Yaowarat Thai Kway Chap, Tiong Bahru Plaza

I never understood why Yaowarat Thai Kway Chap closed at Holland Village. Always had the impression that they were doing well. Anyways, they've opened up at the basement of Tiong Bahru Plaza (B1-135 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road). And yes, the herbal peppery and salty broth was still as delicious with those penne-like scrolls of kuey. Or kway. Today we also discovered their chilli sauce (that one reminded me of chicken rice chilli actually) which was spicy and lime-y and made a great dip for the meats. Those fried chicken mid wings were also pretty good eating too. 

Confounding mala mazesobas from Menya Kokoro

So there're a couple of "mala mazesoba" at Menya Kokoro. We've tried the both of them and one of them appears to be the real McCoy while the other which bears the name is likely not.

The Kiwami tantan mazesoba is described as having a spicy and numb flavour. What baffled me was, why is there a mala flavour in it and how come this didn't taste like dan dan mian as its name suggested? Charshu was thick and a little hard. 

Then there was their spicy mala mazesoba - I once ordered it minus the mala and they obliged. I wanted to try it with the mala this time round.

The sauce was gritty, spicy and nutty. But I couldn't detect any mala. I also don't recall it tasting like the previous spicy mazesoba as well. Pretty delicious but the name of the bowl doesn't go with the flavour. Something doesn't add up with these two bowls.

Did anyone notice that the rice is getting smaller? It taking two portions these days to properly soak up the leftover gravy from the mazesoba.

Grandfather Food Empire Bak Chor Mee (爺爺香菇肉碎面), Queen Street

Decent bowl of bak chor mee from Grandfather Food Empire Bak Chor Mee (3838 Eating Place, 269B Queen Street). The stall is located at the same coffeeshop as Tai Loke Chicken Rice. I was a little concerned by the smudge of ketchup at the edge of my bowl but I guess it was an accident and the bowl didn't come with any. At least I didn't taste any.

This $7 bowl was loaded with ingredients. Sliced pork, minced pork, pork balls, stewed mushrooms and thin sliced pig livers topped with what appeared to be fried garlic bits. Not getting much flavour from the fried pork lard. Saucing was not bad but it's not as punchy as I normally prefer and the chilli is weak. 

I'm ranking this below Tai Hwa, Tai Wah at Holland Drive and Lai Heng. Wouldn't mind getting a bowl if I'm in the vicinity but wouldn't go out of the way for it.

Tong Kee Chicken Rice (東記雞飯), Margaret Drive Hawker Centre

Tong Kee Chicken Rice has relocated from their previous premise at Tanglin Halt to the new Margaret Drive Hawker Centre (#01-36, 38A Margaret Drive). I guess it's their coming to the full circle, at least for location, since they started off at the old Margaret Drive Hawker Centre originally. Notice that they have poached chicken these days.

Queue was pretty long, was in line for about 25 minutes or so.

I was curious about the poached chicken since they've never had it. Not bad, pretty tender but it's not the poached chicken standards that Sin Kee has. The dark meat portions were tender and slurp off the bone tender but the breast meat while respectably moist wasn't as impressive.

We ordered a portion of roast pork. These guys don't do the rendition with crunchy skin and melty fat layers. These are hardier and more chewy. Best to be eaten with the brown sauce that they serve with their eggs.

This brown sauce.

A light cabbage soup which accompanies each order that is better than many.

Guess it was good enough that I got a second bowl of rice.

Christmas season stuff at Ma Maison Kitchen

It's not so much traditional Christmas food. More like dishes Ma Maison Kitchen has for the season that's outside of their regular menu.

There's a CRUST X Ma Maison beer. This Breaking Bad Ale was hoppy brew which was both floral and citrusy. Not bad tasting. CRUST Group makes beer from surplus bread (and other ingredients they claim) if anyone was wondering who they were.

We've been wondering about a bunch of stuff from their smoked meat menu for a while. Finally decided to try their smoked beef fillet. It's not much smoky. Kinda disappointing actually because we were expecting more.

This Mizayaki tonketi was delicious and a large part of that was due to the butterscotch-y whiskey butter sauce. Nice.

That's stewed duck with peach sauce. Said sauce was made with veal stock and it was not as peachy as I had imagined. While those red peppercorns had a nice flavour, they kinda felt "detached" from the duck. The meat had a nice natural flavour and was slurp off the bone tender though.

Han's, Guoco Tower

Haven't eaten at Han's for a long time. I used to like their fried rice. Looking back, those felt like another place and time. Anyways this was from the outlet at Guoco Tower (#B2-25, 1 Wallich Street). What landed us here could be a few reasons. 

I would like to think it was mostly curiosity after all these years. Perhaps also lurking quietly and subconsciously, there was a looking forward to a bit of nostalgia. There's also the duck confit we saw on their menu for the Xmas season. Someone had recently also mentioned their chicken chop looked good. Reasons coalesced into intent.

So here's that duck confit in orange sauce. Nicely salted and pretty tender. Certainly wasn't the best one around but I'd eat it again. The orange sauce......wasn't great but I could tell that it was made with oranges for sure. Even thought I tasted duck fat in the mash. What I didn't see coming was that I enjoyed this more than the one at Joji's Diner.

This was likely my first chicken chop at Han's. Pretty tasty actually. There's some nice browning on the skin and the meat was moist for sure. Too bad the retro flavoured black pepper sauce was mediocre since that could have seriously elevated the plate. Fortunately the chicken's good on its own.