Bombay Dining, Pasir Panjang Road

Have never noticed Bombay Dining (89 Pasir Panjang Road, tel : +65 6475 5855) before along this stretch of the road. Good thing we took this leap of faith.

Got a drink called thandai. According to Wiki, "Thandai is an Indian cold drink prepared with a mixture of almonds, fennel seeds, watermelon kernels, rose petals, pepper, poppy seeds, cardamom, saffron, milk and sugar". Figures. Tasted like a refreshing chilled badam milk. Pretty sure we don't have poppy seeds in this one. I liked it.

Seekh kebab was delicious. The minced lamb was moist crossing over to juicy and the spices packed a bit more heat than I had expected. Gotta have them with those crisp sharp onions.

Did not expect fish head curry on their menu. This one was different from the common local Indian rendition we're used to from say Muthu's Curry, Banana Leaf Apolo or Samy's Curry. This fish head was fried prior. Meat was much dryer.

While curry was in its own way addictive with a strong hit of assam (tamarind), I'm also pretty sure it didn't have so much in common with the regular rendition. Tasted like it was some sort of assam curry that's been mixed with butter chicken gravy. It was rich with an underlying sweetness.

Loved their Kashmiri pulao. Aside from raisins and chopped maraschino cherry, there's pineapple and some other fruit which looked like papaya. And some cashews. All of which were rounded up nicely with ghee in the rice. Good enough to eat on its own or with raita.

This was for the fish head curry.

Kashmiri naan has nuts in it. Decent but not memorable.

Got a vegetable raita which was great pairing with the Kashmiri pulao. The vegetable component included diced onions and cucumber which added crunch to the refreshing yoghurt.

Stuffed as we were from the food, their halwa served piping hot went down with surprising ease. Haven't had a lot of these but this one was really good. Herein lies a pronounced cardamom-y sweetness punctuated by bursts of tanginess from raisins.

宫源麻辣烫, 麻辣汤, 中辣

I don't know if it was because this was 中辣 this time round compared to the 小辣 which we had previously, the broth didn't feel as thin. It was more rounded and I liked it much better. 中辣 was very manageable heat here so I'm gonna stick to this level for the time being.

Revisiting Al Borgo

It's been about 10 years since the last time we were at Al Borgo. Of all the trattoria-esque Italian restaurants we've been to, they look the part the most. The setup looked like it was from another era. Even their olive oil tasted like it came from another era. 😂

We had sardines stuffed with buffalo mozzarella.

Pairing sweetness from the caramelized onions and balsamic vinegar with the saltiness from the fish and the cheese. 👍🏼

Got curious about their Kobe beef fettuccine even though we understood it was never gonna be Kobe beef. Tasted like regular beef. The creamy sauce was garlicky. Not a bad one but it also didn't feel like it was worth what they were charging. But now we know.

The menu mentioned white truffle tagliolini. This was the amount of white truffle shavings that came with the basic plate and additional would have costed $12 per gram. The noodle wasn't tagliolini but the buttery sauce and truffles sorta made us forget it wasn't the correct pasta. Thinking back, I still would have preferred tagliolini.

Special dessert was panettone. First time having them. It's just bread with some dried fruit. Pretty expensive for some bread with dried fruit.

The Autumn bowl at Tonkotsu King Four Seasons

Was wondering about the chopped mushroom and bonito ball for the Autumn bowl at Tonkotsu King Four Seasons. Most of the additional flavour came from the bonito. Not so much from the mushrooms. 

Indomie goreng with sate ayam and gado gado from Dapur Penyet

As simple as it sounded, the Indomie and sate at Dapur Penyet was delicious. Its mostly the sweet kecap manis and their lip burning sambal flavouring the noodles along with the sweet nutty sate gravy. Also liked the gado gado - a salad of boiled vegetables with potato/egg/tofu/tempeh/lontong underneath the same nutty gravy and colourful keropok.

Stirring tea at Café&Meal MUJI

Came across a couple of things that sounded interesting at Café&Meal MUJI.

That hemisphere which looked like it reflected a galaxy of stars was called pepper chocolate dome with miso crème brulée. Don't know how the last part of the name fits and I couldn't taste miso. There's peppery notes in the chocolate though.

That's a matcha and mandarin orange Swiss roll. We all know what a matcha Swiss roll is. But not all of us has had it with bits of mandarin orange in it. Not bad.