Surrey Hills Grocer, One Holland Village

Surrey Hills Grocer opened up at Holland Village (#03-29 One Holland Village Mall, 7 Holland Village Way, tel  : +65 8189 6372) recently and the venue's pet friendly. All things considered, it's a good place if one enjoys canine voyeurism which involves spontaneous butt sniffing greeting exchange between dogs. 

One of the main motivations coming here was definitely not the queue we had to endure nor the chance to catch glimpses of many a cute corgi within petting range but the tapas from MoVida from Melbourne which I was curious about.

We tried the anchoa which featured Cantabrian anchovy on crouton and smoked tomato sorbet. It was for a brief moment refreshing from the sorbet but ended up being mostly salty because of the anchovies. Also kinda awkward to eat with utensils or with hands because those thin crotons crumbled easily while the anchovies don't yield as kindly with the sorbet melting.

That's the pez real with smoked kingfish, pine nut sorbet and pine nut gazpacho. Sorbet's tangy...which I did not expect out of a pine nut sorbet. Not bad tasting.

Tartar on almond & horseradish cracker and pickled turnips. I could only taste the beef tartare. The rest were all textures.

Pleasantly surprised by their orange caramel bacon benny. There's an orange caramel fish sauce glaze on that thick cut of belly bacon - that was nice. The Hollandaise sauce was also orangey and buttery - found that quite addictive. Too little glaze and sauce methinks. We asked for more of the Hollandaise and they obliged.

Wagyu truffled donut was pretty overpriced in retrospect. Sauce on the side tasted like a truffled mushroom soup. Meat was passable as long as one doesn't think wagyu - it was properly seared on the exterior with a medium doneness on the inside. What was really bad about it was the lack of salt that could have brought out the flavour of the meat. 

Menu also described a Poolish donut. Didn't know what it was. Was thinking it would be sugared or glazed but it was neither.

Something did not agree with me for their honey earl grey wild lavender cake. It was kept somewhere sufficiently cold that the lavender infused buttercream had texture like cold butter, not buttercream. I like buttercream to have texture like cream. Leaving this out for a half hour just to let it get there did not make sense.

Yuzu sparkling coffee's delicious. Yuja tea marmalade, coffee and sparkling water. Nice! 👍🏼

Luxe in charcoal & olive bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Two Men Bagel House ( 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九, 二十, 二十一) has shaken up their menu recently and updated the current during Hari Raya Puasa. Some outlet exclusive flavours like the cinnamon raisin and strawberry (previously chocolate chip) have been removed while the blueberry is now available in all outlets. It seems like all outlets have the same bagel flavours now. Will probably miss the exclusiveness of the exclusives. Good news I suppose is that the jalapeno cheese bagel is also back.

This was the Luxe - was getting smoked salmon, scallion cream cheese, pickled cucumber and capers. Tomato got lost and didn't catch any red onions. Was hoping to pick up some olive from the bagel but didn't happen. Flavour's overall pretty classic and easy to like.

Seafood hor fun and sambal petai from Sin Hoi Sai

We ordered their seafood bee hoon and they messed up giving us hor fun instead. What we had in mind was for that bee hoon to go with the sambal petai. Something we've been thinking of trying out for a while. Didn't want to waste an already cooked plate of hor fun so we accepted it even though they were willing to get the order corrected.

Not a bad mash up. I'm of the opinion that the fried seafood bee hoon will be a better choice because it's much less greasy and hence would make better pairing with the already greasy sambal petai. Maybe another time.

Vampire Tomato Tonkotsu Ramen from Ippudo

This was the flavour of the month for April at Ippudo. How the name came about, I couldn't even guess. But it was a pretty decent tomato broth which with a light viscosity and was mildly spicy. Couldn't actually tell that there was also tonkotsu in it. Love the cheesy cheese cracker. What I thought wasn't necessary were those soft chewy bacon and the leaves of raw-ish cabbage, both of which, were texturally disruptive to the entire bowl.

Their peach beer is still on the menu. Nice.

Bibimbap from Sukiya (すき家)

This was Sukiya at City Square Mall (180 Kitchener Road, B1-31/32). Because they're they gyudon guys I never realized that they have bibimbap. Which made sense if you thought of it because they do have the ingredients to make one. Their bibimbap was essentially a melange of toppings that they have for their beef rice bowls with gochujang. It's not as large nor as vegetable filled nor tasted exactly the same as most bibimbap we've had. Maybe there's no sesame oil. But it wasn't that far off from those as well.

Breakfast on Hari Raya Puasa at Komala Vilas

The prospect of heading to Komala Vilas (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七) in the heart of Little India can be daunting...especially so on a public holiday when the body and mind battles for a sleep in against a spirit incessantly breathing down your back to get your butt out of bed. Anywayyyss......breakfast with dad on the morning of Hari Raya Puasa.

Started off with their thair vadai which is vadai served in curd/yoghurt topped with masala boondi. The latter are the orange coloured pearls of crispiness made with chickpea flour.

Wanted to try their uppuma - turned out to be delicious. Dad thinks so as well. It's kinda like polenta if anyone was wondering. The semolina pudding was savoury with a bit of spice infusion. Saw curry leaves and mustard seeds and were those pine nuts in there? Maybe I like this better than the pongal the last time. I cannot be sure - it's so hard to choose.

Here's a butter tomato onion uttapam. For the uninitiated, an uttapam is a rice flour pancake similar to thosai/dosa/dosai, albeit a thicker one, that's been griddled. This one has been topped with sliced tomatoes and chopped onions. Look at all those caramelized bits that's packed with buttery flavour. How could one say no to that?

Finished with ginger tea. Ginger flavour's a tad mild. But their tea as always has a smooth finish.