Some stuff from Sushiro recently...

There's a bit of fried stuff going on lately at Sushiro. The place smelled of grease when we were there and we smelled of grease when we left. But they did a surprisingly tasty aji katsu for their sushi. Piping hot, crispy and moist jack mackerel. Freshly fried.

The other freshly fried one was their Hokkaido sardine tempura nigiri. Crispy batter also, appropriately salted and moist inside. They appear to be doing a pretty decent job with their fried fishes.

Just mentai mayo on their jumbo scallops but it's tasty.

Not mentai mayo on this gunkan. It's mentaiko and mayo.

Shiodare pork belly was also pretty good. Go pork sushis! Greasy and peppery.

The shirasu mountain gunkan was a little dry. I wished it didn't have ginger.

That's the wild southern tuna wrap. Not sure what's wild southern tuna but this as one can imagine tasted like negitoro.

Black (Tap) Velvet

Have been wanting to get the peanut butter milkshake from Black Tap again for quite a while. The last time happened all the way back from the first visit a few years back. Yeah I'd love to get the Greg Norman again too but we had a delicious substitute today. More on that at the bottom.

One of the things we noticed from previous visits and was curious about was their buttermilk chicken tenders. Enjoyed it. Crispy on the outside, tender and moist on the inside unlike many "tenders" from fast food joints that weren't actually tender. Those liars! I liked the dips too....buttermilk dill, Korean bbq & lime honey mustard. 

Their buttermilk slaw was less sweet than I had imagined. Not bad but if I had to pick a preferred slaw, the one from Luke's is superior. 

*Gee Anzalone drumroll* Behold the Greg Norman substitute. We ordered a lamb burger and swapped the Swiss cheese for the blue one. Damn it was good! Notice we discarded the pickled onions. Do that.

Revisiting Nusa & Tara

We were reeled in by plates of lontong kering we noticed on the neighbouring tables around Nusa & Tara. While the queue didn't look encouraging, we thought why not since we don't end up in this hawker centre often.

Lontong kering if you didn't know was dry lontong. Sans gravy in other words. Also not to be confused with lontong goreng. The plate of deliciousness included paru goreng, sambal goreng, begedil, fried chicken wings, a fried egg (add on) and a shower of serunding heaped over rice cakes. Very solid fried chicken wings there.

Their nasi lemak was the other item we had that I wouldn't mind coming back for. What made this was their delicious coconut milk infused rice and a sensible amount of salt to bring out flavours and also make it savoury. I tasted more of the rice today than the last time because there was too much going on previously with that nasi lemak sambal goreng.

Suju Masayuki (酢重正之)

(一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六)

I had the impression that we haven't come by Suju for a long time but the last time was just February this year. Not exactly recent but it wasn't that long back either. The red wine miso beef cheek doesn't seem to be available on the menu anymore! 😱

You know it!

One of the specials of the day was garlic butter beef cubes with mushrooms. It's not something I had expected as a special from these guys but hey, tori karaage was once a special here. To their credit, this was one of the nicer saikoro suteki I've had. Also the most expensive one as well. The meat had a good bite yet quite tender amid the beefiness. Don't know what beef it was they used for this though.

Pulled the trigger on their wagyu sukiyaki. Pretty pricey this one and the bowl was much smaller than I had imagined. It was packed with a generous portion of thin sliced wagyu - meat that readily fell apart in my mouth before any chewing.  

Gindara harasu - something we've ordered before. Rich and greasy cod belly which was superb with rice.

A familiar sight of their gohan tray. And the nama tamago.

It beckoned.

Itadakimasu!

More stuff from Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine

The majority of the time, we get the regular stuff that most people order at dim sum. Occasionally we try something we haven't had before just to see what else we can allot into the boundaries our regular orders. So this was about new experiences and I'll be avoiding re-posts and pictures without purpose. Anyways, Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine at Guoco Towers is shuttered for good. I'll miss it. So we're stuck with this one at Ion.

Decided to reach out for another soup other than the double boiled pig's stomach soup with salted vegetables and peppercorn. Chicken soup mellowed by sweetness from the dates. Those dates had been boiled for so long that all the sweetness had siphoned out of them.

Tasty beancurd sheet rolls stuffed with pork/prawn in a superior soup - the latter a savoury chicken-y broth

We've had their minced pork and pork liver mee pok at least a couple of times previously. We ordered this wondering if they cooked it the same as the previous occasions which we've had at Guoco Tower. I had the impression that the sauce was a little sweeter now compared to the last times but I also wondered if I had imagined it.

Black sesame tang yuan with peanut powder. Nice. Filled with piping hot gooey and gritty black sesame paste. Too bad they don't do the peanut dumplings anymore. I liked those.

Got a much larger slice of pumpkin in the orh nee today compared to the last time we had it. Okay, I didn't have so much to say about this which I haven't already said but since I had the picture taken, I wanted to put it up. The part about the larger pumpkin slice was still true though. 😬

Legendary Hong Kong, Rochester Commons

I've been wanting to try Legendary Hong Kong for a while but never made it because Jurong Point. This new setup at Rochester (Rochester Commons, 10A Rochester Park) was a lot more convenient. 

Had hot ginger lemon Coke. Just a decent rendition I supposed. We've had better.

Was pleasantly surprised by their mixed braised beef which featured brisket, tripe and tendon. Briskets were more tender than I had thought. While it wasn't the standards of what we used to get in Hong Kong but it appeared to be better than many local takes.

Not bad corned beef, spring onion and egg sandwich.

Quite surprised by how much I enjoyed their roast pork and char siew. They looked ordinary and the char siew lacked the burnt ends I was hoping for. Pretty glad that they were both not bad tasting at all. Those thick cuts of roast pork belly belied how tender they actually were. 

Nicely done pan fried yam cake full of chunky bits of yam.

I had initially thought their fried cod to be boring but it turned out delicious. One could taste the flavour of the cod from each chunk which had a good crisp on the surface and not oil logged.

Unfortunately their yang zhou fried rice didn't do it for me. The rice was dry and a little bland. Such a pity since they had pretty decent ingredients. There're a couple of local versions from eateries like Claypot & Cooked Food Kitchen and See Sean Rice Stall which fries a superior plate.

An interlude with their Green Monster beer before the green vegetables. Pretty sure they got this from that microbrewery nearby which used to be called Beerfest.

Sautéed spinach with fermented bean curd was pretty enjoyable. It was saucier than the one from Tsui Wah which had a more viscous fermented bean curd sauce, but the sauce distribution here was more even.

I liked their soya sauce stir fried noodles. This was clearly much better tasting and less oily than the one from Crystal Jade Hong Kong Kitchen. 

French toast with peanut butter was pretty greasy.

In this place, we've also found the competitor that gave Tsui Wah's crispy condense milk toast a run for their dollars. This was soaked with sufficient butter and sweetness from a pretty generous coat of condense milk. Yes it was crispy at the edges too.