Revisiting Niu Dian (牛店)

More food from Niu Dian at Holland Village.

Those golden coin cuts of beef from the a la carte menu are different from the ones that come with the noodles. These were dry and sliced thin. Kinda like salami minus the chewiness with a nice beefy flavour. I liked it on its own without the accompanying sauce on the side which was pretty strong tasting that it muted whatever natural flavour was present.

Tendon from the a la carte order is also a little harder. They appear to be stir fried. Reminded me of braised pig's skin. Not bad tasting. So the lesson for me here would be to get these beef parts with soup as a side order if I wanted to get those tender and thicker golden coin and softer tendons.

We tried a bowl with their traditional clear soup. Pretty mild tasting. Would work with the preserved vegetables and those beef tallow chilli paste.

Black sesame noodles were awesome. The paste/sauce tasted like the black sesame paste from Cantonese desserts with a lot less sweetness. It was still a little sweet though but it wasn't one that bothered me and I liked it. They asked us for the doneness of the noodles today which didn't seem to be an option the last time we were here. 

The lime and sour plum green tea with aiyu jelly is kinda nice. 25% sweetness, lime-y and refreshing with the flavour of the green tea.

Turmeric rice from Hock Shun Homemade Claypot Curry

Did Hock Shun change their name? Seems different from what I remembered from the previous time. Anyways, I have also never noticed that they have turmeric rice from before. I got it today to see how it tasted like. I'm not sure if I taste turmeric but it definitely tasted like chicken rice. Nice. Curry's still delicious.

$5 bak chor mee from Ru Ji Kitchen (如記小厨)

I've previously tried the "all in combo" at Ru Ji Kitchen which has both fishballs and meatballs in the soup. Yes, those delicious lightweight hand made meatballs. Today's wasn't the same. It's the $5 bak chor mee. No fishballs in that one. Just meatballs and there's one more scoop of minced pork though. Also noticed that their fish cakes had a nice flavour. Did not taste like the generic mass produced variety. Gotta say that this was pretty good value.

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.