Kuey teow soup from Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (來興香菇肉脞麵)

Here's the $7 bowl of kuey teow soup from Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle loaded with generous portions of ingredients of sliced mushrooms, seaweed, fried pork lard, minced pork, sliced pork, minced pork and bean sprouts in a sweet savoury broth. More savoury than sweet and with a hit of umami from those mushrooms and seaweed. No dried sole in their bowl so that particular flavour/aroma's not there. Not normally a fan of such soup noodles but I enjoyed this bowl. Especially so with the cut red chillis that added spikes of aromatic burn. 

Chicken pulao and cardamom lassi from Usman's

I've eaten at Usman's some years ago. Found out a while back that they have chicken pulao which is only available on Fridays. While it may not have looked like much, there was a lot of flavour in it. Possibly also much ghee. Portions were huge and the rice was delicious with chunks of bone in chicken.

That gravy on the side - might have been some chicken curry. Was nutty and deliciously salty.

Watched them make my order of cardamom lassi. They scooped a couple of teaspoons from a container labelled 'cardamom' into the cup and poured cold lassi in it. Then stirred furiously and added ice. Sadly I couldn't taste the cardamom in it. It was creamy and cold and still good drinking in this heat though.

Ah Tiam Curry Rice (亞添咖喱飯), Pasir Panjang Food Centre

I've eaten at Ah Tiam Curry Rice (#01-09, Pasir Panjang Food Centre 21 Pasir Panjang Road) some years back but couldn't remember much of them. They were opened early so I got the set on the menu with pork patty for breakfast. I thought these guys were pretty decent - liked the coconut-y curry that had a mild prickles of heat. Everything on the plate was tender and saucy.

Santi's, Telok Ayer

Santi's (138 Telok Ayer Street, tel : +65 8405 6112) is by the folks running Sarnies right around the corner. Food's Australian-sy by my measure with their brand of combinations featuring ingredients from the east and west.

Nicely done sea bream crudo. The collective of smoked feta, trout roe and EVOO was an effective flavour bomb of richness that paired with the fish. I thought it was a great combination of tangy and umami that was relatively clean.

Picked a pizza call Marge Simpson. Basically their variant of a pizza Margherita using yellow Datterini tomatoes instead of San Marzano. There's also Scamorza for the smokiness. Flavours from the toppings were not bad. What wasn't so great was the crust which was quite heavy and dense at the cornicione. We've been spoilt by the airy puffy ones at Zazz Pizza. 

We ordered their octopus and bean ragù pici thinking that we probably understood the flavour profile and knew what we were getting. We were so wrong. 😂

The base flavour tasted like savoury Chinese glutinous rice with boiled beans. For some reasons the diced bits of guanciale added to that. 

While I understood that pici was a thick noodle (I imagine udon-ish), these were thick like pig's intestines. 😂 Cooked "al dente", they were also heavy and tasted like a dense mee hoon kueh (面粉粿). Lots of textures going on with the ingredietns including some spicy fried shallots that had mala flavour. Then there's hazelnuts.

Don't know if we'll be back. Have mixed feelings. Having Brooklyn Larger is nice but not opening during weekends automatically relegates them to the bottom of my list.

Wolf Burgers, Funan

S'been a long while since my last Wolf Burger which was back at their stall at the defunct PasarBella at Suntec. This was from their location at Funan (#01-05 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road) which I've never eaten at until now. I was debating if I should try their wagyu burger but the Alpha which costed the same tipped the scales with volume. 

Not a bad burger. Good searing and relatively hefty meat with creamy cheese. I looked back and remember not liking the onions but I found myself enjoying how it cut through the meat and cheese this time. What I would have chosen to omit on hindsight would be the sauce.

Finally some duck at Shun Feng Roasted Delights (顺沣港式烧腊)

So, I've been waiting for the opportunity to get myself some of the dang gui (当归) roasted duck from Shun Feng after overlooking them in the previous two times I ate here. This was a plate of glistening duck drumstick with char siew and and egg. Nice. Duck was suitably tender, moist and had a layer of rendered fat beneath the skin which brought flavour. Didn't expect that they would debone the leg and I'm not complaining. Char siew was delicious as ever. These guys are just competent as a whole for the 烧腊 that they do.