Kubo, Robertson Quay

"Filipino inspired" was the description of the food at Kubo (#01-12 The Pier at Robertson, 80 Mohamed Sultan Road, tel : +65 9645 8436). I could see how 'inspired' was the operative adjective and I thought it was pretty accurate. The chef, a Kurt Sombero, had previously headed Meatsmith Little India and has been part of Burnt Ends and Andre. Those experiences show on the menu.

The menu simply described these as Prawns, seaweed, coconut sambal. Didn't see or taste any seaweed and I think maybe the coconut sambal's the orange stuff. I actually don't know. There was a tomalley-esque cream in the middle of those prawns that were awesome. Nicely grilled these were.

This was Crab fat risotto and tobiko. I don't know where the tobiko were and I couldn't taste the crab fat. We ordered this because we remembered the crab fat dish we had with rice at 7107 Flavours years ago. Reminiscence unfortunately did not happen. 

To go by the name, this dish could have been misunderstood, miscommunicated or a failure. But it tasted good. A lot of coconut and pretty strong calamansi flavour in there. Nice one.

We were told by the staff that their smoked beef tongue was melt in your mouth.

That person was right and this was......I wanted to say fucking good. It's fucking good. 

Loved that sweet caramelized tare glazed exterior that held the tongue in form while the insides were almost pâté tender. There's king oyster mushrooms, some spicy nutty sauce I couldn't identify and....more chopped up bits of stuff I couldn't identify. But hell yeah this was one tongue that needed only tongue. No teeth necessary.

Tried their House-aged duck, pineapple jus, timut peppers. Duck's nice but I couldn't tell it was aged. The leg portion was tender but the breast slices were pretty chewy. I also couldn't tell that the jus had pineapple.

Their take on halo-halo with meringue and crispy rice. Didn't taste bad but I didn't think it was special.

I like the Turon better. That's banana in pastry (filo?) with coconut butterscotch. The menu mentioned jackfruit jam but I couldn't tell. It looked like just a few strips of jackfruit. 

gretl German Burgergrill, Orchard Road

Isn't gretl just hans im glück with a different name? For all intents and purposes, they were the same. From the setup to the decor and even menu. We came to try their vegetarian burgers today.

There were a few patties to pick from. We had the one made with olives and the other made with walnuts. In retrospect, my expectations far exceeded what the restaurant was capable of delivering. Especially for the one made with walnuts.

In any case, both burger patties appear to have a lot of fillers and are much oiler than I was expecting. These did not even taste healthy for sure. We'll stick to their regular beef burgers in the future.

Note to self : the apricot ginger tea smelled pretty good but I couldn't even tell those flavours from how it tasted.

Mawar Merah, Bukit Merah Central

Mawar Merah (#01-3683, 165 Bukit Merah Central) is located just next door to Jofa Grill. They're apparently known for ayam penyet and their rendition is done in the local Malay style as opposed to the Indonesian style. What's the difference? I suppose differentiation came from the flavour of the fried chicken batter, the concoction of the sambal used, the type of rice and there's no tempeh here.

The rice here was awesome - moist, tender and garlic infused chicken rice. Fried chicken was pretty decent. I kinda enjoyed the sambal in spite of the sweetness. There was a solid anchovy base which made it delicious. No qualms coming back again.

Meet Paul, Tanjong Pagar Food Centre

These guys recently shifted from a coffeeshop nearby to this current location (#02-09 Tanjong Pagar Food Centre, 6 Tanjong Pagar Plaza). I was curious because they have halibut on menu. Not exactly commonplace in local western food stalls.

The short of it was, the fish was no good. Texture was uncomfortably mushy in the middle. Because it was a thin slice, it could have been any cheap fish (say dory) and I wouldn't have known any better. 

They have an unusual tasting black pepper gravy for the chicken chop which tasted of onions and ginger. That gravy was very Asian, like what one might find in zhi char.

The chilled slaw and corn was not bad though.

Dragon Village Hainanese Curry Rice (龍鄉海南咖哩飯), Chinatown Food Centre

Have been wondering for quite a long time if this stall's (#02-108 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) curry rice was any good. So we ordered a deluxe plate with pork chop, chicken cutlet, fried fish nuggets, curried cabbage and sweet and sour pork. That's $10.50. The toppings were okay-ish - no complains on the fried stuff and the cabbage was pretty tender. They were decent and nothing was outstanding in particular.

But the curry was thin, diluted tasting and something I wouldn't waste money or time on again.

Jofa Grill, Bukit Merah Central

What piqued my curiosity about Jofa Grill (#01-3683, 165 Bukit Merah Central) was the mention of ex chefs from Burnt Ends and Joël Robuchon. So I was mostly intrigued by the possibility presented by their mashed potatoes.

I've never read what was exactly said about the mashed potatoes until now and it appeared to me that whomever wrote about them are finding excuses for them because the writers couldn't backtrack out of mentioning Joël Robuchon. I think you get my drift. One of the publications even mentioned 'is said to be buttery, smooth... '. Said writer could only speculate from hearsay and possibly never even tried it? 

Chicken's not bad. Slaw's not bad too. The mashed potatoes...I think I can do better with the powdered variety from Ikea and a generous pat of butter. Unless Joël Robuchon is vastly overrated. You think? This was not a bad plate of chicken chop by any stretch of the definition.

For some reasons, they had run out of the ingredients for aglio olio so we ended up with the mee pok carbonara. I don't understand how a business that purports to sell western food/pasta runs out of garlic and olive oil in the middle of the week. So it's poor planning or they couldn't care less but what do I know. 

Anyways, I'd like to divert the attention back to the "prestigious" alumni of the people running the stall. I'd like to think they know carbonara. And I wasn't unreasonable as to be expecting an alla Romana from them.

Bacon was kinda bland. Pepper barely registered. This was more cream than cheese.