Of burrata, ankimo and katsuo at Healthy Soba IKI

It's been a while since we were here at Healthy Soba IKI (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八). The kitchen crew seems to have gotten bigger. We were drawn in this time by their seasonal showcase which includes anikmo and katsuo that were prepared in house.

But first, the milky burrata with salt, black pepper, toasted buckwheat and their fruity olive oil. This has been consistently enjoyable.

Love the nuanced flavour from the ankimo - something that we've noticed is not apparent often possibly because of the temperature they are usually served. The taste of that was exceptional today. Love those cubes of ponzu jelly.

I didn't even mind the mild hint of ginger in their slices of katsuo. 

Look what shook out of the shack this November

Shake Shack's flavour of the current season is the bourbon bacon cheddar. There's bourbon bacon cheese fries that comes with that if it sizzles your bacon. Doesn't that sound like it makes you want to get off your gluteus maximus and run to the nearest Shack already? But hear me out before that. 

This was underwhelming and the worst tasting of both their limited time and regular burgers. I'm getting sweetness, some heat and oregano (wtf is this!) from that bourbon bacon. It's a flavour I did not and could not associate with "bourbon bacon". Couldn't even tell that there was bacon in it. For the first time oddly, the taste of the fried onions registered for me.

The quality of their service crew has obviously dropped with their expansion and all that. That one zombie today looked like she was dying to leave the place and couldn't care less.

A recent Sushiro-ism

Back at Sushiro. A realization just dawned upon me on how much I've been eating there when I've had to put up these 👉🏼 (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九,十, 十一, 十二). Here's some of the stuff we had this time.

Ankimo gunkan. I wonder if these are truly seasonal. I seem to recall seeing them around quite a number of times. Today's was decent.

I'm surprised that they do sujiko here. It's okay. Definitely have had better before. On nigiri as well.

Aburi-ed hon maguro toro was nice. I could wish that the tuna was a larger piece but I'm happy with this.

Today's uni was extra bad tasting. I did not like it at all. Tasted worse than the bad looking uni we've had here before.

Crab leg tempura. Kind of guilty pleasure.

I have a soft spot for their chilled chawanmushi.

Pumpkin tempura was unexpectedly good. Even though it was much more greasy than I normally like tempura.

This was called yamaya mentai cream tsukemen. It's tastier than it looked and that cream had a bit of smokey flavour.

What I didn't get was how were they expecting to tsukemen this. We sure didn't and poured the cream sauce into the noodle which was the sensible way to eat it.

Discount mont blanc. Don't think of it as one.

Some orange yoghurt ice cake which was okay-ish. Not one of their more memorable desserts.

Breakfast Club, Tiong Bahru Plaza

I remember Breakfast Club when they used to be at Holland Village. That folded before we could visit and they've recently emerged at Tiong Bahru Plaza taking over the unit that used to be Yaowarat Thai Kway Chap. Both are under the same owner who also runs Joji's Diner.

We were here a couple of minutes before the opening hour (9am) and sat in the dark while we waited. It was 20 minutes later before they were ready to take orders followed by another 25 before we got our food. And we were second in line.

These guys were obviously not ready for that 9am and they should just rebrand as Late Breakfast Club because I'm pretty sure half the country eating breakfast that morning have already had theirs while we were wai.......

Nevermind.

They're cheaper than most breakfast plates out there. Then being said, this has to be viewed from a lens where many people here are suckers for expensive breakfast plates and many restaurants know it. Totally overpriced but it makes some of us feel good to geotag a photo while at it. This one was...edible. Just. Hash brown was totally grease logged, mushrooms were from a can and that egg just looked unnatural. Bacon portion was...conclusions can be drawn from the picture. 

I know what I paid for when I paid more.

Another spicy dry megamen and a braised pork belly update at Brothers Ramen

I wanted to get the bellymen from Brothers Ramen (一, 二 , 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八) today but found out from them that it's no longer on the menu because they didn't have the capacity to braise pork bellies anymore. 😢 So I ended up with the usual go to - the spicy dry megamen with extra garlic. 

Today was also my first time noticing the queue outside the shop on a Friday evening.

Bee hoon at Faith Nasi Lemak

Again, I was unsuccessful at getting nasi lemak from Faith Nasi Lemak just like the last time. I was mulling over the duration of the queue between that and the bee hoon and the bee hoon won. It's ok, not great but I noticed another stall which looked like it might be a better bet. Chicken wings were pretty good though. I'll definitely try that nasi lemak the next time.