Smiths Fish and Chips without fish & chips

There're a few items on the menu at Smiths that aren't fish & chips which I have been curious about.

Their burger was one of those. Meat tasted like it had fillers and a marinade - like a flavour from the 80s when people didn't know any better. There's cheese and onions and some barbecue sauce; the latter of which I'm glad was around because it kinda held up and kept me going. Buns were not bad though. I didn't think it was worth even half of what they were charging. Wouldn't get it again.

There's a doner kebab rotisserie and I ordered one in pita because lamb. Yes it was that kind of reconstituted protein texture but it tasted like lamb - which was more than can be said for some other lamb dishes out here. Anyways, it's lamb-y and salty and I liked it. Reminded me of HSPs in Melbourne. While the picture looked like it might have been 50% vegetables, that was all the vegetables there were. The rest of the pita's stuffing was all lamb. 👍🏼 

Tried a lorne/square sausage. First time having these. Texture underneath the greasy batter was kinda mushy unlike sausages I had imagined. Even luncheon meat had a cleaner crisp to their softness than these. Yes, luncheon meat. Not a fan.

Ming's Prawn Noodle (鳴), Tan Boon Liat Building

I remember Ming's Prawn Noodle (#01-00 Tan Boon Liat Building, 313 Outram Road) from Alexandra Food Village. Never had the chance to try them before they folded there. Seems like they have re-emerged.

Their signature bowl of prawn noodle has pork ribs. I added pig's tails. 

To run through the gamut of ingredients - broth has prawn flavour but it's not intense, prawns were pretty decent tasting, pork ribs had a bite but not slurp off the bone tender and fortunately those pig tails were tenderer than the ribs. Yellow noodles were unimpressively limp. Nothing points to greatness. 

Can't say that it's bad but it's also not outstanding. I asked for extra fried pork lard and I've a couple of thoughts on it. Didn't think much of the guy saying that they normally charge extra for those and that they wouldn't do it this time round. If the policy was to charge, just do it and hopefully they're good quality. They weren't. The fried lard wasn't fresh or even fragrant much. Ditto for the shallots. Wouldn't come back for it. Prefer Covent Garden Prawn Noodle in the vicinity.  

Thoughts on their Hokkien mee were a bit more......complex. I normally like them dry and these were just it. But there wasn't much flavour from the prawn or seafood stock they used for the noodles. I liked how they had scorched the noodles with charring. This made them firm and smoky. It's actually a pretty delicious eat with the chilli paste. If one didn't think of it as Hokkien mee or compared with other good renditions, it didn't taste bad at all. Nothing particularly outstanding about the prawns or clams.

Tanglin Cookhouse, Tanglin Mall

Upmarket legacy food from the British Indian times + generic cafe stuff with a smattering of local influences at Tanglin Cookhouse (#01-106 Tanglin Mall, 163 Tanglin Road, tel : +65 6235 9382). It's their take on them in this era anyway.

Mocha - something I don't have very often. I kept my expectations really low after hearing about how unsatisfying it might be and those really low expectations might have helped. Didn't taste bad. Generic coffee/chocolate flavoured milk. Wouldn't say that it's bad but I haven't much else to say about it also.

Tried their kedgeree. It's actually pretty nice tasting as a rice dish. Lots of flavour coming from the from the ingredients like smoked haddock, parsley, lemon, tumeric flavoured rice and a sweet tomato chutney that reminded me of butter chicken. Less curry-y than a smokier home made one I've previously had. Or possibly even the one from The Cellar Door ages ago.

Had mixed feelings on sticky date pudding. Loved the pudding, the banana and Nutella soil. I thought the savoury papadum with its bit of spice and savouriness paired well with the dessert. What I didn't like were the granolas which felt like an obligatory afterthought sprinkle and that diabetes inducing quantity of sweet toffee sauce. 

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.