Of blue cheese and strawberries at Phat Burger Bro.

Been a while since we were last at Phat Burger Bro. Ordered some stuff today which we've never tried from the menu before.

Like their chili cheese fries which had pretty dry chilli con carne. Jalapeño's not pickled and cheese was not melted. Did not expect it like this. 

Buttermilk chicken fingers had crunchy batter and were tender on the inside. Blue cheese sauce on the side was a little tangy - tasted like it was made with buttermilk. If I had to make a call, I prefer the buttermilk chicken tenders from Black Tap which I found more satisfying. 

Also found out today that I could swap out the American cheese for blue cheese. I really need to remember to get them to omit the sauce the next time.

Strawberry milkshake - made with strawberry sauce. Perhaps made in house? What's odd was the first half of the shake tasted like it was made with milk/cream that didn't taste like it was strawberry flavoured. The giveaway was that it wasn't uniformly blended. Towards the end, it tasted like it was strawberry ice cream. Not bad though.

123 ZÔ, Icon Village

The last time we were at 123 ZÔ (#01-45, 49-51 Icon Village, 12 Gopeng Street, tel : +65 9669 9655), they were at Geylang. Their current shop at Icon Village appears to have lost some of the rustic charm the Geylang shop had. Menu has also changed.

This was their new jumbo rib pho. Broth had prominent star anise flavour and it's not intense with the beefiness. Fixed that with squeezes of lime and a splash of fish sauce. There was something among the herbs that I didn't like and I suspect it's sawtooth coriander.

Rib was well flavoured from the marinade and the meat easily slid off the bone. Nice.

Their bánh xèo seemed to be a bit more flour-y than I remember of them. Maybe more flour to egg in the batter. But being so also allowed more crunch along the edges to form from all the charring.

They were served with rice paper and we were told that we could have the bánh xèo wrapped in them with along with pickles/vegetables to eat like a roll. This was pretty good.

Love the citrus-y gỏi xoài. Lots of texture from the julienned mangoes, nuts and basil leaves.

We ordered grilled frog legs. Did not expect that the marinate on them were so spicy. These were the spiciest frog legs I've ever had, bar none. So spicy that the chilli dip on the side felt almost like a reprieve from it.

In the end, all that was left were bones and burning lips and tongue. Their peach tea oddly helps relieve the burn.

We built our own bánh mì here. The fillings we picked leaned towards traditional - pork ham, pate and fried egg. They were by default filled with very little vegetables and pickles for some reasons. Baguette was light and crisp. I think we could come back for this.

Nice ca phe trung (egg coffee). Rich creamy sweetened egg foam on top of the bitter brew.

Marmalade Pantry, Anchorpoint

Dropped by at the relatively new Marmalade Pantry (#01-23/24/25/35/36 Anchorpoint Shopping Centre, 370 Alexandra Road) for cakes.

This Pistachio Raspberry Rose cupcake was nice.

I attribute it mostly to the raspberry rose cream cheese frosting because, let's get real - how much can one actually taste the pistachio in cake. Especially one that's under the weight of rose flavoured tangy raspberried cream cheese.

Old fashioned chocolate fudge cake was okay. Okay meaning decent but not outstanding. You get chocolate but it's not great chocolate. The sweetness from the fudge became too much halfway through.

Darkness Dessert (甜品屋), Tanjong Pagar Road

Have been curious about Darkness Dessert (100 Tanjong Pagar Road, tel : +65 8842 1263) since I heard about them while back. These guys do traditional Chinese desserts - most of which are pastes. While the menu looked interesting, I didn't like them much. The pastes were starchy. I like them thick but not starchy/gloopy. 

The flavours from the red bean, black sesame and yam weren't as fragrant as we were hoping for. Am also not understanding where they were going with the yam paste with durian. It's not mao shan wang so these were already one down against competition like Ah Chew. Yat Ka Yan's D24 also tasted better. But I'm not faulting that they didn't use mao shan wang. Durian's frozen. Which did nothing but cool and harden the yam paste which hadn't been hot enough to thaw the frozen durian puree.

2ThumbsUp Hainanese Curry Rice, Anchorpoint

Was recommended this (B1‬-47 Anchorpoint, 70 Alexandra Road, ‎tel  : +65 8852 2898) Hainanese curry rice stall. Apparently the brand also includes a cai png stall a Clementi too. Might pay that a visit some day.

I liked it. The braising sauce for the pork belly was intensely flavoured. No gloopy shit. Belly was tender. Fried meatballs were delicious and surprisingly moist under the surface. 

Luncheon meat tasted freshly fried. Chap chye was stewed to tenderness. Each portion had enough curry/lor chup to drench all the rice in warm gravy. Will come back again

Revisiting The Gogijip (고깃집)

Lunch at The Gogijip. Have been wanting to come back to try a couple of stuff on their menu that I don't think is available at the other Korean restaurant here.

Like their minari jeon. Water dropwort pancake. Picture above's from the menu. Looked like it was packed with the minari.

This was what we got. Looked like it had about a third of the minari that the menu conveyed. There's chilli and strips of carrot fillers. The plant tasted similar to green capsicum. Hmm.....for $28? Never again.

The Gogijip might possibly be the only restaurant that has a yukhoe bibimpbap. I think. Are they? The raw beef was marinated with something that was sweet and maybe sesame oil. Not flavourless and it tasted not bad actually on its own.

I topped it up with kimchi and pickled seaweed from the banchan because this bibimbap included vegetables that didn't have much flavour. Which might not have been the best of ideas because I was adding even more texture into an already textured rice salad.

Took a bit of effort to mix. Yukhoe mostly got lost in all those vegetables. Other than the sour from the kimchi and pickled seaweed I added, the only flavour was gochujang. Don't think there was even sesame oil so it's not that great tasting.