The Market Grill & Wine 90, Telok Ayer Street

The Market Grill (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七) has been rebranded to The Market Grill & Wine 90 (208 Telok Ayer Street, tel : +65 6221 3323). The location is still the same. The previous chef Colin West is currently in The Corner Grill at Ann Siang Hill so there's a new guy on board here. The rest of the place looked preeee-ty much the same.

But I think the onions for the onion matchsticks are different though. These had purple skin which I do not remember from the last time and a little more greasy. Still good munching.

These are cod croquettes - breaded and fried potato balls stuffed with minced cod. Even though the cod was inside the potato balls, we could smell the fish as soon as the brought in the plate. Not bad.

Not so impressed by how they did the pork jowl. The texture on the surface was actually their mustard glaze which dominated pretty much everything. There was too much mustard - surprising considering that this was Market Grill.

Fortunately, it's something we could scrape off and we did. Those slices of fatty jowl with the jus (or whatever that might have been) were good enough.

Took advantage of the their 1-for-1 bavette which was usually $60 for a 300g portion. This made it $60 for 600g. Nice. 👍🏼 Loved the smokey caramelized exterior of the steak. The insides were moist with juices. Good beefy flavour and great texture too. 

Aside from that bavette, the other outstanding item was their smoked chocolate cake. Belying its inconspicuous appearances, the cake was dense like cheesecake, pretty chocolate-y and had an impressive depth of smokiness which I thought was sublime.

Soi 47, Yong Siak Street

Soi 47 (27 Yong Siak Street, tel  : +65 6588 4747) is a relatively new Thai zi char (煮炒)  place that has taken over the previous occupant Cheng's 27 which I gathered was Hainanese. The menu features the gamut of what can be considered pretty common Thai Chinese stir fry dishes. 

A fizzy sweet and salty preserved plum (酸梅) soda while waiting for the food. 

Som tam mamaung has shredded coconut. So the flavour's less refreshing or clean compared to...well, most of the mango salads I've had which didn't. Not that it was a bad thing. This one wasn't spicy.

Krapow moo with century egg. Dish was a little wetter than I expected but it was still delicious in its savoury manner.

Thai styled kang kong which wasn't spicy.

Fried prawn cakes were nice. These were fat and tender.

We ordered a salt baked tilapia. Fish was pretty decent and very moist. Did not even need the nam jim on the side.

Well, it's zi char.

Café 2000, M Hotel

Before today, I have attributed to Café 2000 (Level 1 M Hotel, 81 Anson Road, tel : +65 6500 6112) only one thing. Chicken pies. The ones we have always called the "M Hotel chicken pies". We knew next to nothing about the restaurant. Today is the day we make new memories and remember them for more than just their chicken pies.

Memories like their cappuccino if one were inclined to notice, is taken from the same coffee machine that dispenses them in their buffets. It's drinkable stuff and nothing to be scoffed at during the absence of other similar caffeine beverages. I say that with all seriousness. 😬

But first the chicken pie.

The one with minimal fillers. It doesn't have the most buttery crust around but that crust passes muster. There's bits of carrots which I speculate are in there just for a bit of colour and some mushrooms. No peas or potatoes. And then chunks of chicken in a creamy sauce. I detect dark meat. I liked how straightforward this pie was since......my first time around 2007.

Cleaned it up.

So we decided to try the XO halibut fish noodles soup on their menu. Portions were huge perhaps in an attempt to commensurate the price tag. The fried fish was okay, not spectacular as what one might hope for considering how much they were charging. But the savoury broth was quite delicious and soaked up by the rice noodles. Fish aside, I enjoyed this better than the cod fish soup noodle from Amara Hotel. I'd rank this bowl just below the one from The Ship. 

That dish on the left, it's cognac. Not soya sauce or Chinese tea. Yes it's for the fish broth with the noodles. 😏

City Hot Pot (旺爐), Guoco Tower

Been wanting to try City Hot Pot (#B1-04/05 Guoco Tower, 7 Wallich Street, tel : +65 6721 9501) for some time after walking past them more times I can recall. How this place works is that everyone gets a little pot of their own broth. It's slightly less communal than regular hot pots.

Now that I have, I recommend against the booth seats against the walls. Ventilation was really bad 🥵. Judging from the gap between the seat and table, they also looked like they might be prejudiced against....people with wider girth?

We had sliced leg of lamb. Not bad.

Short rib was decent tasting but not great. 

Scallops were small. But they were also sweet.

Very decent sliced fish.

Frozen tofu was okay.

These tofu strips were also okay. I don't think there are much variations to these things.

I thought I managed to alchemy a concoction of flavour I normally prefer with sesame sauce, sesame seeds, crushed peanuts, garlic, spring onions and vinegar. The combination appeared sound.

I had obviously misjudged the wet to dry ingredient ratio here.

Tried a few broths. Laksa was okay-ish and the bak kut teh was very peppery. My favourite of the lot was fish soup with milk. Personal pick. Flavour's not super intense but it had enough savoury milkiness which was pretty good as a profile that didn't mess with the food's natural flavour. The broth kinda got a bit better after all the cooking. 

Note to self : They don't top up the broth with the flavour that you have picked. It's a generic 清汤 so if you don't want dilution, keep your broth from evaporating fast by controlling the heat.

Standards here are comparable to Shi Li Fang so they make a pretty decent casual hotpot.

Geylang Laksa Prawn Noodles, Ang Mo Kio Ave. 4

Heard about this stall (Blk 632 Ang Mo Kio Ave 4) which was apparently founded in 1964 which makes their branding more than half a century old.

We ordered their big prawns noodles. Those big prawns weren't really big and the tiny clams they used were in short, tasteless. Pretty disappointing considering that they seemed reputable and the bowl wasn't cheap at all ($13.30). There was also an excessive sweetness in the soup that didn't taste natural so I'm putting my money on sugar in there. We also got pretty thirsty after that. Hmmm....we expected better.

Will not come back.

Bismillah Biryani, Shenton Way

I hadn't any idea where exactly this branch of Bismillah (76 Shenton Way, #01-03) was located so I got led on around about by Google Maps which seemed not to work very well in the vicinity (for whatever reasons). Located it eventually. Place looked quiet during the weekend. It had the same dead vibes I got from their flagship at Dunlop Street.  

As preamble, I have a love hate relationship with Bismillah. I like the biryani. Not so much the entity. The people working there behave like they have 3/4 of their souls sucked out. Half the time, they never have what I want to order. I've settled for accepting that their online menu is a facade and that more than half of them do not exist anymore. We ended up with the chicken dum biryani today because....well, they didn't have something else I wanted. Again.

Tasted not bad. Breast portions of the meat was pretty dry. I enjoyed it but it's also not exactly the kind of food I would travel out of the way for because it's not that great and I'm honestly tired of them responding with 'it's not available'. So I take it that they have only just a regular mutton or chicken biryani mostly.

Wanted to get a portion of their chicken liver masala and guess what? They don't have it. That was almost kinda how we ended up with their mutton chapli kebab. It's s spiced mutton patty, pretty dense and meaty. Delicious in a spicy and savoury manner. That being said, it also felt like it came out of a microwave.