Original Botak Jones, Depot Road

Came by the Depot Road branch of Botak Jones (Yue Hua Coffee Shop, 118 Depot Lane) for some grilled chicken. It's that same place where Wong Kee Noodle is. I remember the days when they would breathe bustling life into the location they set up stall. Things are very different today.

Anyways that's their Lots of Chicken Platter - I got it because all the three grilled chickens they have on menu are on it. I was also hoping to relive some of their Cajun Chicken nostalgia. There's the option for chicken thigh instead of breast meat these days.

Today I learnt that I don't understand what made me like their Cajun Chicken in the past. It's not a bad tasting chicken but it's not great either. Something to do with the sauce just like the BBQ piece which wasn't the BBQ flavour I had in mind. That made the black pepper piece the better tasting of the lot as simple as it looked/sounded.

Lao Wu Ji Mutton Soup (老吴記羊肉湯), 532 Ang Mo Kio Ave. 10

I've been hearing good things about Lao Wu Ji Mutton Soup at Sunday F&B (532 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10, tel  : +65 9085 3832). While I'm normally not big on Chinese mutton soup because of the herbal nature of the broth, there have been a couple of exceptions - like Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup at Pasir Panjang Food Centre and Ming Shan at Chinatown Food Centre.

Am pretty glad to discover that Lao Wu Ji Mutton Soup shares a similar quality where the herbal taste wasn't overly strong. This was a bowl of mixed mutton - decent tripe, nice tender meat from the rib but the mutton balls were kinda flat tasting. Still an enjoyable local Chinese styled mutton soup for me nonetheless.

This place is the same coffeeshop as Hong Feng HK Roasted Delights.

Lava egg toast from Star Coffee

I remembered wanting to get the garlic toast set after the last time but I ended up today with the lava egg toast instead from Star Coffee. Essentially just butter/kaya toast with soft/half boiled eggs on top. If anyone was wondering, I ate it with some drizzles of dark soya sauce and pepper.

More dim sum from Ah Yat Kitchen (阿一厨坊)

Trying more dim sum from Ah Yat Kitchen.

Competent char siew sou. Light crumbly pastry encasing char siew and sauce fillings. Pretty much the baked pastry version of char siew bao.

Unfortunately, their ee fu noodles aren't great. Noodles were softer than I like and the sauce was weak. I wouldn't call it a bad rendition but I'll never get it again.

Tried their mini abalone siew mai back in the day when Ah Yat Kitchen was located in the Food Republic at what is formerly known as Capitol Piazza. Maybe I didn't think much of it then. Noticed that the mini abalones today were tender and pretty tasty from both the abalone's natural flavour and the braising sauce. Not bad.

Pan fried yam with pumpkin in between. I like this. What's appealing were the fragrance on the crispy exterior and the moist pumpkin in the middle. No sweeteners were added and there's some toasted sesame seeds on top as well. These were also much larger than the ones from Chao Yue Xuan.

Nice astringent iced milk tea for the hot weather. Would have been great if it came in an ice bath rather than having ice dilute the tea but we take what we can get.

Hong Feng HK Roasted Delights (宏峰港式烧腊), 532 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10

We thought the roasts looked good from Hong Feng HK Roasted Delights (Sunday F&B, 532 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10) so here's an order of an upper quarter of their dang gui roasted duck. It was pretty decent. Breast meat was more tender than I had imagined. Noticed a thin layer of fat beneath the skin. All good drenched in the light dang gui sauce and check out the goji berries.

In case anyone was wondering, Sunday F&B is the name of the coffee shop.

Tracy's Sarawak Kitchen (品記小厨), Geylang Lorong 25A

Tracy's Sarawak Kitchen (8890 Eating House, 90 Geylang Lor 25A, tel : +65 8863 5836) is literally just beside Aljunied MRT. The proprietress is Sarawakian from Kuching and what the stall offers is presumably a showcase of food from that part of Malaysia.

The menu states this as Kuching QQ noodles and it's what most of us here would identify as just kolo mee. Love the texture from those thin curly noodles. Savoury and oiled, textured with salty minced pork. It's probably just me but I would have preferred this without the char siew. One can help themselves with the fried lard from the stall.

One of the dishes they're known for is their money cai longevity noodle. The Chinese name is 马尼菜 which sounds like mani cai. I Googled and they're also referred to as sweet leaf or star gooseberry. I'm not sure what I tasted because I don't think it had much flavour. But the eggy noodles with the fried lard were so delicious.

Tried their Hakka braised pork. They're relatively tender but not so tender that one didn't need teeth. Here's me wishing it was the latter. Meat's braised with a sweet nutty sauce that's a little reminiscent to me of babi pongteh or rendang. It was good for a few pieces before surfeit crept in.