Age Ya (楊屋), Far East Plaza

Age Ya (#05-99 Far East Plaza, 14 Scotts Road) is relatively new and has taken over the spot that used to be Happy Geprek. Food's Japanese as one might surmise from their name. Even though they're a new kid in the block, the people running the show aren't new to their game. 

One of the recommended items to order was kinoko tofu - their in house agedashi tofu made with mushrooms. Nice. We had seconds. What worked for me was the spicy daikon oroshi they used which added that prickly heat into both the tofu and the dashi broth.

Some fried prawn toast. Not bad.

There's engawa mentai yaki. 👀 That's right, aburi-ed engawa with mentai mayo. And some tobiko. How could we not?

Miso soup had salmon bits in it. We waited pretty long for our donburis that we finished everything else and the soup before they arrived.

Their premium hana bara chirashi don was...pretty. What with all the edible flowers and microgreens. To be fair, those added flavour as well amid the myriads of texture from the combinations of tobiko, cubed fish, sakura ebi and tempura bits. 

The hana bara also came with shitake gobo rice which was in a separate....box? There's a bunch of stuff that also added flavours and textures but those flavours were less intense than the looks convinced me.

That's the premium kaisen don. I see repeated ingredients like the tobiko, sakura ebi, furikake and tempura bits that the other bowl had - those flaxture bombs. Hah! Nice seafood quality and delicious uni there.

Fire Ramen & Izakaya by Menbaka, Centrepoint

Finally tried Menbaka's Fire Ramen (#01-53/54/55/56 The Centrepoint, 176 Orchard Road). Disappointing.

Was intrigued by their matcha beer so we got one. The pic above is from their social media if anyone's confused.

What happened to the head? To be fair, there's definitely matcha in it and the light sweetness made it easy drinking. I actually wouldn't mind getting this again.

Social media pictures of the fire ramen again looked good. I was looking forward to all the negi I saw.

The reality was just sad. Portions of the negi was pathetic. Couldn't even really taste them. There's a faint smokiness in the broth that felt like it was...half developed. Maybe that's the flavour they were going for. Personally, it was boring, too greasy and immediately made me want to go back to Sanpoutei again. Noodle texture was...meh.

The ebi fire ramen was marginally better with the prawn flavour. Again, too greasy.

I think the ajitama was okay. At this point, I have lost all regard for them as a ramen-ya so interest had plummeted rock bottom.

Their black tori karaage was pretty good though. Nice crunch on a dry exterior and the meat was moist. I could come back for this and the matcha beer.

Special mee pok from Li Yuan Mee Pok (栗原ミーポック)

I've never had the mee pok with prawns from Li Yuan Mee Pok most because I didn't want to deal with shells. But I felt like those today. The difference with this special mee pok and their regular bowl is that they've swapped the mushrooms out with a couple of prawns. Not so special. Since that regular bowl is called mushroom minced meat noodle, this would just be prawn minced meat noodle? I'm rambling.

Read that Naoji-san's daughter is running this shop but she wasn't here on a Saturday morning. Those couple of prawns were pretty good quality. Otherwise, this supposedly larger bowl felt kinda small. Today's noodles were also extra vinegary.

Masala Canteen, Beo Crescent Food Centre

Noticed this stall (#01-81 Beo Cresecent Food Centre, 38A Beo Crescent) recently and was intrigued by their masala beef with briyani. Was surprised that the guy who came out to take the order was a Chinese dude. Anyways, it wasn't bad at all. Very edible. While it sounds superficial, my take was that it's definitely not the tastiest masala or briyani I've had. Beef was reasonably tender. Many a masala/rendang beef don't even get to reasonably tender.   

Aka ebi don (and grilled oysters) from Chirashizushi Shou

I can't believe I missed this aka ebi don the last time we were here at Chirashizushi Shou.

I like this. Not the sweetest of aka ebi we've had but it was still sweet. Coupled that with the tangy umami from the ikura and some shoyu plus a blanket of richness from the egg yolk. Note to self : it was worth it to top up with another egg yolk.

Grilled oysters are on their seasonal menu currently. They're pretty small but not bad tasting. Spring onions, chilli and something else I don't remember. Flavour tasted local.

Bamas Kitchen, Sam Leong Road

Trying to figure out what to make of Bamas Kitchen (#04-01 Trio, 11 Sam Leong Road, tel : +65 9857 0023). Read about them and I had the impression that they were a regular Indian restaurant hidden in the building called Trio. Did not get the restaurant vibe when we were there. Noticed metal troughs which suggested that catering or buffet might be involved in their business.

There's also a retro-ish looking bar which implied that the place also functioned as a watering hole. Nothing's on tap in spite of what's displayed and most of the beers are bottled. There's even soju - did not expect those. Screen near the bar was playing pop MVs from the 90s. The guy who attended to us was Nepalese.

Moving on from the mixed signals, we came to try their duck briyani. Something I'm pretty sure isn't available anywhere else. We were given papadums minus the usual mint dip.

That duck briyani was pretty tasty. The meat was mostly slurp off the bone tender covered in curry that was described as a 'green chilli based masala'. The mound of basmati rice wasn't exactly flavoured with much besides that masala. Those being said, I also couldn't necessarily tell that the meat was duck. Hmmm...

There's achar for a bit of crunch and acid to cut through the richness of the masala on the duck. 

We ordered a mutton chukka, which was similar to pepper mutton fry. That was delicious.

At this point, the proprietress came out with little glasses of cream topped rose milk. She said it was complementary for the Hari Raya period. Nice.

Some hot noodle-y payasam before we left. These were a lot less creamy than what we've had before but they were no less milky and was served piping hot. Lots of cashews and raisins in it.