Shima's Kitchen, Holland Drive Food Centre

Been wanting to try Shima's Kitchen (#02-12 Holland Drive Market & Food Centre, 44 Holland Drive) for a while now and I'm glad I finally did. Got a nasi lemak breakfast with ikan kuning and a couple of eggs - a fried one and a telur dadar. Both round and thick and the omelette's yummy.

Love the rice here which was good enough to eat on its own with ample coconut flavour and not to understate this, sufficiently salted. The sambal was surprisingly delicious - what impressed me about it was the sweetness without the cloy. I was using it for almost everything on the plate.

Chicken briyani and Kashmiri naan from Brinda's

A couple of things came to mind when I saw this. It did occur to me that the briyani might be all packed in plastic takeout boxes, microwaved and upturned onto the serving trays on order. Alternatively, those plastic takeout boxes might have been just used for measurement of portions and nothing is pre-packed. I don't know which but here's the chicken briyani from Brinda's. Looks huge.

It's looked less intimidating when the rice was scraped aside revealing the pretty tender chicken thigh and a hard boiled egg inside. The warm flavouring infused by the spices along with the masala on the chicken was altogether rich and delicious. Both the curry on the raita on the side added to the rice differently.

Here's their Kashmiri naan - personally I thought it wasn't so much a naan than a dry prata with raisins and Maraschino cherry. That's what it tasted like. Texture's a little dense. Did not taste bad though but I doubt I'll be getting them again. Today's dal came with cabbage and was pretty good.

R&D, Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre

Unusual name for a wanton mee stall. These guys (#01-39 Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre, 115 Bukit Merah View) are next door to Happy Duck. Here's shui jiao/sui gao/水饺 with kuey teow. Old school flavours here and I like it. Gotta remember to ask them to omit the dark soya sauce the next time.

The dumpling's solid - packed with minced pork, prawns, wood ear fungus and fine strips of carrot. Very competently done. Will come back another time to try the wanton mee.  

Lai Heng (來興), Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre

Not to be confused with the bak chor mee stalwart Lai Heng. You know how when one encounters the solid above averager like YouFu or Hainan Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee and in that first mouthful, the exception to their quality can be discerned. This was not it. (#01-06 Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre, 115 Bukit Merah View)

No scorching on the noodles, no wok hei. Maybe it's all stir fried on a low flame. Stock wasn't very flavourful. Texturally it was unexceptional. The sambal and bits of fried lard saved it from mediocrity.

This was their large portion of oyster omelette. Not much oysters. Mostly flour and eggs. Light to moderate crunch to the crust and....mostly I felt like I was eating flour and oil. $8 of it. Will not come back.

Yang Ji (养记), Chinatown Food Centre

Gotten wind of Yang Ji (#02-57 Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) recently. Stall is literally a stone's throw from Sandakan Food. I don't know if they're just Yang Ji or Yang Ji 194. Google registers it as the latter while their social media implies it's the former. Anyways, they're apparently an old guard in the realm of zi char and known for their garlic steamed fish head which we were here to try.

Waited a little over half and hour before the steamed fish head arrived. It's decent. Didn't wow me. The layer of chopped garlic over the top was thinner than I had imagined. Wasn't as sweet as I was hoping for with a mild residual sharpness that still lingered.  

Another half an hour plus before this arrived.

That's the black bean bitter gourd with chicken. Half of those chicken were bones so it didn't feel like there was much meat. Bitter gourd was tender with the lightest crunch and that's awesome. 

The black bean sauce was disappointing though. No fermented black beans in the sauce for that additional dimension or nuance to its flavour. Not even bits of them. It's so clean I wouldn't be surprised if the sauce came from a bottle. Sauce was also starchy so there's definitely flour in it. And loads of oil. The dish was so glazed from the starch and oil that this picture taken from one of the leading mobile cameras in the market today looked low definition. 

Ramen Nagi, ION Orchard

I haven't had anything from Ramen Nagi for some years. The last time was back at their defunct branch at Suntec and I remember being disappointed. This was my first time at their ION (#B4-54 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn, tel : +65 8163 2185) shop.

The current king (at least the reigning one at the time I wrote this) is their ebi king. A prawn oil/sauce/stock infused tonkotsu bowl with prawns.😅 If you're looking for a crustacean infusion in pork bone broth, this was it and I thought it was well done with a good balance between both flavours. Just don't expect hae mee soup. Don't think it was meant to be that. What I noticed though was that the crustacean flavour got more pronounced as the broth cooled so it tasted more robust at the end. I got reminded of hae bi.