Steamed fish head with fermented black bean sauce from Cheng Ji (成记)

It's been quite a while since we had something at Cheng Ji. Got ourselves a steamed fish head with fermented black bean sauce for brunch recently. It's no longer $13 like back in the day for sure. The going rate for one of these today is $18. I'd argue that it's still pretty good value for a meaty fish that's fresh and freshly steamed with delicious tasting sauces that are whipped up on the fly. And while most of the stalls in the vicinity bring similar value for this particular dish, I'd give a bit more points to the rendition from HK Mong Kok Kui Ji Kitchen for having sliced chilli.

小红 and the Sarawak fusion laksa from Zhong Pin Noodle House (众品麵萬家)

Another trip to Zhong Pin Noodle House. Got a bowl of their small red kolo mee which they proprietress relayed as 小红.

The red comes from the char siew sauce so the bowl's a little bit sweet but not excessively so. Between this and the white bowl we had previously, I prefer the latter.

Their Sarawak fusion laksa was interesting. Pretty intense flavour from the spices and it was also herbal-ish with some heat. There was something that had been simmered in the broth - maybe fish or prawn. Am unable to tell definitively.

The bowl was served with chilli paste and lime, both of which after adding spruced the flavour of the broth further. Those prawns in there tasted better than they looked. Will definitely not mind eating again.

Seafood fried rice from Jia Wang Cafe (佳旺)

Haven't gotten food from Jia Wang for a while. Here's a recent takeaway seafood fried rice (海鮮炒飯). There's like three slices of fish (freshwater), a few pieces of cuttlefish, a couple of tasteless shrimps and ikan bilis. Fried egg's an add on. They need to salt or fish sauce this more because it was just bland. I rescued it with a bottle of trusty Samyang hot sauce.  

In the vicinity, I'd rather pay more for the one with crab sticks from Boon Keng New Taste or Xing Hua's at Tiong Bahru Plaza. I wouldn't say that the ingredients were better to commensurate their price tag for the former and the portions are definitely smaller, but that one tasted a lot better on its own.

No. 25 Minced Meat Noodle, Bukit Merah Central

No. 25 Minced Meat Noodle (#01-3749, 161 Bukit Merah Central) generated a bit of buzz a while ago. Mostly because of the soup they served with their signature bowl of bak chor mee and that it was a young couple who had no prior experience in this specific trade that was running the business. That's garnered them interest and obviously a queue for their bowls. Oddly enough, I spent about 25 minutes in that queue. 

Regarding their soup - there's at least a couple of articles and their copycats bandying about the words tonkotsu and tonkotsu-inspired to describe the broth. Haven't a clue who has been smoking what but it didn't not look or taste anything like tonkotsu. The closest I can think of for comparison might be the one at Seng Kee. It's different though. I could have sworn that I tasted crab in this bowl. 😳 Anyways, I enjoyed it.

Noodles were not bad...saucing is a little wet but the flavours made up for it. Their sauce concoction wasn't special. It just struck what was a good balance of light spicy savoury which resonated well with me. Delicious both with and without the splash of vinegar you could help yourself too. Portions for the noodles felt a little small though.

Charcoal-grill & Salad Bar Keisuke, Paya Lebar Square

Charcoal-grill & Salad Bar Keisuke (#B1-16 Paya Lebar Square, 60 Paya Lebar Road, tel : +65 6241 8588) was one of Keisuke's that has eluded me for more than a couple of years. I avoided them because of the queues in the early days. Seems like the queues are still around. Just less crazy these days.

The setup for their food are teishoku sets with a choice of charcoal grilled meat that came with their bottomless salad bar.

Wanted to avoid the carb-y stuff but I succumbed to the macaroni and mentai mayo spaghetti during round one. 😂 I like the hijiki / fungus / tanaka salad thingy.

We ordered the gindara teriyaki and misozuke. Decent grilling of those buttery chunks of cod.

The teriyaki piece was sweeter than the misozuke. That was all I could discern. Both tasted pretty similar otherwise. Love that out-of-place-ish cube of cheese that came with fishes.

Because bottomless salad bar.

Too bad the salad bar doesn't include the egg station like the one they have at Hamburg Steak Keisuke. The teishoku here only came with one onsen tamago. But me make best of what me have.

I'm not sure if it's imagination but Hamburg Steak Keisuke's salad bar seems to have nicer tasting coffee jelly that's more bitter. Maybe it's time I went back to refresh the memory.

Happy Geprek, Far East Plaza

I heard of Happy Geprek (#05-99 Far East Plaza, 14 Scotts Road) last year. Have been wanting to try their ayam geprek since, fuelled by the curiosity of the range of sambal that they have. 

The first plate we had was with the spicy Indomie with sambal matah - the latter which had sliced red chillis, onions and sparse strips of kaffir lime leaves hadn't much on the more refined and flavourful rendition we encountered at Dancing Fish Signature. While the food packed some heat, neither the spicy Indomie nor that sambal matah were very spicy. Sweat inducing but manageable.

The sambal udang had more depth and savouriness, possibly because of shrimps as an ingredient. Not much heat as well. Chickens tasted like the frozen variety and refried on order. Not so tender or moist. 

I had imagined that the spiciness of their sambal would leave the deepest impression but what got to me mostly was the greasiness of the food.  Might not mind eating here if I was here but it's not something I'd come specially for.