Alphonso mango tart from Tarte by Cheryl Koh

From Tarte. In season. Nice. Bottom of the tart was filled with coconut-y pulut hitam cream.

Picolino, Shaw Centre

Picolino is formerly Lino Pizza and Pasta Bar which was in its previous incarnation Lino Pasta Bar. Casual-er counterpart to Lino of Binjai Park and Forum The Shopping Mall.

These are fried sprats - they look like sardines but they're smaller and taste similar. The dip on the side tasted of tomatoes and smoke and some other things I couldn't identify. Menu mentioned capers. I couldn't tell but it was good.

This was their longanisa Hawaiian. The meat component is longanisa instead of ham and there's suppose to be pineapple and apple chutney according to the menu which was kinda what interested me. Couldn't taste much of the apple. There's a little bit of sweetness but there's not enough characteristics to tell where or what. Also not enough of the sausages to make a difference for the meat so this was just a poorly designed pizza which might have sounded good on paper.

Which was probably what the Tabasco on the table was for. Food that was boring that you didn't need to worry about upsetting the guy who cooked it by hot saucing it. Shame on Les Amis for such standards.

If anyone's wondering, that's a red wine risoni with a leg of duck. There's Pecorino cheese, drizzle marks of sweet balsamic vinegar and some hazelnuts. Not bad this one.

Milo dinosaur panna cotta - sounded nice on the menu. Tasted cheap. Chocolate sauce was thin and sweet just like those from Hershey's squeeze bottles. I saw them can spray the cream. Coco Crunch was Coco Crunch. Milo powder was Milo powder. Ingredients were pretty much bought off the shelf for assembly. Except the Milo panna cotta. The flavour was so weak, I wouldn't have guessed that it was Milo if I hadn't ordered it.

Sundae guk and al tang from Ko Ryo Jeong (고려정)

Another revisit to Ko Ryo Jeong. They're not crowded on a Friday night. For some reasons, we managed to order a sundae guk today when they had previously told us it was illegal. What gives? Anywaaayys...

Not bad tasting sundae guk. The casing of the sausage was snappy and made from intestines. Soup had a pretty robust porcine quality to its flavour.

What we didn't expect and also couldn't be seen from the picture was the extra pig parts that was in the stew. Like pig's ears, thin pork belly slices, some meat parts that looked like brisket and some things that looked like tongue. Pretty generous portions of them hidden in the broth along with 4 chunky pieces of cut up sundae.

Al tang was also delicious - spicy with the flavour of fish in the broth. Loads of those squiggly pieces of milt and chunks of boiled pollack roe were it it; along with a couple of prawns (forgettable powdery ones) and by my count, 7 plump mussels. I will come back for this.

$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.