Mandalay Style Restaurant, Peninsular Plaza

We've never explored Burmese food much previously so this was a step out of our usual zone at Mandalay Style Restaurant (#B1-01 Peninsula Plaza, 111 North Bridge Road). Pretty much everything we ordered looked like a game of chance because of our lack of familiarity but on hindsight, we did know a tiny bit and there're some similarities we could relate to Thai food.

Like pork organ doke htoe. From what I could find out, these were supposed to be pork parts on sticks? Anyways, this rendition was in what appeared to be sweet soya sauce broth. There were parts like tripe, liver, ears, tongue, intestines and some which I couldn't identify. The braised offal were pretty tender, notably so for those pig's ears. Liver was dry and powdery but that texture/flavour had it's appeal.

This was a corn and tea leaf salad - the tea leaf being the same fermented stuff as laphet thoke. Tangy, earthy and a bit of heat that I didn't see coming.

Ordered a rice platter so that we could sample what they had. Clockwise from bottom

• laphet rice - Rice with the laphet. Flavour's kinda similar to the salad with much less intensity.
• pone yay gyi rice - I read it's made of fermented horse gram beans but it tasted like olives. Like a less salted version of a Thai olive fried rice. There's sliced chilli and onions in it.
• rice with beans and peanut oil - This in our opinion was the best tasting. It's as described, rice with beans, peanut oil and some salt. Don't know if there was anything else but the simplicity was oustanding. I could come back just for this.
• pyay rice - There's some spicy crispy stuff in it. And coriander too even though we told them not to include coriander for every item we ordered.

There's also a whole bunch of spicy anchovies + other crispies in the middle which was not bad tasting if one could deal with the heat.

The menu listed this as Mandalay styled mango salad. Imagine a pretty spicy som tam mamuang minus the sugar, lime and fish sauce. That was pretty much it. The heat from this salad took a little bit of time to build up and ended up pretty potent.

Beef murtabak from Al Tasneem

Haven't eaten at Al Tasneem in a while. Another itch scratched there with their beef murtabak. For some reasons I just need to know.

Generally speaking, I wouldn't say that it was a bad tasting murtabak. Had at least half of it without curry so that I could taste it properly. The minced beef was as undistinctive as the ones from their neighbours. Tak shiok.

Masala tea tasted dilute. It's a pale shadow of a good brew. Note to self : don't get them here again.

Half fried chicken with rice from Golden Rooster

Came back for the fried chicken rice plate from Golden Rooster. The meat appears to be more moist compared to the barbequed one. Now I'm torn between both. Noticed that the stall has some pretty large chicken legs on display. Legs much bigger than the ones on the spring chickens they're selling. 😳

Overbrød, Anchorpoint

We've been wanting to check out Overbrød (#01-14A Anchorpoint, 370 Alexandra Road, tel : +65 8951 1198) for a while. The food's Swedish as much as it can be here and Nordic isn't exactly commonplace so we were curious. The last time we had something like that was Gæst a decade ago. And no - Ikea's cafeteria does not count.

Elderberry soda - like elderberry syrup in tonic water. It's probably that. Pretty sure they didn't brew the flower or berry in silver lined cauldrons under the magical light of the full moon during the Winter Solstice and then infuse the brew into carbonated water. 🌝 Nice reprieve from the sweltering humidity still.

Leverpostej - House made baked pâté of pork and chicken livers, topped with pickled beetroot, bacon, dill, chives, and saffron aioli, served with a slice of toasted rye bread. Nice this one. The creamy pâté was savoury and livery which was suitably accompanied by the fruity pickled beetroot. Too little of the buttered seedy rye for each serving methinks. 

We had to order more bread more to make good use of the remaining portion of pâté in the manner they had meant for us to enjoy.

Meatballs (frikadellar) were nice. People expectedly compare them with the ones from Ikea across the road. These were undoubtedly superior. Meatballs were more tender sitting on mash layered in a richer creamy brown sauce. Overall experience was more luxuriant compared to......the one across the road.

A fisksoppa - seafood stew with bits of halibut, salmon, shrimp and potato in a creamy dill-y lobster-y broth. This was delicious and a refreshing flavour profile from most lobster bisque around here. Also nice pairing with the buttered fennel toast. 

Tried an open face sandwich. This one was called 'Shooting star' (stjerneskud). Butter fried halibut according to them with.....the picture tells👆🏽. That mustardy coloured stuff was a Danish remoulade which tasted like it had curry in it. 

Chai Kee (財記), Hong Lim Food Centre

Noticed Chai Kee (#01-69 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) from our previous visits to Hong Lim Food Centre and made a note to come back; to what looked to be pretty credible looking local fish soup

Watch out for the pot of fried shallots at the front.

What caught our eye were the prawns on display. They were huge.

The proprietress told us those prawns come in at about 9am. So we waited for the bugs to arrive.

That wait culminated in their seafood soup with ee mee. Seafood soup at this stall meant just a duo of sliced batang and prawns. Both of which were of respectable quality. The broth was gentle with a seafood sweetness and a hint of ti poh. Personally, I felt that a splash of chilli-ed light soya sauce along with fried shallots in their oil added a depth which enhanced the flavour.

Added fried fish roe to this.

Prawns were solid and meaty with study shells that readily gave up the meat with a bit of light tugging. The bite on these bugs were satisfying.

Here's the fried fish roe which was hidden beneath the noodles.

A few days later...😬

Came back for a bowl of sliced fish bee hoon with fried fish roe. Their fish roe's kinda expensive. It's a dollar a piece and the standard option is $4. For $4, one gets a whole lot more fried fish roe at Cai Ji.

While the quality of the food was undeniable, one cannot help but compare the portions of sliced fish to the chunkier ones from the likes of Cai Ji, 453 Fish Soup or Mr Batang. This shop was noticeably more expensive.

50’s Teochew Minced Meat Noodle (五十年代潮州鱼丸肉脞面), Redhill Food Centre

Spied another bak chor mee stall at Redhill Market (#01-39, Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane) next door to Bak Kee Teochew Satay Bee Hoon. There was a queue and that normally deters me but I decided to give them a go because they looked credible and it'll satiate my curiosity.

The bowl was competent. Mee pok was the slightly thicker kind, saucing was a little wetter than I normally like and chilli flavouring was mild. Didn't expect to see a lonely fish dumpling in there. These guys use the non spicy big chillis instead of the small fiery ones. A pretty decent bowl but I don't think I'd want to endure a long queue for it the next time though.