Re-revisiting Good Pig Trotters Fried Bee Hoon (好猪脚米粉)

Breakfast again at Good Pig Trotters Fried Bee Hoon (好猪脚米粉). Note to self : Forget the luncheon meat next time, they're not good.

Chao Yue Xuan (潮粤轩), Capitol Singapore

This relatively new dim sum specialty restaurant (#B2-51/52 Capitol Singapore, 13 Stamford Road, tel : +65 8921 1929) has gotten a bit of attention lately because the two chefs running are brothers, both formerly executive chefs. One's from Crystal Jade and the other, dim sum chef from St. Regis Hotel. I'm not big on Crystal Jade and I know next to nothing about dim sum at St Regis. But those are still accolades under the belt worth taking a peek.

This was charcoal pastry with salted egg yolk custard & rambutan. Hmmm.....charcoal pastry. Sure didn't look it.

Salted egg and rambutan does pair. Maybe lychee would have gotten more citrus through. But also maybe, lychee could be a bit too mainstream for them. 😅

Pan fried yam cake with pumpkin in between. Tasted like how it looked.  I kinda liked the texture from the yam strips which reminded me of crispy noodles.

Pretty regular tasting deep fried bean curd skin roll minced pork shrimp.

This was goose liver dumplings with black garlic but I couldn't taste any goose liver. Otherwise, it wasn't bad and it's kinda like siew mai.

To get it out of the way, I like the steamed carrot cake at Victor's Kitchen better. This was okay tasting but not memorable. That also implies that they were obviously also not in the same leagues as those from Imperial Treasure.

Mushroom dumplings with truffle were not bad tasting on the account that the pairing of mushrooms and truffle paste was pretty reliable. Their chewy crystal skin was kinda fascinating.

Tried this out of curiosity. The dumplings were filled with mung bean paste...kinda like ang ku kueh. Minus the red skin and tortoise design. The "sauce" was gula melaka. Did not taste bad for sure but I'm definitely not getting the "I gotta come back for these again" kind of feels.

Another "mushroom" bun. What sets this apart from the others was that there were no mushrooms in it. These were stuffed with minced pork, chestnuts and salted fish.

Great texture and good flavour from the scallion oil noodles. We got the plate with sliced fei ngau. Fatty sliced beef that is. This I could definitely come back for again.

Curry chee cheong fun with pork skin and cuttlefish.

I'm undecided about how I felt about the curry but it didn't taste bad. It just wasn't outstanding. 

Decent tasting har gow......I can't think of anything to say about it. Hahahahahaaa....

Smoky chipotle prawns, pizza quattro formaggi and seppia nero tagliolini con frutti di mare at Zazz Pizza

This visit was proof for us that Zazz Pizza (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九) is optimal at their restaurant instead of delivery. Sadly, the quality of the food suffers noticeably in transit as we found out from the last time.

We've never had these prawns in spicy Italian sauce before and hence never realized that we've been missing out. Until now. What were we missing out on? The umami smoky rich sauce with chipotle which I was later dipping the cornicione in.

Prawns were firm, fresh and deveined with their texture and taste as proof of quality. Also easily removed from the shells using utensils without much finesse. They're sizeable as well.

Today's pizza was quattro formaggi. Possibly the cheesiest one I've ever had with the crust folding from the weight of the cheeses. My only gripe was that it didn't have as much Gorgonzola as I was hoping for. Otherwise, this reinforced our assessment of their pizza being so much better fresh from the oven.  

We also haven't had their squid ink tagliolini in squid ink sauce and frutti di mare. Seafood was of good quality. Prawns, clams, mussels, scallop and squid if anyone was wondering, blanketed over the velvety obsidian noodles with an outstanding squid ink flavour. 👍🏼

Deer briyani and fried chicken livers from Zam Zam

I saw that Zam Zam has deer briyani or briyani rusa on their menu the last time we were in the area so I wanted to try it just to see if there was any difference with the deer meat from their murtabak. Yes it's that small piece at the top left corner with the achar.

Couldn't tell it was deer. Might have been a piece of beef but it lacked the beefiness. It was relatively tender and delicious though with the nutty masala but there wasn't anything definitively venison I could discern. A good tasting briyani no doubt but considering that it was $20 and the mutton or beef renditions are about $8, this was underwhelming. First and last then.

Got a serving of stir fried chicken livers to go with the briyani. They usually come with some attached hearts and gizzards. Enjoyed the dry spicy seasoning with the slightly chewy edges on those livers. Yeah, one does not go for tender and creamy in these renditions. 

Legend Wanton Mee (传奇雲吞麵), Bukit Merah Central

Legend tells a tale of the owner of Legend Wanton Mee (Maddox Canteen Bar, 3752 Bukit Merah Central) being an ex MasterChef finalist.

I like it. The noodles were firm with a nice bite and a discernible lard-y flavour. Good quality sprig of kailan, a solid dried fish flavour in the wanton stuffings and their well marinated fatty char siew was pretty yummy. I'd say Wen Keng Ji's char siew could be a bit more impressive sometimes but Legend Wanton Mee beats them in pretty much everything else.

Gripe? Portions were kinda small. This plate with extra char siew was $7.50.

Soup's got flavour - savoury with a background sweetness and peppery. I can't tell what was in it specifically but I think I detected dried scallop flavour. Definitely much more drinkable than the run of the mill stuff.

Wonderful Bapsang, Thomson Plaza

훌륭한! This (#01-112/113/114 Thomson Plaza, 301 Upper Thomson Road, tel : +65 6908 1345) was a more wonderful bapsang than the previous Wonderful Bapsang.

Of their banchan, the seaweed with gochujang and the kimchi were outstanding. The latter was nicely aged with a pronounced tanginess.

I like their kimchi jjigae donkkaseu. The broth was robust with flavour from the kimchi. We found a few pieces of pork belly fat in it so that might have contributed to the flavour.

Donkkasu was relative thin unlike Japanese tonkatsu. Meat texture was still discernable and the breading helped soak up the kimchi-ness from the broth. Nice.

I remember the last time I had jjajangmyeon. That's all the way back in Hyang To Gol. It's been that long. That one didn't leave us wanting to have more. This bowl was a much nicer eat. There appeared to be much more complexity in the bean sauce that had a flavour which reminded me a lot of lor bak. I'm gonna pay a bit more attention to jjajangmyeon after this.

Check out the picture of the shaven truffles for their truffles yukhoe salad. It looked too good to be true considering how much they were charging.

The actual truffles were finely shaven bits rather than slices. This actually made more sense if you needed to spread the flavour across. Underneath the marinated beef were diced avocado and some fruit. May be pear, I couldn't tell with the sauce and condiments but this was pretty nice tasting. Refreshing even.

Yeap, there's an egg inside.