Kamoshita, Neil Road

Have been wanting to come to Kamoshita (5 Neil Road, tel : +65 6221 3950) for a long time. Today was lunch - not exactly the ideal showcase of the oden-centric izakaya they are but I'm not complaining.

Lunch beer is $9. Asahi.

These were house made cream cheeses. Clockwise from the top left is with smoked daikon, kani miso, miso marinated and shoyu konbu. I liked them all.

• Smoked daikon - creaminess wedged between smokey and crunchy slices of dehydrated radish.
• Kani miso - I thought there was a good balance struck between the cream cheese and the crab fat/butter flavour that's infused in it.
• Miso marinate - intense from both the rich creaminess of the cheese and fermented bean flavour
• Shoyu konbu - not quite getting the kelp. It wasn't seaweed-y if anyone was wondering.

Was curious about the oden daikon tempura. I know, right? It turned out to be how I imagined it. A tender boiled radish infused with the smokiness from the broth of the oden that's clad in a light crisp fried batter. It was actually juicy. 🤯

We had another daikon which the menu described as grilled. We ordered it because there was uni. There wasn't enough of that uni to go around in my opinion. Came dark caramel-y sweet glaze. It's not bad for radish but not worth paying for because of the uni because there was too little of the sea urchin to matter.

Kamoshita does a pretty decent iekei ramen in tonkotsu shoyu. I detected more complexity than just plain pork bone and soy sauce in the rich salty broth but what else exactly made it eluded me. Maybe fish powder? I couldn't be sure. Noodles were thick and chewy and the aji tama was nicely flavoured with shoyu. Charshu were thick sliced - not hard but a lot more jaw work than what I'm used to.

Current lunch special was a gyutan teishoku that came with a slice of duck with cucumber and some sashimi on the side. Nice peppery gyutan which required quite a bit of jaw work as well. 

Ramen Hitoyoshi (ラーメン人吉), Tiong Bahru Plaza

Ramen Hitoyoshi started a few years ago by some guys who were the alumni of Keisuke. Their game's tonkotsu ramen because...erm, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree? They've recently set up shop in the space vacated by Marutama at Tiong Bahru Plaza (#02-138 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

There's bottomless bean sprouts that you can help yourself to. Seem to get the impression that the ones at Keisuke's shops are better but I cannot be sure. These guys don't offer the same for hard boiled eggs though. Would be awesome if they did. 

Gyozas were meaty. Not bad tasting.

Our fried shishamo didn't have a lot of eggs. I don't think they cared about the eggs here so we won't be getting it again. But otherwise it was a decent fried fish.

This was their special charshu tonkotsu bowl. Charshu was much more thinly sliced than what the pictures led us to believe and it was also delicious. The kind that fell apart in the mouth without much chewing. Broth was richly flavoured, porcine and salty - like how I was hoping for it be. 

Would be great if they offered "extra hard" noodles but I guess their "hard" passed muster. Kinda pricey though.

There's also mazesoba.

Doesn't have the flavour intensity like Menya Kokoro or Kajiken but I thought therein laid an appeal to how it was less heavy on the taste. With a splash of vinegar and crushed sesame seeds, it was easy to inhale.

初三 at Happy Lamb Hotpot (快乐小羊)

Gonna keep the verbosity low on this visit to Happy Lamb Hotpot (快乐小羊).

Beef short ribs, not lamb.

Premium marble lamb which I said I would get again but I'm pretty sure these were different from the ones the last time.

First time getting these fried dough sticks with salted egg. They're kinda like you tiao (油条) with salted egg inside.

King oyster mushroom/eringi(杏鲍菇) - meaty and pretty good at absorbing the broth

The lamb skewers which are normally served first arrived last today.

Sultan Turkish Restaurant, Bussorah Street

While it may be that this vicinity is regarded as touristy, it is also the only enclave we have for Turkish/Middle Eastern food. That being said, most of the restaurants are clones of one another offering minor variations of the same dishes.

We ended up in the heart of it (30 Bussorah Street) because I came across something I wanted to try. While the usual modus operandi traversing this street is to put on a glass eye, weave and evade the touts that hawk "the best Turkish food in town", I today...acquiesced with the server at Sultan Turkish Restaurant. 

Started with a sweet chilled ayran to beat the evening humidity. Albeit not so successfully because humidity > chilled ayran. I liked the ayran though. If anyone was wondering, it's a yoghurt beverage very much like lassi.

A tabbouleh for my feeble efforts at including some fibre and greens into the meal which I was quite sure would otherwise include little to no fibre and greens. This one's a bit sour.

I've only gotten acquainted with mandi in recent years. I've either been not aware of their availability or the dish has only picked up steam locally in current times. They're an Arabic spiced rice dish often with meat - not dissimilar to briyani.

This one was with lamb shank. The rice was delicious. The first thing that came to mind was the ouzi we previously had at Kazbar. Pretty sure they tasted similar. Lamb was fall off the bone tender. Liked the soup on the side which had a pretty distinct flavour from the rendered fat of lamb. 

What was poorly done were the grilled chilli/tomato. They were raw under the skin. They weren't so much grilled as they were burnt.

I did mention liking the ayran. Here's another mug of gratification.

The dish I came for was their ciger sis/ciğer şiş - a kebab of lamb livers and beef fat. The latter interspersed between cubes lamb liver. Hell yeah this was delicious with the flatbread! 👍🏼 

Kunefe was also awesome. Crispy on the outside with the savoury cheese on the inside under the blanket of sweet creaminess. This one came with goat's milk ice cream.

Pepper Castle, Holland Village

Previously I had always assumed that Pepper Castle (33 Lorong Liput, tel : +65 9352 7742) was a typical regular sized stall in a coffee shop with a menu limited to.......well, what one could prepare in regular sized stalls. Until I stumbled upon their extensive menu on Grab delivery. We came down today and I realized that they did have a much bigger kitchen out in the back.

Pappadum. The accompanying lime/coriander dip tasted fresher than what I'm used to. Too coriander-y for me this one.

Sweet lassi was creamy and sweet.

These were one of the better Kashmiri naan I recall having. Apart from the cherries, these were also stuffed with chopped bits of nuts and I tasted something I'm pretty sure were dates. 

We had a dal palak - a savoury spinach and lentil curry. Not bad.

This paneer kali mirch was a first for me. The rich creamy gravy was savoury instead of what I had initially assumed to be sweet. Not as peppery as the menu led me to believe.

Egg briyani was not bad. The spices in the rice were delicious but I wished it had a bit more salt.

Saag chicken - also another first. I've had the mutton version of this dish a previously. The palak from the previous times were puréed but Pepper Castle's rendition was chopped. I like the flavours though. Buried in the chopped spinach were chunks of chicken thigh meat.