LINO Pizza & Pasta Bar, Shaw Centre

The restaurant used to be just LINO Pasta Bar. They've expanded and taken over the unit next door and have also included pizzas on the menu so it's both an pizza and pasta bar now. Did Les Amis Group failed to identify that pizza need while cranking up the old pasta bar or was that evolution that came about after they've taken over the neighbour? That was rhetorical.

LPPB's Margherita which differs from the standard issue Margherita by having smoked burrata and pesto and cherry tomatoes. Personally, the smoked burrata and pesto worked and I enjoyed this on their Neapolitan styled crust. That being said, the crust from these guys aren't at the same level as Zazz or Luka.

Hmmm....creamed spinach tart topped with thin bacon petals, confit egg and parmigiano. Tasted as good as it sounded and I shall leave it as that.

King prawn risotto was a dish of the month. Didn't taste so much like risotto, more like just wet rice with a light dashi and nori flavour with prawn oil. Seafood quality was pretty good,

Nicely done aglio olio with squid and prawns. My only gripe was the menu mentioning bird's eye chilli and I didn't get them in the pasta. Just a small dried chilli and not enough heat to temper my expectations after reading bird's eye chilli. Otherwise it was delicious with a couple of twists of salt from the mill.

Tiramisu was cocoa heavy and pretty dry. To read that alternatively, there's either too little mascarpone or cream or both. To the point that the heavy dusting of cocoa overwhelmed the other parts of the dessert. Did not taste bad but nothing about it would elevate it beyond a passable rendition. Kinda surprised encountering the low pedestrian standards for this one.

IL Fiore Restaurant & Bar, Raffles Place

IL Fiore is at the basement of Singapore Land Tower (B1-01 Singapore Land Tower, 50 Raffles Place, tel : +65 6223 3551) accessible from a stairway. Don't let the innocuous name mislead you, I read that they're also known as the "Dungeon". 😂 While perusing their menu, I also kinda got the impression that they're the atas version of Han's with a bar in dim lighting. 😂

$13 a pint of Asahi Kuronama in town is pretty sweet.

That's beef tenderloin fried rice. This one was stir fried with dark soya sauce, hence the colour. A little moist, a little greasy and just the slightest sweetness from the dark soya sauce. Don't expect wok hei and it's pretty good eating. What I liked about it were the chunks of beef tenderloin. No need to do a double take, it's chunks and not slices. And it's not the "sodium bicarbonated to death" unidentifiable protein matter.

There's Hokkien mee too. Don't let the looks fool you. The lard was mostly flavourless - shocking! 😬 But true story. The amount of flavour it imparted has almost no bearing with the quantity they put in it. But otherwise, it was an okay Hokkien mee. Not one the better ones out there but it doesn't make you wanna rip your hair out either.

Sambal's pretty flavourful - definitely getting the dried shrimps but doesn't pack much heat. Works with the noodles, not as well for the fried rice. The sliced red chilli in light soya sauce on the other hand plays well with both.

We ordered their oyster & cockle omelette sans the cockles. Not bad. I like the toasty egg flavour on it. But know that you'll be paying prices at least double of what one can normally get in food centres. That being said, you also wouldn't be enjoying them in an air conditioned dungeon with good table service at Raffles Place.

Not open in the weekends.

Smoked Chicken Xmas'O from Old Chang Kee

If any confirmation was needed, it is blue in colour. Tasted like a generic chicken puff with their "signature" pastry skin. How OCK described it was 'tantalising smoked chicken cubes blended with black pepper & BBQ sauce, and mixed with green & red pepper, button mushroom, tomatoes & blue pea'.

Champorado

I've been wanting to try champorado for some years now ever since I've learnt about them. So I finally tried one made by a Filipino lady who brought in her daing from Palawan and fried it herself. I had the impression that the milk that it was accompanied with was condensed milk but this one was evaporated milk so it wasn't as sweet as I imagined.

It's not bad. I kinda dug it between the chocolate risotto-like rice and the bites of the crispy salted fish.

Ch叉rred

Re-visiting Ch叉r. Seems like the menu has expanded to include more dishes which we've either not seen before or have never taken noticed of the last time we were here.

Delicious double boiled chicken soup that was thick and intense with flavour from both chicken and dried scallops. This one which uses free ranged Anxin chickens was apparently an upgrade from their older recipe which presumably used......regular chickens?

This was Hobgoblin pork ribs. Nothing to do with hobgoblins or Hobgoblin from Marvel but it uses Hobgoblin dark ale from by Wychwood Brewery. Suspect it's their Ruby Beer which the restaurant is also offering. I couldn't discern any special flavours. Tasted like a nicely done 排骨王 with a rich and slightly smoky sweet glaze over nicely crusted fried pork ribs.

That's their okra banana delight. Okra a.k.a. lady's fingers stir fried in a sweet sambal and onions with torched bananas. Tasted like how it looked but pairing sure was unusual.

Mala char siew if anyone was wondering. There's definitely mala spices in there (comprising of 13 different spices according to what they claimed) but there wasn't much heat. Still mostly sweet as their char siew normally are. The tangy sauce on the side was much spicier

Tonkatsu by Ma Maison, Chijmes

Years ago, this spot (#01-09 Chijme, 30 Victoria Street, tel : +65 6338 5907) used to be Tonkatsu & Sake Bar Tonzaemon, also by Ma Maison. I remember them because they used to have fancy tonkatsu on the menu - like hire katsu stuffed with foie gras and rosu katsu in squid ink panko. I guess that concept didn't work out for long before it got converted to their Tonkatsu shop which I'm gathering has been pretty well received over the years.

We came here for their autumn-y shio konbu mushroom kurobuta rosu katu and chestnut mille feuille. Whaaaatt?!

Rosu's topped with mushrooms - possibly prepared with salted kelp (hence shio konbu) and layered over grated daikon that's on top of the fried pork. That chestnut mille feuille was stuffed with a chestnut. Not so much flavour coming from the chestnut which I had expected to be more fragrant or perhaps sweet. Still pretty good katsu though. 

I can't help but wonder if their multi grained rice is in truly better than the regular white rice in any way.