Faith Nasi Lemak, Fried Bee Hoon/Mee, Redhill Food Centre

I was thinking of getting nasi lemak from Faith Nasi Lemak (#01-30, Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane). That's after enduring a little less than five minutes of queue at 焱 which was moving at a slug's pace. Let's correct that - it's a rock's pace with 7-8 people ahead of me.

We've peeked at the food from the stall from time to time and never tried them. The fried rice arrested me before my turn to order so no nasi lemak for today. I liked it. Dry, grainy and lightly flavoured. The other stuff were added on. Pretty decent pork chop, molten yolk-ed fried egg and tender chap chye. I believe that chilli sauce is the same one that they use for the nasi lemak. Slightly shrimpy, slightly sweet and just a mild heat.

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