The basic bowl from Guan's Mee Pok

I wanted to experience Guan's Mee Pok minus frills so this was just the basic bowl with nothing else. Also because I wasn't that hungry but I still needed to get some food. Not exactly the run of the mill bcm ingredients if you've noticed and it's arguably expensive for their small portions, but we're at Capitol Piazza. I enjoyed it. Both the meaty dumpling and fried roll (are those ngoh hiang?) tasted better than they looked. The noodles didn't have the greatest of textures but were especially good with their marinated cut red chilli.

Chilled jello worms, iced bitter gourd and more Duotou clams from Putien

More food from Putien. Been enjoying the food from this branch at Great World (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九). In all these visits, we've never felt that their Michelin starred flagship at Kitchener Road was any better.

One of the new items on the menu was described as chilled jello worms. Don't know what those worms were but they had texture that was akin to clams. Said worms were trapped in a savoury jelly that's drizzled over with finely minced garlic, chilli and soy sauce.

Trying their iced bitter gourd for the first time. These thin shaven and chilled bitter gourd strips were served with a honey dip on the side. Crisp and refreshing they were.

Salt and pepper 蛏 fried in a light flour coat. We wanted to try more of these Duotou clam dishes since since they were still in the season. Those brown strips were tea tree mushrooms.

蛏 steamed with minced garlic. The main flavours came from the pungent sweetness in the garlic and light soya sauce pairing with textures that reminded me of bamboo clams. Nicely done.

Stir fried pig's liver. Not bad.

The other new dish from their menu we picked up were kelp seedlings with minced pork in chicken broth. I liked this.

Gotta do this with all that right?

Brewerkz, Orchard Rendezvous Hotel

Brewerkz has set up shop at Orchard Rendezvous Hotel (#01-08 Orchard Rendezvous Hotel, 1 Tanglin Road, tel : +65 9012 6154). You know, the one that used to be called Orchard Parade Hotel and used to house Black Angus Steakhouse and Modesto's right at the front. 

I remember lamenting over the quality and execution a few years ago. Seems like they've revamped their menu since and it was actually a change for the better.

But first, their craft beer - the Fort Siloso Chocolate Vanilla porter which lived up in flavour to its name. Not the Fort Siloso part.

Their chilled gazpacho with burratina was just the thing to help take the heat off the blistering weather. There's flavour of tomatoes and red bell peppers punctuated by tart sweetness from balsamic vinegar and little cubes of quince. All that with creaminess from the little burrata. Nice.

These were fried sardines in pilsner batter. Tasted a lot better than it looked. The batter was sufficiently light, crisp and enveloped those piping hot tender sardines. I'd eat this again.

Pretty much slurp off the bone lamb ribs with honey mustard. Portions were pretty generous for something under their appetizer section. Those chunks of beetroot on the side were sweet. No complains and definitely no qualms ordering this again.

They have a couple of dishes that are only available in this outpost. This tagliolini cacio e pepe with pan fried quail was one of them. This. Was. Delicious. Would have liked more pepper but otherwise the cheesy pasta was moreish. We had half expected the quail to be tough chewy but it was pleasantly moist, sufficiently tender with a good bite and had a nice flavour from the marinate. Could eat this again too.  

The other outlet exclusive dish was the mangrove red snapper sourced from Ah Hua Kelong. Great pairing from the creamy dashi beurre blanc and ikura. Hmmm...so familiar this one. Believe it or not, I could eat this again. How many times have you heard me say that already? I surprise even myself.

Dessert was their Oatmeal Stout tiramisu. Couldn't say that I could taste the booze but this was a competently done tiramisu. I like the flavour of the mascarpone in it.

Re-visiting The Masses

I've wondered about the term 'Franco Asian' that's used to describe The Masses. Can't reconcile the term with some of the food here. With much borderless styles and proliferation of cross cultural ingredients in the recent decade or so, wouldn't their dishes mostly fall within the basket of non-traditional French?  

Exceptions that comes to mind were their pulled duck chee cheong fun and those thosais from The Masses X Heavens. I'd Franco Asian those.

Maybe I'm overthinking.

Bread is on the menu, not gratis. There's a choice of sourdough, brioche or a mix. Does not come with spreads - those are a separate order. There's a choice of caramel kaya, umami butter or a mix. I recommend the umami butter which was folded with kombu and dashi. The flavour rocks.

That's their pork and foie gras pithivier - the second pithivier I've ever had. The first was from Belon and that was a superior experience. This one tasted like a savoury char siu sou (叉烧酥). The foie gras seemed to have melted in the pastry so not much flavour from that. Wouldn't say that this was bad but it wasn't memorable as well.

Black truffle and artichoke cream soup. Nice.

The savoury creamy richness from the dashi beurre blanc pairing with the prawn head butter and ikura were pretty much an explosion of flavours. This was the most delicious red cabbage anything I've ever had.

Octopus with lobster porridge - not bad but not good enough that I'll want to get it again the next time.

Lamb loin was layered with fat and needed a more uniform salting. Otherwise not bad tasting too. There's suppose to be Jinhua ham (金華火腿) in the dish according to the menu but I couldn't tell.

Hainanese Chicken Rice from Gourmet Paradise @ HDB Hub

My first chicken rice after the export halt from Malaysia. I've had take away chicken rice from this stall at the food court of HDB Hub (#B1-01 HDB Hub, 480 Toa Payoh Lorong 6) a few times and they've consistently been pretty decent. Instead of closing and waiting out the chilled chicken drought, these folks have decided to continue business with the frozen chickens, but only using the bird's thighs and drumstick. 

Sadly, the meat's not as tender as the usual because it's frozen chicken...not that we had expected otherwise in this situation. It's stiffer which made a whole lot of difference in the textural aspect for poached chickens. Here's to hoping that the supply of fresh birds resume soon.

Yellow noodles from Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (來興香菇肉脞麵)

This bowl from Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle was my first bak chor mee with yellow noodles. I've had bak chor mee with pretty much the rest of the noodle types but it had never occured to me to get them with yellow noodles until now - because there weren't much options at Lai Heng at the weekends. I liked their chilli mix today. This particular configuration was slurpy smooth and savoury with some heat coupled with the crunch of fried lard. Did not expect it but this bowl was so satisfying.