$5.50 nasi padang at Oxley Bizhub

While it may not have looked so from the picture, this take out box of nasi padang was loaded. Both with the sayur lodeh and the paru goreng. Very generous portions of paru goreng which were sufficiently tender that one could work them with flimsy plastic utensils but still with enough bite to be satisfying. They topped those with extra of those salty spicy fried coconut bits that I was forced inhale all the rice with the gravy and sambal belachan so as not to waste all those flavours. I'm not sure if this stall was the same as the one the last time I was here though.

Some spring time things at Sushiro

Here's some of the stuff from a recent trip to Sushiro. It's their Spring menu that's on currently.

If anyone was wondering, that's the kani miso gunkan.

Tempura crabsticks. Not bad.

Their steamed jumbo scallops aren't that jumbo. They're bigger than the regular, just not impressively so. 

Something called clam mountain wrap.

These shiodare pork belly nigiri appear to have made it into our regular order items for now.

This round's shirasu noodles wasn't good. For some reasons, these totally paled in comparison with the previous times they did it and where's my negi?!

Never realized that there was miso soup with fish here.

Oooh yes, I like chilled sweet tamagoyaki.

What's the deal with the differing sizes of the engawa? It's greasily delicious but that didn't change that one piece was half of size of the other.

Shoyu glazed aburi jumbo scallops. The jumbo scallops appear to be smaller these days.

Mille crepe with matcha soft serve and red bean. Nice.

And matcha warabi mochi.

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.