Xing Xing Mala & Chicken Pot, Tiong Bahru Plaza

Xing Xing Mala & Chicken Pot (#02-113 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road) took over the spot vacated by O Banh Mi (một hai ba bốn năm). The food's generic Chinese with stir frys, mala xiang guo (麻辣香锅) and chicken pot (鸡公煲).

Their yang zhou fried rice was bad. Bland and used the cheapest of ingredients they could get away with. Wok Hey makes much better fried rice. And what are thos......could it be Impossible prawns?

Spicy vinaigrette noodles (红油燃面) was edible. Tasted mostly of Szechuan peppercorn with some tanginess from the preserved vegetables (酸菜). Would have been great if the noodles had a firmer texture. 

Okay tasting 酸菜鱼. I thought it was overpriced. 

Those are eggplant and tofu. There's salted fish according to the menu but I couldn't taste any. A little oily but not bad tasting.

Breakfast rosti from Marché

I never realized that Marché has a breakfast menu. Anyways, this was their breakfast rosti. It's topped with a sausage, some bacon, and an egg. Miss those proper sunny side ups they used to do previously. $19.90 for that with a coffee and an orange juice. I liked it.

Lian Kee (蓮記), Alexandra Food Village

Bak chor mee breakfast at Lian Kee (#01-50 Alexandra Village Food Centre, 120 Bukit Merah Lane 1). Pretty decent bowl here.

This was the big bowl ($6) which was pretty loaded with ingredients. A couple of thing stood out from watching them prepare the noodles. The saucing was mostly the dark concoction from a pot of stewed mushrooms the proprietors were regularly stirring and that those fishballs looked yellow.

Understandably, the base flavour profile was from said stewed mushroom sauce. Those stewed mushrooms were pretty good by the way. Tender and full of flavour from the stewing sauce. I'm pretty sure that would improve if there was more 猪油. Perhaps another time.

Burger King's Gourmet Garlic Angus Beef Burger

Yes it was garlicky mostly due to the garlic chips they've added in the sandwich. Those weren't as crunchy as I had imagined. On top of the meat and lettuce were some dark garlic sauce and mayo. Was it good? It's edible. Don't think I'll get it again because it's kinda expensive. I somehow missed the cheese amid all the garlic. 

Lao Huo Tang (老火汤), Star Vista

I don't actually remember if we've ever had anything from 老火汤. We've seen that branch at Star Vista (#B1-31A Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green, tel : +65 6262 3125) numerous times and have been intrigued by their soups. 

Their longan red date tea was quite nice.

The soup we picked was the one with pork ribs, apple and winter pear. Enjoyed the natural fruity sweetness in the soup. Those pork ribs in there were tender that they were almost disintegrating. I'd get this again.

Steamed meat with mei chye (梅菜蒸肉饼) was.....much more bland than I had expected. I guess we were given the impression that it would be more flavourful from the countless preserved mustard greens we've had. Or maybe it's also the salted fish I had taken for granted would be in the steamed pork patty. Meat was marinated and had an odd texture. Wouldn't say this was bad tasting but also won't be getting it again.

Their cereal prawns had cereals that were soft and not crunchy. Also not what I had expected from what I know of regular cereal prawns. Won't be getting these again too. I think it's fair to assume that these guys are only good for their soups which we will probably stick to in the future.

Re-revisiting Swaadhisht

I've been wanting to come back to Swaadhisht for a long while. Too long.

One of the reasons was to try the Thallaseri goat briyani. I had the Malabar version with basmati rice previously so I was just curious how this one would be with the short grained Jeerakasala rice. I couldn't tell much apart from the texture. I liked it though. The curry marinated goat was incredibly tender. Like how one could cut them with a plastic spoon kind of tender.

We topped that with an order of curry eggs. That delicious curry was savoury and if I wasn't mistaken, almost tangy in a creamy spicy manner packed with some heat. Nice. 👍🏼 

This wasn't on the menu but we were obliged with a serving of aviyal - a Keralan dish of vegetables with coconut, curd (yoghurt) and curry leaves. Kinda like the wet version of thoran and great pairing with rice.

Trying their prawn coconut fry for the first time. The dish was a stir fry of prawns with onions, garlic, coconut and curry leaves in a spicy sweet and savoury black pepper gravy. Not bad.

Our orders came with payasam for dessert. 😬