6 pieces and more than 5 years later at Chic-a-boo

It's been some years since we last ate at Chic-a-boo. Nothing much seemed to have changed.

Which was not a bad thing in an important way. Still good quality spicy garlicky fried chicken that wasn't excessively greasy with a nice crunchy exterior. Bird on the inside was moist and tender. While the sides still don't look attractive, it's the fried chicken that we're coming for.

Xiang Xiang Hunan Cuisine (湘香湖南菜), Suntec City

I've seen this chain from China about and haven't gotten around to try their food until now (#B1-159 Suntec City Mall, 3 Temasek Boulevard).

Their giant lemon tea was...not bad. It's a great drink as an intermission between their greasy dishes. All 800ml of it.

I don't know if it's one of those translation things but this was called crispy tofu stuffed with soy milk. It's just crispy tofu. There's a salty soya sauce and garlic that amped up flavours of the dish. Not bad.

Nicely done stir fried cauliflower. Loads of fried pork lard (猪油渣) and garlic that made this dish good enough to stand on its own with steamed rice. 👍🏼

Made sense to get a serving of their signature 湖南小炒肉 which featured a non spicy chilli, sliced kurobuta and some white fungus from Yunnan. Like the cauliflower before, this was great pairing with rice.

Pretty taken in by their pickled mustard fish (酸菜鱼). The fish they used had a slightly crunchy texture unlike the usual mushy textured fresh water fish that's normally used. I'm not entirely sure about what else went into the broth but it was a little smoky and the word 'lard' keep sidling into the peripheral view of my mind. Anyways, I though this was a very nice rendition I'd love to come back to. 👍🏼 

Not a fan of the flavours of their eggplant. I generally enjoy eggplant but I don't like how they did this.

Hmmm......nice and moist.

Revisiting PPP Coffee

The excuse was to try more cakes from PPP Coffee but what I really wanted was more of their espresso tonic.

Banana bread with espresso butter - butter didn't make a difference. Couldn't taste it through the banana bread.

Liked the dry crumbly texture of the cempedak crumble but there's too little cempedak in there to justify the name. For a fruit that's strong tasting and smelling, the lack of presence in the cake was....just sad.

Economic Bee Hoon Nasi Lemak (經濟米粉椰漿飯), Tanjong Pagar Food Centre

The name that one sees on the sign board is more of a description of what the stall sold than an actual name. Anyways, they (#02-08 Tanjong Pagar Food Centre, 6 Tanjong Pagar Plaza) sell economic bee hoon and nasi lemak. Not bad tasting. They gave me a couple of eggs with molten yolk for my bee hoon mee today. Chilli's not annoyingly sweet. Fried chicken was decent and had a light gingery flavour. Luncheon meat's not good but it's not their fault - they're no good in most places this era anyway.

Revisiting Hwa Kee Lemon Chicken Rice (华记柠檬鸡饭)

Came back to Hwa Kee Lemon Chicken Rice to have a better taste of their lemon chicken rice which we only had a preview of the last time we were here. This was portion for two with added on boiled eggs and chicken liver.

There was a batch of fried chicken had been prepared in advance. They were re-fried upon order which gets them warm and crunchy before the lemon sauce is drizzled over. This refry process is important because I haven't seen that done anywhere else. These could be the best tasting lemon chicken we've had.

Discovered that there're canned mushrooms in their soup.

Duck rice from Wen Ge Charcoal Delights (文哥烧腊)

Not bad duck rice from Wen Ge Charcoal Delights. The thin sliced roasted duck was pretty moist. Stewed tau kwa's nice and the rice was moist, drizzled with a light herbal gravy which presumably a dang gui (当归) sauce of sorts. Wouldn't mind having it again.