San Hu Bak Chor Mee (三虎肉脞面), Boon Tiong Road

Not bad tasting signature bowl of bak chor mee from San Hu Bak Chor Mee (11B Boon Tiong Road). It's at the same coffee shop as the defunct Yuan Chen Wai a couple of minutes walk from Tiong Bahru Plaza. I liked the piquant chilli that had some heat and dried shrimp flavour. Pretty generous with the stewed mushrooms there. What was different about their signature bowl was the use of dark soya sauce which essentially made the bowl of noodles taste like ban mian. In fact, I think they've probably done just that - creating a bowl of local style minced meat noodles with the flavour profile of ban mian.

Charcuterie, cheeses and foie gras soba from Healthy Soba IKI

This happened at Healthy Soba IKI (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六) recently. It's a half day event involving a bunch of stuff away their regular menu that happens now and then featuring soba that is a one off, sides that they don't usually serve and wine. This one was for their foie gras soba.

Most of the menu items aren't regular stuff obviously. Maybe except for the burrata which is sometimes available but not on the menu and you could get them if you asked. We ordered one of everything.

Starting with smoked salmon on little crispy slices of baguette.

Some Iberico salami. Top one's chorizo. 

Their cheese moriawase was awesome. There was some stinky Brie, sweet nutty Manchego and a Brillat Savarin which was drizzled with honey. The latter tasted like a blue, was all white and very creamy. Love those sweet grapes too.

Got the larger burrata today. 300g. Great combination of flavours from the salt, pepper and aromatic toasted buckwheat seeds with the olive oil on the creamy burrata.

We did the pork rilettes as well. Salty, fatty and flavourful these were.

Our first time getting the pan fried smoked duck from the shop. Chunky, meaty and smoky with a lot of bite.

What we were looking forward to today was the foie gras soba. I'll keep this short. Roasted red & yellow peppers were tangy, sweet and tender to the point they dissolved in the mouth. Nicely done those. There's a layer of foie gras puree on the soba which was covered with what I would describe as a deliciously sweet onion jam/jelly. Counter to the sweet from the peppers and onion was the tsuyu. 

Never had soba like this before. Am glad we came here for it today.

Finished with their Basque burnt cheese cake. The first of its kind we've ever had was from Olivia. First impressions along with the bar was set from there henceforth. We're seldom if ever impressed by the others.

Re-visiting Ramen Bar Suzuki

We haven't been here for years. The last time was almost a decade ago. The vibe feels different today.

Truffle potato salad's not bad. Didn't realize it would come with an egg but I'm not complaining.

There's boiled Arabiki sausages with grain mustard and mayo.

Jet Black Tonkotsu was disappointing. The menu mentioned squid ink in the broth but I could only taste garlic. The only thing that looked like it had ink was the ball of minced pork. Didn't taste bad but it was also a pretty meh bowl. When we inquired about the doneness of the noodles, the server mentioned that during dinner, they didn't allow the choice of hardness for noodles. My reflex thought was "Wtf is this shit...?!"

Tsukemen broth was so so. The smokey fish flavour was paltry compared to Sanpoutei or Tonkotsu Ikkyu - not to mention the defunct Tetsu at the old Ramen Champion. It was weak in comparison. This bowl was largely saved by the lemon we squeezed over the chilled noodles.

Yugoslavia Bakery & Cafe, Citylink Mall

This bakery (#B1-13 CityLink Mall, 1 Raffles Link, tel : +65 9028 4524) features breads and pastries from the Slavic countries with influences from the Ottoman Empire. The last one refers to Turkey if you didn't know. 

Tried a couple of their bureks - those triangle pie things. Pastry tasted a little bit like prata. We were mostly disappointed with how little the fillings they had. Couldn't taste much of the feta cheese or the beef that were supposed to be in them. That gevrek on the top left - would have benefited lots if the sesame were more toasted

The baklava's not lousy but tasted like it's been out for a while rather than freshly baked. A little sweet but pretty good eat with a good flavour from the nuts. If I didn't recall wrongly, the middle's kifla with cinnamon and raisins. Don't remember what's the bread with chunks of meat on the right - very little salt on the meat for that one.

Spanish latte - coffee with condensed milk. Sweet and milky and not the kind that I'd look for as a perk me up because it didn't pack that caffeine punch but it also didn't taste bad. Pro tip : this latte makes a good dip for the gevrek.

The Sambal Mayo Burger and the Purple Cow from Shake Shack

Another limited time burger from Shake Shack (into the Shackverse! 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一) - their Sambal Mayo Burger which apparently features a Shake Shack exclusive sambal created as part of a collaboration with a Batu Lesung Spice Company which I've never heard of before until this came out. I like how low the quality of food writing is here from the total lack of description of that sambal mayo from various "professional" platforms because those people had no marketing material to copy from.

I'm gonna take a stab at the sambal mayo - a concoction with a little more creaminess from the mayo than the piquancy from said sambal. I'm getting the flavour but it's more of a profile than a robust front. Felt that those cucumbers and that fried egg had more presence. Couldn't taste much of those ShackMeister onions though. As a whole, not a bad tasting burger methinks.

So I guessed correctly about the Purple Cow - Fanta Grape with ice cream float. Grape-y and creamy, this was nicer than I imagined. Damn you Shake Shack!

165 Pork Rib Prawn Noodles (165排骨虾面), Bukit Merah Central

The bowl that piqued my curiosity from 165 Pork Rib Prawn Noodles (#01-3683, 165 Bukit Merah Central) was their mala kolo pork rib prawn noodles. A handful of descriptives in the name I know. What made it stand out was the use of kolo mee which was my first encounter for local prawn noodles and on top of that, it's been mala-cized. Possibly the first of its combination around.

It's neither 麻 nor much 辣. I could even spruce the noodles up with some sliced chillis. Pretty savoury and also a little sweet. The last part bothered me a little. Pork ribs were well marinated and slurp off the bone tender. This was the large bowl and I had four prawns which I wished were shelled. I didn't get the same impact for a local mala-cized bowl of noodles as the bak chor mee from Shiok Shiok Noodles which IMO had a more solid mala infusion. I also would have preferred more bite to these noodles.

While a certain publication would describe the flavour of their soup as "pork-forward", I didn't feel that way. It was a solid prawn broth for sure but it was also a little too sweet without a certain roundness would have made it more impressive. There's a good body to it but I just felt it lacked a certain something I couldn't put my finger to. Also bothered me that there was also quite a bit of oil on the surface.