Sunday brunch at MTR 1924

Was looking forward to this after our last round here (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七).

This button idly sambar was pretty good. Those are little idlys in sambar if anyone was wondering.

MTR's special pongal was a much better experience than the one from M.M.H Tiffin Centre. I had been expecting them to be dryer. Kinda like those we've previously had at Murugan Idli Shop, A2B Veg Restaurant or Ananda Bhavan. Maybe that's why this one was special.

Anyways, I did enjoy this rendition too. Rice-y tasting wet gruel with lentils flavoured with pepper, cumin and a bit of ginger. Pretty sure there's a bunch of other spices in there that have eluded me.

Vada from them has always been good and today wasn't any different. Crisp skin, spiced filled and tender yet dense savoury donuts.

That's the sagu masala dosa. Curried vegetables instead of potatoes in the dosa. Great stuff with lovely flavour from the crisp pancake. 

Pretty decent lemon rice. Tangy and savoury with nuts and a hint of ginger.

Trying uppit for the first time. They're also known as upma - kinda like pongal but are made with rice flour and semolina. The texture was pudding/dry porridge-like with a coconut-y flavour infused with ghee and black pepper. Amidst other stuff. 👍🏼

Badam kesari bhath - a rendition of their kesari bhath with slivers of almond. Nice.

I've been wanting to try their chandrahara for a while. It's a dense sweet pastry. Not sure if what we tasted came from just the creamy saffron sauce or did the pastry also include spices. Lots of cardamom and pretty milky.

For the first time ever in all our visits, a masala chai. This one had a balanced masala mix and was milky.

Atout by Patrick Heuberger

First time back in Atout (un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six) after their renovation.

The space has gotten some layout re-design and feels a little more bistro-y/brasserie-y compared to how it was previously. But that's just what I thought.

Snagged a plate of their seasonal heirloom beetroot with burrata.

Sweet and delicious as always with a bit of zing from the pickled onions and for today also, a nice creaminess from the cheese.

Charcuterie is always a good bet here. They're made in house and that means you wouldn't get exactly the same anywhere else. 

The pig head terrine was texturally engaging, paired well with the olive oil and mustard plus the crunch of those sliced cornichons. French pork aspic.

First time with their chickpea and artichoke pate. Can't say I can taste artichoke but this was not bad. Kinda like hummus with a cumin-y flavour.

Their brioche was delicious. Light yet buttery and peppered with bits of aromatic orange rind. We had seconds.

Oven baked 40 garlic French chicken.

Did not expect it but was pleasantly surprised that it was served with a cup of their celeriac and chestnut soup.

Couldn't get much taste from the garlic for some reason. The one we previously had at Les Bouchons was nicer because the garlic had noticeably more flavour.

Not a bad creamy linguine with wild mushrooms and shaven black truffle.

Was looking forward to their veal sweetbread. I seemed to have heard them mention that the risotto was cooked with duck jus but I'm not sure if I had heard correctly. This one was tangy - it's nice, just nothing like what I had imagined of duck jus. Today's sweetbread tasted like......chicken. The mushrooms on the rice also had more flavour than the ones from the mushroom linguine.

We found out what were their Agria potato puffs. They're balls of fried mashed potatoes. Enjoyed it.

No room for dessert today and a bitter black was actually what we needed.

Song Heng Fishball Noodles (松興鱼丸粿條麵), Telok Blangah Crescent Food Centre

Song Heng Fishball Noodles (#01-124 Telok Blangah Crescent Market & Food Centre, 11 Telok Blangah Crescent) from what I've read has been around for more than half a century. That's credibility right there I presume. The queue was admittedly a little daunting but since I was already here with my mind made up for breakfast...

The saucing for the noodles was vinegar-y and had a bit of heat from the chilli they used. Slightly lardy too. Portions were pretty generous. It's not a bad bowl of mee pok but it's not so great that I'd look forward to waiting in a long line for it.

Fishballs were pretty decent. They're made in house so you know you aren't paying for just the assembly of factory mass produced ones. Not as outright impressive as those from Li Xin but I shouldn't compare. 

Da Xi (大喜), Guoco Tower

Couldn't find any info on Da Xi's (B2-33 Guoco Tower, 7 Wallich Street, tel : +65 6231 1590) origins so I'm going to assume that these guys aren't from Taiwan, just Taiwanese themed. Food appeared to be a little sweet as a whole.

These are prawn cakes with mango puree. Competently fried with a crunch on the surface and innards of minced prawn and prawn paste. Not bad tasting if I might say so. Reminded me of Thai prawn cakes. Mango puree tasted fresh and not artificially sweetened.

Got ourselves an egg roll with pork floss and cheese (肉松起司蛋饼!). Not bad tasting as well.

Was for some reason intrigued by the Da Xi stir fried noodle. Noodles were chewier than it looked and that's a good thing if you're wondering because I was half worried that they'd be soggy like they looked. Flavour's savoury sweet with bits of saltiness from the fried anchovies. Also not bad tasting.

Smoked duck dumplings (锅贴) -  I know right? Since when have smoked duck been used for these things around here. It's definitely smokey and the texture was very similar to minced pork in pork dumplings. It was also oddly a little sweet. I wouldn't say that I disliked it but I would have much preferred if it was just salty/savoury. Look at that smudge of chilli they gave...what were they even thinking?

That's taro milk with grass jelly. Also sweet. Not unpleasant though. It didn't remind me of taro. Tasted like sweet potato latte.

Waterfall Ristorante Italiano, Shangri-La Singapore

Nice setup. I never knew that this waterfall place (Shangri-La Singapore, 22 Orange Grove Road, Level One, Garden Wing) was a ristorante Italiano.

So breadsticks and focaccia. Liked the chilled tomato dip.

Had some fried seafood. Cuttlefish, prawns and octopus. Not bad. Octopus was tender and prawns were good quality.

White truffle is in season so we ended up with the butter sauce tagliolini. Nice.

This was braised pork cheeks on polenta. Pork cheeks were dense, tender but and not as much as I imagined. What was I imagining? Something similar to those braised beef cheeks at Suju. The flavour was reminiscent of tau you bak. Polenta was delicious.

The sous vide grilled lamb rack in "natural jus" and blueberries sounded good.

 

Texture's kinda...oddly tender most likely because of the sous vide. Grill didn't leave as much of the char aroma as I had hoped. Sauce didn't taste specifically like blueberry. Actually, I probably would have identified it as a prune sauce in a blind tasting.

Didn't realised that the mashed potato has saffron until I looked it up in the menu again.

Did not think much of the cannoli at all. The ricotta tasted odd. Not like ricotta. Surprisingly not getting any pistachio flavour in spite of appearances. Other than the odd tasting ricotta, a bit of citrus and the chocolate balls, this didn't amount to much. The shell was pretty hard too.

Coffee's okay.

Christmas salmon and coleslaw at Han's

Saw this on their menu and thought they had gotten their act together by actually coming up with something that looked like it was worth a try. They did put on an act instead of getting it together. Getting professional product shots of products that actually don't look like the pictures. I should have known, right?

Didn't taste anything remotely honey garlic in it. I don't think it was a sour cream sauce either. A sour cream smudge on the salmon sounded more accurate. That cranberry almond "crust" - I saw them carefully pour out dried cranberries and almond flakes onto that smudge of sour cream. That was the "crust". Fish was dry. Carrots and broccoli were unsalted and hard but I think we all know that's just their signature. Hard and bland broccoli and baby carrots.

I'm not sure why the coleslaw is on the Xmas menu. Should be a mainstay and half of what they were charging because it was actually decent.