Long Ji Zi Char (龍記), Outram Road

We've eaten at Long Ji Zi Char (253 Outram Road, tel : +65 9790 5682) once previously and tried the crab bee hoon. It was superb. Did not order that this time round but what we had today were definitely mention worthy.

They have buah long long juice with preserved plum (酸梅) which was astringently refreshing for both before and after the meal. The before whetted appetite while the after allowed you to make believe that you've succeeded in cleansing some of that grease from the food off your system. 😂

This was a dish called golden corn. Appetizer of sorts. They're fried sweet corn battered in flour with salted egg yolk. So they're both sweet and salty. Initially I thought it was a little greasy but I couldn't stop after that. It's still greasy but it was also addictive.

Stir fried romaine lettuce with fermented bean curd sauce. The sauce was awesome because of both the fermented bean curd flavour and that they've also spruced that up with some fragrant sesame oil. Will have to remember to ask them to omit the ginger the next time.

We had the deep fried tofu with pumpkin sauce and cereal previously and liked it enough to get them again. Nicely fried tofu there. The star was the sweet creamy pumpkin sauce.

Very competent dish of braised fish head with black bean sauce and bitter gourd. I don't know if it's because the kitchen is skilled at chopping up the fish head but we didn't get small bone fragments which meant it was relatively easy to eat. I had expected the black bean sauce to taste like....well, black bean sauce. It didn't. There were dried black beans in it though and if you're looking for that flavour, you gotta get some of the beans in the bite. Otherwise this was delicious and a potential repeat order.

Love their kong bao chicken (宫保鸡丁). The flavour reminded me of those from the distant past. For now, I'm ranking this no. 2 just behind Claypot & Cooked Food Kitchen until I've discovered enough good ones to be confused by my own rankings. 😂

Dessert was orh nee. Not bad tasting. Their rendition is...unusual. Lots of thinner coconut milk which made me think of bubur cha cha.

60 days dry aged USDA prime ribeye from Wolfgang's Steakhouse

We're back at Wolfgang's Steakhouse to try the what we didn't get to the last time round - 60 days dry aged USDA prime ribeye.

Bread's refillable but that made me miss the large onion loaves we used to get at Morton's. There's no need to ask for refills at Morton's because we would never have been able to finish that onion loaf and we'd happily doggy bag the remainder back.

But oh well. This is what we have here.

We were looking forward to this - the intensity or funk coalesced by 60 days worth of dry aging. I don't remember being arrested by the aroma when they plated this.

Gonna make comparisons with their porterhouse. Meat's dryer with more obvious grains but I'm not sure if it's because of the additional dry aging or it's just because this didn't arrive in a butter bath. Crust appeared to be less developed. The intensity for this 60 days dry aged ribeye wasn't much more than the 28 days dry aged porterhouse - which was disappointing. We expected significantly more.

That being said, it was still delicious. The underwhelming part was when it didn't turn out to be as intense as we had expected. We will stick to their porterhouses in the future.

I've heard poor remarks about their lobster mac & cheese and didn't think they were warranted based on what we had. It's not super but it's creamy and deliciously cheesy with bits of lobster meat.

What I also didn't expect was how much I enjoyed the onion rings in spite of the grease. Light crunch on the better with sweet rings of onion inside. These were unexpectedly delicious with the sweet Wolfgang's steak sauce.

Of the three desserts we have had here so far (this being the 3rd), I rank this chocolate mousse cake at the bottom. It's not a bad per se. The chocolate mousse just became two dimensional after a while. A lot of what determines how good a chocolate mousse to one would also the sweet spot ratio of ingredients or sweet/bitter and this one was just not the optimal for me.

A hot bitter black is a great way to end.

Curry chicken cutlet rice from Sergeant Hainanese Chicken Rice

I was wondering what was this one about from Sergeant Hainanese Chicken Rice. It's a thin but flavourful curry with cold chicken cutlet and chicken rice. Would have been game changing if that chicken cutlet were freshly fried/properly refried rather than cold but.....🙄.

Curry's not bad tasting but they're never great pairing with chicken rice because it's ultimately too greasy and you'll taste only curry. Won't be getting this again

My egg had a double yolk though. I wonder if that's portentous.

Uohama, Clarke Quay Central

New grilled fish stall which I've previously never noticed before at the Don Don Donki food court at Clark Quay Central (#B1 Clark Quay Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street). Yes, that's the one with Kanda Soba which doesn't seem to be in business anymore.

Got myself the "red fish" teishoku. Akauo if anyone was confused. Loved it. This was proper grilling done there with a good amount of salt to make it savoury, light smokiness from the browned surface and moist meat beneath.

The size was kinda puny compared to the one at Nakajima Suisan though. Noticed that they have tachiuo (beltfish) on the menu but the proprietor said it wasn't available yet. Will come back another time.

Re-revisiting Lao You Ji (老友記)

Dinner at Lao You Ji. The English name always reminds me of 老油鸡 😂. I'm getting mixed feelings about the food here. It used to be positive but some of the choices we've made have shifted that down the spectrum. Including the ones here today. Maybe we'll come back someday to try their beef fried rice juice. 😂

Cai por omelette was a little greasy and not in a good way. We couldn't taste any cai por in it. Mediocre would be an apt description.

Claypot lamb was disappointing. I don't know if they cooked the lamb in the claypot but that sauce doesn't seem to have any lamb flavour. I couldn't even tell that some of the pieces were lamb. Could have been pork, especially for those pieces that have skin. That's pretty bad. Will not waste money on this again.

We had 铁板豆腐. Decent tasting but not impressive. Pedestrian as it was, it made one of the two better tasting dishes tonight. What's happening here?

Their sambal petai was a tad too sweet. The next door has a better rendition.

The second decent dish was stir fried nai bai. Nice crunch from the vegetable, well salted and garlic. Would have been sad if they messed this one up.

I'm gonna stay off this place for a bit and maybe check out their neighbours the next time we eat in the vicinity.

$1 fried lard at Li Xin Teochew Fishball Noodles

I don't know when it's started but Li Xin is charging another dollar if you asked for extra fried lard (猪油渣). That's $6.50 for a basic bowl of fishball noodles these days plus one dollar for the top up. Pretty expensive for food court fish ball noodles but their fishball noodles are delicious and the lard was amazing quality. Their 白 bowl with the cut chilli and light soya sauce is the best configuration with those.