88 Pocha, Lorong Mambong

There's been some disturbance in the force about 88 Pocha (26A Lorong Mambong) lately. Likely it's because they've struck gold in their social media game. Food's not bad. A bit expensive for the quality that they are serving because it's pocha styled food which is kinda similar to what zhi char (煮炒) is locally or what dai pai dong (大牌档) is to Hong Kong for context. They're meant to be affordable, fuss free and basic. But we're paying restaurant prices here.

Sausage and cheese gimbap was good munching. Like the toasted sesame seeds which outshone the sesame oil in the rolls. Sausage was smokey.

Their mentaiko udon was a passable rendition. It's mostly creamy and garlicky and on those accounts, pretty tasty. Not that much mentaiko flavour. 

We were curious about their mackerel and kimchi stew because we've never had a mackerel and kimchi stew before. The actual thing looked nothing like the picture in the menu.

I was intensely curious about how they could get mackerels so tiny. You know...batang/saba/godeungeo (고등어). Then I realized that what was described as mackerel were sardines. Canned ones. Sardine kimchi stew was undeniably more-ish from the tangy spicy umami. 👍🏼 Also kinda pricey considering the small portion and the cheap ingredients it was made with.

Chikin's not bad. Crispy and not excessively greasy at all with tender moist meat underneath.

Pastaria Abate, Neil Road

This was our first visit to Pastaria Abate at their current location (86 Neil Road). It's been a while since we've eaten in the restaurant. What has noticeably changed was that there's table service now and that prices sure have gone up. This was us reacquainting ourselves with their food again by ordering a bunch of stuff off their specials board.

Polpette con uova - literally meatball with eggs. I don't remember being impressed by their meatballs previously but this one was nice. Savoury meatiness and a nice bite without being drowned in cheap dried herbs. Even the tomato sauce it came with was meaty tasting. Loved those eggs x 3 draped over those meatballs. Speaking of which, said eggs were described as Japanese golden eggs. 

Had a spaghetti seppia nero - this one had large chunks of cephalopods in a delicious lightweight sauce of cuttlefish ink con pomodoro. Very satisfying served piping hot. Why did I say cephalopod? Because I didn't actually know if it was squid and I suspected it was cuttlefish. Tender ones at that which kinda reminded us of Ink-Redible Calamari.

These were ravioli stuffed with prawns and mascarpone in a brown butter sauce. Could taste what I thought to be blue cheese in it as well. There's a whole prawn inside each of those ravioli. Not bad. 

Limited serving osso bucco with a buttery mash. Sauce was rich and also a bit spicy. I even got a piece of chilli that had a bit of burn in it. Parts of the meat around the bone was filled with tender bits of gooey broken down connective tissue. 👍🏼 Too bad the bone was tiny. 👎🏼

We had no more room for desserts at this point so it's a Himalayan salt latte. Coffee's flavour wasn't what I'll call robust but there was a pleasant aroma and the latte with the light saltiness was pretty smooth. Went down easily and we enjoyed it.

Nusa Indonesian Grill, Collyer Quay

Doesn't the person in the mural look like she's luxuriating in the pleasure of plunging a lightsaber into......whatever might have been that she was intending to impale? Look at that smirk.

Nusa (#01-03 Customs House, 70 Collyer Quay, tel : +65 8711 2181) is by Tambuah Mas. Indonesian, refined and a bit more contemporary than what one might encounter say "in the streets". In local colloquialism, it's a more atas version of Tambuah Mas.

Food's pretty good though. Like this rojak Jawa (Jawa as in Java, not the stunted cowled folks with glowing eyes in a galaxy far far away) which was sliced fruits with palm sugar syrup and finely crushed peanuts. It's sweet, a little spicy and definitely nutty with the citrus from said fruits.

We ordered their urap because the menu mentioned 'boiled vegetables'. Just needed to know that it's all cooked because I don't particularly enjoy the renditions with raw vegetables. Especially bean sprouts. Come and think of it, this looked the almost the same as the one served at Tambuah Mas. 

Paru goreng on skewers drizzled with kecap manis.

Their sayur lodeh tasted a little thin. Something we thought made better drinking than gravy on rice. We never needed that much gravy on rice here. Why?

Because their nasi kuning was good enough to eat on its own.

The sambal helps with most of the things we ordered. Except the kambing bakar.

