Re-revisiting Ramen Hitoyoshi (ラーメン人吉)

Ramen Hitoyoshi's spicy tonkotsu isn't very spicy. It is however savoury in a different way from their regular tonkotsu bowl from the spicy meat paste. Can't put a finger on exactly what brand of umami that added. Haven't quite identified it.

Todays special charshu bowl had smokey melty charshu unlike the bacon they gave us the last time. It was also significantly thicker than the ones we had in the first visit. Now we know this is inconsistent.

More food at The Hainan Story Chapter One

It's been a while since the last time we were at The Hainan Story Chapter One. There're some limited time Milo themed stuff on their menu.

Like their Hainanese Three Treasures drink which is iced yuan yang + Milo. Pretty impressed that this drink succeeded in balancing the coffee, the tea and the Milo flavours.

Hmmm......fried chicken with Milo. A familiar combination. Methinks the Milo chicken cutlet needs more Milo powder for a more robust malty chocolate taste. That tangy/sweet/slightly spicy bbq sauce on the side paired pretty well with Milo chicken cutlet. If I were to venture a guess, I'd think it was spicy ketchup with Worcestershire sauce. Fried chicken was passable but not impressive. Fries were forgettable.

I like the light tomato flavour in the local Hainanese borscht profile of the beefy oxtail stew. Paired nicely with the buttery mash. Pity the dish failed with the tenderness of the oxtail. It's a pain in the ass dealing with meat you can't easily remove on such bony cuts.

Abalone fried rice from Chef Wang

The long queues are no longer around at Chef Wang Fried Rice. This was my first time eating this at the food centre since the previous times were during the COVID 19 restriction period and takeout was the only option. Since I've already tried the one with pork chop and prawn, I thought why not give the pricier abalone one a go.

Verdict? It's nice. I was also hungry. The aroma of the plate wafted in as soon as I received it. At the risk of sounding cliché, I'm mentioning Din Tai Fung again. Felt like that once more like the first time I had it. Abalones were tender and springy. For $10, it's kinda pricey at a hawker centre considering also that the portions aren't huge.

Western Mahua (西部马华), Holland Village

I first noticed Western Mahua some time back. It was their stall at PLQ. I remember not seeing lamb on the menu but I'm also not sure if I remembered that correctly. Anyways, my interest wasn't there because it's Northwestern Chinese food and any respectable eatery doing that kind of food in my opinion needs to have lamb. Noticed that there was lamb on the menu at their branch in Holland Village (245 Holland Avenue).

Dunhuang Li Guang apricot tea. Not bad tasting but I wouldn't be able tell it apart from regular apricot tea.

I think this was called Lanzhou pickled cabbage. Savoury and a little sour with spices and chilli.

We had stir fried cabbage with crispy naan. Those naan are really crispy. They were more like crackers than bread. This plate of vegetable was not bad tasting.

We ordered grilled lamb thinking that we'd be getting sometime similar to the ones from Manchurian Lamb Hot Pot. These weren't bad but were also not as good as we were hoping for. Ribs need more browning and a bit more flavour from the dry rub would be nice. It also did not taste freshly grilled. I am pretty sure these were prepared in advanced and heated up. 

Don't know why they bothered with the pretence of a grill platter which was visually supported by a tealight below. I mean...what was that suppose to achieve?

Arabian fried rice. There's a choice between minced chicken or beef. This one was beef. The spices in the rice tasted Middle Eastern but I haven't actually had rice from Middle Eastern restaurants that tasted like this. Not bad though. Those cubes on top are the same crispy naan thingies which I believe is similar to the 馍 in yang rou pao mo.

Grilled potato slices were delicious. Why haven't I paid attention to these before?

Yang rou chuan (羊肉串) was chunky, moist and nicely spiced. Pretty decent but a little pricey.

We ended it with yoghurt and honey. The yoghurt was already sweetened and did not need the honey. The ones from Happy Lamb Hot Pot (快乐小羊) are nicer. 

Tsukimi Hamburg, CapitaSpring

Tsukimi Hamburg has a new outlet at Raffles Place (#01-05 CapitaSpring, 86 Market Street, tel : +65 6980 8798).

We've been wanting to try their hamburg teishoku for a while but their previous locations have always been somewhat inaccessible. Until now.

Their teishoku comes with a salad, egg drop soup and tsukemono. The nama tamago was an add on.

Tried the beef hamburg with raclette cheese. Apparently it's wagyu. Not beefy but pretty moist. Not particularly flavourful as well. Also not enough raclette cheese for the lack of beefiness.

This one was truffle omu pork hamburg. Nicely done but I didn't like the hint of ginger in the meat.

One could top up the teishoku with sides. Here's a sad looking foie gras.

Sarada is sarada. Ponzu dressing.

If anyone had been wondering where they get the egg whites for their egg drop soup......

......it's saved from their nama tamago. It doesn't come with egg white which is odd.

Because there is no egg white, the yolk doesn't have enough volume to coat the rice. So basically one would be just paying for the yolk. Speaking of the Hitomebori rice from the Miyagi prefecture, it's dry-ish and a little lumpy. Not impressive in the least.

Suju and Keria has more or less set the benchmark so any lower was just disappointment. Think about that for a moment - a tamago kake gohan depended on just the quality of the ingredient, which is egg and rice, and little in the way of skills of preparation other than the cooking of rice. It's not a very high bar to meet.

Swan City Noodle House (天鹅城面家), Amoy Street Food Centre

This stall (#02-105 Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road) is located next door to Ethan My Prawn Noodles. They're Sarawakian with a menu that mainly consists of noodles and dumplings. Here's a plate of their kampua noodles. Appear to be similar to wanton noodles tossed in a light savoury dressing - like maybe lard/light soya sauce/shallot kind. I liked the noodles and those thin skinned crispy deep fried wanton - the latter reminded me of those from Pontian Wanton Noodles. Char siew's pretty much how they looked. The minced meat was a little sweet. I was expecting them to be just savoury but it wasn't and thankfully the sweetness wasn't excessive. Fried egg's an add on.

What I couldn't figure out was the paste on the side. It tasted like chai por (preserved radish) or fermented bean but the texture felt like finely minced pulled pork.