-invented themselves after having shuttered their business for a while. What they are known for are their slices of stewed pork belly that they include in their noodles. I haven't eaten from their old premise before so I don't have any frame of reference for any comparisons. 

But I liked this one that I had. Great texture from their mee kia and it rocked with their soya sauce marinated sliced red chilli which packed a bit of heat. Those dumplings in the bowl were meaty and the meatballs were stinky. Nice bowl of noodles I'd love to come back to.

Re-visiting Binomio

I made reservations at Binomio because their menu indicated that they had baby eels which I was curious about. But they were out of it when we were here so.....bummer.

We had fried squid and anchovies. Not bad.

Lamb t-bone with lamb sweetbread and goat's cheese. This was so good - which doesn't even begin to express how much I liked this dish. We had this the last time we were here more than two years ago.

The other dish I wanted to try was their seaweed paella with sea anemone. Yes, sea anemone. That's the fried bits of stuff on top of the rice with the sprigs of ice plant. I'm actually at a loss on how to describe them. The sea anemone had a texture almost like oyster or mussels. The flavour reminded me of seaweed and also oysters. I liked it. And that robust seaweed flavour in the rice. For the first time ever, I was scraping and looking forward to the socarrat off the bottom of the pan.

Because they allowed half portions of paella from their regular serving, we made our second half the one with duck liver (it's foie gras!) and figs. So these two paellas were technically single serving portions which were heavier than we imagined. The rice for this one had a flavour like some kind of red meat stock. Don't know if it's duck of beef but it's not bad. 

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.