The Corner Grill, Ann Siang Hill

So Colin West from The Market Grill has opened The Corner Grill (1 Ann Siang Hill, tel : +65 6223 3188). Confidence that the food here will be properly done came from all those times we've eaten at The Market Grill.

    

Speaking of which, The Market Grill has rebranded to The Market Grill & Wine 90. There's a new chef. Colin's not involved as far as I can tell. The Unlisted Collection doesn't include the The Corner Grill in their list of restaurants. Draw your own conclusions.

I loved that they brought the Suntory Kuro along to this current restaurant.

Kales & Blues Salad - this would be the second kale salad I remember liking. The name hinted at the ingredient unmentioned in the menu which was the blue cheese sauce which added a creaminess that rounded the citrus from the grapes and green apples. There's fried tempeh and honey in it too.

Very competently done artichokes they had. Crisp yet no excessively grease along with very moist artichokes under the fried exterior. That onion/gherkin/pastrami spiced yoghurt dip reminded me of curry. Nice. 😬

That's their barramundi belly - possibly the first time I've had just the belly alone. Liked it. Great tasting fish with or without the sauce (the dilemma!). Speaking of sauce, that spicy mint & tarragon yoghurt was creamy and refreshing. 

Nicely crusty hanging tender. Juicy and full of bite with that beefy intensity and none of the melt in your mouth shit. Steak was served with some sweet caramelized onions on the side. I wished the steak was bigger though.

The Gorgonzola Hollandaise (bottom right) that came on the side was kickass providing a creamy richness and that funky blue cheese kick. Those lemon capers potatoes were...tangy.

Wanted to try the Miyagi oysters so we had a couple of gratineed ones for pre-dessert. These were smooth and creamy with a nice oyster-ly brine. While I'm sure I'd like them raw as well, having these with melted cheese were also awesome. 

I may have found my 2nd favourite Black Forest cake.

The morning bun and the drunken snail from Starter Lab

Sounds like the title of some trippy children't storybook?

Anyways these were a couple of ready to eat sweet pastries that one could get in the morning from Starter Lab. While it may appear obvious, I'm assuming the raisin Danish to be the drunken snail and the cinnamon sugar pastry thingy to be the morning bun. They're okay. I prefer the Danish with more raisins from Pullman Bakery down the road to this one. Those are also less than half as costly.

Chicken otah meatloaf nasi lemak from Crave

Every time I get nasi lemak from Crave (which isn't often if anyone was wondering), the question that pops into mind is how can anyone think that this was the same product as Selera Rasa? The quality of the rice was obviously different. The person cooking this either didn't care or was bound for some reasons by a recipe which didn't end up with the same tasting rice.

Anyways, the chicken otah meatloaf......I've been curious about that one. Decided to quell the curiosity. Tasted like a lemongrass flavoured otah which incorporated minced chicken instead of fish. Didn't taste bad but nothing I would get again.

More noodles from Ji Ji Noodle House (基記麵家)

There's chatter about the wanton noodles from Ji Ji Noodle House. The reason I got one was because of what I've heard/read about how it tasted different from the other styles and I was curious. That part about it tasting different was true. I'm not sure how to describe the flavour. Not a fan though. 

Nothing about the individual toppings were outstanding. Maybe I'm just not a local wanton noodles person. I was hoping that perhaps the noodles were what made it special but the texture wasn't my type as well. While it already had a bunch of flavours going on from the sauce, I thought those noodles were better for me with their chilli paste which had a nice ikan bilis flavour. 

I liked their curry chicken noodle better than the wanton noodles. Curry's thin but had a bit of heat and was more straightforward savoury. Good enough to drink. They didn't have particularly tender chicken though. Will probably be sticking to the curry chicken chop noodles if I come back.

Braseiro, Joo Chiat Road

We were originally heading to Burger Frites but they were closed because of manpower shortage and a sign pointed us to their sister restaurant Braseiro (333 Joo Chiat Road, tel : +65 9116 3304) just across the road which does steak frites. French-y kinda like L'Entrecôte and Les Bouchons and easier on the wallet than the both of them.

They served their strawberry lemonade looking like a margarita/mojito. For a moment we thought they got the order wrong but there was no tequila or rum. The crystals on the rim were sugar. 😅

Upsized my meat to the 400g entrecôte. It was okay eating but I wouldn't miss it after today if you catch my drift.

A little bloody looking from the under doneness and a bit of silver skin but nothing we couldn't deal with. 

Was tempted by their raclette cheese upgrade for their frites but they had run out of cheese so that kinda decided for us how we had them. Because we ate them with nothing else but salt, the light sweetness and potato flavours got through. Soft and some soggy...just like how we like them.

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.