Because the lamb was also good enough on its own. These were a little more done than what we normally go for and were glazed with something that might have been made with kecap manis. Meat had a good bite, prerequisite fat for flavour and pretty decent charring. Our first lamb in an Indonesian restaurant.

I was initially a little skeptical about their es krim kopi - that's an affogato with coconut ice cream. And something that they call Indonesian coffee. The balance hung heavy on both ingredients because there were only those two. Turned out that the coconut ice cream was sufficiently creamy that it worked and the strength of the espresso was...👍🏼.

More coconut ice cream, this time on avocado milkshake drizzled with palm sugar. It was less sweet than the ingredients suggested. Nice.

Chinatown Teh Tarik, Sago Street

I've only noticed Chinatown Teh Tarik (40B Sago Street) some months back. I think. They're located in a shophouse at the junction of Sago Street and Trengganu Street - right behind Smith Street Food Centre. A stone's throw from Buddha Tooth Relic Temple as well.

I swear this could have passed off as a place like Taiwan. But we're not there. Did not look as picturesque in real life when I was taking the shot.

Anyways, they're a mamak stall. Looked Indian Muslim and we're familiar with what they generally offer. That's a masala prata with egg and onion. The masala component of it was curried potatoes. It's not bad tasting. Prata wasn't overly crispy and had a bit of chew. What was odd was that in spite of how much onions they put inside, there wasn't much of the acidity from those.

Also tried an uttapam with onions. Also not bad. Coconut chutney was a little gingery while the orange chutney was.....I like it. Spicy savoury and something in it oddly reminded me of bean sprouts. That last part was unexpected.

We had a thosai too.

If you're still figuring out, those bits inside are canned mushrooms. There's cheese in it as well - the plastic wrapped variety. Pretty decent tasting thosai.

What was obvious though from both the uttapam and thosai was that the rice flour batter they used barely had any of the tang normally associated with fermentation. Those flavours which I had been looking forward to felt toned down.

满族全羊铺 Manchurian Lamb Hot Pot - 羊肉汤火锅

The name's a little confusing but these guys are Restaurant Manchurian. They've rebranded themselves with the name Manchurian Lamb Hot Pot - 羊肉汤火锅 but have for some reasons not updated their signage. Don't know when this happened. Menu's changed as well - some of the old stuff we used to have aren't available anymore. There's also a bit more emphasis on hot pot. 

Fortunately the lamb skewers are still on the menu. Like their tendon/meat thingy (烤羊筋皮) which seem to be chunkier than I remember them.

The regular 羊肉串儿 seemed to have lost a bit of their edge. Spice powdering was less intense and a bit more browning on the grill would have been great.

There's lamb brains which as I recall wasn't in their old menu. Came in a nice salty mala-esque sauce which was surprisingly light on the heat. No 麻 and not much 辣.

Yang zhou fried rice - pretty bland. Needed the sauce from the lamb brain dish which did it wonders.

Trying their lamb belly with mutton 草原肚包肉 for the first time. It's minced lamb that's bagged in lamb tripe - the closest thing to haggis for all the 'haggis' that they like to use on their menu which actually describes offal.

Pretty good. Both the minced mutton and the stomach were tender. That green sauce on the side - I don't know what it was but it was refreshingly herbaceous and savoury. Kinda like a Chinese pesto.

Got ourselves some grilled lamb ribs. These were good.

There's 油茶面 on the menu; something I am acquainted with from childhood as mee teh. It's mostly powdered fried onion, flour and sugar that one mixes with hot water to form a broth/paste. From experience, I know the decent ones can be difficult if not impossible to get these days because I've tried some and they're all lacking in the aroma from the fried onions.

I don't remember sesame seeds in the one which I grew up eating. This rendition even had raisins in them. Not bad tasting but the flavour didn't pack the punch I was hoping for and it wasn't as gooey as I liked.

We ordered this because it said sheep milk tea (自炒羊奶茶) on the menu. I thought it would be tea with sheep's milk. Did not taste like tea. I was imagining that the milk might resemble goat's milk but it didn't as well. And it was salty.

More desserts from Yat Ka Yan (一家人)

Trying a couple of stuff from Yat Ka Yan (一家人) which we haven't before. That's mango with ice cream - it looked a lot more yellow and refreshing from the picture on the menu. Mango was kinda sour which offset the sweetness from the ice cream. Nicely done but I don't know if that was by accident or design.

Almond barley beancurd - which was essentially fu chuk yi mai (腐竹薏米) with almond. This one was nice. Beancurd was pretty shredded though.