Re-revisiting The Hainan Story Chapter One

Here's us back at The Hainan Story Chapter One.

I remembered that "rojak peanut jam" toast from the last visit so I asked them for one minus the gula melaka kaya plus butter. Nice. Will probably not find a sweet fermented prawn paste with butter sandwich like this anywhere else in the world.

Munched on fried pork belly while waiting for the orders to arrive.

Curry rice's not bad. Need to ask for extra curry and their unusually smooth sambal belachan which will make inhaling this entire plate a breeze. The latter wasn't as spicy as I would have preferred but it still had sufficient fermented shrimp flavour to pack a punch. Here's where I remind myself to not get this rice set with braised pork the next time. The rest of the stuff on the plate was pretty good eating.

What's awesome was their lamb stew with crispy noodles/sang meen (生面). I figured that since I liked said lamb stew from the last visit and that I'd be letting the sang meen soak in the gravy anyway, this sounded like it made sense and it did. Gotta be the most delicious lamb noodles I've had. For now.

There's an osmanthus lager on their menu and I got it while thinking that it might taste like the King's Garden Ale from Song Fa. It didn't. While the osmanthus flavour was pronounced, I didn't like this as much as I thought I would.

More food from piu M

Here's us back at piu M.

We saw the seafood salad that other people were having previously but they were out of them when we tried to order. We had to get it this time round. Oysters, clams, crab legs, uni and ikura. Frutti di mare much. And something that tasted like dashi jelly infused with garlic.

In this moment, Jun-san chose to photobomb. I obliged by putting up this picture for posterity. Hahaha...

A repeat order of their chicken liver pâté. The one with the brûlée shell and spritzes of Yamazki 12. I strongly recommend this.

Masako-san wasn't around tonight. We were told that she has gone back to Japan for a while but before she left, she made sure that there were a couple of thousands of her sui gyoza around. Yeah, the same one we had the last time with shiso and that shoyu butter sauce. So in spite of her absence, it was ensured that the dumpling show for season 11 will go on. 

Tried their crab croquette. Solid panko crust and creamy insides. There were tiny tube pastas in the croquette with all the cream. Couldn't taste much of the crab but as croquette went, this was quite nice.

This was another item we spied from our last visit. Pan seared boned in chop of Iberico pork with clams cooked in a delicious sauce that tasted of butter, anchovy and capers. Those together with green olives and cherry tomatoes topped with a torched sprig of rosemary. Pork was tender, fatty and had a bite. Lots of clams in there too. This was worth coming back for.

Some smoked and salted edamame. Nice. I wouldn't have thought much of them by description but the were more enjoyable than I imagined. A large part of it was because of how smoked they were.

Nice mentaiko pasta with onion and shiso. Creamless. For a one man chef behind the counter, Jun-san had excellent timing for the doneness of the spaghetti. 

This was the part where I was starting to feel the tiniest bit of reluctance because dessert signified the end of dinner. Matcha parfait which had matcha ice cream, matcha castella (which I had initially thought was warabi mochi), matcha flavoured granola (I suspect from Nissin) and a fried spring roll with adzuki bean paste.

More snacks from 108 Matcha Saro

More snacks from 108 Matcha Saro.

This was their shiro mochi obanyaki...a mochi skinned variant of their obanyaki filled with matcha custard and chocolate. Bittersweet creaminess predominantly from both the green tea infused custard and chocolate. There's also the chewy mochi skin which I'm normally not such a big fan of. Gotta try their red bean filling some day.

These kurogoma warabi mochi were pretty good. Tender, springy and aromatic from those crushed black sesame coating them.

A red bean butter bun from Kamome Bakery

Stumbled upon (193 Joo Chiat Road) Kamome Bakery. Seem to recall having read about this them before so we walked in an walked out with a red bean butter bun. Was torn between this and the one with mascarpone cheese. Needs more butter to match the surface area of the red bean paste and that would have been perfect - still that saltiness from the butter pairing with the sweetness from the bean paste in the soft bun was delicious.

Braised pig's trotters and intestines from Feng Xiang Bak Kut Teh (豐香肉骨茶)

Not bad tasting pig's trotters from Feng Xiang Bak Kut Teh. The meat might not have been those super tender renditions like a melting khao kha moo that got scraped off the bone or those from Joo Siah Bak Koot Teh, but it also wasn't hard so I easily finished it. What I found impressive though was the dark soya sauce it was braised in that was packed with flavour. It had a deep intensity which tasted like what my mother's mother used to make.

We tried the fried intestines the last time so got the braised ones today. The braising sauce which was good with the rice (not as good as the dark soya sauce from the trotters though! 😬) had a offal-y flavour - which was not necessarily a bad thing.

I also noticed that these guys used short grained rice.

 

Tiann's (甜), Seng Poh Road

The Chinese character for Tiann's (#01-35, 71 Seng Poh Road, tel : +65 6222 1369) is 甜 which means sweet. These guys are one of those gluten free and sugar conscious shops. I'm ambivalent towards gluten free but I think better in general of a place that avoids refined sugar. Not that I'm totally against refined sugar but....it's not a conversation I want to have. 

Tried a slice of their banana bread. Kinda dense, dry-ish but not hard. I was hoping for more banana flavour. The butter saved it. 😬

Thought their tea cakes looked good so we got a slice of their orange marmalade to see if they tasted like how they looked. Not bad. Moist, dense and had a good flavour of oranges from the bits of peel in the cake.