Mudskippers and cabbage rice at Putien

Hmmmm....mudskippers. Never had them before. Haven't seen them at Putien before (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十) as well either. Apparently a seasonal for their 22nd year anniversary.

Because we wanted to avoid dealing with much of the small bones in the fish we were recommended the deep fried with salt and pepper preparation (香酥椒盐跳跳鱼). Tasted like most white fish. Because of their size, it reminded me of shishamo without roe. Just a little - I couldn't eat them whole because some of the bones had to be removed.

Tried their cabbage rice for the first time as well. It's bland. The rendition here wasn't the cabbage rice we had in mind. But now we know. It's also kinda odd because none of their other rice/ noodle dishes had so little flavour.

There's a glutinous rice dessert called 香甜金钱粿 that we kinda enjoyed. Sweet and chewy like mochi, aromatized with nuts and sesame.

Revisiting Hong Kong Mongkok Dim Sum (香港旺角點心)

It's been a long time since I've had dim sum from Hong Kong Mongkok Dim Sum. While I liked the food, I didn't enjoy the wait much. We arrived more than a half hour before the stall opened and the wait was over an hour still.

I remember liking their char siew bao and these were as good as I remembered. Sweet and sauce filled with little chunks of meat underneath the fluffy skin. If I had to pick, these were my favourite things from them.

Siew mai's (烧卖) meaty and not complex. Which was not a bad thing sometimes. The dumplings were packed to the brim with minced meat fillings. Today I discovered that these actually went well with the chilli sauce from the stall you could help yourself too. Chilli sauce that tasted like chicken rice chilli. 🤔

Har gow's (虾饺) rustic. Skin was a bit thicker than I normally like but they're pretty decent for the location and price.

Cheong fun with prawns (虾肠粉). The sauce has a savoury sweetness to it. Rice noodles were thicker than many. Again, the word rustic comes to mind. I didn't mind these at all.

Their braised chicken claws (凤爪) were slurp off the bone tender but I thought the sauce lacked intensity in flavour. It was a little savoury sweet with garlic but much more lightweight than many other renditions of this dish

Ikura soba and burrata from Healthy Soba IKI

Special of the month recently from 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, 十七). Chilled ikura soba. Loved the briny bursts from the roe.

Burrata with black pepper, toasted buckwheat, fruity olive oil and salt - flavours that aren't defined together elsewhere. 

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.