AmiYaki ( 一汁三菜), Icon Village

AmiYaki (#01-16 Icon Village, 12 Gopeng Street, tel : +65 6970 9963) has taken over the space that used to be Tokyo Soba - which has moved into the area a stone's throw away that used to be occupied by Tom N Toms Coffee. 

From what I gathered, they're teishoku styled incorporating ichijju sansai - a foundation of Japanese home cooking involving the four elements of one soup and three dishes. Rice, soup, a main dish with sides and pickles.

Kinda like how some of the stuff we had previously at Ootoya.

Tried their lamb leg and gyutan sets. Not a fan of their lamb because of the pretty strong marinate that was sweet and had ginger in it - a pairing I wasn't expecting as opposed to lamb-y and savoury which I was looking forward to. Gyutan's not bad, just a lot more jaw work than I am used to.

The soup's miso and pretty good with a squeeze of lime, rice was obviously incomparable to Suju while pickles were young and zested with yuzu. Spinach was tender and pretty good eating. Not a fan of their chikuzenni - would have much preferred the renkon/beans to be more cooked and the broth to be more intense from a longer stewing.

Kawa - we ordered it on the side. These were freshly grilled like their meats plus a bit of bitterness from the charring. Made nice munching. Odd thing was that they weren't salted at all.

Revisiting Run Ji Cooked Food (润记熟食)

I haven't eaten at Run Ji in over a decade. Not sure what exactly has changed but the person in the stall didn't look familiar and the food was different from what I had previously. There's no longer hae bi hiam topping for the rice and I don't recall that rice being this sticky and short grained. But I like this current sauce they drizzled over which tasted of sesame oil amongst soya sauce and light herbal sweetness.

This was a plate of braised duck drumstick (鸭尾) with pig's skin and tau kwa. Some parts of the meat were relatively tender while others were a bit more chewy. It did inherit a good flavour from the braising sauce; ditto for the pig's skin.

Ming Shan (明汕), Chinatown Food Centre

I passed by this stall (Red Zone, #02-093 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) a number of times previously and had always been drawn to the fragrance of mutton emanating from it. That also came with a pretty strong herbal aroma which came from their broth. Curiosity prevailed and we finally got ourselves a bowl of something to find out if we liked it because I generally am not a big fan of local Chinese mutton soup. Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup for what they are doesn't count.

That bowl of something was lamb ribs mee sua. The broth was much more herbal than the one at Ivy's but it was unexpectedly (for me) also enjoyable. The mee sua did it's job of soaking up the broth that each chopstick-ful was flavourful. I would be remiss if I didn't mention how slide off the bone tender and lamb-y those ribs were, especially for those bits with the fat. Chilli was pretty tangy and tends to overwhelm even the lamb so it's not necessary.

I will return.

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.