Seared, Tanglin Place

Seared (#B1-01 Tanglin Place, 91 Tanglin Road, tel : +65 9826 5529) has taken over the spot left behind by Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill. If you hadn't already caught up, Dan Ryan's has thrown in the towel after almost three decades.

These guys style themselves as a steakhouse. We came over with intention of taking advantage of their very reasonably price tomahawks but got distracted by other things.

We had steak tartare. It's not the better one out there. Seared's rendition was so sauced out that most of the flavour was the sauce. Which didn't taste very different from a random bottle of Thousand Island dressing if you get my drift. Wouldn't get it again.

Lamb was passable. Too much marinate and a little too skinny. Mint sauce on the side was too sweet. Base on how much meat/fat and flavour, I'd say the recent one we had at Pura Brasa was cheaper, more and better tasting than this one. This one wasn't bad, it just wasn't good enough. Wouldn't get this again.

Burger's decent. Nice salt and pepper from the patty. Buns were really soft.  I'd say this was worth half of what they charged and they could honestly do away with the other things on the plate. Like the obligatory and mediocre sides of salad, fries and onion rings which we had to pay for.

双鱼米粉 from The Ship

One shouldn't be asking directly for 双鱼米粉 if you didn't already know since not all their staff will know what it means. This was an order of their presumably boiled fish soup bee hoon with an additional portion of fried fish on the side. What sets their bowl apart from most others out there are the thick satisfying slices of fish.

Desserts in general aren't great here. Usually. This mango pudding that came with the noodles sucked. Didn't even have a fake citrus taste to pull off a mango flavour. Chocolate chip ice cream was a better choice.

Of blistered tongue, dead cows and Halloween at Ma Maison Kitchen

We're here for Ma Maison Kitchen's Halloween themed food. The last time we were here at Samhain's was our first visit a couple of years back.

Got ourselves some deep fried gyutan for starters. We had these the last time we were here. Crispy on the edges and chewy as you got to the centre of each piece. All the chewing brought out the mixture of flavours from the fried flour and the tongue. 👍🏼 

That's their keema curry beef omu rice. Pretty solid curry flavour which was garlicky and also unusual for Japanese curry. This reminded me of the one we had at Nirai-Kanai. The slices of sirloin was delicious and tender.

We came here today for the Spooky Plate. It's not so visible but on the plate was more sirloin in some balsamic glaze which I suspect was cooked with blueberries. Or some other berry. Or grapes. I'm not sure which. Fruity, tangy and sweet with the savoury steak. 

They also managed to coax some intense flavours out of those thin dried slices of mushrooms and there was a pile of moreish squid ink garlic butter rice on the side. Beneath that bat shaped slice of cheese. Fries, olives and purple cabbage slaw too. I liked this.  

Revisiting Pura Brasa

I remember not being impressed by Pura Brasa the first and last time we were here. Back in the day when this building they were at was still called Tanjong Pagar Plaza rather than Guoco Tower and the quality of their Jamón ibérico didn't look all that great.

Food was noticeably better this time round though.

That tomato purée on crispy crystal bread thingy was refreshing and likeable. Could have been on a next level if they had used a better (also read as fruitier) olive oil but whatever. Tortilla was decent.

Pretty impressed by their Josper grilled lamb racks. Sizeable chunks of meat with crusty burnt end bits that's unadulterated by anything but salt and pepper. Also quite a bit of fat with pretty lamb-y flavour that's in your face. I did not expect this and was pleasantly surprised.

What propped those ribs of lamb up were Padron pepper and potatoes. They're getting points for relevant vegetables on the side instead of "mesclun greens".

Their burger was labeled under a section call Pure Hamburger. Patty's wagyu - Josper grilled and no less. What got my attention was that other than the meat, there were only a couple of slices of nutty cheese and some sweet caramelized onions. No nonsense in there folks. They were serious about showcasing the burger and I thought it tasted pretty good. Wouldn't mind coming back for it again kind of good. 

Rasa Raja Bojun (රස රජ බොජුන්), Tekka Food Centre

Little birds have recently brought information about Rasa Raja Bojun (#01-280 Tekka Market & Food Centre, 665 Buffalo Road), a Sri Lankan food stall sequestered in the heart of Tekka Food Centre and curiosity was piqued. This was our first experience with Sri Lankan food.

Got a platter of rice with a bunch of dishes on the side which looked good - some of which were new flavours for us.

Like the vegetal gotu kola sambol which was a pennywort salad with desiccated coconut. There's a bit of heat in it from the chillis. I thought it was delicious mixed with the rice. Not so different from furikake methinks. 

Cabbage poriyal is cabbage poriyal. 

Mango curry was awesome - sweet, lightly savoury and slightly spicy at the same time under all that tanginess. This was not creamy unlike those renditions we've had from Mango Tree and Tandoor. Whole mangoes were chopped and cooked in the curry. I know because I was slurping their meat off the seeds and also eating the skins. Nice this one. 👍🏼 

I had imagine this spiced desiccated coconut to be similar with serunding but this one didn't have any sweetness at all.

Pepper chicken was deliciously salty from that earthy brown sauce that's peppered with....well, pepper. Hahaha. It was a little greasy and the flavour was savoury and intense with heat from black pepper. 

Am impressed here. Will definitely come back again to try more of their dishes.

伊面 at The Noodle Memories (古月麵)

That's the same dry chilli bowl like previous time at The Noodle Memories. Changed the noodles to ee mian (伊面) and got some fried hot dogs with it. This was a lot tastier than that previous time. 

I attribute today's improved impression to the ee mian. Their toasted aroma made noticeable difference. Not to mention that it had also a much better bite texture than their regular noodles. Today's chilli was also more intense in comparison. I registered more heat and sweetness from the concoction that sauced the bowl. I can actually see myself looking forward to this.

Surprise update on 13/4/2024......

Nothing has changed which is a good thing because nothing needed to.