Pontian MeiGui BBQ (笨珍玫瑰烧鱼), Geylang East Central

Pontian MeiGui BBQ (#01-90, 121 Geylang East Central) is from Malaysia. They've set up an outpost here with a smaller seafood focused menu near Aljunied MRT.

What headlines the stall is their shrimp-y tasting sambal. Which was pretty good on their barbequed stingray. Would have been great if those stingrays were thicker though.

Tried a tongue fish for the first time. Fish was layered with the same sambal. The meat's softer - which also reduced its textural quality. So, stingray was nicer for mouthfeel.

Personally thought their sambal sotong petai was delicious, especially with rice. Yes, that would be the same sambal as the prior two dishes. While the name sambal sotong petai implied that there was squid and petai, there's also lady's finger and wing beans in the dish as well. Squids were pretty tender here.

This was recommended as their chinchalok but it's not chinchalok as I, or many people might identify for the lack of fermented shrimp flavour. What the dip packed was a bit of heat, some sweetness and a robust citrus which paired with the seafood or even just white rice. It tasted similar to the chilli at Putien minus the heat.

Ding Ji (鼎记), Ang Mo Kio 631

This was a branch of Ding Ji (#01-906, 631 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4) which featured their fish maw soup. I liked it. Not every branch offers it. Reminded me of the bowl from Seng Kee. While I don't remember how that was like exactly to make an accurate comparison, Seng Kee's might have been more umami. This one has goji berries, no seaweed and also ladened with ingredients in the soup. 

The chilli mix for their noodles was good. While I don't think there should be any difference from the one at Jalan Membina, I also thought this one tasted better.

Prata Alley, Alexandra Central

I remember Prata Alley (#01-07 Alexandra Central, 321 Alexandra Road) from back in the time they were at Clementi. From the tweets of a little bird, they've moved out because of a spike in rental. It seems like they've taken over the spot that used to be Yummy Punjabi and the latter has moved up to the second floor. 

Here's a look at some of the food we've had over a couple of visits.

Fish tikka briyani - that fish tikka was pretty yoghurt-y. Pretty sure it's mackerel here. Dark red gravy on the side/egg was nutty and sweet; tasted like the one for butter chicken. Nice savoury spiced flavour going on in their briyani.

  

Fish curry briyani uses red snapper in the usual tamarind based curry. We got a tail section of the fish. Don't know if that's the norm or luck of the draw. Meat was deliciously moist and tender.

One could choose to top up orders of their murtabak with mozzarella cheese. We had the mutton one with that. These were neither crispy nor fluffy here and that's the way they roll. Pretty good with the cheese though.

Unfortunately masala tea's not great. The masala mix was weak.

Tanamera Coffee, Tanglin Mall

We were drawn to Tanamera Coffee (#02-130 Tanglin Mall, 163 Tanglin Road, tel : +65 8660 3712) because they featured Indonesian food instead of just regular coffee place stuff.

Haven't tried much of their regular coffee but I thought their dirty matcha was pretty good. Pretty good meant that there was enough matcha and coffee in the drink without imbalance. Reminded me of the one at the defunct Forty Hands.

Our first soto betawi - a beef and vegetable broth with coconut milk. And also chunks of potatoes, carrots and tomato. The clean milky broth was not bad tasting. I kept thinking it was soup buntut with coconut milk.

Seafood woku - I'm not familiar with what's a woku but from what I gather, it's a sort of turmeric curry. I like it - it was creamy, coconut-y and savoury. Seafood's just squid and prawns but it was three sizeable and good quality prawns. And then some pumpkin, cauliflower and kailan.

Gotta do rice because sambals and gravies. 

Nasi goreng iga hitam. Squid ink fried rice.

Came with some sweet marinated beef ribs on the side. Those squiggly stuff on the other side were prawn crackers. Not great as a whole.

Tahu tempe goreng had a nice flavoured batter. These fritters included tofu in them as well.

Love their kue tape. It's essentially a butter cake with cassava/tapioca. Much like the kueh bingka at Quentin's. This one was a little denser in texture and also more buttery. Nice. 👍🏼

Enjoyed the matcha caffe latte.

Texas Chicken's charcoal chicken for Halloween

I came with minimal expectations for the gimmicky charcoal chicken Texas has on limited run this October. It turned out to be better than I had imagined - even redeeming the last run we had with them.

Batter was crunchy and nicely spiced with heat while the meat from the bird was moist and tender. They delivered on that front and I couldn't ask for more. What's more though, was the impressive spicy smokey dip on the side which was the proverbial icing on the cake.

Even the Sjora lychee berry drink was sweet and delicious. What surprised me was that it was Nutrigraded B, no worse.

The only gripe I had was how much they were charging. $15.90 for this measly portions and to swap the powdered potato for coleslaw required a top up of $1.50. Each additional piece of charcoal chicken was $6.50. 😲

Foong Kee Traditional Charcoal Roaster (豐記), Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre

Foong Kee closed down a couple of years back when they were operating at Keong Saik Road. They've re-opened again at the food centre at Commonwealth Crescent (#02-90 Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre, 31 Commonwealth Crescent) recently and the queues are already there. Notice that their signboard still says 6 Keong Saik Road in an attempt to call back to that era? Were their roasts the same?

I did not think so. I had the triple roast (三拼). The duck was dry-ish and a little tough. While the char siew was not bad tasting, it also didn't taste like the bu jian tian that they used in the past. Roast pork was mediocre compared to the one with outstanding crackling we had in the past. The standards of their roasted meats have obviously taken a nosedive.